Poitiers abounds in antiquities of one kind or another; and there
is a great variety and originality in its old buildings. Old stone
doorways and steep conical roofs are to be seen, specially in Pilory
Square. Hemming them in were purple-tinted trees, which made a fringe
of delicate embroidery against the cold slate of the houses. Under one
of the houses in Rue Cloche Perse were magnificent cellars, or caves,
with massive round arches, and the ceiling of rough masonry blackened
with age. The men who showed me the place declared the "_caillouc_" was
known to be Roman work, and the door above to be thirteenth century, or
earlier. Some of the old houses are tiled all down their frontage, and
the effect on the eye is a soft violet of diagonal pattern. Some are
square, some pointed. The house to which St. Jeanne d'Arc came in 1428
is one of the latter. Over the door is the inscription: "Ne hope, ne
fear, Safe in mid-stream;" and these words placed there by _La Société
des Antiquaires de l'Ouest, Mars, 1892_.
_Ici était
l'hôtellerie de la Rose,
Jeanne d'Arc y logea
en Mars, 1429 (sic)
Elle en partit, pour alier délivrer
Orléans
Assiégé par les Anglais._
It is evident that formerly there was some crest affixed to the
frontage. Inside the old black fireplace in one of the front rooms had
been a statue in days gone by. The house of Diane de Poitiers is roofed
in greyish lilac slates, alternating with red tiles.
One cannot come to Poitiers without being insistently aware of the
_charbonnier_--the minstrel of the street. The shrill characteristic
"Root-toot-toot-toot-toot-toot-toot-toot-TOO--!" of his little brass
trumpet every three minutes during most parts of the day, sometimes
_crescendo_, sometimes _diminuendo_ according to its distance are
special features of the streets of Poitiers. He is accompanied by his
little covered cart, with its flapping green curtains, in which sit
Madame, and his stock of charcoal.
Most of the street cries here are in the minor key--are in fact exactly
like the first part of a Gregorian chant, and sound very melodiously
on one's ear when heard at a little distance. I met a woman pushing a
barrow once, containing a little of everything: fish, endive, apples,
sweets, and little odds and ends, so to speak, waifs and strays of
food. She was singing to a little melody of her own, "_Des pe ... tites
choses! des pe ... tites choses!_"
Round about Poitiers are many charming old _châteaux_, each one so
distinctly French in character and individuality, that they could, by
no possibility, have their nationality mistaken. At Neuville-de-Poitou
are some curious old monumental stones: "_Dolmen de la Pierre-Levée_."
Illustration: CASTLE AVANTON, VIENNE.
[_Page 112._
In our hotel, every evening, regularly at _table d'hôte_, appeared
a genuine old specimen of the _haute-noblesse_. He was all one had
ever dreamed of as an old marquis of an extinct _régime_! A sour,
disappointed expression, (which he fed by drinking quantities of
lemon-juice,) dominated his face, though through this could be seen an
air of faded dignity which set him apart from the common herd who sat
to right and left of him. Somehow or other, he conveyed to that noisy
_salle-à-manger_ the subtle atmosphere of some old castle in other
days. One saw the splendid old panelled room in which he might have sat
among the family portraits of many generations around him. Surrounding
him many signs and tokens of ancient nobility, and that great army of
unseen retainers that fenced him about wherever he went-his traditions.
It was true he had to sit cheek by jowl with the _commis voyageur_, the
_bourgeois_, the Cook's tourist, and _seemed_ to be of them, but in
reality he lived in another atmosphere. And as all the world knows,
nothing separates one man from another so completely, so finally, as a
certain essence of spiritual atmosphere.
Along the line from Poitiers to Rouen were trees of flaming tawny and
russet tints. The effect of the snow which had fallen over the fields
the previous night, was that of beaten white of egg having settled
itself flat, and having been forked over in a regular pattern. The
cabbages looked pinched and shrunken with the curl all out of their
plumage. The whole landscape was backed by a deep lilac flush over the
rising woodlands on the horizon. There is something in the straight,
unswerving upward growth of the poplar which relieves the plains from
their otherwise dead level monotony. This is the secret of all life. It
must have contrast. It is not like to like which saves in the crucial
moment of crisis, it is rather the power of the sudden, startling
contrast.
After passing Orléans we came upon trees only partly despoiled of their
leaves, which looked gorgeous in their new livery of white and gold,
for the snow had fallen only upon the bare boughs. As the afternoon
grew darker, the cold white glare of the fields shone more and more
vividly, broken only by the whirl of the succeeding furrows, and the
little copses of violet brown brushwood as the train raced along.
Then, later, came a long sombre belt of pines, the light shewing dimly
between the trunks. Anon, a chalk cutting, now a winking flare from the
lights of some passing wayside station.
As we neared Rouen, we could see the Seine flowing close below the line
of rail. It was moonlight, and the trees which lined its banks shone
reflected clear and delicately outlined in the swirling water below.
Every now and then a ripple caught the dazzling, steely glitter, and
blazed up, as if the facets of a diamond had flashed them back, as the
waves rose and fell. To the right, in the middle distance, long lines
of undulating hills lay gloomy and sombre. Then--the train slowed into
the vast city of innumerable traditions, and mediæval romance--Rouen.