RECLOSES.
This ancient village, reached by the forest, is one of the most
picturesque of the many picturesque places hereabouts. Quitting a
stretch of pinewood we traverse flat cultivated land, gradually winding
up towards a long straggling village surmounted by a lofty church tower
of grey stone. On either side of this street are enclosed farm-houses,
the interiors being as pictorial as can be imagined. Untidy as are most
French homesteads, for peasant farmers pay little court to the Graces,
there is always a bit of flower garden. Sometimes this flower garden
is aerial, a bower of roses on the roof sometimes amid the incongruous
surroundings of pig styes or manure heaps. This region is a petunia
land; wherever we go we find a veritable blaze of petunia blossoms, pale
mauve, deepest rose, purple and white massed together without order or
view to effect. In one of the little fortresses--for so these antique
farmhouses may be called--we saw a rustic piazza, pillars and roof of
rude unhewn stone blazing with petunias, no attempt whatever at making
the structure whole, symmetrical or graceful to the eye. It seems as if
these homely though rich farmers, or rather farmers’ wives, could not do
without flowers, above the street jutting many aerial gardens, the only
touch of beauty in the work-a-day picture. These interiors would supply
artists with the most captivating subjects. The women, their skins brown
and wrinkled as ripe, shelled walnuts, their head-dress a blue and white
kerchief neatly folded and knotted, the expression of their faces shrewd
and kindly, all contribute to the charm of the scene.
Here as elsewhere the young women and girls affect a little fashion and
finery on Sundays.
We should not know unless we were told that Recloses was one of the
richest villages in these parts. On this Sunday, September 1st, 1901, in
one place a steam thresher was at work, although for the most part
folks seemed to be taking their ease in their holiday garb. Perhaps the
difficulty of procuring the machine accounted for the fact of seeing it
on a Sunday.
One of the farm-yards showed a charming menagerie of poultry and the
prettiest rabbits in the world, all disporting themselves in most
amicable fashion. Here, as elsewhere, when we stopped to admire, the
housewife came out, pleased to interchange a few words with us. The
sight of Recloses is not, however, its long line of little walled-in
farm-houses, but the curious rocky platform at the end of the village,
perforated with holes always full of water, and the stupendous view
thence obtained--an ocean of sombre green unrelieved by a single sail.
Already the vast panorama of forest shows signs of autumn, light touches
of yellow relieving the depths of solemn green. On such a day of varied
cloudland the perspective must be quite different, and perhaps even more
beautiful than under a burning cloudless sky, no soft gradations between
the greens and the blues. The little pools or perforations breaking
the surface of the broad platform, acres of rocks, are, I believe,
unexplained phenomena. In the driest season these openings contain
water, presumably forced upwards from hidden springs. The pools, just
now covered with green slime, curiously spot the grey surface of the
rocks.
If, leaving the world of forest to our right, we continue our journey
in the direction of Chapelle la Reine, we overlook a vast plain the
population of which is very different from that of the smiling fertile
prosperous valley of the Loing. This plain, extending to Étampes and
Pithiviers, might, I am told, possibly have suggested to Zola some
scenes and characters of “La Terre.” A French friend of mine, well
acquainted with these parts, tells me that at any rate there, if
anywhere, the great novelist might have found suggestions for such a
work. The soil is arid, the cultivation is primitive in the extreme and
the people are rough and uncouth. The other day an English resident at
Marlotte, when cycling among these villages of the plain inquired his
way of a countryman.
“You are not a Frenchman?” quoth the latter before giving the desired
information.
“No I am not” was the reply.
“You are not an American?”
“No, I am an Englishman.”
“Ah!” was the answer, “I smelt you out sure enough” (_Je vous ai bien
senti_). Whereupon he proceeded to put the wayfarer on his right road.
As a rule French peasants are exceedingly courteous to strangers, but
these good people of the plain seldom come in contact with the tourist
world, their country not being sufficiently picturesque even to attract
the cyclist.
The curious thirteenth-century church of Recloses had long been an art
pilgrimage. It contains, or at least should contain, some of the most
wonderful wood carvings in France; figures and groups of figures
highly realistic in the best sense of the word. These sculptures,
unfortunately, we were not able to inspect a second time; exhibited in
the Paris Exhibition they had not yet been replaced.
It is a beautiful drive from Recloses to Bourron by the Croix de Saint
Hérem. A little way out of the village we came upon a pretty scene,
people, in family groups, playing croquet under the trees. Dancing also
goes on in summer as in the olden time. It was curious as we drove along
to note the behaviour of my friend’s dog: it never for a moment closed
its eyes, and yet there was nothing to look at but avenue after avenue
of trees. What could the little animal find so fascinating in the
somewhat monotonous sight? A friend at home assures me that a pet of her
own enjoyed drives from purely snobbish motives; his great gratification
arising from the sense of superiority over fellow dogs compelled to
trudge on foot. But in these woodland solitudes there was no room for
such a sentiment, not a dog being visible, only now and then a cyclist
flashing by.
There is no more splendid cycling ground in the world than this forest
of Fontainebleau.
Shakespeare says:--
“This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved mansionry that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty frieze, buttress,
Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made
His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they
Most breed and haunt, I have observed the air
Is delicate.”
About this time at Bourron the village street was alive with swallows
preparing, I presume, for departure southwards. A beautiful sight it
was to see these winged congregations evidently concerting their future
movements.
Another feature to be mentioned is the number of large handsome moths
frequenting these regions. One beautiful creature as large as a swallow
used to fly into our dining room every evening for warmth; fastening
itself to the wall it would there remain undisturbed until the morning.
I finish these reminiscences of Bourron by the following citation from
Balzac’s “Ursule Mirouët”:--
“On entering Nemours at five o’clock in the morning, Ursule woke up
feeling quite ashamed of her untidiness, and of encountering Savinien’s
look of admiration. During the time that the diligence took to come
from Bouron (_sic_), where it stopped a few minutes, the young man had
observed Ursule. He had noted the candour of her mind, the beauty of her
person, the whiteness of her complexion, the delicacy of her features,
the charm of the voice which had uttered the short and expressive
sentence, in which the poor child said everything, while wishing to say
nothing. In short I do not know what presentiment made him see in Ursule
the woman whom the doctor had depicted, framed in gold, with these magic
words:--‘Seven to eight hundred thousand francs!’”
Holiday tourists in these parts cannot do better than put this
love-story in their pockets.