THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS.
When we stepped forth into the streets, it was to find a flower strewn
city. The paving stones were covered with the needles of pines, with
fir boughs, with rose leaves, lily stocks, and with the petals of flock
and clematis. One's feet sank into the odorous carpet as in the thick
wool of an Oriental prayer rug. To tread upon this verdure was to crush
out perfume. Yet the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a touch
of consecration in the very aroma of the fir sap.
Never was there a town so given over to its festival. Everything
else--all trade, commerce, occupation, work, or pleasure even, was at a
dead standstill. In all the city there was but one thought, one object,
one end in view. This was the great day of the _Fête-Dieu_. To this
blessed feast of the Sacrament the townspeople had been looking forward
for weeks.
It is their June Christmas. The great day brings families together.
[Illustration: AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR]
From all the country round the farm wagons had been climbing the hill
for hours. The peasants were in holiday dress. Gold crosses and amber
beads encircled leathery old necks; the gossamer caps, real Normandy
caps at last, crowned heads held erect today, with the pride of those
who had come to town clad in their best. Even the younger women were in
true peasant garb; there was a touch of a ribbon, brilliant red and
blue stockings, and the sparkle of silver shoe-buckles and gold
necklaces to prove they had donned their finery in honor of the _fête_.
The men wore their blue and purple blouses over their holiday suits;
but almost all had pinned a sprig of bright geranium or honeysuckle to
brighten up the shiny cotton of the preservative blouse. Even the
children carried bouquets; and thus many of the farm wagons were as gay
as the streets.
No, gay is not the word. Neither the city nor the streets were really
gay. The city, as a city, was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too
intent, to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all the days of
the year in Coutances. In the climaxic moments of life, one is solemn,
not gay. It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day of the year
for this cathedral town. Here was a whole city to deck; every street,
every alleyway must be as beautiful as a church on a feast-day. The
city, in truth, must be changed from a bustling, trading, commercial
entrepôt into an altar. And this altar must be beautiful--as beautiful,
as ingeniously picturesque as only the French instinct for beauty could
make it.
Think you, with such a task on hand, this city-ful of artists had time
for frivolous idling? Since dawn these artists had been scrubbing their
doors, washing windows, and sluicing the gutters. One is not a
provincial for nothing; one is honest in the provinces; one does not
drape finery over a filthy frame. The city was washed first, before it
was adorned.
Opposite, across from our inn door-sill, where we lingered a moment
before we began our journey through the streets, we could see for
ourselves how thorough was this cleansing. A shopkeeper and his wife
were each mounted on a step-ladder. One washed the inside and the other
the outside of the low shop-windows. They were in the greatest possible
haste, for they were late in their preparations. In two hours the
procession was to pass. Their neighbors stopped to cry up to them:
"_Tendez vous, aujourd'hui?_" It is the universal question, heard
everywhere.
"_Mais oui_," croaked out the man, his voice sounding like the croak of
a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only we are late, you
see."
It was his wife who was taking the question to heart. She saw in it
just cause for affront.
"Ah, those Espergnons, they're always on time, they are; they had their
hangings out a week ago, and now they are as filthy as wash-rags. No
wonder they have time to walk the streets!" and the indignant dame gave
her window-pane an extra polish.
"Here, Leon, catch hold, I'm ready now!"
The woman was holding out one end of a long, snowy sheet. Leon meekly
took his end; both hooked the stuff to some rings ready to secure the
hanging; the facade of the little house was soon hidden behind the
white fall of the family linen; and presently Leon and his wife began
very gravely to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the white
surface. This latter decoration was performed with the sure touch of
artists. No mediaeval designer of tapestry could have chosen, with more
secure selection, the precise points of distance at which to place the
bouquets; nor could the tones and tints of the greens and purples, and
the velvet of the occasional heartsease, sparsely used, have been more
correctly combined. When the task was ended, the commonplace house was
a palace wall, hung with the sheen of fine linen, on which bloomed
geometric figures beautifully spaced.
All the city was thus draped. One walked through long walls of snow, in
which flowers grew. Sometimes the floral decorations expanded from the
more common sprig into wreaths and garlands. Here and there the
Coutances fancy worked itself out in _fleur-de-lis_ emblems or in
armorial bearings. But everywhere an astonishing, instinctive sense of
beauty, a knowledge of proportion, and a natural sense for color were
obvious. There was not, in all the town, a single offence committed
against taste. Is it any wonder, with such an heredity at their
fingers' ends, that the provinces feed Paris, and that Paris sets the
fashions in beauty for the rest of the world?
Come with us, and look upon this open-air chapel. It stands in the open
street, in front of an old house of imposing aspect. The two
commonplace-looking women who are putting--the finishing--touches to
this beautiful creation tell us it is the reposoir of Madame la
Baronne. They have been working on it since the day before. In the
night the miracle was finished--nearly--they were so weary they had
gone to bed at dawn. They do not tell you it is a miracle. They think
it fine, oh, yes--"c'est beau--Madame la Baronne always has the most
beautiful of all the reposoirs," but then they have decked these altars
since they were born; their grandmothers built them before ever they
saw the light. For always in Coutances "on la fête beaucoup;" this
feast of the Sacrament has been a great day in Coutances for centuries
past. But although they are so used to it, these natural architects
love the day. "It's so fine to see--_si beau à voir_ all the reposoirs,
and the children and the fine ladies walking--through the streets, and
then, all kneeling--when Monseigneur l'Archevêque prays. Ah yes, it is
a fine sight." They nod, and smile, and then they turn to light a
taper, and to consult about the placing of a certain vase from out of
which an Easter lily towers.
At the foot of these miniature altars trees had been planted. Gardens
had also been laid out; the parterres were as gravely watered as if
they were to remain in the middle of a bustling high street in
perpetuity. Steps lead up to the altar. These were covered with rugs
and carpets; for the feet of the bishop must tread only on velvet and
flowers. Candelabra, vases, banners, crosses, crucifixes, flowers, and
tall thin tapers--all the altars were crowded with such adornments.
Human vanity and the love of surpassing one's neighbors, these also
figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks
down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the
desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this
is only another way of professing one's adoration.
As we passed through the streets a multitude of pictures crowded upon
the eyes. In an archway groups of young first communicants were
forming; they were on their way to the cathedral. Their white veils
against the gloom of the recessed archways were like sunlit clouds
caught in an abyss. Priests in gorgeous vestments were walking quickly
through the streets. All the peasants were going also toward the
cathedral. A group stopped, as did we, to turn into a side-street. For
there was a picture we should not see later on. Between some lovely old
turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered tremulously;
they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of their own Sacré
Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering as they walked;
others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others were on their
knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid about the altar
steps. There was an old curé among them and a young carpenter whom the
curé was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her black skirts tucked
up; their stout shoes must be free to fly over the ground with the
swiftness of hounds. How pretty the faces were, under the great caps,
in that moment of unwonted excitement! The cheeks, even of the older
nuns, were pink; it was a pink that made their habitual pallor have a
dazzling beauty. The eyes were lighted into a fresh flame of life, and
the lips were temptingly crimson; they were only women, after all,
these nuns, and once a year at least this feast of the Sacrament brings
all their feminine activities into play.
Still we moved on, for within the cathedral the procession had not yet
formed. There was still time to make a tour of the town.
To plunge into the side-streets away from the wide cathedral parvis,
was to be confronted with a strange calm. These narrow thoroughfares
had the stillness which broods over all ancient cities' by-ways. Here
was no festival bustle; all was grave and sad. The only dwellers left
in the antique fifteenth century houses were those who must remain at
home till a still smaller house holds them. We passed several aged
Coutançais couples. By twos they were seated at the low windows; they
had been dressed and then left; they were sitting here, in the pathetic
patience of old age; they were hoping something of the _fête_ might
come their way. Two women, in one of the low interiors, were more
philosophic than their neighbors; if their stiffened knees would not
carry them to the _fête_, at least their gnarled old hands could hold a
pack of cards. They were seated close to the open casement, facing each
other across a small round table; along the window-sill there were rows
of flower-pots; a pewter tankard was set between them; and out of the
shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the Normandy brasses, the huge
bed, with its snowy draperies, the great chests, and the flowery
chintz-frill defining the width of the yawning fireplace. The two old
faces, with the strong features, deep wrinkles, sunken mouths, and bald
heads tied up in dazzling white coifs, were in full relief against the
dim background. They were as motionless as statues; neither looked up
as our footfall struck along the cobbles; it was an exciting moment in
the game.
[Illustration: A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE]
Below these old houses stretched the public gardens. Here also there
was a great stillness. For us alone the rose gardens bloomed, the
tropical trees were shivering, and the palms were making a night of
shade for wide acres of turf. Rarely does a city boast of such a
garden. It was no surprise to learn, later, that these lovely paths and
noble terraces had been the slow achievement of a lover of landscape
gardening, one who, dying, had given this, his master-piece, to his
native town.
There is no better place from which to view the beautiful city. From
the horizontal lines of the broad terraces flows the great sweep of the
hillside; it takes a swift precipitous plunge, and rests below in wide
stretches of meadow. The garden itself seemed, by virtue of this
encompassing circle of green, to be only a more exquisitely cultivated
portion of the lovely outlying hills and wooded depths. The cows,
grazing below in the valleys, were whisking their tails, and from the
farm-yards came the crow of the chanticleer.
One turned to look upward--to follow heavenward the soaring glory of
the cathedral towers. From the plane of the streets their geometric
perfection had made their lines seem cold. Through this aerial
perspective the eye followed, enraptured, the perfect Gothic of the
spires and the lower central tower. The great nave roof and the choir
lifted themselves above the turrets and the tiled house-tops of the
city, as gray mountains of stone rise above the huts of pygmies.
Coutances does well to be proud of its cathedral.
The sound of a footstep, crunching the gravel of the garden-walk,
caused us to turn. It was to find, face to face, the hero of the night
before; the celebrated Coutances lawyer was also taking his
constitutional. But not alone, some friends were with him, come up to
town doubtless for the _fête_ or the trial. He was showing them his
city. He stretched a hand forth, with the same magisterial gesture of
the night before, to point out the glory of the prospect lying below
the terrace. He faced the cathedral towers, explaining the points of
their perfection. And then, for he was a Frenchman, he perceived the
presence of two ladies. In an instant his hat was raised, and as
quickly his eyes told us he had seen us before, in the courtroom. The
bow was the lower because of this recognition, and the salute was
accompanied by a grave smile.
Manners in the provinces are still good, you perceive--if only you are
far enough away from Paris.
Someone else also bestowed on us the courtesy of a passing greeting. It
was a curé who was saying his Ave, as he paced slowly, in the sun, up
and down the yew path. He was old; one leg was already tired of
life--it must be dragged painfully along, when one walked in the sun.
The curé himself was not in the least tired of life. His smile was as
warm as the sun as he lifted his _calotte_.
"Surely, mesdames, you will not miss the _fête_? It must be forming
now."
He had taken an old man's, and a priest's, privilege. We were all three
looking down into the valley, which lay below, a pool of freshness. He
had spoken, first of the beauty of the prospect, and then of the great
day. To be young and still strong, to be able to follow the procession
from street to street, and yet to be lingering here among the
roses!--this passed the simple curé's comprehension. The reproach in
his mild old eyes was quickly changed to approval, however; for upon
the announcement that the procession was already in motion we started,
bidding him a hurried adieu.
The huge cathedral portals yawned at the top of the hill; they were
like a gaping chasm. The great place of the cathedral square was half
filled; a part of the procession had passed already beyond the gloom of
the vast aisles into the frank openness of day. Winding in and out of
the white-hung streets a long line of figures was marching; part of the
line had reached the first reposoir and gradually the swaying of the
heads was slackening, as, by twos and twos, the figures stopped.
Still, from between the cathedral doors an unending multitude of people
kept pouring forth upon the cathedral square. Now it was an
interminable line of young girls, first communicants, in their white
veils and gowns; against the grays and browns of the cathedral facade
this mass of snow was of startling purity--a great white rose of light.
Closely following the dazzling line marched a grave company of nuns;
with their black robes sweeping the flower-strewn streets, the pallor
of their faces, and the white wings of their huge coifs, they might
have been so many marble statues moving with slow, automatic step,
repeating in life the statues in stone above their heads, incarnations
of meek renunciation. With the free and joyous step of a vigorous youth
not yet tamed to complete self-obliteration, next there stepped forth
into the sun a group of seminarists. In the lace and scarlet of their
bright robes they were like unto so many young kings. High in the
summer air they swung their golden censers; from huge baskets, heaped
with flowers, they scattered flowers as they swayed, in the grace of
their youth, from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion.
In the days of Greece, under the Attic tent of sky, it was Jove that
was thus worshipped; here in Coutances, under the paler, less ardent
blue of France, it was the Christian God these youths were honoring. So
men have continued to scatter flowers; to swing incense; to bend the
knee; surely in all ages the long homage of men, like the procession
here before us, has been but this--the longing to worship the
Invisible, and to make the act one with beauty.
Is it Greek, is it Christian, this festival? If it be Catholic, it is
also pagan. It is as composite a union of religious ceremonials as man
is himself an aggregate of lost types, for there is a subtle law of
repetition which governs both men and ceremonials.
How pagan was the color! how Greek the sense of beauty that lies in
contrasts! how Jewish the splendor of the priestly vestments as the
gold and silver tissues gleamed in the sun! How mediaeval this survival
of an old miracle play! See this group of children, half-frightened,
half-proud, wandering from side to side as children unused to walking
soberly ever march. They were following the leadership of a huge
Suisse. This latter was magnificently apparelled. He carried a great
mace, and this he swung high in the air. The children, little John the
Baptist, Christ, Mary the Mother, and Magdalen, were magnetized by his
mighty skill. They were looking at the golden stick; they were thinking
only of how high he, this splendid giant who terrified them so, would
throw it the next time, and if he would always surely catch it. The
small Virgin, in her long brown robes, tripped as she walked. The
cherubic John the Baptist, with only his sheepskin and his cross,
shivered as he stumbled after her.
"At least they might have covered his arms, _le pauvre petit_," one
stout peasant among the bystanders was Christian enough to mutter,
"Poor little John!" Even in summer the sun is none too hot on this
hill-top; and a sheepskin is a garment one must be used to, it appears.
Christ, himself, was no better off. He was wearing his crown of thorns,
but he had only his night-dress, bound with a girdle, to keep his naked
little body warm. An angel, in gossamer wings and a huge rose-wreath,
being of the other sex, had her innate woman's love of finery to make
her oblivious to the light sting of the wind, as it passed through her
draperies. As this group in the procession moved slowly along, the city
took on a curiously antique aspect. In every lattice window a head was
framed. The lines of the townspeople pressed closer and closer; they
made a serried mass of blouses and caps, of shiny coats and bared
heads. The very houses seemed to recognize that a part of their own
youth was passing them by; these were the figures they had looked out
upon, time after time, in the old fourteenth and fifteenth century
days, when the great miracle plays drew the country around, for miles
and miles, to this Coutances square.
Across the square, in the long gray distance of the streets, the
archbishop's canopy was motionless. A sweet groaning murmur rippled
from lip to lip.
Then a swift and mighty rustling filled the air, for the bones of
thousands of knees were striking the stones of the street;--even
heretic knees were bent when the Host was lifted. It was the moment of
silent prayer. It was also, perhaps, the most beautiful, it was
assuredly the most consummately picturesque moment of the day. The bent
heads; the long vistas of kneeling figures; the lovely contrasts of the
flowing draperies; the trailing splendor of the priests' robes dying
into the black note made by the nuns' sombre skirts; the gossamer
brilliance of the hundreds of white veils, through which the young
rapture of religious awe on lips and brow made even commonplace
features beautiful; the choristers' scarlet petticoats; the culminating
note of splendor, the Archbishop, throned like some antique scriptural
king under the feathers and velvets of his crimson canopy; then the
long lines of the townspeople with the groups of peasants beside them,
whose well-sunned skins made even their complexion seem pale by the
side of cheeks that brought the burn of noon-suns in the valleys to
mind; and behind this wall of kneeling figures, those other walls, the
long white-hung house facades, with their pendent sprigs and wreaths
and garlands above which hung the frieze of human heads beneath the
carved cornices; surely this was indeed the culminating moment, both in
point of beauty and in impressiveness, of the great day's festival.
Thus was reposoir after reposoir visited. Again and again the multitude
was on its knees. Again and again the Host was lifted. And still we
followed. Sometimes all the line was in full light, a long perspective
of color and of prismatic radiance. And then the line would be lost;
some part of it was still in a side-street; and the rest were singing
along the edges of the city's ramparts, under the great branches of the
trees. Here, in the gray of the narrow streets, the choristers' gowns
were startling in their richness. Yonder, in full sunlight, the
brightness on the maidens' robes made the shadows in their white skirts
as blue as light caught in a grotto's depth.
Still they sang. In the dim streets or under the trees, where the gay
banners were still fluttering, and the white veils, like airy sails,
were bulging in the wind, the hymn went on. It was thin and
pathetically weak in the mouths of the babes that walked. It was clear,
as fresh and pure as a brooklet's ripple, from the mouths of the young
communicants. It was of firm contralto strength from the throats of the
grave nuns. The notes gained and gained in richness; the hymn was
almost a chant with the priests; and in the mouths of the people it was
as a ringing chorus. Together with the swelling music swung the incense
into high air; and to the Host the rose-leaves were flung.
Still we followed. Still the long line moved on from altar to altar.
Then, when the noon was long past, wearily we climbed upward to our inn.
In the high streets there was much going to and fro. The shop-keepers
already were taking down their linen. Pouffe! Pouffe! there was much
blowing through mouths and a great standing on tiptoes to reach the
tall tapers on the reposoirs.
Coutances was pious. Coutances was proud of its fête. But Coutances was
also a thrifty city. Once the cortege had passed, it was high time to
snuff out the tapers. Who could stand by and see good candles blowing
uselessly in the wind, and one's money going along with the dripping?