a gorge nearly impassable, and abandoned to all the wildness of
nature. The partial loop here formed by the Lot is hidden and defended
by a forbidding wilderness of rocks and forest, as if it were one of
the last retreats of the fluvial deities, where they can defy the
curiosity of man. The adventurous spirit prompted me to explore it,
but the lazy one said, 'Leave it.' I took the advice of the latter,
and went on by the road, which now left the river, and ascended
towards the plateau under cliffs of red sandstone. The thirsty sun had
by this time drained almost every flower-cup of its dew; but the
freshness of the morning still lingered in the hollows of the rocks,
and in the shade of the chestnut, the walnut, and elm. As the earth
warmed, it became quieter. All creatures seemed to grow drowsy, except
the sociable little quails that kept calling to one another, 'How are
you?' and the flies of wicked purpose, which become more and more
enterprising as the temperature rises.
It was long since I had seen a human being, when I heard the
click-clack of loose _sabots_ coming nearer. Presently a couple of
young bulls showed their grim visages round a corner, and after them
came a very small girl with a very long stick. She looked about six
years old, and she had great trouble to keep her little brown feet
inside the wooden shoes, which were many sizes too large for her. How
was it that those big, and perhaps bad-tempered, animals allowed
themselves to be driven and beaten by that child, whereas they would
have turned upon a dog double her size, and done their best to toss
him over the chestnut trees? What is it that the brutes see below the
surface of the human being to inspire them with such respect and fear
of this biped, even when he or she has just crawled out of the cradle?
These bulls, by-the-bye, stopped and looked at me in a way that was
anything but respectful, and I delayed the study of the metaphysical
question until I could watch them from the rear.
I found on the top of the hill the village or hamlet that the old
tramp had mentioned; but there was no sign of an inn--indeed, there
was no sign of anybody being alive in the place. I threaded the steep
little lanes between the houses and hovels, up to the ankles in dirty
straw that had been turned out of the animals' sheds, but saw nothing
moving except fowls. I knocked at various doors, and obtained no
response. It was clear that all the people, including the children,
were away in the fields, and had left the village to take care of
itself. Hungry and thirsty, I was resigning myself with a heavy heart
to trudge on, when I observed a column of blue smoke rise suddenly
from a chimney, and I was not long in finding the house to which it
belonged. It was a dilapidated building, very wretched now, but with
an air of bygone superiority. This was chiefly shown in the
Renaissance doorway, a rather elaborate piece of work, over which was
the date 1602. I ascended the steps with a little misgiving, for I
thought that perhaps some cantankerous person whose family had seen
better times might be living there, and that my questions as to food
and drink might meet with surly answers. I knocked, nevertheless, with
my stick upon the old door studded with nail-heads. It was opened, and
before me stood a woman who looked old, but who was probably
middle-aged; she was very poorly clad, very imperfectly washed, but on
her tired and toil-worn face there was no forbidding expression. I
told her that I was looking for an auberge, and she said that hers was
one _au besoin_. It was the only one that answered at all to the name
thereabouts. So the smoke had led me to the right place. I followed
the heiress of the dilapidated house--she was a descendant of the
original owner--through the dingy kitchen, where upon the hearth the
fire of sticks that she had just lighted was blazing cheerfully, into
a back room, where there were two beds without linen, and with nothing
but patchwork quilts over big bundles of dry maize leaves. It is thus
that many of the peasants of the Aveyron sleep. This is not a part of
France where the study of cleanliness and comfort is carried to
excess. If the floor of the room that I now entered had ever been
washed, the boards must have forgotten the scrubbing sensation a
century or more ago. The appearance of everything indicated that I was
in a fleas' paradise; but as it was by no means the first of the kind
of which I had had experience, I merely took the precaution of keeping
my feet off the ground, so as to offer as few travelling facilities as
possible to the enemy. The room, although it was dirty, was cheerful;
for the sunshine streamed in through the open window, and the view of
the green valley beneath and the woods beyond soon drove the fleas out
of mind. Upon the sill were plums laid out on wooden trays to dry in
the sun and become what English people call prunes.
The excellent woman, who installed me before a little table on which
she laid a cloth, said that she had little to offer me; but that all
she had was at my service. She first fished out of the wood-ashes in
which it was preserved one of those dry, stringy sausages with which
everyone who knows this part of France must be familiar. Then she
brought in some white bread which a presentiment of my coming had
perhaps caused her to buy a month before, for it was green with
mildew. She thought that I should prefer this to the very dark bread
of her own making. The choice was perplexing. My meal was chiefly made
upon a dish of firm cream like that of Devonshire, with plums and
fresh cob-nuts for dessert. Then my hostess made me some coffee, a
luxury rarely used in the house; and when she had set it on the table,
I induced her to stay and talk awhile. The conversation was made
easier because, notwithstanding her poverty, she spoke French with
much more facility than most of the people in these rural districts.
She told me that her husband and children had not yet returned from
the fields, and that she was at home because she was so tired after
threshing buckwheat all yesterday in the sun.
'In winter,' I said, 'you have an easier time?' 'Oh no! In winter we
are always working at something or another. We then make our linen
from the hemp, patch up the clothes, prepare the walnuts for pressing,
and blanch the chestnuts.[*] We have always something on hand.'
[*] _Blanchir les châtaignes_. In Guyenne, after the first sale of
chestnuts in their natural state, the peasants prepare a large
quantity of those that remain in a special manner, which consists
of removing the first and second skins, and artificially drying
the nuts until they become quite hard. They will then keep an
indefinite period, and can be boiled for food when required. In
the winter evenings, while the women work at their distaffs, the
men frequently skin chestnuts either for drying or for food the
next day.
But while there was any work to be done out-of-doors, there they were
busy from sunrise until dusk. Supper over, the beasts were looked
after. 'Then,' she added, 'we say our prayers and go to bed.' She
volunteered no statements respecting her ancestry, but when I
questioned her concerning the house, she said that her family had been
living in it for nearly 300 years. At one time they were the principal
people in the district. It was true that they had come down in the
world, but she felt thankful for the blessings that had been given
her, and was satisfied. The family were all in good health, and that
was the main thing. Her mother was still living with her--eighty-seven
years of age, and had never been ill in her life.
Here was a simple but eloquent story of human vicissitude and
uncertainty that was told without a word of regret or repining, and as
though it were a tale of no interest to anybody. This poor, humble
woman before me, whose back was still aching from the movement of
bending and lifting the flail hour after hour, was, by right of birth,
what we call in England a 'gentlewoman.' But she was poor, and
ignorant of all books except the one that contained her prayers. She
was not less a peasant than any of the women around her, nor did she
wish to be thought anything better. That her ancestors were gentlemen,
that, they may have borne a forgotten title (many that were borne in
France have been forgotten by the descendants), was as nothing to her.
She clung only to what, in her simple but grand philosophy, was really
to be valued--the blessings of life and health, opportunities of
labour, independence, and faith in God.
This woman would only take the equivalent of a shilling for her wine,
her coffee, and her food; then she made me drink some of her _eau de
noix_ (spirit prepared with the juice of green walnuts), and as I left
she pressed more nuts and plums upon me.
The old woman who had never been ill was waiting for me under a tree.
She could not speak a word of French, but she said a great deal in
_patois_, of which all that I could make out was that she was afraid
the _calour_ (heat) would hurt me if I left so early in the afternoon.
A little beyond the village I passed a party of threshers, men and
women--two rows of them facing each other like dancers; the figures
bending and straightening in unison, and all the. flails whirling
together in the air. They had spread a large cloth upon the ground,
and were thrashing out the grain upon it.
A block of granite cropping out of the sandstone indicated a change in
the formation, and this came, for the rocks gradually passed into
gneiss and schist, frequently covered with moss and ferns, golden-rod
in bloom, and purple heather. St. Geniez by the Lot was reached long
before sundown; but although I had the time, I was not tempted to walk
any farther that day.
The little town is picturesquely situated on the river-bank, and it
has some old houses with turrets, and other interesting details. There
is a late Gothic church that was formerly attached to an Augustinian
monastery, of which part of the cloisters remains. Inside the edifice
every flagstone covers a tomb, and in several instances masons'
hammers and other tools are carved upon them.
It fell out that several commercial travellers and superior pedlars
came into St. Geniez on the same day as myself, but in more genteel
fashion, for they had their traps, and would not for all the world
have risked their reputation for respectability, and rendered
themselves despicable in the eyes of customers, by entering on foot.
Nevertheless, their first impression (as I afterwards learnt), when I
sat down with them to dinner at the comfortable inn, which, thanks to
their patronage, had found the courage to style itself a hotel, was
that I might be a new rival in the field. But the difficulty was to
guess the particular field that I had marked out for my own
distinction and the confusion of competitors. Was I in the grocery
line, or the oil and colour line? Was I _dans les spiritueux_ or _dans
les articles d'église_? Then they had a suspicion that I was, perhaps,
a German traveller trying to open up a fresh market for potato spirit,
or those scientific syrups which are said to change any alcohol into
'old cognac' or the most venerable Jamaica rum. This may have
accounted for the somewhat chilly reserve that fell upon my table
companions as I took my seat among them. But, as this was unpleasant
for everybody, I soon found an opportunity of dispelling the mystery
that hung over me. Then they threw off all restraint, and showed
themselves to be the jolly, rollicking, good-natured beings that these
men almost invariably are. They were much more polite to me than
Englishmen generally are to strangers, who are felt to be something
like intruders--recognising me as a guest, and insisting upon my
helping myself first to every dish that was brought on the table. It
is customary for tourists to speak of the French commercial traveller
as a very ridiculous or vulgarly offensive person. I have found these
so-called 'bagmen' to be among the most pleasant-mannered, agreeable,
and intelligent people whom I have met while roaming in provincial
France. I have been disturbed at night by their uproariousness, for
they are convivial to a fault; but in my immediate relations with them
I have always found them frank, kindly, and courteous.
Before eight o'clock the next morning I had left St. Geniez behind me
in the light mist, and was again on the banks of the Lot. At a
waterside village called Sainte-Eulalie--a saint so much venerated by
the French in the Middle Ages that a multitude of places have been
named after her--was a church with a broad tower and low broach spire.
I was struck by the noble simplicity and elegance of the Romanesque
apse, which was much in the Auvergnat style. The village was very
picturesque, partly on account of its position by the sunny, babbling
water, and partly because of its numerous old houses, some with
projecting stories, and others with exterior staircases communicating
with an open gallery covered by the prolonged eaves of the roof.
Outside of the doors mushrooms (_boleti_) after being cut in slices,
were spread in the sun to dry. As I continued my way down the valley I
met several women and girls returning from the chestnut woods on the
hillsides carrying baskets of these _cépes_ on their heads. Although I
hoped to sleep that night at Espalion, I soon left the direct road and
struck off across country to the south-west in order to take in the
village of Bozouls, a place that some soldier whom I had met told me
was like Constantine in Algeria. I therefore left the valley of the
Lot, and proceeded to cross the hills and tablelands which separated
me from the gorge of its tributary, the Dourdou.
In taking by-paths to reach the _causse_, I passed over hillocks of
chocolate-coloured marl mixed with broken schist and flints: here the
broom and juniper, the heather and bracken, flourished. At length I
felt the fresh breeze and drank the invigorating air of the limestone
plateau. Descending the hill beyond, on the road to Rodez, I passed a
very strange-looking spot where huge flat blocks of bare gneiss, laid
together as though giants of the Titanic age had here been trying to
pave the world, sloped with extraordinary regularity towards the
highway. And these prodigious slabs of gneiss now lay amidst schistous
marl and calcareous rock.
Farther down in the valley was a small village of which the houses
were dwarfed by a gloomy strong hold, apparently of the fifteenth
century, whose four high and massive towers, occupying the angles of a
small quadrilateral, gave it the appearance of a vast _donjon_. At a
small inn kept by a blacksmith I was able to get a meal and the rest
that was now needed. The blacksmith's wife, a pleasant young woman;
who seemed much amused at the sight of a being from the outer and, to
her, half-fabulous world, drew part of a duck out of the grease in
which it had been preserved, and gave me this with rice for my lunch.
During the repast I was not a little worried by the questions of the
blacksmith and some other village worthies who were drinking coffee in
the small room that had to do for everybody, and who had so placed
themselves that they could watch me at their ease. Such a strange bird
as myself did not drop into their midst every day. They were not
unfriendly, but their curiosity was troublesome, and I perceived that
nothing that I might have said would have removed the impression from
their minds that I was a mysterious character.
The country beyond this village was not unpleasant to the eye, with
its vineyards on the slopes and its green pasturage in the valleys,
but the hours went by drearily as I tramped upon the long road. I felt
solitary, and was not in the mood to be interested easily;
nevertheless, I lingered on the wayside awhile before a remarkable
relic of the past: a rectangular machicolated tower of great height
and strength rising out of a dark grove of trees. The afternoon was
drawing towards evening, when I descended suddenly into a deep and
narrow ravine where the sunshine was lost, and the twilight dwelt with
greenness and dampness. At the bottom the Dourdou ran swiftly over its
pebbly bed. After following it a little distance I found myself
between towering walls of Jurassic rock, vertical towards the summit,
capped on each side by a long row of houses. There was also a church,
likewise on the edge of the precipice. This was Bozouls--a place
scarcely known beyond a small district of the Aveyron, but one of the
most curious in France. The traveller, when he reaches the gorge,
after crossing a somewhat monotonous country, is quite unprepared for
such a startling revelation of the sentiment of human fellowship in
the midst of the savagery of nature. Why did men build houses in rows
on the brink of these frightful precipices? It appears to have been
all done for the sake of the artist and the lover of the picturesque.
And yet Bozouls grew to be a village in an age when men of work and
action only knew two kinds of enthusiasm--war and religion. Either a
castle or a religious foundation must have been the beginning of this
community. There are no remains of a fortress, but the church is very
old, and its elaborate architecture suggests that it was at one time
attached to a monastic establishment. After crossing the stream I
climbed to this church by a path that wound about the rocks, and found
it an exceedingly interesting example of the Southern Romanesque. The
portal opens into a narthex, where there is a very primitive font like
a low square trough. The nave entrance has two columns on each side
supporting archivolts, and upon the capitals of these columns are
carved figures of the quaintest Romanesque character, illustrating
Biblical subjects. The nave has an aisle on each side scarcely four
feet wide, and most of the separating columns are out of the
perpendicular. The capitals here are wrought with acanthus-leaves or
little figures. The sanctuary and apse are in the style of Auvergne,
with this peculiarity, that the capitals of the slender columns are
singularly massive, and bear only the mere outline of the
acanthus-leaf for ornament.
The long street of the village, white and sunbaked, running within a
few yards of the precipice, was almost as deserted as the church. But
for a Sister who stood by the convent gate like a statue of Eternal
Silence, and a man who was killing a wretched calf in the middle of
the road, I might have asked myself if this fantastic Bozouls was not
some spectral village, reproducing the past in all except the living
beings who had gone down into their graves. When I recrossed the
Dourdou, the light was several tones lower than it was when I first
descended to the bottom of the ravine, and the vegetation was of a
deeper and sadder green. And the stream rushed onward with a low wail,
and a distressful cry, as of a soul passing down the Dark Valley and
not yet free from the panic of death.
When I had reached the plateau that I had left an hour or more ago,
the sun was about to set. As I knew that the _diligence_ to Espalion
would soon pass, I preferred to wait for it rather than to walk any
farther. The south wind was blowing with such force that I lay down on
the leeside of a bush to be sheltered from it. Here I watched the sun
burning dimly in a yellow haze on the edge of the world. The wind
wailed amongst the leaves of the hawthorn-bushes, but over the brown
land, flushed with the sad yellow gleam, came the sound of
cattle-bells, softening the harshness of the solitude, and bringing
almost a smile upon the careworn face of Nature. I watched the dingy
golden light rising up the stubble of the hills. Now the sun began to
dip behind a knoll; a far-off tree stood in the line of vision, and I
could see the leaves shaking as if in frenzy against the disc of
sullen fire. Then from the edge of the western sky shot up into the
yellow haze fair colours of pink and purple that seemed to say: 'The
south wind may blow and burn the beauty of the earth, but the west
wind will come again, its light wings laden with refreshment and joy.'
The sun was gone, the shadows of night were being laid upon the dreary
land, when the wavy clouds about the brightening moon became like a
shower of rose-petals; the breeze grew softer and softer, for it was,
in the language of the peasant, the 'sun-wind,' and the nocturnal
peace began to reign over the sadness of the day's death.
The sound of jingling bells coming rapidly nearer roused me from my
contemplative mood. The _diligence_, so called, was in sight, and a
few minutes later I took my place in the very stuffy box on wheels,
nearly filled with women and bundles. As it was only a drive of some
seven or eight miles to Espalion, the town was reached in good time
for dinner. I sat at a side-table in the large room of the inn, at the
door of which the coach stopped. The central table was already
occupied by half a dozen persons--all fat, vulgar, and noisy. They
were examples of the _petit bourgeois_ class whom one meets rather too
frequently wherever there are towns in this part of France, and with
whom the disposition to grossness is equally apparent in mind and
body. There were women in the party, but had they been absent, the
language of the men would have been no coarser. These fat and
middle-aged women, married, doubtless, and highly respectable after
their fashion, when struck by each gust of humour, such as might issue
from the mouth of a foul-minded buffoon at a fair, rolled like ships
at sea.
I passed a troubled night at Espalion, for there were a couple of
feathered fiends just underneath the window crowing against each other
with maddening rivalry. One, an old cock, had a very hoarse crow, and
seemed to be suffering from chronic laryngitis brought on by an abuse
of his vocal powers; and the other was a young cock with a very
squeaky crow, for he was still taking lessons, and, as is the case
with many beginners, he had too much enthusiasm.
I had had more than enough of this duo before the night was through,
and was out very early in the morning looking at the ancient town of
Espalion, which witnessed both the victory and the defeat of British
arms long ere the Maid of Domrémy came to the rescue of the golden
lilies. Its capture took place soon after the Battle of Crécy. The
lords of Espalion were the Calmont d'Olt, who played an active part in
the wars with the English. The town deserves a prominent place among
the many picturesque old burgs stamped with mediaeval character on the
banks of the Lot. One may stand upon its Gothic bridge of the
thirteenth century and dream of the past without risk of being hustled
by a crowd except on market days. This venerable bridge must have been
admirably built to have withstood all the floods which have smote it
in the course of six centuries. The great central arch is so much
higher than the others that in crossing you go up a hill and then down
one. Close by on the river-bank is the sixteenth-century Hôtel de
Ville, a castle, partly built on a rock, in the gracefully-ornamental
style of the French Renaissance, with turrets, mullioned windows, and
a loggia.
Having crossed the river, I went in search of the chief architectural
curiosity in or near Espalion--that known as the Church of Pers, or
the Chapel of St. Hilarion. It is on the outskirts of the town, and
stands in the old cemetery. I had first to find a potter who kept the
key, and I discovered him at length in a narrow street in the midst of
his clay and the vessels of his handicraft. He gave me the great key,
and it was one that some fervent archaeologist might press
reverentially to his heart, for the smith who forged it must have died
centuries ago. Entering the cemetery, I saw, surrounded by a multitude
of closely-packed tombs and grave mounds, on which the long grass
stood with the late summer flowers, a small Romanesque building that
seemed to have sunk far into the soil, like the ancient lichen-covered
slabs from which the inscriptions had been washed away by time's
inexorable and ever-wearing sea. Perhaps the soil had risen about the
walls.