There is a certain valley in Languedoc, at no great distance from the
palace of the Bishop of Mendes, where to this day the traveller is
struck by some singular diversities of scenery. The valley itself is
the most quiet and delightful that France can boast. A stream wanders
through it, with just rapidity enough to keep its waters sweet and
clear; and, on either side of this line of beauty, some gently swelling
meadows extend--on one side to a chain of smooth green hills, and on the
other, to the base of a mountain of almost inaccessible rocks. The river
is bordered by willows and other shrubs, crowding to dip their branches
in the transparent wave; and here and there in its neighbourhood, groves
of walnut-trees stud the meadows, serving as a rendezvous of amusement
for innumerable nightingales, which at the first dawn of summer assemble
on the branches, and, as if in mockery of the poets, fill the evening
air with their mirthful music.
The village of Rossignol (so named, probably, on account of the
abundance of nightingales in the neighbourhood) was inhabited by
very poor, but very happy people. It is true that, in common with
other cultivators of the fickle earth, they had sometimes to mourn the
overthrow of the husbandman's hopes; and that even their remote and
lonely situation did not always protect them from the exactions of those
whom birth, violence, or accident had made the lords of the domain.
But in such cases, the villagers of Rossignol had a resource, limited,
indeed, and attended by hardship, and even danger, but, to a certain
extent, absolutely unfailing.
It must not be supposed, however, that, even in an Arcadia like this,
"The course of true love _always_ did run smooth."
There was one young girl, called Julie, who was cruel enough to have
depopulated a whole nation of lovers. She was the most beautiful
creature, it is said, that ever skimmed the surface of this breathing
world. Her light brown hair was illumined in the bends of the curls with
gleams resembling those of auburn, and it was so long and luxuriant,
that when, in the ardour of the chase, it became unbound, and floated in
clouds around her, that seemed just touched on their golden summits by
the sun, she looked more like a thing of air than of earth.
Nor was the illusion dissipated when, flinging away with her white
arm the redundant tresses, her face flashed upon the gazer. There
was nothing in it of that tinge of earth--for there is no word for
the thought--which identifies the loveliest and happiest faces with
mortality. There was no shade of care upon her dazzling brow--no touch
of tender thought upon her lip--no flash, even of hope, in her radiant
eyes. Her expression spoke neither of the past nor the future--neither
of graves nor altars. She was a thing of mere physical life--a gay and
glorious creature of the sun, and the wind, and the dews; who exchanged
as carelessly and unconsciously as a flower, the sweet smell of her
beauty for the bounties of nature, and pierced the ear of heaven with
her mirthful songs, from nothing higher than the instinct of a bird.
It seemed as if what was absent in her mind had been added to her
physical nature. She had the same excess of animal life which is
observed in young children; but, unlike them, her muscular force was
great enough to give it play. Her walk was like a bounding dance, and
her common speech like a gay and sparkling song;--her laugh echoed
from hill to hill, like the tone of some sweet, but wild and shrill
instrument of music. She out-stripped the boldest of the youths in the
chase; skimmed like some phantom shape along the edge of precipices
approached even by the wild goat with fear; and looked round with
careless joy, from pinnacles which interrupted the flight of the eagle
through the air.
With such beauty, and such accomplishments, for the place and time, how
many hearts might not Julie have broken! Julie did not break one. She
was admired, loved, followed; and she fled, rending the air with her
shrieks of musical laughter. Disconcerted, stunned, mortified, and
alarmed, the wooer pursued his mistress only with his eyes, and blessed
the saints that he had not gained such a phantom for a wife.
_Romance of History._
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