Mme. Ducros--A Southern French country town--"Tartarin de
Tarascon"--His prototypes at Nyons--M. Sisteron the roysterer--The
Southern French--An octogenarian pesteur--French
industry--"Bone-shakers"--A wonderful
"Cordon-bleu"--"Slop-basin"--French legal procedure--The
bons-vivants--The merry French judges--La gaiete francaise--Delightful
excursions--Some sleepy old towns--Orange and Avignon--M. Thiers'
ingenious cousin--Possibilities--French political situation in
1874--The Comte de Chambord--Some French characteristics--High
intellectual level--Three days in a Trappist Monastery--Details of life
there--The Arian heresy--Silkworm culture--Tendencies of French to
complicate details--Some examples--Cicadas in London.
As it had already been settled that I was to enter the Diplomatic
Service, my father very wisely determined that I should leave Harrow as
soon as I was seventeen to go to France, in order to learn French
thoroughly. As he pointed out, it would take three years at least to
become proficient in French and German, and it would be as well to
begin at once.
The French tutor selected for me enjoyed a great reputation at that
time. Oddly enough, she was a woman, but it will be gathered that she
was quite an exceptional woman, when I say that she had for years ruled
four unruly British cubs, varying in age from seventeen to twenty, with
an absolute rod of iron. Mme. Ducros was the wife of a French judge,
she spoke English perfectly, and must have been in her youth a
wonderfully good-looking woman. She was very tall, and still adhered to
the dress and headdress of the "sixties," wearing little bunches of
curls over each ear--a becoming fashion, even if rather reminiscent of
a spaniel.
The Ducros lived at Nyons in the south of France. Nyons lay twenty-five
miles east of the main line from Paris to Marseilles, and could only be
reached by diligence. I think that I can safely say that no foreigner
(with the exception of the Ducros' pupils) had ever set foot in Nyons,
for the place was quite unknown, and there was nothing to draw
strangers there. It was an extraordinarily attractive spot, lying in a
little circular cup of a valley of the Dauphine Alps, through which a
brawling river had bored its way. Nyons was celebrated for its wine,
its olive oil, its silk, and its truffles, all of them superlatively
good. The ancient little walled town, basking in this sun-trap of a
valley, stood out ochre-coloured against the silver-grey background of
olive trees, whilst the jagged profiles of the encircling hills were
always mistily blue, with that intense blue of which the Provence hills
seem alone to have the secret. So few English people knew anything
about the conditions of life in a little out-of-the-way French
provincial town, where no foreigners have ever set foot, that it may be
worth while saying something about them. In the first place, it must
have been deadly dull for the inhabitants, for nothing whatever
happened there. Even the familiar "tea and tennis," the stereotyped
mild dissipation of little English towns, was quite unknown. There was
no entertaining of any sort, beyond the formal visits the ladies were
perpetually paying each other. The Ducros alone, occasionally, asking
their legal friends to dinner, invitations accepted with the utmost
enthusiasm, for the culinary genius who presided over the Ducros'
kitchen (M. Dueros' own sister) deservedly enjoyed an enormous local
reputation.
Most people must be familiar with Alphonse Daudet's immortal work,
Tartarin de Tarascon, in which the typical "Meridional" of Southern
France is portrayed with such unerring exactitude that Daudet himself,
after writing the book, was never able to set foot in Tarascon again.
We had a cercle in Nyons, in the Place Napoleon (re-christened Place de
la Republique after September 4, 1870), housed in three rather stately,
sparsely furnished, eighteenth-century rooms. Here, with the exception
of Tartarin himself, the counterparts of all Daudet's characters were
to be found. "Le Capitaine Bravida" was represented by Colonel Olivier,
a fiercely moustached and imperialled Crimean veteran, who perpetually
breathed fire and swords on any potential enemy of France. "Costecalde"
found his prototype in M. Sichap, who, although he had in all
probability never fired off a gun in his life, could never see a tame
pigeon, or even a sparrow flying over him, without instantly putting
his walking-stick to his shoulder and loudly ejaculating, "Pan, pan,"
which was intended to counterfeit the firing of both barrels of a gun.
I once asked M. Sichap why so excellent a shot as he (with a
walking-stick) invariably missed his bird with his first barrel, and
only brought him down with his second. This was quite a new light to M.
Sichap, who had hithered considered the double "Pan, pan," an
indispensable adjunct to the pantomime of firing a gun; much as my
young brother and I had once imagined "Ug, ug," an obligatory
commencement to any remark made by a Red Indian "brave."
In so remote a place as Nyons, over four hundred miles from the
capital, the glamour of Paris exercised a magical attraction. The few
inhabitants of Nyons who had ever visited Paris, or even merely passed
through it, were never quite as other people, some little remnant of an
aureole encircled them. The dowdy little wife of M. Pelissier, who had
first seen the light in some grubby suburb of Paris, either
Levallois-Perret or Clichy, held an immense position in Nyons on the
strength of being "une vraie Parisienne," and most questions of taste
were referred to her. M. Sisteron, the collector of taxes, himself a
native of Nyons, had twenty years before gone to Paris on business, and
spent four days there. There were the darkest rumours current in Nyons,
to the effect that M. Sisteron had spent these four days in a whirl of
the most frantic and abandoned dissipation. It was popularly supposed
that these four days in Paris, twenty years ago, had so completely
unsettled M. Sisteron that life in Nyons had lost all zest for him. He
was perpetually hungering for the delirious joys of the metropolis;
even the collection of taxes no longer afforded him the faintest
gratification. Every inhabitant of Nyons was secretly proud of being
able to claim so dare-devil a roysterer as a fellow-townsman. The
memory of those rumored four hectic days in Paris clung round him like
a halo; it became almost a pleasure to pay taxes to so celebrated a
character. M. Sisteron was short, paunchy, bald, and bearded. He was a
model husband and a pattern as a father. I am persuaded that he had
spent those four days in Paris in the most blameless and innocuous
fashion, living in the cheapest hotel he could find, and, after the
manner of the people of Nyons, never spending one unnecessary franc.
Still, the legend of his lurid four days, and of the amount of
champagne he had consumed during them, persisted. In moments of
expansion, his intimate friends would dig him in the ribs, remembering
those four feverish days, with a facetious, "Ah! vieux polisson de
Sisteron, va! Nous autres, nous n'avons pas fait des farces a Paris
dans notre jeunesse!" to M. Sisteron's unbounded delight. It was in the
genuine spirit of Tartarin de Tarascon, with all the mutual
make-believe on both sides. His wife, Mme. Sisteron, was fond of
assuring her friends that she owed her excellent health to the fact
that she invariably took a bath twice a year, whether she required it
or not.
The other members of the cercle were also mostly short, tubby,
black-bearded, and olive-complexioned. When not engaged in playing
"manille" for infinitesimal points, they would all shout and
gesticulate violently, as only Southern Frenchmen can, relapsing as the
discussion grew more heated into their native Provencal, for though
Nyons is geographically in Dauphine, climatically and racially it is in
Provence. In Southern France the "Langue d'Oil," the literary language
of Paris and Northern France, has never succeeded in ousting the
"Langue d'Oc," the language of the Troubadours. From hearing so much
Provencal talked round me, I could not help picking up some of it. It
was years before I could rid myself of the habit of inquiring quezaco?
instead of "qu'est ce que c'est?" and of substituting for "Comment cela
va-t-il?" the Provencal Commoun as? I found, too, that it was unusual
elsewhere to address people in our Nyons fashion as "Te, mon bon!"
Those swarthy, amply waistcoated, voluble little men were really very
good fellows in spite of their excitability and torrents of talk.
The Southern Frenchmen divide Europe into the "Nord" and the "Midi."
The "Nord" is hardly worth talking about, the sun never really shines
there, and no garlic or oil is used in cookery in those benighted
regions. The town of Lyons is considered to be in the "Nord," although
we should consider it well in the south of France. To the curious in
such matters, it may be pointed out that the line of demarcation
between "Nord" and "Midi" is perfectly well defined. In travelling from
Paris to Marseilles, between Valence and Montelimar, the observer will
note that quite abruptly the type of house changes. In place of the
high-pitched roof of Northern Europe the farm-houses suddenly assume
flat roofs of fluted tiles, with projecting eaves, after the Italian
fashion; at the same time the grey-green olive trees put in a first
appearance. Then you are in the "Midi," and any black-bearded,
olive-complexioned, stumpy little men in the carriage will give a sigh
of relief, for now, at last, the sun will begin to shine.
Nyons had been for two hundred years a Huguenot stronghold, so for a
French town an unusual proportion of its inhabitants were Protestants,
and there was, oddly enough, a colony of French Wesleyans there.
M. Ducros' father had been the Protestant pasteur of Nyons for
forty-four years. He was eighty-six years old, and on week-days the old
gentleman dozed in the sun all day, and was quite senile and gaga. On
Sundays, no sooner had he ascended the pulpit than his faculties seemed
to return to him, and he would preach interminable but perfectly
coherent sermons with a vigour astonishing in so old a man, only to
relapse into childishness again on returning home, and to remain senile
till the following Sunday.
The Ducros lived in a large farm-house on the outskirts of the town. It
was a farm without any livestock, for there is no grass whatever in
that part of France, and consequently no pasture for cattle or sheep.
Every one in Nyons kept goats for milk, and, quaintly enough, they fed
them on the dried mulberry leaves the silkworms had left over. For
every one reared silkworms too, a most lucrative industry. The French
speak of "making" silkworms (faire des vers-a-soie). Lucrative as it
is, it would never succeed in England even if the white mulberry could
be induced to grow, for successful silkworm rearing demands such
continual watchfulness and meticulous attention as only French people
can give; English people "couldn't be bothered" to expend such minute
care on anything they were doing.
Every foot of the Ducros' property was carefully cultivated, with
vineyards above on the terraced hillside, olive-yards below, and
mulberry trees on the lower levels. Our black mulberry, with its
cloying, luscious fruit, is not the sort used for silkworms; it is the
white mulberry, which does not fruit, that these clever little
alchemists transmute into glossy, profitable cocoons of silk. The
Ducros made their own olive-oil, and their own admirable wine.
In that sun-drenched cup amongst the hills, roses bloomed all the year
round. I always see Nyons with my inner eyes from the terrace in front
of the house, the air fragrant with roses, and the soothing gurgle of
the fountain below in my ears as it splashed melodiously into its stone
reservoir, the little town standing out a vivid yellow against the
silver background of olive trees, and the fantastic outlines of the
surrounding hills steeped in that wonderful deep Provencal blue. In
spite of its dullness, I and the three other pupils liked the place. We
all grew very fond of the charming Ducros family, we appreciated the
wonderful beauty of the little spot, we climbed all the hills, and,
above all, we had each hired a velocipede. Not a bicycle (except that
it certainly had two wheels); not a so-called "ordinary," as those
machines with one immensely high, shining, nickel-plated wheel and a
little dwarf brother following it, were for some inexplicable reason
termed; but an original antediluvian velocipede, a genuine
"bone-shaker": a clumsy contrivance with two high wooden wheels of
equal height, and direct action. Even on the level they required an
immense amount of muscle to drive them along, and up the smallest hill
every ounce of available strength had to be brought into play. They did
not steer well, were very difficult to get on and off, and gave us some
awful falls; still we got an immense amount of fun out of them, and we
scoured all the surrounding country on them, until all four of us
developed gigantic calves which would have done credit to any
coal-heaver.
M. Ducros' sister was a brilliant culinary genius such as is only found
in France. We were given truffled omelets, wonderful salads of eggs,
anchovies, and tunny-fish, ducks with oranges and olives, and other
delicacies of the Provencal cuisine prepared by a consummate artist,
and those four English cubs termed them all "muck," and clamoured for
plain roast mutton and boiled potatoes. It really was a case of casting
pearls before swine! Those ignorant hobbledehoys actually turned up
their noses at the admirable "Cotes du Rhone" wine, and begged for
beer. In justice I must add that we were none of us used to truffles or
olives, nor to the oil which replaces butter in Provencal cookery.
Mlle. Louise, the sister, was pained, but not surprised. She had never
left Nyons, and, from her experience of a long string of English
pupils, was convinced that all Englishmen were savages. They inhabited
an island enveloped in dense fog from year's end to year's end. They
had never seen the sun, and habitually lived on half-raw "rosbif." It
was only natural that such young barbarians should fail to appreciate
the cookery of so celebrated a cordon-bleu, which term, I may add, is
only applicable to a woman-cook, and can never be used of a man. This
truly admirable woman made us terrines of truffled foie-gras such as
even Strasburg could not surpass, and gave them to us for breakfast. I
blush to own that those four benighted boys asked for eggs and bacon
instead.
Although M. Ducros had heard English talked around him for so many
years, he had all the average Frenchman's difficulty in assimilating
any foreign language. His knowledge of our tongue was confined to one
word only, and that a most curiously chosen word. "Slop-basin" was the
beginning and end of his knowledge of the English language. M. Ducros
used his one word of English only in moments of great elation. Should,
for instance, his sister Mlle. Louise have surpassed herself in the
kitchen, M. Ducros, after tasting her chef d'oeuvre, would joyously
ejaculate, "Slop-basin!" several times over. It was understood in his
family that "slop-basin" always indicated that the master of the house
was in an extremely contented frame of mind.
The judicial system of France is not as concentrated as ours. Every
Sous-prefecture in France has its local Civil Court with a Presiding
Judge, an Assistant Judge, and a "Substitut." The latter, in small
towns, is the substitute for the Procureur de la Republique, or Public
Prosecutor. The legal profession in France is far more "clannish" than
with us, for lawyers have always played a great part in the history of
France. The so-called "Parlements" (not to be confounded with our
Parliament) had had, up to the time of the French Revolution, very
large powers indeed. They were originally Supreme Courts of Justice,
but by the fifteenth century they could not only make, on their own
account, regulations having the force of laws, but had acquired
independent administrative powers. Originally the "Parlement de Paris"
stood alone, but as time went on, in addition to this, thirteen or
fourteen local "Parlements" administered France. After the Revolution,
the term was only applied to Supreme Courts, without administrative
powers. M. Ducros was Assistant Judge of the Nyons Tribunal, and the
Ducros were rather fond of insisting that they belonged to the old
noblesse de robe.
As a child I could speak French as easily as English, and even after
eight years of French lessons at school, my French was still tucked
away in some corner of my head; but I had, of course, only a child's
vocabulary, sufficient for a child's simple wants. Under Madame Ducros'
skilful tuition I soon began to acquire an adult vocabulary, and it
became no effort to me whatever to talk.
The French judicial system seems to demand perpetual judicial inquiries
(enquetes) in little country places. M. Ducros invited me to accompany
him, the President, and the "Substitut" on one of these enquetes, and
these three, with their tremendous spirits, their perpetual jokes, and
above all with their delightful gaiete francaise, amused me so
enormously, that I jumped at a second invitation. So it came about in
time, that I invariably accompanied them, and when we started in the
shabby old one-horse cabriolet soon after 7 a.m., "notre ami le petit
Angliche" was always perched on the box. My suspicions may be
unfounded, but I somehow think that these enquetes were conducted not
so much on account of legal exigencies as for the gastronomic
possibilities at the end of the journey, for all our inquiries were
made in little towns celebrated for some local chef. These three merry
bons-vivants revelled in the pleasures of the table, and on our arrival
at our destinations, before the day's work was entered upon, there were
anxious and even heated discussions with "Papa Charron," "Pere Vinay,"
or whatever the name of the local artist might be, as to the
comparative merits of truffles or olives as an accompaniment to a
filet, or the rival claims of mushrooms or tunny-fish as a worthy
lining of an omelet. The legal business being all disposed of by two
o'clock, we four would approach the great ceremony of the day, the
midday dinner, with tense expectancy. The President could never keep
out of the kitchen, from which he returned with most assuring reports:
"Cette fois ca y est, mes amis," he would jubilantly exclaim, rubbing
his hands, and even "Papa Charron" himself bearing in the first dish,
his face scorched scarlet from his cooking-stove, would confidently
aver that "MM. les juges seront contents aujourd'hui."
The crowning seal of approbation was always put on by M. Ducros, who,
after tasting the masterpiece, would cry exultantly, "Bravo!
Slop-basin! Slop-basin!" should it fulfil his expectations. I have
previously explained that M. Ducros' solitary word of English expressed
supreme satisfaction, whilst his friends looked on, with unconcealed
admiration at their colleague's linguistic powers. It sounds like a
record of three gormandising middle-aged men; but it was not quite
that, though, like most French people, they appreciated artistic
cookery. It is impossible for me to convey in words the charm of that
delightful gaiete francaise, especially amongst southern Frenchmen. It
bubbles up as spontaneously as the sparkle of champagne; they were all
as merry as children, full of little quips and jokes, and plays upon
words. Our English "pun" is a clumsy thing compared to the finesse of a
neatly-turned French calembour. They all three, too, had an
inexhaustible supply of those peculiarly French pleasantries known as
petites gauloiseries. I know that I have never laughed so much in my
life. It is only southern Frenchmen who can preserve this unquenchable
torrent of animal spirits into middle life. I was only seventeen; they
were from twenty to thirty years my seniors, yet I do not think that we
mutually bored each other the least. They did not need the stimulus of
alcohol to aid this flow of spirits, for, like most Frenchmen of that
class, they were very abstemious, although the "Patron" always produced
for us "un bon vieux vin de derriere les fagots," or "un joli petit vin
qui fait rire." It was sheer "joie de-vivre" stimulated by the good
food and that spontaneous gaiete francaise which appeals so
irresistibly to me. The "Substitut" always preserved a rather
deferential attitude before the President and M. Ducros, for they
belonged to the magistrature assise, whilst he merely formed part of
the magistrature debout The French word magistrat is not the equivalent
of our magistrate, the French term for which is "Juge de Paix." A
magistrat means a Judge or a Public Prosecutor.
From being so much with the judges, I grew quite learned in French
legal terms, talked of the parquet (which means the Bar), and
invariably termed the grubby little Nyons law-court the Palais. I
rather fancy that I considered myself a sort of honorary member of the
French Bar. Strictly speaking, Palais only applies to a Court of Law;
old-fashioned Frenchmen always speak of the Chateau de Versailles, or
the Chateau de Fontainbleau, never of the Palais.
There was always plenty to see in these little southern towns whilst
the judges were at work. In one village there was a perfume factory,
where essential oils of sweet-scented geranium, verbena, lavender, and
thyme were distilled for the wholesale Paris perfumers; a fragrant
place, where every operation was carried on with that minute attention
to detail which the French carry into most things that they do, for,
unlike the inhabitants of an adjacent island, they consider that if a
thing is worth doing at all, it is worth taking trouble over.
In another village there was a wholesale dealer in silkworms' eggs,
imported direct from China. Besides the eggs, he had a host of Chinese
curios to dispose of, besides quaint little objects in everyday use in
China.
Above all there was Grignan, with its huge and woefully dilapidated
chateau, the home of Mme. de Sevigne's daughter, the Comtesse de
Grignan. It was to Grignan that this queen of letter-writers addressed
much of her correspondence to her adored daughter, between 1670 and
1695, and Mme. de Sevigne herself was frequently a visitor there.
Occasionally the judges, the Substitut, and I made excursions further
afield by diligence to Orange, Vaucluse, and Avignon, quite outside our
judicial orbit. Orange, a drowsy little spot, has still a splendid
Roman triumphal arch and a Roman theatre in the most perfect state of
preservation. Orange was once a little independent principality, and
gives its name to the Royal Family of Holland, the sister of the last
of the Princes of Orange having married the Count of Nassau, whence the
House of Orange-Nassau. Indirectly, sleepy little Orange has also given
its name to a widely-spread political and religious organisation of
some influence.
Vaucluse, most charming of places, in its narrow leafy valley,
surrounded by towering cliffs, is celebrated as having been the home of
Petrarch for sixteen years during the thirteen hundreds. We may hope
that his worshipped Laura sometimes brightened his home there with her
presence. The famous Fountain of Vaucluse rushes out from its cave a
full-grown river. It wastes no time in infant frivolities, but settles
down to work at once, turning a mill within two hundred yards of its
birthplace.
Avignon is another somnolent spot. The gigantic and gloomy Palace of
the Popes dominates the place, though it is far more like a fortress
than a palace. Here the Popes lived from 1309 to 1377 during their
enforced abandonment of Rome, and Avignon remained part of the Papal
dominions until the French Revolution. The President took less interest
in the Palace of the Popes than he did in a famous cook at one of the
Avignon hotels. He could hardly recall some of the plats of this noted
artist without displaying signs of deep emotion. These ancient towns on
the banks of the swift-rushing green Rhone seemed to me to be
perpetually dozing in the warm sun, like old men, dreaming of their
historic and varied past since the days of the Romans.
My French legal friends were much exercised by a recent decision of the
High Court. M. Thiers had been President of the Republic from 1870 to
1873. A distant cousin of his living in Marseilles, being in pecuniary
difficulties, had applied ineffectually to M. Thiers for assistance.
Whereupon the resourceful lady had opened a restaurant in Marseilles,
and had had painted over the house-front in gigantic letters,
"Restaurant tenu par la cousine de Monsieur Thiers." She was proceeded
against for bringing the Head of the State into contempt, was fined
heavily, and made to remove the offending inscription. My French
friends hotly contested the legality of this decision. They declared
that it was straining the sense of the particular Article of the Code
to make it applicable in such a case, and that it was illogical to
apply the law of Lese-majeste to the Head of a Republican State. The
President pertinently added that no evidence as to the quality of food
supplied in the restaurant had been taken. If bad, it might
unquestionably reflect injuriously on the Head of the State; if good,
on the other hand, in view of the admitted relationship of the
proprietress of the restaurant to him, it could only redound to M.
Thiers' credit. This opens up interesting possibilities. If
relationship to a prominent politician may be utilised for business
purposes, we may yet see in English watering-places the facades of
houses blazoned with huge inscriptions: "This Private Hotel is kept by
a fourth cousin of Lord Rose--," whilst facing it, gold lettering
proudly proclaims that "The Proprietress of this Establishment is a
distant relative of Mr. Ar--Bal--"; or, to impart variety, at the next
turning the public might perhaps be informed in gleaming capitals that
"The Cashier in this Hotel is connected by marriage with Mr. As---."
The idea really offers an unlimited field for private enterprise.
The political situation in France was very strained at the beginning of
1874. Marshal MacMahon had succeeded M. Thiers as President of the
Republic, and it was well known that the Marshal, as well as the
Royalist majority in the French Chamber, favoured the restoration of
the Bourbon Monarchy, represented by the Comte de Chambord, as head of
the elder branch. People of the type of M. Ducros, and of the President
of the Nyons Tribunal, viewed the possible return of a Legitimist
Bourbon Monarchy with the gravest apprehension. Given the character of
the Comte de Chambord, they felt it would be a purely reactionary
regime. Traditionally, the elder branch of the Bourbons were incapable
of learning anything, and equally incapable of forgetting anything.
These two shrewd lawyers had both been vigorous opponents of the
Bonapartist regime, but they pinned their faith on the Orleans branch,
inexplicably enough to me, considering the treacherous record of that
family. They never could mention the name of a member of the Orleans
family without adding, "Ah! les braves gens!" the very last epithet in
the world I should have dreamed of applying to them. All the
negotiations with the Comte de Chambord fell through, owing to his
obstinacy (to which I have referred earlier) in refusing to accept the
Tricolor as the national flag. Possibly pig-headed obstinacy; but in
these days of undisguised opportunism, it is rare to find a man who
deliberately refuses a throne on account of his convictions. I do not
think that the Comte de Chambord would have been a success in
present-day British politics. A crisis was averted by extending Marshal
MacMahon's tenure of the Presidency to seven years, the "Septennat," as
it was called. Before two years the Orleanists, who had always a keen
appreciation of the side on which their bread was buttered, "rallied"
to the Republic. I rather fancy that some question connected with the
return of the confiscated Orleans fortunes came into play here. The
adherents of the Comte de Chambord always spoke of him as Henri V. For
some reason (perhaps euphony) they were invariably known as "Henri
Quinquists." In the same way, the French people speak of the Emperor
Charles V. as "Charles Quint," never as "Charles Cinq."
My friends the Nyons lawyers were fond of alluding to themselves as
forming part of the bonne bourgeoisie. It is this bonne bourgeoisie who
form the backbone of France. Frugal, immensely industrious, cultured,
and with a very high standard of honour, they are far removed from the
frivolous, irresponsible types of French people to be seen at smart
watering-places, and they are less dominated by that inordinate love of
money which is an unpleasant element in the national character, and
obscures the good qualities of the hard-working French peasants, making
them grasping and avaricious.
It must be admitted that this class of the French bourgeoisie surveys
the world from rather a Chinese standpoint. The Celestial, as is well
known, considers all real civilisation confined to China. Every one
outside the bounds of the Middle Kingdom is a barbarian. This is rather
the view of the French bourgeois. He is convinced that all true
civilisation is centred in France, and that other countries are only
civilised in proportion as French influence has filtered through to
them. He will hardly admit that other countries can have an art and
literature of their own, especially should neither of them conform to
French standards. This is easily understood, for the average Frenchman
knows no language but his own, has never travelled, and has no
curiosity whatever about countries outside France. When, in addition,
it is remembered how paramount French literary and artistic influence
was during the greater portion of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and how universal the use of the French language was in
Northern Continental Europe amongst educated people, the point of view
becomes quite intelligible.
In spite of this, I enjoyed my excursions with these delightful French
lawyers quite enormously. The other pupils never accompanied us, for
they found it difficult to keep up a conversation in French.
The average intellectual level is unquestionably far higher in France
than in England, nor is it necessary to give, to a people accustomed
for generations to understand a demi-mot, the elaborate explanations
usually necessary in England when the conversation has got beyond the
mental standards of a child six years old. The French, too, are not
addicted to perpetual wool-gathering. Nor can I conceive of a
Frenchwoman endeavouring to make herself attractive by representing
herself as so hopelessly "vague" that she can never be trusted to
remember anything, or to avoid losing all her personal possessions.
Idiocy, whether genuine or feigned, does not appeal to the French
temperament. The would-be fascinating lady would most certainly be
referred to as "une dinde de premiere classe."
The French are the only thoroughly logical people in the world, and
their excessive development of the logical faculty leads them at times
into pitfalls. "Ils ont lesdefauts de leurs qualites." In this country
we have found out that systems, absolutely indefensible in theory, at
times work admirably well in practice, and give excellent results. No
Frenchman would ever admit that anything unjustifiable in theory could
possibly succeed in practice--"Ce n'est pas logique," he would object,
and there would be the end of it.
The Substitut informed me one day that he was making a "retreat" for
three days at the Monastery of La Trappe d'Aiguebelle, and asked me if
I would care to accompany him. To pass three days in a Trappist
Monastery certainly promised a novel experience, but I pointed out that
I was a Protestant, and that I could hardly expect the monks to welcome
me with open arms. He answered that he would explain matters, and that
the difference of religion would be overlooked. So off we started, and
after an interminable drive reached a huge, gaunt pile of buildings in
very arid surroundings. The "Hospice" where visitors were lodged stood
apart from the Monastery proper, the Chapel lying in between. It was
explained to me that I must observe the rule of absolute silence within
the building, and that I would be expected to be in bed by 8.15 p.m.
and to rise at 5 a.m. like the rest of the guests. It was further
conveyed to me that they hoped that I would see my way to attend Chapel
at 5.30 a.m., afterwards I should be free for the remainder of the day.
Talking and smoking were both permitted in the garden. I was given a
microscopic whitewashed cell, most beautifully clean, containing a very
small bed, one chair, a gas-jet, a prie-Dieu, a real human skull, and
nothing else whatever. We went to dinner in a great arched refectory,
where a monk, perched up in a high pulpit, read us Thomas a Kempis in a
droning monotone. Complete silence was observed. At La Trappe no meat
or butter is ever used, but we were given a most excellent dinner of
vegetable soup, fish, omelets, and artichokes dressed with oil,
accompanied by the monks' admirable home-grown wine. There were quite a
number of visitors making "retreats," and I had hard work keeping the
muscles of my face steady, as they made pantomimic signs to the
lay-brothers who waited on us, for more omelet or more wine. After
dinner the "Frere Hospitalier," a jolly, rotund little lay-brother, who
wore a black stole over his brown habit as a sign that he was allowed
to talk, drew me on one side in the garden. As I was a heretic (he put
it more politely) and had the day to myself, would I do him a favour?
He was hard put to it to find enough fish for all these guests; would I
catch him some trout in the streams in the forest? I asked for nothing
better, but I had no trout-rod with me. He produced a rod, SUCH a
trout-rod! A long bamboo with a piece of string tied to it! To fish for
trout with a worm was contrary to every tradition in which I had been
reared, but adaptability is a great thing, so with two turns of a spade
I got enough worms for the afternoon, and started off. The Foret
d'Aiguebelle is not a forest in our acceptation of the term, but an
endless series of little bare rocky hills, dotted with pines, and
fragrant with tufts of wild lavender, thyme and rosemary. It was
intersected with two rushing, beautifully clear streams. I cannot
conceive where all the water comes from in that arid land. In sun-baked
Nyons, water could be got anywhere by driving a tunnel into the parched
hillsides, when sooner or later an abundant spring would be tapped.
These French trout were either ridiculously unsophisticated, or else
very weary of life: they simply asked to be caught. I got quite a heavy
basket, to the great joy of the "Frere Hospitalier," and I got far more
next day. Though we had to rise at five, we got no breakfast till
eight, and a very curious breakfast it was. Every guest had a yard of
bread, and two saucers placed in front of him; one containing honey,
the other shelled walnuts. We dipped the walnuts in the honey, and ate
them with the bread, and excellent they were. In the place of coffee,
which was forbidden, we had hot milk boiled with borage to flavour it,
quite a pleasant beverage. The washing arrangements being primitive, I
waited until every one was safely occupied in Chapel for an hour and a
half, and then had a swim in the reservoir which supplied the monastery
with water, and can only trust that I did not dirty it much. I was
greatly disappointed with the singing in the severe, unadorned Chapel;
it was plainsong, without any organ or instrument. The effect of so
great a body of voices might have been imposing had not the intonation
(as kindly critics say at times of a debutante) been a little
uncertain. As Trappists never speak, one could understand their losing
their voices, but it seems curious that they should have lost their
ears as well, though possibly it was only the visitors who sang so
terribly out of tune.
I was taken all over the Monastery next day by the "Pere Hospitalier,"
who, like his brown-frocked lay-brother, wore a black stole over his
white habit, as a badge of office. With the exception of the fine
cloisters, there were no architectural features whatever about the
squat, massive pile of buildings. The modern chapel, studiously severe
in its details, bore the unmistakable imprint of Viollet-le-Duc's
soulless, mathematically correct Gothic. Personally, I think that
Viollet-le-Duc spoiled every ancient building in France which he
"restored." I was taken into the refectory to see the monks' dinners
already laid out for them. They consisted of nothing but bread and
salad, but with such vast quantities of each! Each monk had a yard-long
loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and an absolute stable-bucket of salad,
liberally dressed with oil and vinegar. The oil supplied the fat
necessary for nutrition, still it was a meagre enough dinner for men
who had been up since 3 a.m. and had done two hours' hard work in the
vegetable gardens. The "Pere Hospitalier" told me that not one scrap of
bread or lettuce would be left at the conclusion of the repast. The
immense austerity of the place impressed me very much. The monks all
slept on plank-beds, but they were not allowed to remain on these hard
resting-places after 3 a.m. Their "Rule" was certainly a very severe
one. I was told that the monks prepared Tincture of Arnica for
medicinal purposes in an adjoining factory, arnica growing wild
everywhere in the Forest, and that the sums realised by the sale of
this drug added materially to their revenues.
Next day both the Substitut and I were to be received by the Abbot. It
struck me as desirable that we should have our interviews separately,
for as the Substitut was making a "retreat," he might wish to say many
private things to the Abbot which he would not like me, a heretic, to
overhear. As soon as he had finished, I was ushered in alone to the
Abbot's parlour. I found the Abbot very dignified and very friendly,
but what possible subject of conversation could a Protestant youth of
seventeen find which would interest the Father Superior of a French
Monastery, presumably indifferent to everything that passed outside its
walls? Suddenly I had an inspiration: the Arian Heresy! We had had four
lessons on this interesting topic at Chittenden's five years earlier
(surely rather an advanced subject for little boys of twelve!), and
some of the details still stuck in my head. A brilliant idea! Soon we
were at it hammer and tongs; discussing Arius, Alexander, and
Athanasius; the Council of Nicaea, Hosius of Cordova, homo-ousion and
homoi-ousion; Eusebius of Nicomedia, and his namesake of Caesarea.
Without intending any disrespect to these two eminent Fathers of the
Church, the two Eusebius' always reminded me irresistibly of the two
Ajaxes of Offenbach's opera-bouffe. La Belle Helene, or, later on, of
the "Two Macs" of the music-hall stage of the "nineties." I blessed Mr.
Chittenden for having so thoughtfully provided me with conversational
small-change suitable for Abbots. The Abbot was, I think, a little
surprised at my theological lore. He asked me where I had acquired it,
and when I told him that it was at school, he presumed that I had been
at a seminary for youths destined for the priesthood, an idea which
would have greatly shocked the ultra-Evangelical Mr. Chittenden.
I was very glad that I had passed those three days at La Trappe, for it
gave one a glimpse into a wholly unsuspected world. The impression of
the tremendous severity with which the lives of the monks were
regulated, remained with me. The excellent monks made the most absurdly
small charges for our board and lodging. Years afterwards I spent a
night in an Orthodox Monastery in Russia, when I regretfully recalled
the scrupulous cleanliness of La Trappe. Never have I shared a couch
with so many uninvited guests, and never have I been so ruthlessly
devoured as in that Russian Monastery.
With June at Nyons, silkworm time arrived. Three old women, celebrated
for their skill in rearing silkworms, came down from the mountains, and
the magnanerie, as lofts devoted to silkworm culture are called, was
filled with huge trays fashioned with reeds. The old women had a very
strenuous fortnight or so, for silkworms demand immense care and
attention. The trays have to be perpetually cleaned out, and all stale
mulberry leaves removed, for the quality and quantity of the silk
depend on the most scrupulous cleanliness. To preserve an even
temperature, charcoal fires were lighted in the magnanerie, until the
little black caterpillars, having transformed themselves into repulsive
flabby white worms, these worms became obsessed with the desire to
increase the world's supply of silk, and to gratify them, twigs were
placed in the trays for them to spin their cocoons on. The cocoons
spun, they were all picked off, and baked in the public ovens of the
town, in order to kill the chrysalis inside. Nothing prettier can be
imagined than the streets of Nyons, with white sheets laid in front of
every house, each sheet heaped high with glittering, shimmering,
gleaming piles of silk-cocoons, varying in shade from palest
straw-colour to deep orange. If pleasant to the eye, they were less
grateful to the nose, for freshly baked cocoons have the most offensive
odour. The silk-buyers from Lyons then made their appearance, and these
shining heaps of gold thread were transformed into a more portable form
of gold, which found its way into the pockets of the inhabitants.
The peculiarly French capacity for taking infinite pains, of which a
good example is this silkworm culture, has its drawbacks, when carried
into administrative work. My friend M. David, the post-master of Nyons,
showed me his official instructions. They formed a volume as big as a
family Bible. It would have taken years to learn all these regulations.
The simplest operations were made enormously complicated. Let any one
compare the time required for registering a letter or a parcel in
England, with the time a similar operation in France will demand. M.
David showed me the lithographed sheet giving the special forms of
numerals, 1, 2, 3, and so on, which French postal officials are
required to make. These differ widely from the forms in general use.
I have my own suspicions that similar sheets are issued to the cashiers
in French restaurants. Personally, I can never read one single item in
the bill, much less the cost, and I can only gaze in hopeless
bewilderment at the long-tailed hieroglyphics, recalling a backward
child's first attempts at "pot-hooks."
The infinite capacity of the French for taking trouble, and their
minute attention to detail, tend towards unnecessary complications of
simple matters. Thus, on English railways we find two main types of
signals sufficient for our wants, whereas on French lines there are
five different main types of signal. On English lines we have two
secondary signals, against eight in France, all differing widely in
shape and appearance. Again, on a French locomotive the driver has far
more combinations at his command for efficient working under varying
conditions, than is the case in England. The trend of the national mind
is towards complicating details rather than simplifying them.
Delightful as was the winter climate of Nyons, that sun-scorched little
cup amongst the hills became a place of positive torment as the summer
advanced. The heat was absolutely unendurable. Day and night, thousands
of cicades (the cigales of the French) kept up their incessant "dzig,
dzig, dzig," a sound very familiar to those who have sojourned in the
tropics. Has Nature given this singular insect the power of dispensing
with sleep? What possible object can it hope to attain by keeping up
this incessant din? If a love-song, surely the most optimistic cicada
must realise that his amorous strains can never reach the ears of his
lady-love, since hundreds of his brethren are all keeping up the same
perpetual purposeless chirping, which must obviously drown any
individual effort. Have the cicadas a double dose of gaiete francaise
in their composition, and is this their manner of expressing it? Are
they, like some young men we know, always yearning to turn night into
day? All these are, and will remain, unsolved problems?
As I found the summer heat of Nyons unbearable, I went back to England
for a holiday, and, on the morning of my departure, climbed some olive
trees and captured fourteen live cicadas, whom I imprisoned in a
perforated cardboard box, and took back to London with me. Twelve of
them survived the journey, and as soon as I had arrived, I carefully
placed the cicadas on the boughs of the trees in our garden in Green
Street, Grosvenor Square. Conceive the surprise of these travelled
insects at finding themselves on the soot-laden branches of a grimy
London tree! The dauntless little creatures at once recommenced their
"dzig, dzig, dzig," in their novel environment, and kept it up
uninterruptedly for twenty-four hours, in spite of the lack of
appreciation of my family, who complained that their night's rest had
been seriously interfered with by the unaccustomed noise. Next evening
the cicadas were silent. Possibly they had been choked with soot, or
had fallen a prey to London cats; but my own theory is that they
succumbed to the after-effects of a rough Channel passage, to which, of
course, they would not have been accustomed. Anyhow, for the first time
in the history of the world, the purlieus of Grosvenor Square rang with
the shrill chirping of cicadas for twenty-four hours on end.
Six months later I regretfully bid farewell to Nyons, and went direct
from there to Germany. After studying the Teutonic tongue for two and a
half years at Harrow I was master of just two words in it, ja and nein,
so unquestionably there were gaps to fill up.
I was excedingly sorry to leave the delightful Ducros family who had
treated me so kindly, and I owe a deep debt of gratitude to comely Mme.
Ducros for the careful way in which she taught me history. In teaching
history she used what I may call the synoptic method, taking periods of
fifty years, and explaining contemporaneous events in France, Italy,
Germany, and England during that period.
With the exception of one friendly visit to the Ducros, I have never
seen pleasant Nyons again. Of late years I have often meditated a
pilgrimage to that sunny little cup in the Dauphine hills, but have
hesitated owing to one of the sad penalties advancing years bring with
them; every single one of my friends, man or woman, must have passed
away long since. I can see Nyons, with its encircling fringe of blue
hills, just as vividly, perhaps, with my inner eyes as I could if it
lay actually before me, and now I can still people it with the noisy,
gesticulating inhabitants whom I knew and liked so much.
I may add that in Southern French style Nyons is pronounced "Nyonsse,"
just as Carpentras is termed "Carpentrasse."