THE GLACIÈRE OF FONDEURLE, IN DAUPHINÉ.
There cannot be any better place for recruiting strength than the lovely
primitive valley of _Les Plans_, two hours up the course of the Avençon
from hot and dusty Bex. Here I rejoined my sisters, intending to spend a
month with them before returning to England; and the neighbouring
glaciers afforded good opportunities for quietly investigating the
structure of the ice which composes them, with a view to discovering, if
possible, some trace of the prismatic formation so universal in the
glacières. On one occasion, after carefully cutting steps and examining
the faces of cleavage for an hour and a half, I detected a small patch
of ice, under the overhanging rim of a crevasse, marked distinctly with
the familiar network of lines on the surface; but I was unable to
discover anything betokening a prismatic condition of the interior.
This was the only case in which I saw the slightest approach to the
phenomena presented in ice-caves.
There remained one glacière on M. Thury's list, which I had so far not
thought of visiting. It was described as lying three leagues to the
north of Die in Dauphiné, department of the Drôme, at an altitude of
more than 5,000 feet above the sea. M. Héricart de Thury discovered
this cavern in 1805, and published an account of it in the _Annales
des Mines_[82] to which M. Thury's list gave a reference. I have since
found that this account has been translated into various scientific
periodicals, among others the Philosophical Journal of Edinburgh.[83]
It occurred to me that, by leaving Les Plans a few days earlier than I
had intended, I could take advantage of the new line connecting
Chambéry and Grenoble and Valence, and so visit this glacière without
making the journey too long; and accordingly I bade farewell to Madame
Chérix's comfortable room, leaving my sisters in their quarters in a
neighbouring châlet, and started for Geneva.
The line was advertised to open on the 15th of August; but on the 16th
the officials declared that it was not within a month and a half of
completion, so that I was compelled to go round by Lyons. I was easily
reconciled to this by the opportunity thus afforded of a visit to the
ancient city of Vienne, which well repays inspection. Its history is a
perfect quarry of renowned names, Roman, Burgundian, and ecclesiastical.
Tiberius Gracchus left his mark upon the city, by bridling the
Rhône--_impatiens pontis_--with the earliest bridge in Gaul: and here
tradition has it that the great Pompey loved magnificently one of his
many loves; while the site of the Prætorium in which Pontius Pilate is
said to have given judgment can still be pointed out. The true Mount
Pilate lies between Vienne and Lyons, being one of the loftiest
northern summits of the Cevennes, on the borders of the Lyonnaise.[84]
The Romans recognised the fitness of the neighbourhood of Vienne for the
cultivation of the grape, and the first vine in Gaul was planted on the
Mont d'Or in the second century of the Christian era. In Burgundian
times the city held a very prominent place, and became infamous from the
frequent shedding of royal blood; so that early historians describe it
as '_tousiours fatale à ceux qui vueillent la corone des
Bourgougnons,'[85]_ and as '_fatale et de malencõtre aux tyrãs et
mauvais princes.'[86]_ Ecclesiastically, its interest dates of course
from a very early period, from the times of the martyrs of Gaul and the
first Rogations. The Festival of _Les Merveilles_ long commemorated the
restoration of the bodily forms of the Lyonnese martyrs, as their
scattered dust floated past the home of Blandina and Ponticus; and the
dedication of the cathedral to S. Maurice keeps alive the tradition that
Paschasius, bishop of Vienne, was warned by an angel to watch on the
banks of the Rhône, and so rescued the head and trunk of the
soldier-martyr, which had been cast into the river at Agaunum (S.
Maurice in Valais), and had floated down--probably on sounder
hydrostatical principles than the 'Floating Martyr'--through the Lake of
Geneva, and so to Vienne. There are still many very interesting Roman
remains in the city, as the Temple of Augusta and Livia, the Arcade of
the Forum, and the monument seen from the railway to the south of the
town. The temple is being carefully restored, and the large collection
of Roman curiosities which it contained is to be removed to the church
of S. Peter, now in course of restoration, which will in itself be worth
a visit to Vienne when the restoration is completed.[87] All the
buildings connected with the Great Council in 1311 have disappeared; and
the only relic of the council seems to be the Chalice, _or_, surmounted
by the Sacred Host, _argent_, in the city arms, in remembrance of the
institution of the Fête of the _S. Corps_. If the Emperor would but
have the town and its inhabitants deodorised, few places would be better
worth visiting than Vienne.
The poste leaves Valence--the home of the White Hermitage--for Die at
2.30 P.M., and professes to reach its destination in six hours; but sad
experience showed that it could be unfaithful to the extent of an hour
and a half. So long as the daylight lasted, there was no dearth of
objects of interest; but when darkness came on, the monotonous roll of
the heavy diligence became aggravating in the extreme. The village of
Beaumont, once the residence of an important branch of the great
Beaumont family,[88] retains still its square tower and old gateway; and
the remains of a château near Montmeyran, the end of the first stage,
mark the scene of the victory of Marius over the Ambrons and Teutons,
local antiquaries believing that the name of Montmeyran is from _Mons
Jovis Mariani_.[89] The road lies through the bright cool green of wide
plantations of the silkworm mulberry,[90] with its trim stem and rounded
head; and, in the more open parts of the valley, walnut trees of size
and shape fit for an ornamental park in England relieve the monotony.
The nearer hills are covered to the top with vines, and the higher and
more distant ranges have a naked and thoroughly burned appearance,
which suggests the idea of volcanoes to a traveller ignorant of volcanic
facts. The villages which lie at the foot of these rocky hills are built
of stones taken from the beds of the streams, and are so completely of
one colour with the background of rock, that in many instances it is
difficult to determine whether a distant mass of grey is a village or
not. Ruined castles and towers abound; and these, and still more the
walls which surround many of the villages, point unmistakeably to times
of great disturbance. The valley of the Drôme, up which the road after a
time turns, was an important locality in the religious wars; and the
town and fort of Crest especially, as its name might suggest, was a
famous stronghold, and resisted all the efforts of the Reformed party.
In yet earlier times, Simon de Montfort had frequently tried to take it,
without success; and four years after S. Bartholomew, Lesdiguières met
with a like repulse.[91] The same story of sieges and battles might be
told of almost every village and defile of the valley. Thus, Saillans,
the third stage, was taken by the Protestant leader Mirabel, and the
Catholic Gordes, in 1574, and its fortifications were razed by the Duc
de Mayenne in 1581. Pontaix, again, a remarkable place, with a vaulted
street and fortified houses overhanging the river, which here fills up
the whole valley and leaves room only for the road and the narrow
village-town, was the scene of an obstinate and murderous fight between
the Marquis de Gordes on one side, and Lesdiguières and Dupuy-Montbrun
on the other, when the latter was captured, and shortly after beheaded
at Grenoble.
The town of Die, _Dea Vocontiorum_, lies in a broad part of the valley.
It claims to be not _Dea Vocontiorum_ only, but also _Augusta
Vocontiorum_, thereby apparently defrauding the village of Aouste, near
Crest, of the earliest form of its name. Die is possessed of old walls,
and has four gates with towers. The great goddess from whose worship it
derives its name was Cybele, notwithstanding the vehement assertions of
the official in the Poste-bureau in favour of Ceres; and three different
Tauroboles have been discovered here, one of which is in excellent
repair, and shows a Roman inscription surmounted by three bulls' heads.
The ceremony of the Taurobolium was new to me, and appears to have been
conducted as follows:--A small cave was hollowed out, with a thin roof
formed by the outer surface of the earth; and immediately above this a
bull was sacrificed, so that the blood ran through the earth and dropped
on to a priest who was placed in full robes in the cave. The priest and
the blood-stained garments were thenceforth specially sacred, the
garments retaining their sanctity for twenty years. The inscription on
the Tauroboles which have been found in and near Die record the names
of the priest, the dendrophore, the person who provided the victim, and
the emperor for whose safety the sacrifice was offered.
The people of Die have been quarrelsome from the earliest times. A
century before the estates of the Dauphins of the Viennois were known as
Dauphiné,[92] the chronic contests between the Bishops and the Counts of
Die had come to such a crisis, that the Dauphin Guiges André intervened,
and produced a certain amount of peace; but, twenty years after, the
people killed Bishop Humbert before the gate which thence received its
name of _Porte Rouge_. When the Counts of Valentinois had succeeded to
the fiefs of the Counts of Die, Gregory X. became so weary of the
constant wars, that he suppressed the bishopric, and united it to
Valence in 1275; but the canons, who were not suppressed, raised a
mercenary army and carried on the struggle. Eventually, the canons and
the people made common cause, and joined the Pope during the Seventy
Years; but when he left Avignon they came to terms with Charles VI. of
France, and so the Diois was united to Dauphiné in 1404. Louis XIV.
restored the separate bishopric, but ruined the town by the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes.
The large number of mosaics and inscriptions found in Die prove
conclusively that in Roman times it was a favourite place of residence;
and, so far as situation goes, it is not difficult to understand how
this should have been the case. But in the condition in which the town
found itself in the pitiless heat of August 1864, the only question for
an English visitor was whether he could live through the time it was
absolutely necessary to spend there. The poste arrived, as has been
said, an hour and a half after its time; and the sole occupant of the
coupé, who had lived on fruit and gooseberry syrup, and three penny
worth of sweet cake at Crest, since a seven-o'clock breakfast, had wiled
away the last hour by inventing choice bills of fare for the meditated
supper. When the lumbering vehicle stopped in the main street of Die,
which is here something under seven yards wide, an elderly woman stepped
out from the dim crowd, with an uncovered tallow candle in her hand, and
asked if there was anyone for the hotel. The unwonted 'yes' seemed to
create some surprise; but she led the way promptly to her hotel,
diplomatically meeting the rapid volley of questions respecting supper
with an unpromising silence, and the first sight of the house itself
dispelled for ever all hope. An entrance was effected by the kitchen;
and not only was there no fire, but there was no light of any
description; and the one dip we brought on to the scene betrayed such
squalor on all sides, that the suggestion of a _salle-à-manger_ in
connection with such a kitchen became at once an impudent mockery. When
this farther room was reached, it proved to be even worse than the
kitchen. It was shut up for the night--had been shut up apparently for a
week--and was in the possession of the cats of the town, and the flies
of Egypt. Two monstrous hounds entered with us; and the cats fled
hastily by a window which was slightly open at the top, spitting and
howling with fear when they missed the first spring, and came within the
cognisance of their mortal foes.
The first thing to be done was to wash off some of the accumulated dust;
but when I asked for a bedroom for that purpose, I was conducted to a
copper in the kitchen, the water in which had been a permanency for some
time past, and was told to wash there. As for supper, there was some
cold mutton; but the landlady unfortunately opened the door of the
cupboard as she said so, and displayed a state of things which decided
the point against the mutton. There was nothing else in the house, and
there was no fire for cooking anything; but when they discovered that I
really would not wait till the next morning, they proposed to light a
fire and warm some soup, which I declined to see in its present state.
In the way of wine, I had been recommended to make a great point of the
_clairette de Die_, an excellent species of _vin mousseux_; but the
chief of the women rather recommended the ordinary wine of the country,
as the monsieur might not like to give a strong price. 'Was it, then, so
strong?' 'Yes, the price was undoubtedly strong.' 'How much, then?' 'A
franc a bottle.' With an eye to the future bill, the monsieur pretended
to ponder awhile, as if in doubt whether his resources could stand such
a strain, and then, with a reckless air, decided upon the extravagance.
The clairette proved to be quite worthy of the praise which had been
bestowed upon it, being a very pleasant and harmless sparkling white
wine.[93]
The neighbours kept dropping into the kitchen, to see how the landlady
got on with the stranger of uncouth speech; and four of the female part
of her company brought in at various times to the _salle-à-manger_ some
piece of table-furniture, in order to indulge in a closer view than the
open door of the room afforded. One of them told me she had seen an
Englishman once before, a few months back; but he only had one eye, and
she seemed to think I was out of order in possessing two. At length the
soup came, and the first attempt upon it proved it to be utterly
impossible. The landlady was called in, and this fact was announced to
her. 'What to do, then?--it was a good soup, a soup which the people of
Die loved,--it was a soup the household eat morning and night.' All the
same, it was not a soup the present Englishman could eat, and some other
sort of food must be provided, for she declined to furnish soup without
garlic and fat. She suggested an omelette; but a natural generalisation
from all I had so far seen drew an untempting picture of the probable
state of the frying-pan, and I declined to face the idea until I was
convinced there was nothing else to be had. But, alas! notwithstanding
the righteous indignation with which the landlady met my request that
the omelette might not be all fat, the manipulation of the eggs
eventuated in a dish even more impracticable than the soup, flooded with
unmentionable grease, and so at last the cold mutton became a necessity.
To show how hunger may work upon the feelings, I may say that, in spite
of the marks of the feet of mice in the cold gravy which remained on the
dish, I forced myself to cut off a wedge, and, after removing a
thick layer of meat on the exposed sides, essayed to eat the heart of
the wedge. The sheep and its progenitors had been fed on garlic from all
time, and the mutton had been boiled in a decoction of that noxious
herb; and this dish was in its turn rejected like the others. There was
nothing for it but salad, and bread, and wine; but when the salad
appeared, after a long time had been spent in the kitchen in saturating
the withered greens with oil and vitriolic vinegar, there, perched on
the top like one of those animals which sometimes spoil one's enjoyment
of a strawberry-bed, was a huge onion, with numerous satellites peeping
out from under the leaves. About this time, a short diversion was caused
by the reappearance of one of the large hounds, whose mind was not at
ease as to the completeness of the previous elimination of the cats from
the _salle-à-manger;_ and the diabolical noise and scuffle which ensued
upon his investigation of a dark corner, showed that his doubts had
been well grounded. Then I discovered that there was no butter to be
had, and no milk; and when coffee was mentioned, a pan was brought out
for making that beverage, which a bullet-maker with any regard for
appearances would have declined to use for melting his lead in. Finally,
under the pressure of dire hunger, I returned to the mutton, and
contrived to swallow a small piece, the taste of which did not leave me
for four or five days.
The interior of the house, where the bedrooms were, gave forth an odour
which must be familiar to all who have burrowed in out-of-the-way places
in France, approaching more nearly, perhaps, to the smell of damp cocks
and hens than anything else; and the bedroom door was guarded by a huge
mis-shapen dog, which evidently intended to pass the night there, if it
could not get into the room itself. The street on to which the window
looked was still populous with the inhabitants of Die; and a man with
whom I had already had a conversation respecting the glacière, who
appeared to perform some of the functions of landlord of the hotel, was
audibly engaged in hiring a man to accompany me on the following day.
The man whom he was attempting to persuade was evidently of an
independent turn of mind, and said that as it would be an affair of
fifteen or sixteen hours at least, he would not go through so much
unless his proposed comrade were a true _bonhomme_; a difficulty which
the landlord set at rest by asseverations so ready and so
circumstantial, that I determined to take everything he might tell me,
on any subject, with many grains of allowance.
It was only natural to expect a night of horrors; but in this I was most
agreeably disappointed, and the few hours passed quietly enough till it
was time to get up. By morning light, the _salle-à-manger_ did so
bristle with squalor that the kitchen was made the breakfast-room;
though as that meal only lasted two minutes, and meant nothing beyond an
attempt to eat some of the bread I had been unable to eat the night
before, one place was much the same as another. It is generally believed
that coffee is to be obtained in perfection in France; but that belief
is not founded on experience of the provinces, and had long ceased to be
a part of my creed: nevertheless, with the idea that there is always
some redeeming-point in the darkest situation, I had hopes of the coffee
of Die, in spite of the appearance of the pan; and if these hopes had
been realised, the place might still have been tolerable. But they were
not realised. When the landlady was asked for the promised coffee, she
brought out a small earthenware pitcher containing a black liquid, and
proceeded to bury its lower extremity in the hot embers of the wood
fire, by which means the liquid was speedily warmed up, and also
thickened with unnecessary ashes. When served--in the same dusty
pitcher--it had a green and mouldy taste, combined with a sour
bitterness which made it utterly impossible as an article of food, and
so the breakfast was confined to the rejected fragments of the loaf of
the preceding night.
The guide, or comrade as he preferred to call himself, appeared in good
time, and we started about half-past six, under a sun already
oppressively hot, and through heavy flaky dust, which made us feel very
thankful when our route branched off from the high road. Liotir was
strong in mulberry trees and vines, for he was a keeper of silkworms,
and a wine-merchant. Silkworms had not been profitable for a year or
two, and he was almost in low spirits when he talked of them.[94] An
epidemic had visited the district, and the worms ate voraciously and
refused to spin--a disease which he believed to be beyond the power of
medicine.[95] As is so often the case with the Frenchman, as compared
with the Englishman of corresponding social status, he had his
information cut and dried, and poured it out without hesitation.
Silkworms' eggs cost 15, 20, or 25 francs an ounce, according to
quality; and an ounce of good seed should produce from two to three
hundred francs' worth of cocoons. A man who 'makes' an ounce of seed
requires six tables, 8 feet by 4, for his cages; and as some men make
thirty-five ounces, chambers of great size are necessary for the
accommodation of their worms; but breeders to so large an extent as this
are the princes of the trade. As we passed a farmhouse surrounded by
mulberry trees and vineyards, my companion informed me that the farmer
was his partner in worms and wine both, and that the wine promised to be
the better speculation this year, for the fruit was in immense
abundance. I saw afterwards that, at the time of vintage, grapes sold
for pressing at from 6 to 10 francs the hundred kilos, while 12 and 13
francs was the price in 1863, and that in some districts of the Drôme
the owners of the presses had not barrels enough for even the first
pressing.
The great want of wood on the hills in whose neighbourhood we now found
ourselves, attracted attention in the time of Louis XIV., and that
sovereign passed severe laws for the protection of the forests that
still remained. As usual, the mere severity of the laws made them fail
of their object. Banishment and the galleys were the punishment for
unauthorised cutting of forest trees, and death if fire were used. There
is a paper in the _Journal de Physique_ of 1789,[96] on the
disappearance of the forests of Dauphiné, pointing out that when the
woods are removed from the sides of mountains, the soil soon follows,
and the district becomes utterly valueless. The writer traced the
mischief to the emancipation of serfs, and the consequent formation of
_communes_, where each man could do that which was right in his own
eyes.
At any rate, whatever the reason, nothing can be conceived more bare
than the dun-coloured rounded hills between the town of Die and the Col
de Vassieux, towards which we were making our way. The whole face of the
country had the same parched look, and the soil seemed to be composed
entirely of small stones, without any signs of moisture even in the
watercourses. The Col de Vassieux is not much more than 4,000 feet high,
and forms a saddle between the Pic de S. Genix (5,450 feet) and the But
de l'Aiglette (5,200 feet). A new foot-road has been made to the Col,
with many windings; and great care has been taken to plant the sides of
the hill with oak and hazel; so that already there is some appearance of
coppice, and in the course of time there will be shade by the way--a
luxury for which we longed in vain. The lower ground was covered with
little scrubs of box, and with lavender, dwarfed and dry; but near the
summit of the Col the lavender became vigorous and luxuriant, and
carpeted the hillside with a rich abundance of blue, tempting us more
than once to lie down and roll on the fragrant bed; though some of the
older roots were not sufficiently yielding to make that performance as
satisfactory as it might have been. This lavender is highly prized by
the silkworm-keepers of Die, its bushy heads being almost exclusively
used for the worms to spin their cocoons in.
When we reached the top of the Col, Liotir confessed that he did not
know which way to turn, and we agreed to follow the path till we should
find some one to direct us. There was a farmhouse at no great distance,
and thither we bent our steps; but the sole inhabitant could give no
assistance, and, in default of information, Liotir generously proposed
to treat me to a bottle of wine, over which we might discuss our further
proceedings. The state of fever, however, to which the garlic and the
dirt of Die had brought me, made it seem impossible to eat or drink
anything; so I suggested instead that I should treat him, and that
seemed to be rather what he had meant by his proposal. Nothing much came
of our discussion, and we marched on hot and faint for an hour more,
when a casual man told us that our straight line to the _Foire de
Fondeurle_ lay across the plain on our left hand, and up a most
objectionable-looking hill beyond, thickly covered with brushwood and
showing no signs of a path.
As we crossed the plain, there was still the same total absence of
water, and we reached the bottom of the hill in a state of mind and body
which rebelled against the exertion of struggling with the sand and
shingle and brushwood. Liotir thought it was useless to attempt it with
no hope of water, and I held much the same view, only it was impossible
really to think of giving it up. When at last we had surmounted all the
difficulties which beset us, and stood on the highest point which had so
far been in sight, we found ourselves on the edge of a vast plain of
parched grass, with nothing to guide us in one direction rather than
another. There was no human being in sight, no sign of water, nor any
particle of shade; nothing but grass, brown and monotonous, with white
cliffs miles away at the extremity of the plain. This was evidently the
_Foire de Fondeurle_, and in it somewhere lay the glacière, if only we
could make out in which direction to begin to traverse the plain. In
the earlier part of this century, a very famous fair was held on this
wild and out-of-the-way table-land, to which many thousands of horses
and mules and cattle of various kinds were brought from all quarters;
but the fair has fallen off so much, that the man who had turned us up
the last hill said there were only fourteen head of cattle in 1863, and
very few of those were sold. M. Héricart de Thury describes this plain
as lying in the calcareous sub-Alpine range of the south-east of France.
The woods here terminate at a height of 5,147 feet above the sea, and
the _Foire de Fondeurle_ lies immediately above this point.
At last we made a bold dash across the plain, and after a time came upon
some sheep, standing in a thick row, with their heads thrust under a low
bank which afforded a little shade; and at no great distance from them
sat the shepherd. He was a cripple, and his clothes were something worse
than rags. He offered us a portion of the water he had in a
detestable-looking skin; but he assured us it was quite warm, and had
not been good to begin with, so we did not try it, though we were
thirsty enough to have hailed a muddy pool with delight. Our new
acquaintance knew nothing of the glacière, but he belonged himself to
the Chalêt of Fondeurle, and as that was the only house on the whole
plain, he told us to make for it. The surface of the plain seemed to
have fallen through in many places, forming larger and smaller pits with
steep sides of limestone. These were often of the size of a large field,
and, as the deeper of them required circumvention, the shepherd told us
that we must follow the line of little cairns which we should find here
and there on our way, the only guide across the plain. He could not be
sure himself in what direction the châlet lay; but if we kept to a
certain tortuous line, we should come to it in time.
The way proved to be so very long, that we doubted whether such a
consummation of our wishes would ever arrive: but at length, in a small
dip at the farthest extremity of the plain, we saw the châlet, and, what
was much more to us, saw a little run of water, carried from the rising
ground by wooden pipes. It will be well for any future visitor to the
châlet to go very warily, and to intrench himself in a strong position
when he sees half-a-dozen huge dogs like black and white bears come out
to attack him. Liotir had a stout stick, and I had a formidable ice-axe;
and, moreover, we fortunately secured a wall in our rear: but with all
this the dogs were nearly too much for us, and Liotir was pressing me
earnestly to chop at the ringleader's head, when a man came and called
off 'Dragon,' and the others then dispersed. The new-comer wished to
know our business, but, without satisfying his curiosity, we rushed to
the water-trough, and drank and used in washing an amount of water which
he evidently grudged us. Then we were able to tell him that our business
was something to eat for Liotir, and a guide to the glacière; though I
trembled when I suggested the latter, for, after all our labours, I had
a sort of fear that the cave would prove a myth. On this point the man
cleared away all doubts at once,--we could certainly have a guide, as
the _patron_ would be sure to let one of them go with us. As to food,
there was more doubt, for the master was not yet at home, and his wife
would not be able to give us an answer without consulting him. The wife
confirmed this statement: they saw very few strangers, and did not
profess to supply food to people crossing the plain. I assured her that
we intended to pay well for anything she could let us have, but she
merely rejoined that they did not keep an auberge; however, her husband
would be home some time in the course of the afternoon--it was now about
half-past twelve--and she could ask his opinion on the subject. But
Liotir objected that he was meanwhile dying of hunger, and the monsieur
of thirst which only milk or cream could assuage; he suggested that some
one should be sent to look for the husband, and obtain his permission
for us to be fed. To this she assented, very dubiously, and with a
constrained air, as if there were some mysterious reason why the
presence of strangers was peculiarly unacceptable on that particular
afternoon. At any rate, she said when pressed, she thought there could
be no harm in our entering the châlet and sitting down on a bench, where
we should be sheltered from the sun.
Here accordingly we sat, more or less patiently, till the master himself
appeared. He had no welcome for us; but he was willing that we should
eat some of his black bread, and try his wine. Liotir begged for cheese,
and the wife was told she might supply cheese of two kinds, and also
cream, for the monsieur evidently was _malade_ and could not swallow
wine. The cream and the black bread were delicious; but still the
horrors of Die hung about me, and I could only dispose of such a small
amount, that Liotir waxed funny, and told me it would never do for me to
die there, as there was not earth enough to scrape a grave in on the
whole plain. Then, being a practical man, he declared he should like to
contract for my keep, and thought he could afford to do it at very small
cost to me, and still leave a fair margin for himself. He thought it
right to make up for my want of appetite; and so, in addition to his own
share, he took in an exemplary manner the share of wine which I should
have taken, had I been a man like himself. The master of the châlet sat
on the family bed, smoking silently and sullenly; and as soon as Liotir
had come to an end of his second bottle, he proposed to accompany us
himself to the cave, as he doubted whether any of his men knew the way,
and he was sure they were all busy. When I came to pay his wife for what
we had consumed, I administered thanks as well as money; to which she
sternly rejoined, 'Who pays need not give thanks;' and to that surly
view she held, in spite of my attempts to soften her down. There was,
after all, much force in what she said, under the circumstances. They
had given us no welcome, nothing but mere food, and all they expected in
return was a due amount of money; thanks were a mockery in their eyes.
The cavern was reached in a few minutes, when once we got away from the
châlet. Two large pits, formed apparently by the subsidence of the
surface, lay in a line about east and west, and there proved to be an
underground communication between them. From this tunnel, as it were, a
long low archway led to a broad slope of chaotic blocks of stone, down
which we scrambled by the aid of such light as our candles afforded. The
roof of this inner cave was horizontal for some distance, and then
suddenly descended in a grand wall; and in consequence of a series of
such inverted steps, the cave never assumed any great height. The whole
length of the slope was 190 feet, and its greatest breadth about 140
feet; but the breadth varied very much. Half-way down the slope the ice
commenced, fitfully at first, and afterwards in a tolerably continuous
sheet. The most careless explorer could not have failed to notice the
polygonal figures stamped upon its surface. They were larger and bolder
than any I had seen before; and the prismatic nuts into which the ice
broke, when cut with the axe, were of course in proportion larger than
in the previous caves. The signs of thaw, too, were unmistakeable.
Though the upper surface of the earth had seemed to be utterly devoid of
moisture of any kind, large drops fell freely from the roof of the
cave,[97] and the ice itself was wet. The _patron_ said there was no ice
whatever in the winter months, and that from June to September was the
time at which alone it could be found. He declined to explain how it was
that we found it so evidently in a state of general thaw in the very
height of its season. To give us some idea of the climate of the plain
in winter, he informed us that the snow lay for long up to the top of
the door of his châlet.
There were in all four columns of ice in the cave, only two of which
were of any considerable size. One of these was peculiarly striking from
the very large grain which its structure displayed; it measured 19 feet
across the base, being flat towards the extremity of the cave, and round
towards the entrance. Three thermometers in various parts of the
glacière gave all the same temperature, namely, a fraction under 33° F.:
a rough French thermometer gave 1/2° C. The extreme wall of the cavern
was completely covered by a layer of stalagmitic material, and some of
the forms the substance assumed were sufficiently striking. In contact
with the wall, though standing clear of it in parts where the wall fell
inwards, stood a thick round column of the same material, shaped like
the ordinary ice-columns of the glacières, with a cavity near the base,
and in all ways following the usual laws of such columns. Considering
that I had observed a layer of limestone-paste collecting on one of the
ice-columns of the Glacière of La Genollière, I could not help imagining
that this stalagmitic column had been originally moulded on a norm of
that description. It had a girth of 12 feet in the part where we were
able to pass the tape round it. Its surface was smooth; but when we
drove a hole through this, with much damage to the _pic_ of my axe, we
found that the interior was in a crystalline form.
There was, on the whole, very little to be seen in the glacière. Had it
been my first experience of an ice-cave, it would doubtless have seemed
very remarkable, as it did to Liotir, who, by the way, had steadily
disbelieved the possibility of natural ice in summer except in the
glaciers; but as I had now seen so many, several of them much more
wonderful than this, I did not care to stay longer than was absolutely
necessary for measurements and investigation. Besides, the food of
Dauphiné rather takes the energy and love of adventure out of an
unaccustomed visitor.
Without long delay, then, we bade farewell to the _patron_, not
returning to the inhospitable châlet, and started on our way for Die,
each carrying a large block of ice slung in a network of string.
Liotir's purpose was to convince some mysterious female friend that he
really had seen ice in summer, within five or six hours of Die; and
mine, to apply the ice to the butter which I had specially ordered the
landlady to have ready for me, that so I might be able to get through
the night, and leave Die by the diligence the first thing next morning.
It was remarkable how well the ice bore the great heat. For long the
bulk of the masses we carried seemed scarcely to diminish; and if it had
not been for a course of heavy falls as we descended through the
brushwood, we should have succeeded in getting a large proportion of it
safely to Die. The precision of the prismatic structure also showed
itself in a very marked manner; and when we came to a crisis of thirst,
which happened at shorter and shorter intervals as the afternoon wore
on, we separated the prisms with our fingers from the edges of the ice
without any difficulty, and made ourselves more hot and thirsty by
eating them.
When we arrived at the farmhouse at the Col de Vassieux, we reaped full
benefit from our ice. The wine, which had been hot and heavy and
unpalatable in the morning, when we had tried it unmixed, became
delightfully refreshing when disguised with an abundance of water and
sugar and ice; and Liotir found that contracting for my keep at a low
rate would not, after all, secure him the comfortable income he had
before calculated. After this refreshment, he became communicative, and
told me he had served seven years in the French army, three of which
were spent in working on railways. He had fought the Italian campaign,
and was full of details of the battle of Solferino, on which occasion
his _bataillon_ was led on by the Emperor in person. According to his
account, four _bataillons_ were drawn up for the assault of a tower, and
when the first advanced it was swept away to a man. The second met with
a like fate, and Liotir was in the third. His officers had all been
killed, and a corporal was in command. The Emperor rode up and called to
them to advance as far as he advanced. This was about a hundred yards;
and then, after halting them for a moment, the Emperor cried, '_Allez,
mes enfants! nous ne sommes pas tous perdus!'_ sending the fourth
_bataillon_ close upon their heels. In answer to my question, Liotir
said, slowly and solemnly, that he did not think the Emperor was under
fire; a few dropping shots reached them while he was yet addressing
them, but he believed the Emperor Napoleon was not in the fire at
Solferino. I took the opportunity of asking whether he was green on that
occasion, as Mr. Kinglake believes that he is in times of personal
danger; but my companion utterly scouted the idea, and declared that he
saw no man through all that day so cool and capable as the Emperor. Pale
he undoubtedly was, but that was his habit. Like all other French
soldiers with whom I have had much conversation, Liotir complained of
the army arrangements in the matter of food; on all other points he was
most amiable, but when he spoke of the extortions of the _cantinière_ he
completely lost his temper. At a _café_, the soldiers could get their
cup for 15 centimes, or 20 with liqueur; whereas the _cantinière_
charged a franc, and gave them very bad coffee. Wine, too, which would
cost them 60 centimes the kilo in the town, was valued at 2 francs by
their grasping enemy. He had an idea that English soldiers are allowed
to take their whole pay in money, and spend it as they will; whereas the
French foot-soldier, according to his account, gets 25 centimes a day in
money, and has everything found except coffee. A young trooper at
Besançon was very eloquent on this subject. He represented himself as a
man of small appetite and a gay spirit; he could well live on very
little solid food, and yet he had as much deducted from his pay on that
account as anyone in the army--as much, for instance, he groaned, as a
certain stout old warrior who was then reposing on a corn-bin. If he
could have drawn all his pay in money, and lived on almost nothing for
food, he would have had abundance of sous for cards and tobacco; and
what a career would that be!
The blocks of ice were by this time becoming rather small; and as we had
now once more reached the region of lavender, we cut a large quantity
and wrapped the ice in it, and thus protected it from further thaw. For
some time before arriving at the farm where my companion's partner
lived, he indulged in praises of the wine which their vineyard produced,
and assurances of the safety with which it would perform a journey to
England. He urged its excellent _bouquet_, and gave me a card of prices
which certainly seemed marvellously reasonable. Finally, he proposed to
join me at a bottle of white _muscat_, from the farmer's _cave_, in
order that I might have an opportunity of seeing how true was his
account of the wine. We seated ourselves accordingly in the farmyard,
and drank a bottle of delightful wine at 65 centimes the bottle, clear
and sparkling, and with a strong muscat flavour. Liotir combined with it
intoxication of a different kind, and showed unmistakeable signs of his
determination to take another member of the farmer's household into
partnership,--the mysterious friend, in fact, for whose astonishment the
ice was intended. The white muscat, they told me, would not keep over
the year; but they had a wine at the same price which they highly
recommended, and warranted to keep for a considerable number of years.
Liotir was very anxious that we should have a bottle of this, for he was
confident that I should give them an order if I once tasted it; but we
had been in at the death of so many bottles that day, that I declined to
try the _muscat rosat_. I have since had a hundred _litres_ sent over by
Liotir, and find it very satisfactory. It has a rich, clear, port-wine
colour, sparkling, and with the true _frontignac_ flavour.
The effect of the wine on Liotir was peculiar. In the earlier part of
the walk, he had never seen Algeria; but after half a bottle of muscat,
he had spent six months in that country, and he enlivened the remainder
of the way with many details of his experiences there. We reached Die
about half-past seven, and the arrival of real ice was hailed as a
marvel. Although I had been sent off so unhesitatingly by the landlord
in the morning, it seemed that they none of them knew what a glacière
meant. They had determined that we should never reach the _Foire de
Fondeurle_, and that if we did, we should find nothing there to repay
our toil. As I sat at an open window afterwards, Liotir's voice was to
be heard holding forth in a neighbouring café upon the wonders of the
day; and among the crowd which is a normal condition of the evening
streets of Die, the words _Fondeurle_, _Vassieux_, _Anglais_, _glace_,
&c., showed what the general subject of conversation was.
The landlady had obeyed orders, and was provided with butter and bread.
The tea was served in an open earthenware pitcher, with the spout at
right angles with the handle. There was no cup; but the woman remarked
that if monsieur was particular about that, he could turn out the sugar
and use the basin, which he did. The milk had a basin to itself; but it
had offered so large and tempting a surface to the flies of the town,
that it remained untouched. The knife and spoon were imbued with
ineradicable garlic, and my own trusty clasp-knife was the only weapon I
could use for all table purposes. If it had not been for the ice and the
lavender, I think I should never have got away from Die. The former made
it possible to eat some bread-and-butter; and of the latter I made a
sort of respirator for nose and mouth, which modified the odour of cocks
and hens prevailing in the house.
Next morning the diligence was to start early, and, in preparation for
the six hours' drive, I ordered two eggs to be boiled for breakfast. As
the first proved to have been boiled in tepid water, I requested the
landlady to boil the second afresh, which she did in a manner that may
partly account for the observed fact that the very eggs of some towns
taste of garlic. There was household soup simmering on the fire, reeking
with onion and garlic, and many other abominations; and, as if it was
quite the right and usual thing to do, she slipped the unfortunate egg
into this, and left it there to be cooked. After all, garlic must be
cheap as an article of food, for the whole bill amounted only to 7-1/2
francs.
This was the last glacière on my list. It was quite as well that such
was the case; for the trials of Dauphiné had been too great, and I
should scarcely have been inclined to face further adventures of a like
kind.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 82: T. xxx. p. 157.]
[Footnote 83: Vol. ii. p. 80.]
[Footnote 84: Jean de Choul, _De variâ Quercûs Historia_, 1555.]
[Footnote 85: Gollut, Mém. des Bourg. de la Franche Comté, p. 227.]
[Footnote 86: Paradin de Cuyseaulx, Annales de Bourgougne, 1566, p. 14.]
[Footnote 87: Several churches in Vienne are used as foundries and
workshops. S. Peter's church was an iron-foundry four or five years ago,
and is in future to be a museum--a considerable improvement upon its
former use. The grand old church of S. John in Dijon has been rescued
from the hands which made it a depôt of flour, and is being restored to
its original purposes: but such instances are very rare.]
[Footnote 88: This family took its rise in Dauphiné, before the district
had that name: the chief place of the family was the château of
Beaumont, near Grenoble.]
[Footnote 89: The final victory was near Aquæ Sextiæ (Aix).]
[Footnote 90: The cultivation of the silkworm mulberry will probably die
out before very long. The silk crop has lately failed in Dauphiné, and a
commission for enquiring into the relative merits of different worms has
determined that the Senegal worm produces 633 millegrammes of silk,
while the worm, fed on the mulberry produces only 290. The first
mulberry trees in France were planted in that part of Provence which is
enclosed by Dauphiné.
The Bishop of Nismes has lately issued a pastoral letter, commanding
prayers to be offered up for the cessation of the malady affecting the
silkworms in his own and the surrounding dioceses.]
[Footnote 91: The feudal buildings were razed by order of Richelieu, but
the tower remains a landmark for the valley. Three hundred _détenus_
were confined here after the _coup d'état_ of December 2, 1851.]
[Footnote 92: The origin of the name Dauphin seems to be lost in
obscurity, though of comparatively recent date. The Counts d'Albon took
the title first in 1140, and their estates were not called the Terra
Dalphini, or Dalphinatus, till 1291. The first Dauphins bore a castle,
not a dolphin.]
[Footnote 93: The old historian Gollut speaks of the _clairets_ and
_clerets_ as red wines.]
[Footnote 94: The 'Times' of Oct. 4, 1864, stated that almost no raw
silk was offered at the last markets at Valence and Romans, and but for
foreign supplies the mills must have been closed. The small amount that
was offered sold at from 68 to 72 francs the kilogramme, while foreign
cocoons from Calamata fetched only 22 francs at Marseilles.]
[Footnote 95: Pausanias says that silkworms are apt to die of
indigestion, the cocoons lying heavy on the stomach.]
[Footnote 96: T. xxxv. pp. 244, &c.]
[Footnote 97: M. de Thury calculated that the thickness of the roof at
the lower part of the cave was about 60 feet of rock. He also noticed
the peculiar structure of the ice, which afforded great surprise to his
party. It was discovered by means of the coloured rays which were thrown
into the different parts of the cave, when some one had casually placed
a torch in a cavity in one of the columns.]
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