Unable to fly, one swims.
Royat les Bains, 30th August 1890.
I suppose there never was a garden since Eden (unless, perhaps, in the
early days of the Jesuit settlements in the Paraguay) in which the devil
has not had a tree or a corner somewhere; and it would be well for us
all if he were no more in evidence in other health and holiday resorts
than he is here in the _parc_. His booth is at the end of the middle
terrace, a small pavilion, well shaded by tall acacias, in which in the
afternoons you can risk a franc, occasionally two, every minute on the
_course des petits chevaux_. The _course_ is a round table, with eight
or ten concentric grooves, in each of which a small horse and jockey
runs. Outside this _course_, with room for a page-boy to move round
between the two, there is a slight railing with a flat top, at which
the players sit round and post their stakes. These are collected by the
page, who lets each player draw a number in exchange for the francs. As
soon as he has made his circuit, the croupier gives a turn to a handle
which works the machinery. The first turn brings all the horses into
line, and the next starts them round the course, each in his own groove.
After another turn or two, the croupier lets go the handle, and the
puppets begin to scatter, the winner being the one which passes the post
last before the machine stops, and they all come to a standstill.
Then the croupier calls out the winning number, and the owner gets
all the stakes, except one, which goes to the table. Beyond this, the
Company has no interest whatever, so it is said. Of course one looks
with jealousy at every such game of chance, and I was inclined to think
at first that the croupier was in league with two women, one spectacled,
who sat steadily at one end of the players, playing in partnership, and
seeming to win oftener than any of the others; but the longer I watched,
the weaker grew my suspicions. Most of the players, by the way, are
women, though there are a few men who come and sit for hours, playing
and smoking cigarettes. Besides the sitters many strollers come
up, stake their francs for a course or two, and then move on, not
unfrequently with a handful of silver. On the whole, if play is to be
allowed at all, it can scarcely take a more harmless form, if only the
good-natured French papa could be kept from letting his children play
for him. He comes up with a child of ten or twelve years, lets them sit
down, and supplies them from behind with the necessary francs, and after
a round or two the little faces flush and hands shake, especially if
they be girls, in a way which is painful to see. A child gambling is
as sad a sight, for every one but the devil and his elect, as this old
world can show.
Next to the _courses des petits chevaux_, at some thirty yards’
distance, comes the large pavilion in which the excellent band sit and
play for an hour in the forenoon and afternoon, and again at 8 P.M.
Round the pavilion is a broad space, gravelled and well shaded,
and furnished with chairs which are occupied all the afternoon by
_baigneurs_ and visitors, mostly in family groups, the women knitting
or sewing, and the children playing about in the intervals of the music,
and before and after the regular concerts. Occasionally they have a _bal
d’enfants_ in this space, controlled by a master of the ceremonies, a
dancing-, master, I am told. Under him the children, boys and girls of
thirteen or fourteen, down to little trots who can scarcely toddle, may
enjoy polkas, galops, and the _taran-tole des postilions_, as well as
the gravel allows; and now and again comes a _défilé_, in which, in
couples carefully graduated according to size and age, the children
march round the walks, and in and out amongst the approving sitters. A
very pretty, and to me rather a curious sight, as I much doubt if the
English boy could be induced to perform such a march, even in the hope
of small packets of bonbons at the end, which are distributed to the
best performers.
The big orchestral platform in this pavilion is often occupied, when the
band is not playing, by itinerant performers, who (I suppose) hire it
from the Company in the hope of getting a few francs out of the sitting
and circulating crowd. The performances are poor, so far as I have seen,
though one conjurer certainly played a trick which entirely beat me at
the time, and for which I am still quite unable to account. He produced
what he called a _garotte_, made of two stout planks which shut one upon
another (like our old stocks), and in which was a central hole for the
neck, and two smaller ones for the wrists. This garotte he handed round,
and though I did not get hold of it, I inspected it in the hands of a
youth who was standing just in front of me, and satisfied myself that
the planks were solid wood. Then he placed it on a stand, and called
up a stout damsel in the flesh-coloured tights which seem to be _de
rigueur_ for all female performers, who knelt down and laid her neck in
the big hole, and a wrist in each of the smaller ones. The conjurer then
let down the upper plank upon her, and having borrowed a signet ring
from an elderly _décoré_ Frenchman who was sitting near the platform,
proceeded to encircle the two planks with strips of stout paper or tape,
which he sealed with the ring. Then he held up a screen for the space
of twenty seconds, and on lowering it the damsel was posturing in her
tights, while the _garotte_ remained _in situ_, with the tapes still
there and the seals unbroken. By what trick she got her head and hands
out I was utterly unable to guess, and strolled away with the rather
provoking sense of having been fooled through my eyes. I hope a green
parrot who flew down and sat on the railing close to the _garotte_, with
his head wisely on one side, flew off better satisfied.
Below, on the lowest terrace, at the end of the _établissement_
buildings, is the _salle d’escrime_, which is open daily in the
afternoons, when you may see through the big windows the “Maître
d’Escrime, Professeur de S.A.R. le Prince des Galles,” sitting ready
to instruct pupils, or, so it seemed, to try a friendly bout with all
comers. The former were generally too much of mere beginners to make any
show worth seeing, but on one day an awkward customer turned up who ran
the professor, so far as I could judge, very hard. Indeed, I am by no
means sure that he acknowledged several shrewd hits, but my knowledge
of fencing is too small to make my judgment worth much. Le boxe is also
announced to go on here, but I have never seen the gloves put on yet.
Indeed, I much doubt whether young Frenchmen really like having their
heads punched for love. It is an eccentricity which does not seem to
spread out of the British Isles. There was a tempting _assaut d’armes_
last Sunday, presided over by General Paquette, at which eleven _maîtres
d’escrime_ of regiments in this department, and one professor from Paris
were to fence. I was sorely tempted to go, but as the thermometer stood
at 80° in the shade, and so reinforced my insular prejudices as to the
day, abstained.
Again, beyond the Casino, on the upper terrace, is a good croquet-ground
on the broad gravel space at the lower end of the _parc_. I should think
it a difficult ground to play on, but as a rule the French boys are
decidedly good players, and seem to enjoy the game thoroughly, and to
get round the hoops quicker than any of ours could do on a lawn like
a billiard-table. The Casino, besides a restaurant and reading-room,
contains a theatre, at which there are performances five nights in
the week, and generally a ball on the off-nights. These are often
fancy-balls, and always, I hear, very lively; but I cannot speak from
experience, never having as yet descended either to them or to the plays
and operettas. When one can sit out on a terrace and see the lights
coming out in the valley, and the Milky Way and all the stars in the
heaven shining as they only do down South, even the artists of the
Théâtre Français, and the other theatrical stars who visit the Casino
in the season, cannot get me indoors o’ nights, even at Casino prices.
These are very reasonable, the _abonnement_ for a seat being only 1
franc a night, or 2 francs for a _fauteuil_. Your readers may perhaps be
able to judge of the kind of entertainment given by a specimen. To-night
there are two operettas,--_Violonnaux_, music by Offenbach; and _Les
Charbonneurs_, music by G. Coste. I own I never heard of either of the
pieces.
I think, sir, you will allow that there are attractions enough of all
kinds provided by the Compagnie Anonyme des Eaux Minérales de Royat, who
own the _parc_ and run the business. They can well afford it, as every
visitor pays 10 francs as an _abonnement_ for drinking the waters, and
the charges for baths are high, e.g. 2.50 francs for a separate bath,
and 2 francs for the swimming-bath, decidedly more than any of our
English watering-places, not excepting Bath; but one has so much more
fun, if one wants it, for the money. And then there is this immense
thing to be said for this Royat Company,--their park is entirely free
and open to any one who cares to walk through it. I have seen scores of
peasants in blouses, and their wives, sitting about during the concerts,
not on the same terrace with the band, where a sou is charged for
chairs, but near enough to hear the music perfectly; and one meets them
all about the garden, walking and chatting amongst the--I was going to
write “well dressed,” but that they are not, but eminently respectable,
if rather dowdy--crowds of bathers and visitors. I do not, of course,
mean that there are no exceptions, either in the case of dowdiness or
respectability, but they are rare enough to prove the rule. On the other
hand, the number of religious of both sexes is remarkable who come to
use the waters, principally for throat ailments. Sisters of several
kinds, some wearing black hoods with white breastplates, others in large
white head-dresses, with long flaps, like a bird’s wings, which flap as
they walk, are frequent in the early mornings and other quiet times; and
besides the regular clergy, there are three monkish orders represented.
Of these the most striking are two Franciscans, I believe, clad in
rough, ruddy-brown flannel gowns, reaching to the ground, with large
rosaries hanging before and cowls behind, and girt with knotted ropes.
Peter the Hermit preached the First Crusade in the neighbouring Church
of St. Mary of the port at Clermont, assisted doubtless by many a friar
clad precisely as these are, except that the modern monk or friar (as
I was disappointed to note, at any rate in one case) does not go
bare-footed, or even in sandals, but in substantial shoes and trousers!
I was much struck by the quiet, patient, and reverent expression on
all the faces, very different from what I remember in past years.
Persecution may very well account, however, for this. There is no
branch, I take it, of the Church Universal which does not thrive under
it, in the best sense.
Auvergne en Fête, 6th September 1890.
These good folk of Auvergne seem to get much more fun, or at least much
more play, out of life than we do; at any rate, they have been twice _en
fête_ in the three weeks we have been here. I suppose it is because we
have in this business cut down our saints till we have only St. Lubbock
left, with his quarterly holiday, while they, more wisely, have stuck to
the old calendar. But it seems all wrong that they, who get five times
as much sun as we, should also get three or four times as many holidays;
for sunshine is surely of itself a sort of equivalent for a holiday.
Perhaps, however, if we had lots of it, the national “doggedness as does
it” might wear out. That valuable, but unpleasant characteristic could
scarcely have leavened a nation living in a genial climate; but, with
about half Africa on our hands, in addition to Ireland and other trifles
all round the world, the coming generation will need the “dogged as does
it” even more than their fathers. So let us sing with Charles Kingsley,
“Hail to thee, North-Easter,” or with the old Wiltshire shepherd,
claim that the weather in England must be, anyhow, “sech as plaazes God
A’mighty, and wut plaazes He plaazes I.”
Determined to see all the fun of the fair, a friend and I started for
Clermont from Royat by the electric tramway, and reached the Place de
Jaude in a few minutes--the “Forum Clermontois,” as it is called in
the local guidebooks--the largest open space in the ancient capital of
Auvergne. It is a famous place for a fair, being nearly the size and
shape of Eaton Square, with two rows of plane-trees running round it,
but otherwise unenclosed. As we alighted from the tram-car, we could see
a long line of booths, with prodigious pictures in front of them, and
platforms on which bands were playing and actors gesticulating; but
before starting on our tour, we were attracted by a crowd close to the
stopping-place of the cars. It proved to be a ring, four or five deep,
round the carpet of athletes. They were two, a man and a woman, both in
the usual flesh-coloured tights, the latter without any pretence of a
skirt. The man was walking round, changing the places of the weights and
clubs, until sufficient sous had been thrown on to the carpet, the woman
screening her face from the sun with a big fan, and talking with her
nearest neighbours in the ring. She was a remarkably fine young woman,
with well-cut features, and a snake-head on a neck like a column; and,
strange to say, her expression was as modest and quiet as though pink
tights were the ordinary walking-dress on the Place de Jaude. The
necessary sous were soon carpeted, and the performance began. It was
just the usual thing, lifting and catching heavy weights, wielding
clubs, etc., the only novelty being that a woman should be one of the
performers. She followed the man, doing several feats with heavy weights
which were painful to witness, and we passed on to the row of booths.
The average price for entrance was 2 1/2 sous, but after experimenting
on the two first, we agreed that in such a temperature the outside was
decidedly the best part of the show. These two were some Indian dancers,
male and female, who stood up one after another and postured from the
hips, and waved scarfs, the rest beating time on banjos; and a “_Miss_
Flora, _dompteuse_,” a snake-tamer. From this announcement over the
booth entrance we rather expected to find a countrywoman, but the
performer was a squat little Frenchwoman, in the same skirtless tights,
who took some sleepy snakes out of a box, put them round her neck, and
then wanted to make us pay a second time, which we declined to do. The
next booth ought to have been amusing, but no boys came to play while
we stopped. It was announced as “Le Massacre d’Innocents.” A number of
these “Innocent” puppets looked out of a row of holes in a large wooden
frame, not more than eight feet from the rail in front of it. Standing
behind this rail the player, on paying 5 centimes, is handed a soft
ball, which he can discharge at any one of the Innocents he may select,
and “chaque bonhomme renversé gagne une demi-douzaine de biscuits.” I
suppose the biscuits were bad, as otherwise the absence of boys seemed
incredible. Any English lower-school boy would have brought down a
_bonhomme_ at that distance with every ball, unless the balls were
somehow doctored. But no boy turned up; so we passed on to the biggest
booth in the fair, with pictures of wondrous beasts and heroic men
and women over the platform, on which a big drum and clarionet invited
entrance, in strains which drowned those of all the neighbouring booths.
We read that inside a “Musée historique, destructive, et amusant” was on
show, but contented ourselves with the pictures outside.
Facing the other side of the place, with their backs to the larger
booths along which we had come, were a row of humbler stalls and booths,
most of the latter being devoted to some kind of gambling. There were
three or four _courses des petits chevaux_, not so well appointed as the
permanent one in the Royat Park, but on the same lines, and a number
of hazard-boards-and other tables, about the size of those which the
thimble-riggers used to carry about at English fairs. These last were
new to me. They have a hollow rim round them, into which the player puts
a large marble, which runs out on to the face of the table, which is
marked all over with numbers, six or eight towards the centre being red,
and the rest black. If the marble stops on one of these red numbers, the
player wins; if on a black one, the table wins. The odds seemed to be
more than twenty to one against the player; but if so, the tables would
surely be less crowded. As it was, they did a merry trade, never for a
moment wanting a player while we looked on. Most of these were soldiers
of the garrison, interspersed with peasants in blouses, who dragged out
their sous with every token of disgust and resentment, but seemed quite
unable to get away from the tables. On the whole, after watching for
some time, I was confirmed in the belief that we are right in putting
down gambling in all public places. Nothing, I suppose, can stop it; but
there is no good in thrusting the temptation under the noses of boys and
fools.
After making the round of the fair, we strolled up the hill to the
Cathedral, which dominates the city, and looks out over as fair and rich
a prospect as the world has to show. Brassey, when he was building one
of the railways across La Limagne, the plain which stretches away
east of Clermont, is reported to have said that if France were utterly
bankrupt, the surface value of her soil would set her on her legs again
in two years; and one can quite believe him. The streets of the old
town, which surrounds the Cathedral, are narrow and steep, but full
of old houses of rare architectural interest. Many of them must have
belonged to great folk, whose arms are still to be seen over the doors,
inside the quiet courts through which you enter from the streets. In
these one could see, as we passed, little groups of gossips, knitting,
smoking, “_causer_-ing.” The _petit bourgeois_ has succeeded to the
noble, and now enjoys those grand, broad staircases and stone balconies.
They form an excellent setting to the Cathedral, itself a grand specimen
of Norman Gothic, begun by Hugues de la Tour, the sixty-sixth bishop,
before his departure for the Crusades, and finished by Viollet-le-Duc,
who only completed the twin spires in 1877. But interesting as the
Cathedral is, it is eclipsed by the Church of Notre Dame du Port, the
oldest building in Clermont. It dates from the sixth century, when the
first church was built on the site by St. Avitus, eighteenth bishop.
This was burnt 853 A.D., and rebuilt by St. Sigon, forty-third bishop,
in 870. Burnt again, it was again rebuilt as it stands to-day, in the
eleventh century. In it Peter the Hermit is said to have preached the
First Crusade, when the Council called by Pope Urban II. was sitting at
Clermont. Whether this be so or not, it is by far the most perfect and
interesting specimen of the earliest Gothic known to me; and the crypt
underneath the chancel is unique. It is specially dedicated to St. Mary
du Port, and over the altar is the small statue of the Virgin and Child,
around and before which votive offerings of all kinds--crosses and
military decorations, bracelets, jewels, trinkets, many of them, I
should think, of large value--hang and lie. The small image has no
beauty whatever--in fact, is just a plain black doll--but of untold
value to many generations of Auvernois, who regard it as a talisman
which has, again and again, preserved their city from sword and
pestilence. I am not sure whether, amongst the small marble tablets
which literally cover the walls, one may not be found in memory of the
great fight of Gergovia, in which Vercingétorix, if he did not actually
defeat Cæsar, turned the great captain and his Roman legions away from
this part of Gaul. At any rate, amongst the most prominent, is one
inscribed with the names “Coulmiers,” “Patay,” “Le Mans,” the battles
which in 1870-71 stayed the German advance on Clermont, and saved the
capital of Auvergne. The rest are, for the most part, private tablets,
thanksgivings for the cure of all manner of sickness and disease to
which flesh is heir. To this shrine all sufferers have come in the
faith which finds a voice all round these old walls,--“Qu’on est heureux
d’avoir Marie pour mère”! That human instinct which longs for a female
protectrix and mediator “behind the veil,” speaks here, too, as it
did 2000 years ago, when the [Greek phrase] guarded the shrines of
Athens and her colonies.
Scoppio Del Carro, Florence, Easter Eve, 1891.
I have just come back from witnessing an extraordinary, and, I should
think, a unique ceremony, which is enacted here on Easter Eve; and, on
sitting down quietly to think it over, can scarcely say whether I am
most inclined to laugh, or to cry, or to swear. In truth, the “Scoppio
del Carro”--or “explosion of the fireworks”--as it is called, is a
curious comment on, or illustration of, your last week’s remarks on
Superstitions. “The carefully preserved dry husk of outward observance”
in this case undoubtedly speaks, to those who have ears to hear, of a
heroic time, and the spectator rubs his eyes, and feels somehow--