XI.

I know not whether the exact limits of an excur-

sion, as distinguished from a journey, have ever been

fixed; at any rate, it seemed none of my business, at

Tours, to settle the question. Therefore, though the

making of excursions had been the purpose of my

stay, I thought it vain, while I started for Bourges, to

determine to which category that little expedition

might belong. It was not till the third day that I re-

turned to Tours; and the distance, traversed for the

most part after dark, was even greater than I had sup-

posed. That, however, was partly the fault of a tire-

some wait at Vierzon, where I had more than enough

time to dine, very badly, at the _buffet_, and to observe

the proceedings of a family who had entered my rail-

way carriage at Tours and had conversed unreservedly,

for my benefit, all the way from that station, - a family

whom it entertained me to assign to the class of _petite

noblesse de province_. Their noble origin was confirmed

by the way they all made _maigre_ in the refreshment

oom (it happened to be a Friday), as if it had been

possible to do anything else. They ate two or three

omelets apiece, and ever so many little cakes, while

the positive, talkative mother watched her children as

the waiter handed about the roast fowl. I was destined

to share the secrets of this family to the end; for

when I had taken place in the empty train that was

in waiting to convey us to Bourges, the same vigilant

woman pushed them all on top of me into my com-

partment, though the carriages on either side con-

tained no travellers at all. It was better, I found, to

have dined (even on omelets and little cakes) at the

station at Vierzon than at the hotel at Bourges, which,

when I reached it at nine o'clock at night, did not

strike me as the prince of hotels. The inns in the

smaller provincial towns in France are all, as the term

is, commercial, and the _commis-voyageur_ is in triumphant

possession. I saw a great deal of him for several

weeks after this; for he was apparently the only traveller

in the southern provinces, and it was my daily fate to

sit opposite to him at tables d'hote and in railway

trains. He may be known by two infallible signs, -

his hands are fat, and he tucks his napkin into his

shirt-collar. In spite of these idiosyncrasies, he seemed

to me a reserved and inoffensive person, with singularly

little of the demonstrative good-humor that he has

been described as possessing. I saw no one who re-

minded me of Balzac's "illustre Gaudissart;" and in-

deed, in the course of a month's journey through a

large part of France, I heard so little desultory con-

versation that I wondered whether a change had not

come over the spirit of the people. They seemed to

me as silent as Americans when Americans have not

been "introduced," and infinitely less addicted to ex-

changing remarks in railway trains and at tables d'hote

the colloquial and cursory English; a fact per-

haps not worth mentioning were it not at variance

with that reputation which the French have long en-

joyed of being a pre-eminently sociable nation. The

common report of the character of a people is, how-

ever, an indefinable product; and it is, apt to strike

the traveller who observes for himself as very wide of

the mark. The English, who have for ages been de-

scribed (mainly by the French) as the dumb, stiff,

unapproachable race, present to-day a remarkable ap-

pearance of good-humor and garrulity, and are dis-

tinguished by their facility of intercourse. On the

other hand, any one who has seen half a dozen

Frenchmen pass a whole day together in a railway-

carriage without breaking silence is forced to believe

that the traditional reputation of these gentlemen is

simply the survival of some primitive formula. It was

true, doubtless, before the Revolution; but there have

been great changes since then. The question of which

is the better taste, to talk to strangers or to hold your

tongue, is a matter apart; I incline to believe that the

French reserve is the result of a more definite con-

ception of social behavior. I allude to it only be-

came it is at variance with the national fame, and at

the same time is compatible with a very easy view of

life in certain other directions. On some of these

latter points the Boule d'Or at Bourges was full of

instruction; boasting, as it did, of a hall of reception

in which, amid old boots that had been brought to be

cleaned, old linen that was being sorted for the wash,

and lamps of evil odor that were awaiting replenish-

ment, a strange, familiar, promiscuous household life

went forward. Small scullions in white caps and aprons

slept upon greasy benches; the Boots sat staring at

you while you fumbled, helpless, in a row of pigeon-

holes, for your candlestick or your key; and, amid the

coming and going of the _commis-voyageurs_, a little

sempstress bent over the under-garments of the hostess,

- the latter being a heavy, stem, silent woman, who

looked at people very hard.

It was not to be looked at in that manner that one

had come all the way from Tours; so that within ten

minutes after my arrival I sallied out into the dark-

ness to get somehow and somewhere a happier im-

pression. However late in the evening I may arrive

at a place, I cannot go to bed without an impression.

The natural place, at Bourges, to look for one seemed

to be the cathedral; which, moreover, was the only

thing that could account for my presence _dans cette

galere_. I turned out of a small square, in front of the

hotel, and walked up a narrow, sloping street, paved

with big, rough stones and guiltless of a foot-way.

It was a splendid starlight night; the stillness of a

sleeping _ville de province_ was over everything; I had

the whole place to myself. I turned to my right, at

the top of the street, where presently a short, vague

lane brought me into sight of the cathedral. I ap-

proached it obliquely, from behind; it loomed up in

the darkness above me, enormous and sublime. It

stands on the top of the large but not lofty eminence

over which Bourges is scattered, - a very good position,

as French cathedrals go, for they are not all so nobly

situated as Chartres and Laon. On the side on which

I approached it (the south) it is tolerably well ex-

posed, though the precinct is shabby; in front, it is

rather too much shut in. These defects, however, it

makes up for on the north side and behind, where it

presents itself in the most admirable manner to the

garden of the Archeveche, which has been arranged

as a public walk, with the usual formal alleys of the

_jardin francais_. I must add that I appreciated these

points only on the following day. As I stood there in

the light of the stars, many of which had an autumnal

sharpness, while others were shooting over the heavens,

the huge, rugged vessel of the church overhung me in

very much the same way as the black hull of a ship

at sea would overhang a solitary swimmer. It seemed

colossal, stupendous, a dark leviathan.

The next morning, which was lovely, I lost no

time in going back to it, and found, with satisfaction,

that the daylight did it no injury. The cathedral of

Bourges is indeed magnificently huge; and if it is a

good deal wanting in lightness and grace it is perhaps

only the more imposing. I read in the excellent hand-

book of M. Joanne that it was projected "_des_ 1172,"

but commenced only in the first years of the thirteenth

century. "The nave" the writer adds, "was finished

_tant bien que mal, faute de ressources;_ the facade is of

the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in its lower

part, and of the fourteenth in its upper." The allusion

to the nave means the omission of the transepts. The

west front consists of two vast but imperfect towers;

one of which (the south) is immensely buttressed, so

that its outline slopes forward, like that of a pyramid,

being the taller of the two. If they had spires, these

towers would be prodigious; as it is, given the rest

of the church, they are wanting in elevation. There

are five deeply recessed portals, all in a row, each

surmounted with a gable; the gable over the central

door being exceptionally high. Above the porches,

which give the measure of its width, the front rears

itself, piles itself, on a great scale, carried up by gal-

leries, arches, windows, sculptures, and supported by

the extraordinarily thick buttresses of which I have

spoken, and which, though they embellish it with deep

shadows thrown sidewise, do not improve its style.

The portals, especially the middle one, are extremely

interesting; they are covered with curious early sculp-

tures. The middle one, however, I must describe

alone. It has no less than six rows of figures, - the

others have four, - some of which, notably the upper

one, are still in their places. The arch at the top has

three tiers of elaborate imagery. The upper of these

is divided by the figure of Christ in judgment, of great

size, stiff and terrible, with outstretched arms. On

either side of him are ranged three or four angels,

with the instruments of the Passion. Beneath him, in

the second frieze, stands the angel of justice, with his

scales; and on either side of him is the vision of the

last judgment. The good prepare, with infinite titilla-

tion and complacency, to ascend to the skies; while

the bad are dragged, pushed, hurled, stuffed, crammed,

into pits and caldrons of fire. There is a charming

detail in this section. Beside the angel, on, the right,

where the wicked are the prey of demons, stands a

little female figure, that of a child, who, with hands

meekly folded and head gently raised, waits for the

stern angel to decide upon her fate. In this fate, how-

ever, a dreadful, big devil also takes a keen interest;

he seems on the point of appropriating the tender

creature; he has a face like a goat and an enormous

hooked nose. But the angel gently lays a hand upon

the shoulder of the little girl - the movement is full

of dignity - as if to say, "No; she belongs to the other

side." The frieze below represents the general re-

surrection, with the good and the wicked emerging from

their sepulchres. Nothing can be more quaint and

charming than the difference shown in their way of

responding to the final trump. The good get out of

their tombs with a certain modest gayety, an alacrity

tempered by respect; one of them kneels to pray as

soon as he has disinterred himself. You may know

the wicked, on the other hand, by their extreme shy-

ness; they crawl out slowly and fearfully; they hang

back, and seem to say, "Oh, dear!" These elaborate

sculptures, full of ingenuous intention and of the

reality of early faith, are in a remarkable state of pre-

servation; they bear no superficial signs of restoration,

and appear scarcely to have suffered from the centu-

ries. They are delightfully expressive; the artist had

the advantage of knowing exactly the effect he wished

to produce.

The interior of the cathedral has a great simplicity

and majesty, and, above all, a tremendous height. The

nave is extraordinary in this respect; it dwarfs every-

thing else I know. I should add, however, that I am,

in architecture, always of the opinion of the last

speaker. Any great building seems to me, while I

look at it, the ultimate expression. At any rate, during

the hour that I sat gazing along the high vista of

Bourges, the interior of the great vessel corresponded

to my vision of the evening before. There is a tranquil

largeness, a kind of infinitude, about such an edifice:

it soothes and purifies the spirit, it illuminates the

mind. There are two aisles, on either side, in addi-

tion to the nave, - five in all, - and, as I have said,

there are no transepts; an omission which lengthens

the vista, so that from my place near the door the

central jewelled window in the depths of the perpen-

dicular choir seemed a mile or two away. The second,

or outward, of each pair of aisles is too low, and the

first too high; without this inequality the nave would

appear to take an even more prodigious flight. The

double aisles pass all the way round the choir, the

windows of which are inordinately rich in magnificent

old glass. I have seen glass as fine in other churches;

but I think I have never seen so much of it at once.

Beside the cathedral, on the north, is a curious

structure of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, which

looks like an enormous flying buttress, with its sup-

port, sustaining the north tower. It makes a massive

arch, high in the air, and produces a romantic effect

as people pass under it to the open gardens of the

Archeveche, which extend to a considerable distance

in the rear of the church. The structure supporting

the arch has the girth of a largeish house, and con-

tains chambers with whose uses I am unacquainted,

but to which the deep pulsations of the cathedral, the

vibration of its mighty bells, and the roll of its organ-

tones must be transmitted even through the great arm

of stone.

The archiepiscopal palace, not walled in as at Tours,

is visible as a stately habitation of the last century,

now in course of reparation in consequence of a fire.

From this side, and from the gardens of the palace,

the nave of the cathedral is visible in all its great

length and height, with its extraordinary multitude of

supports. The gardens aforesaid, accessible through

tall iron gates, are the promenade - the Tuileries - of

the town, and, very pretty in themselves, are immensely

set off by the overhanging church. It was warm and

sunny; the benches were empty; I sat there a long

time, in that pleasant state of mind which visits the

traveller in foreign towns, when he is not too hurried,

while he wonders where he had better go next. The

straight, unbroken line of the roof of the cathedral

was very noble; but I could see from this point how

much finer the effect would have been if the towers,

which had dropped almost out of sight, might have

been carried still higher. The archiepiscopal gardens

look down at one end over a sort of esplanade or

suburban avenue lying on a lower level, on which they

open, and where several detachments of soldiers

(Bourges is full of soldiers) had just been drawn up.

The civil population was also collecting, and I saw

that something was going to happen. I learned that

a private of the Chasseurs was to be "broken" for

stealing, and every one was eager to behold the cere-

mony. Sundry other detachments arrived on the

ground, besides many of the military who had come

as a matter of taste. One of them described to me

the process of degradation from the ranks, and I felt

for a moment a hideous curiosity to see it, under the

influence of which I lingered a little. But only a

little; the hateful nature of the spectacle hurried me

away, at the same time that others were hurrying for-

ward. As I turned my back upon it I reflected that

human beings are cruel brutes, though I could not

flatter myself that the ferocity of the thing was ex-

clusively French. In another country the concourse

would have been equally great, and the moral of it all

seemed to be that military penalties are as terrible as

military honors are gratifying.