historical recollections, the vineyards were all about us that
delighted the palates of the world. One does not dine at the _Trois
Freres_, in the Palais Royal, without contracting a tenderness for the
very name of Burgundy. I regretted that I was not there in the season
of the grape. The vines were just budding, and the _paysans_, men and
women, were scattered over the vineyards, loosening the earth about
the roots, and driving stakes to support the young shoots. At Saint
Bris I found the country so lovely, that I left the diligence at the
post-house, and walked on to mount a long succession of hills on foot.
The road sides were quite blue with the violets growing thickly among
the grass, and the air was filled with perfume. I soon got out of
sight of the heavy vehicle, and made use of my leisure to enter the
vineyards and talk to the people at their work. I found one old man,
with all his family about him; the little ones with long baskets on
their backs, bringing manure, and one or two grown-up boys and girls
raking up the earth with the unhandy hoe of the country, and setting
it firmly around the roots with their wooden shoes. It was a pretty
group, and I was very much amused with their simplicity. The old man
asked my country, and set down his hoe in astonishment when I told him
I was an American. He wondered I was not more burnt, living in such a
hot country, and asked me what language we spoke. I could scarce get
away from his civilities when I bade him "Good day." No politeness
could have been more elegant than the manner and expression of this
old peasant, and certainly nothing could have appeared sincerer or
kinder. I kept on up the hill till I reached a very high point,
passing on my way a troop of Italians, going to Paris with their
organs and shows--a set of as ragged specimens of the picturesque as I
ever saw in a picture. A lovely scene lay before me when I turned to
look back. The valley, on one side of which lies St. Bris, is as round
as a bowl, with an edge of mountain-tops absolutely even all around
the horizon. It slopes down from every side to the centre, as if it
had been measured and hollowed by art; and there is not a fence to be
seen from one side to the other, and scarcely a tree, but one green
and almost unbroken carpet of verdure, swelling up in broad green
slopes to the top, and realizing, with a slight difference, the
similitude of Madame de Genlis, of the place of satiety, eternal green
meadow and eternal blue sky. St. Bris is a little handful of stone
buildings around an old church; just such a thing as a painter would
throw into a picture--and the different-colored grain, and here and
there a ploughed patch of rich yellow earth, and the road crossing
the hollow from hill to hill like a white band; and then for the life
of the scene, the group of Italians, the cumbrous diligence, and the
peasants in their broad straw hats, scattered over the fields--it was
something quite beyond my usual experience of scenery and accident. I
had rarely before found so much in one view to delight me.
After looking a while, I mounted again, and stood on the very top of
the hill; and, to my surprise, there, on the other side lay just such
another valley, with just such a village in its bosom, and the single
improvement of a river--the Yonne stealing through it, with its
riband-like stream; but all the rest of the valley almost exactly as I
have described the other. I crossed a vineyard to get a view to the
southeast, and _once more_ there lay a deep hollow valley before me,
formed like the other two, with its little hamlet and its vineyards
and mountains--as if there had been three lakes in the hills, with
their edges touching like three bowls, and the terrace on which I
stood was the platform between them. It is a most singular formation
of country, really, and as beautiful as it is singular. Each of these
valleys might be ten miles across; and if the dukes of Burgundy in
feudal times rode ever to St. Bris, I can conceive that their dukedom
never seemed larger to them than when crossing this triple apex of
highland.
At Saulieu we left the usual route, and crossed over to Chagny.
Between these two places lay a spot, which, out of my own country, I
should choose before all others for a retreat from the world. As it
was off the route, the guide-book gave me not even the name, and I
have discovered nothing but that the little hamlet is called
_Rochepot_. It is a little nest of wild scenery, a mimic valley shut
in by high overhanging crags, with the ruins of a battlemented and
noble old castle, standing upon a rock in the centre, with the village
of some hundred stone cottages at its very foot. You might stand on
the towers of the ruins, and toss a biscuit into almost every chimney
in the village. The strong round towers are still perfect, and the
turrets and loop-holes and windows are still there; and rank green
vines have overrun the whole mass everywhere; and nothing but the
prodigious solidity with which it was built could have kept it so long
from falling, for it is evidently one of the oldest castles in
Burgundy. I never before saw anything, even in a picture, which
realized perfectly my idea of feudal position. Here lived the lord of
the domain, a hundred feet in the air in his rocky castle, right over
the heads of his retainers, with the power to call in every soul that
served him at a minute's warning, and with a single blast of his
trumpet. I do not believe a stone has been displaced in the village
for a hundred years. The whole thing was redolent of antiquity. We
wound out of the place by a sharp narrow pass, and there, within a
mile of this old and deserted fortress, lay the broad plains of Beaune
and Chagny--one of the most fertile and luxurious parts of France. I
was charmed altogether. How many things I have seen this side the
water that I have made an involuntary vow in my heart to visit again,
and at more leisure, before I die!
From Chagny it was but one post to Chalons, and here I am in a pretty,
busy town, with broad beautiful quays, where I have promenaded till
dark, observing this out-of-doors people; and now, having written a
long letter for a sleepy man, I will get to bed, and redeem some
portion of my two nights' wakefulness.
LETTER XXIII.
PASSAGE DOWN THE SAONE--AN ODD ACQUAINTANCE--LYONS--CHURCH OF
NOTRE DAME DE FOURVIERES--VIEW FROM THE TOWER.
I looked out of my window the last thing before going to bed at
Chalons, and the familiar constellation of _Ursa Major_ never shone
brighter, and never made me a more agreeable promise than that of fair
weather the following day for my passage down the Saone. I was called
at four, and it rained in torrents. The steamboat was smaller than the
smallest I have seen in our country, and crowded to suffocation with
children, women, and lap-dogs. I appropriated my own trunk, and
spreading my umbrella, sat down upon it, to endure my disappointment
with what philosophy I might. A dirty-looking fellow, who must have
slept in his clothes for a month, came up, with a loaf of coarse bread
under his arm, and addressed me, to my sufficient astonishment, _in
Latin_! He wanted to sit under my umbrella. I looked at him a second
time, but he had touched my passion. Latin is the only thing I have
been driven to, in this world, that I ever really loved; and the
clear, mellow, unctuous pronunciation of my dirty companion equally
astonished and pleased me. I made room for him on my trunk, and,
though rusted somewhat since I philosophized over Lucretius, we got on
very tolerably. He was a German student, travelling to Italy, and a
fine specimen of the class. A dirtier man I never saw, and hardly a
finer or more intellectual face. He knew everything, and served me as
a talking guide to the history of all the places on the river.
Instead of eating all at once, as we do on board the steamboats in
America, the French boats have a _restaurant_, from which you order
what you please, and at any hour. The cabin was set round with small
tables, and the passengers made little parties, and breakfasted and
dined at their own time. It is much the better method. I descended to
the cabin very hungry about twelve o'clock, and was looking about for
a place, when a French gentleman politely rose, and observing that I
was alone, (my German friend living on bread and water only,)
requested me to join his party at breakfast. Two young ladies and a
lad of fourteen sat at the table, and addressing them by their
familiar names, my polite friend requested them to give me a place;
and then told me that they were his daughters and son, and that he was
travelling to Italy for the health of the younger girl, a pale,
slender creature, apparently about eighteen. I was very well pleased
with my position, and rarely have passed an hour more agreeably.
French girls of the better classes never talk, but the father was very
communicative, and a Parisian, with the cross of the Legion of Honor,
and we found abundance of matter for conversation. They have stopped
at Lyons, where I write at present, and I shall probably join their
party to Marseilles.
The clouds broke away after mid-day, and the banks of the river
brightened wonderfully with the change. The Saone is about the size
of the Mohawk, but not half so beautiful; at least for the greater
part of its course. Indeed, you can hardly compare American with
European rivers, for the charm is of another description, quite. With
us it is nature only, here it is almost all art. Our rivers are
lovely, because the outline of the shore is graceful, and particularly
because the vegetation is luxuriant. The hills are green, the foliage
deep and lavish, the rocks grown over with vines or moss, the
mountains in the distance covered with pines and other forest-trees;
everything is wild, and nothing looks bare or sterile. The rivers of
France are crowned on every height with ruins, and in the bosom of
every valley lies a cluster of picturesque stone cottages; but the
fields are naked, and there are no trees; the mountains are barren and
brown, and everything looks as if the dwellings had been deserted by
the people, and nature had at the same time gone to decay. I can
conceive nothing more melancholy than the views upon the Saone, seen,
as I saw them, though vegetation is out everywhere, and the banks
should be beautiful if ever. As we approached Lyons the river narrowed
and grew bolder, and the last ten miles were enchanting. Naturally the
shores at this part of the Saone are exceedingly like the highlands of
the Hudson above West Point. Abrupt hills rise from the river's edge,
and the windings are sharp and constant. But imagine the highlands of
the Hudson crowned with antique chateaux, and covered to the very top
with terraces and summer-houses and hanging-gardens, gravel walks and
beds of flowers, instead of wild pines and precipices, and you may get
a very correct idea of the Saone above Lyons. You emerge from one of
the dark passes of the river by a sudden turn, and there before you
lies this large city, built on both banks, at the foot and on the
sides of mountains. The bridges are fine, and the broad, crowded
quays, all along the edges of the river, have a beautiful effect. We
landed at the stone stairs, and I selected a hotel by chance, where I
have found seven Americans of my acquaintance. We have been spending
the evening at the rooms of a townsman of mine, very pleasantly.
* * * * *
There is a great deal of magnificence at Lyons, in the way of quays,
promenades, and buildings; but its excessive filthiness spoils
everything. One could scarce admire a Venus in such an atmosphere; and
you cannot find room to stand in Lyons where you have not some
nauseating odor. I was glad to escape from the lower streets, and
climb up the long staircases to the observatory that overhangs the
town. From the base of this elevation the descent of the river is
almost a precipice. The houses hang on the side of the steep hill, and
their doors enter from the long alleys of stone staircases by which
you ascend. On every step, and at almost every foot of the way, stood
a beggar. They might have touched hands from the quay to the summit.
If they were not such objects of real wretchedness, it would be
laughable to hear the church calendar of saints repeated so volubly.
The lame hobble after you, the blind stumble in your way, the sick lie
and stretch out their hands from the wall, and all begin in the name
of the Virgin Mary, and end with "_Mon bon Monsieur_," and "_un petit
sous_." I confined my charities to a lovely child, that started out
from its mother's lap, and ran down to meet us--a dirty and ragged
little thing, but with the large dark eyes of the province; and a
skin, where one could see it, of the clearest nut-brown teint. Her
mother had five such, and each of them, to any one who loved
children, would have been a treasure of beauty and interest.
It was holy-week, and the church of _Notre Dame de Fourvieres_, which
stands on the summit of the hill, was crowded with people. We went in
for a moment, and sat down on a bench to rest. My companion was a
Swiss captain of artillery, who was a passenger in the boat, a very
splendid fellow, with a mustache that he might have tied behind his
ears. He had addressed me at the hotel, and proposed that we should
visit the curiosities of the town together. He was a model of a manly
figure, athletic, and soldier-like, and standing near him was to get
the focus of all the dark eyes in the congregation.
The new square tower stands at the side of the church, and rises to
the height of perhaps sixty feet. The view from it is said to be one
of the finest in the world. I have seen more extensive ones, but never
one that comprehended more beauty and interest. Lyons lies at the
foot, with the Saone winding through its bosom in abrupt curves; the
Rhone comes down from the north on the other side of the range of
mountains, and meeting the Saone in a broad stream below the town,
they stretch off to the south, through a diversified landscape; the
Alps rise from the east like the edges of a thunder-cloud, and the
mountains of Savoy fill up the interval to the Rhone. All about the
foot of the monument lie gardens, of exquisite cultivation; and above
and below the city the villas of the rich; giving you altogether as
delicious a nucleus for a broad circle of scenery as art and nature
could create, and one sufficiently in contrast with the barrenness of
the rocky circumference to enhance the charm, and content you with
your position. Half way down the hill lies an old monastery, with a
lovely garden walled in from the world; and several of the
brotherhood were there, idling up and down the shaded alleys, with
their black dresses sweeping the ground, possibly in holy
contemplation. The river was covered with boats, the bells were
ringing to church, the glorious old cathedral, so famous for its
splendor, stood piled up, with its arches and gray towers, in the
square below; the day was soft, sunny, and warm, and existence was a
blessing. I leaned over the balustrade, I know not how long, looking
down upon the scene about me; and I shall ever remember it as one of
those few unalloyed moments, when the press of care was taken off my
mind, and the chain of circumstances was strong enough to set aside
both the past and the future, and leave me to the quiet enjoyment of
the present. I have found such hours "few and far between."
LETTER XXIV.
DEPARTURE FROM LYONS--BATTEAUX DE POSTE--RIVER
SCENERY--VILLAGE OF CONDRIEU--VIENNE--VALENCE--POINT ST.
ESPRIT--DAUPHINY AND LANGUEDOC--DEMI-FETE DAY, ETC.
I found a day and a half quite enough for Lyons. The views from the
mountain and the river were the only things that pleased me. I made
the usual dry visit to the library and the museum, and admired the
Hotel de Ville, and the new theatre, and the front of the _Maison de
Tolosan_, that so struck the fancy of Joseph II., and having
"despatched the lions," like a true cockney traveller, I was too happy
to escape the offensive smells of the streets, and get to my rooms.
One does not enjoy much comfort within doors either. Lyons is a great
imitation metropolis--a sort of second-hand Paris. I am not very
difficult to please, but I found the living intolerable. It was an
affectation of abstruse cookery throughout. We sat down to what is
called the best table in the place, and it was a series of ludicrous
travesties, from the soup to the salad. One can eat well in the
country, because the dishes are simple, and he gets the natural taste
of things; but to come to a table covered with artificial dishes,
which he has been accustomed to see in their perfection, and to taste
and send away everything in disgust, is a trial of temper which is
reserved for the traveller at Lyons.
The scenery on the river, from Lyons to Avignon, has great celebrity,
and I had determined to take that course to the south. Just at this
moment, however, the Rhone had been pronounced too low, and the
steamboats were stopped. I probably made the last passage by steam on
the Saone, for we ran aground repeatedly, and were compelled to wait
till horses could be procured to draw the boat into deep water. It was
quite amusing to see with what a regular, business-like air, the
postillions fixed their traces to the prow, and whipped into the
middle of the river. A small boat was my only resource, and I found a
man on the quay who plied the river in what is called _batteaux de
poste_, rough shallops with flat bottoms, which are sold for firewood
on their arrival, the rapidity of the Rhone rendering a return against
the current next to impossible. The sight of the frail contrivance in
which I was to travel nearly two hundred miles, rather startled me,
but the man assured me he had several other passengers, and two ladies
among them. I paid the _arrhes_, or earnest money, and was at the
river-stairs punctually at four the next morning.
To my very sincere pleasure the two ladies were the daughters of my
polite friend and fellow passenger from Chalons. They were already on
board, and the little shallop sat deep in the water with her freight.
Besides these, there were two young French chasseurs going home on
leave of absence, a pretty Parisian dress-maker flying from the
cholera, a masculine woman, the wife of a dragoon, and my friend the
captain. We pushed out into the current, and drifted slowly down under
the bridges, without oars the padrone quietly smoking his pipe at the
helm. In a few minutes we were below the town, and here commenced
again the cultivated and ornamented banks I had so much admired on my
approach to Lyons from the other side. The thin haze was just stirring
from the river's surface, the sunrise flush was on the sky, the air
was genial and impregnated with the smell of grass and flowers, and
the little changing landscapes, as we followed the stream, broke upon
us like a series of exquisite dioramas. The atmosphere was like
Doughty's pictures, exactly. I wished a thousand times for that
delightful artist, that he might see how richly the old _chateaux_ and
their picturesque appurtenances filled up the scene. It would have
given a new turn to his pencil.
We soon arrived at the junction of the rivers, and, as we touched the
rapid current of the Rhone, the little shallop yielded to its sway,
and redoubled its velocity. The sun rose clear, the cultivation grew
less and less, the hills began to look distant and barren, and our
little party became sociable in proportion. We closed around the
invalid, who sat wrapped in a cloak in the stern, leaning on her
father's shoulder, and talked of Paris and its pleasures--a theme of
which the French are never weary. Time passed delightfully. Without
being decidedly pretty, our two Parisiennes were quiet-mannered and
engaging; and the younger one particularly, whose pale face and
deeply-sunken eyes gave her a look of melancholy interest, seemed to
have thought much, and to feel, besides, that her uncertain health
gave her a privilege of overstepping the rigid reserve of an unmarried
girl. She talks freely, and with great delicacy of expression and
manner.
We ran ashore at the little village of Condrieu to breakfast. We were
assailed on stepping out of the boat by the _demoiselles_ of two or
three rival _auberges_--nice-looking, black-eyed girls, in white
aprons, who seized us by the arm, and pulled each to her own door,
with torrents of unintelligible _patois_. We left it to the captain,
who selected the best-looking leader, and we were soon seated around a
table covered with a lavish breakfast; the butter, cheese, and wine
excellent, at least. A merrier party, I am sure, never astonished the
simple people of Condrieu. The pretty dress-maker was full of
good-humor and politeness, and delighted at the envy with which the
rural belles regarded her knowing Parisian cap; the chasseurs sang the
popular songs of the army, and joked with the maids of the _auberge_;
the captain was inexhaustibly agreeable, and the hour given us by the
padrone was soon gone. We embarked with a thousand adieus from the
pleased people, and altogether it was more like a scene from Wilhelm
Meister, than a passage from real life.
The wind soon rose free and steady from the north-west, and with a
spread sail we ran past _Vienne_, at ten miles in the hour. This was
the metropolis of my old friends, "the Allobrogues," in Cesar's
Commentaries. I could not help wondering at the feelings with which I
was passing over such classic ground. The little dress-maker was
giving us an account of her fright at the cholera, and every one in
the boat was in agonies of laughter. I looked at the guide-book to
find the name of the place, and the first glance at the word carried
me back to my old school-desk at Andover, and conjured up for a moment
the redolent classic interest with which I read the history of the
land I was now hurrying through. That a laugh with a modern _grisette_
should engross me entirely, at the moment I was traversing such a
spot, is a possibility the man may realize much more readily than the
school-boy. A new roar of merriment from my companions plucked me back
effectually from Andover to the Rhone, and I thought no more of Gaul
or its great historian.
We floated on during the day, passing _chateaux_ and ruins constantly;
but finding the country barren and rocky to a dismal degree, I can not
well imagine how the Rhone has acquired its reputation for beauty. It
has been sung by the poets more than any other river in France, and
the various epithets that have been applied to it have become so
common, that you can not mention it without their rising to your lips;
but the Saone and the Seine are incomparably more lovely, and I am
told the valleys of the Loire are the most beautiful part of France.
From its junction with the Saone to the Mediterranean, the Rhone is
one stretch of barrenness.
We passed a picturesque chateau, built very widely on a rock washed by
the river, called "_La Roche de Glun_," and twilight soon after fell,
closing in our view to all but the river edge. The wind died away, but
the stars were bright and the air mild; and, quite fatigued to
silence, our little party leaned on the sides of the boat, and waited
till the current should float us down to our resting-place for the
night. We reached _Valence_ at ten, and with a merry dinner and supper
in one, which kept us up till after midnight, we got to our coarse but
clean beds, and slept soundly.
The following forenoon we ran under the _Pont St. Esprit_, an
experiment the guide-book calls very dangerous. The Rhone is rapid and
noisy here, and we shot under the arches of the fine old structure
with great velocity; but the "Rapids of the St. Lawrence" are passed
constantly without apprehension by travellers in America, and those of
the Rhone are a mere millrace in comparison. We breakfasted just
below, at a village where we could scarce understand a syllable, the
_patois_ was so decided, and at sunset we were far down between the
provinces of _Dauphiny_ and _Languedoc_, with the villages growing
thicker and greener, and a high mountain within ten or fifteen miles,
covered with snow nearly to the base. We stopped opposite the old
castle of _Rochemeuse_ to pay the _droit_. It was a _demi-fete_ day,
and the inhabitants of a village back from the river had come out to
the green bank in their holyday costume for a revel. The bank swelled
up from the stream to a pretty wood, and the green sward between was
covered with these gay people, arrested in their amusements by our
arrival. We jumped out for a moment, and I walked up the bank and
endeavored to make the acquaintance of a strikingly handsome woman
about thirty, but the _patois_ was quite too much. After several vain
attempts to understand each other, she laughed and turned on her heel,
and I followed the call of the padrone to the batteau. For five or six
miles below, the river passed through a kind of meadow, and an air
more loaded with fragrance I never breathed. The sun was just down,
and with the mildness of the air, and quiet glide of the boat on the
water, it was quite enchanting. Conversation died away, and I went
forward and lay down in the bow alone, with a fit of desperate musing.
It is as singular as it is certain, that the more one enjoys the
loveliness of a foreign land, the more he feels how absolutely his
heart is at home in his own country.
LETTER XXV.
INFLUENCE OF A BOATMAN--THE TOWN OF ARLES--ROMAN RUINS--THE
CATHEDRAL--MARSEILLES--THE PASS OF OLLIOULES--THE
VINEYARDS--TOULON--ANTIBES--LAZARETTO--VILLA FRANCA, ETC.
I entered Avignon after a delicious hour on the Rhone, quite in the
mood to do poetical homage to its associations. My dreams of Petrarch
and Vaucluse were interrupted by a scene between my friend the
captain, and a stout boatman, who had brought his baggage from the
batteau. The result was an appeal to the mayor, who took the captain
aside after the matter was argued, and told him in his ear that he
must compromise the matter, for he _dared not give a judgment in his
favor_! The man had demanded _twelve_ francs where the regulations
allowed him but _one_, and palpable as the imposition was, the
magistrate refused to interfere. The captain curled his mustache and
walked the room in a terrible passion, and the boatman, an herculean
fellow, eyed him with a look of assurance which quite astonished me.
After the case was settled, I asked an explanation of the mayor. He
told me frankly, that the fellow belonged to a powerful class of men
of the lowest description, who, having declared first for the present
government, were and would be supported by it in almost any question
where favor could be shown--that all the other classes of inhabitants
were malcontents, and that, between positive strength and royal favor,
the boatmen and their party had become too powerful even for the
ordinary enforcement of the law.