prow of the boat into the mouth of the cavern. What an ugly and
uninteresting hole I then thought it! Having run the punt as far as we
could into the opening, there still remained about six feet of water
to cross before reaching the sandy mud beyond. A plank, however, that
we brought with us served as a bridge. The story of the otters was no
fable, for here were the footprints of the beasts all over the mud. We
lighted candles and looked into the hole. The ground rose and the roof
descended, so that to enter it was necessary to lie perfectly flat,
and to crawl along by a movement very like that of swimming; then the
passage became so small that there was only room for one to go at a
time. Neither of us was ambitious to go first, for there was just a
chance of an otter seizing the invader by the nose; but neither liked
to show the white feather. Each in turn went in a few yards, planted a
lighted candle in the mud, and then found some pretext for returning.
The hot air of the cavern was almost suffocating, and one felt so
helpless flattened against the earth, with the rock pressing so tight
upon the back that even to wriggle along was difficult. 'Decros is a
native,' thought I, 'and he ought to be used to this kind of work. I
will let him understand that he is expected now to do his duty.' In he
went again, and planted another candle about a yard in front of the
last one. Then he stopped and fired a shot from the revolver that we
carried in turn for the otters, and the sound of the detonation seemed
to echo in a muffled fashion from the bowels of the earth.
'How many otters have you killed?' I shouted.
'None,' he replied. 'I just fired to let them know that we are here.'
I then asked him if he was going on, and I fancied that he tried to
shrug his shoulders, but found the rock in the way. His practical
reply, however, was to slowly back out. When he was able to stand up
again, he said he believed he had seen the end of the cavern, and
would like me to take another look. I now realized that if the secrets
of the fantastic realm which my fancy had pictured were to be revealed
to me, there must be no more shirking. When I flattened myself out
again upon the mud, it was with the determination to go right through
the neck of the bottle, for such the passage figuratively was. At one
moment I felt tightly wedged, unable to move forward or backward, in a
hot steamy atmosphere that was not made any pleasanter by the smoke of
the burnt powder; but, the sight of the now rising roof encouraged me
to further efforts, and presently I was able to stand upright--in
fact, I was in a cavern where a giant of the first magnitude could
have walked about with ease, but where he might have been a prisoner
for life. I was resolved, however, that Decros should not escape his
share of the adventure, so I called to him to come on, and he quickly
joined me. To my great disappointment, the cavern soon came to an end.
Where, we asked, could the otters be hiding themselves? Examining the
place more carefully, we found a passage going under the rock at the
farther extremity, but nearly filled with sand which the river had
washed up in time of flood. Here, then, was the continuation of the
cavern. The passage had been made by water, for a subterranean stream
must at one time have found an exit here into the Ouysse, and now
water was reversing the process by filling up the ancient conduit. But
for the otters that kept it open, we should probably have seen no
trace of it; and it was for this that we had wriggled our way into the
hideous hole like serpents! I left with the impression that there was
much vanity in searching for the wonders of the subterranean world.
Having brought back the boat, we stopped at the cottage by the
vineyard and tried the juice of the grapes which three weeks before
were basking in the sun. It was now a fragrant wine of a rich purple,
with a certain flavour of the soil that made it the more agreeable.
The fisherman's wife also placed upon the table a loaf of home-made
bread, of an honest brown colour, some of the little Roc-Amadour
cheeses made from goat's milk, and a plate of walnuts. The window
looked out upon the sunny vines, whose leaves were now flaming gold or
ruddy brown; the blue river shone in the hollow below, and through the
open door there came the tinkling of bells from the rocky wastes where
the small long-tailed sheep were moving slowly homeward, nibbling the
stunted herbage as they went.
This sound reminded us that the sun would soon drop behind the hill,
and that the Pomoyssin, to which we intended to pay a visit on our way
home, was not a spot that gained attractiveness from the shades of
night. I had heard the country-people speak of it as a peculiarly
horrible and treacherous _gouffre_, and its name, which means
'unwholesome hole,' corresponds to the local opinion of it. The
shepherd children would suffer torture from thirst rather than descend
into the gloomy hollow and dip out a drop of the dark water which is
said to draw the gazer towards it, and then into its mysterious depths
under the rock, by the spell of some wicked power. Some years ago a
woman, supposed to have been drawn there by the evil spirit, was found
drowned, and since then the spot has been avoided even more than it
was before.
It was to this place, then, that we went when the sun was setting. The
way led up a deep little valley which was an absolute desert of
stones. A dead walnut-tree, struck apparently by lightning, with its
old and gnarled branches stretching out on one side like weird arms,
was just the object that the imagination would place in a valley
blighted by the influence of evil spirits, in proximity to a passage
communicating from their world to this one. Presently, as we drew near
some high rocks, Decros, pointing to a dark hollow in the shadow of
them said, 'There it is.' We went down into the basin to the edge of
the water that lay there, black and still, Decros showing evident
reluctance and restlessness the while, so strongly was his mind
affected by all the stories he had heard about the pool. Moreover, it
was rapidly growing dusk. In this half-light the funnel in which we
were standing certainly did look a very diabolic and sinister hole.
The fancy aiding, everything partook of the supernatural: the dark
masses of brambles hanging from the rocks, the wild vines clinging to
them with leaves like flakes of deep-glowing crimson fire, and
especially the intermittent sound of gurgling water.
I was glad to have seen the Pomoyssin under circumstances so
favourable, but it was with relief that I left it and began to climb
the side of the gorge from this valley of dreadful shadows towards the
pure sky that reddened as the brown dusk deepened below.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE CÉLÉ.
It was a burning afternoon of late summer when I walked across the
stony hills which separate the valley of the Lot from that of its
tributary the Célé, between Capdenac and Figeac. I did not take the
road, but climbed the cliffs, trusting myself to chance and the torrid
_causse_. I wished that I had not done so when it was too late to act
differently. There was nothing new for me upon the bare hills, where
all vegetation was parched up except the juniper bushes and the
spurge. At length I found the road that went down with many a flourish
into the valley of the Célé, and I reached Figeac in the evening,
covered with dust, and as thirsty as a hunted stag. Here I took up my
quarters for awhile.
Figeac is not a beautiful town from the Haussmannesque point of
view--the one that is destined to prevail in all municipal councils;
but it is full of charm to the archaeologist and the lover of the
picturesque. There are few places even in France which have undergone
so little change during the last five or six hundred years. Elsewhere,
thirteenth and fourteenth century houses are becoming rare; here they
are numerous. There are streets almost entirely composed of them.
These streets are in reality narrow crooked lanes paved with pebbles,
slanting towards the gutter in the centre. Some are only three or four
yards wide, and the walls half shut out the light of day. You look up
and see a mere strip of blue sky, but trailing plants reaching far
downward from window-sills, one above the other, light up the gloom
with many a patch of vivid green. You venture down some dim passage
and come suddenly upon a little court where an old Gothic portal with
quaint sculptures, or a Renaissance doorway with armorial bearings
carved over the lintel, bears testimony to the grandeur and wealth of
those who once lived in the now grimy, dilapidated, poverty-stricken
mansion. Pretentious dwellings of bygone days have long since been
abandoned to the humble.
Here is a typical house in the Rue Abel, which is scarcely wide enough
for two to walk abreast. The oak door is elaborately carved with heads
and leaves, flowers and line ornament, all in strong relief. One
grimacing puckered head has a movable tongue that once lifted a latch
on being touched. Near the ground the oak has been half devoured by
the damp. This door would have been sold long ago to antiquaries or
speculators if the house since the Revolution had not become the
property of several persons all equally suspicious of one another, and
with the Cadurcian bump of obstinacy equally developed. They had no
respect for the carving, and they were eager to 'touch' the money; but
their interests in the house not being the same, they could never come
to an understanding over the door; consequently, in spite of very
tempting offers, the piece of massive oak continues to hang upon its
rusty hinges. So much the better for the student of antiquities, for,
without denying that museums are eminently useful, it is certain that
they deprive objects of a great deal of their interest and their power
of suggesting ideas by detaching them from their surroundings.
Moreover, it is not at all sure that these things, when they have been
bought up and carried away, will ever be put in a place where anybody
can see them who may have the wish to do so. And then, when a thing
has been put into a museum, it becomes such labour and painfulness to
look for it; and most of us are so lazy by nature. I will make a frank
confession. For my own part, I should scarcely look at this old door
if it were in the Cluny or any other museum; but here, in ancient
Figeac, I see it where it was many lustres ago, and the pleasure of
finding it in the midst of the sordidness and squalor that follow upon
the decay of grandeur and the evaporation of human hopes makes me feel
much that I should not feel otherwise, and calls up ideas as a
February sunbeam calls gnats out of the dead earth and sets them
spinning.
I venture up the stone staircase, although most of the finely carved
balusters are gone, and the arch-stones have so slipped out of place
that they seem to cling together by the will of Providence rather than
by any physical law. The stairs themselves, although of fine stone
that has almost the polish of marble, are cracked as if an earthquake
had tormented them, and worn by the tread of innumerable feet into
deep hollows. I reach a landing where a long corridor stretches away
into semi-darkness. The floor is black with dirt, and so are the doors
which once opened into rooms where luxury waited upon some who were
born, and upon others (perchance the same) who died. A sound reaches
me from the far-end of the corridor that makes me feel like a coward.
It is the raving of a madman. How he seems to be contending with all
the fiends of hell! Sometimes his voice is so low, and the words crowd
one upon another so fast, that the muttering is like the prolonged
growl of a wild beast; then the mood changes, and the unseen man seems
to be addressing an invisible audience in grand sonorous sentences as
though he were a Cicero; and perhaps he may be, but as he speaks in
_patois_ his eloquence is lost upon me. What a terrible excitement is
in his voice! How it thrills and horrifies! And he is alone, quite
alone in this dismal old house with the fiends who harass him. This I
learn from a young girl whom I meet at the bottom of the staircase.
She tells me that the man is only mad at the time of the new or the
full moon (I forget which), and that his raving lasts but two or three
days. Then nobody ventures near him; but at other times he is quite
rational and harmless. He has left, however, upon me an impression
more lasting perhaps than that of the old tottering staircase that
threatens to close up every moment like a toy snake that has been
stretched out.
Most of the old houses are entered by Gothic doorways, and the oak
doors are studded with large nail-heads. The locks and bolts are of
mediaeval workmanship. Sometimes you see an iron ring hanging to a
string that has been passed through a hole in the door. It is just
such a string as Little Red Riding-hood (an old French fable,
by-the-bye) pulled to lift the latch at the summons of the wicked
wolf. And what a variety of ancient knockers have we here! Many are
mere bars of iron hanging to a ring; but others are much more
artistic, showing heads coifed in the style of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, serpents biting their own tails, and all manner
of fanciful ideas wrought into iron. In wandering about the dim old
streets, paved with cobble stones, architectural details of singular
interest strike one at every turn. Now it is the encorbelment of a
turret at the angle of a fifteenth or sixteenth century mansion that
has lost all its importance; now a dark archway with fantastic heads
grimacing from the wall; now an arcade of Gothic windows, with
graceful columns and delicate carvings--a beautiful fragment in the
midst of ruin.
What helps much to render these dingy streets, passages, and courts of
Figeac so delightfully picturesque is the vegetation which, growing
with southern luxuriance in places seemingly least favourable to it,
clings to the ancient masonry, or brightens it by the strong contrast
of its immediate neighbourhood in some little garden or balustraded
terrace. Wherever there are a few feet of ground some rough poles
support a luxuriant vine-trellis, and grapes ripen where one might
suppose scarcely a gleam of sunshine could fall. The vine clambers
over everything, and sometimes reaches to the top of a house two
stories high. The old walls of Figeac are likewise tapestried with
pellitory and ivy-linaria, with here and there a fern pushing its
deep-green frond farther into the shadow, or an orpine sedum lifting
its head of purple flowers into the sunshine that changes it to a
flame.
There is much in the life of this place that matches perfectly with
the surroundings. Enter by a Gothic doorway, and you will come upon a
nail-maker's forge, and see a dog turning the wheel that keeps the
bellows continually blowing. The wheel is about a foot broad, and
stands some three feet high. The dog jumps into it at a sign from his
master, and as the wheel turns the sparks from the forge fall about
the animal in showers. Each dog is expected to work five or six hours;
then, when his task is done, he is allowed to amuse himself as he
pleases, while a comrade takes his turn at the wheel. The nail-makers
discovered long ago that dog labour was cheaper than boy labour, and
not so troublesome. Nevertheless, these wheels belong to an order of
things that has nearly passed away.
The crier or _tambourineur_, as he is generally called, because he
carries a drum, which he beats most lustily to awaken the curiosity of
the inhabitants, is making the round of the town with an ox, which is
introduced to the public as 'le boeuf ici présent.' The crier's
business is to announce to all whom it may concern that the animal is
to be killed this very evening, and that its flesh will be sold
to-morrow at 1 franc 25 centimes the kilo. It will all go at a uniform
price, for this is the local custom. Those who want the _aloyau_, or
sirloin, only have to be quick. The ox, notwithstanding that he has a
rope tied round his nose and horns, and is led by the butcher,
evidently thinks it a great distinction to be _tambouriné_; his
expression indicating that this is the proudest day of his life. Every
time the drum begins to rattle he flourishes his tail, and when each
little ceremony is over he moves on to a fresh place with a jaunty
air, as if he were aware that all this drumming and fuss were
especially intended for his entertainment. No condemned wretch ever
made his last appearance in public with a better grace.
Another day I see this crier going round the town accompanied by a boy
every available part of whose person is decked with ribbons, and all
kinds of things ordinarily sold by drapers and haberdashers. Over each
shoulder is slung a pair of women's boots. The boy is a walking
advertisement of an exceptional sale, which a tradesman announces with
the help of the crier and his drum.
A band of women and girls come up from the riverside, walking in
Indian file, and each with a glittering copper water-pot on her head.
What beautiful water-pots these are! They have the antique curve that
has not changed in the course of ages. They swell out at the bottom
and the top, and fall gracefully in towards the middle. As the women
quit the sunshine and enter the deep shadow of the street the shine of
their water-pots is darkened suddenly, like the sparks of burnt paper
which follow one upon another and go out.
The sound of solemn music draws me into a church. A requiem Mass is
being chanted. In the middle of the nave, nearer the main door than
the altar, is a deal coffin with gable-shaped lid, barely covered by a
pall. A choir-boy comes out of the sacristy, carrying a pan of live
embers, which he places at the head of the coffin. Then he sprinkles
incense upon the fire, and immediately the smoke rises like a
snow-white cloud towards the vaulting; but, meeting the sunbeams on
its way, it moves up their sloping golden path, and seems to pass
through the clerestory window into the boundless blue.
Now the procession moves towards the cemetery. It is a boy's funeral,
and four youths of about the same age as the one who lies in darkness
hold the four corners of each pall, two of which are carried in front
of the coffin. After the hearse come members of the confraternity of
Blue Penitents, one of whom carries a great wooden cross upon his
shoulder. Others carry staves with small crosses at the top, or
emblems of the trades that they follow. The dead boy's father is a
Penitent, and this is why the confraternity has come out to-day. They
now wear their _cagoules_ raised; but on Good Friday, when they go in
procession to a high spot called the Calvary, the leader walking
barefoot and carrying the cross on his shoulder in imitation of
Christ, they wear these dreadful-looking flaps over their faces. Their
appearance then is terrible enough; but what must that of the Red
Penitents, who accompanied condemned wretches to execution, have been?
In a few years there will be no Blue Penitents at Figeac. As the old
members of the confraternity die, there are no postulants to fill
their places. Already they feel, when they put on their 'sacks', that
they are masquerading, and that the eye of ridicule is upon them. This
state of mind is fatal to the conservation of all old customs. The
political spirit of the times is, moreover, opposed to these religious
processions in France. That of the _fête-Dieu_ at Figeac would have
been suppressed some years ago by the Municipal Council had it not
been for the outcry of the tradespeople. All the new dresses, new
hats, and new boots that are bought for this occasion cause money to
be spent that might otherwise be saved, and those who are interested
in the sale of such things wish the procession through the streets to
be kept up, although in heart they may be among the scoffers at
religion.
The religious confraternities in Aquitaine date from the appearance of
the _routiers_ at the close of the twelfth century. These _routiers_
were then chiefly Brabançons, Aragonese, and Germans. According to an
ecclesiastical author and local historian, the Abbé Debon, the lawless
bands spread such terror through the country that they stopped the
pilgrims from going to Figeac, Conques, and other places that had
obtained a reputation for holiness. A canon of Le Puy in Auvergne,
much distressed by the desertion of the sanctuary of Notre Dame de
Puy, which rivals that of Roc-Amadour in antiquity, formed the design
of instituting a confraternity to wage war against the _routiers_ and
destroy them. A 'pious fraud' was adopted. A young man, having been
dressed so as to impersonate Notre Dame du Puy, appeared to a
carpenter who was in the habit of praying every night in the
cathedral, and gave him the mission of revealing that it was the will
of the Holy Virgin that a confraternity should be formed to put down
the brigands and establish peace in the country. Hundreds of men
enrolled themselves at once. The confrères, from the fact that they
wore hoods of white linen, obtained the name of Chaperons Blancs. Upon
their breasts hung a piece of lead with this inscription: 'Agnus Dei
qui tollis peccata mundi dona nobis pacem.' The confraternity spread
into Aquitaine, and the _routiers_ were defeated in pitched battles
with great slaughter; but the _chaperons_ in course of time became
lawless fanatics, and were almost as great a nuisance to society as
those whom they had undertaken to exterminate. They were nevertheless
the ancestors in a sense of the confraternities of penitents who, at a
later period, became so general in Europe.
The monthly fair at Figeac offers some curious pictures of rural life.
The peasants crowd in from the valleys and the surrounding _causses_.
Racial differences, or those produced by the influences of soil and
food--especially water--for a long series of generations, are very
strongly marked. There is the florid, robust, blue-eyed, sanguine
type, and there is the leaden-coloured, black-haired, lantern-jawed,
sloping-shouldered, and hollow-chested type. Then there are the
intermediates. Considered generally, these peasants of the Haut-Quercy
are not fine specimens of the human animal. They are dwarfed, and very
often deformed. Their almost exclusively vegetable diet, their
excessive toil, and the habit of drinking half-putrid rain-water from
cisterns which they very rarely clean, may possibly explain this
physical degeneration of the Cadurci. Their character is honest in the
main, but distrustful and superficially insincere by nature or the
force of circumstance. Their worst qualities are shown at a fair,
where they cheat as much as they can, and place no limit to lying.
Their canon of morality there is that everyone must look after
himself. I have been assured by a priest that they never think of
confessing the lies that they tell in bartering, because they maintain
that every man who buys ought to understand his business. I much
wondered why, at a Figeac fair, when there was a question of buying a
bullock, the animal's tail was pulled as though all his virtue were
concentrated in this appendage. I learnt that the reason of the
tugging was this: Cattle are liable to a disease that causes the tail
to drop off, but the people here have discovered a very artful trick
of fastening it on again, and it needs a vigorous pull to expose the
fraud. Among other tricks of the country is that of drenching an
ill-tempered and unmanageable horse with two _litres_ of wine before
taking him to the fair. He then becomes as quiet as a lamb. I heard
the story of a _curé_, who was thus imposed upon by one of his own
parishioners. He wanted a very quiet horse, and he found one at the
fair; but the next day, when he went near the animal, it appeared to
be possessed of the devil. All this is bad; but there is satisfaction
to the student of old manners in knowing that everything takes place
as it did centuries ago. The cattle-dealers and peasants here actually
transact their business in _pistoles_ and _écus_. A _pistole_ now
represents 10 francs, and an _écu_ 3 francs.