Cross and the plough, labour and prayer.' They introduced apples, now
the principal fruit of Brittany. Much cider is made and drank; and in
old times they got their wine from France in exchange for wax and
honey, as they were famous bee-keepers. Great fields of buck-wheat still
afford food for the 'yellow-breeched philosophers,' and in many cottage
gardens a row of queerly shaped hives stand in sunny nooks.
These monks were the model farmers of those days, and their abbeys were
fine farms. One had twenty piggeries, of three hundred pigs each, in its
forests. The monks also reared sheep and horses, and bred fish in their
ponds.
Many were also brewers, weavers, carpenters, and so on. Evidently they
lived up to their motto and laboured quite as much as they prayed, and
doubtless were saved by works as well as by faith.
The little Place Du Guesclin, with a stumpy statue of the famous knight
in the middle and chestnut trees all around, was a favourite
resting-place of the ladies--especially when the weekly fair was held
and booths of all sorts were raised at one end. Here Amanda bought a
remarkable jack-knife, which would cut nothing but her fingers: Matilda
speculated in curious kinds of cake; one sort being made into gigantic
jumbles so light that they did excellently for grace-hoops; another sort
being used by these vandals as catch-alls, so deep and tough were they.
Lavinia examined the various fabrics, and got bits of linen as samples,
also queer earthen pots and pans impossible to carry away.
The church of St. Sauveur, a dim and ancient little place with Du
Guesclin's heart buried by the side of his wife, was another haunt. The
castle, now a prison, contained the arm-chair in which Duchess Anne sat,
and the dungeons where were crammed two thousand English prisoners of
war in the last century. The view from the platform of the keep was
magnificent, extending to Mont Dol and the distant sea.
The sunny promenade on the _fosse_, that goes half round the town, was
very charming, with the old grey walls on one side, and, on the other,
the green valley with its luxuriant gardens, and leafy lanes, winding up
to the ruined _château_, or the undulating hills with picturesque
windmills whirling on the heights.
On the other side of the town, from the high gardens of the church, one
looked down into the deeper valley of the Rance, with the airy viaduct
striding from hill to hill, and the old part of the town nestling at its
base.
Soft and summery, fertile and reposeful, was the scene; and the busy
peasants at their work added to the charm. Pretty English children with
Breton nurses, each in the costume of her native town, played under the
lindens all abloom with odorous flowers and alive with bees. Workmen
came to these green places to eat the black bread and drink the thin
wine that was all their dinner. Invalids strolled here after their baths
at the little house in the rose-garden below. Pretty girls walked there
in the twilight with long-haired lovers in knee breeches and round hats.
Nuns in their grey gowns went to and fro from hospital and the insane
asylum or charity school; and the beautiful old priest sometimes went
feebly by, smiling paternally on his flock, who rose and uncovered
reverently as he passed.
Flowers were everywhere,--in the gardens of the rich, at the windows of
the poor. The stalls in the market were gay with plumy lilacs, splendid
tulips, roses of every shade, and hyacinths heavy with odour. All along
the borders of the river waved the blossoming grass; every green bank
about the mills at Lehon was yellow with dandelions, and the sunny
heads of little children welcoming the flower of the poor. Even the
neglected churchyard of the ruined abbey, where the tombs of the stately
Beaumanoirs still stand, was bright with cheerful daisies and blue-eyed
forget-me-nots.
The willows in the valley were covered with fragrant tassels, and the
old women and children sat all day on door-stones and by the wayside
stripping the long, white wands for basket-making. Flax fields were
blooming in the meadows, and acres of buckwheat, with its rosy stems and
snowy blossoms, whitened the uplands with a fair prophecy of bread for
all.
So, garlanded about with early flowers and painted in spring's softest,
freshest colours, Brittany remains for ever a pleasant picture in the
memory of those who have been welcomed to its hospitable homes, and
found friends among its brave and loyal people.
III.
_FRANCE._
'Girls, I have had a scintillation in the night: listen and approve!'
said Amanda, coming into the room where her comrades sat upon the floor,
in the first stages of despair, at the impossibility of getting the
accumulated rubbish of three months' travel into a couple of immense
trunks.
'Blessed girl! you always bring a ray of light just at the darkest
moment,' returned Lavinia, with a sigh of relief, while Matilda looked
over a barricade of sketch-books bristling with paint-brushes, and added
anxiously,--
'If you _could_ suggest how I am to work this miracle, you will be a
public benefactor.'
'Behold the amendment I propose,' began Amanda, perching herself on one
of the arks. 'We have decided to travel slowly and comfortably through
France to Switzerland, stopping where we like, and staying as long as we
please at any place we fancy, being as free as air, and having all the
world before us where to choose, as it were.'
'The route you have laid out is a charming one, and I don't see how you
can improve it,' said Lavinia, who, though she was supposed to be the
matron, guide, and protector of the younger girls, was in reality
nothing but a dummy, used for Mrs. Grundy's sake, and let the girls do
just as they pleased, only claiming the right to groan and moan as much
as she liked when neuralgia, her familiar demon, claimed her for its
own.
'One improvement remains to be made. Are these trunks a burden, a
vexation of spirit, a curse?' demanded Amanda, tapping one with her
carefully cherished finger-tips.
'They are! they are!' groaned the others, regarding the monsters with
abhorrence.
'Then let us get rid of them, and set out with no luggage but a few
necessaries in a shawl-strap.'
'We will! we will!' returned the chorus.
'Shall we burn up our rubbish, or give it away?' asked Lavinia, who
liked energetic measures, and was ready to cast her garments to the four
winds of heaven, to save herself from the agonies of packing.
'_I_ shall never give up my pictures, nor my boots!' cried Matilda,
gathering her idols to her breast in a promiscuous heap.
'Be calm and listen,' returned the scintillator. 'Pack away all but the
merest necessaries, and we will send the trunk by express to Lyons. Then
with our travelling-bags and bundles, we can follow at our leisure.'
''Tis well! 'tis well!' replied the chorus, and they all returned to
their packing, which was performed in the most characteristic manner.
Amanda never seemed to have any clothes, yet was always well and
appropriately dressed; so it did not take her long to lay a few
garments, a book or two, a box of Roman-coin lockets, scarabæ brooches,
and cinque-cento rings, likewise a swell hat and habit, into her vast
trunk; then lock and label it in the most business-like and thorough
manner.
Matilda found much difficulty in reconciling paint-pots and silk gowns,
blue hats and statuary, French boots and Yankee notions. But order was
at length produced from chaos, and the young lady refreshed her weary
soul by painting large red M's all over the trunk to mark it for her
own.
Miss Lavinia packed and repacked four or five times, forgetting
needfuls, which, of course, were always at the very bottom. At the fifth
plunge into the depths her patience gave out, and with a vow to be a
slave no longer to her treacherous memory, she tumbled every thing in,
performed a solemn jig on the lid till it locked, then pasted large, but
illegible placards in every available spot, and rested from her labours
with every nerve in a throbbing condition.
Shawl-straps of the largest, strongest sort were next procured, and the
three bundles made up with much discussion and merriment.
Into Amanda's went a volume of Shakspeare of great size and weight, but
as indispensable as a tooth-brush to its owner; toilette-articles tied
up in a handkerchief, a few necessary garments, and much paper,--for
Amanda was inspired with poetic fire at unexpected moments, also had
five hundred bosom friends, in answering whose epistolary gushings much
stationery was consumed. A pistol, a massive crust of bread, and an oval
box containing all the dainty appliances for the culture, preservation,
and ornamentation of the finger-nails, made up her store.
Matilda's bundle consisted of sketch-books, a trifle of haberdashery, a
curling-stick that was always tumbling out at inopportune moments, yards
of blue ribbon, and a camp-stool strapped outside in company with a
Japanese umbrella, a gift from the stout doctor, destined to be cursed
in many languages by the unhappy beings into whose backs, eyes, and
stomachs it was poked before its wanderings ended.
Lavinia confined herself to a choice collection of bottles and
pill-boxes, fur boots, a grey cloud, and several French novels,--the
solace of wakeful nights. A scarlet army blanket, with U. S. in big
black letters on it, enveloped her travelling medicine-chest, and lent a
cheerful air to the sombre spinster, whose black attire and hoarse voice
made the _sobriquet_ of Raven most appropriate.
With these imposing bundles in one hand, little pouches slung over the
shoulder, plain travelling-suits, subdued hats, and resolute but benign
countenances, our three errant damsels set forth one bright June day, to
wander through France at their own sweet will. Not a fear assailed them;
for all men were civil, all women friendly, and the world wore its
sunniest aspect. Not a doubt perplexed them; for the gifted Amanda spoke
many tongues, understood all sorts of money, could grapple successfully
with Murray and Bradshaw, and never got into the wrong corporation when
she traced a route with unerring accuracy through the mysteries of an
Indicator. No lord and master, in the shape of brother, spouse, or
courier, ordered their outgoings and incomings; but liberty the most
entire was theirs, and they enjoyed it heartily. Wisely and well too;
for, though off the grand route, they behaved themselves in public as
decorously as if the eyes of all prim Boston were upon them, and proved
by their triumphant success, that the unprotected might go where they
liked, if they conducted themselves with the courtesy and discretion of
gentlewomen.
How pleasant were the early sail down the Ranee from Dinan to St. Malo,
the comfortable breakfast in the flowery little court of Hôtel Franklin,
and the stroll afterward about the quaint old town, looking at the
churches, buying fruit, and stoutly resisting the temptations of antique
jewelry displayed in the dingy shops! Lavinia never forgave herself,
however, for not securing a remarkable watch, and Amanda sighed months
afterward for a Breton collar and cross of charming antiquity and
ugliness.
Matilda boldly planted her camp-stool, unfurled her umbrella, and,
undaunted by the crowd of round-capped, blue-bloused, wooden-shoed
children about her, began to draw the church.
'I intend to study architecture, and to sketch _all_ the cathedrals we
see,' said the ardent art-student, struggling manfully with the unruly
umbrella, the unsavoury odours from the gutter, and the garrulous crowd
leaning over her shoulder, peering under her hat-brim, and examining all
her belongings with a confiding freedom rather embarrassing.
'Do you know what impertinent things these little scamps are saying to
you?' asked Amanda, pausing in a lecture on surface drainage which she
was delivering to Lavinia, who was vainly struggling to cram a fat wine
bottle, a cabbage leaf of strawberries, and some remarkable cakes into
the lunch-basket.
'No: I don't; and that is the advantage of not knowing any language but
my own,' complacently replied Matilda, who considered all study but that
of art as time wasted, and made her small store of French answer
admirably by talking very loud and fast, and saying, '_Oui, oui, oui_,'
on all occasions with much gesticulation, and bows and smiles of great
suavity and sweetness.
'Clear out this rabble, or come back to the hotel and wait for the bus.
We shall have the whole town round us soon, and I can't stand it,' said
Amanda, who had no romantic admiration for the Great Unwashed.
'You think I can't do it? _Voilà!_' and, rising suddenly to an
unexpected height, Matilda waved the umbrella like a _bâton_, cried
'_Allez!_' in a stern voice, and the children fled like chaff before the
wind.
'You see how little is needed, so don't vex me with learning your old
verbs any more!' and Matilda closed her book with an air of calm
satisfaction.
'Come home and rest. It is so warm here I am fairly melted,' prayed
Lavinia, who had been longing for summer, and of course was not suited
when she got it.
'Now, do remember one thing: don't let us be gregarious. We never know
who we may pick up if we talk to people; and stray acquaintances are sad
bores sometimes. Granny is such a cross old dear she won't say a word to
any one if she can help it; but you, Mat, can't be trusted if we meet
any one who talks English. So be on your guard, or the peace of this
party is lost,' said Amanda, impressively.
'We are not likely to meet any but natives in this wilderness; so don't
excite yourself, Mandy, dear,' replied Matilda, who, being of a social
turn and an attractive presence, was continually making friends, to the
great annoyance of her more prudent comrades.
In the flowery courtyard sat the group that one meets everywhere on the
Continent,--even in the wilds of Brittany. The father and mother stout,
tired, and rather subdued by the newness of things; the son, Young
America personified, loud, important, and inquisitive; the daughter,
pretty, affected, and over-dressed; all on the lookout for adventures
and titles, fellow-countrymen to impress, and foreigners eager to get
the better of them.
Seeing the peril from afar, Amanda buried herself in Murray, to read up
the tomb of Chateaubriand, the tides, population, and any other useful
bit of history; for Amanda was a thrifty soul, and
'Gathered honey all the day
From every opening flower.'
Lavinia, finding the court damp, shrouded herself in the grey cloud, put
her feet on the red bundle, and fortified herself with a Turner's pill.
But Matilda, guileless girl, roamed to and fro, patted the horses at the
gate, picked flowers that no French hand would have dared to touch, and
studied the effect of light and shade on the red head of the _garçon_,
who gazed sentimentally at 'the blonde "Mees,"' as he artlessly watered
the wine for dinner.
The Americans had their eye upon her, and felt that, though the others
might be forbidding English women, this one could be made to talk. So
they pounced upon their prey, to the dismay of her mates, and proceeded
to ask fifty questions to the minute. Poor Mat, glad to hear the sound
of her native tongue, fell into the snare, and grew more confiding every
moment.
'She is telling the family history,' whispered Lavinia, in a tone of
despair.
'Now they are asking where we came from,' added Amanda, casting down her
book in agony.
'Wink at her,' sighed Lavinia.
'Call to her,' groaned Amanda, as they heard their treasured secret
betrayed, and the enemy clamouring for further information about this
charming trip.
'Matilda, bring me my shawl,' commanded the Dowager.
'Come and see if you don't think we had better go direct to Tours,' said
the wary Amanda, hoping to put the enemy off the track.
The victim came, and vials of wrath were poured upon her head in one
unceasing flow till the omnibus started, and the ladies were appeased by
finding that the enemy did not follow.
'Promise that you won't talk to any but natives, or I decline to lead
this expedition,' said Amanda firmly.
'I promise,' returned Mat, with penitent meekness.
'Now we've got her!' croaked the Raven; 'for she will have to learn
French or hold her tongue.'
'The language of the eye remains to me, and I am a proficient in that,
ma'am,' said Mat, roused by these efforts to deny her the right of free
speech.
'You are welcome to it, dear;' and Amanda departed to buy tickets and
despatch the trunks, with secret misgivings that they would never be
found again.
'Now we are fairly started, with no more weighing of luggage, fussing
over checks, or packing of traps to afflict us. What a heavenly sense of
freedom it gives one, to have nothing but an independent shawl-strap!'
said Matilda, as they settled themselves in a vacant car, and stowed
away the bundles.
What a jolly day that was, to be sure! Whether it was the air, the good
coffee, or the liberty, certain it is that three merrier maids never
travelled from St. Malo to Le Mans on a summer's day. Even the Raven
forgot her woes, and became so exhilarated that she smashed her bromide
bottle out of the window, declaring herself cured, and tried to sing
'Hail Columbia,' in a voice like an asthmatic bagpipe.
Mat amused herself and her comrades by picking up the different articles
that kept tumbling down on her head from her badly built bundle; while
Amanda scintillated to such an extent that the others laughed themselves
into hysterics, and lay exhausted, prone upon the seats.
They ate, drank, sung, gossiped, slept, read, and revelled, till another
passenger got in, when propriety clothed them as with a garment, and
the mirthful damsels became three studious statues.
The new-comer was a little priest; so rosy and young that they called
him the 'Reverend Boy.' He seemed rather dismayed at first; but, finding
the ladies silent and demure, he took heart, and read diligently in a
dingy little prayer-book, stealing shy glances now and then from under
his broad-brimmed hat at Amanda's white hands, or Matilda's yellow
locks, as if these vanities of the flesh had not quite lost their charms
for him. By and by he fell asleep, and leaned in his corner, making
quite a pretty picture; for the ugly hat was off, his boyish face as
placid as a child's, his buckled shoes and neat black-stockinged legs
stretched comfortably out, his plump hands folded over the dingy book,
and the little bands lay peacefully on his breast.
He was quite at their mercy now; so the three women looked as much as
they liked, wondering if the poor dear boy was satisfied with the life
he had chosen, and getting tenderly pitiful over the losses he might
learn to regret when it was too late. His dreams seemed to be pleasant
ones, however; for once he laughed a blithe, boyish laugh, good to hear;
and when he woke, he rubbed his blue eyes and stared about, smiling like
a newly roused baby.
He got out all too soon, was joined by several other clerical youths,
and disappeared with much touching of big beavers, and wafting of
cassocks.
Innocent, reverend little boy! I wonder what became of him, and hope his
sleep is as quiet now as then,--his awakening as happy as it seemed that
summer day.
Six o'clock saw our damsels at Le Mans; and, after dinner, a sunset
walk took them to the grand old cathedral, where they wandered till
moonrise. Pure Gothic of the twelfth century, rich in stained glass,
carved screens, tombs of kings and queens, dim little chapels, where
devout souls told their beads before shadowy pictures of saints and
martyrs, while over all the wonderful arches seemed to soar, one above
the other, light and graceful as the natural curves of drooping
branches, or the rise and fall of some great fountain.
'We shall not see anything finer than this, I'm sure. It's a perfect
revelation to me,' said Matilda, in a calm rapture at the beauty all
about her.
'This is a pious-feeling church, and I could say my prayers here with
all my soul; for it seems as if the religion of centuries had got built
into it,' added Lavinia, thinking of the ugly imitations at home.
'You will both turn Catholic before we get through,' prophesied Amanda,
retiring to study the tomb of Berengaria, Coeur de Lion's wife.
The square before the hotel was gay with a market, many soldiers
lounging about, and flocks of people eating ices before the _cafés_. The
ladies enjoyed it from the balcony, and then slumbered peacefully in a
great room with three alcoves, much muslin drapery, and a bowl and
pitcher like a good-sized cup and saucer.
Another look at the cathedral in the early morning, and then away to
Tours, which place they found a big, clean, handsome city, all astir for
the _Fête-Dieu_.
'We will stay over Sunday and see it,' was the general vote as the trio
headed for the great church, and, catching sight of it, they subsided
into a seat by the fountain opposite, and sat looking silently at the
magnificent pile.
How strangely impressive and eloquent it was! The evening red touched
its grey towers with a mellow light, like sunshine on a venerable head.
Lower down, flights of rooks circled round the fretted niches, quaint
windows, and grotesque gargoyles, while the great steps below swarmed
with priests and soldiers, gay strangers and black-robed nuns, children
and beggars.
For an hour our pilgrims sat and studied the wonderful _façade_, or
walked round the outside, examining the rich carvings that covered every
inch of the walls. Twilight fell before they had thought of entering,
and feeling that they had seen enough for that night, they went
thoughtfully home to dream of solemn shadows and saintly faces, for the
cathedral haunted them still.
Next day was spent in viewing Charlemagne's Tower, and seeing the grand
procession in honour of the day. The streets were hung with garlands,
gay tapestries and banners, strewn with fresh boughs, and lined with
people in festival array. As the procession passed, women ran out and
scattered rose-leaves before it, and one young mother set her blooming
baby on a heap of greenery in the middle of the street, leaving it
there, that the Holy Ghost under its canopy might pass over it. A pretty
sight, the rosy little creature smiling in the sunshine as it sat
playing with its own blue shoes, while the golden pageant went by; the
chanting priests stepping carefully, and looking down with sudden
benignity in their tired faces as the holy shadow fell on the bright
head, making baby blessed, and saved for ever in its pious mother's
eyes.
A great band played finely, scarlet soldiers followed, then the banners
of patron saints were borne by children. Saint Agnes and her lamb led a
troop of pretty little girls carrying tall white lilies, filling the air
with their sweetness. Mary, Our Mother, was followed by many orphans
with black ribbons crossed over the young hearts that had lost so much.
Saint Martin led the charity boys in purple suits of just the colour of
the mantle he was dividing with the beggar on the banner. A pleasant
emblem of the charitable cloak that covers so many.
Priests in full splendour paced solemnly along with censers swinging,
candles flickering, sweet-voiced boys singing, and hundreds kneeling as
they passed. Most impressive figures, unless one caught a glimpse of
something comically human to disturb the effect of the heavenly pageant.
Lavinia had an eye for the ludicrous and though she dropped a tear over
the orphans, and with difficulty resisted a strong desire to catch and
kiss the pretty baby, she scandalized her neighbours by laughing
outright the next minute. A particularly portly, pious-looking priest,
who was marching with superb dignity, and chanting like a devout
bumble-bee, suddenly mislaid his temper, and injured the effect by
boxing a charity boy's ears with his gilded missal, and then capped the
climax by taking a pinch of snuff with a sonorous satisfaction that
convulsed the heretic.
The afternoon was spent in the church, wandering to and fro, each alone
to study and enjoy in her own way. Matilda lost her head entirely, and
had silent raptures over the old pictures. Amanda said her prayers,
looked up her dates, and imparted her facts in a proper and decorous
manner, while Lavinia went up and down, finding for herself little
pictures not painted by hands, and reading histories more interesting to
her than those of saints and martyrs.