AUTUMN IMPRESSIONS
OF THE GIRONDE
In Crown 8vo, Cloth Gilt. Price 6s.
RUSSIA OF TO-DAY
BY
E. VON DER BRÜGGEN
THE TIMES says:--
"Few among the numerous books dealing with the Russian Empire which
have appeared of late years will be found more profitable than Baron
von der Brüggen's 'Das Heutige Russland,' an English version of which
has now been published. The impression which it produced in Germany
two years ago was most favourable, and we do not hesitate to repeat
the advice of the German critics by whom it was earnestly recommended
to the notice of all political students. The author's reputation
has already been firmly established by his earlier works on 'The
Disintegration of Poland' and 'The Europeanization of Russia,' and in
the present volume his judgment appears to be as sound as his knowledge
is unquestionable."
Illustration: ANCIENT HEADDRESS IN AIRVAULT (DEUX SEVRES).
[_Frontispiece._
Autumn Impressions
of the Gironde
BY
I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING
AUTHOR OF
"Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman," and
"A Turning Point of the Indian Mutiny."
Once or twice, in every life--it may be in one form, it may be in
another--there comes one day the possibility of a glimpse through the
Magic Gates of Idealism. Some of us are not close enough to the opening
gates to catch a sight of what lies beyond, but in the eyes of those
who have seen--there is from that moment an ineffaceable, unforgettable
longing.
[Illustration]
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
Digby, Long & Co.
18, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.
1910
TO FRANCE--
THE COUNTRY OF MANY IDEALS
PREFACE
To each man or woman of us there is the Country of our Ideals. The
ideals may be newly aroused; they may be of long standing. But some
time or other, in some way or other, there is the country; there is the
place; there is the sunny spot in our imagination-world which _calls_
to us--and calls to us in no uncertain voice.
It is true we are not always susceptible to that call: it is true we
are not always responsive, but it is there all the same. Sometimes
there comes to us a day when that "call" is insistent, all-compelling,
irresistible; a day in which it sounds with indescribable music,
indescribable vibration, through that inner world into which we all go
now and again, when days are monotonous or depressing.
It is impossible to conjecture why some country, some place, some
woman, should make that indescribable appeal which lays a hand on
the latch of those gates leading to that world of imagination which
exists in most of us far, far below the placid, shallow waters of
conventionalism. It is impossible to conjecture when or where the
voice and the call will sound in our ears. The man who hears it will
recognise what it means, but will in no way be able to account for it.
He will only know with what infinite satisfaction he is sensible of the
touch which enables him to "slip through the magic gates," as a great
friend once expressed it, into the world of Idealism, of Imagination.
True, the pleasure, the satisfaction, is elusive. He can lay no hand
upon those wonderful moments which come thus to him. Even before he
is aware that they have begun, he is conscious that they are already
slipping out of his grasp.
What play has ever shown this more clearly than Maeterlinck's "Blue
Bird"? Though the children go from glory to glory of lustrous
imagination, though they can go back to the land of Old Memories, to
the land of the Future, yet they cannot stay there. Though they see and
rejoice to the full in the "Blue Bird," the spirit of Happiness, yet
that one soft stroking of its feathers is all that is possible before
it flies away. For every Ideal is winged: every Conception of Happiness
but a passing vision. We have but to attempt to grasp them to find
their elusiveness is a fact from which we cannot get away.
For me, the France about which I have written in the following pages is
a country which calls to me from the world of my ideals, from the world
of my imagination. From across the seas that call stirs me and thrills
me indescribably. It is not the France of the Parisian; it is not the
France of the automobilist; it is not the France of the Cook's tourist.
It is the France upon whose shores one steps at once into _the land of
many ideals_.
I should like here to thank three friends, Messieurs Henri Guillier,
Goulon, and E. G. Sieveking, who have most kindly given me permission
to print their photographs of the part of France through which I
travelled, and more than all, the greatest friend of all, who alone
made the journey possible.
I. Giberne Sieveking.
Autumn Impressions
of the Gironde
CHAPTER I
"Mails first!" shouted the captain from the upper deck, as the steamer
from Newhaven brought up alongside the landing stage at Dieppe, and the
eager flow of the tide of passengers, anxious to forget on dry land how
roughly the "cradle of the deep" had lately rocked them, was stayed.
I looked round on the woe-begone faces of those who had answered the
call of the sea, and whose reply had been so long and so wearisome
to themselves. Why is it that a smile is always ready in waiting
at the very idea of sea-sickness? There is nothing humorous in its
presentment; nothing in its discomfort to the sufferers; but yet to the
bystander it invariably presents the idea of something comic, and, to
the man whose inside turns a somersault at the first lurch of the wave
against the side of the steamer, _mal-de-mer_ seems both a belittling,
as well as a very uncomfortable, part to play!
At Dieppe the train practically starts in the street; and while it
waited for its full complement of passengers, two or three countrywomen
came and knocked with their knuckles against the sides of the
carriages, and held up five ruddy-cheeked pears for sale. (One uses the
term "ruddy-cheeked" for apples, so why not for pears, which shew as
much cheek as the former, only of a different shape?)
The Dining-Car Service of the "_Chemin de fer de L'Ouest_," at Dieppe
airs some delightful "English" in its advertisement cards. For
instance: "A dining-car runs ordinary with the follow trains." "Second
and Third Class passengers having finished their meals can only remain
in the Dining-Car until the first stopping place after the station
at which a series of meals terminates and if the exigencies of the
service will permit." "Between meals.--First class passengers have
free use of the Restaurant at any time, and may remain therein during
the whole or part of the journey, if the exigencies of the service
will permit, and notably before the commencement of the first series
of meals and after the last one." "Second and Third Class passengers
can only be admitted to that section of the Restaurant which is
very clearly indicated (sic) for their use, for refreshments or the
purchase of provisions between two consecutive stopping points only.
All Second and Third Class passengers infringing these conditions must
pay the difference from second or third to first class for that part
of the journey effected in the Dining-Car in infraction (sic) with
the regulations." There is also this very tantalus-like notification:
"Various drinks as per tariff exhibited in the cars!" One half expects
to see this followed by: "Persons are requested not to touch the
exhibits!"
Beyond Dieppe the country is mostly divided up into squares, flanked by
rows of trees, looking in the distance more like rows of ninepins than
anything else. From time to time, along the line, we passed cottages,
in front of which stood a countrywoman in frilled cap and blue skirt,
"at attention," as it were, holding in her hand, evidently as a badge
of office and signal to our engine-driver, a round stick, sometimes
red, sometimes purple.
Some of these signallers stood absorbed in the importance of the work
in hand, (or rather stick in hand), but others had an eye to the
main chance of their own households, which was being enacted in the
cottage behind them, whether it concerned culinary arrangements or the
goings-on of the children, and while she wielded the _batôn_ in the
service of her country, she minded (as we have been so often assured is
woman's distinctive, though somewhat narrowed, province!) things of low
estate--such as her saucepan, her _pot-au-feu_, her baby.
In the far corner of our carriage, in black beaver, cassock and heavy
cloak, with parchment-like countenance, much-lined brow, and controlled
mouth, sat a young _curé_. He was engaged in saying a prolonged
"Office," but this did not hinder him from taking occasionally, "for
his stomach's sake, and his other infirmities," a little snuff from
time to time.
We were bound for Paris, _en route_ for Arcachon. The train, as it went
along, disturbed crowds of finches, and amongst them here and there a
large sort of bird with black head and wings and white back, which I
could not identify, though it seemed to belong to the crow tribe, to
judge by the shape of its body and manner of its flight.
From time to time we passed little sheltered villages: quiet,
grey-roofed, sentinelled by the inevitable poplar, and traversed
by a little softly-shining stream. The meadows were full of soft,
feathery-plumaged trees, of all shades of delicate tints; from the
yellow tint of the evening primrose to the pink of the campion, and the
shade of a robin's breast. An old countrywoman in a full satiny skirt,
carrying a long pole over her shoulder, was striding energetically
across a field as we passed.
How one country gives the lie to another which holds as a
dictum--immutable, irreversible--that outdoor labour is not possible
for women! All over France men and women share equally the toil of the
fields, and no one can say that it has not developed a strong, healthy
type of woman, nor that the work is not effectively done. In some
places I even saw women at work on the railway lines.
A few miles farther on we came upon an orchard of leafless fruit-trees
sprawling across a soft green slope; behind them, a little forest of
pine trees, their bare trunks _chassez-croisezing_ against a pale
saffron sky as we whirled by. Gnarled willows, with a diaphanous purple
haze upon their bare boughs, came into sight, a goat quietly grazing at
their roots; little meandering streams pottering quietly along between
willow trees; here and there splendid old slated-roofed farm-houses,
some with climbing trees trained up the front in regular, parallel
lines.
Soon little plantations appeared, covered over with diminutive vines
trailed up stout, white sticks; at a little distance they looked like
clusters of dried red-brown leaves tied up by the stem, and drooping at
the top. Seen in the gloom, from a little distance in the train, these
lines of _petits vignoles_ looked like a detachment of foot soldiers
marching in file, with rifle on shoulder. We had, of course, come just
too late for the vintage; the day of the vines was over for this year.
Now and again we caught sight of long strips of some vivid green plant,
unknown to me, but resembling nothing so much as a certain delicious
chicory and cream omelet on which we had regaled ourselves at Paris!
Magpies, here and there, fluttered over the white stretch of sandy
road, giving the effect of black letter type on a dazzling white page
of paper.
An old woman in a blue skirt presented, as she bent over the stubble,
a sort of counter-paned back, patched with all sorts of different
coloured pieces of cloth: a little further on, a man, in white apron
and bib, was strolling along a furrow scattering handfuls of what
looked like white flour from a basket slung over his left arm. Up a
winding country road wound groups of blue-smocked villagers; the women
frilled-capped, the men baggily-trousered. Under the roofs of some
of the cottages were hanging bunches of some herb or other to dry.
At the corner of the road a picturesque blue cart was lying on its
side, making a useful bit of local colour, though _passé_ as regards
utilitarian purposes. On the higher ground were windmills, dotted about
in profusion: some of them had taken up a position on the top of some
pointed cottage roof.
Over some of the cultivated strips of land were placed, at intervals,
sticks with what suggested a touzled head of hair, but which was in
reality composed of loose strands of straw. Along the sides of these
strips lie _citronnes_ (which, on mature acquaintanceship with the
district, I find are a sort of vegetable used largely in soup) strewn
loosely and carelessly about on the ground to ripen. The trees not
far from St. Pierre des Corps seem a great deal infested by various
kinds of fungi: that kind, whose scientific name I forget, which
grows bunchily, in shape like a bird's nest, and which give a sort of
uncombed appearance to the branches.
We had intended, originally, to stop at Tours for the night but,
finding that our doing so would involve two changes, we altered our
minds, and determined to go straight on to Bordeaux. Then ensued the
enormous difficulty of rescuing our luggage; for, as everyone who has
travelled much abroad knows, the "red tape" which is always tied, with
great outward ceremony and pomp of circumstance, round one's goods and
chattels when travelling by train, is exceedingly difficult to undo,
and especially so at short notice.
However, my companion plunged promptly _in medias res_ when, at the
Junction, the train allowed us a few minutes on the loose, and we
contrived to get our luggage out of the consignment labelled for
Tours--though it was at the very bottom of all the other trunks--and
transferred into the Bordeaux train, while I secured from the buffet a
basket of pears, some rolls and cold chicken, flanked by a bottle of
_vin ordinaire_. And, while on the subject of _vin ordinaire_, though
there is an old, well-worn saying to the intent that "good wine needs
no bush," yet I cannot help planting a little shrub to the honour of
the wine of the country in the fair country of the Gironde.
Without exception, I found it excellent, and I can say in all
sincerity, that I do not desire a better meal or better wine to wash
it down, while travelling, than is put before one in the restaurants
of Bordeaux and the neighbourhood, especially in the country villages.
Seldom have I spent happier meal-times than were those I passed
opposite the two sentinelling bottles, one of white wine, the other
of red, which flanked (without money and without price) the simple,
excellently-cooked, second _déjeuner_ or _table d'hôte_, whichever it
might chance to be.
Dr. Thomas Fuller, of blessed memory, has left behind the wise
injunction that no man should travel before his "wit be risen." An
addendum might very well be added that he should not travel before his
judgment be up as well, and if Englishmen, who travel so much more
in body than in spirit, always saw to it that both their "wit" and
their judgment accompanied them to valet their mental equipment on
their travels, their somewhat insular views as regards foreign ways of
doing things, and foreign productions (such as the much, and unjustly,
decried _vin ordinaire_, for instance,) would be brushed up and cleared
of the cobwebs of tradition that are, in so many cases, over them even
in the present year of grace.
To return, after this digression. After leaving Blois, the land was
mapped out in larger squares of vineyards, in which a different kind
of vine was growing: taller and bigger than the ones we had passed
earlier in the day. These were dark brown in leafage, topped by a
sort of flowery head. At the head of all the trees, that were denuded
of foliage, there was a little round cap of yellow leaves, growing
conically, and presenting a very curious effect when seen on the verge
of a distant line of landscape. In France trees are assisted and
instructed in their manner of growth.
Poitiers was our next stop; it was just growing dusk as we slowed into
the station. Surely few cities offer more suggestive environment for
mystery and romance than does Poitiers, seen by the fading light of
a November afternoon. Dim heights surround the city; a broad, grey
river, in parts a dazzle of steely points, flows round the outskirts; a
glimpse is seen here and there, of spire, tower and battlements rising
from out the midst of wooded heights; of grey, winding roads leading
steeply down from the city on the hill, to the valleys and ravines
beneath.
We had an additional adjunct to the general picturesqueness in a
long procession of priests, some wearing birettas, some sombreros,
accompanied by serried ranks of country-women in the long-backed white
caps peculiar to the district, with long, stiff white strings hanging
loose over the shoulder. It was evidently the end of some pilgrimage.
Poitiers is a city of many priests and religious orders, both of men
and women; of monasteries and nunneries.
When the procession had wended its way out of the station, the platform
was appropriated by men carrying baskets of eggs, coloured with
cochineal. Now, as everyone who has travelled much in this part of
France is aware, really new-laid eggs, and matches, are apparently not
indigenous, so to speak, for neither can be procured without enormous
difficulty. I could have made quite a fortune over a few little boxes
of English safety matches I possessed! Nevertheless, sufficiently
ill-advised as to buy some of these eggs, we found that the colour was
distinctly appropriate; for the red of the eggs' autumn was upon them,
both materially and metaphorically.
This information was conveyed to us promptly on "taking their caps off"
(as a child once happily expressed it to me). Their "autumn" tints
were very much "turned" indeed, and, in consequence, they speedily
made their "last appearance on any stage" on the road far beneath! I
remember on one occasion when remonstrating with the proprietor of
a hotel, regarding the flavour of much keeping that hung about his
new-laid eggs, he remarked that he only "took them as the _poulets_
laid them down!"
Directly after quitting Poitiers the air began to feel sensibly warmer,
until, when near Bordeaux, it became quite soft and balmy. At Libourne,
opposite our carriage was a cattle truck with this label upon it--"_Un
cheval, trois chèvres, deux chiens, non accompagnées_" and, while
reading it, from the dark interior--for oral information--there came
two or three pathetic little bleats! Were they, we wondered, from one
of the three goats, who were no longer unaccompanied, but too closely
in company with one of the dogs? Before we had time for more than
momentary speculation, the double blast of the guard's tin trumpet
blared; there sounded his regulation short whistle, his hoarse cry of
"_En voiture_," the final wave, then the tip-tap of his sabots along
the platform; a final glimpse of his flat white cap, swinging hooded
cloak, and swaying, four-sided lantern, while he turned to grasp
the handle of his van, as the engine, started at last by reiterated
suggestion, moved slowly out of the station.
As the train had a prolonged wait at the first of the two Bordeaux
stations, eventually we did not reach our end of Bordeaux till between
ten and eleven o'clock at night, and far nearer to eleven than ten.
Then ensued a long search for our possessions, sunk deep in the nether
regions of the luggage van. When at length they were unearthed we
started through darkened, noisy streets for our destination, which
it seemed to take an eternity of jolting over rough cobbled stones
to reach. However, we did reach it in course of time, and found the
proprietor, a sleepy chambermaid, and a _concierge_ in the hall of the
hotel to receive us.
As one steps over the threshold of any hotel, whether it be at morning,
noon or night, one is conscious I think, at once, of being greeted by
a whiff of the hotel's own local spiritual atmosphere: its personal
note of individuality, so to speak; and, as it reaches one, there is
an immediate instinct of self-congratulation (if the atmosphere be a
pleasant one), or of regret at one's choice, if the reverse be the
case. In this case it was the latter, but we had gone too far (and too
late!) to retreat now.
Nearly all French hotel bedrooms that I have ever been in seem to
have a surplusage of doors; it may be due to the same idea as when,
in the case of a theatre, numerous exits are provided to ensure the
safety of the audience; but, whatever the reason, the fact remains
that the doors are largely in excess of what we consider necessary in
England. Sometimes, indeed, one can hardly see the room for the doors!
Sometimes, again, besides having a few dozen doors on each side of the
bedroom, the windows open on to a balcony which is connected with all
the other bedrooms on that side of the hotel, and, to give as much
insecurity as possible, the windows decline to shut! It is thus indeed
brought home to me that the French are pre-eminently a sociable people!
A man told me that once he slept in a bedroom abroad which had eleven
doors. Three or four of them opened into large _salons_.
Then, too, there is so often a difficulty about the keys of the
emergency (?) doors. In most cases that I remember there were no keys;
either they had never been fitted with them, or else they had been
found to be a superfluity and lost. And all the precaution the occupier
of the room could take against invasion was a diminutive little bolt,
too weak and flimsy to be of any real use.
I remember sleeping once in a room of this sort, where the doors
were innocent of any locks or keys, and my companion and I took the
precaution, therefore, before retiring to rest, of piling up a tower
(which would have been a tower of Babel had it fallen!) of all sorts
and kinds of articles. It reached, I think, almost to the top of the
door.
In the morning, roused by the knock of the chambermaid, we only just
remembered in time, after calling out the customary permission to her
to enter, to rescind that permission. This last proved indeed a saving
clause for her, as the door opened outwards!
The bedroom at Bordeaux had three doors. And the proprietor and
chambermaid to whom we showed our dissatisfaction at there being, as
usual, no keys, evidently considered us very childish to make a fuss
over such a trifle.
Some other gentleman was sleeping next door, and I furtively tried
the bolt which was on our side, to see if it was pushed as far as
it would go. This roused the proprietor's wrath, as he declared the
gentleman was one of his oldest customers, and had been in bed some
hours! After quieting him down, we barricaded the doors in such ways as
were possible to us, after his and the chambermaid's departure, and,
retiring to rest, passed an uneventful night. The next morning we made
tracks for Arcachon.