her to put her arms or her legs or head in another position, she would
say, _‘Mais non, Monsieur_, it was thus I posed for _Monsieur_ Millet,’
or _Monsieur_ somebody else. Bah! it’s all a fashion!”
--The old woman, disappointed, got up and walked onwards, to be speedily
out-distanced by us.
But J----, as is his habit when he once “gets going,” went on.----
“How’s a picture painted here nowadays any way? Nothing could be
simpler. First you get your model;--she’s most probably stood for
hundreds of other men, and knows more about the business than you do
yourself; your master tells you how to pose her; you put her in a
cabbage-patch or kitchen prepared for the purpose, like those in
Chailly, for example; paint the background as carefully as you know how,
and your picture’s made. It’s easier to learn how to paint than to find
motives for yourself; so follow as closely as possible in other men’s
steps; choose the simplest subjects you can; above all, be in the
fashion. There are as good subjects at home as in Barbizon for Americans
who would but go and look for them.”
--By this time, fortunately, we were in Barbizon, and the necessity of
evolving a French sentence with which to ask his way brought J----’s
lecture to an end.--There could be no doubt that the village was the
headquarters for artists. Here and there and everywhere, among the low
grey gabled houses, were studios; and scarcely were we in the village
street before we found an exhibition of pictures.--It has been recorded
that already Barbizon’s artistic popularity is waning, and that even its
secondary lights have deserted it. We were convinced of its decline when
we saw that several of the studios were for rent, and confirmed in this
conviction by a visit to the Exhibition. It was a shade worse than a
Royal Academy, and at a first glance appeared to be a collection of
fireworks. On a close examination the fireworks resolved themselves into
green trees sprawling against patches of vivid blue sky, and flaming
yellow flowers growing in rank luxuriance in low-toned plains.--There
were one or two Millets, of course; but what would Millet himself have
said to them? It is only fair to add that a few small unpretending
canvases were not without merit.
From what we saw in Barbizon, I do not think it improbable that in
another generation there will not be an artist in the village, and that
Millet will have been forgotten by the villagers.--Though his family
still live there, the children of the place seem to know nothing of his
greatness. The first boys of whom we asked the way to the house,
pointed vaguely down the long winding street, and thought, but were not
quite sure, we should find it if we kept straight on. After we left the
Exhibition, other boys whom we questioned declared they had never heard
the name of Millet; and when we refused to let them off so easily, told
us we must go back in the very direction from which we had come. No, we
insisted, it was not there.----
“Ah!” they thought, “_Monsieur_ must mean _Monsieur Millet le
charbonnier_.”
--Such is fame at home!
Finally, after many explanations on our part, and conversation with
unseen elders behind a garden wall on theirs, a man near by explained
just where the _Maison Millet_ was.
A few steps farther on we reached it. As, I suppose, many other pilgrims
have done, we sat a while on the shady stone seat opposite. A rather
abrupt turn just there hid the road as it wound towards the forest. But
we could look back some distance down the long village street, at the
low houses and high garden walls.--The famous _Maison Millet_, built
right on the road, grey, with brown moss-grown roof, did not differ from
the other peasant cottages. Even the one large window,
[Illustration]
extending almost the entire height of the house, was scarcely a mark of
distinction in studio-crowded Barbizon; just as, probably, during
Millet’s lifetime, his poverty and troubles, and failure to make both
ends meet, were matters of course among the hard-working villagers.--And
yet this humble cottage is already better known and honoured as a place
of pilgrimage in the artistic world, than the palaces that crown Campden
Hill and cluster around Palace Gate, Kensington; even as the works that
came from it will be remembered when the pictures painted within the
palace-studios have long since been forgotten.--We did not ask to go
into the house. I believe visitors are admitted; but it seems almost
cruel to treat it as a mere museum for curious tourists, while the
Millet family is still in charge. So we rested in the pleasant shade,
looking over to the unassuming grey cottage where one or two
plaster-casts showed through the window, the branches of a tall tree
waved over the chimney, and an elder-bush, beneath the weight of its
berries, bent far over the garden wall, on the other side of which
Millet so often walked and stood to watch the west and the setting
sun.--No one was to be seen but two or three children, who examined the
tricycle as they talked in whispers. But we could hear near voices and
the clatter of dishes. And then the wind would come in great gusts from
over the forest, shaking down the leaves on its way, and drowning all
other noises.
[Illustration]
We felt the great contrast when we went from the little house where life
was always sad, to Siron’s, “that excellent artist’s barrack, managed
upon easy principles.”--Its cheerfulness was proclaimed by its large
sign representing a jolly landlord holding a pig’s head on a dish, while
a young lady and gentleman, apparently in an ecstasy of content at the
prospect of a good meal, lay prostrate before it, one on either side,
and an appreciative dog sniffed at it from the foreground.--It seemed
more eloquent in its way than the sign before the other village inn,
whereon a young lady sat at her easel, and two or three young men peeped
over her shoulder, and he who painted it for his dinner was no poor
artist in one sense of the word.
Often enough at Siron’s, as at the _Maison Millet_, there has been the
difficulty of making both ends meet. But at the inn it has been turned
into comedy rather than tragedy, and if money has not been forthcoming
at once, Siron has been willing to wait, knowing that it would in the
end.--Men of other professions, if they lived together in communities,
as artists often do, could hardly show so fair a record. For all the
talk and definitions of so-called Bohemianism, an artist is never in
debt longer than he can help.--It would be fortunate for tradespeople if
the same could be said of all men.
A waiter in a dress-coat, which was certainly not what we had come to
Barbizon to see, showed us into the “high inn-chamber panelled” with
sketches, where we took great pleasure in noting that the best were by
Americans.--We next ordered _groseille_, for which it was our privilege
to pay double the price asked elsewhere. I hope the charges for artists
living in Barbizon are not the same as those for an artist passing
through, disguised as a tricycler.--But Siron’s, with its elegant waiter
and prices, and its Exhibition open to the public, was not the Siron’s
we had expected. We had thought to find a true artists’ inn, like
certain Venetian and Florentine dens we knew of;--we had come instead to
a show for the tourist.--And indeed all Barbizon, with its picture
galleries and studios to let, and posing peasants, seemed no better than
a convenient stopping-place, to which drivers from Fontainebleau could
bring travellers, and allow them to spend their francs for the benefit
of Barbizonians.--Thus, from Millet’s misery the people have reaped a
golden harvest.
Stranger still is the fact, that the country where Millet could see but
suffering humanity, with a forest or open landscape in harmony with it,
is now recommended as a place in which to learn mirth and vivacious
contentment.--Millet’s portion in Barbizon was headache and heartache,
so that now and then, in his despair, he cried out to his friends that,
physically and morally, he was going down hill. Over the way at Siron’s
other men stayed on in the village, because near the forest they were
sure of physical and moral good health, air, light, perfumes, and the
shapes of things concording for them in happy harmony.----
“There is no place,” says Mr. Stevenson, “where the young are more
gladly conscious of their youth, or the old better contented with their
age.”
IN THE FOREST.
The waiter having overcharged us for the _groseille_, we thought it only
fair he should give us information for nothing. He told us the forest
was just around the corner, which we could see for ourselves, and he
directed us on our way with such care that we forgot his directions the
next minute.
The forest is still “horrid and solitary,” as Evelyn has it, just as
when he rode through it and between its “hideous rocks.” We do not know
to this day in what part we were, nor what roads we followed. We made no
effort to go out of our direct course in search of the placarded places
which it is the tourist’s duty to visit.--We did think something of
looking for the rock with the plaques set up on it, in memory of Millet
and Rousseau. In telling us how to find it the waiter’s words had been
many and explicit. But when we tried to recall them we could not; nor
were we more successful in our endeavours to find the rock for
ourselves. However, I do not think it mattered much. It was enough to
know the way was beautiful and the road good.--No such perfect afternoon
had come to us since our departure from Calais; and one reason of its
perfection was, that our pleasure in the loveliness of the place was so
great, we cared little or not at all for names and famous sights. If we
return at some future day to Fontainebleau, we shall probably explore
its valleys and rocks, its groves and thickets. But even were we never
to go back, we should not wish that one ride to have been in any way
different.
We rode for miles, and yet the only monotony was in the good road. Now,
we passed great rocks, some grey and riven, moss and lichens clinging to
them, and bushes and trees struggling from their crevices and growing on
their summit; others bare and shadeless. Here, stretching from boulder
to boulder, were deep beds of purple heather paled by the sun--the
heather on which Millet used to love to lie and look up to the clouds
and the blue sky; and there, feathered ferns, yellow and autumnal in the
open spaces, green and fresh in the shade of rocks and trees, “made a
luxurious couch more soft than sleep.”--Now the way went through the
very heart of a pine wood; pine needles instead of heather covered the
ground, and even carpeted the road; a spicy fragrance, sweetest of all
sweet forest scents, perfumed the air; the wind sighed softly through
the topmost branches, and the tricycle wheeled without a sound over the
brown carpet, on which shadows fell and the sun shone.
[Illustration]
Then the pine scent changed to a rich earthy smell, and to the right the
pines gave way to beeches, tall and slim, growing in groups of two or
three together, with here and there grassy glades leading to dense
thickets; on the left a close undergrowth, high enough to shut out the
prospect, made a hedge-like border to the road. And then again, on
either hand, old moss-grown trees rose to a venerable height, their
branches meeting overhead.
[Illustration]
There is something in a forest, as in a cathedral, that makes one quiet.
We rode for miles in silence. Then at last, in the green aisle,
enthusiasm breaking all bounds----
“This is immense!” cried J----.
--And so indeed it was, in more than the American sense.
But even the vast forest of Fontainebleau cannot go on for ever.--We
were not a little sorry when we wheeled out into an open space at the
top of a long hill, where children were chattering and playing and two
nuns were sitting on the grass. But we were sorrier when, at the
beginning of the coast, the brake went all wrong and refused to work.
The hill was steep. All we could do was to run into a bank by the road,
when the machine stopped.
[Illustration]
FONTAINEBLEAU.
All you need say of Fontainebleau (in case you are asked) is, that it
stands about forty miles (south something) from Paris, in the middle of
a large forest, and that there is something great in it.
Before we went to sleep that night we took counsel together, and it came
to nought. For we determined to be up in the morning with the sun, and
to devote the day to the forest. Of course we overslept ourselves. The
sun had been up three or four hours when we awoke, though as yet it had
refused to show itself. A light cold drizzle was falling.----
“We’ll go instead,” said J----, over his coffee, “to the Palace.”
“I’ll go see any Palace,” quoth I, for I was all compliance through
every step of the journey.
We had not a guide-book with us. We could not tell which was the
Gallery of Francis I., which the Court of Diane de Poitiers, which the
Court _des Adieux_. But had we stopped to turn over the pages of a
Baedeker, I believe we should have lost our impression of the princely
scale with which kings in the good old times provided for their
pleasures.--Court opened into court, one as desolate and deserted as
another; pavilion succeeded pavilion; and the grey walls, with their red
brick facings and _proud_ roofs, as Ruskin would call them, seemed
never-ending. There is nothing that describes this great pile as well as
the saying of an Englishman, that Fontainebleau is a _rendez-vous_ of
châteaux.
When we walked in the garden, and saw that the sun was beginning to
shine, and that it was a quarter of eleven by the clock in the
clock-tower----
“We had better be off,” said we.
As we passed the walls of the Palace gardens the clock struck the hour.
It was not too late. We could still go in, listen to the guide, and be
prepared now to take up above fifty pages with his words and our
reflections upon them.
But, courage, gentle reader; in the words of our Master, ’tis enough to
have thee in our power! but to make use of the advantage, which the
fortune of the pen has now gained over thee, would be too much.
So, put on, my brave travellers, and make the best of your way to
Nemours.
[Illustration]
THROUGH A FAIR COUNTRY.
To Nemours all the way was pleasantness, and all the path was peace.
There was nothing to note but the beauty and excellence of the road.
Only once we came to _pavé_. Then, however, as it was at the bottom of a
hill, it was like to be our ruin. Rosin, back-pedalling, and clever
steering to the side-path saved us. A couple of tramps asked if we had
not an extra seat to spare.
As for Nemours, we could go on for ever in its praise, we found it so
pretty; but for its inhabitants, the less, I think, we say of them the
better.--At three _café_ restaurants--one we passed just as we went into
the city, two were in its very heart--food was refused to us. There was
no reason given for this refusal. The people were disagreeable that was
all.--We lunched in true tramp fashion, on whatever we could pick up by
the way. At one end of the town we ate pears, at the other cake. If our
meal was scanty, we at least had all out of doors, instead of a close
_café_, for dining-room.
We rode a little distance by the canal, and then went into the town to
come quite unexpectedly upon its castle, which, with its grim grey walls
and turrets, was the first real castle we had seen in all our journey.
But old carts and lumber lay familiarly in its courtyard, as if to
remind the chance visitor of its useless old age.--We liked it better
from the other side of the river, where all belittling details were
lost, and we saw the grey pile sternly outlined against the sky and
softly reflected in the water.
[Illustration]
Beyond Nemours the same fine road, like a park avenue, went with the
poplared river until the latter ran off with a great curve across the
broad green fields, to keep well out of sight until it turned back to
meet us at Fontenoy. Here were two canoeists.--The sun shone on the
water, but failed in soft shadows on the meadows beyond and on the road.
Everything was still and at rest but the river and ourselves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
But, quiet as the country was, there was nothing to remind us it was
Sunday. Peasants were at work. Old women here and there cut grass by the
wayside, or carried it home in large bundles on their backs. In one
place _cantonniers_ were busy covering the road with broken stones. In
another we passed travellers footing it over the white highway; one who
walked barefoot, with his boots and his umbrella strapped to his back,
was singing as he went.--Only once we heard church bells. In the little
grey stone villages, at whose entrance poplars stood for sentinels,
there were more people about than usual. And at Souppes, where we
stopped for coffee, the _café_ was full of men in blouses, playing cards
and drinking beer.
[Illustration]
In the course of the afternoon we left the
[Illustration]
department of the Seine-et-Loire for the Loiret, where the road, though
not bad, was not quite so good, and where the kilometre-stones no longer
marked the distance, but were newly whitened, looking for all the world,
as J---- suggested, like tombstones of dead kilometres.--Then we came to
the first vineyard on our route, in which the vines, heavy with purple
clusters, clung to low poles, with none of the grace of the same vines
crossing from mulberry to mulberry in Italy, or of the hops in
England.--Up and down the road took us--now giving us a glimpse of an
old farm-house on a hillside, and then of a far château half hidden in
the trees, until we began to meet many carriages.--A few minutes after
these signs of city life appeared, we were in Montargis.
MONTARGIS.
The landlady was full of apologies for the dulness of the town. The band
always played on Sunday afternoons on the _Place_ in front of her house,
she said; but now the troops were away for the autumn manœuvres, and
Montargis was sad in their absence. We thought, however, she might
better have apologised for the lateness of her dinner-hour.--But it was,
after all, fortunate, for it so chanced we saw more of Montargis than we
expected.
Though little is said about it in guide and other books, it is one of
the prettiest towns in all France. A river, an old church, and a
mediæval castle are always elements of picturesqueness, and these
Montargis has used to the very best advantage.--We found the church grey
and weather-worn of course.
The castle, closed about with high walls, stood gloomily apart, and
overlooked the town. A narrow hilly street, lined with little houses,
led to its heavy gateway, against and above which leaned the poor and
shabby roofs of the nearest dwellings.
[Illustration]
But we took greatest pleasure in the river, which wandered around and
through the town, as if bent on seeing as much of city life as
possible;--now flowing between stone embankments, from which men and
boys for ever fished and caught nothing, while the castle frowned down
upon it; now, tired
[Illustration]
already of city ways and sights, running peacefully between green banks
and trees whose branches met above; again, crossing the street and
making its way by old ruinous houses. We stood on a near bridge while a
funeral passed. Two men carried a coffin, adorned with one poor wreath,
and so small we knew the body of a child lay within; for mourners there
were half-a-dozen women in white caps. The very simplicity of the little
procession made it the more solemn. At its approach voices were hushed
and hats lifted. And yet, as they went over the bridge, the acolytes and
the chanters, even the priest himself, stole a momentary inquiring
glance at J----’s stockings.
It was in Montargis the English drowned Joan of Arc. My authority is an
eminently respectable stationer on the right-hand side of the principal
street as you enter the town from the north. He assured us of the truth
of his statement; and as he had always lived in Montargis and we were
strangers, we did not see our way to dispute it.
In Montargis we heard for the first time the story of the lady
tricycler, afterwards repeated at almost every stage of our journey. The
landlady served it to us with the dessert.--Only a few days before, it
seemed, two gentlemen arrived, each riding a velocipede, and each
wearing long stockings and short pantaloons, like _Monsieur_.----
Show these gentlemen to No. 14, she said to the chambermaid. Take these
towels up to _ces messieurs_ in No. 14, she said to the same chambermaid
a few minutes later. When the dinner-bell rang there came down from No.
14, not two gentlemen, but a gentleman and a lady; and, if we would
believe it, the lady had on a black silk dress. And the next morning, my
faith, two gentlemen rode away!
--In the _café_, after dinner, we watched four citizens of Montargis
gamble recklessly at corks. One, an old fat man in a blouse, who stood
on one leg and waved the other in the air when he played, ran great
risks, with his sous, and usually won, to the discomfiture of a small
man who hit feebly and lost steadily.----
“It is that you are wanting in courage, my child,” his successful rival
kept telling him.
--The few soldiers left in Montargis were making the rounds of the town
with great blowing of bugle and beating of drum when we went to our room
in the Hôtel de la Poste.
HOW WE FOUGHT THE WIND FROM MONTARGIS TO COSNE.
From Montargis to Cosne we fought a mighty wind. The greater part of the
day our heads were down, and we were working as one never works except
for pleasure.--Under these circumstances we saw little of the country
through which we passed. We were just conscious of the tramps we had
seen the day before, now resting by the roadside; and of a blue blouse
on an old boneshaker flying triumphantly with the wind down a long hill
up which we were painfully toiling.
The long day was marked only by our halts for rest. At the first town,
but ten kilometres from Montargis, we stopped nominally for syrup, but
really to take breath. As we drank the _groseille_, which was bad, the
proprietress of the _café_ told us what we should have seen in
Montargis.----
Bah! the château, that was nothing. But hold!
[Illustration]
the brand-new caoutchouc factory; there was something.
--An hour later we dismounted again, to pick blackberries from the
hedge. And then we went doggedly on, pedalling away until we reached the
next village, many kilometres beyond. There was just outside a pretty,
shady road, which we remember gratefully, since on it we had our first
bit of easy riding. Adjoining was a château with high walls, over which
came the sound of gay music.----
To whom did it belong? we asked an old woman on the road.
“To a _Monsieur_ who is enormously rich,” she said. “_Mais, tout le
même_”--“But, all the same”--“he is _bourgeois_!”
The village was just beyond, and in its inn we had lunch.--While we were
eating, bang went a drum on the street, and a bell began to ring. It was
a pedler, who had drawn up his cart. When we strolled out to the street
he had collected quite a crowd.
“Look at these,” he was saying, as he showed a package of flannels; “in
the town the price is three francs. I ask thirty-five sous. I pray you,
ladies, do me the favour to feel them. Are they not soft? But this is
the last package I have. And now, all those who want a pair, hold up
their hands.”
--There was a scramble; more hands than could be filled were raised; his
assistant took down the names of the buyers, and then--the pedler
produced just such another package from his cart.----
“_Nom de Dieu! what longness!_” he cried, as he held up a specimen in
front of the nearest woman.
--At this every one laughed.----
“But, my children”--_mes enfants_, that is what he called them--“we are
not here to amuse ourselves.”
--And so the sale went on. Every article exhibited was the last of the
kind until it was sold. He knew them in this country here, this prince
of pedlers told them. They did not like to buy dear.--When we turned
away he had just sold a piece of corduroy--town price, twelve francs;
pedler’s price, five francs fifty--to an old man who went off grinning,
his prize under his arms.
--The villagers were all talking together, but above their voices we
heard that of the pedler, loud and reproachful.----
“_Que vous êtes bavards ici!_”