The night being passed at Bort, the next morning I continued my journey by
the Dordogne. Again the sky was cloudless. I kept on the right bank of the
river--the Limousin side, leaving the Cantal to some future day, that may
never come. A little beyond the spot where the Dordogne and the Rue met
and embraced uproariously, the path entered a narrow lane bordered by tall
hedges chiefly of hazel and briar overclimbed by wild clematis--well termed
the traveller's joy, for it is a beautiful plant that reminds many a
wanderer of his far-away home.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE CORRÈZE.]
Then I passed under precipitous naked rocks, with the river on the other
hand, skirted by low bushes of twiggy willow that looked like tamarisk from
a distance. The sun was now hot, and the ground was again all astir with
lizards. Looking upon the path just in front of me, I brought myself to a
sudden stop. Had I advanced a step or two more I could hardly have failed
to tread upon a serpent that lay dozing in the sun just in my way. I was
glad that I did not do so, for I recognised it, by its olive skin with
reddish patches, as the dreaded _aspic_, or red viper. There it lay
stretched out its full length, about a foot and a half, either asleep or
enjoying the morning sun so much that it was in no humour to move. I do
not kill snakes indiscriminately, like the peasants whenever they get the
chance, but this one being dangerous, I resolved that it should never
take another sun-bath. After being roused by a blow, the creature did not
attempt to run, but did battle bravely, fiercely striking at the stick.
The path I had been following with so much confidence dwindled away and was
lost. Again the gorge became a deep rift in the rocks, which left no margin
on which one could walk. The only way to follow the windings of the stream
would have been to wade or swim. Once more I had to own myself beaten
by natural obstacles. The Dordogne is a river that cannot be followed
throughout its savage wildernesses, except perhaps in a light flat-bottomed
boat, and then not without serious difficulties. Anglers might have
splendid sport here until they broke their necks, for the trout abound
where the shadow of a man seldom or never falls. In the neighbourhood of
towns and large villages the fishing is often spoilt by the casting-net.
Having realized the situation, I turned my back to the stream and commenced
climbing the steep side of the gorge, choosing a spot where it was well
wooded, for the sake of the foothold. For some distance the ground was
green with moss and wood-sorrel; but the tug-of-war came when the vast
banks of loose stones--hot, bare, and shale-like--were reached. On gaining
the plateau, I threw myself down upon the heather and looked at the scene
below. The mingling of rock, forest, and stream was superbly desolate. Even
the naked steeps of slate-coloured broken stone had an impressive grandeur
of their own.
Leaving the Dordogne with the intention of cutting off a wide bend and
meeting it again the next day or the day after, I struck across the
half-cultivated open country, hoping soon to find a village; for I had
spent much time in the gorge and made very little progress, while the sun
had moved nearly up to the centre of his arc. The rays fell fiercely,
and there was no shade upon the plateau. There was a road, but it was
abominable. Only tramps understand the luxury of-walking upon a good road.
I came to a hamlet that looked very miserable. The daily toil had scattered
the men afield, and only a few women were to be seen. Not one of them wore
a stocking, nor even a wooden shoe. Some to whom I spoke did not understand
me; those who understood told me that there was no inn in the place--that
there was no one who could give me a meal. One of them must have thought
that I was begging my way, or was exceedingly hard up, for she said: 'Ah!
mon pauvre ami, vous êtes dans un malheureux pays.'
Continuing, I came to a village which was not shown on my map. Here I
learnt there was a single auberge, which was also the tobacco shop and
grocery of the place. It was kept by an old man who lived alone. This
inn was a cottage without any sign over it. I tried the door, but it was
locked, and nobody responded to the noise I made. It took me half an hour
to find the solitary at the farther end of the village. He returned with
me, and, opening the door, we both entered the only room of the cottage. It
was shop, bedroom, and kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, and near
the window was a small stock of tobacco, snuff, and groceries all mixed up.
My host's back was much bent and his face deeply furrowed. He wore a shirt
with a high collar, and a blue waistcoat. He was an honest, kindly man,
and seemed to take pleasure in doing what he could for me apart from the
thought of gaining by it.
In the way of food he had only eggs, bread, cheese, and butter. It was
decided that he should fry some eggs. He lighted some sticks upon the
hearth, and there was soon a good blaze; then he laid his great frying-pan
upon it, resting the long handle upon a chair. While the butter was
melting, he opened a trap-door in the floor and went down a ladder into his
cellar. Presently he reappeared with a litre of wine, and having set
this before me, he proceeded to crack the eggs and empty them into the
frying-pan. As a cook he had no pretensions, but he knew how to fry eggs.
When my meal was ready, and he had placed everything before me upon the
bare board, he sat at a little distance eating a dry old crust with a piece
of goat cheese. This was his lunch. I insisted upon his sharing the wine
with me, and this little attention made him thoroughly confiding and
cheery.
He was left a widower, he told me, with four children, at the age of
thirty-eight, and he would not take a second wife because, his father
having done so, he remembered the trials and tribulations of his own
childhood which came of his having 'a mother who was not a mother.' He said
to himself, 'My children shall not run the risk of going through what I
went through.' He toiled on alone, brought up his family himself, added
to his bit of land in course of years, and acquired other property. His
children were now all settled in life, and he had given them everything he
had except the cottage in which he lived. I was struck by the strong virtue
of this illiterate peasant, who had evidently no notion of his own value,
and who would not have told the simple story of his life passed amidst the
moors of the Corrèze had I not drawn it from him.
[Illustration: A PEASANT OF THE MOORS.]
As I watched the old man, prematurely bent by labour, eating his hard
crust, cheerful and contented, after giving to others the fruit of his many
years of toil, I thought, 'If man were nothing but an animal, such a life
would be not only absurd, but impossible.' Another glass of wine made my
host and cook still more talkative. He told me that not long ago he had
walked from this village to Tulle, distant about thirty-five miles, to
see a soldier son who was to pass through the place with his regiment. He
started at three in the morning and arrived at five in the afternoon, but
was only able to exchange a few words with his son. They could not even
'break a crust' together. The old man then turned his face towards his
village, and walked the whole night.
'I hope your son would walk as far to see you,' I said, with a little
scepticism in my mind.
This is what he replied, almost word for word:
'Ah! children do not do for their parents what their parents do for them.
The commandment says, 'Honour your father and your mother'--not honour your
children. Nevertheless, it is the parents who deny themselves the most. As
soon as your children are married they generally forget you.
Perhaps if I had married again I should be happier now. All the same, I
am contented. I can keep myself. When I am no longer able to take care of
myself, my children must do something for me.'
I confess that I was sorry when the time came for me to leave this old man,
knowing well that I should never see again his rugged face and his kind
eyes twinkling under their shaggy brows. Perhaps he, too, had some such
regret, for we had had a long talk, and he may have tired out all his other
listeners, especially those of his own family. When a man has grown old
and is near the end, it would often be better for him to go out into the
wilderness and talk to the rocks and trees than to repeat the stories of
his life upon his own hearth-stone. Before I left the peasant fetched a
bottle, which he only brought out on rare occasions, and insisted upon my
drinking a parting glass with him.
I passed through another hamlet where there was a high wooden cross. There
were walnut-trees, and men were knocking down the nuts. The women here wore
wide-brimmed black straw hats over white caps. I soon left these figures
behind, and was alone in a birch-wood, where there were many yellow leaves
between me and the blue sky. Then I met the road to Neuvic, and following
it came to the Artaud, a tributary of the Dordogne, threading its way
through deep ravines, amidst wild rocks, dark woods, and bracken-covered
steeps. The road crossed the ravine upon a bridge of three arches.
The scene was one to raise the mind above common things. The stream rushed
madly down the rocky chasm with a mighty roar, now losing itself in the
leafy vaults of overhanging trees, now reappearing like a torrent of fire
where the glorious lustre of the September sun struck it and mingled with
it.
As I ascended the opposite hill a still deeper ravine came into view,
wooded down to the water and all in dark shadow, except a rocky ridge
facing the sinking sun and bathed in warm light.
When the top of the hill had been reached, an old man, who wore a large and
very weather-beaten felt hat, was sitting on the step of a wayside cross
with a flock of geese feeding around him. Next I passed a bare-footed
_cantonnier_ breaking stones, and he told me that if I made
haste I might reach Neuvic before dark. On the outskirts of a
village--Roche-le-Peyroux--a wandering tinker and his boy were at work
by the side of the road with fire and bellows, and I felt a trampish or
romantic desire to stay with them awhile in the cheerful glow; but thinking
of the coming night, I smothered the impulse.
Upon the moor which I was now traversing was a very old stone cross, upon
which the figure of the Saviour was rudely carved in relief. The form was
so uncouth as to be scarcely human. The head was half as wide again as the
space across the shoulders, and the hands were nearly as large as the head.
How many centuries ago did Christian piety raise this rough image of its
hope upon the moors amidst the purple heather and the yellow broom?
The road crossed another stream not far from the spot where it fell into
the Dordogne. There was a wooded quietude here, with an odour of fresh
grass and water that enticed me to linger; but the evening light in the
tops of the trees and the twittering of the birds settling amongst the
leaves for the night spurred me on. I had walked many miles since the
morning, but had made very little way according to the map, so full of
deception is this wild Limousin country to the wanderer who does not know
it. I had still some eight miles to walk before reaching Neuvic.
There was a little mill at the bottom of the grassy valley, but it seemed
deserted by all living creatures save a dog. This rather large and shaggy
animal seized the rare opportunity that was now offered him for a little
excitement. Not satisfied with barking at me furiously from his own ground,
he followed me about a mile up the hill I had now to climb, but without
venturing very near. At length I thought I had had enough of his company,
so at the next bend in the road I came to a stand beside a heap of stones
that a _cantonnier_ had neatly piled up in geometrical pattern. There I
waited, and the animal came on gaily, little expecting to find himself
suddenly at close quarters with me. Just as he turned the corner he raised
a howl that said he was both surprised and shocked. Skipping with great
agility, he avoided the next stone, and the expression of his face told me
that he was already feeling very home-sick. He turned tail as quick as he
could, and used very bad dog-language as the stones followed him down the
hill. As a rule, dogs lose all their courage when they are out of sight of
their own homes, unless someone whom they know well is near at hand to give
them confidence in themselves.
I am again upon the moor. There is a deep silence over the heather, for the
last bees have left the pink and purple bells. But there is still a wan
glow in the air, which gives a sad beauty to the quiet, mournful land. A
boy is returning with some cattle after spending the day upon the heath,
and he sings as he thinks of his poor home, the blazing sticks on the
hearth, the soup, the buckwheat cake, or the potatoes. Through a mask of
silver birches I see a solemn ruddy light as of a funeral-torch in the far
western sky. The breath of evening is made sweeter by the odour wafted from
some distant fresh-cut grass or broom that has been drying in the September
sun. A field-cricket, waking up, breaks the silence with its shrill cry
that is quickly taken up by others near at hand and far away in the dusk.
The light and colour of the day are now gone, but there is one beautiful
star flashing in front of me like a lamp of the sanctuary when the vaulted
minster is filled with shadow.
The rest of the walk to Neuvic was by night. The first auberge I entered in
this small town of some three thousand inhabitants was a little too rough
even for me. The family were at dinner, or at supper, as they would say,
eating upon the bare board, without plates, potatoes boiled in their skins.
I do not doubt there were hollows cut in the table to serve instead of
plates, for this primitive contrivance still lingers in the wildest parts
of the Limousin. In answer to my inquiry as to bed accommodation, I was
told that I should have to sleep in the same room with others, probably the
whole family. I had sufficient taste for civilization left to decline the
proposed arrangement, and went in search of another inn.
Happily there was one, and of a better sort. It was thoroughly rustic, but
there was not the squalor I had just encountered. In the kitchen, paved
with small pebbles, two months' accumulation of used linen had been pressed
down in an old wine-cask, and boiling water was now being poured upon it
through a cloth covered with a layer of wood ashes. In these rural places
the washing-day is usually once in two or three months. This simplifies
matters, but it needs a considerable stock of linen, which, by-the-bye,
peasants generally possess. The wash-house odour that arose from the
_lessive_ was not grateful, but I tried to accommodate myself to it. On the
floor was a baby swaddled up, and tightly fitted into a small wooden cradle
on huge rockers--a cradle that might have served for scores of babies,
and been none the worse for wear. Although the fire on the hearth looked
tempting, the proximity of the wine-cask and the linen that was being
purified with potash made me glad to hear that my meal would be served in
another room.
Considering the region, the dinner was not a bad one. I had soup, veal,
eggs, and a fair wine. I had also a companion, but would rather have been
without him. He was a young man, whose appearance gained by the contrast of
a dusty wayfarer's, and he gave himself airs accordingly. I set him down as
a petty functionary of the place, and a _pensionnaire_ of the auberge.
All the time I was with him his mind was exceedingly restless as to my
intentions and business in those parts, and such explanations as I gave
him to appease his insatiable curiosity and awkwardly-veiled suspicion
evidently left him unsatisfied.
The next morning the hostess brought out her police register for me to
enter my name, nationality, age, profession, destination, etc. I had no
doubt that my acquaintance of the night before had reminded her of this
little formality in order that he might afterwards see what I had written.
All innkeepers in France are liable to a fine if they do not make every
traveller who passes the night with them leave this record of himself for
inspection, but the formality is much more often omitted than observed. I
have not been able to overcome my English dislike of the practice, which
is annoying and useless, like much more that belongs to the French
administrative system.
By daylight I found Neuvic to be a cheerful, pleasant little town, with
a venerable-looking old church, apparently of the twelfth century. It is
entered by a cavernous portal under a very massive low tower, but the
interior shows little of interest. What struck me, however, as something
quite uncommon was a small altar in the centre of the nave just below the
sanctuary. Upon it was an image of the Virgin, which a boy told me had been
found in a neighbouring wood about a century ago.
On leaving Neuvic I noticed a woman carrying to the baker's a large dish
of edible _boleti_, known to the French as _cépes_. This excellent fungus
during the late summer and autumn is a very important article of food in
France wherever there are extensive chestnut-woods. The orange mushroom is
also much eaten in the same regions, for it likewise loves the chestnut
forest; but it may be mistaken by those who do not know the signs for
its relative, the crimson-capped fly-agaric, one of the most deadly of
cryptogams.
After seeing the dish of _cépes_, I was not surprised to find many
chestnut-trees along the road that I now took to St. Pantaléon. The country
was less barren than that which I had passed over the day before. Although
there was much heather, broom and furze, trees and pasture broke the
monotony of the moorland. Here was the better Limousin landscape--every
knoll and mamelon covered with heather and other moor-plants, woods and
meadows in the dells and dips. The numerous clumps of silver birches, and
the gorse arrayed in its new flowers of bright gold, added to the charm of
the sunlit scene.
To me the weather was all the more delightful by being very warm, for I had
run away from winter on the Auvergne mountains. The whirring noise of the
grasshoppers as they flew across the road, and the tremulous sheen of
their wings, coloured like blooming lavender, brought back to me the best
recollections of other wayfaring days in the warm South, when all these
things were new, and the sight feasted upon them with the eagerness of bees
that suck the first flowers of spring.
I passed a little field of buckwheat that had been cut some days and had
fully ripened. A woman was threshing out the grain with a flail upon a
spread canvas, surrounded by a circle of purple-tinted cones, the sheaves
leaning together. Now the wide level moor returned, but Nature was not
quite the same here as she had been before. The vast expanse was dotted
over with dark little juniper bushes. These were covered with berries which
nobody seemed to think worth the picking. Rock-cist flourished, starring
the turf all over with its yellow discs. This moor was an absolute desert.
Long I walked without seeing another human being. At length I met a woman
carrying a distaff, and tried to get into conversation with her, but it was
impossible; she could not speak a word of French, and I knew nothing of her
Limousin patois.
By steadfastly following the road, I came to the village of St. Pantaléon,
on the brow of a hill overlooking the Luxège, and stopped at a wayside inn.
It was a poor auberge; but there was an air of reaching toward some ideal
of superior life and softened manners that made itself felt in small
ways not to be described with any certainty, but none the less real. The
innkeeper, who was also a peasant-farmer, possessed the doubtful blessing
of a mind that rose above what the logic of his existence, sternly bound
to a plot of grudging soil and the petty needs of still poorer neighbours,
demanded of it. He was blessed or afflicted with that hunger of knowledge
and refinement which lifts and casts down, rejoices and saddens. He knew
that such ambition with regard to himself was vain, that it was his destiny
to live out his days on the edge of a moor in the Corrèze, and that it was
his duty to thank Heaven that he was sheltered and had sufficient food,
fuel, and clothing for himself and his family: all this he knew, and he
accepted his lot bravely. But the fire was only damped down; it glowed
in its hidden heart, and strove for a vent. It was not lighted without a
purpose. The peasant had a son, to whom the flame had been passed on; for
he aimed at the priesthood. This has ever been a refuge of ambitious minds
that cannot rise by any other means above the dullness of the peasant's
life, which is the more endurable the more the man is able to place himself
upon the animal level of his plodding ox. The son was being educated in a
seminary, but he was now home for the holidays. Presently he appeared. He
was a youth of about nineteen, wearing a blouse like any other peasant.
There was certainly nothing in his appearance to indicate that he
was destined for the cure of souls. The proud father said: 'He is in
philosophy.' The young man had a twinkle in his eye that might have been
philosophical. Neither of them had a suspicion of the vanity concealed in
the high-sounding phrase.
But I am forgetting to say anything about what was more important to me
than aught else at that time. I had to eat and drink in order to look at
nature with an admiring eye, note the interwoven aims and motives and
troubled duties of human life; to be 'in philosophy' after my own humble
fashion. My meal was chiefly of fried eggs and ham, the latter nearly as
hard as leather. I ate in a small room where there was a bed with a red
curtain. No knife was given me, for in these out-of-the-way inns you are
expected to carry your knife in your pocket, which a century ago was the
case in most of the French hostelries. In the remotely rural districts the
ways of life have changed very slightly in a hundred years. But, if
the knife was overlooked, the white napkin and small tablecloth were
remembered. While talking with the _aubergiste_ over the coffee--there was
really some coffee here that was not made either from acorns or beans--he
told me, as an example of the low rate of wages in the district, that a
road--mender, who worked in all weathers, was paid forty francs a month.
In the whole commune there were only two or three persons who had wine in
their houses. He lent me his two sons--the _séminariste_ and his young
brother--to walk with me as far as the Luxège, and put me on the path to La
Page, at which village I proposed to pass the night.
As we left, a grand expanse of chestnut forest came into view, following
the hills that bordered the curved line of the Luxège. The little river,
like all the tributaries of the upper Dordogne, runs at the bottom of a
deep gorge. Standing upon the brink of it, I perceived that I was about
to enter another sylvan solitude of enchanting beauty. The dense forest
descended the abrupt escarpments to the channel and hid the stream, and
over the leafy masses was that play of sunshine, shadow, and thin vapour
which I had so often watched in a dreamily joyous mood lying at the foot of
some pine in the Vosges.
About half-way down the gorge was a ruinous Romanesque chapel upon a rock,
the polygonal apse being on the very edge of a precipice. At each exterior
angle of the imperfect polygon was a column with a cubiform capital. The
interior was all dilapidated; the floor of the sanctuary had fallen in, but
the altar-stone--a block of granite--remained in its place. This chapel
belonged to a priory. Little is left of the adjoining monastery except some
subterranean vaults and the gaping oven of the ruined bakery; all ferny,
mossy, given up to the faun and the dryad. The upper masonry was carried
away years ago to build a chapel upon the hill. A bit of green slope, where
the sunbeams wantoned with yellow mulleins, wild carrot, and bracken, was
the cemetery, as a few stone crosses almost buried in the soil plainly
told. These crosses doubtless mark the graves of nameless priors. And the
dust of the humble monk and serving brother, where is that? Every plant
draws from it something that it needs to fulfil its purpose. It is as good
for the nightshade as for the violet; flowers that are rank and deadly, and
others that are sweet and innocent, strive for the right of clasping with
their hungry roots the dust of men.
The innkeeper's sons left me by an abandoned mill on the other side of the
stream, which was crossed by a rough wooden bridge. Ascending the opposite
hill by a narrow path in the shadow of chestnuts and beeches, and fringed
with gorse and heather, I passed another deserted house, the roof of which
had fallen in. The gorge was getting very shadowy when I reached the
tableland above it. I saw the small town of Laplau in the plain away to
the left, but my path did not lie through it, for I preferred the wilder
country towards La Page. When I passed a little lake in a hollow, half
surrounded by firs, the slanting rays were diving into its liquid
stillness, over which the motionless trees bent gazing at their likeness.
When the sun left me I was upon a hilly waste, amid darkening bushes
of holly and juniper, tall bracken, heather, and gorse. The spirit of
desolation threw out broad wings under the fading sky; but from afar
towards the west, whither I was going, came through the dusk the shine and
twinkle of many fires that had been lighted by the peasants upon their
patches of reclaimed desert. They flashed to me the sentiment of the autumn
fields, of hopeful husbandry, of laying up for the winter, and preparation
for harvests that would be gathered under next year's sun.
Tired and hungry, I reached La Page in the darkness. The village looked
very poor and dreary; but I had been told that it contained a 'good hotel,'
and I set about looking for it. It turned out to be a rather large but
exceedingly rough auberge. On opening the door I saw a great kitchen with
pebbled floor, lighted only by the glow of embers on the hearth. The figure
of a woman standing in the chimney opening was lit up by the glare. I
walked towards her, and asked her if she could give me lodging. After
scanning me very acutely for some seconds, she replied, 'Yes.' She was
puzzled, if not startled, by the apparition in front of her; but having
thrown down my pack and taken a seat in the chimney-corner like a familiar
of the house, I talked to her about the comfort of being in such a place
after a long walk in so wild a district as hers, and succeeded in making
her quite genial. She was the mayor's wife, but she was not too proud to
cook for me after lighting a flickering oil-lamp. While I was waiting for
my meal peasants came in, and had theirs at the bare tables, of which there
were several in the great kitchen. Their soup was ladled out from the
immense black pot that hung over the fire, and the noise they made as
they fell to it was very grating to the nerves. But the wanderer in the
chimney-corner had no business to be there, unless he was prepared to
accept all that was customary without wincing. My own dinner commenced with
some of this soup, which was like hot dishwater with slices of bread thrown
into it. The bit of boiled veal that followed was an improvement, although
anything but a captivating dish. Goat-cheese, hard and salt, and with a
flavour that left no doubt as to the source from which it came, made up the
frugal fare. I returned to the chimney-corner and smoked in silence, now
peering up the sooty cavern where the wind moaned, and now watching the
clear-obscure effects of the dimly-lighted room. Presently a trap stopped
outside, and in walked the aubergiste, accompanied by a sprightly little
man who I afterwards learnt was a pedlar.
Monsieur le maire was not exactly a polished gentleman; he took no notice
of me after the first searching glance. He made an unpleasant impression,
but this wore off when I found that he was a well-meaning man, who had not
cultivated fine manners. Why should he have cultivated what would have been
of little or no use to him? These rural functionaries are just like the
people with whom they live. The young _séminariste_ told me an amusing
story of a mayor of St. Pantaléon, who had had a very narrow escape of
being caught by gendarmes when upon a poaching expedition. '_Tout le monde
est braconnier ici_,' added my informant with a sincerity that was very
pleasing. Of course, he was a poacher himself when reposing from his
theological and philosophical studies. I thought none the worse of him for
that. After all, poaching in France generally means nothing more immoral
than neglecting to take out a gun license, and to respect the President's
decrees with regard to the months that are open and those that are not.
On my way to bed I saw in a corner of the staircase a spinning-wheel of the
pattern known throughout Europe. I was told that it had not been used
for many years. The distaff and spindle which are to be seen on Egyptian
monuments are still employed by thousands of French, peasant-women, but the
wheel invented in the sixteenth century is rarely used now, unless it be by
Martha in the opera.
The next morning I made friends with the pedlar, who was about to start
upon my road, and who offered to give me a lift in his trap as far as La
Roche Canillac. Meanwhile, he had unpacked all his samples of cloth with a
view to doing a little business with the mayor. This personage, however,
was not allowed to have much voice in the matter; it was his spouse who
represented his interests in the bargaining battle that was now waged with
deafening din and much apparent ferocity for three-quarters of an hour. The
little pedlar was used to this kind of thing, and was quite prepared for
the fray. When the lady offered him, after much depreciatory fingering of
the chosen material, two-thirds of what he asked for the stuff that was to
be made into a pair of winter trousers for the mayor, he spun round and
jumped like a peg-top just escaped from the string. Then he raged and
swore, said he was being mocked at, dabbed his hat on his head, and made a
pretence of gathering up his samples and rushing off. The mayor watched the
scene with a quiet smirk on his face: he knew that he would somehow get the
trousers. I have no doubt that he did have them, but I walked out instead
of waiting to see the end of the battle. When I returned, the haggling was
over, the hostess and the pedlar were on the most affable terms, and there
was not a sign of the recent storm.
Presently the pedlar, myself, and the innkeeper's son--a young man who had
received his education elsewhere, and had learnt much that did not chime
in with his present surroundings--were in a light cart, drawn by a lively
horse, speeding along the road over the moors. Here and there, near the
village, were small fields of buckwheat in the midst of the heather and
bracken. My companions explained that each commune was surrounded by a
considerable extent of moorland that belonged to it, and that any native of
the commune had the right of selecting a piece, which became his absolute
property after he had cleared it and brought it under cultivation; thus
anyone could have what land he wanted in reason for nothing. Quite an
Arcadian state of things this, were not the conditions of nature such as to
chill the ambition to acquire such freeholds. Three years of back-breaking
labour are needed before the land is fit to be put to some profitable
purpose. And then what does it yield? Buckwheat, and perhaps potatoes.
Although the peasants have the faculty of extending their landed property
in the manner described, the consideration of means generally stands in the
way. They cannot afford to work and wait three years. Their existence is
truly wretched, and if it were not for the luxuriant chestnut-woods, which
cover the sides of the narrow valleys or gorges with which the barren
plateau is deeply seamed every few miles, the population of the region
would be more scanty than it is, for the chestnut goes far to sustain the
people through the worst months of the year.
The plough used upon these moors, on the _causses_ of the Quercy, and
in some other districts where the barrenness of the soil has kept the
inhabitants for centuries imprisoned within the circle of their old
routine, is one of the simplest that the world has known. It differs but
slightly from the one figured in the most ancient of Egyptian hieroglyphs,
and is really the same as that which was used in Gaul under the Romans.
Indeed, it has not the improvements that the Romans introduced. Two poles
forming an obtuse angle is the rough shape of it. The wedge-like share is
a continuation of the pole that is held by the ploughman. Often on the
_causses_, where loose stones are inseparably mixed with the soil, the
entire plough is of wood.
[Illustration: PLOUGHING THE MOOR.]
We passed through the village of Marcillac, near the head of one of the
valleys. The soil was much more fertile here, and a maize field was a sign
that the climate was warmer. There were, moreover, pleasant gardens with
fruit-trees and flowers. Oleanders were blooming outside some of the
houses. But we had no sooner risen upon the plateau again than the moor
returned, and for seven or eight miles it continued unbroken. The ground
was slightly undulating, and amongst the gorse and heather were scattered
innumerable juniper bushes.
On approaching La Roche Canillac the road descended into a very deep valley
by so many turns and windings that I was thankful to be in the pedlar's
cart, especially as the mid-day sun smote with torrid strength. But the
scenery was of exquisite beauty, and this valley will remain in my memory
as one of the most charming I have ever seen. Luxuriant woods, flashing
water, savage rocks, emerald-green patches of meadow, little mills by the
riverside--I should add nothing to the picture by saying more. Upon the
rocky hillside was the burg of five hundred inhabitants. My companions
took me to an old auberge whose exterior was not promising, but which was,
nevertheless, well supplied with food, and had a good cellar. The meal
served there was the best that had fallen to my lot for several days. The
sun had lost all the ardour of mid-day when I took leave of the pedlar
and the mayor's son. I went away thinking that I might travel far without
finding two more kindly, honest fellows.
[Illustration: A GORGE IN THE CORRÈZE.]
I had hoped to reach Argentat by the Dordogne that night, but I had stayed
too long at the inn for the plan to be practicable; so I set off down the
gorge of the tributary with the intention of taking my luck at a village
called St. Bazile. I was soon in the shade of the chestnut forest, where
boars were said to be plentiful. As time went on, the scenery became
more solemn and awe-inspiring. Pines that looked very gloomy in the late
afternoon mingled with the chestnuts, while black rocks, faintly flushed
with heather towards the sky, reared their jagged outlines above the sombre
foliage. All the while the water in the gorge moaned or roared. It was
growing very dusk when the walls on either hand rose like the sides of a
pit.
I was beginning to ask myself in no cheerful mood whether the map had not
deceived me as to the whereabouts of St. Bazile, when, to my relief, I
heard a church bell ringing not very far down the stream. It was the
angelus. How often has this clear, solemn, heart-touching, and consoling
sound been to me what a familiar beacon is to the doubting mariner! Only
wanderers in desolate places know the sentiment that it carries through the
evening air. More welcome than ever before did it seem in this black gorge.
I pushed on, and presently the gloomy walls widened out. Turning a bend
of the torrent, I stood in a glow of ruddy light that streamed from the
yawning mouth of an open-air oven that had recently been filled with dry
broom and kindled for the night's baking. Here was a fresh delight, for
there is nothing more cheering, more full of homely sentiment in the dusk,
than the view of such a blazing oven.
This, then, was the village of St. Bazile de la Roche, to give its full
name. It could scarcely have boasted a hundred houses. There was one
miserable little inn, kept by a widow. There I had to pass the night,
unless I preferred a cave or a mossy bed under a tree. The poor woman
managed to find a piece of veal, which she cooked for me. It seemed to be
my lot now to eat no meat but veal. As I sat down to this dish and a bottle
of wine, two men at another table were eating boiled potatoes, without
plates, and drinking water. The contrast made me uncomfortable. There is
some reason in the selfishness that avoids the sights and sounds and all
suggestions of other people's poverty and pain; but those who take such
base care of themselves never know human life. I could not offer these
men wine without running the risk of a refusal, but it was different with
regard to a little hump-backed postman who came in to gossip. Half a litre
of wine that, at my wish, was set before him made him exceedingly cheerful.
He told me that he walked about twenty miles a day on the hillsides and
in the ravines, and I suppose his pay was the same as that of other rural
postmen in France--from £28 to £32 a year. The inhabitants of St. Bazile,
he said, were all very poor, their chief food being potatoes and chestnuts.
Before the vines a little further down the valley were destroyed by the
phylloxera and mildew, the people were much better off. Then there was
plenty of wine in the cellars, but now St. Bazile was a village of
water-drinkers. He spoke of the neighbouring parish of Servières, where,
at the annual pilgrimage, women go barefoot from one rock to the other on
which the chapel stands.
Before placing myself between the canvas-like sheets, I opened the lattice
window of my meagrely-furnished room. The only distinguishable voice of the
night was that of the stream quarrelling with its rocky bed just below.
Before me was the high black wall of hill and forest, above the ragged line
of which flashed the swarming stars.
The angelus sounded again at four in the morning. Before seven I was out in
the open air. I saw the curé go up into the tower of his small church,
and ring the bell for his own mass. He was probably too poor to pay a
sacristan. A little later he was in the pulpit catechising the children,
and preaching to the older parishioners between whiles. A boy and then a
girl would stand up, and in answer to questions put to them would recite in
an unintelligible gabble the catechism they had learnt. If one of them lost
the thread and suddenly lapsed into a speechless confusion of ideas, the
curé pointed the finger of reprobation at the unfortunate little wretch,
and made him or her--especially him--feel the enormity of having a bad
memory. While waving his arm in a moment of rhetorical excitement, he let
his book fall upon an old woman's head. '_Voilà ce que c'est de faire
des gestes!_' said he with a smile that was almost a discreet grin. The
children were delighted, and everybody laughed, including the poor old
soul, who had seated herself under the pulpit so that she might hear well.
It was evident that the people of St. Bazile quite understood their curé,
and that he was just the one for them. He was a strong man, over sixty
years of age, and he spoke with a rich southern accent. Under his
sacerdotal earnestness there was a sense of humour ever ready to take a
little revenge for a life of sacrifice. There are many such priests in
France.
I had no sooner walked out of this village, on my way to Argentat, than I
became aware that the Girondin climate was beginning to make itself felt.
The influence of the plains was overcoming that of the highlands. The warm
rocky slopes on each side of the valley were covered with vines--alas! dead
or dying. There was no hope for them. On the level of the river were fields
of maize, now ripening, and irrigated meadows intensely green. There were
beehives, fifteen or twenty together on the sunny slopes, and as I went on,
the signs of human industry and ease increasing, I saw petunias climbing
over cottage doors. There was a steep descent to Argentat. The town lay in
a wide valley by the Dordogne, in the midst of maize and buckwheat fields
and green meadows, the surrounding hillsides being covered here with
chestnut woods, and there with vines. I met a woman returning from market
with melons in her basket. Truly I had come into a different climate. At
the small town, made pretty by the number of its vine trellises, I lunched.
The inn where I stopped is not worth describing; but it gave me a dish of
gudgeons caught in the Dordogne that deserved to be remembered.
I did not remain long at Argentat, for I was determined to reach Beaulieu
that night. A little out of the town some girls whom I passed on the road
looked very suspiciously at me out of the corners of their eyes, and
reminded me that another whom I had met that morning higher up the valley
took to her heels at the sight of me. An old woman who had lived long
enough to overcome such timidity, asked me if I was a _marchand_, by which
she meant pedlar--the old question to which I have grown weary of replying.
About a mile from the town I found the Dordogne again. It had grown to
quite a fine river since I last saw it in the ravines below Bort. Many an
eager affluent had rushed into it, both on the Corrèze and the Cantal side.
Here most of the grass was dried up, and the freshness of the highlands was
gone. Still the valley was shut in by steep cliffs. Brambles climbed about
the rocks, where the broom also flourished, although tangled with
its parasite, the dodder. Looking up the crags, I recognised a wild
fig-tree--the first I had seen on this southward journey.
The valley became again so narrow that the road was cut into the escarped
side of the cliff, for the river ran close under it. A woman with bare legs
and bare chest--really half naked--trudged by with a heavy bundle of
maize upon her head, followed by a couple of red-haired children, their
perfectly-shaped little legs browned by the sun and powdered with dust. How
beautiful are the limbs of these peasant children, however disfigured by
toil and the inherited physical blight of hardship their mother's form may
be! With each fresh generation, Nature seems to make an effort to go back
to her ideal type; but destiny is strong. Old and new causes working
together are often more than a match for that most marvellous force in all
animal and vegetable life--the love of symmetry.
Resting upon a bed of peppermint, blue with flowers, under an old wall,
whose stones were half hidden by celandine and roving briony; loitering
dreamily upon a wide waste of sunlit pebbles, watching the flashing rapids
of the river where it awoke from its calm sleep to battle with the rocks
which had resisted incalculable ages of washing, the hours glided by so
stealthily that it was evening when I reached a village which was still
eight miles or more from Beaulieu.
Turning into an inn, I fell into conversation with a postman, who made me
the offer of his company during the remainder of the journey. I readily
assented, and gave him a glass of absinthe--his favourite drink--before
leaving. He did not need it, for, as he confessed, he had been clinking
glasses with unusual zeal that day. He was a very droll fellow, a striking
type of the Southerner, whom it was difficult to look at with a serious
face, and whom no one with any sense of humour could really dislike,
notwithstanding his immense vanity and his immeasurable impudence. He had a
thick black beard, a long, sharp nose, dark eyes full of mischievous mirth,
and cheeks the colour of red wine. He wore a stiff new blouse with a red
collar--the badge of his office--and a straw hat like a beehive. The whole
of the way to Beaulieu his tongue was not still a minute. He told me
stories of his bravery and his love adventures with a most amusing accent
and intonation. The Rabelaisian expressions, which give such a peculiar
flavour to the conversation of the 'people' in Southern France, rolled off
his tongue with a sonority that could hardly have been excelled at Nimes
or Tarascon. His swagger, his gestures, and his elocutionary power were
amazing. He would stop walking, and, placing his stick--which he called
his _trique_--under his arm, would speak in a tragic stage-whisper; then,
clutching his _trique_ and flourishing it over his head, he would burst out
into a roar of laughter that made the dogs bark in the scattered farms for
miles around. Once, when we were passing under high rocks, he shouted with
such a terrible voice that he brought some loose stones rattling down upon
the road so close to us that my head, as well as his own, nearly paid the
penalty for thus exasperating the peaceful night. This was either the
effect of vibration or of the sudden movement of some bird or other
creature that he had startled far above us.
Among other things of which this amusing man talked to me was a visit of
archaeologists, among whom were a number of Englishmen, to Beaulieu.
'If you had only seen them,' he said, 'outside the church, all with their
noses lifted in the air! _Grand Dieu!_ What noses!'
Long before we reached Beaulieu I had had more than enough of the wild
spirits of my comic postman. On entering the town he insisted upon
taking me to a hotel which he said he could recommend to me with as much
confidence as if I were his brother. Then he left me; but I had not seen
the last of him. He presently returned, while I was enjoying the luxury
of a quiet and well-served little dinner. Seating himself in front of me
without waiting for an invitation, he helped himself with his fingers to
a dish of baked _cépes_, which I in consequence relinquished, but with a
complete absence of goodwill. There was no getting rid of him, short of
telling him plainly to go, and this I could not do after having accepted
his companionship on the road. He devoured all the mushrooms, expressing
his astonishment between whiles that I did not like them. '_J'aime bien
les champignons,_' he kept on repeating. '_Ça me va le soir. Ce n'est pas
lourd._' When the dessert was brought in, he picked out the only ripe
peach in the dish, and having poured another glass of wine down his really
terrible throat, he declared that it had given him great pleasure to make
my acquaintance, and left me with the hope that I should sleep well,
and would not forget the Beaulieu postman. I assured him, with perfect
sincerity, that I should never forget him.
When daylight returned I found Beaulieu a pleasant little town lying
under hills covered with chestnut woods, and at a short distance from the
Dordogne. Its name, however, was probably given to it on account of the
fertility of the soil in this bit of valley, where the cliffs that enclose
the Dordogne on each side fall back, and, by allowing a rich alluvium to
settle in the plain, give the husbandmen a chance of growing something more
profitable than buckwheat.
Beaulieu was once the seat of a powerful Benedictine abbey. The original
monastery was founded in 858 by Charles le Chauve, who placed it under
his protection. Although the territory was included in the viscounty of
Turenne, the Viscount Raymond II., before he went crusading, made over
his suzerain rights with regard to the abbey and its dependencies to the
abbots, who thus became temporal lords. There is nothing left of the
monastery; but much of the abbey church, which dates from the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, has been fortunately preserved. The interior is not
remarkable, but the large and elaborate bas-relief of the Last Judgment
which fills the tympanum of the portal is considered the most precious
example of mediaeval sculpture in the Bas-Limousin. The face of the
Saviour, expressive of something above all human passions and motives,
shows a really God-like combination of serenity and severity. The fantastic
spirit of the age is well set forth in the tortured forms of the horrid
reptiles and fabulous beasts carved in relief upon the massive lintel, and
filling also the broad border at the base of the tympanum. The same
spirit finds even stronger expression in the demon figure, so grotesquely
long-drawn out, carved upon the scalloped pillar that supports the lintel.
The abbey was pillaged by the Huguenots, who lit a fire in the choir, which
destroyed much of the woodwork. Notwithstanding the religious wars and
the revolutionary convulsions of the eighteenth century, the church has
preserved some of its ancient treasure, of which the most precious object
is a silver statue of the Virgin of very curious workmanship, dating from
the twelfth century.
[Illustration: TURENNE.]