LARCHANT.
There is a certain stimulating quality of elasticity and crispness in
the French atmosphere which our own does not possess. France, moreover,
with its seven climates--for the description of these, see Reclus’
Geography--does undoubtedly offer longer, less broken, spells of hot
summer weather than the United Kingdom. But let me for once and for all
dispel a widespread illusion. The late Lord Lytton, when Ambassador
in Paris, used to say that in the French capital you could procure any
climate you pleased. And experience proves that without budging an inch
you may in France get as many and as rapid climatic changes as anywhere
else under the sun. At noon in mid-May last I was breakfasting with
friends on the Champs Elysées, when my hostess put a match to the fire
and my host jumped up and lighted six wax candles. So dense had become
the heavens that we could no longer see to handle knives and forks!
Hail, wind, darkness and temperature recalled a November squall at home.
Yet the day before I had enjoyed perfect summer weather in the Jardin
d’Acclimitation. Invariableness is no more an attribute of the French
climate than our own. Wherever we go we must take a change of dress, for
all the world as if we were bound for the other side of the Tweed.
My first Sunday at Bourron, on this third visit, was of perfect
stillness, unclouded brilliance and southern languor, heralding, so we
fondly imagined, the very morrow for an excursion.
In the night a strong wind rose up, but as we had ordered a carriage for
Larchant, and as carriages in these parts are not always to be had,
as, moreover, grown folks no more than children like to defer their
pleasure, off we set, two of the party on cycles forming a body guard.
There seemed no likelihood of rain and in the forest we should not feel
the wind.
For the first mile or two all went well. Far ahead of us our cyclists
bowled gaily along in the forest avenues, all of us being sheltered from
the wind. It was not till we skirted a wide opening that we felt the
full force of the tornado, soon overtaking our blowzed, dishevelled
companions, both on foot and looking miserable enough.
We re-entered the forest, and a little later, emerging from the fragrant
depths of a pine wood, got our first view of Larchant, coming suddenly
upon what looks like a cathedral towering above the plain, at its base
a clustering village, whitewashed brown-roofed houses amid vineyards and
orchards.
[Illustration]
A grandiose view it is, recalling the minaret of Mansourah near Tclemcen
in Algeria, that gigantic monolith apparently carved out of Indian gold
and cleft in two like a pomegranate.
Slowly we wound up towards the village, the wind, or rather hurricane,
gathering in force as we went. It was indeed no easy task to get a
nearer view of the church; more than once we were compelled to beat
a retreat, whilst it seemed really unsafe to linger underneath such a
ruin.
Imagine the tower of St. Jacques in the Rue de Rivoli split in two,
the upright half standing in a bare wind-swept level, and you have
some faint notion of Larchant. On nearer approach such an impression of
grandeur is by no means diminished. This magnificent parish church,
in part a ruin, in part restored, rather grows upon one upon closer
inspection. Reparation, for want of funds, has stopped short at the
absolutely necessary. The body of the church has been so far restored as
to be fit for use, but its crowning glory, the tower, remains a torso.
The front view suggests no such dilapidation. How long will the shell
of that lofty twelfth century tower remain standing? To my mind it hangs
over the low, one-storeyed houses at its feet, a veritable sword of
Damocles, sooner or later sure to fall with crushing force. The porch
shows much beautiful carving, unfortunately defaced, and the interior
some perfect specimens of pure Gothic arches, the whole whitewashed and
bare as a barn.
Larchant in the middle ages was a famous pilgrimage, and in the days of
Charles IX. a halting stage on the road to Italy. It does not seem to
attract many English pilgrims at the present time. Anyhow tea-making
here seems a wholly unknown art. In a fairly clean inn, however, a
good-natured landlady allowed us to make ourselves at home alike
in kitchen and pantry. One of our party unearthed a time-honoured
tea-pot--we had of course taken the precaution of carrying tea with
us--one by one milk and sugar were forthcoming in what may be called
wholesale fashion, milk-jugs and sugar-basins being apparently articles
of superfluity, and in company of a charming old dog and irresistible
kitten, also of some quiet wayfarers, we five-o’clocked merrily enough.
Our business at Larchant was not wholly archaeological. Buffeted as we
were by the hurricane, we managed to pay a visit in search of eggs and
poultry for the table at home.
If peasant and farming life in France certainly from time to time
reminds us of Zola’s “La Terre,” we are also reminded of an aspect which
the great novelist ignores. As will be seen from the following sketch
sordidness and aspiration oft times, I am almost tempted to say, and
most often, go hand in hand.
We see one generation addicted to an existence so laborious and material
as to have no counterpart in England; under the same roof growing up
another, sharing all the advantages of social and intellectual progress.
Not far from the church we called upon a family of large and wealthy
farmers, owners of the soil they cultivate, millionaires by comparison
with our neighbours at Bourron.
We arrived in the midst of a busy time, a steam corn thresher plying in
the vast farm-yard. The interior of the big, straggling farm-house we
did not see, but two aged women dressed like poor peasants received
us in the kitchen, a dingy, unswept, uninviting place, as are most
farm-house kitchens in France. These old ladies were respectively
mother-in-law and aunt of the farmer, whose wife, the real mistress of
the house, soon came in. This tall, stout, florid, brawny-armed woman
was evidently what French folks call _une maîtresse femme_, a first-rate
housewife and manager; a somewhat awe-inspiring person she looked as she
stood before us, arms akimbo, her short coarse serge skirt showing shoes
well acquainted with stable and neat-house, one dirty blue cotton apron
worn over another equally dirty. Now, my hostess, as I have said, wanted
to purchase some poultry for the table, and here comes in the moral
of my story. Vainly the lady begged and begged again for a couple of
chickens. “But we want them for our Parisians,” the three farming women
reiterated, one echoing the other. “Our Parisians, our Parisians,”
the words were repeated a dozen times. And as was explained to me
afterwards, “our Parisians,” for whom the pick of the poultry yard
was being reserved, were the two sons of the rather forbidding-looking
matron before us, young gentlemen being educated in a Paris Lycée, and
both of them destined for the learned professions!
This side of rural life, this ambition, akin to what we see taking
quite another form among ourselves, Zola does not sufficiently realize.
Shocking indeed were the miserliness and materialism of such existences
but for the element of self-denial, this looking ahead for those to
follow after. How differently, for instance, the farm-house and its
group must have appeared, but for the evident pride and hopes centred in
_nos Parisiens_, who knows?--perhaps youths destined to attain the first
rank in official or political callings!
The farther door of the smoke-dried kitchen opened on to the farm-yard,
around which were stables and neat-houses. In the latter the mistress
of the house proudly drew our attention to a beautiful blue cow, grey
in our ignorance we had called it, one of a score or more of superb kine
all now reclining on their haunches before being turned out to pasture.
In front, cocks and hens disported themselves on a dunghill, whilst
beyond, the steam corn thresher was at work, every hand being called
into requisition. No need here for particulars and figures. The
superabundant wealth, so carefully husbanded for the two youths in
Paris, was self-evident.
The tornado, with threatening showers and the sight of a huge tree just
uprooted by the road side, necessitated the shortest possible cut home.
In fair weather a prolongation of our drive would have given us a sight
of some famous rocks of this rocky forest. But we carried home memories
enough for one day.