CHAPTER I.

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THE ROOF OF FRANCE

OR

THE CAUSSES OF THE LOZÈRE

BY

M. BETHAM-EDWARDS

To M. SADI CARNOT.

THIS VOLUME, THE THIRD OF MY PUBLISHED TRAVELS IN FRANCE, IS INSCRIBED

WITH ALL RESPECT TO HER HONOURED PRESIDENT.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY

PART I.

_MY FIRST JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES_.

CHAP.

I. FROM LE PUY TO MENDE

II. MENDE

III. A GLIMPSE OF THE CAUSSES

IV. ON THE TOP OF THE ROOF

V. RODEZ AND AURILLAC

VI. THE LAND OF THE BURON

PART II.

_MY SECOND JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES._

I. THROUGH THE MORVAN

II. THROUGH THE MORVAN (_continued_)

III. FROM LYONS TO AVIGNON BY THE RHÔNE

IV. AVIGNON AND ORANGE

V. LE VIGAN

VI. NANT (AVEYRON)

VII. MILLAU (AVEYRON)

VIII. FROM MENDE TO ST. ÉNIMIE

IX. ST. ÉNIMIE

X. THE CAÑON OF THE TARN

XI. SHOOTING THE RAPIDS

XII. LE ROZIER

XIII. MONTPELLIER-LE-VIEUX

XIV. MONTPELLIER-LE-VIEUX (_continued_)

XV. LE ROZIER TO MILLAU AND RODEZ

XVI. RODEZ, VIC-SUR-CÈRE REVISITED.--A BREAKFAST ON THE BANKS OF THE

SAÔNE

INTRODUCTORY.

It is upon this occasion my rare and happy privilege to introduce the

reader to something absolutely new. How many English-speaking tourists

have found their way to the Roof of France--in other words, the ancient

Gévaudan, the romantic department of the Lozère? How many English--or

for the matter of that French travellers either--have so much as heard

of the Causses, [Footnote: From calx, lime] those lofty tablelands of

limestone, groups of a veritable archipelago, once an integral whole,

now cleft asunder, forming the most picturesque gorges and magnificent

defiles; offering contrasts of scenery as striking as they are sublime,

and a phenomenon unique in geological history? On the plateau of the

typical Causse, wide in extent as Dartmoor, lofty as Helvellyn, we

realize all the sombreness and solitude of the Russian steppe. These

stony wastes, aridity itself, yet a carpet of wild-flowers in spring,

are sparsely peopled by a race having a peculiar language, a

characteristic physique, and primitive customs. Here are laboriously

cultivated oats, rye, potatoes--not a blade of wheat, not an apple-tree

is to be discerned; no spring or rivulet freshens the parched soil. The

length and severity of the winter are betokened by the trees and poles

seen at intervals on either side of the road. But for such precautions,

even the native wayfarer would be lost when six feet of snow cover the

ground. Winter lasts eight months, and the short summer is tropical.

But descend these grandiose passes, dividing one limestone promontory

from another--go down into the valleys, each watered by lovely rivers,

and we are, as if by magic, transported into the South! The peach, the

almond, the grape ripen out of doors; all is smilingness, fertility,

and grace. The scenery of the Causses may be described as a series of

exhilarating surprises, whilst many minor attractions contribute to the

stranger's enjoyment.

The affability, dignity, and uprightness of these mountaineers, their

freedom from vulgarity, subservience, or habits of extortion, their

splendid physique and great personal beauty, form novel experiences of

travel. The general character of the people--here I do not allude to

the 'Caussenard,' or dweller on the Causse alone, but to the Lozérien

as a type--may be gathered from one isolated fact. The summer sessions

of 1888 were what is called _assizes blanches_, there being not a

single cause to try. Such an occurrence is not unusual in this

department.

The Lozère, hitherto the Cinderella, poorest of the poor of French

provinces, is destined to become one of the richest. Not only the

Causses, but the Cañon du Tarn, may be regarded in the light of a

discovery by the tourist world. A few years ago the famous geographer,

Joanne, was silent on both. Chance-wise, members of the French Alpine

Club lighted upon this stupendous defile between the Causse de

Sauveterre and the Causse Méjean; their glorious find became noised

abroad, and now the Tarn is as a Pactolus flowing over golden sands--a

mine of wealth to the simple country folk around. The river, springing

from a cleft in the Lozère chain, winding its impetuous way, enriched

by many a mountain torrent, through the Aveyron, Tarn, and Garonne,

finally disemboguing into the Garonne, has lavished all its witchery on

its native place.

Every inch of the way between the little towns of St. Énimie and Le

Rozier is enchanted ground by virtue of unrivalled scenery. In time the

influx of tourists must make the river-side population rich. The sandy

bed of the Tarn must attain the preciousness of a building site near

Paris. This materialistic view of the question affords mixed feelings.

I have in mind the frugality of these country folks, their

laboriousness, their simple, upright, sturdy ways. I can but wish them

well, even at the price of terrible disenchantment. Instead of rustic

hostelries at St. Énimie, gigantic hotels after the manner of Swiss

tourist barracks; the solitude of the Causses broken by enthusiastic

tittle-tattle; tourist-laden flotillas bearing the ensign of Cook or

Gaze skimming the glassy waters of the majestically environed Tarn!

On the threshold of the Lozère, just outside the limits of the

department, lies another newly-discovered marvel, more striking,

stranger than the scenery of the Causses--as beautiful, though in quite

another way, as the Cañon or Gorge of the Tarn. This is the fantastic,

the unique, the eerie Cité du Diable, or Montpellier-le-Vieux, with its

citadel, ramparts, watch-towers, amphitheatres, streets, arcades,

terraces--a vast metropolis in the wilderness, a Babylon untenanted

from the beginning, a Nineveh fashioned only by the great builder

Nature. Little wonder that the peasants formerly spoke of the dolomite

city, when forced to speak at all, with bated breath, and gave it so

ill-omened a name. The once uncanny, misprized, even accursed city,

since surnamed Montpellier-le-Vieux, from a fancied resemblance to

Montpellier, is now very differently regarded by its humble owners.

Literally discovered in 1882, its first explorers being two members of

the French Alpine Club, the Cité du Diable is already bringing in a

revenue. French tourists, who first came by twos and threes, may now be

counted by the hundred a month during the holiday season. Alert to the

unmistakable rat-tat-tat of Dame Fortune at their front-doors, the good

folks are preparing for the welcome invasions to come. The auberge is

being transformed into an inn, roads are improving, a regular service

of guides has been organized, and all charges for guides, carriages,

and mules have been regulated by tariff. It is hardly possible to

exaggerate the weird fascination and eldritch charm of this once

dreaded, ill-omened place. Only one pen--that, alas! at rest for

ever--could have done justice to such a theme. In the hands of the

great Sand, Montpellier-le-Vieux might have afforded us a chef d'œuvre

to set beside 'La Ville Noire' or the adorable 'Jeanne.'

Fresh and interesting as is a sojourn on the Roof of France, a name in

verity accorded to the Lozère, I have not restricted myself within such

limits. The climbing up and the getting down offer many a racy and

novel experience. I have given not only the middle of my journey, but

the beginning and the end. Those of my country-folk who have traversed

the picturesque little land of the French Morran, who have steamed from

Lyons to Avignon, made their way by road through the Gard and the

Aveyron, and sojourned in the cheese-making region of the Cantal--I

fancy their number is not legion--may pass over my chapters thus

headed. Had I one object in view only, to sell my book, I must have

reversed the usual order of things, and put the latter half in place of

the first. I prefer the more methodical plan, and comfort myself with

the reflection that France, excepting Brittany, Normandy, the Pyrenees,

the Riviera and the Hotel du Jura, Dijon, is really much less familiar

to English travellers than Nijni-Novgorod or Jerusalem. I no more

encountered anyone British born during my two journeys in the Lozère

than I did a beggar. This privileged corner of the earth enjoys an

absolute immunity from excursionists and mendicants. Strong

enthusiasts, lovers of France, moved to tread in my footsteps, will

hardly accuse me of exaggerating either the scenery, the good qualities

and good looks of the people, or the flawless charm of Lozérien travel.

In years to come I may here be found too eulogistic of all classes with

whom I came in contact, who shall say? A long period of increasing

prosperity, a perpetually swelling stream of holiday-makers, may by

degrees change, and perhaps ultimately pervert, the character of the

peasants, so glowingly delineated in the following pages. Let us hope

that such a contingency is at least very far off, and that many another

may bring home the same cordial recollections of the boatmen of the

Tarn, the aubergistes and voituriers of the Causses, the peasant owners

of the Cité du Diable. I need hardly add that I give a mere record of

travel. The geology of the strange district visited, its rich and

varied flora, its wealth of prehistoric remains, are only touched upon.

For further information the reader is referred to other writers. On the

subject of agriculture I have occasionally dwelt at more length, being

somewhat of a farmeress, as Arthur Young styles it, and having now

studied a considerable portion of France from an agricultural point of

view. The noble dictum of 'that wise and honest traveller'--thus aptly

does our great critic describe the Suffolk squire--'the magic of

property turns sands to gold,' will be here as amply illustrated as in

my works on Eastern and Western France.

One word more. No one must undertake a journey in the Lozère with a

scantily-furnished purse. A well-known artist lately contributed a

paper to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in which he set forth--in the

strangest English surely ever penned by man, woman, or child--the

facilities and delights of cycling in France on seven francs a day. Why

anyone in his sober senses should dream of travelling abroad on seven

francs a day passes my comprehension. Money means to the traveller not

only health, enjoyment, comfort, but knowledge. Why should we expect,

moreover, to be wholesomely housed and fed in a foreign country upon a

sum altogether inadequate to the tourist's needs at home? The little

wayside inns in out-of-the-way places mentioned by me were indeed very

cheap, but taking into account horses, carriages and guides, the

exploration of the Causses, the Cañon du Tarn and Montpellier-le-Vieux

will certainly cost twenty-five francs per diem, this outlay being

slightly reduced in the case of two or more persons. Of course, when

not absolutely making excursions, when settling down for days or weeks

in some rural retreat, expenses will be moderate enough as far as inns

are concerned. But carriage-hire is costly all the world over, and the

inquiring traveller must have his carriage. There will also be a daily

call upon his purse in the matter of pourboire to guides and

conductors. A pound a day is by no means too liberal an allowance for

the wise bent upon having the best, of everything. Those content to put

up with the worst may exist upon the half.

THE ROOF OF FRANCE

PART I.

_MY FIRST JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES._

CHAPTER I.

FROM LE PUY TO MENDE.

The traveller in France will not unseldom liken his fortunes to those

of Saul the son of Kish, who, setting forth in search of his father's

asses, found a kingdom; or, to use a homelier parable, will compare his

case to that of the donkey between two equally-tempting bundles of hay.

Such, at least, was my luck when starting for my annual French tour in

1887. I had made up my mind to see something of the Lozère and the

Cantal, settling down in two charming spots respectively situated in

these departments, when, fortunately for myself, I was tempted

elsewhere. Instead of rusticating for a few weeks in the country nooks

alluded to, there observing leisurely the condition of the peasants and

of agriculture generally, I took a contrary direction, thus ultimately

becoming acquainted with one of the most romantic and least-known

regions of Central France.

'Since you intend to visit the Lozère' wrote a correspondent to me,

'why not explore the Causses? The scenery is, I believe, very

remarkable, and the geology deeply interesting.'

The Causses? the Causses? I had travelled east, west, north, south on

French soil for upwards of thirteen years, yet the very name was new to

me. Having once heard of the Causses, it was, of course, quite certain

that I should hear of them twice.

Meeting by chance a fellow-countryman at Dijon, as enthusiastic a lover

of French scenery as myself, and comparing our experiences, he suddenly

asked:

'But the Causses? Have you seen the wonderful Causses of the Lozère?'

It was a curious and highly-characteristic fact that both my informants

should be English, thus bearing out the assertion of an old French

writer, author of the first real tourist's guide for his own country,

that we are 'le peuple le plus curieux de l'Europe'; he adds, 'le plus

observateur,' perhaps a compliment rather paid to Arthur Young than to

the English as a nation. The work I refer to ('Itinéraire descriptif de

la France,' by Vaysse de Villiers, 1816) was evidently written under

the inspiration of our great agriculturist.

From French friends and acquaintances I could learn absolutely nothing

of the Causses. The region was a _terra incognita_ to one and all. I

might every whit as well have asked my way to Swift's Liliputia or

Cloud Cuckoo Town, and the Island of Cheese of his precursor, the witty

Lucian. People _had_ heard of l'Ecosse; oh yes! but why an Englishwoman

should seek information about Scotland in the heart of France, they

could not quite make out.

There was nothing for me to do but trust to happy chance and the

guide-book, and set out; and as a stray swallow is the precursor of

myriads, so no sooner had I got an inkling of one marvel than I was

destined to hear of half a dozen.

Wonderful the scenery of the Causses, still more wonderful the cañon or

gorge of the Tarn and the dolomite city of Montpellier-le-Vieux, so I

now learned.

There were difficulties in the way of seeing all these. I had been

unexpectedly detained at Dijon. It was the second week in September,

and the Roof of France--in other words, the department of the

Lozère--is ofttimes covered with snow before that month is out. My

travelling companion was a young French lady, permitted by her parents

to travel with me, and for whose health, comfort and safety I felt

responsible. It seemed doubtful whether this year at least I should be

able to realize my new-formed project, and penetrate into the solitudes

of the Causses. However, I determined to try.

My journey begins at the ancient town of Le Puy, former capital of the

Vivarais, chef-lieu of the department of the Haute Loire, and, it is

unnecessary to say, one of the most curious towns in the world. We had

journeyed thither by way of St. Étienne, and were bound for Mende, the

little mountain-girt bishopric and capital of the Lozère.

We had to be up betimes, as our train for Langogne, corresponding with

the Mende diligence, started at five in the morning. It might have been

midnight when we quitted the Hôtel Gamier--would that I could say a

single word in its favour!--so blue black the frosty heavens, so

brilliant the stars, the keen September air biting sharply.

More fortunate than a friend whose pocket was lately picked of

twenty-five pounds at the railway-station here, I waited whilst the

terribly slow business of ticket-taking and registration was got over,

thankful enough that I had breakfasted overnight--that is to say, had

made tea at three o'clock in the morning. Not a cup of milk, not a

crust of bread, would that inhospitable inn offer its over-charged

guests before setting out. As I have nothing but praise to bestow upon

the hostelries of the Lozère and the Cantal, I must give vent to a

well-deserved malediction here.

By slow degrees the perfect day dawned, a glorious sun rising in a

cloudless sky. We now discovered that our travelling companions were

two sisters--the one, an admirable specimen of the belle villageoise,

in her charming lace coiffe; the other, equally good-looking, but as

much vulgarized by her Parisian costume as Lamartine's sea-heroine,

Graziella, when she had exchanged her contadine's dress for modern

millinery. These pretty and becoming head-dresses of Auvergne, made

often of the richest lace and ribbon, may now be described as

survivals, the bonnet, as well as the chimney-pot hat, making the round

of the civilized world.

From Le Puy to Langogne, viâ Langeac, we traversed a region familiar to

many a tourist as he has journeyed from Clermont-Ferrand to Nîmes. The

shifting scenes of gorge and ravine are truly of Alpine grandeur,

whilst the railway is one of those triumphs of engineering skill to

which Alpine travellers are also accustomed.

One remark only I make by the way. The sarcasms levelled against the

system of peasant proprietorship, that would be cruel were they not

silly, are here silenced for once and for all. Nothing can be more

self-evident than the beneficial result of small holdings to the State,

wholly setting aside the superiority of the peasant-owner's position,

moral, social and material, to that of the English farm labourer. Even

a prejudiced observer must surely be touched by the indomitable

perseverance, the passionate love of the soil, evinced by the small

cultivators in the valley of the Allier, and, indeed, witnessed

throughout every stage of our day's journey.

Wherever exists a patch of cultivable soil, we see crops of rye,

buckwheat and potatoes, some of these plots being only a few yards

square, and to all appearances inaccessible. In many places earth has

been carried by the basketful to narrow, lofty ledges of rock, an

astounding instance of toil, hopefulness and patience. No matter the

barrenness of the spot, no matter its isolation or the difficulty of

approach, wherever root or seed will grow, there the French peasant

owner plies hoe and spade, and gradually causes the wilderness to

blossom as the rose.

So true it is, as Arthur Young wrote a hundred years ago, 'Give a man

secure possession of a black rock, and he will turn it into a garden.'

A considerable proportion of the land hereabouts has been quite

recently laid under cultivation, and on every side we see bits of waste

being ploughed up.

At Langeac, a little junction between Le Puy and St. Georges d'Aurac,

we had a halt of over two hours, easily spent amid charming scenery.

The air is sweet and fresh, everyone is busy in the fields, and as we

saunter here and there, people look up from their work to greet us with

a smile of contentment and bonhomie. It is a scene of peace and homely

prosperity. A short railway jaunt to Langogne; a bustling breakfast at

the little restaurant; then begins the final packing of the diligence.

The crazy old berline looks as full as it can be before our four boxes

and numerous small packages are taken from the railway van, and the

group of bag and basket laden folks standing round, priests, nuns, and

commis-voyageurs, evidently waiting for a place. Surely room can never

be found for all these! Just then a French tourist came up and accosted

us, smiling ruefully.

'Ah!' he said, shaking his head with affected malice, 'just like you

English--you have secured the best places.'

True enough, the English when they travel are as the wise virgins, and

secure the best places. The French are as the foolish virgins, and

trust ofttimes to chance.

I had, of course, telegraphed from Le Puy the day before for two seats

in the coupé. Our interlocutor, an army surgeon, making a holiday trip

with his wife, was obliged to relinquish the third good place to

madame, placing himself beside the driver on the banquette. The little

disappointment over, we became the best of friends, a highly desirable

contingency in such terribly close quarters.

Once securely packed, we stood no more chance of being unpacked than

potted anchovies on their way from Nantes to Southampton. There we

were, and there perforce we must remain till we reached our

destination. To move a finger, to stir an inch, was out of the

question. Nothing short of physical torture for the space of six hours

seemed in store for us--for the three occupants of that narrow coupé,

like fashionable ladies of old,

'Close mewed in their sedans for fear of air.'

We could at least enjoy the selfish satisfaction of faring better than

our neighbours. The unlucky occupants inside were as short of

elbow-room as ourselves, and had not the enjoyment of the view; the

passengers of the banquette were literally perched on a knife-board,

whilst one old man, a cheery old fellow, supernumerary of the service,

hung mid-air on one side of the vehicle, literally sitting on nothing.

Like the Indian jugglers and the Light Princess of George Macdonald's

wonderful fairy-tale, he had found means to set at nought the law of

gravity.

There he hung, and as the sturdy horses set off at a fast trot, and we

were whirled round one sharp corner after another, I at first expected

to see him lose balance and fall with terrible risk to life and limb.

But we soon discovered that he had mastered the accomplishment of

sitting on air, and was as safe on his invisible seat as we on our hard

benches; old as he was, he seemed to glory in the exploit--exploit, it

must be allowed, of the first water.

Once fairly off, our own bodily discomforts were entirely forgotten, so

splendid the sunshine, so exhilarating the air, so romantic the

scenery. The forty miles' drive passed like a dream.

Our companion, like her husband, was full of health, spirits and

information. She could see nothing of the military surgeon but a pair

of neat, well-polished boots, as he sat aloft beside the driver; every

now and then she craned forward her neck with wifely solicitude and

interrogated the boots:

'Well, love, how do you get on?'

And the boots would make affectionate reply:

'As well as possible, my angel--and you?'

'We couldn't be better off,' answered the enthusiastic little lady

cheerily. Nor in one sense could we; earth could hardly show fairer or

more striking scenes than these highlands of the Lozère.

The first part of our way lay amid wild mountain passes, deep ravines,

dusky with pine and fir, lofty granite peaks shining like blocks of

diamond against an amethyst heaven. Alternating with such scenes of

savage magnificence are idyllic pictures, verdant dells and glades,

rivers bordered by alder-trees wending even course through emerald

pastures, or making cascade after cascade over a rocky bed. On little

lawny spaces about the sharp spurs of the Alps, we see cattle browsing,

high above, as if in cloudland. Excepting an occasional cantonnier at

work by the roadside, or a peasant woman minding her cows, the region

is utterly deserted. Tiny hamlets lie half hidden in the folds of the

hills or skirting the edges of the lower mountain slopes; none border

the way.

During the long winter these fine roads, winding between steep

precipices and abrupt rocks, are abandoned on account of the snow. The

diligence ceases to run, and letters and newspapers are distributed

occasionally by experienced horsemen familiar with the country and able

to trust to short cuts.

What the icy blasts of January are like on these stupendous heights we

can well conceive. At one point of our journey we reach an altitude

above the sea equal to that of the Puy de Dôme. This is the lofty

plateau of granitic formation called Le Palais du Roi, a portion of the

Margéride chain, and as the old writer before mentioned writes, 'la

partie la plus neigeuse de la route'--the snowiest bit of the road. On

this superb September day, although winter might be at hand, the

temperature was of an English July. As we travelled on, amid scenes of

truly Alpine grandeur and loveliness, the thought arose to my mind, how

little even the much-travelled English dream of the wealth of scenery

in France! Our cumbersome old diligence carried only French passengers.

Nowhere else in Europe does the English tourist find himself more

isolated from the common-place of travel.

Many of the landscapes now passed recall scenes in Algeria, especially

as we get within sight of the purple, porphyritic chain of the Lozère.

We gaze on undulations of delicate violet and gray, as in Kabylia,

whilst deep down below lie oases of valley and pasture, the dazzling

golden green contrasting, with the aerial hues of distant mountain and

cloud.

Nothing under heaven could be more beautiful than the shifting lights

and shadows on the remoter hills, or the crimson and rosy flush of

sunset on the nearer rocks; at our feet we see well-watered dales and

luxuriant meadows, whilst on the higher ground, here as in the valley

of the Allier, we have proofs of the astounding, the unimaginable

patience and laboriousness of peasant owners.

In many places rings of land have been cleared round huge blocks of

granite, the smaller stones, wrenched up, forming a fence or border,

whilst between the immovable, columnar masses of rock, potatoes, rye,

or other hardy crops, have been planted. Not an inch of available soil

is wasted. These scenes of mingled sternness and grace are not marred

by any eyesore: no hideous chimney of factory with its column of black

smoke, as in the delicious valleys of the Jura; no roar of millwheel or

of steam-engine breaks the silence of forest depths. The very genius of

solitude, the very spirit of beauty, broods over the woods and

mountains of the Lozère. The atmospheric effects are very varied and

lovely, owing to the purity of the air. As evening approaches, the vast

porphyry range before us is a cloud of purple and ruddy gold against

the sky. And what a sky! That warm, ambered glow recalls Sorrento. By

the time we wind down into the valley of the Lot night has overtaken

us. We dash into the little city too hungry and too tired, it must be

confessed, to think of anything else but of beds and dinner; both of

which, and of excellent quality, awaited us at the old-fashioned Hôtel

Chabert.

CHAPTER II.

MENDE.

Mende was the last but one of French bishoprics and chef-lieux to be

connected with the great highroads of railway.

That tardy piece of justice only remained due to St. Claude in the Jura

when, owing to the Republic, Mende obtained its first iron road. Much

time and fatigue will henceforth be spared the traveller by these new

lines of railway, now spreading like a network over every part of

France; yet who can but regret the supersession of the diligence--that

antiquated vehicle recalling the good old days of travel, when folks

journeyed at a jog-trot pace, seeing not only places, but people, and

being brought into contact with wholly new ideas and modes of life?

The benefits of the railway in the Lozère and the Jura are incalculable

from an economic point of view, to say nothing of the convenience and

comfort thereby placed within reach of all classes. It is an English

habit to rail at the lavish expenditure of the French Government.

Cavillers of this kind wholly lose sight of the tremendous strides made

during the last fifteen years in the matter of communication. Surely

money thus laid out is a justifiable expenditure on the part of any

State?

I lately revisited the Vendée after twelve years' absence. I found the

country absolutely transformed--new lines of railway intersecting every

part, increased commercial activity in the towns, improved agriculture

in rural districts, schools opened, buildings of public utility erected

on all sides-evidences of an almost incredible progress. In Anjou the

same rapid advance, social, intellectual, material, strikes the

traveller whose first acquaintance with that province was made, say,

fifteen years ago. Take Segré by way of example; compare its condition

in 1888 with the state of things before the Franco-Prussian War. And

this little town is one instance out of hundreds.

It was high time that something should be done for Mende. No town ever

suffered more from wolves and wolf-like enemies in human shape. Down

almost to our own day the depredations of wolves were frightful. The

old French traveller before cited, writing in 1816, speaks of the large

number of children annually devoured by these animals in the Lozère.

The notorious 'Bête du Gévaudan,' at an earlier period, was the terror

of the country. It is an exciting narrative, that of the gigantic

four-footed demon of mischief, how, after proving the scourge of the

country for years, desolating home after home, in all devouring no less

than a hundred old men, women, and children, he was at last caught in

1767 by a brave monster-destroying baron, the Hercules and the Perseus

of local story. The ravages of wild beasts were a trifle compared to

the enormities committed by human foes.

It is not my intention to do more than touch upon the religious wars of

the Cévennes. Those blood-stained chronicles have been given again and

again elsewhere. No one, however, can make a sojourn at Mende without

recalling the atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion, and

compared to which the excesses of the Jacquerie and the Terror sink

into insignificance. If any of my readers doubt this, let them turn to

the impartial pages of the eminent French historian, the late M. Henri

Martin; or, to take a shorter road to conviction, get up the history of

the Gévaudan, or of this same little town of Mende.

On a smaller scale, the horrors of the siege of Magdeburgh were here

repeated, the Tilly of the campaign being the Calvinist leader Merle.

Devastated in turn by Catholic and Protestant, Royalist and Huguenot,

Mende was taken by assault on Christmas Day, 1579, and during three

days given up to fire, pillage, and slaughter. A general massacre took

place; the cathedral was fired and partially destroyed, the bells,

thirteen in number--one of these called the 'Nonpareil,' and reputed

the most sonorous in Christendom--being melted down for cannon. All

that fiendish cruelty and the demon of destruction could do was done.

In vain Henry of Navarre tried to put down atrocities committed in his

name. A second time Merle possessed himself of Mende, only consenting

to go forth on payment of a large sum in gold.

The history of Mende is the history of Marvéjols, of one town after

another visited by the traveller in the Cévennes; and in the wake of

the burnings, pillagings and massacres of that horrible period follows

the more horrible period still of the guerilla warfare of the

Camisards, quelled by means of the rack, the stake, and the wheel.

The Revolution, be it ever remembered, abolished all these; torture

ended with the Ancien Régime; and, although M. Taine seems of opinion

that the new state of things could have been brought about by a few

gentlemen quietly discussing affairs in dress-coats and white gloves,

we read of no great social upheaval being thus bloodlessly effected. At

such times a spirit of lawlessness and vengeance will break loose

beyond the power of leaders to hold in check.

The approach to Mende is very fine, and the little city is most

romantically placed; above gray spires, slated roofs and verdant

valley, framing it in on all sides, rise bare, brown and purple

mountains.

The cathedral presents an incongruity. Its twin-towers, each crowned

with a spire, recall two roses on a single stem, the one full-blown,

beautiful, a floral paragon, the other withered, dwarfed, abortive.

The first towers over its brother by a third, and is a lovely specimen

of Gothic architecture in the period of later efflorescence. The second

is altogether unbeautiful, and we wonder why such a work should ever

have been undertaken at all. Far better to have left the cathedral

one-towered, as those of Sens and Auxerre.

The town itself would be pleasant enough if its ædiles were more alive

to the importance of sanitation. It never seems to occur to the

authorities in these regions to have the streets scoured and swept.

Just outside Mende is a delicious little mountain-path, commanding a

wondrous panorama: although this walk to the hermitage of St. Privât is

evidently the holiday-stroll of the inhabitants, accumulations of filth

lie on either side. [Footnote: The same remark might be made by a

Frenchman of the lanes near Hastings!] No one takes any notice. As

Mende has without doubt an important future before it, let us hope that

these drawbacks will not afflict travellers in years to come. The

little capital of the Lozère must by virtue of position become a

tourist centre; surely the townsfolk will at last wake up to the

importance of making their streets clean and wholesome.

To obtain the prettiest view of this charming, albeit tatterdemalion,

little city, we follow a walk bordered with venerable willows to the

railway station. Here is seen a belt of beautifully kept vegetable

gardens and orchards, all fresh and green as if just washed by April

showers. These are the property of peasant-owners, who dispose of their

crops here and at Langogne. As yet the good townsfolk are hardly alive

to the benefits of a railway. One of our drivers complained that it

ruined the trades alike of carriage proprietor, conductor, and carter;

another averred that the local manufacture of woollen goods, formerly

of considerable account, was at a standstill owing to the importations

of cheaper cloths. These grumblers will doubtless erelong take a

different tone, as the glorious scenery of the Lozère becomes more

widely known and Mende is made the tourists' headquarters. Our hotel,

situated in the middle of the town, offers good beds, good food, dirty

floors, charges low enough to please Mr. Joseph Pennell, and a total

absence of anything in the shape of modern ideas. The people are

charming, and the house is a mousy, ratty, ramshackle place hundreds of

years old.

It may be as well to mention that folk assured me I was the first

English-speaking lady ever seen at Mende. A short time before no little

excitement had been created by the appearance of six young Englishmen

in knickerbockers, footing it with knapsack on shoulder. But

lady-tourists from the other side of La Manche? Never! Be this as it

may, it is as well for my country-women, if any follow me hither, to

avoid insular eccentricities of dress. The best plan, before exploring

wholly remote regions of France, is to buy the neatest possible

head-gear and travelling-costume in Paris. Without meaning to be

impertinent, bystanders will stand agape at the sight of any strangers,

English or French. Even my young French companion was stared at, just

because she was not a native of the place. Very obligingly, she offered

to fetch my letters from the poste restante, and look out for

photographs. As she had spent some time in England and acquired certain

habits of independence, I accepted. But not twice!

The poor girl found so many eyes following her, that she took refuge in

the cathedral. As there chanced to be an abbé in the confessional

handy, she very sensibly seized the opportunity by the forelock, and

performed the duty of confession. But I did not permit her to roam

about alone after that.

Meantime, the médécin militaire and his wife had set out for the

Causses and the Cañon du Tarn, and their enthusiasm but served to

heighten my own. That shooting of the rapids, too, I now heard of for

the first time, lent a spice of exhilarating hazard and adventure to

the excursion. They were going to shoot the rapids of the Tarn. Why

should I not follow their example?

Sorely tempted as I was to carry out the same programme, once more I

hesitated. I could obtain very little precise information as to the

real difficulties, if any, that beset the way, but everyone agreed that

it was not at all a commonplace journey--in other words, not a very

easy one. The long drive across the solitary Causse to St. Éminie or

Florac, the four relays of boatmen necessary for the descent of the

Tarn, the doubtfulness of the accommodation at the different

halting-places--all these details had to be considered. Touring it

through the Causses seemed, indeed, beset with difficulties. You have

not only to take food with you for horse and man, but water also--ay,

and make sure that your driver, besides being trustworthiness and

sobriety itself, carries a revolver in his pocket. The Caussenards, or

dwellers on these steppes, are said to be harmless enough, but

suspicious-looking tramps from a distance, who always go in pairs, may

sometimes be met. Wayside inns there are none, and as relays are

therefore unattainable, the traveller must quit civilization as soon as

dawn breaks, and contrive to reach it before overtaken by nightfall.

Lastly, during the brief summer, the heat is torrid, and if you start

on your travels towards its close, say the middle or end of September,

today's scorching sun may be followed by tomorrow's snowstorm. And to

be caught in a snowstorm on the Causses would be an Alpine adventure

with no chance of a rescuing St. Bernard.

Had I been alone I might have ventured, but, as before-mentioned, my

companion was a young French lady confided to my care by her parents.

On the whole, therefore, and with keenest regret, I felt it more

prudent to defer the undertaking, for undertaking it undoubtedly was,

till another year. Next summer, I said to myself, as soon as the snows

were melted, I would again climb the Roof of France. And delightful as

was the society of a bright, amiable, ready-witted girl, I would

instead find a travelling companion of maturer years, and responsible

for her own safety.

There was one compensation within reach. If we could not enter the land

of Canaan, we could at least behold it from Mount Pisgah. So I engaged

a carriage with sturdy horses and a trustworthy driver, and we set off

for the plateau rising over against Mende in a south-easterly

direction, the veritable threshold of the Causses.

CHAPTER III.

A GLIMPSE OF THE CAUSSES.

The drive from Mende to the plateau of Sauveterre is a curious

experience. Here the Virgilian and Dantesque schemes are reversed:

Pluto's dread domain, the horrible Inferno, lies above; deep down below

are the Fields of the Blest and the celestial Paradise.

Dazzlingly bright the verdure, fertile and sunny the valleys we now

leave behind--arid and desolate beyond the power of words to express

the tableland reached so laboriously.

Between these two extremes, Elysium and Tartarus, we pass shifting,

panoramic scenes of wondrous beauty, stage upon stage of pastoral

charm, picture after picture of idyllic sweetness and grace. Long we

can glance behind us and see the little gray town, its spires outlined

in steely gray against the embracing hills, its gardens and orchards

bright as emerald--towering above all, the bare, purple,

wide-stretching Lozère.

The weather is superlative, and the clear, gemlike lines of sky and

foliage are as brilliantly contrasted as in an Algerian spring.

All this time we seemed to be climbing a mountain; we are, in reality,

ascending the steep, wooded sides or walls of the Causse de Mende,

prototype on a smaller scale of the rest--a vast mass of limestone, its

summit a wilderness, its shelving sides a marvel of luxuriant

vegetation.

Every step has to be made at a snail's pace, the precipitous slopes

close under our horses' hoofs being frightful to contemplate. This

drive is an excellent preparation for an exploration of the Lozère. We

are always, metaphorically, going up or coming down in a balloon.

After two hours' climb, the features of the landscape change. One by

one are left behind meandering river, chestnut and acacia groves,

meadows fragrant with newly-mown hay, grazing cattle, and cheerful

homesteads.

We now behold a scene grandiose indeed as a panorama, but unspeakably

wild and dreary.

Here and there are patches of potatoes, buckwheat and rye, the yellow

and green breaking the gray surface of the rocky waste; not a

habitation, not a living creature, is in sight. Before us and around

stretch desert upon desert of bare limestone, the nearer undulations

cold and slaty in tone, the remoter taking the loveliest, warmest

dyes--gold brown, deep orange, just tinted with crimson, reddish purple

and pale rose. We are on the threshold of the true Caussien region.

Sterility of soil, a Siberian climate, geographical isolation, here

reach their climax, whilst at the base of these lofty calcareous

tablelands lie sequestered valleys fertile fields and flowery gardens,

oases of the Lozérien Sahara.

Above, not a rill, not a beck, refreshes the spongy, crumbling earth;

we must travel far, penetrate the openings just indicated by the

dark-blue shadows in the distance, and descend the lofty walls of the

Causses to find silvery cascades, impetuous rivers, and fountains

gushing from mossy clefts. The showers of spring, the torrential rains

of autumn, the snows of winter, have filtered to a depth of several

thousand feet.

We are not within sight of the grand Causse Méjean, nor of the Black

Causse, or Causse Noir, and only on the threshold of Sauveterre, yet

some idea may be gathered here of what M. E. Réclus calls a 'Jurassic

archipelago,' once a vast Jurassic island. Imagine, then, a group of

promontories, their area equal to that of Salisbury Plain, Dartmoor and

Exmoor combined, with the varying altitudes of the loftiest Devonshire

tor and Cumberland hill.

Such a comparison may convey some feeble notion of the three Causses

just named, two of which belong to the Lozère. The Causse Noir is

partly in the Aveyron. Their extraordinary conformation must be seen

and studied by all who would familiarize themselves with this

geological phenomenon.

No solitude can be more complete than these wastes, except when a

leaden sky replaces the warm sunshine of to-day, and a deep,

impenetrable mantle of snow covers the plateau from end to end. Then

the little life that animates it is hushed, and none from the outer

world penetrates the fastnesses of the Causses.

We drive on for a mile or two till we reach the summit of the plateau.

Here, at a height of 2,952 feet above the sea-level, is a ruined

château turned into a farmhouse, where we rest our horses a little and

prepare to make tea. The farmer's wife and two children come out to

chat with our driver and look at us, evidently welcoming such a

distraction. And no wonder! I brought out our bonbon box--one must

never take a drive in France unprovided with sweetmeats--and tried to

tame the children; but they clung to mother's skirts, and only

consented to have the bonbons popped into their mouths, with faces

shyly hidden in her apron.

'Would you like a cup of tea?' I asked.

But madame shook her head, giggling, and I do not suppose ever heard of

such an infusion in her life.

Meantime, tea-making on that breezy eminence was no easy matter. The

little flames of my spirit-lamp were blown hither and thither--anywhere

but in the right direction. At last our excellent driver, resourceful

as a true son of Gaul is bound to be, lifted up the tiny machine, all

afire as it was, and thrust it into that convenient box behind the

calèche all travellers know of. The good man burnt his fingers, but had

the satisfaction of making the water boil, and there for the first

time, without doubt, tea was made after the English fashion. No place

could be better adapted for a holiday resort. In summer these sweeps

are one gorgeous mosaic of wild-flowers, and the short stunted grass

shoots up, making verdure everywhere.

As I sipped tea, squatted gipsy-wise on the ground, the thought

occurred to my mind what a delightful, a unique villegiatura this spot

might make. A clean, comfortable inn on the site of the ruined château,

a sympathetic companion, a trusty guide, plenty of tea and one

book--the book absolutely necessary to existence--perhaps mine would be

Spinoza's Ethics or Schiller's 'Letters on the Æsthetic Education of

Mankind'--under these conditions, months would glide by like an hour in

such eerie, poetic, inspiring solitudes.

The existence of a château on the borders of a veritable desert need

not surprise us. The entire department of the Lozère was devastated by

religious and seigneurial wars, and although the Causses themselves

were not invaded, offering as they did no temptation to the thirsters

after blood and spoil, the feudal freebooters had their strongholds

near.

The treeless condition of the Lozère chain and other once well-wooded

regions was thus brought about. The Government is replanting many bare

mountain-sides here, as in the Hautes Alpes, in order to improve the

soil and climate. The barrenness of the Causses arises, as will be

seen, from natural causes.

Even in autumn--at least, on such a day as this--with these wild scenes

is mingled much fairy charm and loveliness. Just as the distant scenery

is made up of sharp contrasts--on the lofty plateaux, weird solitude

and desolation; below, almost a southern luxuriance--so every square

yard of rocky waste shows fragrant plant and sweet flower. We have only

to stretch out our hands as we lie to gather half a dozen spikes of

lavender, wild thyme, rosemary, Deptford pink, melilot, blue pimpernel,

and white scabious. But the afternoon is wearing on. We must collect

our tea-things, give the children a farewell sweetmeat, cast a last

look round, and depart.

It cost me many a pang to turn my back upon that farmhouse,

boundary-mark between savagery and civilization, romance and the

terre-à-terre of daily existence.

Yonder diverging roads both led to fairy land and worlds of marvel--the

one to Florac, so majestically placed under the colossal shadow of the

Causse Méjean and above the lovely valley of the Jonte; the other

across the steppe of Sauveterre and by the strange dwellings of the

Caussenards to the picturesque little town of St. Éminie, the rapids of

the Tarn, and the dolomite city.

There was, however, the consolatory hope of seeing all the following

year. Who could tell? Perhaps that very day twelve months later I might

delight the children with my bonbon box, and a second time make tea on

their breezy playground. At any rate, I entertained the project, and

'Should life be dull and spirits low,

'Twill soothe us in our sorrow,

That earth has something yet to show,

The bonny holms of Yarrow.'

We are overtaken by two pedestrians only on our way home--ill-looking

fellows enough, strangers in these parts, our driver assured us. 'No

Caussenards, they,' he said. 'The Caussenard is harmless enough, only a

trifle slow.'

We get magnificent views of Mende and the Valley of the Lot--some

slight recompense for having had to retrace our footsteps--and what was

equally valuable, much useful information.

'Is the land cut up into small parcels here?' I asked.

We were just then on the outskirts of the town, and he pointed with his

whip to a large, well-built farmhouse, with solid, walled-in buildings.

'Most of the land round about Mende is farmed by the monsieur who lives

there,' he replied. 'There he is, true enough, with his wife and

children.'

Just then we passed a hooded carriage, in which were seated father,

mother, two little ones, and nursemaid, all taking a holiday jaunt, the

day being Sunday.

'That is the owner of the farm,' he went on: 'several hundred acres--I

can't say how many--but it is stocked with two hundred sheep, ten oxen,

besides cows and pigs. There you have an idea of the size.'

'Are there no small farms here, then?'

'There are all sorts: little farms, big ones, and betwixt and between,'

he replied. 'Everybody has his little bit' (Tout le monde a son petit

lot); 'but the land immediately round the town is farmed by the

neighbour you saw in the calèche.'

'Is he a peasant?' I asked.

'A peasant if you like. He is a cultivator' (Un paysan si vous voulez.

C'est un cultivateur), was the answer.

When a French peasant becomes what in rustic phraseology is called a

substantial man, owning or hiring a considerable extent of land, he

ceases to be called 'paysan,' and is designated 'cultivateur.' The very

word 'peasant,' as I have shown elsewhere, will, in process of time,

become a survival, so steady and sure is the social upheaval of rural

France. The most eminent Frenchmen of the day, witness the late Paul

Bert, are often peasant-born; and hardly a village throughout the

country but sends some promising son of the soil to Paris, destined for

one of the learned professions. I know of a village baker's son near

Dijon now studying for the Bar--one instance out of many. In one of her

clever novelettes, 'Un Gascon,' Madame Th. Bentzon gives us for hero

the village doctor, son of a peasant. The portrait of this young man,

devoted to duty, high-minded, self-sacrificing, is no mere ideal, as

experience proves. But if readers, compelled to make the acquaintance

of French peasants on paper, will accept Zola and certain English

writers as a guide to his moral and material condition, they will be

landed on some conclusions strangely at variance with experience.

[Footnote: I may add that I have received appreciative testimony from

various French journals--_L'Economiste_, and others--also from no less

an authority than M. Henri Baudrillart, of the Institut, of my studies

of the French peasant, notably the contribution to the _Fortnightly

Review_, August, 1887, in which I have summed up the experiences of

twelve years' French residence and travel.]

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE TOP OF THE ROOF.

The temperature of the Lozère is excessively variable. The traveller

must always be provided with winter wraps and the lightest summer

clothing. We had enjoyed almost tropic sunshine on the plateau of

Sauveterre. Next day (September 19th), when half-way to St. Flour, the

very blasts of Siberia seemed to overtake us. The weather was splendid

at starting, and for some hours we had a brisk air only, and unclouded

skies; but there were signs of a change, and I began to doubt whether I

should accomplish even my second programme. Having relinquished the

Causses, the rapids of the Tarn, and Montpellier-le-Vieux for this

year, I had hired a carriage, intending to drive straight across the

Lozère, sleeping at St. Chély, to St. Flour, chef-lieu of the Cantal,

thence making excursions to the two departments. I wanted especially to

see Condat-és-Feniers and La Chaldette, the two sweet spots already

alluded to. The hire of the carriage with two good horses was eighty

francs--forty for the two days' drive thither, and forty for the return.

It is a striking journey from Mende to St. Amans-la-Lozère, half-way

halting-place between Mende and St. Chély. The region traversed is very

solitary, the Causse itself hardly more so, and now, as yesterday, we

follow a road wonderfully cut round the mountain-sides. Here also we

find certain English notions concerning peasant property entirely

disproved. So far is French territory from being cut into minute

portions of land, that on this side of Mende farms are let, not by the

hectare, but by the tract, many tenant farmers being unable to tell you

of how many hectares their occupation consists. The extent of land is

reckoned not by acreage, but by the heads of cattle it will keep.

Much of the soil between Mende and St. Amans-la-Lozère is very stony

and unproductive; we heard even of a farm of several hundred acres let

at a rental of fifty pounds a year. And here, as in the valley of the

Allier, and on the road from Langogne to Mende, it is wonderful to see

the uncompromising devotion of the French peasant to Mother

Earth--neither stones, brushwood, nor morass daunting his energy. These

tenant farmers are almost invariably small freeholders also, but to

read certain English writers one might suppose that no such thing as a

tenant farm, much less one of a thousand acres, existed in France at

all, the entire superficies of the country, according to their account,

being cut up into minute patches, each by a process of subdivision,

growing smaller by degrees and beautifully less; in fact, the French

peasant owner of the future, according to these theorists, will possess

about as much of his native soil as can be got into a flower-pot, the

contents of the said flower-pot being mortgaged for a hundred times its

value.

By the time we have driven for an hour and a half we obtain a most

beautiful view, looking back upon Mende, the gray and purple hills set

in a glowing semicircle round it, showing loveliest light and shadow.

The verdure of the valley is fresh as in May, and sweet scents of newly

mown hay, the autumn crop, reach us as we go. We look down on smooth,

lawn-like meadows, little rivers winding between alder-trees,

tan-coloured cows and orange-brown sheep browsing at their ease. The

contours of the pine and fir clad hills are bold and varied, whilst

deep gorges and ravines alternate with the more smiling aspects.

Fruit-trees and flowers are wholly absent from the sparsely scattered

villages, and there is little in the way of farming going on, only the

second hay-crops being turned, and the land ploughed for autumn sowing.

Buckwheat, rye, oats and hay form the chief crops. The road is set on

either side by young trees, service berry and mountain ash, or granite

pillars almost the height of a man. These columns, recalling Druidic

stones, are completely hidden by snow in winter.

Fortunately, in another year or two the Lozère will be traversed by

railway, and its comparative isolation during several months of the

year cease for once and for all.

Meantime we were anxiously looking out for St. Amans and our promised

breakfast, and here let me note a failing of the French rustic. His

notions of time and distance are often not in the very least to be

relied on. Thus, a countryman will tell you such and such a place lies

at a distance of 'une petite lieue,' and you will find you have to walk

or drive six miles instead of three. Again, a village conductor will

assure you that you will arrive at your destination 'dans une petite

demi-heure,' and you find on arriving that an hour and a half have

elapsed since putting the question. We were terribly tried by this

habit now. Our old driver--not the master, who had accompanied us to

the plateau, but his employé--seemed to have no more idea of the real

distance of St. Amans than of Spitzbergen. Again and again my young

companion put her head out of the window and cried: 'Well, driver, how

many kilomètres _now_ to St. Amans?'

And the reply would be:

'Three more' or 'Two more--just two, mademoiselle.'

Whereas mademoiselle laughingly counted half a dozen by the milestones

between each inquiry. We had fondly looked forward to a fair inn and a

good meal at noon--it was nearly two o'clock when our driver

triumphantly deposited us before the dirtiest, most repulsive-looking

hostelry it was ever my fate to enter.

In the kitchen, with walls blackened by smoke, hens and chickens

disported at will; the uneven, floor was innocent of broom or

scrubbing-brush as the road; in the salle-à-manger, gendarmes,

soldiers, carters, and gamekeepers were smoking, drinking and

discussing at the tops of their voices.

The old man whispered a word in the ear of the patrone--a veritable hag

to look at--and she immediately begged us to walk upstairs.

'You will find no elegance, but comfort here' ('Vous ne trouvez pas le

luxe, mais le confortable ici),' she said.

Then, with evident pride, she threw open the door of what was evidently

the public bedchamber of the inn.

Let not the reader take alarm. In these out-of-the-way places such

accommodation is often all that is offered the traveller, namely, a

spacious room, set round with four posters, each well curtained, so as

to form a tiny room in itself. As women never, or very rarely, travel

in such regions, the chief patrons being commis-voyageurs and soldiers,

the inconvenience is not great. The bedding looked good and clean, and

the room was airy.

We opened the window. Madame complacently spread a snowy cloth, then,

with the airy aplomb of a head waiter of some famous restaurant, say,

the Chapeau Rouge at Bordeaux, asked:

'And what would these ladies like for breakfast?'

There seemed cruel, double-edged irony in the question. What could we

expect in such a place but just something to stay the cravings of

hunger: that something rendered uneatable by the terribly dirty--no,

let me say, smoke-dried--look of the speaker, who seemed to be cook and

waitress in one?

'Suppose we have an omelette?' suggested my young friend.

An omelette cooked by those hands! The very notion took away my

appetite; however, there were new-laid eggs, and no matter the unwashed

condition of the cook, the inside of a boiled egg may always be eaten

with impunity. We could have anything we chose by waiting a little, our

hostess said--mutton cutlets, roast chicken, partridges, fish,

vegetables; the resources of that rustic larder seemed inexhaustible.

Then she had choice wine, Burgundy and Bordeaux, besides liqueurs, in

the cellar.

We had no time or inclination for a feast, but made an excellent

meal--what with the eggs and a tiny leg of cold-boiled mutton, I do

honestly believe the very best I ever tasted in my life.

The mountain-fed mutton of these regions is renowned, and the country

folk boil it with just a slice of garlic by way of a flavour.

This dingy little wayside hostelry could really offer a first-rate

ordinary, and, on principles not to be controverted, guests here pay,

not according to what they order, but the quantity they eat. Would that

all restaurant-keepers were equally conscientious!

When we went downstairs and asked for the reckoning, the old woman, who

was all obligingness and good-nature, charming, indeed, but for her

neglected personal appearance, replied:

'I must first see how much you have eaten, of course.'

And true enough we were charged so much per item. Here let me give the

traveller a hint: never venture in out of-the-way parts of France

without a well-filled muffineer and pepper-box; but for our dry clean

pepper and salt brought from England, even the eggs would have been

swallowed with a painful effort.

In the large kitchen I took note of extensive preparations going on for

dinner, huge caldrons bubbling above the wood fire; heaps of

vegetables, leeks, onions, garlic predominating, prepared for the pot,

with ample provision in the shape of flesh and fowl.

At St. Amans the sun shone warm and bright, and the blue sky was of

extraordinary depth and softness. I was reminded of Italy. As we

sauntered about the long straggling village, a scene of indescribable

contentment and repose met our eyes. We are in one of the poorest

departments of France, but no signs of want or vagrancy are seen. The

villagers, all neatly and suitably dressed, were getting in their hay

or minding their flocks and herds, with that look of cheerful

independence imparted by the responsibilities of property. Many greeted

us in the friendliest manner, but as we could not understand their

patois, a chat was impossible. They laughed, nodded, and passed on.

No sooner were we fairly on our way to St. Chély than the weather

changed. The heavens clouded over, and the air blew keenly. We got out

our wraps one by one, wanting more. If the scenery is less wildly

beautiful here than between Mende and St. Amans, it is none the less

charming, were we only warm enough to enjoy it. The pastoralness of

many a landscape is Alpine, with brilliant stretches of turf, scattered

châlets, groups of haymakers, herds and flocks browsing about the

rocks. Enormous blocks of granite are seen everywhere superimposed

after the manner of dolmens, and everywhere the peasant's spade and hoe

is gradually redeeming the waste. It is nightfall when we reach St.

Chély d'Apcher, reputed the coldest spot in France, and certainly well

worthy of its reputation.

It stands on an elevation of 980 mètres--_i.e._, over 3,000 feet above

the sea-level. If the Lozère is aptly termed the Roof of France, then

St. Chély may be regarded as its Chimney top. Summer here lasts only

two months. No wonder that the searching wind seemed as if it would

blow not merely the clothes off our shoulders, but the flesh off our

bones. Yet the people of the inn smiled and said: 'Wait here another

month, and you will find out what WE call cold.'

The little Hôtel Bardol wore a look of cheerfulness and welcome,

nevertheless. There were white and pink oleanders before the door,

geraniums in the window, testifying to the fact that winter this year,

at all events, had not yet begun. Men and maids bustled about intent on

our comfort. Soon the big logs crackled on the hearth; with curtains

drawn, tea and a good fire, the discomforts of the last hour or two

were soon forgotten. Needless, perhaps, to say that we found in this

small old-fashioned inn beds of first-rate quality, a good dinner, and

really fine old Bordeaux.

St. Chély will necessarily become a junction town of considerable

importance when the new line of railway, by way of St. Flour, is

completed to Neussargues. As the proprietor of the Hôtel Bardol seems

fully alive to the requirements of tourists and the progress of ideas,

future visitors will doubtless find many improvements--well-appointed

rooms, bells, and other comforts. I hope myself to pay this obliging

host another visit ere long.

The rain poured down all night, and next morning it was evident that

the projected journey by road to St. Flour must be given up. A long

day's drive across country in the teeth of biting wind and downpour was

not to be thought of, though both my young friend and myself had set

our minds upon seeing the wonderful Pont de Garabit, a tour de force of

engineering, worthy to be set beside the Eiffel Tower, and an

achievement of the same genius. But we were now within reach of the

railway. At the cost of a great disappointment and a forfeiture of

sixty francs, I determined to send the carriage back to Mende, and

reach the Cantal by way of Rodez, in the Aveyron. The Pont de Garabit,

like the Causses, all well, should be seen another year.

Never shall I forget the amazement of my host.

'To make a round-about journey like that by rail, when you have your

own carriage and horses!' he cried. 'Are you mad? Are you a

millionaire,' his face said, 'to pay eighty francs for one day's drive?

And the weather--the rain? you have glass windows; you can shut

yourselves in; you won't take any harm.'

Say what I would, I could not convince him that it was wiser to forfeit

sixty francs than drive across the Lozère in a storm of wind and rain,

with the thermometer rapidly falling to freezing-point.

CHAPTER V.

RODEZ AND AURILLAC.

To travel from St. Chély d'Apcher to Rodez is like descending a

snow-capped Alpine peak for the flowery, sunbright valley below.

Instead of the stern grandeur of the Lozère, frowning peaks, sombre

pine-forests, vast stony deserts and wintry blasts, we glide swiftly

into a balmy region of golden vineyards, rich chestnut woods, softly

murmuring streams, and the temperature of July. The transformation is

magical. It is like closing a volume of Ossian and opening the pages of

Theocritus.

We had spent our morning indoors at St. Chély, cloaked and shawled over

a blazing wood fire, quitting at one o'clock p.m. ice-cold rain, biting

winds, and a gloomy sky. By sundown we had reached the chef-lieu of the

Aveyron; we were in the South indeed! The scenery during the latter

part of the way is beautiful and exhilarating, every feature showing

the ripest, most brilliant tints--hills clothed with the yellowing

chestnut, soil of deep purplish red, the bright gold foliage of the

vine, and between spring-like greenery and azure sky, close to the

railway, the crystal-clear Aveyron.

And here all is new and fresh; no familiar tourist element enters into

the day's experience. As our train stops at one picturesque village

after another, we see young soldiers, réservistes, alight, returning

home after the twenty-eight days' service, nuns, curés, village folks,

family groups, not an English traveller but myself.

Rodez is superbly situated on a lofty, sunny plateau, surrounded by

hills and far mountain chains; but between these and the city, which is

almost encircled by the Aveyron, lies a broad belt of fertile country,

the soil of a deep claret colour.

Just as Venice should be approached by sea at dawn, so all travellers

should reach Rodez at sunset.

Never shall I forget the first enchanting view of its glorious

cathedral that September afternoon, the three-storied tower of

Flamboyant Gothic dominating the vast landscape, the rich red stone

flushed to a warmer dye, the noble masonry of the whole glowing with

the lustre and solidity of copper against the clear heavens.

This lofty, triple-terraced tower is called the marvel of Southern

France, and no wonder. The cathedral of Antwerp itself is not more

captivatingly lightsome and lovely. High above the ancient city, with

its encompassing river and wide-stretched plain, confronting the

far-off mountains, almost on a level with their summits, visible from

afar as a lighthouse in mid-ocean, rises this belfry of Rodez.

Certain places, as well as certain individualities, exercise

extraordinary fascination. The old capital of Rouergne, and later of

the Comté of Rodez, is one. Many and many a French city I have visited

of far greater architectural and historic importance; Poitiers among

these--Troyes is another; yet I should never go out of my way to

revisit Poitiers or Troyes, whilst certain other towns in France I

visit regularly once a year. They are like old friends, and every visit

makes them more precious. I determined to revisit Rodez during the

following summer. The cathedral is rich within and without. Its

rood-loft, carved stalls, altar screen, and monuments require a chapter

to themselves. Let us hope that some future traveller, more learned

than myself in such matters, will give us their history in detail. The

town, too, possesses some fine remains of Renaissance architecture, and

the views from the ancient ramparts are magnificent.

But the memory I carry away is of that lovely three-storied tower, the

whole carved delicately as lace-work; the colour, deep terra-cotta;

above it a warm southern sky.

Such a sight is worth a long journey, and the discomforts of a dingy

hotel, dirty floors, foul-smelling passages, broken chairs, scant

toilet appliances, as usual, in part compensated by excellent beds,

good food, good wine, and very moderate charges. The oddest part of

these experiences is that the dirtier the inn the better the fare.

Wherever we found a little smartness and tidiness, there we were sure

to find also a decided falling-off in the cuisine.

Perhaps herein is to be found the true philosophical cause of our own

poor cookery. English cooks and housewives are ready to go mad on the

subject of scouring pots and pans, but pay scant heed to what goes

into, much less what comes out of them. In France the quality of the

dinner is the first question of national importance, after the recovery

of Alsace-Lorraine!

The railway takes us direct to Aurillac, chef-lieu of the Cantal, and

ancient capital of Haute Auvergne. At first the scenery resembles that

passed through the day before, close under the embankment, the river

flowing clear and bright between green slopes, hanging chestnut-woods,

and sweeps of vineyards. The earth everywhere seems soaked with claret;

and this wine-red colour of the soil, contracted with the golden-leafed

vine, makes a landscape of wonderful brilliance.

The aspect of the country changes as we quit the bright valley of the

Aveyron, and enter the department of the Cantal at Capdenac, where we

join the main line from Clermont-Ferrand to Toulouse. We just touch the

department of the Lot at Figeac, a quaint town, birthplace of the great

Orientalist Champollion, then enter the valley of the Cère, and are

soon at Aurillac.

A bit of dull prose after a glorious poem! Whilst it is difficult to

tear one's self away from Rodez, despite its ill-kept hotel, there is

nothing whatever to detain the ordinary tourist at Aurillac beyond an

hour or two. It is prettily situated in a fair open country, watered by

the river Jordanne, and is an excellent centre for the study of rural

life.

I had come hither provided with a letter introductory to the State-paid

professor of agriculture, and here let me explain matters a little. The

French State, stanch to the maxim of the great Sully, 'Le labourage et

le pâturage sont les deux mamelles de France,' is making tremendous

efforts on behalf of agricultural progress throughout the country. A

few years since, professorships of agriculture were appointed by the

Government in the various departments. The duties of these professors

is two-fold: they hold classes on the theory and practice of

agriculture in the Ecole Normale, or training-school for male teachers,

in winter, and in summer give free lectures, out of doors, in the

various towns and villages. Recruited from the great agricultural

schools of Grand Jouan, near Nantes, Grignan in the Seine, and Oise and

Montpellier, these lecturers have had the benefit of a thoroughly

practical training, and by little and little will doubtless effect

quite a revolution in out-of-the-way places.

Among the least progressive regions, agriculturally speaking, must be

pronounced the Cantal. As yet the use of machinery and artificial

manure is almost unknown. The professor gets the peasants together on a

Sunday afternoon and discourses to them in an easy, colloquial way on

the advantages of scientific methods. The conference over, he shows

specimens of superphosphates, top-dressings, new seeds, roots, etc.,

and here and there succeeds in inducing the more adventurous than the

rest to try an experiment.

The agricultural shows have much effect in stimulating progress. The

country folks delight to obtain prizes for their cattle, cheese and

other products. They are, as a rule, averse to innovation, especially

when it involves expenditure. The departmental professor will have to

bring proof positive to bear out his theories ere he can induce his

listeners to spend their savings--in French phrase, 'argent

mignon'--upon unknown good, instead of investing in Government three

per cents.

Other interesting facts I learned here, all confirmatory of my former

accounts of the French peasant. These Cantal farmers, many of them

hiring land on lease, others small owners, are well-to-do; £1,200 is

not infrequently given as a dowry to the daughter of a small

proprietor; I was told of one, possessor of a few hectares only, who

had just before invested in the funds £80, one year's savings.

Avarice, I admit, is not infrequently the besetting sin of the French

peasant in these parts, but other characteristics of the Auvergnat,

such as roughness of manner, suspiciousness of strangers, a habit of

extortion, did not come under my notice during this stay in the Cantal.

One of my pleasantest experiences, indeed, of French rural life, is

that of an afternoon visit paid to a farmer in the neighbourhood of

Aurillac. No well-bred gentleman, no lady accustomed to society, could

have received an entire stranger with more urbanity, kindliness and

grace, than did this peasant of the Cantal and his wife. A charming

drive of an hour through well-wooded and neatly cultivated country

brought us to the farmstead called Le Croizet, a group of buildings

lying a hundred yards or so from the roadside.

In front of the well-built, roomy dwelling-house was a fruit and

vegetable garden, with a border of flowers and ornamental shrubs. The

place was not perhaps so neatly kept as English farm premises, but the

general look betokened comfort and well-being.

The farmer and his wife were absent, and their daughter-in-law received

us somewhat awkwardly. She seemed puzzled by the fact of English ladies

wanting to see a farm, but after a little her shyness vanished. Her

husband, she told us, was just then minding his own farm; he was a

small proprietor, possessing a bit of land and a cow or two. Two cows,

she informed us, as we chatted on, would suffice for the maintenance of

a family of five persons. Such reckoning, of course, only holds good of

thrifty, homely France. The magic of property not only turns sands to

gold: it teaches the great lesson of looking forward, of confronting

the morrow--realizing 'the unseen time.'

Soon the housewife came up, all cheeriness and hospitality. She made us

sit down in the large, airy, well-furnished kitchen--hitherto we had

chatted outside--and my curiosity being explained by the fact that I

was an English author, travelling for information, she readily answered

any questions I put to her.

'My husband will be here in a minute. He can tell you much more about

farming than I can,' she said.

She was a pleasant-looking, well-mannered, intelligent woman--a peasant

born and bred. Meantime I glanced round the kitchen.

The floor certainly was of uncarpeted stone and uneven, but the place

was clean and tidy, and everything in order. Against the wall were rows

of well-scoured cooking vessels; also shelves of china--evidently

reserved for high days and holidays--and a few pictures for further

adornment.

True, the curtained bedstead of master and mistress stood in one

corner, but leading out of the kitchen was a second room for the son

and son's wife; whilst the hired women-servants occupied in the dairy

slept upstairs.

It may here be mentioned that the habit of sleeping in the kitchen

arises from the excessive cold. I found on lately revisiting Anjou, and

in the Berri, that the better-off peasants are building houses with

upper bedrooms.

'It is tidier' (C'est plus propre), said a Berrichon to me. This

custom, therefore, of turning the kitchen into a bedchamber may be

considered as on the wane.

Our hostess now brought out one local dainty after another--galettes,

or flat cakes of rye and oaten flour, peculiar in flavour, and said to

be extremely nutritious; cream, curds and whey, fresh butter, and

wine--and was quite distressed that we could not make a hearty

afternoon meal. Then the master came in, one of Nature's gentlemen, if

ever any existed--stalwart, sunburnt to the complexion of an Arab, with

a frank, manly, shrewd face. He wore sabots, and, like his wife, was

stockingless. Stockings are objected to by French country-folks in hot

weather, and it seems to me on good grounds. His clothes were clean,

neat, and appropriate, and all of the material that goes into the

weekly wash-tub. Like his wife, he was most willing to give me any

information, and a pleasant and instructive time I had of it.

My host leased his farm. He was a tenant farmer precisely as the name

is understood here, with this difference--he owned a little land as

well. He could not tell me the exact size of his occupation in

hectares; land here, as in the Lozère, being computed instead by heads

of cattle, one hectare and a half of pasture allowed for each cow. Some

notion of its extent may be gathered from the fact that he possessed

120 cows. Besides these 200 hectares of pasturage, the farm comprised

arable land, the whole making up a total of nearly 1,000 acres. Much

larger farms, he told me, were to be found in the Cantal. The notion of

France being cut up into tiny parcels of land amused him not a little.

The crops here consist of wheat, barley, maize, rye, oats, buckwheat,

clover--a little of everything.

'But this is a cheese-making country. We don't grow anything like corn

enough for ourselves in the Cantal,' he said. 'Large quantities are

imported every year. It is our cows that pay.'

The principal stock kept is this beautiful Cantal cow, a small, red,

glossy-coated breed, very gentle, and very shy. The enormous quantities

of milk afforded by these dairy farms are sold in part at Aurillac for

home consumption. By far the larger proportion is used in the

cheese-makers' huts, or 'burons,' on the surrounding hills. The

pleasant, mild-flavoured Cantal cheese has hitherto not been an article

of export. It is decidedly inferior to Roquefort, fabricated from ewes'

milk in the Aveyron, and to the Gruyère of the French Jura. As the

quality of the milk is first-rate, a delicious flavour being imparted

by the fragrant herbs that abound here, this inferiority doubtless

arises from want of skill, or, perhaps, want of cleanliness in the

preparation. The numerous schools for dairy-farming that now exist in

France, and the new State-paid teachers of agriculture, will most

likely ere long revolutionize the art of cheese-making throughout the

department. We may then expect to find Cantal cheese at every English

grocer's.

Many more interesting facts I learned, my host chatting leisurely.

'It is usual in these parts,' he said, 'for the eldest son to inherit

an extra fourth part of land, he, in return, being bound to maintain

his parents in old age. A heritage is often thus divided during the

life-time of father and mother, the old folks not caring any longer to

be burdened with the toil of business.'

Much he told me also concerning the rights of 'pacage,' or pasturage on

commons--privileges upheld rather by custom than law. These rights of

pasturing cattle on common-grounds date from the earliest times, and we

read in French history of certain communes being ruined by the mortgage

of their 'pacage.'

After a stay of more than an hour we took leave, our host accompanying

us to the road, where the carriage waited.

I have before alluded to the excessive timidity of the cattle here,

perhaps arising from the infrequency of strangers in these regions. As

we now walked up the narrow lane separating the farm from the road, we

met three separate droves of cows returning to their stalls. It was

curious to note the suspiciousness of the gentle creatures, also their

quickness of observation. Had we been a couple of peasant women from a

distance, they would have passed us without hesitation. I had evidently

an outlandish look in their eyes. Only by dint of coaxing and calling

each animal by name could the master get them to go by.

'It is always well to be careful with beasts that don't know you,' he

said, as he planted himself between us and each drove. 'Gentle as my

cows are, they might give a stranger a kick.'

When all were gone, he extricated my gown from a bramble, then, baring

his head, bade us adieu with the courtesy of a polished gentleman.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAND OF THE BURON.

Vic-sur-Cère, half an hour distant from Aurillac, is an earthly

paradise, a primitive Eden, as yet unspoiled by fashion and

utilitarianism. The large 'Etablissement des Bains,' described in

French and English guide-books, has long ceased to exist; bells,

carpets, curtains, and other luxuries are unknown; but the unfastidious

traveller, who prefers homeliness and honesty to elegance and

extortion, may here drink waters rivalling those of Spa without being

exposed to the exorbitant prices and insolence of the Spa

hotel-keepers. Rustic inns, or rather pensions, may be had at

Vic-sur-Cère, in which the tourist is wholesomely lodged and handsomely

'tabled' at a cost that would enrapture Mr. Joseph Pennell. Two or

three hundred visitors, chiefly from the neighbouring towns, spend the

summer holidays here, one and all disappearing about the middle of

September.

When we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves--inn, river-side

walks, and dazzlingly green hills. No palm island in mid-Pacific could

offer a sweeter, more pastoral halting-place. It is indeed a perfect

little corner of earth, beauty of the quiet kind here reaching its

acme; and neither indoors nor abroad is there any drawback to mar the

traveller's enjoyment.

From the windows of our hotel, close to the station, we enjoy a

prospect absolutely flawless--Nature in one of her daintiest moods is

here left to herself. The inn stands amid its large vegetable, fruit

and flower gardens; looking beyond these, we see the prettiest little

town imaginable nestled in a beautiful valley, around it rising

romantic crags, wooded heights, and gentle slopes, fresh and verdant as

if the month were May. Through the smooth meadows between the

encompassing hills winds the musically-named stream, the Iraliot, and

from end to end the broad expanse of green is scented with newly-mown

hay. The delightful scenery, the purity of the air, the excellent

quality of the waters, ought to turn Vic-sur-Cère into a miniature

Vichy. Fortunately for the lovers of rusticity and calm, such has not

as yet been the case, and the simple, straightforward character of the

people is still unspoiled by contact with the outer world. Here, also,

the pervading aspect is of well-being and contentment. 'Everybody can

live here,' we were told by an intelligent resident; 'only the idle,

the drunkard, and the thriftless need come to want.'

Vagrancy is altogether absent; the children are neatly dressed and very

clean; the men and women have all a look of cheerful independence as

they toil on their little farms or mind their small flocks and herds.

Here also, as elsewhere, the greatest variety exists in the matter of

holdings. We find tiny freeholds and large tenant farms side by side.

With few exceptions, all possess a house and bit of land. Folks toil

hard and fare hard, but live in no terror of sickness or old age. The

house and bit of land will not support a family; with the savings of a

man's best years, it is the harbour of refuge when work is past.

Without meeting here the urbanity and hospitable welcome that awaited

us near Aurillac, we found the peasant farmers exceedingly civil to

strangers; and when once made to understand the motives of my

inquisitiveness, they were quite ready to give me any information I

required.

One farm I visited in the neighbourhood was a tenant-holding of about

1,000 acres, let at a fixed rental of £600 a year, and this is far from

the largest farm hereabouts. The stock consisted of seventy-eight cows,

five horses, four pair of team oxen, besides large numbers of sheep,

pigs, and poultry. Five women-servants were boarded in the house, and

several cheese-makers employed on the alps during summer.

The farmer's wife received us pleasantly, and after a little

explanation, when she quite understood the reason of my visit, answered

all questions with ease and intelligence. She was resting from the

labours of the day, a piece of knitting in her hands, which she

politely laid aside whilst chatting.

The kitchen was large, clean, and airy, its principal ornaments

consisting of rows of prize medals on tablets, awarded at different

agricultural shows. On the shelves were rows of copper cooking vessels,

burnished as those of a Dutch interior. The bed-chambers were apart.

Certainly, the housewife's personal appearance left something to

desire, but we were assured that on Sundays she turned out for Mass

gloved, veiled and bonneted like any town lady. French peasants will

not set about the day's labour in smart or shabby-genteel clothes.

Here, as near Aurillac, modern agricultural methods, machinery and

artificial manures are not yet the order of the day. As an instance of

what peasant farmers in France can effect whilst following old plans,

let me cite the predecessor of my hostess's husband. This man had

lately retired, having saved up enough money to live upon. He had, in

fact, become a rentier.

Another tenant farm near consisted of 1,000 acres, stocked with 120

cows, eight pair of team oxen, besides sheep, horses and pigs.

Adjoining such large holdings are small freeholds farmed by their

peasant owners--dairy farms of a few acres, market-gardens of one or

two, and so on.

Métayage, or the system of half-profits, is rarely found in the Cantal.

Tenancy at a fixed rental is preferred, as less complicated and

troublesome. [Footnote: I have described the métayage of Berri in a

contribution to _Macmillan's Magazine_, 'In George Sand's Country,'

1886.] It was pleasant to see the people working in their little field

or garden, or minding their goats and sheep, their decent appearance,

cheerfulness and healthful looks testifying to the satisfactory

conditions of existence.

I do not for a moment aver that such a state of things exists in every

part of France; but everywhere we find the same

qualities--independence, thrift and foresight--called forth by the

all-potent agency of possession. I have somewhere seen the fact

mentioned, and adduced as an argument against peasant property, that

the owner of seven cows had not a wardrobe in which to hang so much as

his wife's clothes; they were suspended on a rope. Was the writer aware

of the money-value of seven cows, the capital thereby represented, and

could she point to any farm-labourer in England, however well off in

the matter of cupboards and clothes-pegs, possessed of seven cows,

their stalls and pasture-ground--in other words, a capitalist to the

extent of several hundred pounds? Few French peasants, we fancy, would

exchange their house, land and stock for the furniture of an English

labourer's cottage, wardrobe included. As a matter of fact, most of

these small farmers own furniture, clothes and house-linen in abundance.

Cheese-making is the chief industry of the place. Far away on the

summit of every green hill may be descried the red-roofed hut, or

buron, of the cheese-maker. Here, with his dog, and sometimes a

shepherd, he spends the summer months, descending to the valleys before

the first snow falls. The dairyman, or fromager, is generally a hired

workman, specially trained for the work. He is paid at the rate of £25

or £30 a year, besides board and lodging. As soon as the snows melt and

the cows can be driven afield, he betakes himself to his buron on the

alp, if married, leaving his wife in the valley below.

Have the fromager of the Cantal hills and the Caussenard of the

Lozérien steppe their legends, folklore, songs? Have their love-stories

been chronicled by some French Auerbach, their ballads found a

translator in a French Hebel? Without doubt this sequestered life of

shepherd and mountain has its vein of poetry and romance as well as any

other. To reach one of these cheese-makers' huts is quite an

expedition, and on foot is only practicable to hardy pedestrians. It is

a beautiful drive from the valley of the Cère to the open

pasture-ground, dotted with burons, behind its steep green hills on the

southern side. As the road winds upwards, we see the crags and slopes

clothed with the delicate greenery of young fir and pine. These are

seedlings planted by the State; here, as in other departments, some

strenuous efforts being made to replant the ancient forests. Goats are

no longer permitted to browse on the mountain-sides promiscuously, as

in former days, and thus slowly, but surely, not only the soil, but the

climate and products of these re-wooded districts, will undergo

complete transformation. And who can tell? Perhaps the Causse itself

will, generations hence, cease to exist, and the Roof of France become

a vast flowery garden. The country people here all speak a patois, and

the fromager is not communicative. It is always well to be accompanied

by a blue-bloused native on these visits. The dogs, too, that keep

guard over the buron, like the cows, are very suspicious of strangers.

More attractive than the interior of the cheese-maker's hut--often

dark, ill-ventilated, and malodorous--is the scene without, a wide

prospect of pastoral, idyllic charm. The Cantal offers many a superb

mountain panorama and grandiose scene. Nowhere is to be found more

sweetness, graciousness and repose than in the valley of the Cère.

After a few days' sojourn we journeyed to Clermont-Ferrand, which I

found much embellished since my long stay in that city, just ten years

before. Thence, seeing the Puy de Dôme flushed with the red light of

the rising sun, a sight compensating for much insolence and discomfort

at the Hôtel de l'Univers, we proceeded to St. Germain-des-Fossés,

where we parted, my young companion taking the train to Autun, I

proceeding by way of Lyons to Gap, on a visit to a beloved French

friend.

The weather had remained brilliantly fine throughout our expedition,

although the cold of early morning was now piercing. And brilliantly

fine it remained till my departure for England, early in October.

PART II

MY SECOND JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES.

CHAPTER I.

THROUGH THE MORVAN.

Of the four hundred and fifty passengers who crossed with us from Dover

to Calais, in August, 1888, we lost every trace when quitting the

Paris-Lyon-Mediterranée line at La Roche. Writing a hundred years ago,

the great agriculturist, Arthur Young, gave his countrymen the

following excellent piece of advice, which, it need hardly be said, has

been generally neglected from that day to this: 'It may be useful to

those who see no more of France than by once passing to Italy, to

remark that if they would view the finest parts of the kingdom they

should land at Dieppe, and follow the Seine to Paris, then take the

great road to Moulins, and thence quit it for Auvergne, and pass to

Viviers, the Rhône, and so by Aix to Italy. By such a variation from

the frequented road the traveller might suffer for want of good inns,

but would be repaid by the sight of a much finer and more singular

country than the common road by Dijon offers, which passes in a great

measure through the worst parts of France.'

The Suffolk squire who rode through France on the eve of the Great

Revolution, in spite of his conscientious desire to see all that the

country had to show, lost much from want of roads, maps, and any kind

of accommodation. Nowadays, as will be seen from the following pages,

good food and good beds await the traveller in the most remote

districts; but in vain! Ninety-nine tourists out of a hundred remain of

the poet Shelley's opinion--there is nothing to see in France--and

hurry on as fast as the express can carry them to Geneva.

At the clean, bright, friendly little town of Auxerre we find ourselves

as isolated from the beaten track as well can be. We are free to roam,

sketch, stare at will, and no one notices us; not even an importunate

beggar molests the sketcher as she brings out her book in the middle of

the street.

This immunity from observation and annoyance forms a minor charm of

French travel.

Auxerre possesses a beautiful little cathedral. It is one-towered, as

that of Sens, a circumstance probably due to want of funds for the

completion.

We always carry away in the memory some striking characteristic of

French cathedrals, and no one can forget the exquisite tint of the

building-stone here, a ruddy hue as of gold lighting up the dark,

richly-sculptured mass without, nor the charming cluster of airy

columns joining the Lady Chapel to the choir within, daintiest bit of

architectural fancy. Whilst we were revelling in the contrast afforded

by the intense glow of the stained glass and the pure white marble--the

interior being one of the loveliest, if least spacious, in France--the

sacristan's wife came up and said that if we waited a few minutes

longer we should see a wedding.

'Although,' she added with an air of apology, 'a wedding of the third

class.'

Now, whilst fairly familiar with French ways, I had never heard of

marriages being divided after the manner of railway-carriages, into

first, second, and third class. Our informant hastened to enlighten us.

It seems that only wedding-parties of the first and second classes are

entitled to enter by the front-door, to music of the full church

orchestra, and to carpets laid down from porch to altar, every detail

of pomp and ceremony depending on the price paid.

I must say that were I a French bride I should bargain for a wedding of

the first class at any sacrifice. To have the big doors of the front

portal flung open at the thrice-repeated knock of the beadle's staff;

to hear Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' pealed from the great organ; to

march in solemn procession up the aisle, preceded by that wonderful

figure in cocked hat, red sash, pink silk stockings, and shoes

sparkling with huge buckles, all the congregation a-titter--it seems to

me it were worth while being married simply for the intoxication of

such a moment.

The third-class wedding-party, entering by a small side-door, and

passing without music to the altar, made nevertheless a pretty picture:

the bride, a handsome demoiselle de boutique, or shop assistant, in

white, with veil and wreath; behind her, girls in bright dresses

bearing enormous bouquets; bridegroom and supporters, all in spick and

span swallow-tail coats, with white ties and gloves, like beaux in a

French comedy, backwards and forwards; the priests looking gorgeous,

although in their second-best robes, their gold plates shining as they

collected the money; for whether married first, second or third class,

the Church exacts its due. I felt real commiseration for these

middle-class, evidently hard-working people, as the gold plate was

presented again and again, first, I presume, for the Church; secondly,

for the poor; thirdly, for Heaven knows what. Then two of the

bridesmaids, each taking the arm of a white-gloved, swallow-tailed

cavalier, made the round of the wedding guests, begging money of them.

In fact, there seemed no end to the giving. Small wonder that marriages

are on the decline in France! We left the bridal party still on their

crimson velvet fauteuils--twelve being the number allotted to a wedding

of the third class, the remaining guests being accommodated on

rush-bottomed chairs--and next visited the underground Church of St.

Germain.

What a contrast it presented to the lightness, brilliancy, and gaiety,

if we may use such a word, of the cathedral! There the effect on the

mind is of pure delight; we feel the exhilaration, not the austerity,

of religion. Very different is the impression produced by St. Germain,

which may be described as a church of tombs, a temple consecrated to

the dead. Although on a smaller scale, this ancient burial-place of

saints and martyrs recalls the awful mausoleum of Spanish kings. The

Escurial itself is hardly more impressive.

The upper church stands airily in the garden of the town hospital, its

fine tower all that is left of the original building. The lower remains

intact. We descend into a perfect little Gothic interior, with naves,

choir, and chapel, all in darkness but for the feeble glimmer of the

sacristan's candle, every part showing ancient frescoes in wonderful

preservation. In huge niches of the walls and under our feet, the

enormous lids of the tombs yielding to our guide's touch, lie the bones

of saints deposited there nearly a thousand years ago, 'English saints,

many of them, who crossed the water with St. Germain,' our cicerone

said with animation, evidently thinking the fact would interest us

extremely. No less curious than these tombs are the frescoes,

illustrating, among other subjects, the life of St. Maxime, companion

of St. Germain, whose bones lie here. 'St. Maxime, St. Maxime,' I said,

as I laboriously deciphered the Latin inscription on the tomb. 'Does

this name, then, belong to a woman?'

'Si fait,' rejoined our guide, no little astonished at such ignorance,

'we have many names in France that do for both sexes, and she belonged

to your own country.'

I did not feel in a position to contradict the statement, but no matter

to what country she belonged, St. Maxime has secured double

immortality--first, in the saints' calendar; secondly, in the mausoleum

of Auxerre. Alike these tombs and frescoes, with the sepulchres of the

Pharaohs, seem able to defy the encroachments of Time.

During the Revolution, great consternation prevailed concerning the

precious relics. The bones of the saintly bishop were disinterred and

hidden elsewhere for safety, and in the after-confusion were never

replaced, but buried elsewhere.

The huge sarcophagus in the wall is a cenotaph.

No similar panic is likely to create a second disturbance of the sacred

relics in this subterranean abbey church. And who can say? Centuries

hence, devout Catholics, dark-skinned descendants of races only just

emerging from cannibalism, may make a solemn pilgrimage hither and find

the pictured story of St. Maxime still intact on the walls! Be this as

it may, no travellers within reach of Auxerre should fail to visit its

two beautiful and perfect churches, the one with its majestic front and

single tower rising airily above the level landscape, its noble

proportions standing out in the bright sunshine, radiant and lightsome

alike within and without; the other, hidden in the bowels of the earth,

giving no visible evidence of its existence, aisle, vaulted roofs,

vistas of delicate columns, only to be realized in the glimmer of a

semi-twilight.

But Auxerre possesses other antiquities and many ancient houses, in one

of which, the Fontaine Hôtel, the traveller is comfortably and

reasonably housed. When we descended to our late supper in the salle à

manger, we found master, mistress, and their children dining with the

entire staff of servants. Such a circumstance indicates the difference

between English and French ways. In an English hotel, would the chef

sit down to talk with boots?--the lady bookkeeper condescend to break

bread with the kitchen-maid? Just as in France there is nothing like

our differentiation of domestic labour, one servant there fulfilling

what are called the duties of three here, so there is no parallel to

our social inequalities, kept up even in the kitchen.

The chef here, who obligingly quitted the table and the company to cook

our cutlets, was a strikingly handsome man, as so many head-cooks are.

The connection between cookery as a fine art and personal beauty I

leave to others to discover. I must say that after a considerable

acquaintance with these officials I can hardly call to mind any of mean

appearance. One of the handsomest, I remember, was an accomplished

young chef, who gave me lessons in the art of omelette-making at the

well-known, home-like Hôtel du Jura, Dijon.

Auxerre, although possessing a cathedral, is not a bishopric, its See

having been annexed to that of Sens, after the Revolution.

Formerly capital of the Auxerrois part of the kingdom of Burgundy,

Auxerre is now chef-lieu of the department of the Yonne, the little

river making such pretty pictures between Sens and La Roche.

Between Auxerre and Autun much of the scenery has an English look. We

might be in Surrey or Sussex. Lofty hedges enclosing fields and

meadows, stretches of heath-covered waste, oak woods, and homesteads

half hidden by orchards form the landscape. As our train crawls on,

stopping at every station, we have ample time to enjoy the scenery and

scrutinize the agriculture, here somewhat backward. These very slow

trains off the great lines should always be resorted to by the

inquiring traveller, the Bommelzug as it is called in German, the train

de bœufs in French. What can be seen from the windows of the flying

_Rapide_? Here we might almost alight and pluck the wild flowers

growing so temptingly on the embankment. Brisk tourists might even turn

the long halt at Avallon to good account, and get a hasty peep of one

of the most wonderful sites in this part of France, not so much as

hinted at from the railway. It was hard to pass Avallon by, 'most

musical name, recalling the "Idylls of the King," a place that may be

compared with Granada, with anything;' harder still, not to revisit the

abbey church of Vézélay, beautiful in itself, so celebrated in history;

so majestically placed on a ridge overlooking the two departments of

the Yonne and the Nièvre, but Goethe's invaluable maxim must be that of

the conscientious traveller, 'An der Nächste muss man denken' (We must

think of the nearest, the most important thing). Time did not now admit

of a two days' halt here. As I have described Avallon and Vézélay fully

elsewhere, [Footnote: I allude to several papers contributed to the

_Pall Mall Gazette_ whilst under the editorship of Mr. John Morley

(September and October, 1881), also to my edition of Murray's 'Handbook

to France,' part ii., 1884.] I will only now assure all tempted to take

this suggestion and visit both, that they cannot be disappointed. So

the train crawled on till the pretty home-like landscape was lost in

the twilight, and night over took us.

It was late when we reached Autun, not too late, however, to receive a

right cordial welcome from the author of 'Round my House,' who had

ridden from his country home in the starlight to welcome us.