a hill, with a massive and singular-looking church on the highest
point. It was Plaisance, and I knew now that I had left the Albigeois,
and had entered the Rouergue. Having decided to pass the night here,
and the auberge being chosen, I climbed to the top of the bluff to
have a near view of the church. It is a remarkable structure
representing two architectural periods. The apse and transept are
Romanesque, but the nave is Gothic. Over the intersection of the
transept is a cupola supported by massive piers. Engaged with these
are columns bearing elaborately carved capitals embellished with
little figures of the quaintest workmanship. In the apse are two rows
of columns with cubiform capitals carved in accordance with the florid
Romanesque taste, as it was developed in Southern France.
Although the little cemetery on the bluff was like scores of others I
had seen in France--a bit of rough neglected field with small wooden
crosses rising above the long herbage, tangled with flowers that love
the waste places, I yielded to the charm of that old simplicity which
is ever young and beautiful. I strolled amongst the grave mounds, and
passing the sunny spot where the dead children of the village lay side
by side, under the golden flowers of St. John's-wort, reached the edge
of the rock, whose dark nakedness was hidden by reddening sedum, and
looked at the wave-like hills, their yellow cornfields, vine terraces
and woods, the gray-green roofs of the houses below, and lower still
the stream flashing along through a desert of pebbles.
Descending to the valley, I noticed the number and beauty of the vine
trellises in the village. One, commencing at a Gothic archway,
extended from wall to wall far up a narrow lane, and here the twilight
fell an hour too soon. I wandered down to the pebbly shore of the
Rance, where bare-footed children, sent out to look after pigs and
geese, were building castles with the many-coloured stones, while
others on the rocky banks above were singing in chorus, like a
somewhat louder twittering of sedge warblers from the fringe of
willows. I wandered on until all was quiet save the water, and
returned to the inn when the fire on the hearth was sending forth a
cheerful red glow through the dusk. The soup was bubbling in the chain
pot, and a well-browned fowl was taking its final turns upon the spit.
I dined with a commercial traveller, one who went about the country in
a queer sort of vehicle containing samples of church ornaments and
sacerdotal vestments. His business lay chiefly with the rural clergy,
and, like most people, he seemed convinced that circumstances had
pushed him into the wrong groove, and that he had remained in it too
long for him to be able to get out of it. For twenty years he had been
driving over the same roads, reappearing in the same villages and
little towns, watching the same people growing old, and spending only
three months of the year with his family in Toulouse. He declared the
life of a commercial traveller, when the novelty of it had worn down,
to be the most abominable of all lives. He was one of the most
pleasant, and certainly the most melancholy, of commercial travellers
whom I had met in my rambles. He left the impression on me that there
was more money to be made nowadays in France by travelling with
samples of _eau de vie_ and groceries than with church candlesticks
and chasubles. Nevertheless, although he had his private quarrel with
destiny, he was not at all a gloomy companion at dinner.
A person who had not had previous experience of French country inns
would have been astonished at the order in which the dishes were laid
on the table. The first course after the soup was potatoes
(_sautées_); then came barbel from the stream, and afterwards veal and
fowl. The order is considered a matter of no importance; the main
thing aimed at in the South of France is to give the guest plenty of
dishes. If there is any fish, more often than not it makes its
appearance after the roast, and I have even seen a custard figure as
the first course. By living with the people one soon falls into their
ways, accepting things as they come, without giving a thought to the
conventional sequence.
Among other things that one has to grow accustomed to in rural France,
especially in the South, is the presence of beds in dining-rooms and
kitchens. At first it rasps the sense of what is correct, but the very
frequency of it soon brings indifference. In the large kitchen of this
rather substantial auberge there was an alcove, a few feet from the
chimney-place, containing a neatly tucked-up bed with a crucifix and
little holy-water shell by the side. It was certainly a snug corner in
winter, and I felt sure that the stout hostess reserved it for
herself.
ACROSS THE ROUERGUE.
At an early hour in the morning I was wayfaring again. I had made up
my mind to reach St. Affrique in a day's walk. There were some thirty
miles of country to cross, and I had, moreover, to reckon with the
July sun, which shines very earnestly in Southern France, as though it
were bent on ripening all the fruits of the earth in a single day. By
getting up earlier than usual I was able to watch the morning opening
like a wild rose. When we feel all the charm that graces the beginning
of a summer day, we resolve in future to rise with the birds, but the
next morning's sun finds most of us sluggards again.
I returned towards the Tarn, which I had left the day before, but with
the intention of keeping somewhat to the south of it for awhile.
However beautiful the scenery of a gorge may be, the sensation of
being at the bottom of a crevice at length becomes depressing, and the
mind, which is never satisfied with anything long, begins to wonder
what the world is like beyond the enclosing cliffs, and the desire to
climb them and to look forth under a wider range of sky grows
stronger. Such change is needed, for when there is languor within, the
impressions from without are dull. The country through which I now
passed was very beautiful with its multitude of chestnut-trees, the
pale yellow plumes of the male blossom still clinging to them and
hiding half their leaves; but here again was the sad spectacle of
abandoned, weedy, and almost leafless vineyards upon stony slopes
which had been changed into fruit-bearing terraces by the long labour
of dead generations.
The first village I came to was Coupiac, lying in a deep hollow, from
the bottom of which rose a rugged mass of schistous rock, with houses
all about it, under the protecting shadow of a strong castle with high
round towers in good preservation. It was a mediaeval fortress, but
its mullioned windows cut in the walls of the towers and other details
showed that it had been considerably modified and adapted to changed
conditions of life at the time of the Renaissance. A troop of little
girls were going up to it, and teaching Sisters, who had changed it
into a stronghold of education, were waiting for them in the court.
Hard by upon the edge of the castle rock was a calvary. The naked
schist, ribbed and seamed, served for pavement in the steep little
streets of this picturesque old village, where most of the people went
barefoot. This is the custom of the region, and does not necessarily
imply poverty. Here the _sabotier's_ trade is a poor one, and the
cobbler's is still worse. In the Albigeois I was the neighbour of a
well-to-do farmer who up to the age of sixty had never known the
sensation of sock or stocking, nor had he ever worn a shoe of wood or
leather.
No female beauty did I see here, nor elsewhere in the Rouergue.
Plainness of feature in men and women is the rule throughout this
extensive tract of country. But there is this to be said in favour of
the girls and younger women, that they generally have well-shaped
figures and a very erect carriage, which last is undoubtedly due to
the habit of carrying weights upon the head, especially water, which
needs to be carefully balanced.
How the peasants stared at me as I passed along! The expression of
their faces showed that they were completely puzzled as to what manner
of person I was, and what I was doing there. Had I been taking along a
dancing-bear they would have understood my motives far better, and my
social success with them would have been undoubtedly greater. As it
was, most of them eyed me with extreme suspicion. Not having been
rendered familiar, like the peasants of many other districts, with
that harmless form of insanity which leads people to endure the
hardship of tramping for the sake of observing the ruder aspects of
human life, the lingering manners of old times, and of reading the
book of nature in solitude, they thought I must perforce be engaged
upon some sinister and wicked work. And now this reminds me of an old
man at Ambialet, whom I used to send on errands to the nearest small
town. He liked my money, but he could never satisfy his conscience
that it was not something like treason to carry letters for me, for he
had the feeling to the last that he was in the pay of the enemy. 'Ah!'
he growled one day (not to me), 'I have always heard it said that the
English regretted our beautiful rocks and rich valleys. They are
coming back! I am sure they are coming back!' I used to see him
looking at me askance with a peculiarly keen expression in his eyes,
and as his words had been repeated to me I knew of what he was
thinking. He was the first man of his condition who to my knowledge
called rocks beautiful. The peasant class abhor rocks on account of
their sterility, and because the rustic idea of a beautiful landscape
is the fertile and level plain. In searching for the picturesque and
the grandeur of nature, it is perfectly safe to go to those places
which the peasant declares to be frightful by their ugliness.
Leaving Coupiac behind me, I turned towards the east. The road, having
been cut in the side of the cliff, exposed layers of brown
argillaceous schist, like rotten wood, and so friable that it crumbled
between the fingers; but what was more remarkable was that the layers,
scarcely thicker than slate, instead of being on their natural plane,
were turned up quite vertically. I was now ascending to the barren
uplands. Near the brow of a hill I passed a very ancient crucifix of
granite, the head, which must originally have been of the rudest
sculpture, having the features quite obliterated by time.
A rural postman in a blouse with red collar had been trudging up the
hill behind me, and I let him overtake me so that I might fall into
conversation with him, for these men are generally more intelligent or
better informed than the peasants. I have often walked with them, and
never without obtaining either instruction or amusement. When we had
reached the highest ground, from which a splendid view was revealed of
the Rouergue country.--a crumpled map of bare hills and deep dark
gorges--the postman pointed out to me the village of Roquecésaire
(Caesar's Rock), on a hill to the south, and told me a queer story of
a battle between its inhabitants and those of an adjacent village. The
quarrel, strange to say, arose over a statue of the Virgin, which was
erected not long since upon a commanding position between the two
villages. 'Now, the Holy Virgin,' said the postman, in no tone of
mockery, 'was obliged to turn her back either to one village or the
other, and this was the cause of the fight!' When first set up, the
statue looked towards Roquecésaire, to the great satisfaction of the
inhabitants; but the people of the other village, who thought
themselves equally pious, held that they had been slighted; and the
more they looked at the back of the Virgin turned towards them the
angrier they became, and the more determined not to submit to the
indignity. At length, unable to keep down their fury any longer, they
sallied forth one day, men, women and children, with the intention of
turning the statue round. But the people of Roquecésaire were
vigilant, and, seeing the hostile crowd coming, went forth to give
them battle. The combat raged furiously for hours, and it was
watched--so said the postman--with much excitement and interest by the
_curé_ of Montclar--the village we were now approaching--who,
happening to have a telescope, was able to note the varying fortune of
war. At length the Roquecésaire people got the worst of it, and they
were driven away from the statue, which was promptly turned round.
Although many persons were badly knocked about, nobody died for the
cause. The energetic intervention of the spiritual and temporal
authorities prevented a renewal of the scandal, and it was thought
best, in the interest of peace, to allow the statue to be turned
half-way to one village and half to the other.
The postman was a little reserved at first, not knowing to what
country I belonged, but when he was satisfied that I was not a German,
he let his tongue rattle on with the freedom which is one of the
peculiarities of his class. He confided to me that the best help to a
man who walked much was absinthe. It pulled him up the hills and sent
him whisking across the plains.
'I eat very little,' said my black-bearded, bright-eyed fellow-tramp;
'but,' he added, 'I drink three or four glasses of absinthe a day.'
'You will eat still less,' I said, 'if you don't soon begin to turn
off the tap.'
Considering the hard monotony of their lives and the strain imposed
upon physical endurance by walking from twenty to twenty-five miles a
day in all weathers, the rural postmen in France are a sober body of
men. This one told me that he walked sometimes eight miles out of his
way to carry a single letter.
Thus gossiping, we reached Montclar, on the plateau, a little to the
south of the deep gorge of the Tarn. Here we entered an auberge, where
the postman was glad to moisten his dry throat with the green-eyed
enemy. This inn was formerly one of those small châteaux--more
correctly termed _maisons fortes_, or manors--which sprang up all over
France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The inhabited part
of the building was reached by a spiral staircase enclosed by a tower.
A balcony connected with the principal room enabled me to read an
inscription cut in a stone of the tower: 'Tristano Disclaris, 1615.'
But for this record left by the founder, his name would probably have
passed, long ago, out of the memory of men.
I found that the chief occupation of the people in this house was that
of making Roquefort cheeses; indeed, it was impossible not to guess
what was going on from the all-pervading odour. And yet: I was still
many miles from Roquefort! However, I knew all about this matter
before. I was not twenty miles from Albi when I found that Roquefort
cheese-making was a local industry. In fact, this is the case over a
very wide region. The cheeses, having been made, are sent to Roquefort
to ripen in the cellars, which have been excavated in the rock, and
also to acquire the necessary reputation. While my lunch was being
prepared I looked into the dairy, which was very clean and creditable.
On the ground were large tubs of milk, and on tables were spread many
earthenware moulds pierced with little holes and containing the
pressed curds.
The hostess was a buxom, good-tempered woman with rosy cheeks. She
told me that she could not give me anything better than ham and eggs.
She could not have offered me anything more acceptable after all the
greasy cooking, the steadfast veal and invariable fowl which I had so
long been compelled to accept daily with resignation. By a mysterious
revelation of art she produced the ham and eggs in a way that made me
think that she must surely be descended from one of the English
adventurers who did all manner of mischief in the Rouergue some five
or six centuries ago. Such ham and eggs in her case could only be
explained by the theory of hereditary ideas. Nevertheless, she had
become French enough to look at me with a dubious, albeit a
good-natured eye. My motive in coming there and going farther without
having any commercial object in view was more than she could fathom.
After my visit to the dairy I fancy her private notion was that I was
commissioned by the English Government to find out how Roquefort
cheese was made, with a view to competition. At length, as we talked
freely, she let the state of her mind with regard to me escape her
unawares by putting this question plump:
'How is it the gendarmes have not stopped you?'
'That I cannot tell you,' said I, much amused by her candour; 'but you
may be sure of this, I am not afraid of them.'
Her husband was listening behind the door, and I observed an
expression of relief in his face when I took up my pack and departed.
If I was to be pounced upon, he preferred, for his own peace of mind
and the reputation of his house, that it should be done elsewhere. All
the village had heard of my coming, and when I reappeared outside
there was a small crowd of people waiting to have a good look at me. I
thought from these signs that I was likely to be asked to show my
papers again by some petty functionary; but no, I was allowed to pass
on without interference. Perhaps the postman had given a good account
of me, the absinthe having touched his heart. There is much diplomacy
in getting somebody on your side while travelling alone through these
unopened districts far from railways. Wandering among the peasants of
the Tarn and the Aveyron teaches one what ignorance really means, what
blindness of intellect goes with it. And yet their enlightenment by
the usual methods would be a doubtful blessing to themselves and
others.
I was now descending to the valley, and not long after leaving the
village an attempt to escape from the winding hot road led me into one
of those wildernesses which are to me infinitely more pleasing than
the most artistic gardens, with their geometric flower-beds and their
counterfeit lakes and grottoes. The surface of the land was thrown or
washed up into dark-brown hillocks of broken argillaceous schist,
which repelled vegetation, but the hollows were wooded with mountain
oak and many shrubs. Farther down there were other hillocks, equally
bare, but formed of the blue-looking lias marl which the husbandman
detests with good reason, for its sterility is incorrigible. This
_terre bleue_, as the peasants call it, was not the only sign of a
change in the formation; fragments of calcareous stone were mixed with
the brown soil. I was leaving the dark schist and was approaching
those immense accumulations of jurassic rock, whose singular forms and
brilliant colours lend such extraordinary grandeur to the scenery of
the Upper Tarn. There was also a change in the vegetation. A large
species of broom, four or five feet high, covered with golden blossom
the size of pea-flowers, although the common broom had long passed its
blooming, now showed itself as well as roseroot sedum, neither of
which had I seen while coming over the schist. The cicadas returned
and screamed from every tree. I captured one and examined the musical
instrument--a truly marvellous bit of mechanism--that it carried in
each of its sides. It is not legs which make the noise, as is the case
with crickets and grasshoppers, but little hard membranes under the
wings are scraped together at the creature's will. The sound is not
musical, for when it is not a continuous scissor-grinding noise, it is
like the cry of a corncrake with a weak throat; but what delight there
is in it! and how it expresses that joy in the present and
recklessness of the morrow, which the fabulist has in vain contrasted
with the virtuous industry of the ant in order to point a moral for
mankind!--vainly, because the _cigale's_ short life in the sunlit
trees will ever seem to men a more ideal one than that of the
earth-burrowing ant, with its possible longevity, its peevish
parsimony, and restless anxiety for the future. I could have lain down
under a tree like a gipsy in this wild spot, and let the summer dreams
come to me from their airy castles amongst the leaves, if I had not
made up my mind to reach St. Affrique before night. There was another
reason which, although it clashes with poetry, had better be told for
the sake of truth. Insects would soon have taken all pleasure from the
siesta. Great black ants, and great red ones, little ants too, that
could have walked with comfort through the eye of a fine needle,
notwithstanding their wickedness, and intermediate species of the same
much-praised family, would have scampered over me and stung me, and
flies of bad propensities would have settled upon me. An enthusiastic
entomologist has only to lie down in the open air in this part of
France at the end of July or in August, and he will soon be able to
observe, perhaps feel, sufficient insects travelling on their legs or
on the wing to satisfy a great deal of curiosity. Often the air is all
aflutter with butterflies, many of them remarkable for their size or
the beauty of their colouring. One I have particularly noticed; not
large, but coloured with exquisite gradations of bright-yellow,
orange, and pale-green.
I believe I added to my day's journey by my excursion across country,
but the time would have passed less pleasantly on the road. The
winding yellow line, however, appeared again, and I had to tramp upon
it. And a hot, toilsome trudge it was, through that long narrow valley
with scrubby woods reaching down to the road, but with no habitations
and no water. It was the desert. The afternoon was far advanced when
the country opened and I saw a village of coquettish appearance, for
most of the houses had been washed with red, and many of the
window-shutters were painted green.
I was parched with thirst, for the sun had been broiling me for hours;
therefore, when I saw this village on the hillside, I hurried towards
it with the impatience of a traveller who sees the palm-trees over a
well in the sands of Africa. In a place that could give so much
attention to colour there must surely be an auberge, I thought. And I
judged rightly, for there were two little inns. I found the door of
the first one closed, and learnt that the people were out harvesting.
I walked on to the next, and found that likewise closed, and was again
informed that all the family were out in the fields. The whole village
was nearly deserted; almost everyone was busy reaping and putting up
the sheaves. I stopped beside the village pump and reflected upon my
misery. I had resigned myself to water, when a woman carrying a sickle
opened the door of one of the inns. Some friendly bird must have told
her of my thirst and weariness--perhaps the merry little quail that I
heard as I came up from the plain crying 'To-whit! To-whit!' That
blessed auberge actually contained bottled beer. And the room was so
cool that butter would not have melted in it. These southern houses
have such thick stone walls that they have the double advantage of
being warm in winter and delightfully cool in summer. I had some
difficulty in resisting the temptation to stop the night at this inn;
but I did resist it, and was again on the road to St. Affrique before
the heat of the day had passed. Another toilsome trudge, during which
I met an English threshing-machine being dragged along by bullocks,
and the familiar words upon it made me feel for awhile quite at home.
The apparition, however, gave me a shock, for the antique flail is
still the instrument commonly used for threshing in the southern
provinces of France.