shine
That soon had drunk thy royal blood had I not ventured mine, etc.
Then, a little later, a family friend who had been an ensign in the
Light Division in July 1813, used to make our boyish pulses dance with
his tales of the week’s fighting in and round Roncesvalles, when Soult
was driven over the Pyrenees and Spain was freed. And again, later, came
the tale of Taillefer, the Conqueror’s minstrel, riding before the line
at the battle of Hastings, tossing his sword in the air, and chanting
the “Song of Roland,” and of the “Peers who fell at Roncesvalles.” So
you will believe, sir, that my first thought when I got to Biarritz,
with the Pyrenees in full view less than twenty miles off, was, “Now I
shall see the pass where Charlemagne’s peers, and five hundred British
soldiers as brave as any paladin of them all, had fought and died.”
The holidays galloped, and one day only was left, when at our morning
conference I found that my companions were bent on Fontarabia and San
Sebastian, and assured me we could combine the three, as Roncesvalles,
they heard, was close to Fontarabia. Then my faith in Sir
Walter--combined, I fear, with my defective training in geography--led
me astray, for had he not written in the battle-canto of Marmion:--
Oh, for one blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,
That to King Charles did come,
When Roland brave, and Oliver,
And every Paladin and Peer,
At Roncesvalles died, etc.
Now, of course, if Charlemagne could hear the horn of Roland on the top
of the pass where he turned back, “borne on Fontarabian echoes,”
then Fontarabia must be at the foot of the pass, where Roland and the
rear-guard were surrounded and fighting for their lives. In a weak
moment I agreed to Fontarabia and San Sebastian, and so shall most
likely never see Roncesvalles. It is fourteen miles distant as the crow
flies, or thereabouts; and I warn your readers that the three can’t be
done in one long day from Biarritz.
However, I am bound to admit that Fontarabia and San Sebastian make a
most interesting day’s work. I had never been in Spain before, and
so was well on the alert when a fellow-passenger, as we slowed on
approaching the station, pointed across the sands below us and said,
“There’s Fontarabia!” There, perhaps two miles off, lay a small gray
town on a low hill with castle and church at the top, and gateway and
dilapidated walls on the side towards*us, looking as though it might
have gone off to sleep in the seventeenth century--a really curious
contrast to bustling Biarritz from which we had just come. We went down
to the ferry and took a punt to cross the river, which threaded the
broad sands left by the tide. It was full ebb; so our man had to take us
a long round, giving us welcome time for the view, which, when the
tide is up, must be glorious. Our bare-footed boatman, though Basque or
Spaniard, was quite “up to date,” and handled his punt pole in a style
which would make him a formidable rival of the Oxford watermen in the
punt race by Christ Church meadow, which, I suppose, is still held at
the end of the summer term. A narrow, rough causeway led us from the
landing-place to the town-gate in the old wall, where an artist who had
joined the party was so taken with the view up the main street that he
sat down at once to about as difficult a sketch as he will meet in a
year’s rambles. For from the gateway the main street runs straight
up the hill to the ruined castle and church at the top. It is narrow,
steep, and there are not two houses alike all the way up. They vary
from what must have been palaces of the grandees--with dim coats-of-arms
still visible over the doorways, and elaborately carved, deep eaves,
almost meeting those of their opposite neighbours across the street--to
poor, almost squalid houses, reaching to the second story of their
aristocratic neighbours’, but all with deep, overhanging, though
uncarved eaves, showing, I take it, how the Spaniard values his shade.
Up we went to the church and castle, the ladies looking wistfully into
such shops as there were, to find something to buy; but I fancy in vain.
Not a tout appeared to offer his services; or a shopkeeper, male or
female, to sell us anything. Such of the Fontarabians as we saw looked
at us with friendly enough brown eyes, which, however, seemed to say,
“Silly souls! Why can’t you stop at home and mind your own business?”
Even at the end of our inspection, when we spread our lunch on a broad
stone slab near the gate--the tombstone once, I should think, of a
paladin--there being no houses of entertainment visible to us, we had
almost a difficulty in attracting three or four children and a stray dog
to share our relics.
The old castle is of no special interest, though there were a few rusty
old iron tubes lying about, said to have once been guns, which I should
doubt; and Charles V. is said to have often lived there during his
French wars. The church is very interesting, from its strong contrast
with those over the border--square, massive, sombre, with no attempt
at decoration or ornament round the high brass altars, except here and
there a picture, and small square windows quite high up in the walls,
through which the quiet, subdued light comes. The pictures, with one
exception, were of no interest; but that one exception startled and
fascinated me. The subject is the “Mater Dolorosa,” a full-length figure
standing, the breast bare, and seven knives plunged in the heart,--a
coarse and repulsive painting, but entirely redeemed by the intense
expression of the love, the agony, grid the sorely shaken faith which
are contending for mastery in the face. The painter must have been
suddenly inspired, or some great master must have stepped in to finish
the work. San Sebastian does not do after Fontarabia; a fine modern
town, with some large churches and a big new bull-ring, but of little
interest except for the fort which dominates the town on the sea-front.
How that fort was stormed, after one repulse and a long siege of
sixty-three days; how, in the two assaults and siege, more than four
thousand gallant soldiers of the British and allied army fell; and the
fearful story of the sack and burning of the old town by the maddened
soldiers, is to me almost the saddest episode in our military history.
I was glad when we had made our cursory inspection and got back to the
station on our return to Biarritz. That brightest and most bustling
of health resorts was our head-quarters, and I should think for young
English folk must be about the most enjoyable above ground. I knew that
it was becoming a formidable rival of the Riviera for spring quarters,
but was not at all prepared for the facts. Almost the first thing I saw
was a group of young Englishmen in faultless breeches and gaiters, just
come back from a meet of the pack of hounds; next came along some fine
strapping girls in walking costume, bent, I should think, on exploring
the neighbouring battlegrounds; next, men and youths in flannels, bound
for the golf links, where a handicap is going on (I wonder what a French
caddie is like?); then I heard of, but did not see, the start of the
English coach for Pau (it runs daily); and then youths on bicycles,
unmistakable Britons,--though the French youth have taken kindly, I
hear, to this pastime. There are four gigantic hotels at which friends
told me that nothing is heard but English at their _tables d’hôte_;
and in the quiet and excellent small “Hôtel de Bayonne,” at which we
stayed, having heard that it was a favourite with the French, out of the
forty guests or thereabouts, certainly three-fourths were English, and
the other one-fourth mostly Americans. On Easter Monday there was a
procession of cars, with children in fancy dresses representing the
local industries; but the biggest was that over which the Union Jack
waved, and a small and dainty damsel sat on the throne surrounded by
boys in the orthodox rig of a man-of-war’s-man and Tommy Atkins. In
fact, a vast stream of very solvent English seem to have fairly stormed
and occupied the place, to the great delight of the native car-drivers
and shopkeepers; and so grotesque was it that Byron’s cynical doggerel
kept sounding in my head as, at any rate, appropriate to Biarritz:
The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses that pull;
Each tugs in a different way,
And the greatest of all is John Bull.
But, apart from all the high jinks and festive goings-on, there is one
spot in Biarritz which may well prove a magnet to us, and before which
we should stand with uncovered heads and sorrowfully proud hearts; and
that is the fine porch of the English church. One whole side of it is
filled by a tablet, at the head of which one reads: “_Pristinæ
virtutis memor_. This porch, dedicated to the memory of the officers,
non-commissioned officers, and men of the British army, who fell in
the south-west of France from 7th October 1813 to 14th April 1814, was
erected by their fellow-soldiers and compatriots, 1882.” Then come the
names of forty-eight Line regiments, and the German Legion, followed in
each case by the death-roll, the officers’ names given in full. Let me
end with a few examples. The 42nd lost ten officers--two at Nive, one
at Orthez, and seven at Toulouse; the 43rd--five at Nivelle and Bayonne;
the 57th--six at Nivelle and Nive; the 79th--five at Toulouse, of whom
three bore the name of Cameron; the 95th--six at the Bidassoa, Nivelle,
and Nive. Such a record, I think, brings home to one even more vividly
than Napier’s pages the cost to England of her share in the uprising of
Europe against Napoleon; and it only covers six months of a seven years’
struggle in the Peninsula! At the bottom of the tablet are the simple
words:--
Give peace in our time, oh Lord!
Echoes from Auvergne, La Bourboule, 2nd July 1893.
We had heard through telegrams and short paragraphs in the French
papers of the sinking of the _Victoria_ before the _Spectator_ of 1st
July came to us here, in these far-away highlands of Auvergne; but yours
was the first trustworthy account in any detail which reached us. I am
sure that others must have felt as thankful to you as I did, for your
word was worthy the occasion, and told as it should be told, one
of the stories which ennoble a nation, and remain a [Greek phrase]
for all time. The lonely figure on the bridge is truly, as you say, a
subject for a great pictorial artist, and belongs “rather to the poet
than the journalist”; and one trusts that Sir George Tryon’s may stand
out hereafter in worthy verse as one of “the few clarion names” in our
annals. But it was surely the noble steadfastness of all, from admiral
to stoker, which has once more given us all “that leap of heart whereby
a people rise” to a keener consciousness of the meaning of national
life. I think one feels it even more out here amongst strangers than one
would have felt it at home, and can give God thanks that the old ideal
has come out again in the sinking of the _Victoria_ as it did in that of
the _Birkenhead_ forty years ago, when the ship’s boats took off all
the women and children, and the big ship went down at last “still under
steadfast men.”
Those are, as you know, the words of Sir Francis Doyle, who gave voice
to the mixed anguish and triumph of the nation in worthy verse. I heard
the great story from the lips of one of the simplest of men, Colonel
Wright, who as a subaltern had formed the men up on the deck of the
_Birkenhead_ under Colonel Seton, and stood at his place on the right of
the line when she broke in two. He was entangled for some moments in the
sinking wreck, but managed to free himself, and, being a famous swimmer,
rose to the surface, and struck out for the shore amongst a number of
the men. It must have been one of the most trying half hours that men
ever went through; for, as they swam and cheered one another, now and
again a comrade would suddenly disappear, and they knew that one of the
huge sharks they had seen from the deck, passing backwards and forwards
under the doomed ship, was amongst them. When they had all but reached
the shore the man who swam by Wright’s side was taken. When I heard the
tale he was Assistant-Inspector of Volunteers under Colonel M’Murdo, and
going faithfully through his daily work. Strange to say, neither Horse
Guards nor War Office had taken any note of that unique deck-parade
and swim for life, and Ensign Wright had risen slowly to be Major and
Sub-Inspector of Volunteers. Stranger still, he seemed to think it all
right, and there was no trace of resentment or jealousy in his
plain statement of the facts--which, indeed, I had to draw out
by cross-questioning on our march from the Regent’s Park to our
headquarters in Bloomsbury. I was so moved by the story that I wrote
it all to Mr. Cardwell, then at the War Office, and had the pleasure of
seeing Major Wright’s name in the next _Gazette_ amongst the new C.B.’s.
Well, well! It does one good now and then to breathe for a little in a
rarer and nobler atmosphere than that of everyday, into which we must
after all sink, and live there for nine-tenths of our time,--like the
old fish-wife, Mucklebackit, going back to mending the old nets and
chaffering over the price of herrings which have been bought by men’s
lives. And here we have great placards just out, announcing “Fêtes
de jour et de nuit,” with donkey-races and all manner of games, and
fireworks, including an “embrasement général,” whatever that may
forebode. “This life would be quite endurable but for its amusements,”
said Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, a wise man and excellent Minister of the
Crown.
Our first Sunday at La Bourboule has been edifying from the Sabbatarian
point of view, and I shouldn’t wonder if the good little parson who is
taking the duty here during the bathing-season holds it up to us
for instruction next Sunday, if he can get a room for service, and a
congregation. There is no English church, and from what I hear not much
prospect of an arrangement for joint worship in the French Protestant
church, which was almost concluded, being carried out. Unfortunately,
a succession of young Ritualists have managed to alarm the French
Protestant pastor and his small flock, by treating them as Dissenters,
and making friends ostentatiously with the Roman Catholic priests.
However, happily the present incumbent (or whatever he should be called)
is a sensible moderately broad Churchman, who it may be hoped will bring
things straight again. But to return to my Sabbatarian story. An English
lady fond of equestrian exercise hired horses for herself and a friend,
and invited the able and pleasant young Irishman who doctors us all,
and is also churchwarden, to accompany them for a ride in these lovely
mountains. They started from this hotel, and, as it happened, just as
the parson was coming by; so, not being quite easy in their consciences
(I suppose), asked him if he saw any harm in it. To this he replied,
sensibly enough, that it was their fight, not his; and if they saw none,
he had nothing to say. So off they rode, meaning certainly to be back
by 8 P.M. for supper. I was about till nearly nine, when they had not
turned up; and next morning I heard the conclusion of the whole
matter. The doctor’s horse cast a shoe, and had to be led home,
limping slightly; while the lady’s horse came back dead-lame, and her
companion’s steed with both knees broken! Judging by the unmistakable
talent of these good Bourboulais for appreciating the value to their
guests of their water and other possessions, I should say that this
Sunday ride will prove a costly indulgence to the excursionists.
La Bourboule, 10th July 1893.
Currency questions are surely amongst the things “which no fellow can
understand,”--a truth for which. I think, sir, I may even claim you as a
witness, after reading your cautious handling of the silver question in
recent numbers. But so far as my experience goes, there are no questions
as to which it is more difficult to shake convictions than those which
have been arrived at by unscientific persons. For instance, in this very
charming health-resort, the authorities at the Établissement des Bains,
where one buys bath-tickets, are under the delusion that 20 fr. (French
money) are the proper equivalent for the English sovereign. On my first
purchase of six tickets, amounting to 15 fr. (each bath costs 2 fr. 50
c., or 50 c. more than at Royat), the otherwise intelligent person who
presided at the _caisse d’établissement_, tendered me a single 5 fr.
piece; and on my calling his attention to the mistake, as I supposed it
to be, and demanding a second 5 fr., calmly informed me that 20 fr. was
the change they always gave, and he could give no other. Whereupon, I
carried off my sovereign in high dudgeon, and--there being neither bank
nor money-changer’s office in this place, though more than twenty
large hotels!--applied to two of the larger shops only to find the
same delusion in force. In short, I only succeeded in getting 25 fr.
in exchange for my sovereign as a favour from our kind hostess at this
hotel. Wherefore, as I hear that a great crowd of English are looked for
next month, I should like to warn them to bring French money with them.
This experience reminded me of a good story which I heard Thackeray
tell thirty years ago. (If it is in _The Kicklebury’s on the Rhine_, or
printed elsewhere, you will suppress it). Either he himself or a friend,
I forget which, changed a sovereign on landing in Holland, put the
change in one particular pocket, and on crossing each frontier on his
way to the South of Italy, before that country or Germany had been
consolidated, again exchanged the contents of that pocket for the
current coin of the Kingdom, Duchy, or Republic he was entering. On
turning out the contents at Naples he found them equivalent to something
under 5s. of English money.
Before I forget it, let me modify what I said last week as to the
ecclesiastical position of the Protestants here.
The Anglicans are now represented by the “Colonial and Continental
Society.” They sent a clergyman, who has managed so well that we are now
on excellent terms with our French Protestant brethren, though we have
as yet no joint place of worship. This, however, both congregations hope
to secure shortly,--indeed, as soon as they can collect £400, half
of which is already in hand. Then the municipality, or the “Compagnie
d’Établissement des Bains,” I am not sure which, give a site, and
another £400, which will be enough to pay for a small church sufficient
for the present congregations. These will hold the building in common,
and, let us hope, will adjust the hours for the services amicably. At
present, the French Protestants worship in the _buvette_, where we all
drink our waters; and we Anglicans in an annex of the establishment--a
large room devoted during the week to Punch and Judy and the
marionettes. This rather scandalises some of our compatriots; I cannot
for the life of me see why. Indeed, it seems to me a very healthy lesson
to most of us, who are accustomed to the ritual which prevails in so
many of our restored, or recently built, English churches,--the lesson
which Jacob learnt on his flight from his father’s tents, when he slept
in the desert with a stone for pillow, “Surely the Lord is in this
place, and I knew it not.” Our congregation yesterday was something
over thirty. I believe it rises to one hundred, or more, next month. The
service was thoroughly hearty, and I really think every one must have
come meaning to say their prayers. I felt a slight qualm as to how
we should get on with the singing, and could not think why the parson
should choose about the longest hymn in the book, for there was
no organ, harmonium, or other musical instrument, and no apparent
singing-men or singing-women. However, my qualms vanished when our
pastor led off with a well-trained tenor voice which put us all at our
ease.
The rest of our Sunday was by no means so successful, for the _fête du
jour et du soir_ began soon after our 11 A.M. _déjeûner_, and lasted
till about 10 P.M., when the lights in most of the paper-lanterns had
burnt out, and people had gone home from the Casino and the promenade
to their hotels or lodgings. I am old-fashioned enough to like a quiet
Sunday; but here, when the place is _en fête_, that is out of the
question,--at any rate, if you are a guest at one of the hotels which,
as they almost all do, faces on the “Avenue Gueneau de Mussy.” That name
will probably remind some of your readers of the able and popular doctor
of the Orleans family, who accompanied their exile, lived in England
during the Empire in Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, and was popular
in London society. After 1870 he returned to France, and, it seems,
rediscovered these waters, or, at any rate, made them the fashionable
resort of patients in need of arsenical treatment. In gratitude, his
name has been given to this main avenue of La Bourboule, which runs the
whole length of the town, parallel to the River Dordogne, which comes
rushing down the valley from Mont Dore at a pace which I have never seen
water attain except in the rapids below Niagara, in which that strongest
and rashest of swimmers, Captain Webb, lost his life. The Avenue, though
parallel with, is some fifty yards from the river, and the intervening
space is planted with rows of trees, under which many donkeys and
hacks stand for the convenience of visitors. The opposite bank of
the Dordogne, which is crossed by two bridges, rises abruptly, and is
crowned by the two rival casinos, with the most imposing hotel of the
place between them, where (I am told) you pay 5 fr. a day extra for the
convenience of the only lift in La Bourboule! The fête of last Sunday
was given by the old Casino, and commenced directly after _déjeûner_
with a gathering in the rooms and in front of the Casino on the terrace,
where the guests sat at small tables consuming black coffee, absinthe,
and other drinks, and strolling now and then into the billiard-room, or
the room in which the _jeu aux petits chevaux_, and some other game of
chance which I did not recognise, were in full swing. There is an inner
room where baccarat and roulette are going on, supposed to be only open
to tickets bought from the^ authorities, but which a young Englishman,
my neighbour at the _table d’hôte_, tells me he found no difficulty in
entering without a ticket. The rest of the fête, consisting chiefly of
donkey-races, climbing greasy poles, and fishing half-francs out of
meal tubs with the mouth, came off in a small park and plateau on the
hillside above the Casino.
I used to enjoy donkey-races as a boy, when at our country feasts each
boy rode his neighbour’s donkey, and the last past the post was the
winner, and should probably have gone up the hill to witness a French
race, but that I found that here each boy rides his own donkey, and the
first past the post wins. This takes all the fun out of the race, so I
abstained. There were a few second-rate fireworks after dark, and the
Casino and most of the hotels were prettily lighted, and the trees hung
with yellow paper lanterns which looked like big oranges, but to the
Englishman, more or less accustomed to the great Brock’s performances,
the illumination business was very flat.
Comité des Fêtes. 17th July 1893.
An Englishman can scarcely avoid the danger of having his national
vanity fed in this La Bourboule. A new hotel is being built on a fine
site above the Dordogne, just beyond the new Casino, and I hear on the
best authority that the proprietor means to have it furnished from top
to bottom by Messrs. Maple. As this will involve paying a duty of from
30 to 50 per cent on the articles imported, it is not easy to see where
the profit can come in, as the most prejudiced John Bull will scarcely
deny that native French furniture is about as good, and not very much
dearer than English. I can only account for it by the desire of all
purveyors here--from the chief hotel-keepers to the dealers in the
pretty Auvergne jewellery and the donkey-women--to get us as
customers,--not, perhaps, so much from love or admiration for us, as
because we have so much less power of remonstrance or resistance to
their charges. Unless he sees some flagrant overcharge in his hotel
bill, the Briton does not care to air his colloquial French in
discussing items with the former, who only meet him with polite shrugs;
and as for the others, they at once fall back upon an Auvergnese
_patois_, at least as different from ordinary French as a Durham miner’s
vernacular is from a West countryman’s. What satisfaction can come of
remonstrating about 2 fr., even in faultless grammatical French, when it
only brings on you a torrent of explanation of which you cannot
understand one word in ten?
But the desire to make us feel at home has another--I may almost say a
pathetic--side. Thus the _Comité des fêtes_ spares no effort to meet our
supposed necessities, and has not only provided tennis-grounds and
other conveniences for _le sport_, but for the last ten days has been
preparing for a grand _chasse au renard_, as a special compliment, I
am told, to the English visitors. The grand feature of the hunt is a
_recherché_ luncheon in an attractive spot in the forest, at the end
of the run, at which the Mayor presides, and to which the other civic
dignitaries go in full costume, accompanied by a chief huntsman and two
_chasseurs_ with _tridents_--of all strange equipments for a fox-hunt!
For this luncheon the charge is 5 fr.; but, so far as I can learn, you
may join the chase without partaking. The question naturally occurs:
“How if Renard will not run that way, or consent to die within easy
distance of the luncheon?” and the answer of the Mayor would, I suppose,
be Dogberry’s: “Let him go, and thank God you are rid of a knave.” But,
in any case, the _Comité des fêtes_ are prepared for such a mishap, for
they have had four foxes ready for some days, _in a large oven_--of all
places in the world! and one of these will surely be induced to take the
proper course, which is carefully marked out. As two of them have come
from Switzerland, and there cannot be much to occupy or amuse Swiss
foxes in an oven, except quarrelling with their French cousins, I should
doubt as to the condition of the lot on the day of the hunt, even if all
survive to that date. This, I am sorry to say, cannot be fixed as yet,
for it seems that no English visitor has been found who will take a
ticket; so I fear my “course” may be over before the _chasse_ comes
off. In that case I shall always bear a grudge against your lively
contemporary, the _Daily Graphic_, who, it seems, printed an illustrated
account of the _chasse_ of last summer, to which the present abstinence
of the British sportsman to-day is generally attributed. Can we wonder
at the want of understanding between the two peoples when one comes
across such strange pieces of farce as this, meant, I believe, for a
genuine compliment and advance towards good-fellowship?
I wish I could speak hopefully upon more serious things than the _chasse
au renard_; but in more than one direction things seem to me to be
drifting, or going back, under the Republic. E.g. a friend of mine,
who prefers smoking the cigars he is used to, ordered a box from his
tobacconist in Manchester, who entrusted them to the Continental Parcels
Delivery Company on 15th June. Next day, though notice had been given
of payment of all charges on delivery, they were stopped at the Gare du
Nord, at Paris, where the station-master refused to forward them until
he got an undertaking in writing from my friend to pay all charges. This
was sent at once, but produced no effect for three days, when another
letter arrived--not now from the station-master, but from a person
signing himself “Contributions Agent”--saying that undertaking No. 1
was not in proper form. Thereupon, undertaking No. 2 is sent; but still
nothing happens, and my friend had almost given up hope of getting his
cigars when he bethought him of advising with a deputy, who was luckily
staying here in the same hotel. That gentleman seemed not at all
surprised, but offered to write to his secretary in Paris to go to
the Gare du Nord and look after the box. The offer was, of course,
thankfully accepted, with the result that the cigars were sent on at
once, with the following bill: “Droit d’entrée, 38 fr. 77 c.; timbre
d’acquit à caution, 7 c.; toile d’emballage--consignation, 40 fr. 27
c.: total, 79 fr. 11 c.”--which about doubled the original cost. This
instance of the slovenliness (if not worse) of a railway company and the
Customs has been quite eclipsed, however, by the Post Office. Another
friend posted a letter here to his sister in England, but unluckily in
the forenoon, when the next departure was for Bordeaux. To that town,
accordingly, his letter went, and thence to America, whence in due
course--i.e. at the end of three weeks--it reached its destination in
England. Again, a lady here received several dividends more than a
week ago, which she forwarded to her husband in England in a registered
letter. This has never reached him; and the Post-Office officials here
are making inquiries (very leisurely ones) as to what has become of it.
Then the clergyman of the church here, having a payment to make in his
parish in England, sent the money, and got the official receipt several
posts before he received a reminder from the same official (dated a week
earlier than the receipt) that the payment was due; and lastly, _pour
comble_, as they say here, a county J.P. has never received at all the
formal summons from his High Sheriff, sent some weeks since, to serve on
the grand jury at the coming Assizes! Whatever the consequences may be
of utterly ignoring such summons, he has thus incurred them, which, for
all I know, may be equal to the penalties of præmunire. But seriously, I
fear the incubus of the Republican superstition, as you have defined
it, is spreading fast and far in this splendid land. The centralisation
fostered by the Second Empire, and favoured by the Republic for the last
twenty years, seems to have demoralised the national nerve-centre at
Paris under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower--which,
Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies,
--and to be spreading its baleful influence through the Departments.
At any rate, that is the only explanation I can suggest for the marked
deterioration and present flabbiness of all Government departments
with which the foreign visitor comes in contact. I am glad to be able,
however, to record, before closing this, that the registered letter
containing dividend warrants mentioned above has reached its destination
in England.
Dogs and Flowers, La Bourboule, 24th July.
During the greater part of our stay, the theatre here was devoted to
comic and other operatic performances, which I did not care for, and so
scarcely glanced at the play-bills, posted up daily in our hotel; and
was not even tempted by the announcement of “une seule représentation
extraordinaire” of Le Songe d’une Nuit d’Eté, as I did not like to have
my idea of A Midsummer Night’s Dream disordered by a French metrical
version. When too late, I sorely regretted it, as, had I even read
the caste, I should have gone, and been able to give you a trustworthy
report,--for the three principal characters were William Shakespeare--by
M. Dereims, of the opera (who would sing his great song of _La Reine de
Saba_)--Falstaff, and Queen Elizabeth! Next morning I catechised a young
Englishman, whose report was, as near as I can recollect, as follows:
“Well, there wasn’t much of our _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ in it,
no Oberon and Titania, or Bottom, or all that fairy business. Queen
Elizabeth and one of her ladies went out at night disguised, to a sort
of Casino or Cremorne Gardens” [what would Secretary Cecil have said to
such an escapade?], “and coming away they met Shakespeare and Falstaff,
and had a good time; and Falstaff sang a song which brought the house
down. Then, as the Queen falls in love with Shakespeare, they get some
girl to marry him right away.” One more lost opportunity, and to think
that I shall probably never get another chance!--
There is a flower that shines so bright,
They call it marigold-a:
And he that wold not when he might,
He shall not’ when he wold-a.
As you are fond of dog-lore, here is a sample from Auvergne. Just
opposite our hotel lives the young Scotch (not Irish, as I think
I called him last week) doctor. His wife owns a clever pug, whose
friendship any self-respecting dog would be anxious, I should say,
to cultivate. One of the rather scratch-pack gathered for the coming
fox-chase, who wandered as they pleased about the town, seems to have
shared my view, for every morning, between _café_ and _déjeûner_, he
came and paid a visit of about five minutes to Mrs. Gilchrist’s pug, in
the doctor’s vestibule, always open to man and dog. At the end of his
call, he trotted off down the avenue to whatever other business he might
have in hand. Now, his visits could not have been amatory, as both
are of the masculine sex, nor could they have been gastronomic, for he
invariably refused the food which Mrs. Gilchrist offered him. What other
conclusion is possible than that he came to talk over the gossip afloat
in the dog-world of La Bourboule?
Lastly, as to the excursions. These are numerous, and very interesting
in all ways, for you drive through great, sad pine-forests (in which I
was astonished to see many of the trees gray with the weeping moss which
makes the Louisiana and Texas forests so melancholy) and breezy heaths
all aglow with wild flowers, getting every now and then indescribably
glorious glimpses of the rich plain which stretches away from this
backbone of Central France to the Alps. The flora is quite beyond me,
but I recognised many varieties of heart’s-ease, fox-gloves, gentians,
amongst them an exquisite blue variety, and the air was often scented
with meadow-sweet or wild-thyme. Then almost every mountain-top is
crowned by a peculiarly shaped block of dark rock, which looks as if
some huge saurian, disgusted with a changing world, had crawled up there
to die and get petrified. They must, however, have been even bigger
than the _Atlanlosaurus immanis_, the biggest of the family yet found, I
believe. I well remember the delight of Dr. Agnew, of New York, when the
American geologists came upon its thigh bone, two feet longer than that
of any European monster. It had become agate, and I have a scarf-pin
made of a polished fragment, and presented to me by the triumphant
doctor. I cannot tell you what these rocks really are, as I made no
ascent, preferring nowadays, like dear Lowell, “to make my ascents by
telescope.”
But the human interest of the excursions, as usual, far exceeds the
botanical or geological. The chief of these is the “Tour d’Auvergne,”
the seat of the Count who enlisted to repel invasion, but never would
take a commission from Republic or Napoleon, and died in battle, the
“premier grenadier de la France.” There is nothing left of his tower
except the foundations, and a dungeon on the high rock, on which a
native woman sells photographs and relics, quite as genuine, I should
say, as most such. Opposite, across a deep valley, rises another rock
crowned by a chapel, which is approached by a steep path, up which once
a year goes a procession, past the seven stations, at each of which
there is a crucifix, and on the lowest a figure the size of life.
Christianity, they say, has died down very low in Auvergne. I should
doubt it, as I saw no sign of defacement, either here or on any of the
roadside crosses, which are everywhere. I fear we could hardly say as
much if we had them--as I wish we had--on every English high-road. On
the walls of the village which clusters round the side of the keep,
a placard (of which I enclose a copy) interested me much. The three
Municipal Councillors there give their reasons for resigning their seats
on the Council. On the whole, I think they were wrong, and should have
stayed and “toughed it out.” I should like to know how it strikes you.
You will see that the poster bears a stamp. Might not our Chancellor
of the Exchequer raise a tidy sum that way? What a lump Pears, Hudson,
Epps, or Van Houten and Co. would have to pay, and earn the thanks of a
grateful country too! But I must not try your patience or space further,
so will only note the Roman remains at Mont Dore, another health-resort
of the Dordogne Valley, four miles above La Bourboule, which are worth
going all the way to see, as I would advise any of your readers to do
who are looking out for an interesting countryside, with as fine air as
any in the world, in which to spend their coming holidays.
Dutch Boys, The Hague, 1st May 1894.
Much may be said both for and against breaking one’s good resolutions,
but no one, I should think, will deny the merit of making them. Well,
sir, before starting for my Whitsuntide jaunt this year, I resolved
firmly that nothing should induce me to send you any more letters
over this signature. Have I not been trying your patience, and the
long-suffering of your readers any time these thirty years, with
my crude first impressions of cities and their inhabitants, from
Constantinople to the Upper Missouri? “Surely,” I said to myself,
“sat prata biberunt.” What can young England in the last decade of the
century--who enjoy, or at any rate read, _Dodo, and The Fabian Essays,
and The Heavenly Twins_--care or want to know about the notions of an
old fogey, whose faiths--or fads, as they would call them--on social and
political problems were formed, if not stereotyped, in the first half?
What, then, has shaken this wise resolve? You might guess for a week and
never come within miles of the answer. It was the sight of a group of
Dutch boys playing leap-frog in front of this hotel, and the contrast
which came unbidden into my head between the chances of Dutch and
English boys in this matter, and the different use they make of them.
In front of this hotel lies the large open space, now planted with
trees, and about the size of Grosvenor Square, which is called
“Tournooiveld,” and was in the Middle Ages the tilt-yard of the doughty
young Dutch candidates for knighthood. The portion of this square
immediately in front of the hotel, about 40 yards deep and 150 broad, is
marked off from the rest by a semicircular row of granite posts, rather
over three feet in height, and three to four yards apart, two of them
being close to lampposts, but the line otherwise unbroken. No chain
connects these posts, and they have no spike on the top of them. As
I stood at the door the morning after my arrival, admiring the fine
linden-trees in full foliage, enter four Dutch boys from the left,
who, without a word, broke at once into single file, and did “follow
my leader” over all the posts till they got to the end on the extreme
right, and disappeared quietly down a side street. Well, you will say,
wouldn’t four English boys have done just the same % and I answer, Yes,
certainly, so far as playing leap-frog over the posts goes; but they
would have to come out here to find such a row of posts in the middle
of a city. At any rate, in the city with which I am best acquainted in
England, the few posts there fit for leap-frog are connected with chains
and have spikes on their tops. Moreover, do I not pass daily up a flight
of steps, fenced on either side by a broad iron banister, which was
obviously intended by Providence for passing boys to get a delicious
slide down 1 But, sir, no English boy on his way to school or on an
errand has ever slid down those banisters, for the British Bumble has
had prohibitory knobs placed on them at short intervals for no possible
reason except to prevent boys sliding down. The faith that all material
things should be made to serve the greatest good of the greatest number
is surely as widely held in England as in Holland, and yet, here are the
tops of these Dutch posts _culotté_, if I may say so, worn smooth and
polished by the many generations of boys who have enjoyed leap-frog over
them, while the British posts and banisters have given pleasure to no
human being but Bumble from the day they were put up.
But it was not of the Dutch posts but the Dutch boys that I intended to
write, for they certainly struck me as differing in two particulars from
our boys, thus. Two of the posts, as I have said, are so close to the
lamp-posts that you can’t vault over them without coming full butt
against the lamp-post on the other side. When the leader came to the
first of them he did not pass it, as I expected, but just vaulted on to
the top, and sat there while he passed his leg between the-post and the
lamp-post, and then jumped down and went on to the next. Every one of
the rest followed his example gravely and without a word; whereas, had
they been English boys, there would have been a bolt past the leader as
soon as he was seated, and a race with much shouting for the lead over
the remaining pillars. I have been studying the Dutch boy ever since,
and am convinced that he is the most silent and most “thorough” of any
of his species I have ever come across; and the boy is father to the
man in both qualities. On Whit-Monday this city was crowded, all the
citizens and country-folk from the suburbs being in the streets and
gardens; the galleries and museums, oddly enough, being closed for the
day. Walking about amongst them the silence was really rather provoking.
At last I took to counting the couples we met who were obviously just
married, or courting, and ought at any rate to have had something to
say to each other. Out of eleven couples in one street, only one were
talking, though all looked quite happy and content. It is the same
everywhere. As we neared the landing-place at the Hook of Holland, our
steamer’s bows were too far out, and a rope had to be thrown from the
shore. There were at least twenty licensed porters waiting for us, in
clean white jackets,--one of these, without a word, just coiled a rope
and flung it. It was missed twice by the sailor in our bows, and fell
into the water, out of which the thrower drew it, and just coiled and
threw it again without a word of objurgation or remonstrance, and the
third time successfully. Not one of the white-jacketed men who stood
round had uttered a syllable of advice or comment; but what a Babel
would have arisen in like case at the pier-heads of Calais or Dieppe, or
for that matter at Dover or Liverpool. No wonder that William the Silent
is the typical hero of Dutchmen; there are two statues of him in the
best sites in this city, and half a dozen portraits in the best places
in the galleries. Hosea Biglow’s--
Talk, if you keep it, pays its keep,
But gabble’s the short road to ruin.
’Tis gratis (gals half price), but cheap