down the room with great angry strides, beat themselves on their
breasts, threw their arms to right and left; one would have thought
blows were imminent. In passing, they stopped simultaneously before the
sportsman, who sat near me.----
“And you, sir, what do you say?”
“My faith, gentlemen, I say you are both too violent.”
--Thus startled into speech, he turned to me to explain his views.----
“A man wishes to adopt France. _Et bien?_ it is reasonable that France
should adopt him.”
--When I looked around again the argument had been amicably adjusted
over a backgammon board.
[Illustration]
THROUGH THE RAIN.
Though the Englishman was not on hand in the morning, _Madame_, all the
commercial gentlemen except Mephistopheles, the waiter, and the postman,
who was just then passing, stood out on the street to see us start.--We
carried away from St. Just not only pleasant recollections, but a
handful of sticking labels of advertisement of the Cheval Blanc, which
_Madame_ pressed upon us as she shook hands.
The first place of note was Fitz-James, labelled in the convenient
French fashion, its aggressive English name as unadaptable to foreign
pronunciation as is English prejudice to foreign customs. There we
pushed the tricycle to the other end of the town, then up the long hill
into the principal street of Clermont, to find that the hill did not end
with the _pavé_. There still remained a climb of two kilometres.
From the top of the hill outside of Clermont, six kilometres into Angy,
we went with feet up as fast as the clouds, now ominously black. Of such
a ride what should one remember save the rapid motion through fresh
green country? Before we realised our pleasure we were in Angy, and then
in Mouy, which is literally next door, and where we lunched at a _café_
with as little loss of time as possible.--We hoped to get to Paris that
night. We were determined to take the train at Beaumont, since there
were forty-seven kilometres of _pavé_ from that town to the capital.--In
our first enthusiasm, before our troubles came upon us, we had declared
that nothing, not even _pavé_, would induce us to forswear sentiment and
go by train. But, thanks to the few kilometres we had already bumped
over, we were wiser now. All the old travellers over the post-roads
complain of the _pavé_. Mr. Sterne, as at Nampont, found it a hindrance
to sentiment. Before his day, Evelyn lamented that if the country, where
the roads are paved with a small square freestone, “does not much molest
the traveller with dirt and ill way as in England, ’tis somewhat hard to
the poor horses’ feet, which causes them to ride more temperately,
seldom going out of the trot, or _grand pas_, as they call it.”
If it is so hard to horses’ feet, fancy what it must be to the tyres of
a tricycle!
No sooner were we out of the town than the rain began. At first it was
but a soft light shower. But it turned into a drenching pour just as we
came into a grey thatch-roofed village. We took shelter by a stone wall
under a tree. A woman offered to lend us her umbrella; we could send it
back the next day, she insisted. This was the most disinterested
benevolence shown us throughout the journey.
Presently we set out again, but only to retreat almost at once up a
little vine-covered path leading to a cottage whose owner, when he saw
us, invited us indoors. It seemed useless to wait, however. We had
dragged the tricycle under the vines, but the rain dripped through and
made the saddles wet and slippery. We thanked him kindly, put on our
gossamers, and then plodded on through the driving rain over a sticky
clay road. Now,
[Illustration]
almost blinded, we worked up long ascents between woods and fields where
indefatigable sportsmen frightened what birds there were. Now we rode
through deserted villages and by dreary châteaux.--Occasionally the rain
stopped, only to begin the next second with fresh force. Against it our
gossamers were of no more avail than if they had been so much paper. In
half-an-hour we were uncomfortably conscious that our only dry clothes
were in the bag. As misfortunes never come singly, the luggage-carrier
loosened and swung around to the left of the backbone. Every few minutes
J---- was down in the mud setting it straight again. The water poured in
streams from our hats. With each turn of the wheels we were covered with
mud.
It was in this condition we rode into the streets of Neuilly. Men and
women came to their doors and laughed as we passed.--This decided us.
There is nothing that chills sentiment as quickly as a drenching and
ridicule. We went to the railway station, to learn there would be no
train for three hours. It was simply out of the question to wait in our
wet clothes for that length of time. That it never once occurred to us
to stay in the town overnight shows how poorly we thought of it. Back we
went through the streets, again greeted with the same heartless
laughter from every side. If I were a prophet I would send an army of
bears to devour the people of Neuilly.
The rain, the mud, and the luggage-carrier had it their own way the rest
of the afternoon. When we could we rode as if for our lives.--But every
now and again we had to stop, that J---- might unlace his boots, take
them off, and let the water run out of them. Of course no one was
abroad. What sane men would have dared such weather? We met but one
small boy driving a big cart in a zig-zag course, particularly
aggravating because we were just then on a down-grade. This was the last
affront that made the rest unbearable. J---- is not a man patient of
injuries.----
[Illustration]
“Million names of the name! Little fly!” he yelled, and the boy let us
pass.
--When a turn in the road brought us out on the banks of the Oise, we
were so wet that a plunge in its waters could not have made us
wetter.--A grey town, climbing up to a grey church, rose on the opposite
banks. We supposed it must be Beaumont. But indeed its name just then
mattered little. Without stopping to identify it, we crossed the bridge
and got down at the first inn we came to.
AN ENGLISH LANDLADY.
Fortunately the town really was Beaumont, and the first inn tolerably
decent--so decent we wondered as to our reception. With due respect for
the clean floors, we waited humbly at the threshold until the landlady
appeared.----
“We are very wet,” said I in French, as if this was not a self-evident
truth.
“Oh!” said she in unmistakable insular English. “Fancy!”
--Here was a stroke of good luck! A Frenchwoman would have measured our
respectability by our looks; an Englishwoman could judge us by our love
for sport. She sent a boy with J---- to put away the tricycle, and bade
me follow her. Where we had stood were two pools of water. She took my
gossamer; a muddy stream ran down the passage. I made a wet trail
wherever I went. I followed the landlady up two flights of stairs into a
well-furnished bedroom. I thought that now our troubles were at an end.
But when J---- joined me I found there were two more to add to the
list.--It seemed that just as he unstrapped the bag the luggage-carrier
snapped at the top. And still worse, the constant swinging of the
carrier had worked the bag partly open, and half its contents were well
soaked. We managed to get together a few dry flannels, and then piled
the rest of our wardrobe, from hats to shoes, outside the door--a
melancholy monument to our misfortunes. The landlady, returning just
then with two glasses of hot brandy and water, promised to carry our
clothes downstairs and have them dried at once.
So far, so good; but what was to be done next? To remain in our present
thin attire meant certain colds, if nothing more serious. There was but
one alternative, and we accepted it. When the landlady unceremoniously
opened the door and saw us sitting up in the two little beds, solemnly
staring at each other as we sipped the brandy and water, she was so
embarrassed she forgot her English and broke out in French. It was
fluent, but little else could be said for it. In a minute she was out of
the room; in another she was knocking discreetly, and telling us there
were dressing-gowns and shawls and slippers without at our service. She
was of the opinion that bed was no place for us, and would not hear of
our staying there. We must
[Illustration]
come into her private sitting-room, where there was a fire. As a rule
private sitting-rooms and fires in September are not insignificant items
in a bill. But she would hear of no excuse, and waited by the door until
we dressed, after a fashion.
I flattered myself that I, in her neat wrapper, with a little white
ruffle in the neck, made quite a presentable appearance. J----’s
costume, consisting of her husband’s dressing-gown and a short kilt
improvised out of a plaid-shawl, was more picturesque, but less
successful.--It was still so wet without that we found comfort in the
great wood fire in her room. She gave us easy-chairs, one on either
side, and for our entertainment produced Thornbury’s illustrated
_London_. But we were more taken up in looking at each other, and were
reasonably serious only when she was in the room.
At half-past six she announced dinner, adding that our clothes were not
yet dry, though a large fire had been kindled for their express benefit.
I looked at J----. No, it was simply impossible to appear at the _table
d’hôte_ with him in his present costume. Before I had time to tell him
so----
“You can’t go down as you now are,” said he to me.
--The landlady was of the same mind, for a pretty little maid, coming in
just then, laid the cloth on the table in the centre of the room. I
thought of our bill the next morning. Private dining-rooms, like private
sitting-rooms, are luxuries not to be had for nothing.
The dinner was good, and the little maid, be it said to her credit,
behaved with great propriety. So long as she was in attendance she never
once smiled. However, I cannot answer for her gravity on the other side
of the door.
It was half-past eight when the landlady said good-night, assuring us
everything would be ready early in the morning.--But we went to bed at
once. The last thing we heard before we fell asleep was the rain still
pouring into the waters of the Oise and upon the paved streets of
Beaumont.
[Illustration]
OVER THE _PAVÉ_.
Next morning, because we were to go by train, we realised the advantage
of travelling by tricycle. Early as we were, our clothes, dry and clean,
were in readiness. When we appeared in them in the public dining-room
the maid at first did not recognise us.--I think it is well worth
recording that our bill amounted to just twelve francs and fifty
centimes, though all the items, even to the fire that dried our entire
wardrobe, were mentioned separately.--After breakfast J---- carried the
luggage-carrier to a blacksmith within a few doors of the hotel. The
latter examined it, found the trouble to be but trifling, and
accordingly treated it as such, to our later discomfiture. The rain had
stopped, though the clouds were still heavy. There was nothing to
detain us save the provoking fact that the train would not start for an
hour. It was at these times we best appreciated the independence of
cycling.
This delay gave us a chance to see something of Beaumont, a town we
found interesting chiefly because it was there we crossed the route of
Mr. Stevenson’s _Inland Voyage_. That whatever attractions it may
possess do not appear on its surface, is shown by this book, since Mr.
Stevenson, who on his way down the Oise must have paddled past, never
even names Beaumont. Mr. Evelyn, who in the course of his travels went
through it, merely mentions it, while our sentimental Master ignores it
altogether. It would therefore seem more in his spirit to say as little
about it as possible.
--We left the train at St. Denis, had the tricycle lifted out--always a
trouble at way stations--only to be told the _Ceinture_ was
three-quarters of a mile nearer Paris, and that we could not carry the
machine on it, since baggage-cars were never attached to the trains. The
porter suggested we could walk to the first _Ceinture_ station, and take
the train to the _Gare de Lyon_. He would put the velocipede on another
train that would carry it to the _Gare du Nord_. We could on our arrival
return to the _Gare du Nord_ and ride the velocipede across the city.
If _Monsieur_ was pleased to do this he would charge himself with the
machine. This ingenious suggestion we dismissed with the contempt it
deserved. Then he said there was nothing to do but to wait at St. Denis
for the next train to Paris, due in an hour and a half.
I declare during that long wasted interval we did not as much as turn
our heads on the side towards the Abbey. Richness of their treasury!
Stuff and nonsense! Bating their jewels, which are all false, I would
not give three sous for any one thing in it but Jaidas’ lantern; nor for
that neither, only as it grows dark it might be of use. But on second
thoughts I doubt if it would be much better than the lamp on the
tricycle. Of course Mr. Tristram Shandy’s words are recognised at once?
But then, why should I not use them if they set forth the sentiments
that certainly would have been ours had we once remembered there was an
Abbey at St. Denis?
PARIS.
Crack, crack--crack, crack--crack, crack. So this is Paris! quoth we,
continuing in the same mood, when, having at last reached the _Gare du
Nord_, we went out on the street in search of a cab--So this is Paris!
The first, the finest, the most brilliant!
The cabmen at first would have nothing to do with us. Take that thing on
their carriage indeed! Crack, crack--crack, crack--what a fuss they
made! But at last, when chances of a fare grew less, they listened to
our explanation that the cab was but for me and the bag.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten _cafés_
within three minutes’ driving! To see Paris from a cab, as you cross the
city from one station to another, is to conclude that Parisians do
nothing but drink coffee. As if he had read my thoughts, and would
confirm me in this opinion, the driver set me down in front of the large
_café_ of the _Gare de Lyon_.
[Illustration]
Inside the station I waited with the usual crowd;--with slouchy,
red-trousered soldiers and baggy Zouaves, old _curés_ and one brand-new
_curé_, young ladies with high heels and old women in caps, young men in
straight-brimmed tall hats, and _gendarmes_ in full uniform. At the end
of an hour J---- joined me. He looked very warm, his clothes were well
bespattered with mud, and the lamp was sticking out of his coat
pocket.--Though the streets of Paris are no longer villainously narrow,
it is, I am sure, as difficult as ever to turn a wheelbarrow in them,
because of the recklessness of the drivers and the vileness of the
_pavé_. At all events it is no easy matter to wheel a tricycle through
the broadest boulevards. Still J---- had much to be thankful for. He
was run into but twice, and only the luggage-carrier and the lamp were
broken.
We lunched in the _café_. Some of the high-heeled young ladies and
high-hatted young gentlemen were lunching there at the same time. They
and the waiters stared at us too astonished to smile. It is true we, and
more especially J----, had not the Parisian air. But stares were the
only attentions we received. This made us glad we had decided not to
stay several days in Paris in order to go on pilgrimage to Versailles.
In the capital, apparently, knee-breeches were too conspicuous for
comfort.--It was on business connected with his passport Mr. Sterne went
to Versailles. We had no passport; therefore it would be absurd to
follow him thither. This was our argument. But it seemed as if the
farther we rode on our journey the more certain we were to make
sentimental plans but to break them.
No; I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the
people--their genius, their manners, their customs, their laws, their
religion, their government, their manufactures, their commerce, their
finances, with all the resources and hidden springs that sustain
them--qualified as I may be by spending three hours amongst them, and
during all that time making these things the entire subject of my
inquiries and reflections.
Still,--still we must away--the roads were paved; we could not ride; the
train went at 12.15; ’twas almost noon when we finished our lunch.
The notice inside the station announced the departure of the train at a
quarter past twelve; but on the platform a porter, pointing to a second
official placard that changed the hour to twelve, hurried the tricycle
into the baggage-car, and us into the first second-class carriage we
came to. It seemed that notices were set up at the _Gare de Lyon_ for
the confusion of travellers! The carriage was empty save for a bag and
one overcoat.
At the last moment--the train, in utter disregard of both notices,
starting at five minutes after twelve--the owner of the bag jumped in.
He gave us one glance, seized his property, and fairly fled.--I might
have fancied we were not concerned in his flight had it not been for the
sequel at Melun. Here at the station J----, with the bag, was out even
before the train stopped. When I followed to the door the man was
already on the platform. The moment I stepped out he stepped in, shut
the door with a bang, and from the window watched our suspicious
movements.--I wondered what he thought when he saw the tandem.
The porters and stationmaster immediately were for showing us the road
to Barbizon. That the little village was our destination they had no
doubt. Did they not see _Monsieur’s_ portfolio?--They were mightily
interested in the tricycle, and leaned over the railroad bridge above
the road to watch it out of sight. But by shouting down useless parting
directions, they made it seem as if they were there for our convenience
rather than for their curiosity.--As for Melun, though it was of old a
Roman town, and later was made famous by Abelard, I can say nothing of
it, for the good reason that we at once turned our backs upon its
_pavé_.
A TALK ABOUT M. MILLET AND MR. STEVENSON, AND FROM MR. PENNELL.
The ride from Melun to Barbizon and through the Forest of Fontainebleau
was a pilgrimage within a pilgrimage. Like Christian, we were tempted to
desert the straight course, and, like him, we yielded. We turned out of
our sentimental way to see M. Millet’s house for pleasure.--To be
strictly truthful, I must add that another good reason for going by
Barbizon was the knowledge that the _pavé_ of the national road only
comes to an end at Fontainebleau, together with our eagerness to be out
of the train and riding again as soon as possible.--By following the
Chailly and Barbizon road to the Forest we could have our desire and
spare the tricycle.
It considerately cleared with the early afternoon, and the cloud masses,
now white and soft, drifted apart, to leave blue spaces between.--We had
a shower or two, but so light we were not wet; and presently the sun
coming out set the rain-drops on the bushes and heather by the wayside
to glittering.
Not far from Melun we met four bicyclers. Much has been said about the
“freemasonry of the wheel.” There is a pleasant suggestion of
good-fellowship in the expression, but I think it merely means that
cyclers, who abroad will speak to any other cycler who gives them the
chance, at home ignore all but friends and acquaintances. At least this
is the definition which French, like English, riders practically
accept.--Of the four near Melun, two wheeled by as if they did not see
us, and the third tried not to smile. The fourth, however, wished us a
_Bon jour_, but it was scarcely disinterested. It turned out he had just
ordered a _Rotarie_ from Bordeaux, and wanted to know some thing of the
system of our tandem.----
In how many ways could it be used, for example? and what time could we
make on it?
--The freemasonry in his case only carried him over level ground. At the
foot of the first hill he left us.
We were in a humour for fault-finding. The luggage-carrier, of course,
was to blame. Like Christian, we were punished for going out of our way,
I suppose. Certain it is that before long we stood still, as he did, and
wotted not what to do.--If the blacksmith at Beaumont had been a little
more serious in his work, the accident in Paris might not have happened;
or indeed, to go back to the beginning of the evil, if Humber & Co. had
only known as much as they think they know about their own business, we
should not have found ourselves half-way to Chailly with the
luggage-carrier hanging on by one screw.--We managed to keep it in place
after a fashion; but there was no riding fast, and I do not believe in
the whole course of our journey we ever sighted a town so joyously as we
did Chailly, lying “dustily slumbering in the plain.”
In our struggles we had pulled off a strap, and I went to the
harness-maker’s to see if it could there be re-fastened, while J----
knocked at the blacksmith’s. For five minutes no one answered; and then
at last an old woman, clean and neat as her village, opened the door,
and made quite a show of briskness by asking what I wanted. She said of
course the matter could be attended to. But when I represented I must
have it done at once----
“My dear Madam, it is impossible,” she said. “The workmen have been
gone two days, and I cannot tell when they will return.”
--At the blacksmith’s J----’s knocks summoned only two children, who
stared as if nothing was more unlooked for at the shop than a
customer.--Our needs were urgent, and it was useless to attempt to make
them understand. J---- went boldly in, and helped himself to wire and a
nail.--While he was blacksmithing for himself their mother came out and
bade him take whatever he wanted. The workmen had been away a week, and
she did not know when they would be back again.--That workmen should
leave Chailly to find something to do did not seem surprising. The only
wonder was they should think it worth their while to stay there at
all.--As we stood in front of the shop, J---- mending the
luggage-carrier with an energy I am sure had never gone to the operation
before, a little diligence carrying a young lady and an artist in Tam o’
Shanter--there was no mistaking his trade--passed with a great jingling
of bells. But even it failed to awake Chailly from its slumbers.
The blacksmith’s wife refused to take any money for the wire and
nail.--However, J---- insisting on making some payment, the woman told
him he could give sous to the children. I have never seen anything to
equal her honesty. When she found that two of her neighbour’s little
girls had come in for a share of the profits, she forced them to
relinquish it, while she would not allow her own children to keep more
than two sous a-piece. Nothing we could say could alter her resolution,
and with Spartan-like heroism she seized the extra sous and thrust them
into J----’s hand.
[Illustration]
After experiencing these things, we rode out on the great plain of
Barbizon. It would be affectation to pretend we did not at once think
and speak of Millet. Was it not partly to see his house and country we
had come this way? His fields, with here and there scattered grey
boulders, and in the middle distance a cluster of trees, stretched from
either side of the road to the far low horizon, the beauty of their
monotony being but accentuated by the afternoon’s soft cloud-shadows. It
seemed to us a bright, broad prospect, though I suppose we should have
found it full of infinite sadness.--There was not much pathos in near
cabbage-patches glowing and shining in two o’clock sunlight, and we
could not believe the weariness of the peasants to be quite genuine.
Their melancholy seemed less hopelessness, than consciousness of their
duty to pose as pathetic features in the landscape.--Even an old woman,
a real Millet, with sabots and handkerchief turban, and a bundle of
grass on her back, stopped on her homeward way to strike a weary
attitude on a stone heap by the wayside the minute she saw J----’s
sketch-book.--The peasants of Barbizon have not served an apprenticeship
as models for nothing. They have learned to realise their sufferings,
and to make the most of them.----
[Illustration]
[Illustration]