of Auvergne, it is less enervating by the Célé than in the
neighbouring valley of the Lot. There, some twenty miles farther
south, the grapes ripen two or three weeks sooner than they do upon
these hillsides. But the _vent d'autan_--the wind from the
south-east--is now blowing, and, although there is too much air, one
gasps for breath. The brilliant blue fades out of the sky, and the sun
just glimmers through layers of dun-coloured vapour. It is a sky that
makes one ill-tempered and restless by its sameness and indecision.
But the wind is a worse trial. It blows hot, as if it issued from the
infernal cavern. It sets the nerves altogether wrong, and disposes one
to commit evil deeds from mere wantonness and the feeling that some
violent reaction from this influence is what nature insists upon. It
is a wind that does not blow a steady honest gale, but goes to work in
a treacherously intermittent fashion--now lulled to a complete calm,
now springing at you like a tiger from the jungle. Then your eyes are
filled with dust, unless you close them quickly, or turn your back to
the enemy in the nick of time. The night comes, and brings other
trouble. You try to sleep with closed windows, so that you may hear
less of the racket that the wind makes outside, but it is impossible:
you stifle. You get up and open a window--perhaps two windows. The
wind rushes in, but it is like the hot breath of a panting dog. The
noise of swinging _persiennes_ that have got loose, and are banged now
against the wall, now against the window-frame, mingles with a woful
confusion of sounds within, as though a most unruly troop of ghosts
were dancing the _farandole_ all through the house. If any door has
been left open, it worries you more by its banging at intervals of a
minute than if it went on without stopping to consider. Therefore you
are compelled to rise again, and go and look for it--anything but a
cheerful expedition if you cannot find the matches. When this south
wind falls, the rain generally comes, bringing great refreshment to
the parched earth, and all the animals that live upon it.
As I have referred to the house in which I live, I may as well say
something more with regard to it and the things which it contains. It
is not one of the ancient houses of Figeac, but it is old-fashioned
and provincial. The rooms are rather large, the floors are venerably
black, and the boarded ceilings supported by rafters have never had
their structural secrets or the grain of the timber concealed by a
layer of plaster. What you see over-head is simply the floor of the
room or the loft above. And yet this is not considered a poor-kind of
house; it is as good as most good people hereabouts live in. The
furniture is simple, but solid; it was made to last, and most of it
has long outlasted the first owners. In every room, the kitchen
excepted, there is a bed, according to the very general custom of the
country. The character of the people is distinctly utilitarian,
notwithstanding the blood of the troubadours. There is even a bed in
the _salle à manger_. A piece of furniture, however, from which my eye
takes more pleasure is one of those old clocks which reach from the
ceiling to the floor, and conceal all the mystery and solemnity of
pendulum and weights from the vulgar gaze. It has a very loud and
self-asserting tick, and a still more arrogant strike, for such an old
clock; but, then, everybody here has a voice that is much stronger
than is needed, and it is the habit to scream in ordinary
conversation. A clock, therefore, could not make itself heard by such
people as these Quercynois, unless it had a voice matching in some
sort with their own. Another piece of furniture that pleases me,
because it is of shining copper, which always throws a homely warmth
into a room, is a large basin fixed upon a stand against the wall,
with a little cistern above it, also of copper. It is intended for
washing the hands by means of a fillet of water that is set running by
turning the tap. In this dry part of the world water has to be used
sparingly, and, indeed, there is very little wasted upon the body.
Everybody who has travelled in Guyenne must be familiar with the
article of household furniture just described. Every young wife
piously provides herself with one, together with a warming-pan; for
the old domestic ideas are religiously handed down here from mother to
daughter. But I must shorten this 'journey round my room,' so little
in the manner of Le Maistre.
Most of the furniture was once the property of a priest, and would be
still if he were alive. The good man is gone where even the voices of
the Figeacois cannot reach him; but he has left abundant traces of his
piety behind him. The walls of these rooms are almost covered by them.
I cannot help being edified, for I am unable to look upon anything
that approaches the profane.
When I grow thoughtful over all these works of art and _objets de
piété_--engravings, lithographs, statuettes, crucifixes, crosses
worked in wool, stables of Bethlehem, little holy-water stoops, and
the faded photographs belonging to the early period of the art
(portraits, no doubt, of brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces, all
revealing that air of rusticity in Sunday clothes which is not to be
mistaken)--I have before me the whole story of a simple life,
surrounding itself year after year with fresh emblems and tokens of
the hope that reaches beyond the grave, and the affections of nature
that become woven on this side of it, and which mingle joy and sorrow
even in the cup of a village priest.
It is in these quiet, provincial places, where existence goes on in
the old-fashioned, humdrum way, that people take care of their
household property, and respect the sentiment that years lay up in it:
they hand it down to the next generation as they received it. Little
objects of common ornament, of religious or intellectual pleasure,
thus preserved, throw in course of time a vivid light on human
changes.
And it is this vivid light that I am now feeling in these dim rooms. I
am aware that nearly everything here is the record of an epoch to
which I do not belong--that the world's mind has undergone a great
change even in the provinces since the influence that comes forth from
these silent traces of past thought were in harmony with it. What
interests me more than anything else here is an allegorical or
mystical map, designed, drawn, and coloured with all the patience and
much of the artistic skill of an illuminating monk of the thirteenth
century. I doubt if in any presbytery far out in the marshes or on the
mountains a priest could now be found with the motive to undertake
such a task. It belongs to the same order of ideas as the 'Pilgrim's
Progress.' In this map one sees the 'States of Charity,' the 'Province
of Fervour,' the 'Empire of Self-Contempt,' and other countries
belonging to a vast continent, of which the centre is the 'Kingdom of
the Love of God,' connected to a smaller continent--that of the
world--by a narrow neck of land called the 'Isthmus of Charity.' In
the continent of the world are shown the 'Mountain of Ingratitude,'
the 'Hills of Frivolity,' the territory of 'Ennui,' of 'Vanity,' of
'Melancholy,' and of all the evil moods and vices to which men are
liable. Separated from the mainland, and washed by the 'Torrent of
Bitterness,' are the 'Rocks of Remorse.' Among the allegorical emblems
in various parts of the chart is a very remarkable tree with blue
trunk and rose-coloured leaves called the 'Tree of Illusions.' Far
above it lies the 'Peninsula of Perfection,' and near to this, under a
mediaeval drum-tower, is the gateway of the 'City of Happiness.'
There is a little garden at the back of the house, where flowers and
vegetables are mixed up in the way I like. The jessamine has become a
thicket. Vines ramble over the trellis and the old wall, and from the
window I see many other vines showing their lustrous leaves against
tiled roofs of every shade, from bright-red to black. In the next
garden is my friend the _aumônier_, an octogenarian priest, who is
still nearly as sprightly of body as he is of mind. He lives alone,
surrounded by books, in the collection of which he has shown the broad
judgment, and impartiality of the genuine lover of literature. There
is a delicious disorder in his den, because there is no one to
interfere with him. He is now much excited against the birds because
they will not leave his figs alone, and someone has just lent him a
blunderbuss wherewith to slay them. Perhaps he will show them the
deadly weapon, and hope that they will take the hint; but there is too
much kindness underneath his wrath for him to be capable of murdering
even a thievish sparrow. He likes to make others believe, however,
that he is desperately in earnest. His keen sense of the comic and the
grotesque in human nature makes him one of the raciest of
story-tellers; but although he does not put his tongue in traces, he
is none the less a worthy priest. There are many such as he in
France--men who are really devout, but never sanctimonious, whose
candour is a cause of constant astonishment, who are good-natured to
excess, and who are more open-hearted than many children. Their
friendship goes out readily to meet the stranger, and, speaking from
my own experience, I can say that it wears well. In the street, on the
other side of the house, six women have perched themselves in a row.
They have come out to talk and enjoy the coolness of the evening, and,
in order that their tender consciences may not prick them for being
idle, they are paring potatoes, and getting ready other vegetables for
the morrow. They all scream together in Languedocian, which,
by-the-bye, is anything but melodious here when spoken by the common
people. It becomes much less twangy and harsh a little farther South.
How these six charmers on chairs can all listen and talk at the same
time is not easy to understand. The truth is, very little listening is
done in this part of the world. The saying _On se grise en parlant_ is
quite applicable here. People often get drunk on nothing stronger than
the flow of their own words.
All the women being now on their way to the land of dreams, and
consequently quiet for a few hours, and all the sounds of the earth
being hushed save the song of the crickets among the vine-leaves, and
in the fruit-trees of the moonlit garden, I will try to see Figeac up
the vista of the ages, and if I succeed, perhaps the reader may be
helped at the same time to gather interest in this queer old place,
whose name, having been made familiar to the English who followed
Henry II to France in the twelfth century, is perhaps a reason why
their descendants will not 'skip' at first sight these few pages of
local history.
The early history of Figeac, or what has long passed as such, is based
upon an ingenious stratification of fraud, arising out of a very old
quarrel between the monks of Figeac and the monks of Conques, and the
determination of the former to prove at all costs that their monastery
was the more ancient of the two. This would be a matter of
indifference to me had I not been myself entrapped by the snares laid
by certain abbots of Figeac for their contemporaries and posterity,
and been obliged to throw away much that I had written, and which was
far more interesting than the truth. If I had only suspected the
fraud, I might have been tempted to keep suspicion down in order to
spare the picture of the Carlovingian age which I had elaborated; but
it is known at the École des Chartres, and the Abbé B. Massabie of
Figeac has, moreover, written a book that removes all doubt as to the
spuriousness of the charters upon which the abbots of Figeac, when
their jealousy of Conques reached its climax in the eleventh century,
based their pretensions to priority. The most important of these
charters, and the one that has sent various local historians on a
voyage into the airy realms of fiction, is attributed to Pepin le
Bref, and bears the date 755. Another is a Bull attributed to Pope
Stephanus II., also dated 755, in which is described the ceremony of
consecrating the church of St. Sauveur, attached to the abbey, which
in the first-mentioned document Pepin is said to have founded. Here it
is related that when the Pontiff approached the church strains of
mysterious music were heard issuing from the edifice, and such a cloud
stood before it that the procession waited for hours before entering.
Then, when the Pope walked up to the altar-stone, he found that it had
been miraculously consecrated, crosses being marked upon it in oil
still wet. Now, the charter attributed to Pepin contains many passages
copied verbatim from one preserved at Rodez, and signed by Pippinus,
or Pepin I., King of Aquitaine. Its date is 838, and it enriches the
monastery of Conques, already existing, with certain lands at Fiacus
(Figeac), which is thenceforward to be called New Conques; the motive
of this gift being to extend to the monks those material advantages
which a rich valley is able to afford, but which are not to be found
in a stony gorge surrounded by barren hills. There would have been
less scandal to Christianity if Pepin had put a curb on his pious
generosity, and had left the monks of Conques to contend with the
desert. The charter, moreover, sanctions the building of a monastery
at Figeac, which is to remain under the rule and governance of the
abbots of Conques. In the eleventh century, the discord between the
two monasteries had reached such a pass that popes and councils were
appealed to to settle the question of priority. In 1096 the Council of
Nîmes laid down a _modus vivendi_ without pronouncing upon the
principle. It was decreed that the abbots of Figeac should thenceforth
be independent of the abbots of Conques.
The monks of Conques appear to have followed originally the rule of
St. Martin, and to have adopted that of St. Benedict soon after its
introduction into France. The abbey of Figeac was therefore always
Benedictine. About the year 900 the monks began to cultivate learning,
their labour having previously been devoted almost exclusively to the
soil. A certain Abbot Adhelard set them to copy manuscripts, and in
course of time Figeac possessed a valuable library, of which the
religious wars of the sixteenth century and the Revolution have left
very few traces.
The first half of the eleventh century was full of turmoil, trouble,
and torment. The 'blood-rain' that fell all over Aquitaine, and which
made people watch in terror for what might come next, was followed by
a three years' famine, which drove men in their hunger to prey upon
one another. The inns were man-traps; solitary travellers who ventured
inside of them were killed and devoured. Those were not good wayfaring
days. A man actually offered human flesh for sale in the market of
Tournus; but he was burnt alive. During this frightful period, the
Abbot of Figeac distinguished himself by his charity, and, in order to
find work for the unemployed, built a wall round the burg; but the
monastery was much impoverished in consequence.
Towards the close of the eleventh century four slender
obelisks--called 'needles' in the country--were set up on the hills
around Figeac apparently to mark the boundaries of the _sauveté_; for
the abbey enjoyed the right of sanctuary. Two of these needles still
exist. According to an absurd story, which has been repeated by
various writers, misled by the forgeries already mentioned, the monks,
when they came to this part of the valley of the Célé, found it an
uninhabited wilderness without a name, and somebody exclaimed, 'Fige
acus!' ('Set up needles!'), when the question of marking the boundary
was being discussed. This ingenious explanation of the word Figeac
will not bear examination.
Every traveller in Aquitaine must have been struck by the remarkable
number of places there whose names end in _ac_. It is commonly
supposed that the termination is derived from _aqua_, and refers to
the river or stream near which the town or village was built.
_Ac_, however, does not at all correspond to the well-known
corruptions of _aquae_ still found in the names of places in France
where the Romans constructed baths. We are on much surer ground in
assuming it to be of Celtic origin, and to have belonged in a special
manner to the dialect spoken by the Cadurci, Ruteni and other Southern
tribes. It nevertheless occurs at Carnac--that spot of Brittany where
is to be seen the most remarkable of all monuments, commonly
attributed to the Celts. The word probably meant town. It is
unreasonable to suppose that the monks found the valley of the Célé a
desert, considering how densely populated was the whole of this part
of Gaul at the time of Caesar's invasion. So inhabited was it that the
surplus population spread all over the known world, just as the
English do to-day. The popular notion with regard to the needles is
that they were intended to carry lanterns to guide the pilgrims by
night either to Figeac or to Roc-Amadour. Such lanterns were set up in
Aquitaine, and some examples may still be seen; but they are very
different in character from these obelisks, which in all probability
were used to mark the boundary of the _salvamentum_. It is true that
in the Middle Ages the right of asylum was, as a rule, confined to the
sanctuary itself or its immediate precincts; but there were
exceptions, especially in the South of France, where this sacred zone,
which in the Romance language was termed the _sauvetat_, often
extended a considerable distance beyond the walls of a monastic town.
Within these bounds persons fleeing from pursuers had the right of
asylum; but, on the other hand, there are documents to show that those
who committed crimes inside the limit were held guilty of sacrilege.
Early in the Middle Ages the town of Figeac enjoyed the privileges of
a royal borough under the protection of the kings of France, who in
course of time came to be represented there by their _viguier_
(vicar). The civic administration was in the hands of consuls as early
as the year 1001. They rendered justice and even passed sentence of
death. The burghers were exempt from all taxation and servitude. The
municipality had the right of coining money for the king, and the
ruined mint can still be seen. Such was the state of things down to
the time when the English appeared in the country. Henry II., having
taken Cahors in 1154, left his chancellor, Becket, there as governor.
The Figeacois, who at first looked upon Becket as an enemy, after he
was murdered at Canterbury, and when the fame of his saintliness began
to spread through France, dedicated a church to him. This edifice has
disappeared; but the part of the town where it was situated, or where,
to speak more correctly, it was afterwards rebuilt, is still called
the Quartier St. Thomas. So little were the English loved, however, as
a nation by the Quercynois, that, after St. Louis had been canonized,
they refused to observe his festival, because they found it impossible
to forgive him for having, by the treaty of Abbeville, passed them
over to England without their consent.
Figeac was less troubled than some other towns in the Quercy by the
English, because in different treaties the kings of France managed to
keep a grip upon it as a royal borough.
The gates of the town were, however, thrown open to the English
without a struggle about the middle of the fourteenth century, and to
punish the consuls, when they again became French, King John took away
their right to coin money; but the privilege was restored in
consideration of the ardour they had shown in freeing themselves from
the British yoke.
The victory of the Black Prince at Poitiers, followed by the treaty of
Brétigny, made the King of England absolute master of the Quercy. The
Prince of Wales came in person to take possession of Cahors in 1364,
and despatched his seneschal, Thomas de Walkaffara, to Figeac to
receive from the inhabitants the oath of fealty. They swore obedience,
but with much soreness of soul. They afterwards got released from
their oath by the Pope, and joined a fresh league formed against the
English. After enjoying the sweets of French nationality again for a
brief period, they were made English once more by the treaty of
Troyes. But the British domination in Guyenne was now approaching its
close. The maid of Domrémy was about to change her distaff for an
oriflamme. The year 1453 saw the English power completely broken in
Aquitaine; a collapse which an old rhymer records with more relish
than inspiration:
'Par Charles Septième à grande peine
Furent chassés en durs détroits
Les Anglais de toute Aquitaine,
Mil quatre cent cinquante trois.'
Figeac escaped the horrors which were spread through the South of
France by the religious wars of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries;
but it was not similarly spared by those of the sixteenth century. The
Huguenots laid siege to the town in 1576, and entered it by the
treasonable help of a woman--the wife of one of the consuls. There was
the usual massacre that followed victory, whether on the side of
Protestants or Catholics, and the people became Calvinists for the
same reason that they had centuries before become English. In less
than fifty years afterwards they were all Catholics again. During this
unsettled period, however, there was great domestic dissension in the
town, owing to the circumstance that many women belonging to the old
Catholic stock had married Protestants who had come into the place. As
they could not agree with their husbands, and as many of these refused
to be converted for their sake (they may have been thankful for an
opportunity of getting rid of them), a refuge called 'L'hospice des
mal-mariées' was built for the unhappy wives. When the need for this
very singular institution no longer existed it was pulled down.
The Church of St. Sauveur, as we see it to-day, is disappointing. It
has been so much rebuilt after different convulsions, and pulled about
when there has been less excuse, that many a church in an obscure
village gives more pleasure as a whole to the eye that seeks unity of
design and inspiration in a work of art. Nevertheless, there are
details here that no archaeologist will despise. In the nave are the
piers and Romanesque capitals of an early, but not the earliest,
church on the spot. They are certainly not later than the twelfth
century. Baptismal fonts, now used as holy-water stoups, are probably
of anterior workmanship. Cut out of solid blocks of stone, their
carving shows all the interlacing lines and exquisite finish of
detail, purely ornamental, that marks the pre-Gothic period in the
South of France, when the artistic spirit of Christianity was still
confined to the close imitation of Roman and Byzantine art.
The Church of Notre Dame du Puy, built upon a height, as the word
_puy_ implies, is likewise interesting only in respect of details,
such as the sculptured archivolts of the portal and the
fourteenth-century rose-window. It, however, contains a very
remarkable example of sixteenth-century wood-carving in its massive
and elaborate reredos, a portion of which, having been destroyed by
fire, has been repaired with plaster, but so skilfully that it is very
difficult to perceive where the artistic fraud begins and where it
ends.
The extraordinary interest of Figeac to the archaeologist lies,
however, in its civic and domestic architecture. This has been
preserved simply because the inhabitants have for centuries played no
part in the political history of the country, and their pursuits or
interests having remained constantly agricultural, they have been
equally cut off from the commercial movement. But every year will
diminish the charm of this dirty old town to the antiquary. It will be
observed that all the old streets are not accidentally crooked, but
that they have been carefully laid out on curved or zigzag lines,
which turn now in one direction and now in another. The motive was a
defensive one in view of street-fighting, which was often so terrible
and so prolonged in the Middle Ages. Each curve of a street formed an
obstacle to the onward rush of an enemy, and only allowed those
burghers who were actually engaged to be exposed to arrows and bolts.
The townsmen could dispute the ground inch by inch and for days, as
they did at Cahors when they were surprised by Henry of Navarre,
although firearms had then come into use.