Produced by John Roberts, Anne Soulard, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
IN AND OUT OF THREE NORMANDY INNS
BY
ANNA BOWMAN DODD
[Illustration: GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT-DIVES]
TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
_My Dear Mr. Stedman:
To this little company of Norman men and women, you will, I know,
extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your
courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you
perceive--as you must--that their qualities are all their own, their
defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment.
With sincere esteem_,
ANNA BOWMAN DODD.
_New York_.
CONTENTS.
VILLERVILLE.
I. A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE II. A SPRING DRIVE III.
FROM AN INN WINDOW IV. OUT ON A MUSSEL-BED V. THE VILLAGE VI.
A PAGAN COBBLER VII. SOME NORMAN LANDLADIES VIII. THE QUARTIER
LATIN ON THE BEACH IX. A NORMAN HOUSEHOLD X. ERNESTINE
ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
XI. TO AN OLD MANOIR XII. A NORMAN CURE XIII. HONFLEUR--NEW
AND OLD
DIVES.
XIV. A COAST DRIVE XV. GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT XVI. THE GREEN
BENCH XVII. THE WORLD THAT CAME TO DIVES XVIII. THE CONVERSATION OF
PATRIOTS XIX. IN LA CHAMBRE DES MARMOUSETS
TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES.
XX. A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY REVIVAL XXI. THE AFTER-DINNER TALK OF
THREE GREAT LADIES XXII. A NINETEENTH CENTURY BREAKFAST
A LITTLE JOURNEY ALONG THE COAST.
XXIII. A NIGHT IN A CAEN ATTIC XXIV. A DAY AT BAYEUX AND ST. LO XXV.
A DINNER AT COUTANCES XXVI. A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT XXVII. THE
FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS XXVIII. BY LAND TO MONT ST. MICHEL
MONT ST. MICHEL.
XXIX. BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN XXX. THE PILGRIMS AND THE
SHRINE--AN HISTORICAL OMELETTE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT--DIVES A VILLAGE STREET--VILLERVILLE ON THE
BEACH--VILLERVILLE A SALE OF MUSSELS--VILLERVILLE A VILLERVILLE
FISH-WIFE A DEPARTURE--VILLERVILLE THE INN AT
DIVES--GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES CHAMBRE DES
MARMOUSETS--DIVES MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ CHAMBRE DE LA PUCELLE--DIVES
CHATEAU FONTAINE LE HENRI, NEAR CAEN AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES
INTERIOR A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE MONT SAINT MICHEL
MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS
VILLERVILLE.
AN INN BY THE SEA.
CHAPTER I.
A LANDING ON THE COAST OF FRANCE.
Narrow streets with sinuous curves; dwarfed houses with minute shops
protruding on inch-wide sidewalks; a tiny casino perched like a
bird-cage on a tiny scaffolding; bath-houses dumped on the beach;
fishing-smacks drawn up along the shore like so many Greek galleys;
and, fringing the cliffs--the encroachment of the nineteenth century--a
row of fantastic sea-side villas.
This was Villerville.
Over an arch of roses; across a broad line of olives, hawthorns,
laburnums, and syringas, straight out to sea--
This was the view from our windows.
Our inn was bounded by the sea on one side, and on the other by a
narrow village street. The distance between good and evil has been
known to be quite as short as that which lay between these two
thoroughfares. It was only a matter of a strip of land, an edge of
cliff, and a shed of a house bearing the proud title of Hôtel-sur-Mer.
Two nights before, our arrival had made quite a stir in the village
streets. The inn had given us a characteristic French welcome; its eye
had measured us before it had extended its hand. Before reaching the
inn and the village, however, we had already tasted of the flavor of a
genuine Norman welcome. Our experience in adventure had begun on the
Havre quays.
Our expedition could hardly be looked upon as perilous; yet it was one
that, from the first, evidently appealed to the French imagination;
half Havre was hanging over the stone wharves to see us start.
"_Dame_, only English women are up to that!"--for all the world is
English, in French eyes, when an adventurous folly is to be committed.
This was one view of our temerity; it was the comment of age and
experience of the world, of the cap with the short pipe in her mouth,
over which curved, downward, a bulbous, fiery-hued nose that met the
pipe.
"_C'est beau, tout de même_, when one is young--and rich." This was a
generous partisan, a girl with a miniature copy of her own round
face--a copy that was tied up in a shawl, very snug; it was a bundle
that could not possibly be in any one's way, even on a somewhat
prolonged tour of observation of Havre's shipping interests.
"And the blonde one--what do you think of her, _hein_?"
This was the blouse's query. The tassel of the cotton night-cap nodded,
interrogatively, toward the object on which the twinkling ex-mariner's
eye had fixed itself--on Charm's slender figure, and on the yellow
half-moon of hair framing her face. There was but one verdict
concerning the blonde beauty; she was a creature made to be stared at.
The staring was suspended only when the bargaining went on; for Havre,
clearly, was a sailor and merchant first; its knowledge of a woman's
good points was rated merely as its second-best talent.
Meanwhile, our bargaining for the sailboat was being conducted on the
principles peculiar to French traffic; it had all at once assumed the
aspect of dramatic complication. It had only been necessary for us to
stop on our lounging stroll along the stone wharves, diverting our gaze
for a moment from the grotesque assortment of old houses that, before
now, had looked down on so many naval engagements, and innocently to
ask a brief question of a nautical gentleman, picturesquely attired in
a blue shirt and a scarlet beret, for the quays immediately to swarm
with jerseys and red caps. Each beret was the owner of a boat; and each
jersey had a voice louder than his brother's. Presently the battle of
tongues was drowning all other sounds.
In point of fact, there were no other sounds to drown. All other
business along the quays was being temporarily suspended; the most
thrilling event of the day was centring in us and our treaty. Until
this bargain was closed, other matters could wait. For a Frenchman has
the true instinct of the dramatist; business he rightly considers as
only an _entr'acte_ in life; the serious thing is the _scene de
theatre_, wherever it takes place. Therefore it was that the black,
shaky-looking houses, leaning over the quays, were now populous with
frowsy heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from the adjacent
sloops and tug-boats formed an outer circle about the closer ring made
by the competitors for our favors, while the loungers along the
parapets, and the owners of top seats on the shining quay steps, may be
said to have been in possession of orchestra stalls from the first
rising of the curtain.
A baker's boy and two fish-wives, trundling their carts, stopped to
witness the last act of the play. Even the dogs beneath the carts, as
they sank, panting, to the ground, followed, with red-rimmed eyes, the
closing scenes of the little drama.
"_Allons_, let us end this," cried a piratical-looking captain, in a
loud, masterful voice. And he named a price lower than the others had
bid. He would take us across--yes, us and our luggage, and land
us--yes, at Villerville, for that.
The baker's boy gave a long, slow whistle, with relish.
"_Dame!_" he ejaculated, between his teeth, as he turned away.
The rival captains at first had drawn back; they had looked at their
comrade darkly, beneath their berets, as they might at a deserter with
whom they meant to deal--later on. But at his last words they smiled a
smile of grim humor. Beneath the beards a whisper grew; whatever its
import, it had the power to move all the hard mouths to laughter. As
they also turned away, their shrugging shoulders and the scorn in their
light laughter seemed to hand us over to our fate.
In the teeth of this smile, our captain had swung his boat round and we
were stepping into her.
"_Au revoir--au revoir et à bientôt!_"
The group that was left to hang over the parapets and to wave us its
farewell, was a thin one. Only the professional loungers took part in
this last act of courtesy. There was a cluster of caps, dazzlingly
white against the blue of the sky; a collection of highly decorated
noses and of old hands ribboned with wrinkles, to nod and bob and wave
down the cracked-voiced "_bonjours_." But the audience that had
gathered to witness the closing of the bargain had melted away with the
moment of its conclusion. Long ere this moment of our embarkation the
wide stone street facing the water had become suddenly deserted. The
curious-eyed heads and the cotton nightcaps had been swallowed up in
the hollows of the dark, little windows. The baker's boy had long since
mounted his broad basket, as if it were an ornamental head-dress, and
whistling, had turned a sharp corner, swallowed up, he also, by the
sudden gloom that lay between the narrow streets. The sloop-owners had
linked arms with the defeated captains, and were walking off toward
their respective boats, whistling a gay little air.
"_Colinette au bois s'en alla
En sautillant par-ci, par-là;
Trala deridera, trala, derid-er-a-a._"
One jersey-clad figure was singing lustily as he dropped with a spring
into his boat. He began to coil the loose ropes at once, as if the
disappointments in life were only a necessary interruption, to be
accepted philosophically, to this, the serious business of his days.
We were soon afloat, far out from the land of either shores. Between
the two, sea and river meet; is the river really trying to lose itself
in the sea, or is it hopelessly attempting to swallow the sea? The
green line that divides them will never give you the answer: it changes
hour by hour, day by day; now it is like a knife-cut, deep and
straight; and now like a ribbon that wavers and flutters, tying
together the blue of the great ocean and the silver of the Seine. Close
to the lips of the mighty mouth lie the two shores. In that fresh May
sunshine Havre glittered and bristled, was aglow with a thousand tints
and tones; but we sailed and sailed away from her, and behold, already
she had melted into her cliffs. Opposite, nearing with every dip of the
dun-colored sail into the blue seas, was the Calvados coast; in its
turn it glistened, and in its young spring verdure it had the lustre of
a rough-hewn emerald.
"_Que voulez-vous, mesdames?_ Who could have told that the wind would
play us such a trick?"
The voice was the voice of our captain. With much affluence of gesture
he was explaining--his treachery! Our nearness to the coast had made
the confession necessary. To the blandness of his smile, as he
proceeded in his unabashed recital, succeeded a pained expression. We
were not accepting the situation with the true phlegm of philosophers;
he felt that he had just cause for protest. What possible difference
could it make to us whether we were landed at Trouville or at
Villerville? But to him--to be accused of betraying two ladies--to
allow the whole of the Havre quays to behold in him a man disgraced,
dishonored!
His was a tragic figure as he stood up, erect on the poop, to clap
hands to a blue-clad breast, and to toss a black mane of hair in the
golden air.
"_Dame! Toujours été galant homme, moi!_ I am known on both shores as
the most gallant of men. But the most gallant of men cannot control the
caprice of the wind!" To which was added much abuse of the muddy
bottoms, the strength of the undertow, and other marine disadvantages
peculiar to Villerville.
It was a tragic figure, with gestures and voice to match. But it was
evident that the Captain had taken his own measure mistakenly. In him
the French stage had lost a comedian of the first magnitude. Much,
therefore, we felt, was to be condoned in one who doubtless felt so
great a talent itching for expression. When next he smiled, we had
revived to a keener appreciation of baffled genius ever on the scent
for the capture of that fickle goddess, opportunity.
The captain's smile was oiling a further word of explanation. "See,
mesdames, they come! they will soon land you on the beach!"
He was pointing to a boat smaller than our own, that now ran alongside.
There had been frequent signallings between the two boats, a running up
and down of a small yellow flag which we had thought amazingly becoming
to the marine landscape, until we learned the true relation of the flag
to the treachery aboard our own craft.
"You see, mesdames," smoothly continued our talented traitor, "you see
how the waves run up on the beach. We could never, with this great
sail, run in there. We should capsize. But behold, these are bathers,
accustomed to the water--they will carry you--but as if you were
feathers!" And he pointed to the four outstretched, firmly-muscled
arms, as if to warrant their powers of endurance. The two men had left
their boat; it was dancing on the water, at anchor. They were standing
immovable as pillars of stone, close to the gunwales of our craft. They
were holding out their arms to us.
Charm suddenly stood upright. She held out her hands like a child, to
the least impressionable boatman. In an instant she was clasping his
bronze throat.
"All my life I've prayed for adventure. And at last it has come!" This
she cried, as she was carried high above the waves.
"That's right, have no fear," answered her carrier as he plunged
onward, ploughing his way through the waters to the beach.
Beneath my own feet there was a sudden swish and a swirl of restless,
tumbling waters. The motion, as my carrier buried his bared legs in the
waves, was such as accompanies impossible flights described in dreams,
through some unknown medium. The surging waters seemed struggling to
submerge us both; the two thin, tanned legs of the fisherman about
whose neck I was clinging, appeared ridiculously inadequate to cleave a
successful path through a sea of such strength as was running shoreward.
"Madame does not appear to be used to this kind of travelling," puffed
out my carrier, his conversational instinct, apparently, not in the
least dampened by his strenuous plunging through the spirited sea. "It
happens every day--all the aristocrats land this way, when they come
over by the little boats. It distracts and amuses them, they say. It
helps to kill the ennui."
"I should think it might, my feet are soaking; sometimes wet feet--"
"Ah, that's a pity, you must get a better hold," sympathetically
interrupted my fisherman, as he proceeded to hoist me higher up on his
shoulder. I, or a sack of corn, or a basket of fish, they were all one
to this strong back and to these toughened sinews. When he had adjusted
his present load at a secure height, above the dashing of the spray, he
went on talking. "Yes, when the rich suffer a little it is not such a
bad thing, it makes a pleasant change--_cela leur distrait_. For
instance, there is the Princess de L----, there's her villa, close by,
with green blinds. She makes little excuses to go over to Havre, just
for this--to be carried in the arms like an infant. You should hear
her, she shouts and claps her hands! All the beach assembles to see her
land. When she is wet she cries for joy. It is so difficult to amuse
one's self, it appears, in the great world."
"But, _tiens_, here we are, I feel the dry sands." I was dropped as
lightly on them as if it had been indeed a bunch of feathers my
fisherman had been carrying.
And meanwhile, out yonder, across the billows, with airy gesture
dramatically executed, our treacherous captain was waving us a
theatrical salute. The infant mate was grinning like a gargoyle. They
were both delightfully unconscious, apparently, of any event having
transpired, during the afternoon's pleasuring, which could possibly
tinge the moment of parting with the hues of regret.
"_Pour les bagages, mesdames_--"
Two dripping, outstretched hands, two berets doffed, two picturesque
giants bowing low, with a Frenchman's grace--this, on the Trouville
sands, was the last act of this little comedy of our landing on the
coast of France.