sheets of water amid the brilliant greenery; later are passed sandy
downs with few trees or breaks in the landscape. This part of France
should be seen during the budding season; of itself unpicturesque, it is
yet beautified by the early foliage. Hesdin is an ancient, quiet little
town on the Canche, with tanneries making pictures--and smells--by the
river, unpaved streets, and a very curious bit of civic architecture,
the triple-storeyed portico of the Hôtel de Ville. Its 7000 and odd
souls were soon to have their museum, the nucleus being a splendid set
of tapestries representing the battle of Agincourt, in loveliest shades
of subdued blue and grey. The little inn is very clean and comfortable;
for five francs a day you obtain the services of the master, who is
cook; the mistress, who is chambermaid; and the daughters of the house,
who wait at table. Such, at least, was my experience.
* * * * *
My errand was to the neighbouring village of Hauteville-Caumont, whither
I drove one afternoon. Quitting the town in a north-easterly direction,
we enter one of those long, straight French roads that really seem as if
they would never come to an end. The solitude of the scene around is
astonishing to English eyes. For miles we only meet two road-menders and
an itinerant glazier. On either side, far as the glance could reach,
stretches the chessboard landscape--an expanse oceanic in its vastness
of green and brown, fields of corn and clover alternating with land
prepared for beetroot and potatoes. The extent and elevation of this
plateau, formerly covered with forests, explain the excessive dryness
of the climate. Bitter indeed must be the wintry blast, torrid the rays
of summer here. As we proceed we see little breaks in the level
uniformity, plains of apple-green and chocolate-brown; the land dips
here and there, showing tiny combes and bits of refreshing wood. The
houses, whether of large landowner, functionary or peasant, are
invariably one-storeyed, the white walls, brown tiles, or thatched roof
having an old-fashioned, rustic effect. One might suppose earthquakes
were common from this habit of living on the ground floor. The dryness
of the climate doubtless obviates risk of damp. Much more graceful are
the little orchards of these homesteads than the mathematically planted
cider apples seen here in all stages of growth. Even the blossoms of
such trees later on cannot compare with the glory of an orchard, in the
old acceptance of the word, having reached maturity in the natural way.
Certain portions of rural France are too geometrical. That I must admit.
Exquisitely clean, to use a farmer's expression, are these sweeps of
corn and ploughed land, belonging to different owners, yet apparently
without division. Only boundary stones at intervals mark the limits.
Here we find no infinitesimal subdivision and no multiplicity of crops.
Wheat, clover, oats form the triennial course, other crops being rye,
potatoes, Swede turnips, sainfoin and the _oeillette_ or oil poppy. The
cider apple is also an important product.
I found my friend's friend at home, and after a chat with madame and her
daughter, we set out for our round of inspection. This gentleman farmed
his own land, a beautifully cultivated estate of several hundred acres;
here and there a neighbour's field dovetailed into his own, but for the
greater part lying compactly together. The first object that attracted
my notice was a weather-beaten old windmill--sole survivor of myriads
formerly studding the country. This antiquated structure might have been
the identical one slashed at by Don Quixote. Iron grey, dilapidated,
solitary, it rose between green fields and blue sky, like a lighthouse
in mid-ocean. These mills are still used for crushing rye, the mash
being mixed with roots for cattle, and the straw used here, as
elsewhere, for _liage_ or tying up wheatsheaves. The tenacity of this
straw makes it very valuable for such purposes.
Corn, rye and sainfoin were already very advanced, all here testifying
to highly scientific farming; and elsewhere roots were being sown. The
soil is prepared by a process called _marnage_, _i.e_. dug up to the
extent of three feet, the _marne_ or clayey soil being brought to the
surface. A very valuable manure is that of the scoria or residue of
dephosphated steel, formerly thrown away as worthless, but now largely
imported from Hungary for agricultural purposes. Nitrate is also largely
used to enrich the soil. Sixty years ago the Pas-de-Calais possessed
large forests. Here at Caumont vast tracts have been cleared and brought
under culture since that time. These denuded plateaux, at a considerable
elevation above the sea-level, are naturally very dry and very cold in
winter, the climate being gradually modified by the almost total absence
of trees. Wisely has the present Government interdicted further
destruction; forests are now created instead, and we find private
individuals planting instead of hacking down. Lucerne is not much
cultivated, and my host told me an interesting fact concerning it; in
order to grow lucerne, farmers must procure seeds of local growers.
Seeds from the south of France do not produce robust plants.
The purple-flowered poppy, cultivated for the production of oil, must
form a charming crop in summer, and is a most important product. I was
assured that oil procured from crushed seeds is the only kind absolutely
free from flavour, and as such superior even to that of olives. Of equal
importance is the cider apple.
The economic results of war are curiously exemplified here. During the
war of 1871 German troops were stationed in the neighbouring department
of the Somme, and there acquired the habit of drinking cider. So
agreeable was found this drink that cider apples are now largely
exported to Germany, and just as a Frenchman now demands his Bock at a
café, so in his Biergarten the German calls for cider.
My host informed me that all his own apples, grown for commerce, went
over the northern frontier. Cider is said to render the imbiber
gout-proof and rheumatism-proof, but requires a long apprenticeship to
render it palatable. The profits of an apple orchard are threefold.
There is the crop gathered in October, which will produce in fair
seasons 150 francs per hectare, and the two grass crops, apple trees not
hurting the pasture.
The labourer's harvest here are his potato-fed pigs. In our walks we
came upon men and women sowing potatoes on their bit of hired land; for
the most part their bit of land is tilled on Sundays, a neighbour's
horse being hired or borrowed for the purpose. Thus neither man nor
beast rest on the seventh day, and as a natural consequence church-going
gradually falls into abeyance. My host deplored this habit of turning
Sunday into a veritable _corvée_ for both human beings and cattle, but
said that change of system must be very slow.
On the whole, the condition of the agricultural labourer here contrasts
very unfavourably with that of the peasant owner described elsewhere.
The same drawbacks exist as in England. Land for the most part being
held by large owners, accommodation for poorer neighbours is
insufficient. Many able-bodied workmen migrate to the towns, simply
because they cannot get houses to live in; such one-storeyed dwellings
as exist have an uncared-for look, neither are the village folks so well
dressed as in regions of peasant property. In fact, I should say, after
a very wide experience, that peasant property invariably uplifts and
non-propertied labour drags down. This seems to me a conclusion
mathematically demonstrable.
Mayor of his commune, my host was a man of progress and philanthropy in
the widest sense of the word. He had lately brought about the opening of
an infant school here, and dwelt on the beneficial results; children not
being admitted to the communal schools under the age of seven, were
otherwise thrown on the streets all day. Infant schools are generally
found in the larger communes. Intersecting my host's vast stretches of
field and ploughed land lay the old strategic road from Rouen to St.
Omer, a broad band of dazzling white thrown across the tremendous
panorama. An immense plain is spread before us as a map, now crudely
brilliant in hue, two months later to show blending gold and purple.
Vast, too, the views obtained on the homeward drive. Over against Hesdin
rises its forest--holiday ground of rich and poor, as yet undiscovered
by the tourist. From this friendly little town a charming woodland
journey may be made by the railway now leading through the forest of
Crécy to Abbeville.
Between Hesdin and Arras the geometrically planted cider apple trees and
poplars growing in parallel lines are without beauty, but by the railway
are bits of waste ground covered with cowslip, wind flowers,
cuckoo-pint, and dandelion. On the top of lofty elms here and there are
dark masses; these are the nests of the magpie, and apparently quite
safe from molestation.
By the wayside we see evidences of peasant ownership on the most modest
scale, women cutting their tiny patch of rye, as green food for cattle,
sowing their potato field, or keeping a few sheep. Everywhere lilacs
are in full bloom, and the pear and cherry trees burdened with blossom
as snow. Everything is a month ahead of ordinary years. I write of
April 1893.
The Hôtel St. Pol at Arras looks, I should say, precisely as it did in
Robespierre's time. The furniture certainly belongs to that epoch,
sanitary arrangements have made little advance, and the bare staircases
and floors do not appear as if they had been well swept, much less
scoured, since the fall of the Bastille. It is a rambling, I should say
rat-haunted, old place, but fairly quiet and comfortable, with civil
men-servants and no kind of pretence.
Arras itself, that is to say its Petite Place, is a specimen of
Renaissance architecture hardly to be matched even in France. The
Flemish gables and Spanish arcades, not a vestige of modernization
marring the effect, make a unique picture. Above all rises the first of
those noble belfry towers met by the traveller on this round, souvenirs
of civic rights hardly won and stoutly maintained. The first object
looked for will be Robespierre's birthplace, an eminently respectable
middle-class abode, now occupied by a personage almost as generally
distasteful as that of the Conventionnel himself, namely, a
process-server or bailiff. A bright little lad whom I interrogated on
the way testified the liveliest interest in my quest, and would not lose
sight of me till I had discovered the right house. It is a
yellow-walled, yellow-shuttered, symbolically atrabilious-looking place,
with twenty-three front windows. Robespierre's parents must have been in
decent circumstances when their son Maximilian was born, and perhaps the
reverses of early life had no small share in determining his after
career. Left an orphan in early life, he owed his education and start in
life to charity. The fastidious, poetic, austere country lawyer, unlike
his fellow-conventionnels, was no born orator. Thoughts that breathe and
words that burn did not drop from his lips as from Danton's. His
carefully prepared speeches, even in the apogee of his popularity, were
often interrupted by the cry "Cut it short" or "Keep to the point." The
exponent of Rousseau was ofttimes "long preaching," like St. Paul.
But there are early utterances of Robespierre's that constitute in
themselves a revolution, when, for instance, in 1789 he pleaded for the
admission of Jews, non-Catholics, and actors to political rights. "The
Jews," he protested, "have been maligned in history. Their reputed vices
arise from the ignominy into which they have been plunged." And although
his later discourses breathe a spirit of frenzied vindictiveness,
certain passages recall that "humane and spiritual element" commented
upon by Charles Nodier. This is especially noticeable in what is called
his _discours-testament_, the speech delivered on the eve of Thermidor.
At one moment, with positive ferocity, he lashes the memory of former
friends and colleagues sent by himself to the guillotine; at another he
dilates upon the virtue of magnanimity in lofty, Platonic strains.
[ILLUSTRATION: ARRAS, LA PETITE PALACE]
With Danton's implacable foe it was indeed a case of "Roses, roses, all
the way. Thus I enter, and thus I go." Twenty-four hours after that
peroration he awaited his doom, an object of ruthless execration. And
visitors are still occasionally shown in the Hôtel des Archives the
table on which was endured his short but terrible retribution.
A public day school for girls exists at Arras, but the higher education
of women--we must never lose sight of the fact--is sternly denounced by
Catholic authorities. Lay schools and lay teachers for girls are not
only unfashionable, they are immoral in the eyes of the orthodox.
The museum and public library, 40,000 and odd volumes, of this town
of 26,000 souls are both magnificent and magnificently housed in the
ancient Abbaye de St. Vaast, adjoining cathedral, bishopric and
public garden.
Besides pictures, statuary, natural history and archaeological
collections, occupying three storeys, is a room devoted exclusively to
local talent and souvenirs. Among the numerous bequests of generous
citizens is a collection of _faïence_ lately left by a tradeswoman,
whose portrait commemorates the deed. Some fine specimens of ancient
tapestry of Arras, hence the name arras, chiefly in shades of grey and
blue, and also specimens of the delicate hand-made Arras lace, are here.
There is also a room of technical exhibits, chemicals and minerals used
in the industrial arts, dyes, textiles.
Quite a third of the visitors thronging these sumptuous rooms were young
recruits. A modern picture of Eustache St. Pierre and his companions, at
the feet of Edward III and his kneeling Queen, evoked much admiration. I
heard one young soldier explaining the subject to a little group. There
were also many family parties, and some blue blouses. How delightful
such a place of resort-not so much in July weather, on this 9th of April
one might fancy it harvest time!--but on bleak, rainy, uninviting days!
One of the officials advised me to visit the recently erected Ecole des
Beaux Arts at the other end of the town, which I did. I would here note
the pride taken in their public collections by all concerned. This
elderly man, most likely an old soldier, seemed as proud of the museum
as if it were his own especial property.
I was at once shown over the spacious, airy, well-kept building--school
of art and conservatorium of music in one, both built, set on foot, and
maintained by the municipality. Here youths and girls of all ranks can
obtain a thorough artistic and musical training without a fraction of
cost. The classes are held in separate rooms, and boys in addition learn
modelling and mechanical drawing.
The school was opened four years ago, and already numbers eighty
students of both sexes, girls meeting two afternoons a week, boys every
evening. Arras also possesses an École Normale or large training school
for female teachers.
On this brilliant Sunday afternoon, although many small shops were open,
I noted the cessation of street traffic. Every one seemed abroad, and
business at a standstill. All the newspaper kiosks were closed.
Next morning soon after eight o'clock I was off to Vitry-en-Artois for
a day's farming. At the little station I was met by a friend's
friend--a typical young Frenchman, gaiety itself, amiable, easy, all
his faculties alert--and driven by him in a little English dogcart to
the neighbouring village. Twenty-five minutes brought us to our
destination--house and model farm of a neighbour, upwards of twelve
hundred acres, all cultivated on the most approved methods. Our host
now took my young friend's reins, he seating himself behind, and we
drove slowly over a large portion of the estate, taking a zigzag course
across the fields. There are here three kinds of soil--dry, chalky and
unproductive, rich loam, and light intermediate. In spite of the
drought of the last few weeks, the crops are very luxuriant, and quite
a month ahead of former seasons.
This estate of six hundred and odd hectares is a specimen of high
farming on a large scale, such as I had never before witnessed in
France. I do not exaggerate when I say that from end to end could not
be discerned a single weed. Of course, the expense of cultivation on
such a scale is very great, and hardly remunerative at the present
price of wheat.
Sixty hectares, _i.e._ nearly 150 acres, are planted with wheat, and
two-thirds of that superficies with beetroot. The young corn was as
advanced as in June with us, some kinds of richer growth than others,
and showing different shades of green, each tract absolutely weedless,
and giving evidence of highest cultivation. Fourteen hectolitres per
hectare of corn is the average, forty the maximum. Besides beetroot for
sugar, clover and sainfoin are grown, little or no barley, and neither
turnips nor mangel-wurzel.
[Footnote: Hectolitre = 2 bushels 3 pecks.]
The land is just now prepared for planting beetroot, by far the most
important crop here, and on which I shall have much to say. Henceforth,
indeed, the farming I describe may be called industrial, purely
agricultural products being secondary.
On the importance of beetroot sugar it is hardly necessary to dwell at
length. A few preliminary facts, however, may be acceptable. Up till the
year 1812, cane sugar only was known in France; the discovery of
beetroot sugar dates from the Continental blockade of that period. In
1885 the amount of raw sugar produced from beetroot throughout France
was 90 millions of kilos. In 1873 the sum-total had reached 400
millions. The consumption of sugar per head here is nevertheless
one-third less than among ourselves.
[Footnote: Kilogramme = 2 lb. 3 oz.]
We come now to see the results of fiscal regulation upon agriculture.
Formerly duty was paid not upon the root itself but its product. This is
now changed, and, the beetroot being taxed, the grower strives after
that kind producing the largest percentage of saccharine matter. Hardly
less important is the residue. The pulp of the crushed beetroot in
these regions forms the staple food of cows, pigs and sheep. Mixed with
chopped straw, it is stored for winter use in mounds by small
cultivators, in enormous cellars constructed on purpose by large owners.
Horses refuse to eat this mixture, which has a peculiar odour, scenting
farm premises from end to end. The chief manure used is that produced on
the farm and nitrates. On this especial estate dried fish from Sweden
had been tried, and, as on the farm before mentioned, chalky land is dug
to the depth of three feet, the better soil being put on the top. This
is the process called _marnage_. We now drove for miles right across the
wide stretches of young wheat and land prepared for beetroot. The wheels
of our light cart, the host said, would do good rather than harm. Horse
beans, planted a few weeks before, were well up; colza also was pretty
forward. Pastures there were none. Although the cornfields were as clean
as royal gardens we came upon parties of women, girls and boys hoeing
here and there. The rows of young wheat showed as much uniformity as a
newly-planted vineyard.
Ploughing and harrowing were being done chiefly by horses, only a few
oxen being used. My host told me that his animals were never worked on
Sundays. On week-days they remain longer afield than with us, but a
halt of an hour or two is made for food and rest at mid-day. Another
crop to be mentioned is what is called _hivernage_ or winter fodder,
_i.e._ lentils planted between rows of rye, the latter being grown
merely to protect the other. On my query as to the school attendance of
boys and girls employed in agriculture, my host said that authorities
are by no means rigid; at certain seasons of the year, indeed, they are
not expected to attend. Among some large landowners we find tolerably
conservative notions even in France. Over-education, they say, is
unfitting the people for manual labour, putting them out of their place,
and so forth.
Moles are not exterminated. "They do more good than harm," said my host,
"and I like them." I had heard the same thing at Caumont, where were
many mole-hills. Here and there, dove-tailed into these enormous fields,
were small patches farmed by the peasants, rarely their own property.
Their condition was described as neither that of prosperity nor want.
"They get along." That was the verdict.
In our long drive across weedless corn and clover fields we came upon a
small wood, a recent plantation of our host. Even this bit of greenery
made a pleasant break in the uniform landscape. We then drove home, and
inspected the premises on foot. Everything was on a colossal scale,
and trim as a Dutch interior. The vast collection of machinery included
the latest French, English, Belgian and American inventions. Steam
engines are fixtures, the consumption of coal being 160 tons yearly per
300 hectares.
We are thus brought face to face with the agriculture of the future,
ancient methods and appliances being supplanted one by one, manual
labour reduced to the minimum, the cultivation of the soil become purely
mechanical. The idyllic element vanishes from rural life and all savours
of Chicago! Stables and neat-houses were the perfection of cleanliness
and airiness. Here for the first time I saw sheep stabled like cows and
horses. Their quarters were very clean, and littered with fresh straw.
They go afield for a portion of the day, but, as I have before
mentioned, pastures are few and far between.
The enormous underground store-houses for beetroot, pulp and chopped
straw were now almost empty. At midday, the oxen were led home and fell
to their strange food with appetite, its moistness being undoubtedly an
advantage in dry weather. The cart horses were being fed with boiled
barley, and looked in first-rate condition. Indeed, all the animals
seemed as happy and well-cared for as my host's scores upon scores of
pet birds. Birds, however, are capricious, and nothing would induce a
beautiful green parrot to cry, "Vive la France" in my presence. After an
animated breakfast--thoroughly French breakfast, the best of everything
cooked and served in the best possible manner--we took leave, and my
young friend drove me back to Vitry to call upon his own family.
M.D., senior, is a miller, and the family dwelling, which adjoins his
huge water-mill, is very prettily situated on the Scarpe. We entered
by a little wooden bridge running outside, a conservatory filled with
exotics and ferns lending the place a fairy look. I never saw anything
in rural France that more fascinated me than this water-mill with its
crystal clear waters and surrounding foliage. M.D. with his three sons
quitted their occupation as we drove up. Madame and her young daughter
joined us in the cool salon, and we chatted pleasantly for a quarter
of an hour.
I was much struck with the head of the family, an elderly man with blue
eyes, fine features, and a thoughtful expression. He spoke sadly of the
effect of American competition, and admitted that protection could offer
but a mere palliative. Hitherto I had found a keenly protectionist bias
among French agriculturists. Of England and the English he spoke with
much sympathy, although at this time we were as yet far from the Entente
Cordiale. "C'est le plus grand peuple au monde" ("It is the greatest
nation in the world"), he said.
Nothing could equal the ease and cordiality with which this charming
family received me. The miller with his three elder sons had come
straight from the mill. Well-educated gentlemen are not ashamed of
manual labour in France. How I wished I could have spent days, nay
weeks, in the neighbourhood of the water-mill!
XIV
LADY MERCHANTS AND SOCIALIST MAYORS