_métayers_, never counting their hours like the town workmen, but
wishing that the day were longer, and if they can contrive to save
anything in these days it is only by constant self-denial. A man's
labour upon his land to-day will only support him, taking the bad
years with the good, on the condition that he lives a life of
primitive simplicity. Even then the problem of existence is often a
terribly hard one to solve. In the South of France the blame is almost
everywhere laid to the destruction of the vines by the phylloxera, but
here in the plain of Albi the land is quite as suitable for corn as it
is for grape-growing, which is far from being the case elsewhere;
nevertheless, the peasants cry out with one voice against the bad
times. They have to contend with two great scourges: hail that is so
often brought by the thunder-storms in summer, and which the proximity
of the Pyrenees may account for; and the south-east wind--_le vent
d'autan_--that comes across from Africa, and scorches up the crops in
a most mysterious manner. But for this plague the yield of fruit would
be enormous. On the other hand, the region is blessed with lavish
sunshine from early spring until November, and a half-maritime
climate, explained by the neighbourhood of the ocean--not the
Mediterranean--renders long periods of drought such as occur in
Provence and Lower Languedoc rare. In the valleys the soil is
extremely fertile, and, favoured by moisture and warmth, its
productive power is extraordinary. Four crops of lucern are taken from
the same land in the course of a season. Unfortunately, these valleys
being mere gorges--cracks in the plain, with precipitous rocky
sides--the strip of land bordering the stream at the bottom is usually
very narrow.
On reaching Arthez, the character of the country changed suddenly and
completely. Here the plain with its tertiary deposits ended, and in
its stead commenced the long series of schistous rocks wildly heaped
up and twisted out of their stratification, by which the Tarn is
hemmed in for seventy miles as the crow flies, and nearly twice that
distance if the windings of the gorge be reckoned. When the calcareous
region of the Gévaudan is reached, the schist, slate, and gneiss
disappear. On descending to the level of the river at Arthez, I saw
before me one of the grandest cascades in France--the Saut de Sabo.
It is not so much the distance that the river falls in its rapid
succession of wild leaps towards the plain as the singularly chaotic
and savage scene of dark rocks and raging waters, together with the
length to which it is stretched out, that is so impressive. The mass
of water, the multitude of cascades, and the wild forms of the rocks,
compose a scene that would be truly sublime if one could behold it in
the midst of an unconquered solitude; but the hideous sooty buildings
of a vast iron foundry on one bank of the river are there to spoil the
charm.
I stayed in the village of Arthez for food and rest, but not long
enough for the mid-day heat to pass. When I set forth again on my
journey, the air was like the breath of a furnace; but as the slopes
were well wooded with chestnuts, there was some shelter from the rays
of the sun. There were a few patches of vineyard, the leaves showing
the ugly stains of sulphate of copper with which they had been
splashed as a precaution against mildew, which in so many districts
has followed in the wake of the phylloxera, and hastened the
destruction of the old vines. The Albigeois has ceased to be a
wine-producing region, and, judging from present signs, it will be
long in becoming one again.
The valley, deepening and narrowing, became a gorge, the beginning of
that long series of fissures in the metamorphic and secondary rocks
which, crossing an extensive tract of Languedoc and Guyenne, leads the
traveller up to the Cevennes Mountains, through scenery as wild and
beautiful as any that can be found in France, and perhaps in Europe.
But the difficulties of travelling by the Tarn from Arthez upwards are
great, and, indeed, quite forbidding to those who are not prepared to
endure petty hardships in their search for the picturesque. Between
Albi and St. Affrique, a distance that cannot be easily traversed on
foot in less than four days, railways are not to be thought of, and
the line of route taken by the _diligence_ leaves the Tarn far to the
north. In the valley the roads often dwindle away to mere paths or
mule-tracks, or they are so rocky that riding either upon or behind a
horse over such an uneven surface, with the prospect of being thrown
into the Tarn in the event of a slip, is unpleasant work. Those who
are unwilling to walk or unable to bear much fatigue should not
attempt to follow this river through its gorges. All the difficulties
have not yet been stated. Along the banks of the stream, and for
several miles on either side of it, there are very few villages, and
the accommodation in the auberges is about as rough as it can be. The
people generally are exceedingly uncouth, and between Arthez and
Millau, where a tourist is probably the rarest of all birds of
passage, the stranger must not expect to meet with a reception
invariably cordial. Even a Frenchman who appears for the first time in
one of their isolated villages, and who cannot speak the Languedocian
dialect, is looked upon almost as a foreigner, and is treated with
suspicion by the inhabitants. This matter of language is in itself no
slight difficulty. French is so little known that in many villages the
clergy are compelled to preach in _patois_ to make themselves
understood.
This region I had now fairly entered. The road had gone somewhere up
the hills, and I was walking beside the river upon sand glittering
with particles of mica. This sand the Tarn leaves all along its banks.
It is one of the most uncertain and treacherous of streams. In a few
hours its water will rise with amazing rapidity and spread
consternation in a district where not a drop of rain has fallen. Warm
winds from the south and south-west, striking against the cold
mountains in the Lozère, have been condensed, and the water has flowed
down in torrents towards the plain. The river is as clear as crystal
now, and the many-coloured pebbles of its bed reflect the light, but a
thunderstorm in the higher country may change it suddenly to the
colour of red earth.
The path led me into a steep forest, where I lost sight of the Tarn.
The soil was too rocky for the trees--oaks and chestnuts chiefly--to
grow very tall; consequently the underwood, although dense, was
chequered all through with sunshine. Heather and bracken, holly and
box, made a wilderness that spread over all the visible world, for the
opposite side of the gorge was exactly similar. Shining in the sun
amidst the flowering heather or glowing in majestic purple grandeur in
the shade of shrubs stood many a foxglove, and almost as frequently
seen was its relative _digitalis lutea_, whose flowers are much
smaller and of a pale yellow. Now and again a little rill went
whispering downward through the woods under plumes of forget-me-nots
in a deep channel that it had cut by working age after age. Reaching
at length a spot where I could look down into the bottom of the
fissure, I perceived a small stream that was certainly not the Tarn. I
had been ascending one of the lateral gorges of the valley, and had
left the river somewhere to the north. My aim was now to strike it
again in the higher country, and so I kept on my way. But the path
vanished, and the forest became so dense that I was bound to realize
that I was in difficulties. I resolved to try the bank of the stream,
and reached it after some unpleasant experience of rocks, brambles and
holly. Here, however, was a path which I followed nearly to the head
of the gorge and then climbed to the plateau. There the land was
cultivated, and the musical note of a cock turkey that hailed my
coming from afar, as he swaggered in front of his harem on the march,
led me to a spot where a man was mowing, and he told me where I should
find the Tarn, which he, like all other people in the country,
pronounced Tar.
Evening was coming on when I had crossed this plateau, and I saw far
below me the village of Marsal on the banks of the shining Tarn. The
river here made one of those bold curves which add so much to its
beauty. The little village looked so peaceful and charming that I
decided to seek its hospitality for that night.
There was but one inn at Marsal that undertook to lodge the stranger,
and very seldom was any claim of the sort made upon it. The peasant
family who lived in it looked to their bit of land and their two or
three cows to keep them, not to the auberge. The bottles of liquor on
the shelf were rarely taken down, except on Sundays, when villagers
might saunter in, to gossip and smoke over coffee and _eau de vie_, or
the glass of absinthe, which, since the failure of the vines in the
South of France, has become there the most convivial of all drinks,
although it makes men more quarrelsome than any other. In these poor
riverside villages, however, where a mere ribbon of land is capable of
cultivation--which, although exceedingly fertile, is constantly liable
to be flooded by the uncertain Tarn--men have so little money in their
pockets that water is their habitual drink, and when they depart from
this rule they make a little dissipation go a very long way.
I found this single auberge closed, and all the family in an adjoining
field around a waggon already piled with hay, to which a couple of
cows were harnessed. My appearance there brought the pitchforks
suddenly to a rest. If I had been shot up from below like a
stage-devil, these people could not have stared at me with greater
amazement and a more frank expression of distrust. First in _patois_,
and then, seeing that I was at a loss, in scarcely intelligible
French, they asked me what my trade was, and what object I had in
coming to Marsal. I tried to explain that I was not a mischievous
person, that I was travelling merely to look at their beautiful rocks
and gorges, but I failed completely to bring a hospitable expression
into their faces. An old man of the party was the worst to deal with.
He put the greatest number of questions and understood the least
French, and all the while there was a most provokingly keen,
suspicious glitter in his little gray eyes. Presently he beckoned me,
and led the way, as I thought, to the inn; but such was not his
intention. He stopped at the door of the communal school, where the
schoolmaster was already waiting for me, for he had evidently been
warned of the presence of a doubtful-looking stranger, who had come to
the village on foot with a pack on his back, and who, being dressed a
trifle better than the ordinary tramp, was probably the more dangerous
for this reason. Like most of the village schoolmasters in France,
this gentleman was also secretary at the _mairie_, a function highly
stimulating to the sense of self-importance, and no wonder,
considering that the person who fills it frequently supplies the
mayor, who may scarcely be able to sign his name to official
documents, with such intelligence as he may need for his public
duties.
This schoolmaster was affable and pleasant, but as a crowd quickly
collected to see what would happen, he was not going to let a good
opportunity slip of showing how indispensable he was to the safety of
the village. He said that personally he was quite satisfied with my
explanations, but that in his official capacity he was compelled to
ask me for my papers. These were forthcoming, and the serious official
air with which he pretended to read the English passport from
beginning to end was very pretty comedy, considering that he did not
understand a word of the language.
Having asserted his importance, and made the desired impression, he
invited me into his house, introduced me to his young wife, who was
charmingly gracious, and who would have been pleased to see any fresh
face at Marsal--English or Hottentot. I was really indebted to the
schoolmaster, for he harangued in _patois_ the people of the inn drawn
up in line, and by seizing a word here and there, I made out that I
was a respectable Englishman travelling to improve my mind, and that
they might receive me into their house without any distrust. And they
did receive me, almost with open arms, when their doubts were removed.
The old man slunk off, and I never saw him again; but the young couple
to whom the inn had been given up now proved to me that their only
wish was to please. They were rough people, but sound at heart and
honest, as the French peasants, when, judged in the mass, undoubtedly
are. The hostess, who, by-the-bye, gave me a soup-plate in which to
wash my hands, was greatly perplexed to know how to get up a dinner
for me, and, as she told me afterwards, she went to the schoolmaster
and held a consultation with him on the subject. An astonishing dish
of minced asparagus fried in oil was concocted in accordance with his
prescription. It was ingenious, but I preferred her dish of barbel
from the Tarn, notwithstanding the multitudinous bones which this fish
perversely carries in its body, to choke the enemy, although nothing
could be more absurd than such petty vengeance.
The schoolmaster's wife said to me, with a suggestion of malice at the
corners of her mouth, that she was afraid I should be troubled by a
few fleas at the auberge.
'Oh, bast!' observed her husband; 'monsieur in his travels has
doubtless already encountered a flea or two.'
'Yes, and other _bestioles_,' said I.
Madame's local knowledge did not deceive her, but her expression 'a
few fleas' did not at all represent the true state of affairs. And I
had forgotten the precious powder and the little pair of bellows,
without which no one should travel in Southern France.
The morning air was fresh, and the fronds of the bracken were wet with
dew, when I left Marsal, and took my course along the margin of the
river through meadows that dwindled away into woodlands, where the
rocky sides of the gorge rose abruptly from the stream. Haymakers were
abroad, and I heard the sound of their scythes cutting through the
heavy swathes with all their flowers; but the sunshine had not yet
flashed down into the deep valley, and the grasshoppers were waiting
to hail it from their watch-towers in the green herbage and on the
purple heather. As the breeze stirred the leaves of the wood, it
brought with it the perfume of hidden honeysuckle. Golden oriels were
busy in the tops of the wild cherry trees, feeding upon the ripe
fruit, and calling out their French name, _loriot_; and when they flew
across the river, a gleam of brilliant yellow moved swiftly over the
rippled surface. For an hour or so I remained in the shade of trees,
and then the sandy path met a road where the gorge widened and
cultivation returned. Here I left the stream for awhile.
Now came sunny banks bright with the common flowers that deck most of
the waysides of Europe. Bedstraw galium and field scabious, ox-eyes
and knapweed, bladder-campions and ragged robins, mallows and
crane's-bill--all the flowers of the English banks seemed to be there.
Where the bare rock showed itself, yellow sedum spread its gold, and
in the little clefts stood stalks of cotyledon, now turning brown. At
the base of the rocks, where there was still some moisture, were the
blue flowers of the brooklime veronica, and the brighter blue of the
forget-me-not. Having passed a village, I met the Tarn again. Here the
beauty of the rushing water, and all that was pictured upon it,
tempted me to sit down upon a bank; but I had no sooner chosen the
spot than I changed my intention. A red viper was curled up there, and
sleeping so comfortably that it really seemed unkind to wake it with a
blow across all its rings. When I thought, however, of the little
consideration it would have shown me had I sat upon it, I added it
without compunction to the number of _aspics_ I had already slain.
My mind was taken off the contemplation of this good or evil deed by a
scene that seemed to contain as much of the picturesque as the eye
could seize and the mind dwell upon, without being bewildered and
fatigued. I had turned the bend of the wooded gorge, and, looking up
the river, saw what resembled a dyke of basalt stretching sheer across
the stream, with a ruined castle on a bare and apparently inaccessible
pinnacle, another ruin on the opposite end of the ridge, and, between
the two, a little church on the brink of a precipice. Houses were
clustered at the foot of the rocks by the blue water.
This was Ambialet, so called from the extraordinary loop which the
Tarn forms here in consequence of the mass of schistous rock which
obstructs its direct channel. After flowing about two miles round a
high promontory, where dark crags jut above the dark woods, the stream
returns almost to the spot from which it was compelled to deviate, and
the lower water is only separated from the upper by a few yards of
rock. There are several similar phenomena in France, but there is none
so remarkable as that at Ambialet.
Although nothing is now to be seen of its defensive works, except the
ruined castle upon the high rock, Ambialet was one of the strongest
places in the Albigeois. Now a small and poor village, it was in the
Middle Ages an important burg, with its consuls, its council of
_prud'hommes_, and its court of justice. It became a fief of the
viscounts of Beziers, and was thus drawn into the great religious
conflict of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Viscount of
Beziers having espoused the cause of Count Raymond of Toulouse. An
army of Crusaders, which had been raised to crush the Albigenses,
having Simon de Montfort at its head, appeared before Ambialet in
1209, and, although the burghers were quite capable of withstanding a
long siege, they were so much impressed by the magnitude of the force
brought against them, and also by Simon's sinister reputation, that
they surrendered the place almost immediately. But when the army was
campaigning elsewhere, these burghers, growing bold again, attacked
the garrison that had been left in the town and castle, and
distinguished themselves by one of those treacherous massacres which
were among the small incidents of that ruthless war. When Simon
reappeared in the Albigeois, the people of Ambialet, cowards again,
laid down their arms. The castle was soon afterwards the meeting-place
of De Montfort and Raymond VI.; but the interview, which it was hoped
would lead to peace, had no such result, and the war was carried on in
Languedoc and Guyenne with renewed fury.
[Illustration: AMBIALET.]
Ambialet was enjoying comparative freedom and self-government in an
age when many a town was still in the midnight darkness of feudal
servitude. It had its communal liberties and organization before the
eleventh century. There is a very interesting charter in existence,
dated 1136, by which Roger, Viscount of Beziers and Albi, recognises
and confirms these liberties. Although it opens in Latin, the body of
the charter is in the Romance language. It shows that the idiom of
Southern Gaul in the twelfth century was a little nearer the Latin
than that which is spoken now. The document is full of curious
information. It tells us that the inhabitants of Ambialet were liable
to be fined if they did not keep the street in front of their houses
clean. Perhaps the towns in the South of France were less foul in the
twelfth century than most of them are now. We learn, too, that the
profits in connection with the most necessary trades were fixed in the
interest of the greater number. Thus, the butchers were required to
take oath that they would reserve for their own profit no more than
the head of the animal that they killed. What sort of face would a
butcher of to-day make if he were asked to work on such terms? The
tavern-keepers had to take oath that they would buy no wine outside of
the boundaries of the viscounty of Ambialet, which shows what was
thought in the twelfth century of the practice of purchasing in the
cheapest market to the neglect of communal interests. The price of
wine, like that of bread, was fixed, and five worthies (_prohomes_)
were appointed to examine weights and measures, and to confiscate
those which were not just. The concluding part of the charter confirms
the right of the youth of Ambialet to their traditional festivals and
merry-making: 'E volem e auctreiam que lo Rei del Joven d'Ambilet
puesco far sas festas, tener sos senescals e sos jutges, e sos sirvens
e sos officials,' etc. The whole passage is worth giving in English,
because historians tell us very little about the festive manners of
the twelfth century:
'We wish and order that the King of Youth of Ambialet shall keep his
festivals, have his seneschals, judges, servants, and officials, and
that on the day appointed for the merry-making, the King of Youth
shall demand from the most recently married man in the viscounty, and
woman who shall have taken a husband, a pail of wine and a quarter of
walnuts; and if they refuse, the king can order his officers to break
the doors of their house, and neither we nor our bailiffs shall have
the right to interfere. And any person who shall have cut ever so
little from the leaves of the elm, planted upon the place, shall be
sentenced by the King of Youth to pay a pail of wine, and the king can
enforce it as above. Moreover, we declare that on the first day of May
the youth shall have the right to set up a maypole, and any person who
shall cut a portion of it shall owe a pail of wine, and the king can
compel him to pay it, for such is our wish. We have granted this
favour to the youth because, having been a witness of their
merry-making, we have taken great pleasure and satisfaction
therefrom.'
This custom has been continued to the present day. The youth of
Ambialet have their annual festival, and the most recently married
couple of the commune are called upon to 'pay' their pail of wine,
although the exact measure is not strictly enforced.
The rocks at Ambialet at one time supported a multitude of dwellings,
of which there would be no trace now had they been entirely of
masonry. In addition to partial chambers made with the pick-axe, one
sees here and there a series of stairs cut out of the mica-schist. The
strength of the burg made it a place of refuge for numerous families
in the Albigeois, who had retreats upon these rocks to which they
repaired in time of danger. All that made up the grandeur and
importance of the place has passed away. Among those who now guide the
plough and scatter the grain for bread are descendants of the old
nobility of the Albigeois.
Fascinated by the quietude and picturesque decay of this beautiful
spot by the Tarn, instead of leaving it in a few hours, as I had
intended, I remained there for days. Let no wayfarer, if he can help
it, be the slave of a programme.
On the side of the promontory already mentioned, a rough bit of
ancient forest, steep and craggy, stretches down to the strip of
cultivated land beside the river. Here chance led me to take up my
abode in an old farm-house--a long building of one story, with dovecot
raised above the roof, and massive walls that kept the rooms cool even
in the sultry afternoons. It was half surrounded by an orchard of
plum, peach, apple, and cherry trees, and at the border of this were
three majestic stone-pines, whose vast heads were lifted so high and
seemed so full of radiance that they appeared to belong more to the
sky than to the earth. The gleam of the oriel's golden breast could be
seen amidst the branches, but the little birds that flew up there were
lost to sight in the sunny wilderness of tufted leaves.
On the stony slope above the orchard, the stock of an old and leafless
vine, showing here and there over the purple flush of flowering
marjoram and the more scattered gold of St. John's-wort, told the
story of the perished vineyard. For centuries a rich wine had flowed
from these slopes, but at length the phylloxera spread over them like
flame, and now where the vine is dead the wild-flower blooms. A little
higher a fringe of broom, the blossom gone, the pods blackening and
shooting their seeds in the sun, marked the line of the virgin
wilderness. Then came tall heather and bracken, dwarf oak and
chestnut, box and juniper, all luxuriating about the blocks of
mica-schist, a rock that holds water and is therefore conducive to a
varied and splendid vegetation, wherever a soil can rest upon it.
Towards the summit the trees and shrubs dwindled away, and then came
the dry thyme-covered turf scenting the air. The tall thyme, the
garden species in the North, had already flowered, but the common wild
thyme of England, the _serpolet_ of the French, was beginning to
spread its purple over the stony ground. A great wooden cross stood
upon the ridge, and hard by, buffeted by the wintry winds and blazed
upon by the summer sun, was the ancient priory of Nôtre Dame de
l'Oder.
I ring the bell. Presently a little wicket is pulled back, and a dark
eye glitters at me from the other side of the door. It belongs to a
serving brother, who, perceiving that I am not in petticoats, allows
me to enter.