OUR HOME IN AVEYRON

WITH

STUDIES OF PEASANT LIFE AND CUSTOMS

IN AVEYRON AND LOT

BY

G. CHRISTOPHER DAVIES

AUTHOR OF ‘NORFOLK BROADS AND RIVERS’

AND

MRS BROUGHALL

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW EDITION

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCXCI

All Rights Reserved

Illustrations

–––————–––

Chateau Salvignac

Religious Procession

Wine-shop and Auberge, Bouillac

La Roque and the River Lot

Montbrun

Tow-Path at Ganyl

Chapel in the Street

Calvary - In a Vineyard, St Martin’s

Blanchisseuses - La Roque Torrac

Peasant’s Cottage

Peasants Ploughing

Rocamadour

CHAPTER I

THE JOURNEY TO ” UN PAYS PERDU.”

I had been travelling all day southward from Paris through the pleasant land of France, watching with interest the development of the scenery, which improved vastly the farther one got from Paris. There were far-reaching plains, the colour of which was rich and beautiful, although the actual regularity of chess-board-like fields and formal rows of trees was somewhat monotonous; there were amphitheatres of hills enclosing spacious valleys, in whose verdant depths broad rivers lay in many a gleaming fold; there were chateaux perched on rocky bluffs, and chateaux seen only through woodland glades. Then the vineyards clothed every available slope, and the language of the people became softer and more musical, with a sounding of the final E mute as a separate syllable; while among the country people working at the stations, one heard a sibilant patois that was not distinguishable as French.

Then a branch line by a river-side, through the sorses of the hills, then a walk through a scattered village, and a continuous lifting of the hat in return to the polite salutations of the peasants; while a bullock - cart, loudly creaking, carried the luggage behind, and I was welcomed to a little English home in this remote corner of a district known only as ” un Pays Perdu.”

After a nice little dinner, such as there appears to be no difficulty in procuring in the smallest of French villages, we went on to the terrace to enjoy our coffee and cigarettes in the balmy gloaming. What a treat it was to sit out of doors hatless and coatless, with no suspicion of a draught or a chill, while in the narrow valley the dusk deepened and on the hill-tops the last of the daylight lingered, as loath to be hurried away by the swift coming of the southern night! From the squat little church in the village the ringing of the Angelus sounded sweetly, and was echoed to and fro in sweet confused murmurs between the closely opposing hills.

From a cottage not twenty yards below us came the voices of a peasant family at their devotions. The rapid patter of parrot-learnt Latin Mass, and the more genuine ring of patois prayer, were at least in unison with the Angelus, and kept us observantly silent until prayer and bell had ceased to sound. Then the nightingales thought it time to begin, and as the rising moon began to send long shadows and silvery sheens down the steep terraced vineyard immediately behind us, from the shadowy copses to our left issued the subtle melody of bird after bird, faintly answered from the other groves and the chestnut woods on the hillsides, where it was too steep and rocky for vineyards, so that by-and-by there was a volume of sound which, but that it was so sweet, would have been somewhat overpowering. A white mist first hid the course of the river and then blotted out the church and the village houses, and then we three English, two brothers and a sister, seemed quite cut off from our French neighbours, and were alone in the bright moonlight.

“Now and then on our English summer nights we have sat like this at the old English home in the west country, and now you two have your home here, and I am your visitor. How do you like it?” said I.

“Oh, it is not bad,” replied the prosaic brother.

“Nay, it is very good,” said the sister.“We do not forget our English home. We are very, very proud of being English, but we like France too. It is so beautiful. This little village is growing to have for us the familiar homey look of the village of our childhood. At first we spoke of the river, the lane, and the mountains. Now we speak and think of all these as ours. They are a part of our life. We know all the most charming points of view, the shadiest nooks, and the prettiest bends of the river. We even know when to expect rain or shine, storm or calm, by the way the wind comes, or the sound of the different church bells.”

“Well, it is a good thing that this feeling of hominess gradually grows around one in a foreign country.”

“Yes, it is so restful. It would be dreadful indeed if we always felt like strangers and pilgrims; if after old ties were broken and old friends to some degree lost, new ones never could be made. One is thankful that the sun shines here just the same as in England (only rather more so), that the trees are as green, the flowers as sweet, and many of the hearts as kind as those left behind in our own country. And in order to really know a country by heart, as it were, one must live in it; become acclimatised, associate more or less familiarly with its inhabitants, sympathise with and assist the poor, nurse the babies, and interest one’s self in their general welfare. It is nice to see the faces of the school children brighten as one passes, and to receive the little nosegays of sweet-scented flowers which they shyly offer to ‘Mademoiselle’ or ‘Monsieur.’ A lady friend said one day, ‘ We always thought the English cold and proud, but it is not so we find. Your pride is on the surface, and your hearts are really as warm as ours.’”

“Yet I am told the French peasantry, if not the French people as a class, hate England and the English heartily.”

“Oh yes, so they do, at least so far as we know the people, they do hate the English as a whole. They say so, and I believe it; but they have, I hope, made an exception in our favour. At any rate, the warm-hearted reception we have received from the little society that exists in this out-of-the-way corner of France has had much to do with our growing love of the neighbourhood.”

“Yes, Mary; but you see the best side of it. I should not go safely among my childish and passionate miners if they did not know that I carry this little protector,” and the speaker tapped the pocket in which his revolver was hidden.“How many English are there here?”

“We two, and two assistants at the mines.”

“And where are the mines?”

“In the bowels of this hill opposite. Look where the moonlight shines white on a long heap of stones below a dark hole. That is one of the outlets. And here come some of the men going to the night-shift.”

From underneath the mist there was a tramp of feet and the excited chatter which I had already noticed as the characteristic talk of the country-folk, and there presently emerged into view as they filed up the mountain path a line of men carrying lighted lamps oil-lamps, which were most quaint in pattern, and had undergone no change since the lamps used by the Roman workmen who first began to burrow into the hill.

“And pray, what are your first impressions of rural France?” they asked me.

“First, the trees are very tall, very straight, and very leafless, except near the top, and a magpie’s nest very frequently tenants the leafy top and is seen for miles.”

“You will soon learn the reason of the trees being leafless; but why there are so many magpies I do not know. Practically there are no birds in this district but magpies and nightingales. What else?”

“I note the cultivation of every available space. For instance, I saw a flat high rock, like a table, some ten feet high, and of the space of an ordinary room on the top, covered to the edge with a cereal crop.”

“Yes; you are now in the midst of the peasant proprietors, and they dare not waste an inch of ground. What else?”

“I did not observe a single beast of any kind grazing on a pasture, save a few large ragged sheep in one stony district. Where are the cows?”

“At work. Go on.”

“I have heard of French politeness, but I fear me it is much on the surface. All the way from Paris I had as companion a plain elderly woman, and many men getting in and out at intermediate stations, the compartment always being full. Each man as he entered took off his hat, and the salute was returned. Each man asked each of the other men whether he objected to smoking, and with much interchange of bows each man gave his polite consent. Not a single one of them ever addressed his query to the plain elderly woman, who might reasonably be supposed to be the only one to object. They just ignored her existence.”

“Quite so. The case might have been different if the lady had been young and good-looking. Still, even their somewhat superficial politeness is of value, as it makes ordinary things go smoothly. I find, however, that, long as we have been here, we are apt sometimes to give offence by relapsing, in a moment of fatigue or forgetfulness, into an ordinary English manner, and by the lazy return of a salute or some slight brusqueness, cause a slight to be apprehended when nothing was so far from our thoughts. But have you brought your camera with you?”

“Yes; and to my surprise have not had the slightest trouble with the Customs in the way of examination such as I have experienced in England on returning from abroad.”

“Photographic apparatus is as well understood as in England, and more respected by the officials. Curiously enough almost every Englishman who has come here on mining business has been a photographer, and the natives look upon a camera as a necessary and usual appurtenance to an Englishman. But let me tell you the gendarmes here already know everything about you—where you come from, what you are going to do, whether you are armed, and how long you mean to stay.”

“Good gracious!”

“Yes; but they are satisfied you are harmless, and there are no fortifications anywhere near here to be photographed. But it is now past midnight, and at five o’clock to-morrow morning a procession of priests and peasants will pass the house on their way to worship at the cross of La Vidal, and pray that the vines may not suffer from blight. If you can get up, we will photograph them from the window as they pass by. So to bed, but confound those nightingales!”

Before proceeding further I will pause to explain the raison d’être of this book. I took a great many photographs, of which I afterwards made lantern-slides, and with the aid of my sister’s notes and my own observations, I retailed the information in the shape of lectures to rural audiences, with the view of aiding my clerical friends in their parish work, and of benefiting institutions in which I took an interest, as every man should do, who has the chance at little trouble and little expense to himself, and according to a laudable custom which is fast gaining ground amoug the army of amateur photographers, an army which sends skirmishers all over the world. I have, in doing this, found that much more interest was exhibited in the simple details of home-life, which might easily be compared with one’s own modest experiences, than in more ambitious tales of travel, adventure, and discovery. Therefore it seemed possible that short studies of life and scenery in a remote district within the unpretentious distance of a thousand miles from home, practically, as distance now counts, at home, but out of the beaten track, where the tourist is an unknown quantity, might interest a larger audience of ordinary people. My sister, who is at home with the people of “un Pays Perdu,” joins with me, and whatever is of value, in information or facts, in this little book is from her pen, and may most thoroughly be relied upon. I incorporate with her matter my own impressions as an appreciative visitor. We shall state simply what we know, especially with respect to the peasant proprietary, so that, if possible, the bias of our own opinions may not be observable. Our readers only can judge whether we realise our unambitious aim.

CHAPTER II

PHOTOGRAPHING A PROCESSION—THE PROVINCES OF THE LOT AND AVEYRON — A LOST COUNTRY — ITS BEAUTY AND ITS HISTORY

With the windows open, and the cool night air finding free access through the bars of the closed volées, those outer frames, like massive Venetian-blinds, which exclude light yet admit air, it was easy, on a June night, to sleep with a light covering over one. Later, in the scorching heat of July and August, it is not so easy. I went to bed repeating “Five o’clock, five o’clock, five o’clock,” several times, which with me is a sure method of ensuring wakefulness at the desired hour next morning. And punctually at five o’clock I jumped up broad awake, and heard in the still morning air, with a clearness which was accounted for by a slight drizzle of rain, the sound of Mass at the village church. Very shortly two white-robed figures were struggling with refractory tripods, which would slip on the polished floor; and presently out of two windows overlooking the road there peeped the brass tubes of the lenses, the rest of the apparatus being concealed by the curtains being cunningly pinned over them.

Just below the window was a bridge over a purling stream, and a rude wooden cross leaned half against the bridge; and the procession was expected to pause at this cross, which bore some special repute. The sound of the chanting drew nearer, accompanied with the tramp of many feet, and soon the procession, of some hundreds of people, came in view. First men bearing a banner, inscribed “Marie, protège vos enfants”; then peasants, three and four abreast, clad in their best black blouses and soft, black, wide-brimmed hats, the effect being somewhat marred by the men keeping their hands in their trousers-pockets, which bunches the blouses up unbecomingly; then the young men and the small boys, the latter marching sturdily along, as if highly conscious of the importance of the proceeding; then the priest in his white robes, preceded by the crucifix, and, book in hand, leading the chant; then the little girls, and behind them the bigger girls, the young women, then the matrons, and, last of all, the old women, all neatly and tidily clad. As they passed the cross, the priest bowed and crossed himself, and the instantaneous shutters clicked, and the lenses caught him in the act.

Religious Procession

The faithless curtains became unpinned, and revealed our instruments, so that every eye was upturned. I was horribly afraid that I was doing something irreverent and repugnant to the taste of the people; but every face wore a pleased and conscious smile, and there was a general involuntary straightening up to look their best; so that my fears were dismissed. We got them again upon their return, and then we noticed that while the men and boys marched steadily on without turning their heads in our direction, the girls and young women looked back laughingly at the wonderful instruments in the windows. Why this difference in the behaviour of the sexes?

To a healthy Englishman who likes a vigorous breakfast at half-past eight, the coffee and roll which the French find sufficient to carry them on until déjeûner at eleven or twelve is at first a trial, and the intervening hours are a hungry waste of time. Let us utilise this interval by climbing up, through the vines, to the crest of the hill behind the house, and see where we are.

In the south-west of France lie the adjoining provinces of Aveyron and the Lot, separated from each other for a considerable distance by the river Lot, which rises in the mountains of the Department of Lozère, at a height of 1500 metres above the sea; then runs and leaps through the picturesque gorges of Aveyron, and, with a madly serpentine course, parts the Lot and Aveyron, and then flows through the Lot on its way westward to join the Garonne, and past Bordeaux to the sea.

The two provinces are hilly and even mountainous. The hills are sometimes of granite and sometimes of limestone and their allies, and, according to the nature of the rock, there are steep slopes or precipitous cliffs and escarpments.

Riven and cracked in every direction, the great “causses” [1] afford in plenty the fern-haunted dingles, down which the mountain brooks run and tumble to join the river, which now flows through deep gorges, now through narrow valleys, where the hand of man makes the stream more sedate by his confining weirs, and the rushing torrent is led to water fertile fields and refresh the tired and thirsty oxen. But whether a lusty torrent over rocky beds, or a wide dreamy river between vine-clad and chestnut-crowned hills, the stream makes the land beautiful.

“Everybody knows” that the district is a hundred years behind the times, and that and the difficulty of access to it or egress from it has given it its name of the “Pays Perdu” among distraction-loving Frenchmen, “What will you?” they say; “there is nothing, literally nothing, wherewith to amuse one’s self. It is a lost country.” We said to a peasant woman one day, “This is a beautiful country of yours.” “Oui, mademoiselle, mais il est un peu perdu.”

Of late, however, there have been made good roads, and a branch line from Capdenac to Rodèz, which follows the quick curves of the river, curves so abrupt that the seesaw, curving motion is as trying to many people as a Channel steamer. The line is literally cut through the rocks most part of the way. There are tunnels, half-tunnels, and quarter-tunnels — segments of a circle as it were; the detached masses of rock sufficiently cut through to permit the passage of the train, and that is all. Always below one there is the river, gleaming through its bordering rocks and woods, and the glimpses of scenery one gets from the carriage-windows are lovely in the extreme, and the riven rocks and serpentine river often form extremely curious combinations. Quaint villages perched on rocky promontories, or nestling in the smallest of mountain nooks, meet the eye at every great bend of the river. Sometimes the fern-fringed cliffs rise sheer from the water’s edge, and even overhang so much, that the tiny rills which pour from their summits fall into the river yards away from the bases of the cliffs.

Well, below us from our hill-top we see that the valley widens, the hills fall back with more reasonable slopes; the river between two weirs runs placidly, with a fine new bridge spanning it. On the nearer bank is the small village of St Martin’s, with its little squat church. On the further bank is the larger and more important village of Bouillac, with a towered chateau and a larger church. The rich, flat meadows by the river are well cultivated, in small square patches of bright greens and yellows, with no dividing fences, and curiously like an erratic chess-board, or still more like a patchwork quilt.

The hills are grey with the vineyards, the tint of the ground in the early summer overpowering the green of the vines. The regular arrangement of the vine-planting gives to the far-off slopes the appearance of being dotted, grained, or stippled like a lithographic print. On slopes too rocky or too steep for the vineyards, the ever-present and useful chestnut woods lie in dark masses.

On a flat step in the hills a mile away, and in the Department of the Lot, we can discern the little village of Carnac. Down the poplar-bordered river to the left the valley closes in again. There, by the weir, is the building which marks the situation of the Mine, which is the cause of our presence here, and Henry is now in the very middle of that steep conical hill just in front of us.

Immediately below us, and apparently so close in a horizontal direction that a long hop, skip, and a jump would clear the declivities of the intervening-vineyards, and land us upon (or through) its roof, is our little cottage. From it another valley, or more properly a ravine, leads in a southerly and very upward direction to Asprières — a town as much at the top of the hills as St Martin’s is at the bottom. It is three miles away, and we have the choice of two roads. There is the winding government road which twists in and out among the hills, and tries not to be too steep; but this looks so blindingly white and dusty that we prefer to take the old country lane — a nearer route by distance at all events, but not a shorter by time. At first it is a pleasant way, creeping along the bottom of the valley, with a tiny brook rippling merrily along by the wayside, crossing and recrossing the lane, and under the welcome shade of closely growing trees. In spring-time, the damson-trees which line the hedges are white with blossoms, and when the autumn comes much of the fruit falls unheeded to the ground, to be greedily eaten by the pigs. Suddenly the pleasant beguiling path takes an upward spring, and then comes the toil and weariness of the journey. It is what we heard an itinerant preacher describe as the way to heaven— ” Tis hup, and hup, and hup, and ‘igher, and ‘igher, and ‘igher.” The hedges dwindle down into gorse and broom and blackberry bramble, and the mossy banks are clothed with fern and with heaths of purple, white, and gold. After heavy rain, this mountain way becomes the course of a muddy rushing torrent, so that the lane is impassable until the sun shines again, the water disappears in steam, and the road is left more bumpy than ever.

But Asprières is worth reaching, for there is always a refreshing breeze there, a breeze one sighs for in vain down in the confined valleys, where all day long in the hot summer, the full-leafed trees stand motionless in the heavy, perfume-laden air, and we long for the breeze that stirs the hill-top trees to take a downward sweep, as it happily does sometimes, after long drought, and we know that the soft south wind will bring us the welcome rain. From Asprières a fair landscape is visible. On a clear day one sees the snow-capped mountains of the Auvergne, while in the middle distance the lesser hills of Aveyron and the Cantal are piled in picturesque confusion, “like loaves in a baker’s oven,” said a very unromantic person. The dazzling white roadways radiate from Asprières to the towns and villages in the valleys below.

The part of France within view from Asprières is rich in ruins, some of which have for us English a peculiar interest, inasmuch as they are mementoes of the times when, in the fourteenth century, many a battle was fought between the English (levying taxes on ceded provinces) and the French; when many a town and chateau was destroyed. Afterwards the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants covered with further ruins the departments of Aveyron and the Lot. From 1501 to 1629, with but a short interval of rest, the country-side was the scene of war and bloodshed. The Protestants were massacred on all sides, and in 1629 they laid down their arms and submitted without reserve. The peace thus restored endured only for a time. In 1685, the famous Edict of Nantes being revoked by Louis XIV., the persecutions of the Protestants recommenced, and they were at last constrained to emigrate en masse, depriving the provinces of a population honest and industrious. Here ends the history of these provinces. Because of their obscure situation they were sheltered from the wars and invasions of the First and Second Empires.

And if déjeûner be not ready when we have made our hop, skip, and jump downwards, there will be further persecutions and ruins in the land.

[1] These are limestone ridges or table-lands (“de calx, chaux”).

CHAPTER III.

OUR VILLAGE AND THE NEXT ONE — THEIR DIRT AND STINKS — BIRD-TRAPS — THE AUBERGES — LIFE IN THE STREETS.

Our own little village of St Martin’s is only a scattered group of dingy dwellings, with a very unpretending church; but just across the river is a typical village of larger size, known as Bouillac. Crossing the long white bridge over the wide river-bed, and past a turreted chateau within walled-in grounds at the foot of its own vineyards, which stretch up the long steep slopes of the hills behind, we come first to the church, square, low, and unlovely as to the exterior, and somewhat tawdry within, but with its doors open always for the devout or the sun-weary to enter, and a frequent sound of worship issuing from it. Often have we sought refuge from the heat and the glare of southern skies and southern roads in the cool shade of southern churches, and felt the restful peace which clings about an edifice sacred to even an alien religion. The buildings are consecrated by the earnestness of men’s worship, no matter how wrong we may think the object or mode of worship.

Then there is the wide open square or Place of the village, with a few small trees giving welcome shade. In the Place is the shoeing-place, where the oxen and cows are shod. It appears that these beasts will not submit quietly to the operation, so they are driven into a sort of skeleton shed, or stout wooden frame, provided with straps, cords, and pulleys. The straps are fastened under the ox’s belly, and by means of the pulleys the poor creature is hoisted bodily off the ground, its legs dangling helplessly in the air. Every village has such a shoeing-place, and it is a quaint and amusing sight to see the oxen being shod.

The village is built on the lowest spur of the hills running down to the river, and down the backbone, so to speak, of this spur runs the long street, and the only street of the village. It looks picturesque enough as you glance down it; but if your stomach is weak, beware how you loiter in it on a hot and steamy day. The street is, alas! the common, and practically, the only sewer. Much of the refuse of the houses finds its way into the street, and rots and festers in the sun. The slops are thrown there, and the channels between the rough ancle-straining cobbles with which the street is paved are full of black and slimy liquid filth, slowly soaking its way riverwards.

The street is so narrow that two strides would take one across it, and there are no side-walks to speak of. It is close and airless, and the stench is pungent; but after a time the effect wears off, and one hardly notices the smell. One of us lived for three months in an auberge in that street, and very nearly — not quite — got used to it. He has no desire to go back, however. The houses have great overhanging eaves which project far over the street, and so cast a little shade at all stages of the sun.

Every window has its volées, looking, like all the rest of the woodwork, sadly in need of paint after a good scrub. The peeps one gets into the dark little rooms, through the open doors, awaken no desire to enter, so we resolve to keep outside if possible, lest the abominations within be worse than those without. Those may seem strong words to speak of a nineteenth-century town in the most civilised nation; but to an Englishman of only ordinary cleanliness, even to one who has upon necessity gone a whole week without a wash and not felt sinful, the want of cleanliness does seem disgraceful. There is no excuse of poverty. It is simply that all labour is wasteful unless it brings profit, or is necessary to support life. After a long residence in rural France, one of us paid a visit to an English cottage, where the occupants were as poor as an English labourer can be, and was surprised and delighted at the spotless cleanliness of the floors and the stairs. The wood of the latter was as white as the deck of a well-kept yacht: a French peasant’s stair is brown with the dirt of generations.

Glancing upwards, one is struck by the fact that almost every house has an earthenware jar or pot fastened against the wall near an upper window, the mouth of the jar against the wall, and a small hole broken in the bottom, which faces outward.

“What are those funny jars for?” is one’s natural question.

“For the birds to build their nests in, monsieur.”

“Really; how very kind of you! And do the birds avail themselves of your goodness?”

“Certainly, monsieur, in every case, and very good they are.”

“Good!”

“Yes, good to eat, monsieur.”

“What! do you eat them.”

“Truly, monsieur. When the young birds are fully fledged, we take them and make a delicious stew of them.”

And you realise the utilitarian nature of the peasant and the unsuspecting goodness of the birds.

At frequent intervals down the street you see dried bushes of juniper set in pots by a door. No other sign than this indicates that there is an auberge or tavern there, except in one instance, where, under an open gallery or balcony, hang a dozen distended pig-skins full of the country wine.

Enter an auberge, and you stumble over the roughly laid floor in the dim light of the interior. The floor is of roughly dressed planks of uneven thickness, and encrusted thickly with dirt, save where tracks have been worn in it by many feet. Two or three rickety wooden tables, similar chairs, and narrow settles or benches, complete the furniture. At the tables groups of two or three peasants are seated, solemnly playing cards or dominoes, and drinking red wine. If you call for this it is generally good — we drank largely of it without ill effect, although it is apt to give colic to strangers who quench their thirst with it at first; or you may have lemonade with a little cognac, both fairly good.

Wine-shop and Auberge, Bouillac

The peasants look at us with anything but friendly eyes. We are intruding on their domain, and our presence is not welcome. They stand much upon their dignity, and we have to be very careful not to wound their susceptibilities. It would never do to command any slight service, as one is in the habit of doing with the corresponding class in England, with the certainty that the service will be civilly and good-humouredly rendered. On the other hand, if one asks the favour of such a service very politely, they will often go a long way and take much trouble to oblige one, and be satisfied with a smaller acknowledgment than the English tip-receiver. But if they would only wash themselves, how much more charitably one would think of them.

While we were photographing in this street we aroused very little curiosity. The people walked rather sullenly by, and would not stop to form a group, or stand aside for a moment to avoid spoiling a view which we might be exposing. They stood much upon their dignity, and rather resented our photographing them as a liberty. A franc would, however, procure a sullen acquiescence, making it a business transaction; and, curiously enough, on fête-days and religious processions, when their hearts were opened by the excitement of their own show, they rather liked being photographed.

There is almost a complete absence of shops in the street. Each holding produces its own food, and their other wants are few. There were one or two little general stores, but the real shopping is only to be done at the larger town of Capdenac, three miles away.

As the evening draws on, the people sit out of doors in family groups, under the shade of the great eaves, and the narrow way is alive with gossip. The household occupations are carried on out of doors, such as a mother cutting her child’s hair, skinning a rabbit, plucking a fowl, mending a pair of trousers, a blouse, or a petticoat; but the younger women have smartened themselves up a bit, and conscious of clean stockings, show their pretty ankles as they lounge, not on easy-chairs, but generally on three-legged stools. These are not things, one would think, to lounge on gracefully, but they manage to do it.

CHAPTER IV

VINES AND VINEYARDS.

“If the grapes fail we have nothing.” So say many of the peasants, who maybe own no other piece of land than their respective vineyards. They, poor things, have all their eggs in one basket, or nearly so. To them an attack of the blight or “phylloxera” when the vines are in flower is a great calamity; whilst a heavy thunderstorm is a thing to be dreaded at any period between May and September, but most of all just when the grapes are ripe and the vintage about to commence.

Each year, when the short winter is over, the work in the vineyards is begun with great activity: from daybreak till dark people may be seen far up the hillsides engaged in digging, weeding, or in carrying and spreading manure. The loud, cheerful voices of the toilers, and the sharp metallic sound made by the striking of their pick-like implements against the stony earth, may be heard on all sides. Sometimes a valley, wide enough at its river or lower end, narrows so much as it gets up into the mountains, that the sound of voices and picks may be heard from one side to another, so that when there is, as often happens, an echo in addition, the result is a regular chorus, quaint, but somewhat confusing. Naturally it is not every valley that has vineyards on both sides, but only those running in certain directions, as a great amount of sunshine and heat is absolutely necessary for the growth of the vines and the perfection of the grapes: those hillsides that are bleak or have a north aspect are never cultivated as vineyards.

Great quantities of strawberries are grown between the vines. These are of a small kind somewhat larger than our wild strawberries: they come in season earlier than garden strawberries, and are much prized for their fine flavour.

The vineyards are, as a rule, kept well manured, — in fact, to do any good they must be, for, if one is neglected for a year or two, the vines run wild and cease to bear grapes. American vines have been introduced into a few vineyards which belong to a neighbouring countess. The growth of these vines is being anxiously watched, for they are supposed to be a good sort and to bear large well-flavoured grapes, so that their introduction into the neighbourhood may turn out a very good thing for all concerned in the cultivation of vines.

Of late years the vines in this district have suffered very much from phylloxera, so much so that many of the peasant proprietors have been greatly impoverished. However, they are all something like English farmers, — the weather is always too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. Crops never are going to be good. “We shall have no grapes this year!” is the usual cry; but nevertheless things turn out pretty well, and there are always more grapes than any one would have thought possible.

Each spring the people get into a state of fright thinking that there will be no wine, or else that it will be scarce and dear to buy. “What, oh what shall we do,” say they, “without our wine? It is our one luxury; if we drank nothing but water we should be soon weak and ill; we could not live without wine, the hot summers would kill us; wine is a necessity in a climate like ours.” And indeed this is quite true. Wine is the natural drink of the country: it is cheap and harmless. To drink beer or porter, even if they could be had, would be quite impossible, and the drinking of unlimited quantities of water would in all probability bring on attacks of colic and diarrhoea. This is certainly in the summer-time a thirsty, a very thirsty land; but there is plenty of water, and, what is almost better, generally plenty of wine too. What people may be in other parts of France we cannot say; but in this part they are emphatically a sober people: drunkenness one rarely, almost never, sees, whilst, on the other hand, one never even hears of a teetotaller. When the people are told that there are persons who never touch intoxicating drinks they reply: “But that is very funny. God makes the grapes to grow, and we cannot eat them all up, it is necessary to make them into wine. Besides, if we did not we could not live, for the hillsides will grow nothing but grapes and chestnuts, and we could not make a living out of chestnuts.”

Oh, the loads of manure that the peasants carry up those steep vineyards! they are something dreadful. No wonder that the poor people get a stoop in their shoulders, for they carry the manure up on their heads and shoulders, and the grapes down in the same manner.

How the poor peasants manage to carry the grapes down from the vineyards is a mystery, but carry them they do, and on their backs too. First the back and shoulders are padded, a sack filled with hay or straw being thrown across the shoulders. The grapes are carried in wooden barrels which are steadied over the shoulders by means of a long pole. These barrels are flat on the one side, and this flat part rests against the back of the bearer; the pole goes through the centre of the barrel, so that the weight is equally distributed above and below it. The vineyards are so steep that the grape-bearers seem to come down them sliding on the heels of their wooden sabots. In the valley below a cart stands, and in this cart the larger tubs for holding the grapes are placed. As each load of grapes is brought down it is emptied into the large tub, until that is full, when the oxen are harnessed to the cart, and the load of fruit is carried away to the wine-press.

Many of the smaller proprietors cannot afford to have wine-presses of their own, and so they must either send their grapes to a neighbour’s press, or, as more often the case, press them with their feet.

We sent our servant one day to a neighbouring proprietor’s on some small errand. She found the door closed, and a voice inside the house called out that she must wait awhile, as all the inhabitants were busy washing their feet preparatory to pressing out the wine.

Clean white stockings are worn during the operation; but notwithstanding this we always take good care to buy our wine from those proprietors whom we know to possess wine-presses.

Phosphate is much prized as a suitable manure for the vineyards, and lime is now used by some proprietors with great success. Of course when lime is used a greater quantity of manure must be used too, to counteract the effect of the lime, which, employed by itself, would simply extract a great amount of goodness from the soil without giving anything in return. But as peasant proprietors own their land, there is no danger that they will take all out of it and put nothing in. It is naturally to their own interest to keep it in a good condition, and this by dint of great and untiring industry they certainly contrive to do.

The poles to which the vines are tied and trained are placed at exact distances of one metre apart in every direction. Thus the Government officials know by measuring the length and breadth of a vineyard how many vines are grown in it, and taxes are levied accordingly. This methodical arrangement of the vines is also useful when Government statistics are made; and an exact record is kept of the number of vines grown in France.

On midsummer eve each year bonfires are lighted in the vineyards to frighten away the devil, who is supposed to do great harm to the vines in various ways, if not kept at a respectful distance.

CHAPTER V.

LA ROQUE.

Nowhere does there exist a village quainter, more tumble-down, or more strangely and picturesquely situated, than the village of La Roque de Panchot. Our La Roque we call it, to distinguish it from the two other villages of the same name on the banks of the Lot. It hangs “by its eyelids” on the face of a steep hillside, the houses clinging singly and in groups to the little shelves and crevices of the cliff, with not a back-door — for want of space — to any one of them. Its streets are stony and steep footpaths, in the crannies of the rock, passing often under stone archways beneath the houses themselves. Alas! these quaint streets are also the only sewers, and when the sun shines hotly upon the rock the odour is sickening; and one passes gingerly through the filth, and holds one’s breath for terror of the poison of it. But after an hour or two of it one begins to realise that it cannot be so deadly as it smells, or the inhabitants would not look so healthy as they do. The river runs rapidly in a curve beneath the cliff, and the houses seem to be suspended high above it, so that if one could give the cliff a shake like an apple-tree, they would drop off into the stream.

La Roque and the River Lot

Some of the houses, built close to the water’s edge, are covered with clematis and ivy, and the reflection of them in the clear river is beautifully distinct. Others lean this way and that, and have crazy wooden balconies overhanging the rocky tortuous street. The red-tiled and moss-grown roofs shine with brilliant colour in the blazing sunlight, and underneath their large flat eaves there is deep shadow and stillness. Other houses higher up are so like the rock, with their rugged, grey stone walls, that it needs the clear definition of a sunny day to make them out — even from so short a distance as the other side of the river; and on dull days they are indistinguishable. The dwellings, small as they are, are mostly three-storeyed: the ground-floor being occupied by the pigs and an occasional cow; the second storey by the people themselves; and the attics by the fowls and pigeons — each storey as dirty as the others.

On a projecting spur of rock half-way up the cliff stands a ruined castle grey and gaunt. It is approached by a staircase cut in the rock, steep and difficult to mount, but gay with saxifrage and lovely ferns in every crevice. From one of the small trees which here and and there cling to the cliff, an old woman is plucking leaves to give to a sheep which follows her like a dog. In days of old the church stood hard by the chateau, and fragments of ruin mark the site; but now it is situated in the lower part of the village, and the old people, who would find it a weary toil to mount those many steep and slippery steps, need now make but one journey up so high, and that the last journey of all — when they are laid to rest in the churchyard, which still occupies its ancient site close to the chateau. There is a little shelf of sloping ground not ten yards square, at a dizzy height overhanging the river, and this is the only place near to the village where there is depth enough of soil even for a shallow grave. It is full of little crosses of wood and iron — simple memorials of the dead erected by peasants too poor to buy tombstones. Tawdry wreaths of wired beads or artificial flowers peep out of the rank grass and nettles. Every fresh tenant disturbs some older bones, and these were cast aside — until recently — in a pile in an open pit in one corner; but now are more tidily covered with earth in a common receptacle for the older and forgotten generations. Still there are many odd skulls and bones lying about on the grass, and they add an eerie feeling to the giddy one of height, which makes one move cautiously about this forlorn God’s acre, and hold on by the rude crosses lest one should launch into space over the unfenced edges.

It has a curious effect to see the gaudy butterflies flaunting through the graves, and then in a moment launch out in mid-air. They ought to fall when over the edge.

The grim old ruin, with its tall tower standing out boldly against the sky, has for the last hundred years — since its last human inhabitant left it to the crows and daws — been left to the mercy of the villagers (and such mercy is scant with a French peasant when a chateau is concerned), who stole its stones to build or repair their own miserable houses. But recently a neighbouring countess, to whose family the chateau had once belonged, to prevent its being utterly destroyed, agreed to pay a small yearly sum to the village authorities, provided they protected it from further depredations. So it has now no enemies save the wind and weather, which hurt it little; and it has for friends the birds of the air, who find shelter within it. So it stands, of the past eloquent; and looking at the miserable present below us, who can say that there is any improvement in men or manners? All that can be said is, that the occasional tyranny and misdoing of the few has turned to the constant tyranny and misdoing of the many.

There is nothing visible of the village but the red roofs; but we cannot forget that those roofs hide in their shades manners unrealisable to the average stay-at-home Englishman. In the blazing noon not a creature is stirring save the blue butterflies on the rocks, and the red butterflies on the nettles; and we make our way back to the river, and have a difficulty in finding any person to ferry us across in the rude ferry-boat. We shout for half an hour before any one comes, and then a stranger volunteers. The only paddle is like a wooden shovel, and we are swept a hundred yards down the stream before we get across; and our ferryman is swept back an equal distance as he recrosses, and how he is to get the boat back to its original starting-point is a problem we do not stay to solve.

Once the visitor met with a comical adventure at La Roque. He had gone thither photographing, and becoming thirsty he had found an auberge hidden in a cavern-like place under an archway beneath the rock. The room he entered was dark, low, and dingy, with rough wood floor, chairs and tables encrusted with dirt, while some villanous-looking peasants were playing dominoes over their red wine. He meekly asked the landlady for limonade, when she burst into a torrent of abuse which made him wonder what the deuce was up, while the peasants gathered round threateningly. His polite and meagre French had little chance against the Languedoc patois; but seeing that he was misunderstood, he took a corkscrew out of his pocket, and imitating the drawing of a cork with a labial “pop,” he made his intentions clear, amid a burst of laughter. After a while the explanation was made out. Some years ago an Englishman had ascended the river in a rowing-boat, and running short of cash had applied to the landlady for the loan of le monnaie, and had apparently not repaid her. Seeing another Englishman also arriving by boat, she jumped to the conclusion that his limonade was le monnaie, and gave him a piece of her mind.

We often used to go as far as La Roque in the steam-launch in the evening after dinner. We could not go much higher, as the stream was too swift and shallow, with dangerous submerged rocks. The memory of those evenings is very vivid; the swift dimpling river in sharp curves between the silent, frowning hills, crags, and chestnut forests, and the brisk, bright little launch waking the echoes with true British cheek.

We would sometimes stop to watch the fishermen throwing their huge cast-nets, with which they catch the roach, dace, barbel, gudgeon, and trout, which are fairly plentiful. The nets are extraordinarily large, from twenty to twenty-five yards in circumference, and are thrown with extreme skill, so as to fall in a complete circle on the water, at a good distance from the boat. The men take the precaution to put their waistcoats on with the buttons behind, so that the heavy net may not catch and carry the man into the water with it, a not unlikely occurrence, and one we have known to happen on Norfolk waters.

At certain times the river is covered with flies, and then it appears alive with fish, which leap in all directions. Imagine a peaceful September evening, the cloudless sky above tinged with the last faint glow of the sunset, and the river beneath lying calm and still in the deepening twilight, a faint mist rising over the water, and in that mist floating, flying, driving like a thick snowstorm, are myriads of tiny flies white as snowflakes, but of what species we know not. At these flies the fishes jump, not by twos and threes or by dozens, but by hundreds at a time. As we sit in our little craft, we not only hear and see them in all directions; but we feel them too, for they come against and into the boat, floundering into our very laps. Once one leaped right over the launch into the water on the other side, and another actually struck one of us in the face.

CHAPTER VI

A MEMORABLE DINNER AT AN AUBERGE.

We men folk were one day invited by the hostess of the principal auberge in Bouillac to dine with her, or rather at her house. We had no hesitation in accepting, because it was intended as a grateful recognition of past favours, and to decline would have given great offence.

So at seven o’clock we entered the spacious front room, which was perhaps a shade less brown than the generality of such rooms. Here we greeted our hostess and her husband, her mother, and grandmother; the two latter, however, looking exactly the same age, for seventeen years or so does not make much difference after sixty is passed.

All the rooms opened into each other, and as there were no passages, each was more or less of a thoroughfare. In each, also, were one or two beds, and unless you kept within their curtained recesses there was no privacy in the bedrooms. An English engineer and his wife, who had to lodge there some time, were much troubled with this. They had the two beds in the room in which we were to dine, one on each side; and until all the household had retired to rest, there was no semblance of privacy.

One of the assistants at the mines, an elderly Englishman, now lodged at the inn, and had a tiny little room off the larger one, where there was certainly not room to swing a kitten, let alone the proverbial cat, the bed taking up at least two-thirds of the room. Here, like a hermit, the solitary old bachelor lived, comforted only with his pipes, books, and fishing-tackle. He had undertaken the direction of our feast, and took the head of the table when we presently sat down. A narrow trestle-table with benches on each side was set midway between the beds, and was covered with a coarse but white tablecloth, and the appointments, though plain, were infinitely better and more tastefully arranged than in the best inn of many an English market-town. Of the dinner itself, with its score of tasty courses, one can only say that it was perfectly cooked and served. The forks were changed with each course, but one kept the same knife throughout (except after fish), simply wiping it on a piece of bread. The visitor frequently forgot this fashion, and his knife was continually being brought back to him with many apologies. One dish remains in the memory, a plentiful one of gudgeons caught in the river, and proving the pleasure of stolen sweets, because they were not yet legally in season according to the French close-time. With almost each course there was some slight variation in the red and white wine of the country, and when the liqueurs came, and the cigarettes and coffee, we somehow lost sight of the brown and dirty flooring, the smoky walls and blackened rafters, and the hard benches and rickety table, or fancied that they were not real, and keenly enjoyed the after-dinner chat over old times and old and faraway friends.

Then the three generations of hostesses came into the room; then glasses were filled, and the visitor rose and in laborious French proposed their healths, and expressed his appreciation of the feast, and the wish that he could carry the cooks away with him to England. The youngest lady, in replying, wickedly said that the speech of the visitor sounded as if he had prepared and learned it beforehand, which was so far true that its preparation had somewhat dulled his enjoyment of the dessert.

“Why is not Everett here to-night?” we asked of the elder, speaking of the fourth Englishman who completed the little English colony in connection with the mines.

“Oh, he came for a sail with me this afternoon, and there was no wind, so to amuse himself he climbed up the mast to put his cap on the top; but the mast broke and he fell overboard, with a brand-new suit on. Then as he was wet he swam down to Bouillac, about half a mile, and now he has got the colic, a sure consequence of a chill in this district.”

“Is that why the peasants all wear a broad thick band of red flannel round their waists.”

“Yes; chiefly, I think, for that. They get very hot working in the fields or the vineyards, and then lie in the shade to rest, and if the sky gets cloudy or a wind rises they catch a chill. Colic is a very common and severe complaint among them. I think also that the belts are a support to cure or prevent rupture. At least three-fourths of the men are more or less ruptured. They are not physically strong, but carry loads of great weight, and suffer accordingly, particularly in the vineyards, because of the jerk going down-hill.”

“Some of my men suffer very much from lead colic,” said the director, “and after one attack of it they do not come to the mines any more. It is so severe they will not risk it again. I am a little puzzled as to its cause, however. Every precaution is taken in the mine, and it has so happened that all the men who have suffered have been lodging at Popiè‘s. I wonder if his wine is unwholesome?”

“That is not unlikely,” remarked the assayer. “There is a spring on the hill above the mine, the water of which is poisonous with lead, and the vines on that spot are so impregnated, that the wine of the farmer who owns that vineyard is believed to be poisonous. At all events, many people say they have been made ill through drinking it.”

“The peasants seem to drink a great quantity of wine,” said the visitor, “and it must come expensive even at five sous a bottle.”

“Yes. It is the only drink on which they can quench their thirst. The water is dangerous to a heated stomach. They spend at least fivepence a-day” on their wine, a sum hugely disproportionate to their limited expenditure in other things, and it is their only extravagance.”

“Surely there must be a thunderstorm coming. It is becoming insufferably hot here. Let us take our coffee on to the balcony.”

At the back of the house ran a long covered balcony bordering two sides of the courtyard beneath. Up the rough but quaint wooden framework of the balcony, honeysuckles and roses clambered in profusion, their scent being luscious and heavy in the hot dark air. But, unfortunately, their odour could not drown that of the midden in the yard beneath, which also took advantage of the sultry night to send its ammonia-laden fumes into the surrounding rooms. But that was a trifle one had become used to, and shutting our senses to the midden and opening them to the flowers, we sat and smoked, hardly visible to each other save for the red tips of our cigarettes. Then the darkness was rent with a flash, and the hills bellowed back to the quick thunder-peal; with a rush like a mountain torrent the rain came down, and for the space of an hour there was a Titanic storm, as if the hills were clashing together and the earth flaming back to heaven. The church bells of Bouillac were set ringing to drive off the storm fiends, St Martin’s bells rang as loudly, and in the appalling silences between the thunder and echoes and the next flash the bells of Carnac, away among the hills, were faintly heard. Baffled by these holy efforts, the demons of the storm rushed away down the river to other valleys, to be met by peals from other churches, and left the trembling villagers of Bouillac to breathe more freely under a starlit sky.

The strangeness of the present surroundings, the remoteness of the village hidden in the narrow valley, the sense of distance — not so much in miles, for a thousand miles or so are no matter nowadays, but in time — from the loved ones of the English home, and the fierceness of the sudden storm, made a great impression upon the visitor. He is one of those who, being used to wide expanses of sky and far prospects, hold a sense of dislike to the confinement of narrow valleys, where the sun rises later and sets earlier than its proper time; and a thunderstorm, with its sultry warnings, intensifies the feeling of imprisonment, which darkness in a gorge, or an excursion in a coal-mine, alike bring him.

When we left the auberge it was midnight. The air was fresh and cool, and a breeze almost chill was rustling through the vines. In the wet grass by the roadside numerous glow-worms lit their pale fires, and upon the hillside where lay the mines were a score of little lights twinkling and moving.

“There,” cried the director, indignantly, “that is how these Frenchmen serve me. We are working day and night shifts. The men who go on at night are, of course, expected to work their time through; but they think I am in bed, and they are coming down to the village for their midnight lunch, instead of taking it with them to the mine. That will take an hour or more of the time which I pay them to work in.”

“Why not turn them back?” suggested the visitor.

“Because we have only two revolvers among three of us. The overseers daren’t stop them, neither dare we. We must just let them pass quietly by, and say nothing.”

So we stood quietly aside while the group of idlers passed sullenly by without a greeting.

“I can’t sleep,” said the assayer; “I shall go to the office and work — I feel restless.”

“You will get potted some of these nights when you are alone at the bureau, according to that strange uncanny habit of yours when you can’t sleep.”

“I have got my revolver. Besides, I am safe. They won’t hurt me; it’s the director they will have a pot at when they mean mischief, not me. By the way, they are meditating some mischief, and I should advise you to look out.”

“Yes, I know. It will come before another month is out.”

And it did.

CHAPTER VII

A VILLAGE FUNERAL.

The sister has been busy nearly all day stitching laurel leaves and evergreens in patterns on white table-cloths, and in making crosses and crowns. Then there was a solemn conference held as to how eight or ten young girls could best be provided with white attire and wreaths on a day’s notice. The reason of it all is that the daughter of our master miner died suddenly last night, and as French law only allows forty-eight hours to elapse between a death and burial, things have to be got ready in a hurry. Mary is considered an authority on all social matters from a birth to a burial, and this morning she was waited upon by a deputation of weeping women, and prayed to assist in making the decorations needed. As these were not done at the house of mourning itself, but in that of a neighbour, she did not much mind, and so it came about that she stitched away with the others. Mrs Martin, our housekeeper, lent her best table-cloths, and we set to work to decorate them. We festooned them all round with leaves and flowers, stitching crowns of leaves in the centres of each and crosses in each corner. Then they gave the sister a wreath to make and a big wooden cross to decorate. It so happens that most of the young girls have white dresses which were bought for their confirmation recently, and with a little lending the others have been rigged up. One of the household toilet draperies makes a skirt for one petticoatless maiden, for whom the station-master’s wife provides a bodice and Mrs Martin shortens an underskirt. As some of the elder girls are to be attired in black, they have been running from one to another borrowing black hats. The Bouillac girls sent over to say that they wished to help and to be dressed in white; but the young ladies on this side the river politely told them that their services would not be required, and that they were on no account to wear white if they came as spectators. The girls of St Martin’s pride themselves upon their virtue, and do not associate to any great extent with the other girls, who are somewhat deficient in this respect.

We are not at all certain what is to be done with the embellished table-cloths, but the sister is expected to attend the funeral and will tell us afterwards all that takes place; but first we may mention one singular and rather good custom that is in vogue here. After a death the bereaved people place outside the house-door a table covered with black cloth, on which is placed pen, ink, and a sheet of paper. Sympathising friends who do not wish to enter the house simply write down their names, and this is considered equivalent to a visit. This is really a very good plan, better than leaving cards, because the door has not to be opened each time. The poor girl was consumptive, but no one thought that her death would be so sudden; there was no time for confession or communion, so that she is not supposed to be buried in consecrated ground. Fortunately Monsieur le Curé has proved himself better than his religion, and far from raising any objection, he has offered a burial and a special Mass.

All the village was astir early the next morning in order to attend the funeral, which took place at seven o’clock. The coffin was carried by six young girls; it was not covered at all, but flowers were laid upon it. Following the coffin were four more girls carrying a black-and-white pall, then a girl in white bearing the cross, then four more with a decorated table-cloth, then another with the white crown, and these again were followed by the four bearers of the other white and decorated cloth. The cloths were held by each corner with one hand, and in the free hand each girl carried a tall candle. All the miners and workmen of the night-shift (who would thus be at liberty in the daytime) joined the procession, which was a very long one, the priests walking at the head and chanting as they walked.

The white cloths are only carried at the funeral of a young unmarried girl, and are supposed to signify purity. For the same reason a young girl is always dressed for her funeral as she would be for her confirmation or wedding, and she is fully dressed even to her boots.

A funeral in this out-of-the-way spot seems to arouse the virtues of forgiving and forgetting, just as Christmas-time is supposed to do in England. As the village gossips meet to weep and decorate, they make friends again and pardon one another’s past slanders. We doubt the good fortune of this at the present moment, as after three years’ sulkiness towards each other, the two longest tongues in the parish have resumed their friendship, and their mischief-making powers when united are to be dreaded.

CHAPTER VIII

A CRUISE DOWN THE RIVER.

We had planned a trip down the river in our little steam-launch, and had everything ready for starting this morning, but in the night the rain came, and in the morning there was a deluge of water from the leaden clouds which spanned from hill-top to hill-top, like a huge black lid shut down upon the narrow valley. All day long it rained steadily and heavily, and there was nothing for it but to wait. It cleared a little towards night, but the river was rising, and its silvery streams were turned to yellow torrents. In the morning the rain had ceased, and through the broken clouds, which rolled away from the vineyard slopes, and hurried up the mountain gorges, there came fitful gleams of hot and brilliant sunshine, which left steamy vapour in their train as they dried the moist vegetation. We did not much like the appearance of the river in spate, as it passed with smooth strong current over the weirs and broke into golden-brown foam below; but as our arrangements had been made in advance, and our provisions would not keep, we decided to start. Our party consisted of the sister, the visitor, a boatman as a pilot, and an engineer.

The launch was just above the weir by the works, which are placed on a little bit of level ground at the base of a wooded hill, too steep to climb save with difficulty. The lock is at one end of the weir, without any canal or sheltering passage to it, and is a type of many which we met with lower clown, and which were excessively dangerous during a flooded condition of the river. There is nothing to hold on by in the walls and slopes of masonry; there is but a slight eddy or backwater to stop in while the lock-gate is being opened, and within four yards of one the torrent is thundering over the weir. If the lock-gate should be open one can steam straight into the lock without danger; but as the gates were generally shut, and the lock-keepers away at work in the garden or fields, not expecting such a rare thing as a vessel navigating the river, there was always a delay and a nervous difficulty in holding our own, and avoiding the deadly suck of the weir. Sometimes there were long canals cut out, so as to form a side-channel far above the weir and leading to the lock. In these cases passage through the locks was idle and easy, and the canal itself a thing of beauty, with its rocky banks a mass of verdure and flowers.

Safely through the lock we sped at a rapid pace down the swift stream, between steep hills clad with vineyard and chestnut forest, past now useless ferries, by breakwaters hidden by the rushing stream, by pleasant homes in leafy groves, by ruined mills, which spoke of a bygone trade, and ruined chateaux on isolated rocks, with the sky becoming bluer and the June sun hotter until we reached Capdenac, where on a precipitous cliff on the summit of a bold bluff stand the massive ruins of an ancient fortress said to derive its name from an incident which occurred at the siege of Capdenac by the English. An adventurous soldier had succeeded in scaling the rocks which surrounded the tower, but on reaching the top a sword-thrust cut off his nose, so that he fell backwards and was killed. Cap is patois for coup, and nac for nez, hence the name. Capdenac is our nearest town, and we often go there shopping, obtaining better things and finding better shops, than from a cursory inspection of its long, dirty, dingy street one would believe possible. One day we visited the ruins, and found a man busily employed in removing some of the stones to build himself a garden wall.

The river curves about in the most wonderful manner, and at Capdenac it forms a loop of perhaps two miles in circumference, stopped from joining by a narrow neck of rock. Through this neck a tunnel, about a quarter of a mile long, has been made, with locks at each end, and a canal cuts off the bend of the rapid river. The passage through the gloom of this cavern, for such in its size it seems to be, is at all times eerie, but once we had a particularly disagreeable experience in it. We were holding on to the landing-steps at the tunnel-side when the men began to work the locks. This they did too quickly, letting free a deluge of water all at once. The effect of this was a kind of whirlpool, or reverse current, which drew the boat towards the lock-gates, from which the water was pouring high above our heads. We reversed the engine full speed, but even with that had the greatest difficulty in keeping the boat from dashing into the gates, where we should certainly have been swamped. Four of us held on to the wall with might and main, and the sides of the boat bent as she swung against the stones. Our shouts to the men were in vain, the roar of the water drowned our cries, and we were thankful when the rush of water eased.

Another less dangerous but more ludicrous adventure once befell us in another lock. We got into the lock easily enough, but something went wrong with the exit door, which stuck fast just ajar, and for a long time would not move one way or another, so that we were fast prisoners, and it took the efforts of many men to release us. As a rule, each lock takes about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to pass through.

From Capdenac we swung along at a great pace down the curving river, where the rocks were further apart and the meadows rich with many crops, until, after passing through three more locks, at intervals of two or three miles, we came to La Roque Toirac, where we stopped to eat our déjeûner just above a fourth lock. On the right bank a chateau on a jutting rock half-way up a cliff, with a village beneath it, induced us to take the camera and walk up to it. We were rewarded by finding a most picturesque collection of dwellings, quite in the spray of an enormous waterfall which shot out of a cavern half-way up the cliff. The moist rocks, and the very walls of the houses, were covered with luxuriant ferns, and on the cloud of spray a faint rainbow spanned across the narrow lofty chateau, which was as hoar and ancient as the rock of which it seemed part. The silver torrent dashed wildly under a rude stone arch which carried the road, and side runnels from it ran across the gardens and backyards of the houses. There was a delicious air of moisture and green coolness about the whole of this sequestered nook, which was a strong contrast to the glare of the sun outside the misty dell. We took some successful photographs, including one of four washerwomen, washing clothes in a purling stream, beneath the shade of a trellised vine. They were good enough to suggest to us that if we took a photograph of the Curé‘s house (the only ugly house in the place, by the way), we could sell many of it.

Again on the river, which was now clearing fast, we hurried along down rapid after rapid, seeing large stones and masses of rock beneath us, often in close proximity to our slender sides, until we came to another great loop of the river like that at Capdenac, and another lofty tunnel, a quarter of a mile long, through the solid rock, to cut off the bend by canal and locks. Here we were much amused by a long-bearded goat which followed us the whole way through the tunnel, gazing down at us with the most comical air of surprised concern.

As we emerged from the night of the dripping tunnel into the dazzling daylight we came upon a remarkable scene; a large village — Montbrun — clinging to the side of a promontory of cliff, with a church and chateau at the top, which, of course, it was absolutely necessary to stop and photograph. But we might have stopped for such a purpose every mile, if we had had time and plates enough. As it was, our frequent stops and the many locks made it late in the afternoon ere we reached our first stopping-place, Cajarc, thirty-seven kilometres from our starting-point.

Montbrun

Cajarc is not a bad little town, if it were not so filthy dirty. All the household refuse appears to be thrown out into the streets, which otherwise are tree-shaded and pleasant. Our appearance created much sensation as we walked up the main street, where the population seemed to be carrying on all their avocations out of doors, on the broad pathways. Our hearts sank as we saw the exterior of the best hotel, and the interior was not much more inviting. The bedrooms were not so bad, and the dinner was most excellent, served though it was in a dirty barn-like room, with rough wooden floor sorely in need of scrubbing. Our companions at dinner were half-a-dozen voyageurs — Anglicè, bagmen — who stared hard at us while they silently devoured their dinner.

Chateau Salvignac

Before dinner we had walked a mile or two out, up a side valley, and photographed the Chateau of Salvignac, partly in ruins. We wished to arrange a group of peasants in front of an image of the Virgin under the ruins, and asked a man with a cart drawn by a pair of cows, to stop and be taken. He sullenly said he had no time, but on a franc being given to him, he had plenty of time. The sister, who was a skilful interpreter, had much difficulty in understanding the soft patois. I heard one woman, who was intelligent enough to understand our requirements, say to the other, “Reshons nous.” The village dogs attacked us fiercely, and the peasants only laughed at our attempts to drive them ofF, which with the sharp points of my tripod I was just able to do.

We retired to rest early to escape the cheerless room, and next morning, after the uncomfortable basin of cafe au lait with bread soaked in it, which stands for the first breakfast, we were early on the river, which although above its summer level, yet now ran clear and sparkling.

Another dark tunnel, longer and more cavernous than any yet, cut off a long bend. In the bowels of the solid rock it was, by contrast with the outer heat, very cold. Every turn in the river was a repetition of gorge and cliff and rapid shining stream. Calvignac, a village built upon the top of a huge frowning cliff, shut out the morning sun and cast half the valley into shade. Then, having passed through three more locks, we reached a village upon which the rain never falls — Larnigol. An immense white cliff overhangs the river, and in the hollow at its base the village is built, the houses being little more than faces of masonry, the back-rooms being hollowed in the rock. The dripping springs and the raindrops keep the upper fern-clad cliff clothed with its glorious greenery of maiden-hair, and falls in a veil of spray far outside of the houses and into the river. What a strange collection of human habitations is this, sequestered from the outer world! no road to it but mountain footpaths and the river. One would expect the people to be savage and clad in skins; but they are of the ordinary, blue-bloused, peasant class, having tiny fields in the meadow-land, which seems almost always to be opposite the frowning cliff on the other side of the river, scanty patches of vines in oases on the barren hillside, and chestnut woods in sheltered gullies. One wonders how there can be any feeling of safety underneath those top-heavy rocks, and indeed one hears occasionally of houses being overwhelmed by falls of rock. These rock-bound, cavern-cottaged villages are so numerous in the valley of the Lot that this occurrence is not rare. A little lower down the river we saw a great slope of broken rock, which covers the ruins of an entire village so destroyed a long time ago.

The formation of the rock favours caverns and hollows, and one constantly sees the face of the cliff made good with ancient masonry shutting in the mouth of a cavern. These were clearly intended as strongholds and places of retreat, and their origin is ascribed to the Romans, although a few are said to be of English origin, when Cahors was garrisoned with English soldiery under the command of Thomas à Becket. Some of these strongholds are scarcely distinguishable from the rock, and are so high up and so inaccessible that it is probable they have not been visited for generations.

In one place, the name of which we forget, although we took a photograph of it which is now before us, the white limestone cliff rose with remarkable abruptness to a great height, and with apertures through the mass of it showing the sky at the other side. There was no room for the road between its sheer precipice and the river, so the road was tunnelled through its base, with approaches of semi-tunnels supported by massive arches of masonry, a magnificent engineering work, carried out, like the locks, by the State, regardless of expense.

Through lock after lock without much difficulty, except that once we were nearly carried over a weir, through our boatman trying to turn the launch round just above one, while waiting for a lock to be opened. By sweeping curves, grim rocks, and emerald meadows, over golden shallows and sullen deeps, we sped swiftly on. Entering a very beautiful canal leading to a lock, we were charmed by the luxuriance of plant and flower and fern on the overhanging rocks, and the plash of cool cascade or tributary streams. Bird and butterfly, lizard and dragon-fly, all things gay and beautiful were in profusion around us. The water was cold as ice, and in constant motion from springs welling out of mossy crevices in the cliff, and shoals of fish darted across the sunlit limestone bottom of the canal. The wealth of maiden-hair fringing the moist rocks made us wish to carry a ship-load of it back to England. There was no sound but the hum of insect, the cry of bird, and the plash of water. Not a leaf stirred; no breeze penetrated this cool recess; in the dark-green depths of the wood, between us and the murmuring river, there was not a rustle; there was no sight or sound of man in this wild Garden of Eden. As we slowly glided round a corner, we saw a child fast asleep on the lowest of a rude flight of stone steps, touching the water, and so close to the edge that our wash would have lifted him in, had we not shut off steam and drifted quietly by. We shouted for some one to come, and presently a peasant came from a cave where he probably had been enjoying a noontide siesta, and carried the little boy away from his dangerous position. He had lain so still and limp, that we were at first afraid it was a dead body left there by the stream.

We now entered a deep lock, and no sooner were we shut in, than there was a loud explosion and a deafening uproar of escaping steam, which filled the space under the awning with scalding vapour, so that we had to throw ourselves on our faces in the bottom of the boat. The lock-keeper and his wife fled in terror to a safe distance.

When the rush of steam had subsided, we found that the steam pressure-gauge had been blown off into space. The engineer and boatman were most graphic in their despair, and to give them time to collect their thoughts, we carried the luncheon-basket into a shady place in the wood, and enjoyed our déjeûner none the less because we were many miles from any railway station or auberge. But what was the use of worrying! We had plenty to eat and drink; the coolness was so delicious, while beyond the shade of the cliff it was intensely hot. Then perched on the top of a bold rock was the church and village of St Cirq, which made a capital photograph. Nothing would have tempted us to climb to the summit of that cliff. The dwellers in these parts ought to have wings, to make their daily life worth living. St Cirq la Popie has an industry of its own. It is the birthplace of almost all the wooden taps which are used in the vine-growing departments round about. Nearly all the inhabitants of this village aloft, get their living by making these wooden taps, which are sent away in boats to be sold in the neighbouring towns.

Meanwhile our crew had recovered from their dramatic despair, and were hard at work tinkering up damages by plugging up the pipe of the lost pressure-gauge with a piece of wood. The safety-valve was fortunately set low, and by keeping the steam just blowing off at this, the steam pressure could be kept uniform; and presently we were under way again down the clearing and brightening river.

Tow-Path at Ganyl

We passed rapidly by the stupendous cliffs of Ganyl, but on our journey up-stream we stopped there for a closer examination of their wonders. For more than a mile the white limestone cliffs rise sheer out of the river, on the left bank, to the height of over three hundred feet, with the upper strata overhanging. About fifteen feet above the summer level, a half-tunnel fifteen feet high and deep is cut out of the solid rock for a tow-path — a monument of engineering perseverance and skill. On the opposite side of the river are low meadows, which are often covered by the sudden floods, so that the tow-path for this unused navigation must need be carved out of the rock — a long black score in the dazzling white. The steam-launch, anchored in the stream below, looked but a tiny dot — a child’s toy-boat — under those great cliffs, and human figures on the path but flies in a narrow groove. On the hot white spaces of bare rock the lizard ran nimbly and rested suddenly, and numbers of gay butterflies, notably large swallowtails, fluttered in the brilliant and reflected sunshine. In moister patches maidenhair ferns grew in graceful profusion, and the overhanging summit of the precipice, whence fell a continuous spray of water far out into the river below, spreading a gossamer veil between us on the rock and the green land beyond, was thickly covered with ferns of many kinds, and luxuriant moss. From the crevice below us large snakes would slide into the glassy water, and emerging again, be dry in a moment as they climbed the burning stones.

But every mile of this charming river there is something fresh to see, and to describe, were it not monotonous to do so, because of the paucity of language on the writer’s part. We went rapidly on through many more locks, by cliffs and woods and chateaux, until the widening stream bore us in the evening to Cahors, a large, handsome, and important town, enclosed within a loop of the river. Here we landed for the night, and found comfortable quarters in an inn, where the landlord, who had been deceived by a faithless wife, allows no women-servants at all. We joined the table d’hôte, where the sister, being the last arrival, and the only lady, was placed at the head of a long table, at which sat some forty men. The brother joined us at the meal, having just arrived by train. Oh, the dinners we had at that large and dirty hotel at Cahors! Now, I, the present writer, am amply satisfied with a plate of cold beef and a jug of ale for my dinner, and I am not more satisfied with the best dinner my hospitable friends can give me; so I am not a gourmand or a glutton, but there was something peculiarly touching about those Cahors dinners. One could not pick out the pâtes de foies gras, the truffles, or the trout, or anything else in particular as excellent; there were such a multitude of appetising dishes, all good, and an unlimited supply of excellent vin ordinaire, for about half-a-crown all told. Then the coffee and cigarettes by the fountains in the gardens behind the hotel, the stroll afterwards along the wide but crowded streets by the bright moonlight — every person in the city neatly dressed, and promenading or sitting on the pavement outside the cafes; the solitary walk by the river, and over the long and turreted bridge, said to be built by the English during the occupancy under Thomas à Becket; the reverie by the weir, where the broken water shone bright in a light mellower and more golden than, but otherwise almost as bright as, an English daylight; and then the return to the gay crowd at midnight, — it is a charming memory of a charming place. As we entered our comfortable, but, alas! not clean bedrooms, the sound of laughter and song penetrated through the open volées, and made it clear that sleep would be impossible for another hour. So we spent the time in making a tent of the bed-clothes, under which we changed our sensitive plates, the moonlight streaming in through the chinks of blinds and curtains making this not otherwise possible.

The next morning we inspected the cathedral and the celebrated Fontaine de Divonne, where, out of an unfathomable cavern in the rock, wells a full-grown river issuing in enormous volume, a transparent green in colour, and icy cold to the feel. It turns a mill within ten yards of its source, and surges over a weir into the river Lot in ten yards more, in its short course of twenty yards making as much fuss as a river with a course of twenty miles. This district is full of such things. There are lost rivers, where they plunge into the bowels of the rock, and no man has traced their emergence; there are fountains like that of Divonne; and there are great dry gulfs of unmeasured depth, which people go to see, and then see nothing but a hole full of darkness. [1]

There was a picturesque mill and lock, which we photographed, and where we saw the first barge we had yet seen. We had come seventy miles, and passed through thirty locks, and as yet had not seen any craft larger than a ferry-boat, and not a single vessel used for any other purpose than the peasants crossing the river or fishing. These were flat-bottomed punts of the rudest description, and propelled by a thing like a malt-shovel. Those registered as fishing-boats, and duly licensed for the purpose, had big signboards nailed to their sides, with the register number painted upon them.

The river below Cahors is said to be grander and wilder even than the upper reaches, with rockier banks and more gigantic cliffs. If this be so, it must be well worth a visit.

Our journey back again was marked by two incidents. In one place the stream was so fierce that we could not stem it, and two of us had to go ashore with the tow-line and toil along the rocky bank, knee-deep in flowers and snakes (at least we disturbed so many of these creatures, which took at once to the river, that every tendril clinging round our ancles, or slippery root on which we trod, made us nervous), while those in the launch steered her anxiously over the swirling torrent, and watched the jagged rocks plainly visible below. We had run short of fuel, which made the matter more difficult, and afterwards led to the second incident, that of stoking the furnace with tobacco. We had used all our coal (and all we could buy at the cottages we passed was two lumps), we had broken up every box and piece of useless wood about the boat, and at last we came to a stop and landed to gather sticks. We could not find many, but discovered heaps of dry roots, with which we loaded the fore part of our little craft. It turned out that these were the roots of the tobacco-plant, and it gave us an excuse for saying afterwards to unbelieving people that we had stoked with tobacco. The roots gave but an evanescent flare; and after drawing very slowly away from a dangerous weir, barely stemming the current, we were obliged to stop twenty miles short of our destination and go home by train, leaving the launch to be brought on next day.

Note:

[1] At last some one has explored one of these gouffres. As this book goes to press we observe the following paragraph in a newspaper:

“A subterranean river has just been discovered in the district of Miers, in the Department of Lot. Miers is in the heart of a wild mountainous country, in the deepest recesses of which caves and grottoes are found, some of which appear to have been the abodes of our troglodyte ancestors. The other day two explorers — M. Martel and M. Gaupillat — discovered the river at the bottom of a gouffre or abyss, known as the Pit of Paderac. Returning thither with a folding boat, made of sail-cloth, they worked their way down-stream for a couple of miles through a succession of wonderful grottoes sparkling with stalactites. They found seven lakes on their way, and had to shoot thirty-seven cascades or rapids. The two explorers intend to start on a fresh expedition to ascertain, if possible, the outlet of this unknown river. They conjecture that it joins one of the heads of the Dordogne, six miles from the abyss.”

CHAPTER IX

THE CONFIRMATION VISIT OF THE ÉVÊQUE — THE CALVARY — THE BISHOP IN THE STEAM-LAUNCH — THE RURAL PRIESTHOOD.

Our village is all excitement because of the visit which the évêque, Bishop of — we were going to say the diocese, but at all events of the corresponding French division — is paying it.

We had been wondering why the children were all so busy gathering moss and evergreens, but we saw the reason of their labours in an evergreen chapel or bower half-way between the station and the church, and many other arches and decorations. The great man came this afternoon at four o’clock, and the inhabitants turned out to meet him en masse. It is only once in five years that he pays a visit to this obscure village, so the excitement is great when he does come. We went clown with the rest to meet him at the station, and the director, as the person of greatest consequence, welcomed him and presented the rest of the English colony to him. He spoke a few polite words, and, stretching his hands over us, blessed us, so that we were the first persons in the parish to receive the blessings of Monseigneur.

Chapel in Street

He first proceeded to the evergreen chapel, and to our unaccustomed eyes it seemed strange to see him stand solemnly there and change his robes, and don his mitre, in full view of, and to the mingled delight and awe of the villagers and peasants.

After the change of attire came the general blessing and official reception. The mayor read his welcoming speech (poor man! he was nervous), and had himself and Commune blessed. Then the director gave his carefully prepared oration, teeming with extravagant compliments to the French nation. He takes great delight in piling up all the flattery he can muster. We are afraid sometimes that he is “laying it on too thick,” and that they will see he is laughing at them; but really this seems to be impossible, they take it all “like Gospel.”

The Bishop gave in return some almost equally eulogistic compliments upon the English nation in general, and the small portion of it now resting at St Martin de Bouillac in particular. He was pleased to say that the English were the greatest people on the face of the earth (O Bishop! where is thy sincerity? Is it equal to that of the director?); and that by reverencing the Sabbath as they did, they set an example and made a reproach to the other nations, themselves (the French) in particular. There was a short service in the church afterwards, which we did not attend; but there was one little incident worth relating. An English lady staying with us had a pretty little child of four years old, named Sissie, who was taken into the church with a little friend. Monseigneur l’Évêque blessed all the little Catholics, and gave them the cross containing the bon Dieu to kiss. Upon seeing Sissie, he said to one of the other children — ” Approchez cette petite ange, au bon Jesu,” and Sissie kissed the cross, receiving his especial blessing, and kissing his hand like the others. The little darling does not think he is a man at all, and has, in some inexplicable fashion, got her ideas of him mixed up with those she has of the Saviour, perhaps because she hears both spoken of as Monseigneur.

Calvary - In a Vineyard, St Martin’s

A little while ago there was a religious revival at St Martin’s, and all the village was converted; and, in memory of the event, erected a Calvary on the top of the steep hill behind our house. Along the path through the vines are some fifteen crosses, at regular intervals, leading to the crown of the hill, where are three larger crosses of plain wood, the centre one bearing a well-carved image of Christ. These stand boldly out against the sky, and are tonight illuminated and garlanded with little lamps, as are each of the smaller or station crosses. Unfortunately for the success of the illuminations, the parish lantern (the moon, according to our native dialect) shines brilliantly, and places the lesser lights at a disadvantage.

Our neighbours of Bouillac were very jealous of our religious success, and inaugurated a rival mission and conversion. So they ordered two revivalistic priests (we had only one), and straightway set to work to profit by their ministrations. Everything was neglected save church-going. We were not sorry when it was all ended, for our washerwoman was too much absorbed in prayer to do the washing properly that week, and the baker, in his zeal, forgot to bring the bread. But what of such trifles! Bouillac had its mission, confessed its sins, and was able to say to St Martin’s — ” We are as good as you.”

But one thing they could not have, and that was a Calvary, the one first erected having a vested interest in the neighbourhood, which the religious authorities would not allow to be disturbed. But they were not to be done, so they bought a Virgin, and the maids of Bouillac (raræ aves in the village) having carried it through the streets, it was placed in a niche over the church porch. They were also allowed to put up one cross on a hill near the village, and this ceremony took place last Sunday, when the people went in procession up the steep hillside, bearing the cross, which, after being blessed by the assembled priests of the neighbourhood, was planted on the crest of the hill, where its presence is believed to protect the neighbouring vines from the blight.

The excitement was greater still on the second day of the Bishop’s visit, as it was confirmation day. Early in the morning numbers of little white-robed and veiled figures were hurrying down the hill-paths, and along the white road to the station. These were the St Martin’s children going to meet those from Capdenac, who would arrive by train. The Bouillac contingent also joined them there, and, headed by Monseigneur, resplendent in his purple robes, his grand vicar, and the other priests, the children walked in procession to the church, which was decked for the occasion with flowers, moss, and evergreens.

We were provided with seats near the altar, inside the communion-rail. We were, of course, behind the évêque, but could see the pretty and awestruck faces of the children as they came up in succession to be anointed and blessed. After the confirmation, Monseigneur came up to the altar, and seeing Sissie standing close to him, he called her a little angel of the good Jesus, and blessed her for the second time.

The next proceeding was a grand dinner at the Cure’s, at which, after the Bishop, the director was the most important personage. The dinner was maigre, because of its being in Lent; but as several kinds of delicious soups, fish, and pâté were served, the maigreness was not very apparent.

Dinner finished, the Bishop visited one of our miners, who is very ill, and, we are afraid, upon his deathbed. Poor man! his wife is expecting her confinement very soon, which makes the situation all the more sad.

The director had his little steam-launch brought up from the works to Bouillac Bridge, thinking that the Bishop would embark there for his voyage down to Verney, where another confirmation takes place; but his lordship elected to walk from the sick man’s house to the mine, so we went down in the boat, the crowd following along the river-side, and waited at the office for our reverend visitor. Presently he approached, followed by the white-robed girls and clean-looking (for once in their lives) boys whom he had confirmed in the morning. The director and his sister met him, and again received his blessing. The works were thrown open for once to all comers, and it seemed strange to see the little white girls, with their wreaths and veils, flitting about among the machinery. The Bishop was much interested, and asked for everything to be explained to him. After he had seen the tables, jiggers, crushers, and rollers in motion, the machinery was stopped for a little while, and every one drew near to hear a short sermon given by him to the workmen and miners. It really was a very good sensible discourse, and much more charitable than we expected. What would some strait-laced Dissenting deacon, or Low Church parson, have thought had he seen us all, English and French, Protestant and Catholic, kneeling to receive the blessing; of a Roman Catholic bishop? “But what does it matter?” remarked a philosophical friend; “religious forms and ceremonies are a matter of opinion, and a blessing more or less will not make any difference in the long-run.” After the works, workmen, and audience had been blessed, the Bishop took his seat in the launch, which, carrying the union-jack at the bows, and the tricolor of France at the stern, steamed away down the beautiful river to Verney, where a confirmation is to be held to-morrow, and where the director is to dine with the Bishop at the house of Monsieur le Curé. The peasants working in the fields dropped their tools and rushed in groups, and, seeing the Bishop, they fell on their knees on the river-bank, and bowed their heads to receive his blessing. The contrast between the noisy, puffing, little launch and the grave and reverend Monseigneur, who, standing up, and with outstretched hands, blessed the devout people on either bank, was somewhat marked, also one could scarcely restrain a smile at the attitudes assumed by the numerous goats. The animals always came to the bank to see the launch go by, and they gaze in astonishment, nodding their long-bearded visages with ridiculous solemnity and regularity. More goats than usual came down this day, and mingling with the groups of kneeling peasants, wagged their wise heads in appreciative admiration.

This is perhaps a good opportunity to say something about the rural priesthood. We approach the subject with reluctance, and will dismiss it briefly, merely saying that our remarks apply only to the rural priesthood, and not to the refined and educated priests of higher rank or better station.

Reverenced and adored by the women, tolerated but distrusted by the men, they lead singularly artificial lives. Many of those living in out-of-the-way parishes are in some respects almost as ignorant as the people they profess to teach and guide. Themselves the sons of peasant proprietors, they are taken perhaps by a neighbouring cure, and by him educated, with a view to their becoming in after-years spiritual pastors and masters. It is considered by the peasants “so very respectable” to have a curé in the family, and the women like to be able to speak of “my brother the curé or “my uncle the curé,” it gives a certain tone to a family, a sort of “we’ve got what you haven’t” air. Of course the priests are educated: they even learn one other language besides their own — either English, German, or Spanish, the choice is optional. Spanish or German is most frequently chosen, but occasionally one meets with a priest who can speak English fluently. Such an one would most probably be a gentleman by birth and fortune. But the country curés, for the most part, are not gentlemen either in manners or birth, or by education. They know a little Latin, and a few phrases of one of the before-mentioned languages; for the rest, they are well up in the dogmas, rites, ceremonies, superstitions, and petty tyrannies of their own particular religion: of the religion of other people they literally know nothing. One curé thought that all Protestants were Unitarians, or something of that sort, and that the Virgin Mary was not in the remotest way connected with the Protestant religion. He did not know that we had any creed at all, and was very much surprised to hear that the Apostles’ Creed was read at a service which was held in our sitting-room by the French Protestant pastor.

The curés, like all other Frenchmen, are fond of good living. Some of the bishops, however, discourage this, and do not like even confirmation feasts to be too grand. Apropos of this, a story went the round a short time ago. As was, and still is, the custom, Monsieur le Curé gave a grand luncheon-party in honour of the visit of his bishop to the parish, and as his brother had made him a present of a pheasant, he had it cooked for déjeûner. It was quite evident to the guests, at the commencement of the repast, that Monseigneur thought the various dishes too good for earthly curés food, for he made satirical remarks to that effect; but when the pheasant was placed upon the table, he immediately arose, saying, “A dish of luxury, a dish of luxury, — it is too much.” Thereupon he retired to his room, leaving his poor snubbed host in a disturbed state of mind. As for the other guests, they did not much mind, for, as one of them said, there was all the more pheasant left for them, and peace and quietness to eat it in.

Of the morality of the priesthood in this Southern clime our speech shall be as short as the subject-matter. Their self-indulgence in this respect is just on a par with that of the peasant girls, in whose veins the blood runs with a Southern warmth.

CHAPTER X

THE TOWNS.

The towns and villages of this part of France are all more or less (generally more) dirty, and more or less (generally more also) picturesque. We have said all, but that is not quite true. Decazeville is dirty, outrageously dirty, but it is not picturesque; but Decazeville ought not to have the first place in this chapter given to it, for it is so dirty and so ugly that it should decidedly be placed at the very end, but as we have mentioned it first, we may as well say that it possesses two redeeming features — a fine church, and a fine Place upon which is erected a statue of the Duke of Decazes.

Decazeville is the centre of a mining district, and of course all the towns in that district are rather more dirty than usual, and the usual is bad enough.

Let us leave the mining towns and go and see what Rodèz, the chief town of the Department of Aveyron, is like: at any rate, we shall journey through a charming country.

After passing Cransac, the railway winds onwards and upwards, skirting round two sides of one beautiful valley, and then darting through a tunnel into another and another of such valleys, — the grass as green as any that grows in the Emerald Isle, the hillsides terraced and clothed right away up with the fragrant vines, and the waving corn-fields bright with the scarlet glow of poppies. On the banks of the line the poppies grow in sheets, and every rocky cutting is fringed with ferns and saxifrage, the latter golden, red, and green.

Before reaching Rodèz we pass the beautiful waterfall of Salles-la-Source. The village bearing that name is situated on one side of a narrow valley, and the houses are perched one above another against the rocks, which tower to a considerable height above them. From one overhanging cliff the water falls in one unbroken arch a distance of many feet outwards, and then darting under the roadway bridge, it takes another long leap, and so on and on, rushing, tumbling, leaping, until it joins the little river that brawls along its stony bed at the bottom of the valley. Seen from the opposite side of the valley, the fall looks not so much like water, as masses of moving snow, it is so white and pure-looking. Underneath the principal arch of water is a water-worn grotto, and there is the home of the maiden-hair fern. There it grows in thousands, ever kept fresh and cool by the spray of the waterfall; right away to the top of the cliff the graceful, feathery fronds lap one over another — a veritable cascade of ferns, green with a greenness so tender and so vivid that it is more like a light than a colour. Salles-la-Source is a place one sees with delight, leaves with regret, and thinks of in after years with pleasant memories.

Rodèz is reached soon after leaving Salles-la-Source. The town itself is situated on a hill, so that it is impossible for the railway to run into it. However, a rumbling old diligence soon takes one into the city.

The boast and pride of Rodèz is its cathedral, from the summit of whose lofty tower one looks across a smiling country to the snow-clad mountains of the Auvergne Alps.

This tower is one of the marvels of the “Midi de la France”: it is 80 yards high, is built in three steps, and is surmounted by a colossal statue of the Virgin, surrounded by statues of the four evangelists, one at each corner of the tower. The cathedral was built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and is both large and beautiful, containing some richly carved stalls, tombs, and chapels. Oh what a relief it is to enter the cathedral out of the heat and glare of a July clay! It is like an entering into rest. Quiet nuns creep slowly to and fro across the pavement. Poor women, who perhaps have left their market-baskets on the steps outside, kneel praying before the shrine of some favourite saint; whilst dotted here and there in front of the grand altar the matrons and maids of the city say their prayers in peace and quietness.

Through high painted windows the shafted sunlight streams, throwing bars of coloured light over living sinners and statued saints, tinting alike with rainbow-hues the white marble of the altar and the cold, grey stone pavement.

In winter the cathedral is cold — cold as ice. Let us turn into it at dusk on a November evening. A few candles burn dimly upon the high altar; confession is going on in some of the chapels, and these also are lit up. The rest of the building is wrapt in gloom. On all sides kneel or sit waiting, praying figures. From a chapel near, one hears the murmuring voice of the priest and the answering voice of a penitent, whispering in tones inaudible to any save her confessor. The door of the chapel is opened, the confessed and absolved penitent passes out, and another person takes her (only occasionally his) place. The sober nuns creep slowly in and out, dipping their saintly fingers in the holy water that ever rests in its font beside the great church-door. In the gathering darkness the candles on the high altar and in the chapels burn more brightly, throwing gleams of light upon the faces of the passing faithful, but otherwise only serving to make the gloom in which the great body of the church is wrapt, more apparent.

The streets of Rodèz are cleaned in a very economical manner. The town, as we said before, is situated on a hill, then the Place or market-square is at the top of the town, and from it the streets radiate in a downward direction. To clean these streets the scavengers turn on the taps in the square, and by means of zinc or wooden troughs guide the water into the different streets. Then out come the shopkeepers or their assistants, each one armed with a big broom, and in a very few minutes each street is swept clear and clean from end to end. The market-square is treated in the same way, then the taps are turned off, and the men disappear to other parts of the town.

In spite of all this scrubbing and brushing, the streets of a French town look nearly always dirty; but that is because of the habits of the people, any and every kind of refuse being thrown into the streets, — out of the windows and out of the doors, everything is thrown as into a dust-bin. The people of this district are like bad servants: they no sooner clean up than they begin to dirty again, and so their streets, at any rate, are seldom clean and tidy-looking.

But if the towns are dirty, what, oh what, can be said of the villages! Alas! there is only one word that can be used in describing the condition, and that is “filthy.” They are filthy in the extreme. Quaint, wonderfully quaint, fit pictures for an artist’s eye, but, alas for his nose! Poor man! he would have a bad time of it. Cologne in its ancient and worst days may have been as bad, but it could not have been worse.

The Palais de Justice at Rodèz is a very fine building, and once when we were at Rodèz an important murder trial was going on. The town itself was in a great state of excitement, because some friends of the accused had threatened to blow up the Assize Courts with dynamite, so the courts were guarded all round with mounted troops. The persons being tried were those accused of the brutal murder of Monsieur Wattrin, of Decazeville strike renown. There were seven of them, men and women, and villanous-looking people they were.

Trials in French courts are looked upon as a great distraction by all concerned. Judge, jurors, lawyers, witnesses, and audience, and newspaper reporters go in for making the whole affair as theatrical as they possibly can, and when published the evidence reads more like a play (tragedy or comedy, as the case may be) than anything else.

One week the people of St Martin’s and Bouillac were all on the qui vive, expecting that there would be a guillotining entertainment at Figeac, which is the second town in the Department of the Lot.

A man living in a village near to that town, had shot his sister-in-law and his aunt, after having made a vain attempt to shoot his father-in-law. As it was not thought that a jury, however lenient, could bring in extenuating circumstances, the people naturally expected that the man would be doomed to lose his head, and many of them were eagerly looking forward to being witnesses of the ghastly spectacle. One woman actually said that though she should not go herself, she should send her young son, that the dreadful sight might deter him from ever committing a similar crime. However, the man only got a term of imprisonment after all, so all the curiously inclined were disappointed of the entertainment.

The French police work much more secretly than do the English ones. They keep things very quiet, and one does not hear much of their proceedings in connection with a trial before it comes off. Also, their doings are not reported to such an extent in the newspapers.

Figeac is the second town in the Department of the Lot, and is worth a visit if only for the sake of seeing its quaint old market-place, and its two beautiful churches, in one of which is a most beautiful and elaborately carved high altar, which occupies almost the whole end of the church and reaches to the roof.

CHAPTER XI

SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS.

The peasants are very superstitious, though they do not themselves think so. In fact, superstition not connected with religion, is discountenanced by the Roman Catholic Church and its priests: religious superstitions are dignified by the name of croyances, when, as a matter of course, they at once cease to be looked upon as mere superstitions. There are, however, some superstitions that are not in any way connected with religion. One very curious one is the following: If rain continues for several days, the poor people think that the bon Dieu is angry, and that in all probability some one will fall into the river and be drowned, which the bon Dieu will accept as a kind of sacrifice, when He will make the rain to cease and the sun to shine again. Another superstition is connected with washing-day. During the month of May many people will only wash the clothes in cold water. They will not make a lessive, or clothes-boiling, during that month, because the Virgin Mary might feel offended, and so withhold some particularly desired blessing from themselves and families. Why the Virgin Mary should take any interest in clothes-washing it is hard to tell, and why she should object to the clothes being boiled during this especial month is still harder; but there it is, she does object, and as she is the guardian saint of all Catholic families, they like to please her even in so small a matter as this.

When changing houses, many peasants would rather leave a cat to starve in the old house, than carry it with them to another; they consider it unlucky, and that if puss will not follow them to the new home of her own free will she had better be left behind, otherwise all kinds of misfortune may be expected. On no account must a cat be carried over a brook: that would be quite too dreadful, and no one could say what might happen to the bearer. As we live close beside one brook, with another quite near upon the other side, the river in front and the mountains behind, we find it difficult to get a cat, for no one is courageous enough to bring one to the house. So, as our last pussy disappeared mysteriously, probably to be eaten by a hungry peasant family, we have to do without one.

The peasants and priests alike think that the devil sends hail and thunderstorms, so when the clouds gather and a storm seems impending, the church bells are rung furiously in order to frighten his Satanic Majesty, and make him take his thunder and hail to another quarter. We heard one old man say that he did not like the bells, for they only rang when something bad had happened, or was about to happen — meaning no doubt deaths, funerals, or thunderstorms. The village church bells are not rung upon joyous occasions as is the case in England, so that a merry wedding-peal is never heard. Still the sound of the bells is not always saddening, for it is very pleasant in the dusk of a summer’s evening to hear first from one and then from another church tower the sweet notes of the Angelus. On a still calm evening we hear it rung from four distinct parish churches.

To return to superstitions. In one of the churches at Toulouse part of a foot cut in stone protrudes from the wall. It is supposed to be a model of one of St Peter’s feet, and to be capable of working miracles. To it mothers take children who are lame, club-footed, or have too few or too many toes. In order to kiss the stone foot, and to offer a prayer before it, a woman will walk many miles, carrying in her arms her afflicted child. One of us asked the old Abbé, who took us over the church, if he believed it all. He shrugged his shoulders and said: “What will you, mademoiselle? — it is necessary to have something for the poor people: it does them no harm, it is only a belief.”

Almost every church has one wonder-working shrine: to one church children will be taken who are stunted in growth, to another people whose eye-sight is affected will make a pilgrimage; prayers at this will greatly benefit those afflicted with deafness, and at that persons troubled with rheumatism may find healing and relief from pains. These little pilgrimages are made in addition to the more important ones, such as those to Lourdes and Rocamadour.

During and between the months of May and September many pilgrimage trains go through the station on their way from Rodèz and the towns beyond to the great pilgrimage shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. The trains are decorated with mottoes and bunches of artificial flowers, and knots of blue-and-white ribbon (the Virgin’s colours) are tied to the door-handles. The healthy pilgrims look very merry upon the going journey, for no amount of religion, be it never so doleful, could make French people sad for long together. On the return journey, however, they all look, not cross exactly, but oh, so tired! — for the loss of rest, as well as the more than ordinary spell of religious devotion they have undergone, has quite subdued their natural gaiety of spirits.

The sick pilgrims, poor souls, undertake the long weary journey with the hope of coming back strong and well, or at least well on the way towards becoming so. One young lady from a neighbouring village, who had suffered from partial paralysis for years, insisted upon being taken to Lourdes, and, to the delight of the faithful and the wonder of other people, she returned perfectly cured. Of course the doctors tried to persuade everybody that the great change and emotion she had experienced had worked the marvellous cure; but who believed their statements? certainly none of the poor peasants in the neighbourhood. Oh no! To them it was only one more proof that the Blessed Virgin, the Sainted Mother of all good Catholic families, was indeed not only able, but also quite ready and willing, to work miracles for the benefit of her faithful adorers.

But notoriety has its penalties as well as its pleasures. The young lady might almost have set up a shrine upon her own account, so many people were there who went to the village where she lived for the pleasure of looking at her home; and could they but get a glimpse of the girl herself when she took her walks abroad, they returned to their homes delighted and satisfied with their day’s excursion. Indeed, so great did the nuisance become to the patient and her family that they were obliged to leave their native place, and seek peace and oblivion in another department.

The people are very superstitious about building: they think that if a man builds a new house he will never live to dwell in it. For instance, our richest peasant proprietor has for years been collecting materials with which to build him a new house, but he is afraid to begin, so the materials are, and have been for some time, lying rotting on the ground.

CHAPTER XII

OUR STEAM-LAUNCH — A THUNDERSTORM — A DELICIOUS SWIM — EVENING ON THE RIVER — ITS DANGEROUS FLOODS.

“You English are like ducks. No sooner do you install yourselves in a country than you make for the water,” said a French admiral to the director one day.

It is true enough, particularly of our family, and we have grown very fond of our beautiful river, the Lot. The director very soon had a little steam-launch sent out from England, for sailing was out of the question, because of the hills on either hand.

La Reine is but twenty-two feet in length, but admirably adapted for the use to which she is put. As she puffs noisily along between the echoing vineyards, with the Union-jack at the bows and the tricolor at the stern, she is an object of unfailing interest to the peasants, who rest from their toil a few minutes to watch the boat until it is out of sight around a bend.

La Reine and her crew looked extremely unhappy this evening. The director and his brother had started down the river to photograph the great hill of vineyards, which is so notable an object at the end of one reach. They went full speed down the placid reaches, making great waves over the golden gravel shallows, and frightening the fish, — the cause of all this pother being that a thunderstorm was brewing. A great purple black cloud was rising in the eastward, under which the level evening light was strangely brilliant, so that the landscape seemed aflame. The birds were hushed before the coming gloom, the dark shadow crept over the terraced hills, the river was preternaturally clear and glassy surfaced, and it seemed a sacrilege to thus churn its waters into foam.

“We shall not have time to take the picture before the storm bursts. Let us hurry back again,” and the launch sped homeward. The trees were tossing and whitening with upturned leaves in the shifty gusts of wind. The clouds grew black as night about the mountain-tops; there was a sudden hush, a stillness as of death, a blinding flash, a deafening crash, and roaring reverberations, and with awful fury the storm swept down the valley. The rain was like a waterspout, the lightning flared almost without intermission, and the thunder roared and crackled in endless echoes from hill to hill. Over the weir, which crosses the river by the works, the silver of the falling water rapidly became tinted with a golden brown, as the river received the gushing torrents from every dusty road.

We had entered the lock, but the lock-keeper wisely declined to leave the shelter of his house in such a downpour, and there we had to wait a long time, with the rain falling in a torrent on our soaked bodies. Against such rain straw hats were a mockery and flannels a delusion.

“Are you aware the rain is coming down solid? There is no division into drops,” said one.

“Seems to me the river is turned upside down,” growled the other.

As the rain grew less, and the centre of the storm had passed lower down the valley, the lock-keeper came out and let us through the lock. We moored the boat in her accustomed place above the weir, and walked home by the slippery hillside paths and muddy lanes, looking as lank and bedraggled as the æsthetic maidens of ‘Punch’s’ caricatures in the æsthetic times.

Soon the clouds parted in rifts, and drifted away in dark, broken masses across the mountains; the good-bye rays of the sun, as he stopped, with half his disc behind a hill-top, showed the fields in a more vivid green, and the growing vines refreshed and cleaned of their former dustiness; a gentle breeze shook the sparkling drops from the laden trees, and the nightingales burst into full song.

Although in Aveyron the climate is generally perfect, the sky cloudless, the air healthy, the atmosphere pure and clear, yet being a mountainous district, with cold highlands and warm valleys, it is subject to violent storms, most commonly of wind from the east and north-west, but those from the south are of the greatest and most extreme violence.

In the adjoining province of the Lot the changes of temperature are sudden and frequent, and the storms are disastrous.

Last evening was a perfect evening. We two men took the launch up the river above St Martin’s, and, dropping the anchor in the middle of a very broad reach, prepared to bathe. The river occupied the whole width of the valley, with the exception of a narrow roadway on one bank. Along this a cow-cart, slowly drawn by the patient creatures, carried a piled-up load of branches, and the creaking and squeaking of the wooden wheels on their wooden axles, awoke curious but not melodious echoes.

“Why, there’s a horse!” cried one of us in surprise at the uncommon apparition. It was a shaggy, shapeless white animal, and its rider was the local doctor, who was a much better man than his rough and unkempt appearance indicated.

Along the narrow terraces of the steep vineyards the toiling peasants picked their way, stopping occasionally to straighten their wearied backs, and gaze curiously at the Englishmen taking their pleasure below them. Above the vineyards and in the rocky gorges the dark chestnut woods lay in heavy masses, sombre in shadow on the west hillside, and on the eastern hill glossy with the sunlight, which glided from shining leaf to leaf in a cataract of radiant light, made more brilliant here and there, as some tiny stream had its spray turned to silver where the sunbeams caught it.

How delicious it was to escape from the scorching sun (which at mid-day would have blistered one’s wet and naked back), and dive into the cool and caressing stream, down, right down, to the yellow gravel, where ‘mid the pebbles the gudgeon lay in scores, and darted away as the great white monsters descended to their level!

In the deeper parts of the river the surface-water would be pleasantly warm, — cool by comparison with the air, warm by comparison with English rivers; but go down ten feet or so, and it is chilly and icy cold. The melting of the snows of the Auvergne keeps the under-current cold until well on in the summer.

The peasants think we are mad to bathe even in June. It is not yet warm enough for them. But they are not great ablutionisers at any time. One great trouble the director now has, is that his men will not wash their hands and faces after their work, and before eating, and their bodies once a-week. The consequence is, that they suffer from lead-poisoning, and the Government have taken the matter up, and threaten to imprison him if he does not force his men to wash. As the workmen try to kill any one who endeavours to force them to do what they do not wish to do, he is in a difficult position, and a most trying and anxious one. These lines are being written in England, and, as they are being penned, a letter comes from him to say that his foreman’s house has been blown up with dynamite, one of his men murdered in the mine, and he himself is warned by the authorities not to venture out after dusk without an armed guard. And yet he is the most popular and best-liked mine director in the district.

But on a lovely and placid summer evening he forgets his troubles for a while, in vigorous attempts to improve his swimming under the guidance of his elder brother.

After our bathe we let the launch drift idly and slowly down the quiet stream, while the golden evening drew to dusk.

As the current grew more rapid with a shallowing stream, we gave the fire a touch up, and went slowly on, picking up the sister and a lady friend who were waiting for us on a point of rock. The lady friend was the village schoolmistress. She was with difficulty persuaded to come on board. She was so afraid of the water, and she told us how it was that she had conceived such a hatred for it. She had the school at St Martin’s, and her husband the school at Bouillac, on the opposite side of the river. Their home was at St Martin’s, so that, before the bridge was built, he had to cross the river in a small boat. Wet or fine, with the river clear and low, or discoloured and swollen with flood, the young husband had to cross morning and night.

“Ah!” said our friend, “when I look at the river and think of the anxiety it has caused me, and the danger mon mari has undergone through it, I hate it. Ah yes! I know; you say truly it is very beautiful — as beautiful, it is said, as any in our country — but it is treacherous, and I cannot love it. Many a time have I stood upon its banks, waiting for my husband when the water was high, and he had to cross in that little boat. Sometimes he would not come — he too was afraid — and then I was more miserable still, for I thought he was drowned. One day I stood on the bank and watched him crossing (ah! but the river was high and so swift), and as the boat reached the middle of the river, not far above the fall, a great tree came sweeping down and — But I could not look. I threw myself upon my knees, and I prayed the Holy Jesus and the Blessed Virgin to protect my husband, and whilst I was praying I felt his arms about my neck, and I looked up and he was safe. They have built the bridge now, and I am content, for my husband can pass in safety; but I cannot love the river all the same.”

As we stroll homeward in the cool and fragrant evening, a pretty girl steps hurriedly from behind a tree, and begs to be allowed to speak a word to mademoiselle alone, if the gentlemen will permit her. Off go our hats in the correct style, as we take our unworthy selves off out of hearing, and we wait upon the little stone bridge by the cross, while an eager confabulation is going on between the two ladies under the trees. We are not impatient, because we shall know the secret in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIII

ZOE’S LOVE-TROUBLE — BLANCHISSEUSES — THE RIVER — FERRIES AND FLOODS.

It was Zoe who wished to speak to the sister. With her fair curling hair, blue eyes, and laughing face, Zoe is the prettiest of all the maidens in the village. But she has her trouble, in which she wished the advice of the sister, who perchance might help her.

Zoe has two lovers — one rich and ugly, the other poor but well-favoured. Of course Zoe’s parents want her to marry the richer suitor, a well-to-do peasant; and equally of course the maiden herself inclines to the poor but good-looking man. The parents are inexorable, and the maiden pines. Occasionally that is, for sometimes she is gay enough; but that is perhaps owing to the fact that while tending her sheep upon the mountain-side, she gets the stolen pleasure of speaking to her true lover.

“All, mademoiselle,” she had asked, ” speak to my mother for me, that she may let me marry the young man I love. Tell her what you told Madame Martin, that the English girls marry for love, and that marriages are happier because the women love their husbands. Mother says riches are better than love, but oh, I do not think so. I am still very young, and I think that love is best of all.”

Poor Zoe! she is not married yet to either of her suitors, and one can only hope, but not expect, that her parents will consider her wishes, and give her in marriage to her own true love, who is no “ne’er-do-weel,” but a steady, respectable workman; and as the girl herself will have a little money, her parents might do worse than let their daughter marry him.

But to-day Zoe’s laughter is merriest and her chatter most continuous among all the women who are washing at the river. Let us stand upon the bridge and look down upon the row of kneeling women on the river-bank, who are making the limpid stream milky with soap.

Blanchisseuses - La Roque Torrac

Each woman has in front of her either a corrugated piece of board fixed in a sloping position, or a large flat stone. The latter is most commonly used, no doubt because it is to be had for nothing.

The blanchisseuses slap, dab, and beat the various articles of clothing in the most ferocious manner, and so freely do they splash the things about that they are themselves quite wet through. But this is no matter on a hot day. Sometimes they kneel quite in the water, and are wet to the waist. Often have we come upon one or two young women washing clothes in some sequestered pool, themselves so lightly clad as to form perfect painters’ studies: the warm ivory forms in the purling stream, which sparkles in the vivid shaft of sunlight piercing the green leaf-canopy overhead; the glow of poppies in the long grass of the bank, where the snow-white wet garments are lightly thrown, adapt themselves well to the sunny Southern land. How they chatter as they work! their rapid speech, high-toned voices, and loud and frequent laughter, sound better when mellowed by distance than when close by.

The amount of soap used at these cold-water washing-parties is enormous. There can be no such thing as getting what our own countrywomen call “a good lather,” because most of the soap is carried away by the running water as fast as it is used. The soap is not cut into small pieces, but into enormous lumps, which melt away, oh, so quickly (we speak feelingly, for we have to buy the soap for our own washing-day)!

Sometimes the women lose things in the river. One day our blanchisseuse came to us with a long face, saying that “our” best embroidered petticoat (note here the difficulties of dual authorship) had gone floating down with the current and over the weir, and could not be found any more. Since this sad loss our washing is not done in the river, but in a tributary brook, where there is plenty of water but no danger of loss.

In winter there are many days together when the village women cannot do their washing in the river. Those are the days when the river is in flood, owing either to the rain (which when it comes does so in earnest) or to the sudden thawing of the snow on the high mountains of the Lozère. At such times the swollen river rushes along its course in a coffee-coloured torrent, sweeping right over the locks, and converting the usually white-foaming weirs into smooth-curved billows. The low-lying lands, where there are any between the river and the hills, are turned into lakes. It is impossible for the ferryboats to pass, so that some villages are isolated, because they lie amongst the hills, and their only communication with the rest of the world is by means of the river and the ferry.

The usual ferrying contrivance is a stout rope, stretched across the river from bank to bank at a great height. A small two-wheeled traveller runs upon it, to which is connected a long rope, at the lower end of which is fastened the ferry-boat. By placing the rudder of the latter athwart the stream, the current drives the boat sideways across the river. In places where the river is very wide and shallow at the sides, long stone pier-like pathways are built out into deeper water, and to narrow the passage. When the river is flooded these pathways are under water, and the ferry-boat cannot be reached, and the ferrying must be done by means of the small, rudely fashioned things they call boats. They are more like an Indian’s first attempt at a dug-out, and are propelled by a single awkward spade-shaped paddle. To paddle one of these things across a rapid foaming torrent, with trees and branches of trees sweeping down with it, and surging up at unexpected intervals, is not an easy or a safe undertaking.

Even where the ferry can be reached, the crossing in flood-time, though possible, is dangerous. The strain upon the rope is great, and if the latter is worn or old it may snap. Then there is an exciting scene. The great flat boat goes tearing down the river; the boatmen seize the poles, and shove them down into the bed of the river; heavy weights attached to chains are thrown overboard to try and check the career of the ferry-boat; while the men endeavour to steer it to the bank. Often this is not reached until the boat has gone more than half a mile.

What makes it all so dangerous is the frequency with which the weirs occur. Often they are not a mile apart, and the ferry is sometimes not two hundred yards above one. This is the case at Panchot, and one day, whilst crossing during a flood, it was not comforting to be told by the boatmen that should the rope break only a miracle could save us. We had a large cart, carrying a load of zinc to the rolling-mills, and two restive horses, on board, and it was certainly not pleasant to feel that upon that slender rope, drawn as taut as a rod of iron with the strain, depended our safety, and we glanced apprehensively at the boiling water below the weir.

When the flood is great the weirs are scarcely perceptible, and then are safe enough, so that the boatmen will not take the trouble to pass through the locks, but will shoot the weir, when the fall is not so great as to make the experiment too risky. Sometimes the locks themselves are covered with water, and quite invisible. There would then be 15 or 20 feet of flood-water in the river. For the purposes of navigation the Lot has either too much or too little water.

CHAPTER XIV

WE DINE WITH A WEALTHY PEASANT — THE SCHOOLMASTER AND SPORTSMAN — THE LIMITATION OF FAMILY.

We men were invited one day to have déjeûner with M. Pantillac, who is one of our richest men, if not the richest. The director was sitting talking to him at the office when the visitor entered. M. Pantillac was a little man in a blue blouse and shabby felt hat. He had a very unshaven chin, and altogether looked so much the reverse of smart and tidy, that the visitor assumed he was only one of the miners, and took no notice of him beyond raising his hat. Presently, when the business was over, the visitor found himself being introduced to, and warmly shaking hands with the untidy little peasant. When he understood that he was being invited to déjeûner, the visitor accepted politely, with an ardent longing that the affair might come quickly and be soon over, so doubtful did he feel of his entertainment.

“What do you think you are going to?” asked the director, smiling.

“Stewed nestlings and dandelions in a hovel,” replied the other.

“On the contrary, you will get a meal of twenty courses, with most excellent wines. Not that that is his ordinary way of living by any means. Nothing could be more simple and frugal; but he wants me to buy a bit of his land, so he will give us a grand feast, and think he is coaxing us into giving him a few francs more than the market value.”

“That isn’t very flattering to us. I would rather think he means to be hospitable.”

“Ah! that is not a virtue of the French peasant.”

“You say he is rich? Ask him what land he owns, and how rich he is.”

“All right; he won’t mind.”

Our host was nothing loath to tell us that he owned 125 English acres of land; that his income from his investments and his farm was £600 English a-year, and that he paid £40 a-year for the education of his daughter at a convent school. He was most proud of the latter item, which was probably an unusual and extravagant expenditure.

On the appointed day we climbed up a narrow lane, down which ran a sewery brook, and came to a large but uninviting dwelling, very roughly built of stone, looking something like the house of a very small Welsh farmer on the verge of bankruptcy.

Peasant’s Cottage

Entering the dark cool room, out of the blinding sunshine, it was some little time before we could distinguish the details of the interior. It was a large low room, with brown floor and black rafters. In the centre was a large open fireplace, with a chimney-shaft like that of a smith’s forge. Numbers of pots and pans were disposed about the fire, from which arose steaming and savoury odours, as the women, of whom there were several, lifted the lids to poke and taste. Several of the vessels were simply large pots and jars of thin earthenware, unglazed outside. It is strange to see these being placed on the fire, as one expects them to crack every minute; but they do not, and much of the boiling and stewing of French peasant cookery, and the boiling of water for clothes-washing, is done in these primitive vessels.

Our host took us first to his cellars, where his huge casks of wine were stored, then to the wine and olive presses — clumsy erections of rough unhewn wood, stone grinding wheels, and great levers. It is to be assumed the machinery was effective for the purpose; but it was so rude and antiquated that a museum looked the fittest place for it.

We had our meal in an inner room, which was also a bedroom. We deposited our hats (there were three of us Englishmen) on the top of the bed, which was so high that the top of the great thick pillow, which acts as a coverlet or quilt, and has been so often anathematised by travellers abroad, was fully six feet from the ground, as we knew by our own noses.

The table was of the rudest description, but covered with a snow-white cloth, which was, however, sack-like in texture. The appointments were very good, and made a remarkable show in the dingy room, on whose bare plaster walls was no ornament save a picture of the Virgin, and a rosary hung up by the bedside.

The other guests were the mayor of Bouillac and the mayor of Cuzac, neither of whom could speak a word of French. The Languedoc patois was their native tongue, and they knew no other. Our host himself, although he spoke French fairly well, admitted that he had to think it out as he spoke — translating it in his mind from patois, as one does with a strange language with which one is unfamiliar.

The three Frenchmen kept their broad-brimmed felt hats on their heads all through the meal. It is etiquette to do so.

“I say, wouldn’t it be polite if we did the same.” remarked one of us; but this proposal was vetoed by the others, who declared that they could not possibly eat in comfort with their hats on.

Of the dinner itself, with its multitudinous courses, we have no clear recollection, because, let it be at once admitted, the wines were more multitudinous and wonderfully good. Beginning at first with the ordinary red wine, but very mellow and palatable, the samples improved with each course. The old boy was really sampling his cellar, and showing the Englishmen what he could do. He brought out his bottles (of course decanters were not) one after another, with increasing chuckles of delight as he noted our appreciation of red wine and white. His daughter, a pert, rather good-looking girl of seventeen, had been brought from school expressly to wait upon us, and helped us very nicely indeed, being especially attentive to the youngest of us (not, alas! the writer of this), favouring him also with flirtatious looks whenever she was behind her father’s chair.

The eatables were not so delicate as those we had enjoyed at the auberge, but were plentiful — relays of stewed meats, savoury vegetables, soups, fish, and sweets in no particular order — the aim being rather to dazzle with abundance. It seemed to be a continual wiping of one’s knife on a piece of bread. As to this, by the way, we could never fall into the country custom of eating the bit of bread with which one’s knife had been wiped. That was sent out with the plate.

The mayors sat perfectly silent, neither speaking to each other nor to their host, eating and drinking steadily and stolidly. Our host sat smiling placidly, but saying little, and beaming upon the witticisms of the younger Englishman.

We had wisely eaten sparingly of the first courses, not knowing how many were to follow, and being too polite to decline any; but we were extremely thankful when the delicious coffee showed that the serious business was at an end.

The room, by the way, was very dark, because the volées over the narrow window were shut, and the gloom was quite artistic. This was the reason that when we emerged into the brilliant sunlight of that June afternoon, our steps were somewhat wayward until our eyes had become used to the light.

And that purchase never came off after all. The writer of this is, however, convinced that M. Pantillac was genuinely pleased to entertain us out of hospitality, and he refuses to think that the motives were entirely mercenary.

A mid-day meal unfits one for either work or play afterwards. Probably the answer to this is that work is not advisable in the noontide glare and afternoon heat, and that if it can be avoided it should be. Work in the comparative coolness of the morning, eat and sleep in the afternoon.

We called upon the schoolmaster for a chat in the evening. He was just coming out of the little whitewashed room where he daily taught the village children. His wife was the schoolmistress of the neighbouring village, and between them they made a comfortable income. He, too, was the maire’s secretary, and gave us much information about the social economies of the people.

Finding this interested the writer, we were invited to his room up-stairs, which was the bedchamber as well as the sitting-room, and producing a formidable mass of papers, he gave us some solid statistics, which, however, we will not inflict upon the reader, who probably takes up this book but for an hour’s amusement.

He told us that the priests were very angry with the married people, because of the fixed resolve of the latter to have but a limited number of children. The attention of the Government having been directed to the decrease in the number of births, and, in some rural districts, the consequent decrease of the population, the priesthood had been instructed to urge upon the people the duty of having larger families. But the women were very indignant at this. “It is all very well for those well-fed priests, having easy lives, to tell us to have children. They do not have the trouble of them. Why should we bear all the burden of the duty of peopling the State?”

The English labourers’ and parsons’ habit of having large families is not the fashion in rural France.

It was strange to us how a well-informed man like our friend the schoolmaster, and his pretty and ladylike little wife, could live in a room with such an absence of neatness and comfort as was only too apparent.

The schoolmaster was a great sportsman. He had two guns, old-fashioned but good, and an immense game-bag, with no end of tassels and ornaments about it. We asked him what he shot. Well, sometimes he shot partridges. In fact, he had shot as many as two or three in a day, after watching for them for several days.

“Watching for them!”

“Oh yes; we bait a place in the mountain forests with grain, and watch for the partridges to come.” And then we had a vivid account of the excitement of the arrival of the partridges, and the shooting into the brown of them, and the splendid result. We meanly tried to shake his satisfaction with his sport, and to arouse his envy by telling him of the enormous bags of partridges, grouse, and pheasants made by crack English shots; but we fancy he did not altogether believe us, and our tales fell flat.

It was in his schoolroom that we gave a magic-lantern entertainment to a crowded house. Never was such a thing heard of in that out-of-the-way village before. One woman asked another if a lanterne magique was like a Chinese lantern. The younger people (like most young people at a half-dark entertainment) indulged in a little flirtation, thus giving the pictures an added charm; while as for the children, they gazed with open-mouthed wonder upon the enchanted sheet where the views and figures appeared and disappeared. When the news got abroad that Monsieur le Directeur had come, and the entertainment was about to commence, in came the people, like the rats in the castle on the Rhine: they came in at the windows and in at the doors, till the place was literally crammed. The front row knelt, the second stood, the third climbed on the desks, and the rest stood on the window-sills or on the shoulders of those willing to bear the weight. The long man of the village bore a friend on his shoulders, and this friend bore another friend. Then these three got unsteady and toppled, in their descent upsetting the belle of the village, who gave the long man a box on the ear by way of a recompense. The audience were delighted with the views shown them of Paris and Switzerland; but when a transparency of their village street, showing a group of familiar figures, was thrown upon the screen they were uproarious. We finished up with a photograph of the director, under which was written “Bonne nuit,” after which the schoolmaster thanked us for the entertainment, and the people dispersed, thoroughly pleased with their evening’s amusement. One poor old woman asked if there would be a collection, and when told No, expressed her astonishment that any one should take so much trouble simply to give pleasure to others. Poor people! they are so money-grubbing themselves, and so used to see those above them money-grubbing also, that they cannot understand that we should wish to give them pleasure and charge nothing for it.

CHAPTER XV

A BURNING MOUNTAIN.

We have been for a pleasant drive to an unpleasant though interesting place. But first, we had a merry déjeûner at the house of a French engineer, where we met several others of the same profession and their wives. The meal was a prolonged one, and the talk so incessant — such a babel of sound — that it was like the continuous rush of the water over the weir in the front of the house, which was on the banks of the Lot.

In the afternoon we were ferried across the river to where three carriages were waiting for us. It is needless to add that it was Sunday, and we but did as our neighbours did. We were bound to Combe, near Decazeville, to see a mountain on fire and at the same time worked for the coal it contains. When we reached it we found it to be a high conical hill from which smoke was issuing at many points, and hanging in a cloud over the summit. At night it is all aglow with flame from many a crevice and working. It is a huge block of coal, mixed with rock and minerals, and it is being quarried away from the top downwards, its present appearance being that of a volcano with a huge crater at the top.

Leaving our carriages at the bottom, we toiled up the steep cinder-paths, finding the sulphureous fumes greatly affecting our throats and causing a catching of the breath. Passing through a short tunnel we suddenly entered the great quarry, — a place where masses of calcined rock, terraces and crags cut by the miners, caves, cliffs, galleries, and yawning abysses, were dimly visible through clouds of smoke and steam, which made the vast quarry seem the very mouth of hell. The mountain has been on fire for many years; smouldering somewhere in the depths of it, and coming to the surface here and there in lines and veins of glowing heat, which apparently passed very slowly along, leaving the rocks red and yellow, and with a burnt appearance. It is a race between man and fire which shall first seize the coal. Of course there were no men working there this day, but during the week hundreds of half-naked wretches work in those poisonous fumes and hardly tolerable heat. We found the rock hot to our feet, and could not stay long in one place. Everywhere the earth was so hot that the bare hand could not remain long upon it; and as the sun (shining redly through the vapour) was hot enough this June day, we soon began to feel that we had had enough even of so curious a sight.

The crags were covered with a florescence of sulphur and other chemicals in lovely yellows, reds, and creams; the pools and streams, of which there were many, were steaming hot, and so acid that they seared the finger or changed the colour of a piece of cloth immediately, if one tried the experiment. How human beings can work in such a horrible place is wonderful. To get an idea of the gruesome shape of the quarry, look at Dorè‘s illustrations of rocky gorges in Dante. Once to see it is enough, and the memory of it is a nightmare.

Gladly rejoining our carriages, we drove through the mining districts, deep valleys between steep hills, the vegetation killed with the fumes from zinc-works, the furnaces of Viviez, and the zinc-rolling mills and glass-works of Panchot, and various coal and lead mines. Naturally lovely valleys are spoiled, and their vineyards blasted, while the many little streams run with dilute sulphuric acid, or are black with coal-dust and lead-water.

The groups of miners we passed looked sullenly at us. They are dangerous socialists almost to a man, and hate their masters and employers thoroughly. It was not pleasant to meet their scowling glances, and hear their muttered curses, nor to know that we might meet with insult or assault were it not for fear of the revolvers which each man of us carried. The men are well, even indulgently treated, but are so fierce and ignorant that they are suspicious of every effort on their behalf. It was a relief to leave this ugly district, and get back to the lovely valley of Bouillac, where, however, the human nature is much the same, though it is kept in check by its more pleasant surroundings, and there are no masters to hate, each individual being his own master, and therefore good.

When we returned home we found two visitors awaiting us — one the village Curé, the other a monk who had been instrumental in helping to convert the people of Bouillac, during the mission-week. He is an amateur photographer, and hearing that a kindred spirit lived in this neighbourhood, he had called to make his acquaintance. One had the impression that monks did not seek amusement more distracting than self-flagellation, or digging their own graves in advance; but this reverend was keen upon it, and had been photographing groups of his converts, as a witness to his zeal. A camera and tripod did look out of place when wielded by a sandalled no-stockinged man, with a rope-girdle round his waist.

The Curé told us that an inspector has been down examining the different schools in the neighbourhood. Some years ago he asked the children attending the convent school at Bouillac, “What are Protestants?” and was told that they were black people with tails, and being little better than le diable, were all damned. During his present visit he asked the children the same question, “And had the Protestants tails?” But the children were quite indignant, and told him that they had found out we had no tails, and that we were very nice people indeed, and not a bit black.

In the evening we had a Protestant service, a rare event here. The Protestant pastor of Millau came to pay us a short visit, so we sent out scouts and gathered together all the Protestants within reach, so that he might hold a prayer-meeting or culte, as a Protestant service is called here. It is not much like an English Church service, only the Creed and Commandments being the same. We all stood up to pray and sat down to sing, and the pastor preached sitting down. The Protestant religion is hardly lively enough for the French, whose cry is “Distraction! distraction at any price! let us have distraction!” Now a culte Protestant is not a distraction — in fact it is a very dull affair, going to the other extreme from the Roman Catholic service.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PEASANT HUSBANDRY.

The nightingales are stilled by a sound of loud wailing which comes from the deep tree-shadowed lane. Sad and silent is the little group of men which comes slowly along in the dusk, bearing upon an extemporised stretcher of branches the body of a peasant; but the women following behind are loud in their lamentations, while some awestruck children steal fearfully by. The tale is soon told. The poor man had gone out in the morning to strip the leaves from a tall poplar-tree, and his wife and children had gone in the evening to meet him, and perhaps help to carry the load of twigs and leaves home. They found his dead body at the foot of the tree from which he had fallen.

The poplars, which stand in formal rows and groups by the side of the rivers, are tall, straight, and bare of leaves, save a crown at the very top. The leaves of the trees are eagerly gathered for manure, and the poplars are stripped bare to add to the dung-heap. Men climb them by the aid of rope loops, and, beginning at the top, strip off branch and twig as they descend, until nothing but a bare pole is left. This is a dangerous occupation, particularly when a sudden gust of wind comes down the valley, and the slender trees bow giddily before the blast. Then in the autumn the dead leaves are carefully swept up. Men, women, and children may be seen, armed with big brooms, brushing down the hillsides, beginning at the top and laboriously collecting each dead leaf or plant to add to the heap to be stacked up for manure. Everything that can be used for this purpose is carefully scraped together. This practice must greatly impoverish the woodland soil, depriving it of its natural manure, and causing the trees to become stunted in their growth. The poplar-stripping is an autumn practice also, as a rule, although the poor fellow who lost his life was taking the June foliage, and we have noticed many others doing this also, when short of pig-litter.

The bracken and other ferns and small brushwood are carefully cut each year, and used for stable-litter and manure.

Well is it for these propriétaires that there is such a rich and fertile soil in the river valley, and productive vineyards on the hills. Well is it that the climate is, agriculturally speaking, a perfect one. Warm rains and warm sun, seasons regular and little varying, make crops certain and harvests sure. True it is that with all these advantages the tillers of the soil must not relax in their efforts or weary of their continual toil; but working thus bravely, they may reasonably count on perfect fruition. The weather does not work against them as in England. One English “bad season,” cold and wet, and late harvests and mildewed crops, would thoroughly disorganise, if it did not destroy, the small propriétaire, so small is his margin under the most favourable circumstances.

At Bouillac, and many another well-watered valley, the fertile, loamy earth will yield three good crops each year — such crops as are seen in England only once in a way, being then the boast of their owner and the pride of the country-side; and we draw this comparison with England’s finest soil and finest peasantry, the soil and the people which we know well and love well.

The hay is five feet in height, and as thick as it will stand, and the clover is almost up to one’s shoulders, and as thick and even as a well-kept hawthorn-hedge. The second and third crops are less tall and heavy, but nevertheless more than fairly good.

The arable land is farmed on what might be called the three-course shift rolled into one year. Thus each piece will and does produce three distinct crops in one year. The soil never lies idle. It is always either producing or being got ready to produce, except, perhaps, on fête-days, when it and its owners get a little holiday. The land is well manured (one sees the women spreading the manure on the fields with their hands), and great pains are taken by the propriétaires to keep the land in good condition, for their livelihood depends upon the best being made out of it. Occasionally a small quantity of lime is used upon it. It is always well watered, for each owner has the right to turn part of the waters of a neighbouring brook across his land for certain specified times. Narrow irrigating channels are cut in all directions, and the water filtering through the earth keeps it moist, hence the vivid greenness of the grass and the general luxuriance of the vegetation.

Peasants Ploughing

Farming implements are of the most primitive description, and, of course, steam - machinery is unknown. The heavy wooden ploughs are drawn by oxen, poor patient beasts, who rarely get an after-dinner nap, and have always to put up with make-shift meals. How they would envy (could they but see them) the sleek, lazy, English cattle, whose dwelling-places are in green pastures, and whose only work is to get fat!

The heavy yoke, which crosses the horns and holds the pair of oxen together, compels united action on their part. There can be no restiveness, when the result would be great wrenching of necks and pain. We have often watched a bullock-cart coming down a narrow rocky lane, so steep that it is difficult to walk up, and deep in mud and uneven with stones. The oxen, drawing, perhaps, a heavy load of timber, walk very slowly and with extreme caution, taking care that one fore-foot has a firm hold before moving the other. Then with each slip of the hind-feet or lurch of the cart, they look sideways at each other, most plaintively and long-sufferingly. In a heavy, uncouth, quietly protesting way they crawl up and down places where one would hardly like to lead, certainly not ride, a horse.

The thin haggard cows are yoked to lighter carts, made of an open framework something like a crate, with only upright stakes from the body of it, and are employed to drag the loads of branches and leaves.

It is needless to say that rich milk and good butter are unknown in our district. We are glad to get butter from the Auvergne or from Brittany.

The chessboard appearance of the low land of our valley has already been noticed, but everywhere it is the same. Wherever there is a plot of cultivable land, it is divided and subdivided until it forms dolls’ gardens. It is the same with the vineyards on the hillsides. One great slope in particular always attracted our attention. It was a hill like a pyramid, with a very broad base, and the whole of the river face from base to crown was marked out in small quarter-rood plots, represented by little fences of stones. As a general rule ground is too precious to be taken up by fences, and the landmarks are simply stones, placed one on another, at intervals. The moving of a neighbour’s landmarks is not unknown, and quarrels on this account are frequent. The notice-boards corresponding to “Trespassers will be prosecuted,” or “No road this way,” are curious, being simply stakes thrust in the ground, with a wisp of straw tied to the top.

The chief crops (other than the vines) are wheat, rye, maize, potatoes, barley, and after these come hemp, flax, legumes, and beetroot. Tobacco is cultivated almost everywhere, and the meadows yield lucerne, sainfoin, and clover, while truffles are very abundant in the earth, and pigs are trained to hunt them.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PEASANT’S FOOD — THE CHESTNUT HARVEST — THRASHING AND WINNOWING THE CORN — SHEEP-SHEARING — WASHING THE PIGS.

“Ah, mademoiselle, it is quite a boon when the chestnuts are in season,” remarked a friend one day. So it is, for they help very much in the composition of fresh dishes for the table. They are, of themselves, cooked in about fifteen different ways, and very delicious some of the dishes are.

More important is the fact that chestnuts are really the principal food of the inhabitants where the tree abounds. So state the Government statistics; but this refers of course to the peasantry pure and simple, who, however, form the vast majority of the inhabitants. The chestnut is spread everywhere through the south-west of Aveyron and the northeast of the Lot. Wherever the hillside is too stony, too bleak or sunless, or too steep for the cultivation of the vine, the chestnut-woods grow thickly, giving a glossy green to the interspaces and gorges of the sterile rocks.

In the month of October the chestnut harvest begins. Between and after school hours, the grave children troop to the woods, to pick up the fallen fruit. They carry empty sacks to the hill-tops, gathering the fruit and filling the sacks as they descend. Each sack soon becomes too heavy for the children to carry, and is dragged about by two or three until it is full. The children do not attempt to carry the sacks home, but are met by some grown-up relative who relieves them of their burdens. The animals get their share of the chestnuts, and a peasant woman will sit for an hour or two in front of her door, leisurely cutting up chestnuts into little bits, for her small stock of poultry, which fight and scramble for the tit-bits she throws to them.

The plum is another staple tree, and the dried fruit find their way into the market as “Prunes d’Agen.” Walnuts are plentiful, and walnut-oil is an article of export. Much cider is made from the apples. In May and June vast quantities of cherries are sent to the London market. (Fancy the long railway journey to Paris and the coast, the sea crossing and the rail to London, and then to be sold at a profit, and yet cheaper than English cherries!) Peaches also are too plentiful for a man easily tempted by them.

Our first experience of the country mode of thrashing and winnowing was interesting to us.

One beautiful September morning, we were awakened early by the sound of voices beneath the windows. Looking out, we saw that our opposite neighbour’s wife and daughter were busily engaged doing something on the road below. What it was we could not at first imagine, for they were spreading a large sheet or cloth right across the roadway, as if for a giant picnic. Presently, however, the men-folks appeared on the scene, carrying in their arms huge bundles of wheat. These they spread upon the cloth, and soon afterwards proceeded to thrash out the corn with flails. There were eight men, four on each side of the road, each man placed so that when swinging his flail it would descend between his two vis-a-vis. They worked with great regularity, each row thudding alternately, so that when one set of men had their flails laid upon the wheat, the other set had their flails high in the air, ready to descend with a swinging sweep. The thrashers gave an accompanying grunt with each stroke; and so grunting and thudding, thudding and grunting, they kept on all day long. We soon found that after harvest this sound of thrashing was heard on every hand, and it grew monotonous in the extreme, when it went on for days and days together.

The road is generally selected, because it is level and has a hard surface. If an ox-cart or other vehicle comes along, why, it just passes over the sheet and does no harm; but the traffic over these well-made, well-kept Government roads is very little in this district, and the interruptions are not many.

Nor are the women idle. They have to keep the grain from getting over the edge of the sheet, which they did partly by lifting up the edges and shaking back the grain towards the middle, and partly by walking round and round the main sheet and holding up other smaller sheets, thus preventing the wheat from flying out into the road.

Our little Sissie was much interested in the proceeding, and would sit contentedly watching it for hours.

After the threshing came the old-fashioned performance of winnowing in the wind. This was done the same evening; and as the darkness rapidly gathered, before operations were concluded quaintly fashioned lanterns were brought upon the scene, and the busy, dimly lighted group presented a strange and rather uncanny appearance. Monsieur le Propriétaire worked the little hand-winnowing machine, and madame, his wife, gathered up the wheat and put it into bags. The piles of straw and chaff lay on the roadway all night, waiting to be stored, while the wearied threshers had supped and gone home to bed to get a little sleep before beginning another long day’s toil.

The wheat is afterwards washed in the river to clean it of the dust, and is spread out on large suspended sheets to dry in the sun.

It is curious to watch the primitive way in which the sheep are sheared. They are not washed before the business of shearing commences, as is our English custom; but the sheep are shorn in their natural dirty state, and the wool is afterwards washed in the river or brook, a proceeding which must rob it of much of its natural oil and elasticity.

Women seem to be the chief shearers, and perform their task with an ordinary pair of scissors, clipping away from morning until night. Occasionally the darkness surprises them just as some poor sheep is half shorn, so that it has to go unfinished until next day. A very forlorn appearance the poor animal presents with half his wool off and half on.

It is comical also to see the peasant women washing their pigs. This they do with soap and brush; and though the pigs squeal they do not seem to mind the operation very much, and after their bath they look nice, and are certainly cleaner than their owners. If the process could be reversed occasionally, the latter would benefit physically, and perhaps morally, if cleanliness be next to godliness.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR — HIS PEIDE OF CLASS — HIS APPEARANCE — HIS SMALL HOLDINGS — HIS POVERTY AND WEALTH — HIS FRUGALITY AND THRIFT — UNCLEANLINESS — HIS DAUGHTER’S DOT AND TROUSSEAU.

We speak of the peasants as peasants, but they do not call themselves by so lowly a name. They are propriétaires, one and all, though their property may hardly give room to tether a cow. They are extremely proud of being landowners, and will undergo any privation rather than cease to be such. Fortunately, in this beautiful climate privation simply means toil. Snow and ice and bitter cold are of such rare occurrence as to be negligeable in their domestic economy, so that starvation from cold is not one of the sufferings of the poor as it is in England; while, where snails and dandelion-soup are dainties, starvation from hunger is unlikely. So a man hangs on to his bit of land with the utmost tenacity.

Not only is the peasant proud of his land, but of his order or class. He is as proud of his long respectable descent as any aristocrat. He has, as a class, no desire to emerge out of his class into anything better. He rather would destroy all higher grades of society and drag them down to his level. He wishes to be rich, but greatly hates those richer than himself.

In person the male peasants are small, but well knit and active, with pretty rather than handsome faces, high-coloured complexions, and bright dark eyes. The women are, many of them, very good-looking when young, but soon age. That most charming age of womanhood in England, five-and-thirty, is in Southern France quite old age in appearance.

The male peasant is picturesque enough in his blue or black blouse and soft broad-brimmed felt hat; but the womankind have nothing special in their dress, and are not always tidy. For one tiring, they walk well, and have neatly stockinged ankles and trim boots, that is, on fête-days. When working in the fields it is another matter, and it seems a wonder that their dirty rags hold together sufficiently for decency’s sake.

About us, the holdings are mostly small, say from two to fifteen acres. With two acres, by working from five in the morning until eight or nine at night, the owner will just be able to keep body and soul together. With six or seven, and a family to help in the labour, he will be tolerably well off; whereas with fifteen acres he may be hopelessly in debt, because the home labour is not sufficient, and he cannot afford to hire labour. With a greater number of acres and some capital to employ upon it, the propriétaire is a comparatively wealthy man, although one-tenth of his gross income goes in payment of taxes. The mistake of “keeping up appearances” is not by any means unknown in this remote spot, and the better-class farmers frequently impoverish themselves by this means. Another source of financial trouble is the endeavour to give the daughters a suitable dot on marriage. Marriages for love being practically unknown, the young men will not marry unless the bride brings a portion with her, and to provide this necessary portion the farmer will cripple himself by borrowing or unduly stinting himself and his farm in other ways.

When he gets hopelessly in debt, a fresh start is sometimes made by his turning everything over to his wife, which the law apparently permits, so long as the transfer is real. She is proprietress, and her husband acts as her bailiff. She pays taxes, signs agreements, and carting or other contracts must be taken in her name. The husband has not a penny that he can call his own, but is entirely dependent upon the bounty of his wife; and if she does not happen to be amiable, the poor husband has rather a hard time of it.

Of course we have daily dealings with the peasants in one way or another. We find them honest enough in a certain way — that is, they do not steal. They appear to be but little tempted in that direction. Possibly dishonesty, being a distinct crime, would have to be confessed to Monsieur le Curé, who would certainly refuse absolution, or impose a heavy penance. But when it comes to bargaining, why, they will cheat you if they possibly can, especially if you are English. “C’est un Anglais” is sufficient excuse for any exploits in that direction. The English are supposed to be one and all very rich, and it is a kindness rather than otherwise to relieve them of their surplus money.

“You are rich enough” is their only apology when detected in any barefaced attempt at cheating, and it is useless to attempt to persuade them to the contrary. If you order a live goose they will, before weighing it, thoroughly soak its feathers with water, and then gorge it with maize up to its throat, so that the poor bird arrives in a gasping, dying state.

In spite of this cruel proceeding, it must not be supposed that the animal portion of the population is badly treated. The oxen and cows work extremely hard; but they are not treated to blows and kicks in addition, as is so frequently the case in England. As a rule, the peasant farmers are passively kind to their beasts. Liberty, equality, and fraternity is the motto of the French peasantry, and the two latter qualities might well be said to include the animals. It is amusing to see the family parties out for the evening stroll. Women, children, cows, calves, sheep, goats, pigs, and geese, all taking their walk together, the women knitting and gossiping, and the animals in search of their evening meal. The sheep and goats are as tame as dogs, and will eat handfuls of grass out of one’s hands, standing still to be coaxed and petted. The lambs and kids play together in the leafy lanes, so prettily that it is charming to watch them. Occasionally the children have a romp too, but not often. Life to them is a serious business. After school-hours the little girls must help to mend and knit, while the boys dig in the garden, or hunt for dandelions or other salad herbs. It is strange to see how devoid of merriment and gaiety the children are. Here youth is the time for gravity, and middle age for frivolity.

The frugality of the peasant is well known, and his thrift is equal to it. Dirty as are their houses and their bodies, their linen is beautifully clean, and even the very poor contrive to accumulate a large stock of house-linen and underclothing. Four dozen chemises and as many camisoles, or loose white jackets, is considered quite a modest trousseau for a peasant’s daughter, while middle-class girls often have as many as twelve dozen of all articles of underclothing. But the sheets and shirts of the peasants are made of frightfully coarse linen, such as we should use for roller-blinds, or coarse kitchen-cloths. The people think that cotton sheets are a sure sign of poverty, and they prefer linen, be it ever so coarse.

We unluckily told our landlady (before we had a house of our own) that we liked linen sheets best in summer-time. The poor woman did not possess any she considered fine enough, so she bought some new ones, and after giving them a wash in the brook, put them upon our respective beds. Alas! it was like sleeping between door-mats. One of us bore his all night, and got up early to rest; the other discarded them entirely, and slept upon the bare mattress. The woman of the house exclaimed upon finding her nice new sheets upon the floor in the morning, and was astonished that we had found them scrubby, declaring that she thought them delightfully soft and nice.

The peasant women, while comely in appearance and trim in fête-day dress, are in their persons the reverse of clean. They wash their hands and faces before going to church, and that, as a rule, seems to be the extent of their ablutions; and this in a hot country, after labour in dusty vineyards and muddy fields. The richer peasants are a little better, but their notions of cleanliness leave much to be desired. The men bathe in the river occasionally; the women never. They wash their clothes in the river, and so necessarily a part of themselves, but that is all.

For this reason the churches are not “pleasant courts below,” even in winter. In summer they are most unpleasant.

Then the odour of garlic is everywhere. Of it they eat alarming quantities, and one ail has the smell of forty ordinary onions compressed into one. So marked is this habit and odour, that the better-class people often make it a condition, when hiring servants, that ail is never to be eaten by the latter during their term of service.

Among the good points of the peasant, male and female, is his punctilious politeness. He takes off his hat to you on every possible occasion, and he expects you to be equally polite. It is somewhat troublesome to a free-and-easy Englishman taking his evening stroll, to have to lift his hat every two yards or so to the people who, like himself, are all out in the roads enjoying the balmy evening; but a neglect to do so would stamp him as a boor, and secure him the ill-will of the country-side. Again, each time you meet the same person the formal salutation is exchanged. On an English pier, say, one bow will do for the whole evening; not so on the promenades of Aveyron.

CHAPTER XIX

THE MINE — DECAZEVILLE STRIKE — VAGRANTS — GLASS AND ZINC WORKS — DIFFICULTIES WITH THE WORKMEN — DYNAMITE OUTRAGES — SOCIALISM — THE MECHANICS’ FÊTE-DAYS.

The hills which hem us in all around are rich in minerals. Opposite, on the sunny heights, we hear through the clear air after rain, the ringing strokes of metal against stone, though we cannot see the workers. The minerals within that hill are the property of an English company, of which the director is the engineer and local representative, and the vagaries of the miners do not allow us much peace, and furnish us with abundant food for conversation. The mineral sought is silver lead, and the galleries or tunnels go right through the hill from side to side, while the works and offices are close by the river-side, and at the foot of a precipitous but thickly wooded bluff. These mines were first worked by the Romans; again by the English under, or contemporaneously with, Thomas à Becket, and now by the English again.

French genius does not seem to lend itself to the patient and laborious working of mines, and the majority of such undertakings are owned or worked by English or Belgians, the latter in particular. Even where the company is a French one, as at the great coal-mines of Decazeville, the managers are Belgian.

Decazeville is but six miles away, and we wished it much farther at the time of the great strike which made its name known, owing to the murder of one of the Belgian managers, M. Watrin, who was first stunned by the men, and then thrown to the women, who horribly mutilated him while he was yet alive. It is an exceptionally nasty and dirty town at all times, but to walk through the streets at the time of the strike gave one a most unfavourable impression of the mining population. A look of discontent was stamped upon every face, amounting too often to a really villanous expression.

One could hardly pity the women, knowing how fiendishly they had acted, and how much more unreasonable they were than the men; but it was sad to see the children, poor little souls, dirty, unkempt, and half starved: the time was to them one of unmitigated suffering.

The streets were full of soldiers, most of them encamped in tents on the Place, at the top of the town. There were two thousand troops in Decazeville to quell the disturbances which were constantly to be apprehended. The neighbouring towns of Aubin and Cransac were also well garrisoned. It was two years before all the troops could be withdrawn.

Newspaper reporters with pencil and paper in hand were frequent objects in the streets, while at the corners socialistic meetings were being held. If things seemed likely to quiet down, some noisy socialist deputy or strife-creating woman speechifier would put in an appearance, sowing fresh seeds of discord and misunderstanding.

It was a dreadful time, and affected all the mine directors and managers in the district. We were warned to carry revolvers, and to be ready to use them if need should require. To this day it is held to be absolutely necessary that the directors and their assistants should be armed. Thus our director has a revolver lying ready by his inkstand, he never moves without one, and there is one ready at the house. In obedience to police instructions, opportunities are taken to practise firing with them, and otherwise to parade the possession of them.

During the strike the managers’ houses, or directions, were garrisoned, or rather turned into quarters for the officers. The mischief was nearly all socialistic, the workmen being naturally tainted with pronounced hatred of law and order. The propriétaires, whose possession of the land makes them conservative in their notions, held aloof from the movement.“Our” miners did not strike at that time, although they did afterwards.

After, as well as during the strike, there was a great deal of distress in the neighbourhood, and no organised means of relieving it. Much trade had been lost which could not easily be got back again, so that many of the miners had to tramp the country in search of work, begging by the way; and they made the roads and lanes so disagreeable that a lady could scarcely walk out alone, while to go to Decazeville itself would have been out of the question.

One day in a lonely glade of a wood we met two such villanous-looking fellows, that we determined to photograph them, and planted the camera in front of them as they came along the path. Scenting a pourboire, they were willing enough, and producing a young live fox out of a basket, they posed themselves as we wished. As they spoke but patois, and the fox would not keep still without a lump of sugar, the preliminaries occupied some time. When the operation was over, we discovered to our dismay that the fire of our tiny little steam-launch in which we had come down-stream to this secluded spot had gone out, and we had not a single match to relight it. Our villains were despatched in different directions in search of matches, and it was a long time before they returned with two or three of the contraband article, with which we were fortunately able to relight the fire and get the steam up in the little kettle.

In addition to the coal-mines of Decazeville, there are glass-works and zinc smelting and rolling mills, the fumes from the latter denuding the hillsides of vegetation, and requiring heavy compensation to be paid to the owners of vineyards in the vicinity. Looking down into the narrow valleys, where these works are situated, from the hill-tops, one can scarcely see through the pall of smoke which hangs over them. One day we were taken a drive by some friends around the principal mining places, which lie close together, and we were much reminded of the Welsh mining districts, particularly near Cefn, in North Wales; but the people — men, women, and children — inspired only a feeling of dislike and distrust, assuming their characters were only half as bad as the expression of their faces.

The miners and workmen form a large portion of the population, and a part very difficult to manage. Most excitable, and always wanting something, yet not knowing what, they are easily swayed hither and thither by every fresh anarchist or socialistic agitator who comes (and such come in plenty) into the neighbourhood. Looking on their masters as their natural enemies, they are only too ready to rise against them on the smallest possible provocation, so that a director’s lot is not altogether a happy one — he being always singled out for attack as the local manager or representative of the company, however popular he may be personally. The directors and engineers are, however, treated very well indeed by their companies — being found house, coal, candles, furniture, house-linen, horse and carriage, and a man-servant.

Our mine, as we call it, is at present a comparatively small affair, though it is expected to grow into a valuable property. There are about a hundred men employed, and we know most of them well. To an Englishman they have the irritating fault of being afraid of hard work, or unwilling to undergo it. As an English foreman, a rough old Cornishman, said, all they care for is to pass the day with a pretence of working, and then of course they expect full wages. The mining is done by piecework, at prices set out by contract once a-month. The best men make good wages, the idle ones do not, so they want the rate raised, and much discontent prevailed. The master-miner, who has since left, was really afraid of his duties, and would lay the fault of the supposed low prices upon some one else, and failed to manage the men properly. Matters went on with occasional disputes, and the director was often summoned to the court at Asprières — an experience so frequent, however, with the litigation-loving peasants when rights-of-way and easement over their tiny plots was involved, that he did not think much of it. Then a new master-miner was engaged, a sturdy and thorough-going worker, who would not stand shirking; and finally, when all the rest of us were in England, and the director was alone, the men struck. It was a very anxious time, and he had to be protected by twelve mounted gendarmes, and once to take refuge with a friendly countess in her chateau hard by.

The police warned the company that they could not preserve peace unless the prices were raised, and the director had to give way, feeling savage enough that the idle and mischievous had conquered.

Among the expedients adopted by the miners to enforce their views was the use of dynamite. A cartridge dropped down a foreman’s chimney wrecked his house, fortunately without personal damage. Much alarm was once occasioned by a wholesale theft of dynamite from the workmen’s magazine. Enough was stolen to wreck a town. In spite of all the efforts of the police, no clue was ever discovered to the thieves, and the dangerous stuff must be hidden somewhere, to be ready to wreak untold mischief whenever the opportunity offers.

Our director once received a threatening letter, anonymous, but from a socialist source, calling upon him to dismiss his best men, who could get work anywhere, and employ the poor of the commune, of whom there were many, otherwise he would meet with the same fate as M. Watrin. As to comply with this modest request would mean financial ruin, and the consequent cessation of any work at the mine, it was impossible for the most philanthropic person to comply with it.

The Cornishman before mentioned had been accustomed to Italian workmen, who were much more capable of the hard rough labour of mining life, than the somewhat poor specimens, physically speaking, that our district produces, and were much more willing to work and thorough in their work, and he wished to try the experiment of bringing some of them over to show the others how to work; but after consideration it was deemed too hazardous, as quarrels would inevitably ensue with the jealous Frenchmen, and the place be too hot to hold them.

We are not among those who think that no good thing can exist out of England, and that no foreigner can match the English workman. We are indeed disposed to say that, although the best English workmen are the best of their kind in all the world, yet, taking the average of the lower grades, they are beaten in many virtues, except the one of sheer physical strength, by Danes, Italians, or Norwegians. But the French workman, as we know him, is a long way below all of them, having only the redeeming quality of politeness when he is in a good humour. But we wish to avoid general dissertations, and have only to give our own impressions of things as they are in this remote spot; a district, however, which is favourable for the study of the true peasant character, and also for that of the miner and workman. We limit our statements to the Lot and Aveyron: let others generalise.

The workman is seen at his best on his fête-day, each trade having its patron saint and its especial fête-day. The patron saint of the miners is St Barbe, and on her day they have their fête.

It is the custom on that day for the workmen to offer to their respective directors a bouquet of artificial flowers, and a cake. The flowers are made by the nuns in the convents, and are atrociously bright and glaring. The accompanying cake is a huge one, but deceptive, being quite hollow — a mere shell, in fact, of congealed toffee, very sweet and profusely decorated.

On bringing the cake and flowers the men expect to be treated to a small glass of some favourite liqueur, in which they drink the director’s health. He also presents them with a twenty-franc piece, with which they afterwards make merry in some neighbouring café.

The carpenters have St Joseph’s Day, he being the patron of all workers in wood. Then there are the masons, engineers, and the many other trades represented in a large industrial establishment, so that the bouquet presentations are frequent affairs. The difficulty is to know what to do with them: they are too large and too gay to be thrown away privately, and too impossible in tone to keep. Once we sent one to a friend in England, thinking it would amuse the children. But the family were offended at our supposed low appreciation of their taste, and we have lost a friend through our generosity.

The only way out of the difficulty is to present them after a time to some neighbouring propriétaire, who will think them works of art, and if he can afford to get a glass shade, he will place his treasure under it.

CHAPTER XX

“FÊTES” — THE “FÊTE DE DIEU.”

The 2d of November, being All-Souls’ Day, is kept as a solemn fête. On that day black-robed figures may be seen wending their way towards the churchyard, in order to visit and pray by the graves of departed friends. In all churches Masses are said at intervals during the day, and prayers are offered for souls in purgatory.

After a person dies, his or her friends always pay for a Mass to be said upon the anniversary of the death. This Mass is called a bout de l’an, and is often quite an imposing ceremony, especially when held for any person of importance. When the bout de l’an was held for the young engineer who was murdered at the commencement of the famous Decazeville strike, printed invitations were sent out to all the directors and engineers of neighbouring collieries, iron-works, lead-mines, &c. The church at Decazeville was crammed, and as some demonstration on the part of discontented workmen was feared, part of the troops then stationed in the town was on guard outside the church. No disturbance, however, was made, and the service passed off peacefully. In country places the religion of the people might almost be described in two words — namely, confession and procession. They certainly “process” on every possible occasion. One is frequently awakened early on summer mornings by the sound of chanting, and on looking out one sees the winding road filled with the marching faithful: these are on their way to some wayside cross, for during the year each cross in the parish is visited in its turn. The men walk first, carrying the church banner, then comes the Curé, and after him the women and girls. Everybody quick-marches at such a rate, as though they thought, “Well, we’ve got to do it, so we will get it done just as fast as we can, and make the best of it.” Their destination reached, the people kneel in a circle around the cross, and the Curé, standing in their midst, says a litany, to which the people respond; then he besprinkles them with holy water, says the benediction, and the ceremony being ended, all troop home again in time to begin the day’s work.

On especial days, such as the Feast of the Adoration Perpetual and the fête de Dieu, chapels of evergreens are erected in the village streets, as well as near wayside crosses, to which it may be intended to make pilgrimages. The fête de Dieu is the grandest as well as most solemn fête of the year. Then the chapels erected are really marvellous, and often quite pretty. Festoons of evergreens are hung across the streets, and in front of every house white sheets are stretched. This custom makes the village look clean and pure for once in a way, inasmuch as the lower parts of the houses are quite covered up with the white sheets. At such times happy is the housewife who possesses the finest and whitest pair of sheets: she is indeed proud to be able to display them to the gaze of admiring and envious neighbours.

Before beginning to build the various chapels the village girls go on a borrowing expedition; they are glad of anything they consider pretty which they can make use of. A pair of tall brass candlesticks is possessed by one fortunate member of society, and these being greatly prized, are yearly sought after; needless to say that, though their owner is a Protestant, the candlesticks are always lent most willingly. The same woman has some fearfully and wonderfully made artificial flowers under glass shades, and happy indeed are the girls who get these for the adornment of their pet chapel. They always come to the sister for a small round-topped macramé-bordered table. It makes such a lovely altar, they say, and the image of the sainted Virgin looks so well on the top of it.

For days before the fête de Dieu the school children spend all their spare time on the mountains, gathering moss that is destined to aid in covering the framework of the different chapels, and also to form a carpet on the floor of, and in front of, them. We asked them one day how they kept the moss fresh.“Oh,” said they, “we put it in the cellar of Monsieur le Curé, and his housekeeper sprinkles it with water.”

The chapels are built at intervals in the village street, stopping all but foot traffic.

Talking of processions, we saw one at Rodèz that was really most interesting.

Many hundred years ago the city of Rodèz was visited by a great plague, of which more than half the inhabitants perished. So the bishop organised a pilgrimage to be made to a church eight miles away; and all the people that could be spared from the sick and dying, trudged off to this pilgrimage church to do penance, and pray that the plague might be stayed. Strange to say (at least so the story goes), after the pilgrims returned, not one death from the plague occurred in Rodèz. Health gradually returned to the sick, and the remnant of the inhabitants went back to their ordinary avocations.

Now each succeeding year the people of Rodèz make a thanksgiving pilgrimage to the wondrous shrine. There are three parishes in the city, and each parish has a separate procession on its own appointed day; and on that day, young and old, rich and poor, weak and strong, all trudge away to the sacred shrine, there to spend the day in fasting and prayer.

And this was the procession that we saw. It was interesting, but had its funny side too. First came all the young and old maids wearing silver crosses attached to blue ribbons. Then the penitents, great strong men, about two dozen of them, dressed in what looked like long white night-shirts, and cords round their waists, which cords they were supposed to thrash themselves with each time they felt their angry passions rise.

These robust sinners carried one of the most sacred relics of Rodèz, the pickled head of the first bishop, exposed to the public gaze in a glass case; and a very unpleasant object it looked — the head, not the case, for that was pretty enough.

After the penitents walked the first communicants of the Sunday previous, the girls dressed entirely in white, and the boys wearing white neckties, gloves, and trousers; each child carried a candle a yard and a half long, wreathed with artificial flowers. As the poor children were tired, the candles wobbled very ungracefully. After them came the priests in white robes, ornamented with Nottingham lace, which was good enough for the “walking dresses” — the gorgeous robes with real lace being worn only at indoor ceremonies. The procession was closed by the ordinary married folk, and unespecial saints or sinners.

Every village has its own particular fête-day, when each young fellow dons his best blouse, and every girl her Sunday frock; and if it is summertime, her best white embroidered camisole. These camisoles are short, white, much-be-trimmed, blouse bodices, and they are confined at the waist by a coloured band of ribbon, or else simply by the apron-string. A village girl dressed in plain black or red skirt, and white camisole and apron, looks really quite bewitching; but white is only worn on Sundays or holidays, and the blue garments ordinarily worn are neither very clean nor very picturesque.

On fête-days, as a matter of course, all the village is dressed in its best, and visiting, feasting, and dancing goes on all day long.

In the exuberance of their spirits the young men do not seem to care to which sex their partners belong, but will dance one dance after another with members of their own sex, and very often quite by themselves. Some of the village dances are really very pretty, and the young men move with wonderful grace and precision. Every now and then there is a lull in the dancing, then a stamping of feet, a fling of arms in the air, and off they go again, wheeling, turning, waltzing, and jigging, in what would be to English country lads an impossible manner. The girls don’t, as a rule, dance in the auberges— that is forbidden by the priests; but out on the Place they take their share of the general enjoyment. Most of the girls dance very nicely — it seems to come to them naturally: they learn one from another, but never take any regular lessons. In fact they could not afford to do so, even if they had the opportunity. Much lamentation has lately been caused because the priests have even forbidden the dancing upon the Place, saying that it is sinful and wrong for young men and maidens to touch each other even with the finger-tips. The young folk rebel, but then the priests will refuse them absolution when next they confess. Talking of absolution, the schoolmaster was refused absolution because the dictionary used in his school did not meet with the approbation of the Curé.

One day we went up the river to see some friends. We found them at home, but on the point of starting to Aubin to see the fête there, which is considered the fête of the neighbourhood. Our friends asked us to accompany them, and as the day was a holiday, we willingly consented. So off we drove, two carriage-loads of us, all gay, and all ready for a little distraction. The heat and dust, however, on the road were dreadful, and we all expected a thunderstorm, which luckily did not come off.

At Aubin the streets were spanned with arches, flags were flying, and the houses, especially the auberges, were gaily decked with flowers and evergreens. The cafés were evidently doing a roaring trade, and the swings and merry-go-rounds found plenty of customers.

Here and there patriotic Frenchmen might be seen and heard chanting the “Marseillaise,” whilst through the open doors of the auberges, one could see sprightly youths tripping on the light fantastic toe, to the strains of popular waltzes, polkas, and jigs, played by perspiring fiddlers. Toffee and cake stalls abounded on every side, and outside most of the cafes groups of men were playing games of cards. The country girls were all in grande toilette de dimanche, and fearfully and wonderfully made were many of their bonnets — some, indeed, without form or comeliness.

The men had donned new blouses of a bright and shining blue, or, if the wearers happened to be in mourning, of an equally shiny black.

The grand ball was to be held in the market-hall at nightfall. We went to see the decorations, which consisted of garlands, and strings of Chinese lanterns suspended from wall to wall in each direction. The floor was partly bricks and partly bare black earth. Alas for the white skirts of the dancing fair ones! they would be in a state.

Aubin fête is frequently held on a Sunday, but that makes no difference in the attendance, for a French Sunday is a curious affair. Religion has its reign in the morning, but at night fun takes its place. If one does not break a commandment, tant mieux; if one does, tant pis — it can’t be helped, and will all come right in the end: confession covereth a multitude of sins, and the bon Dieu knows that one must have amusement. He made us so; who should know better than He? Besides, what are all the brothers and sisters in the convents for, if not to pray for us? That is a Frenchman’s creed, when he has one at all, which does not always happen.

The people of Aubin no doubt do quite sufficient in the way of penance. They possess an almost inaccessible Calvary, which is erected upon an old fort, supposed to have been built by the English during their occupation of this part of France, and to this Calvary many a weary penitent has to trudge, when Monsieur le Curé wills it so.

Sometimes there is a grand quarrel between the young men of one village and those of another, generally because of some rustic belle, who perhaps has thrown a few kind glances towards a young man from another commune. This behaviour is bitterly resented by the garçons of her own village, and they show their anger by challenging the other fellows to a general stand-up fight.

One such fight occurred not long since between the young men of Bouillac and those of Cuzac. The scrimmage took place at Bouillac after the fête, and the Cuzac boys got badly beaten, broken heads and bruised bodies being the order of the day.

A few days afterwards the Bouillacites were surprised on going to morning Mass, by seeing pasted on the church door a huge written placard, to the effect that if the Bouillac young men ventured to show themselves at Cuzac fête they would get something more than they would like. Everybody expected a grand row, and the gendarmes were on the alert; but fortunately the young fellows of Bouillac listened to reason, and the persuasion of their women-folk, and stayed at home.

Probably the fact that the belle of the village faithfully promised not to look at any young men not of her own parish, had something to do with the matter.

The young fellows are very fond of playing ninepins: this they do in the middle of the road, so that if a trap or ox-cart comes along, the driver must wait until the nine-pins can be temporarily removed. But nobody minds; not they, for the driver would like a game himself, if only he could spare the time; so the players cheerfully move the nine-pins, the cart passes, and the game is resumed. The nine-pin ball is huge and hollow, but quite heavy. The men take hold of it by the edge of the hollow part, when they pitch it at the ninepins; and as they go on playing for hours at a time, they must find the game very amusing, though it does not look so to an onlooker.

One day a lot of grown-up men were playing on the road with a set of child’s toy nine-pins. Asking them if they found much amusement in the game, they replied, “Oh yes, mademoiselle, we do; it is a little distraction, and that is what we need after working in the mine all day.”

This all serves to show the nature of our workmen — easily pleased, and as easily vexed; men who will often be influenced by a kind word or action, but who will never be driven to do what they do not like.

On Sundays, games of cards and dominoes go on all day in the various auberges. Wine is drunk to a great extent, and towards evening singing, mostly of war songs, becomes general.

The climate of Aveyron is popularly supposed to encourage three things — namely, love, wine, and the human voice. No doubt it does the first two things; but as for the last, well, all we can say is that the standard they judge by cannot be very high, for the singing in the churches and auberges is simply atrocious, — it might best be called howling.

Perhaps the principal amusement in which the peasants and workmen indulge is summoning one another for some trifling cause or another before the juge de paix. The little court-house is at Asprières, and there the judge sits in state, ready to listen to and pass judgment upon all the petty quarrels of the neighbourhood.

The judge wears a funny little round cap with a white band, something like a rather high smoking-cap, with a stiff crown rather overshadowing the close-fitting brim. He also wears a short black gown and white bands, and he tries, though he does not always succeed, to look important. The court consists of a plain whitewashed room, at one end of which is placed the judge’s desk and those of his clerks. In front of these a place is railed off for the combatants and their witnesses.

Opening out of the court are the closet of the judge, and the hall of the witnesses.

The audience are not provided with seats, so the dividing rail is much sought after as a leaning-post.

As each case is called on, the plaintiff, defendant, and all the witnesses go inside the railed-off part of the court; then the plaintiff states his case and the defendant his defence, and then begins the fun. Plaintiff, defendant, witnesses, and judge all talk at once; and all, judge excepted, gesticulate wildly, flinging up their arms and glaring at one another in the fiercest manner. Next, the judge politely tells them all to shut up, and proceeds to give his decision. If the people don’t agree with it, they tell him so, and try to argue him out of it. Then he coolly shouts, “Allez-vous en!” and tells them to finish disputing outside, where space and time are no object. In this manner he knocks off one case after another, until all are finished.

After the court is over, plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses, and those who only attend out of curiosity, troop off homewards, laughing and talking in the most amicable manner, just as though nothing unusual had happened. Indeed it is nothing unusual, for most of the people seem to look upon the whole matter as rather a bit of fun than otherwise; and law of this primitive kind being a rather cheap kind of distraction, they go in for it to a large extent, summoning one another for the most trivial offence — so trivial sometimes, that the judge, clerks, and the whole court are obliged to laugh.

The first hearing of a petty case only costs the plaintiff about one franc, and the judge rather arbitrates than decides between the contending parties. They can abide or not by his decision; but if they do not so abide, the case comes on again in a few weeks’ time, when the costs are much greater, and the judgment final.

CHAPTER XXI

HOME LIFE IN AVEYRON.

Our people, as a rule, are very fond of outdoor life — not the active, boating, tennis-playing, cricketing, and generally athletic existence to which we English are addicted, but a sit-outside-under-the-shade-with-one’s-work-or-cup-of-coffee kind of life, which they seem to find very agreeable. For instance, take a walk along the street of a small town in the afternoon. Every one is out of doors who can possibly be there. Tradesmen mind their shops by sitting on chairs outside the doors, calmly reading the newspaper, whilst their women-folk knit, crochet, or gossip. Dressmakers may be seen working sewing-machines, and milliners trimming hats. It is quite an ordeal to pass between so much outdoor domesticity; one feels as if one were intruding one’s self into other people’s private affairs.

They are a people naturally gay and sociable: thus they do not like being shut up all day long in house or shop, so when they cannot get away for the much-loved promenade, why, they just sit outside and enjoy themselves the best way they can.

Most of the poor seem to look upon their houses simply as places to sleep in, and shelters in case of wet. One cannot wonder at this, when one sees the miserable hovels many of the houses are. Whole families often live in one apartment, eating and sleeping in the same room, and it is no unusual thing to see four and even five beds in the same room. And oh, the beds! they are so high, so be-curtained, and so stuffy-looking! — in fact, so suggestive of other than human occupants.

The French seem to have a liking for high beds. In the hotels they are so high and so springy as to be really dangerous. One night whilst staying at Toulouse we were startled by a great noise occurring in the adjoining room, and in the morning H. appeared with a big bump on his forehead: he had leaned over the side of his bed in order to put out the light, and the spring mattress had gone down with a jerk, and shot him out on to the stone floor, hence the bump.

But if it is easy for grown folks to fall out of bed, it is not easy for babies to fall out of their cradles; poor little souls! they are “held in bondage.” The child of a peasant or workman is, from its birth until the age of six months, wrapped up like a parcel; first in a small linen sheet of dreadfully coarse texture, and outside that a rough grey or brown blanket. These wraps are tied on to the unfortunate baby with long, narrow knitted strips like garters. These are wound round and round the baby, so that the poor little thing cannot move either arms or legs; indeed so tight are the bandages that poor baby could not possibly be put into a sitting posture. The babies are also tied into their cradles with these strips of knitting, which are laced across the cradle again and again, and the cradles are so small and shallow that the women nurse baby, cradle, and all.

The sister persuaded one woman to dress her child (a dear little thing) in English fashion. At first she demurred, but afterwards consented to our wishes. She thought that if her baby had its legs and arms free they would assuredly grow crooked. When she found out that they did not, and that her baby was stronger and happier than other people’s children, she thanked the sister for her advice, and said that she would never dress a child in the old way again. Poor woman! her husband had been out of work for some time, so on being offered a situation somewhere in Algeria he accepted it, and she had to take her baby and follow him there. She cried so pitifully at leaving her native land, for she thought that in the hot climate of Algeria her beautiful baby might die; but as she said — ” What will you, mademoiselle? when one is married one must follow one’s husband, even at the risk of losing one’s child.”

The French, rich and poor, cling with great tenacity to their native land. The peasants most especially speak almost pathetically of their country — their beautiful France. There, emigration is much rarer than with us: it is a thing to be dreaded — a very last resource. They would rather live on vegetables-and-bacon soup in their own country, than go away with the prospect of becoming rich. The daughters of peasant proprietors prefer to work hard — nay, almost starve — at home, than to go away to service. Indeed, the curés do not like the girls of the parish to go away to the large towns to service. They fear the result of the temptation of large towns, and away from under their own fatherly confessional care. So the girls stay at home tending the sheep and goats, and helping to till the few paternal acres; a rough life, but apparently a very healthy one, if one may judge by looks, for they are all stout and hardy, somewhat too stout, indeed, for girls of eighteen look women of thirty, and women of thirty — well, anywhere after forty.

The people, as a rule, marry youug, often too young, the girls being eighteen and the young men not much older. One has frequently made the remark, “That is a nice-looking young fellow,” and one’s companion has replied, “He is no longer a young man, he is married.”

Early marriages are all very well when the girl has a nice little dot, and the man a bit of land; but when, as sometimes happens, a workman marries a penniless girl, and then trouble comes, it is sad indeed. Not long ago we had a case of this kind in our parish. A young miner married a girl of nineteen. A few months after their marriage he was taken ill, and soon it became evident that, although his illness would most likely be of a lingering kind, he would never get better. The poor girl was expecting a baby. They had no money, and the only relations they had were very, very poor. The man could not safely be moved to the hospital at Villefranche, twenty miles away, and the commune either could not or would not do anything for him. Thus the poor people were entirely dependent upon the charity of a few, a very few, persons. The peasants gave nothing, absolutely nothing. “Why should we?” they said; “these people are strangers; they are not of our country, they are of another department; besides, we give to the Church, we cannot afford to give to the Church and to the poor also: if we give to the Church we get absolution, and shall go to heaven when we come to die; but if we give to the poor we get nothing.” The workmen happily were more charitable. “What will you?” they said; “we must help one another; we may be in want ourselves some day. It is better to give the money to those in want, than to give it to Monsieur le Curé, that he may buy candles for the church with it.”

A few of us undertook to make clothes for the expected baby, for the poor mother was too brokenhearted and tired from loss of rest to do anything, even could she have afforded to buy material. The baby was born on the day on which his father died. The poor man looked at his child twice, and saying, “It was all I waited for,” he passed away. Some little time after the funeral the sister went to call upon the widow. Her mother, an aged withered woman, looked at her visitor piteously for some minutes, and then saying something to her daughter in patois, she burst into tears. The daughter explained that her mother could not speak a word of French, but she wished to thank the sister and all the kind friends who had helped her daughter and son-in-law in their great trouble. “My mother,” she said, “thanks you from the depths of her heart, and she will pray always that the good Jesus and the Holy Virgin will bless you and recompense you for your kindness.” All the old women are not so tenderhearted as this one. Some of them seem to become very hardened indeed; but, poor souls! one cannot blame them overmuch, for they have had most likely a life of toil, and that of the most wearying kind.

One day the sister went to see a little child who was very ill with inflammation of the lungs. The little thing was almost dying then, indeed it did die soon afterwards. The mother was overwhelmed with grief, but the grandmother seemed rather pleased than otherwise. She scolded her daughter for grieving, at the same time making the remark that children were already too plentiful in the family, and that it would be a blessing for one to be taken away. Oh, what a dirty uninviting place that poor home looked! Father, mother, grandmother, and four children lived all in one room, which served alike for kitchen, parlour, and sleeping-room. On one side three high beds were packed close together, and in one of these, almost smothered with a big down quilt, lay the dying child. On one wall were hung the Sunday garments of the inmates, while shelves placed against another held the pots and pans, plates and dishes of the establishment. The floor was black with the accumulated dirt of generations, and walls and ceiling were little better than the floor. The only gleam of brightness in the room was caused by the shining copper pans and great water-fountain. One good point belongs to the French poor; they keep their cooking utensils clean and bright. However dirty the floor and furniture may be, the pots, pans, and crockery in general are invariably bright and clean.

Another noticeable thing is that in quite poor houses dinner-napkins are used. Miners and workmen use their serviettes, and are civilised enough to drink their cup of black coffee after dinner, too. The funny part of it all is, that though they use serviettes they have dinner served upon an uncovered table, or at the best a table covered with an oilcloth, sometimes white, but more often coloured.

Speaking of coffee, it is no wonder that the peasants make it good. They take the necessary trouble. Each household has its coffee-roaster, and each housewife chooses, mixes, and roasts her own coffee. The roasting is done out of doors generally of an evening, and it is no unusual thing to see three or four women in a group turning away at the handles of their little (barrel-churn-like) roasting-machines. The coffee is roasted over hot wood-ashes; and though the combined odour of coffee and burnt wood is rather overpowering, it is not unpleasant, especially at a little distance.

The peasants are a strange emotional people, and many of them seem subject to almost ungovernable fits of passion; but they are very warm-hearted and affectionate.

It is a thousand pities that so many marriages are made for convenience and not for love. One young married woman told us that she only saw her husband three times before their marriage, and then only in the presence of her parents. He never once was allowed to kiss her, so of real courtship she knew absolutely nothing. Fortunately they fell in love with each other after marriage, and even now behave like a pair of lovers, though they have been married seven years at least.

When there is mutual love between husband and wife, they show a great deal of tenderness one towards the other: monsieur is so polite and deferential towards madame, and she is so bright and winning, with a happy smile and a caressing word ever ready to greet her husband, so that it is really quite pretty to watch a pair of married lovers.

Oh, the miles and miles of crochet cotton that must get used up in the Departments of Lot and Aveyron! There cannot exist one girl of the age of twenty in either department who has not crocheted a quilt. The girls never seem to be idle. When their day’s work is over they stroll along the road or by the river, crochet or knitting in hand. Stockings are knitted and quilts crocheted in order to fill what English west-country girls call the “bottom drawer” — in other words, to form part of their wedding outfit; for what girl would think of getting married without a goodly number of stockings, and a few hand-made counterpanes in addition to her other treasures?

The old women do the spinning, and very dexterously they handle the distaff with their bundle of rough wool tucked under the arm. Their withered fingers seem to fly as they draw out the rough wool and twist it; and the old ladies themselves chatter and laugh with the very small children, who are their usual companions. Indeed, grandmothers and great-grandmothers generally act as nurses to the small fry, for mother is too busy working in the fields or vines, or sorting lead at the mine.

Very, very coarse stockings are knitted with this homespun yarn, and these are of a dingy white or natural sheep’s-back colour. Even the little schoolgirls knit going to and returning from school; and as for the schoolmistress, one never sees her without her knitting-pins, and one can only think how very well her husband must be off for socks, and herself and children for stockings.

Every now and then the professional mattress-cleaners make a visit to our village, and then all the family beds that need combing and cleaning are turned out of doors. The work is all done outside, in the road or village street: nobody minds, for everybody’s beds are done in the same manner.

Monsieur, the cleaner, combs the wool with a small machine he has for the purpose, which he works with his feet, using his hands for placing the wool in position. Madame, his wife, does all the unpicking and stitching up again of ticks, and she also packs the wool together in form for being covered. Some people clean their own mattresses; but this is not often done, because the professionals do not charge much, and at the same time do the work much better.

Then there is the tinman, who comes round in his turn, and mends and makes bright the pots and pans of the village.

Go down the village street at any time of the day, while he is on his rounds, and you are sure to see him sitting outside an auberge, by the side of his little fire, surrounded with pots, pans, copper stew-pans, and dripping-pans of all kinds. And beautifully he does them up too, sends them home mended, freshly tinned, and looking like new.

The peasants’ wives rear fowls, ducks, turkeys, and geese — in fact, they rear every kind of bird or animal that can possibly, dead or alive, bring them in any money. Wild rabbits, for instance, one never sees by any chance, though a hare may be shot occasionally. Tame rabbits, however, abound, and may be purchased very cheaply, and very good they are too, when cooked as only the French seem to know how to cook them.

Great quantities of pâté de foie gras are made in the neighbourhood, and each hotel-keeper vies with the other as to which has the best to offer his guests. It is a curious sight to see the poor geese being crammed with food, ready for the sacrifice. For weeks before they are killed they are kept up in a warm place, and systematically crammed with as much, or rather more food than they can possibly digest. In order to feed them, a large funnel is placed and held in their mouths, and into the large end of this funnel the food is put, and literally pushed with the fingers, or a short stick, down the poor creature’s throat. This process goes on at intervals day after day, until the goose is too fat to walk. Then, as its liver is considered sufficiently enlarged, and its digestion decidedly ruined, it is killed, and the liver is used in the manufacture of the famous pâté de foie gras. The geese are generally cut up and preserved in salt and in their own melted fat, and when the pieces are fished out of the jar and fried, they are very good eating.

Truffles are also used in the manufacture of pâté, and for these, as we have said before, the pigs are trained to hunt — in fact, they hunt for them naturally, and would eat them too, but that they are not allowed to do so. No, poor things! they do the finding, and we the eating of these delicacies.

CHAPTER XXII

ROCAMADOUR.

A devout pilgrim to Rocamadour had, upon her return, presented us with a little tract by the prêtre of the diocese of Pamiers, dilating upon the wonders of the place, which is said to be one of the most ancient, most curious, and most celebrated pilgrimages of France.

“If you go to Rocamadour you will be fully convinced of the truth of what you read there. There are there, in truth, natural, artistic, historic, and religious marvels.”

After this it was incumbent upon us to visit it, as it is in the province of the Lot; and, taking the little leaflet as a guide, we set out on our pilgrimage one burning hot June day, the sister and the visitor. If any items of warm praise are in this chapter met with, within inverted commas, they are quotations from the good priest’s book, whose feelings overcame him sometimes with the wonders he saw.

The pilgrimage to Rocamadour is made chiefly by those childless wives who desire offspring, and that they go there in great and admirable faith, will appear from our description of the pilgrims we saw there.

Rocamadour is a station on the railway on the central line from Paris, Orleans, Limoges, and Brives to Toulouse.

After the rich plains of the Tarn, the “frightful” mountains of the Rouergue, with their black tunnels, we come to the immense plateau of the Lot, which bounds the deep gorge of Rocamadour. Here the landscape is most dreary, a gently undulating tableland, strewn with white limestone rocks, just visible above the barren earth. Here and there on the waste expanse are some dwarf oaks, some walnut-trees, and small shrubs, finding scanty nutriment in the stony soil. Part of the district has the earth of so ruddy a hue that it is remarkable for that alone. Another part is grey and dull and hopeless. Here and there is a low house with a roof of thatch or flat stones, hovels of the poorest appearance, in an arid, desolate, and silent country.

“At this spectacle one cannot avoid a feeling of sadness. The heart is touched, and the tears come to one’s eyes. But patience, the surprise will soon be great indeed.”

Our first surprise when we alighted at the station was to find that we had some four miles to drive in a close omnibus along with a number of people, all plain and elderly women (pilgrims like ourselves!), and two priests. It was hot, but the driver sent his two horses along at a lively rate, which made the garlic-tainted purgatory more bearable. Peering out of the windows, which, alas! would not open, we began to think we had made some mistake, or that Rocamadour must be a fraud. There was nothing whatever to see but the uncultivated and stony plain and the dusty road, bordered with never a tree or house, or anything of the slightest interest.

“Again the heart bewails itself, and without ceasing one cries, ‘Oh, it is sad, it is sad!”

After our pleasant and fertile valley and vine-clad hills, it is difficult to believe that this is also part of the fertile province of the Lot.

Suddenly we stopped, and releasing our cramped limbs, we emerged into the blinding sunshine.

“By Jove! the priest is right. Look there! Isn’t that splendid? Isn’t it marvellous?” was the involuntary exclamation which broke from the writer.

We stood upon the brink of a vast chasm in the stony plateau. The earth had been rent open as if by an earthquake and had fallen apart, with two huge precipices, in the cleft between which was a narrow belt of verdure bordering a tiny stream. But clinging to the nearer precipice, on the brink of which we stood, was a village, looking at first a part of the rock or debris fallen in a slope. But we soon saw that it was indeed a village, with one long street, and one only, climbing at an angle along the side of the cliff until it joined the road at the top on which we stood. The houses on the nearer side of this had their backs against the rock, those on the farther side overhung the steep below. The street is spanned by three narrow and massive stone arches at equal distances apart. These are said to be the remains of ancient fortifications; but the reason for them is not apparent, as a few rocks rolled from the top of the cliff would smash the village.

Rocamadour

Upon a gigantic cliff, which rises yet higher with a bold escarpment, to our right stands a chateau, now the abode of missionaries, with a church. It overhangs the buildings below it, which, built against and forming part of the cavernous rocks, present a front of imposing walls only, the body of the buildings, so to speak, being underground. These strong and stately fronts are monastic buildings or chapels.

In one of those subterranean chapels it is thus written upon a scroll:—

“1. Zaccheus, because he was small and could not see Jesus in the middle of the crowd, mounted a sycamore. Jesus seeing him said, Zaccheus, descend quickly, I go to lodge with thee.

“2. Zaccheus was a disciple of Jesus. Veronica, his wife (who was, by the way, a black woman), followed Marie. They were persecuted for the faith; but an angel came to deliver them from the prison in which they had been confined.

“3. An angel commanded Zaccheus and Veronica to put to sea and to stop where the vessel entered port, where they were to serve Jesus Christ and Marie His saintly mother.

“4. The vessel came to the shore of Medoc, to a place called Soulac, where they remained in labour and in prayer. St Martial visited them there, and blessed an oratory which they had raised to St Etienne.

“5. St Amadour (Zaccheus), upon the order of St Martial, went to Rome before St Pierre. Sainte Veronique remained in the Bordeaux country, where she died. St Amadour, returning to Soulac, erected there two monasteries, and then retired from the world.

“6. It was in the year 70 after Christ that St Amadour chose for his hermitage and retreat the rocks which have since been called Rocamadour. The rocks were then inhabited and peopled by ferocious beasts.

“7. The inhabitants of the country were almost savages. St Amadour taught them, and made them aware of the religion of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

“8. St Amadour erected on the rock an altar in honour of Marie. That altar, so humble but since so glorious, was consecrated by the Bishop Martial, apostle, who visited several times our saint in his retreat.”

In another place is the following inscription:—

“In the year 1166 the body of St Amadour was found intact in the tomb where it had reposed since his death. It was raised with great ceremony from the earth, and placed in the present church, which has been consecrated in his honour.”

It is said that the body of the saint was in a perfect state of preservation, which has given rise to the saying, ” In flesh and in bone like St Amadour.”

We descended from the giddy height by a series of zigzags, the path being very well kept, while at each angle is a niche with a figure of the Virgin or some other saint.

We had brought the camera, of course, and now began our tortures and troubles. Leaving the paths, we got on to the slopes at the foot of the cliffs, which slopes were at an angle of 45°, with very bad footing on loose stones. It was most laborious work scrambling over the hot white stone, with never a bush or tree to shade us, and the tripod refusing to be accommodating. The sky was cloudless and the heat terrific. The sun was directly above us, and its vertical rays were intensified by the reflections from the white cliffs which towered far above our heads, and overhung in the blue height with an apparent insecurity. One felt that if the cliff fell it would strike against its opposite neighbour, and destroy the whole of the valley. Panting and struggling over the burning ground, we got several photographs of the cliffs and the quaint village clinging to it, the chapels and sanctuaries higher up, and, looking like a white wall glued to the hollow face of an overhanging rock, the sanctuary of the Virgin, with the one word Marie written across its blank front.

Our little guide says that “photography itself fails to reproduce in its insaisissable reality this indescribable pilgrimage, the most marvellous, perhaps, in the world.” And that is quite true. These towering rocks, the fissures and crevices of which are brought into bold relief by the brilliant sunshine and the deep shadow, are dwarfed by the exaggerated perspective of the lens, and give no idea of their actual size, save where a tiny house is seen to be attached, like a limpet to a sea-rock, where there appears not room for a flower.

After holding his head some time under the black cloth while focussing, the writer was nearly overcome by the heat. Feeling desperately giddy and ill, and apprehensive of a sunstroke, he snatched up his apparatus and staggered down to the little brook, where he thankfully dipped his straw hat into the water, and poured it over his head, so that it flowed over and drenched his shoulders and neck. He did this time after time with but scant relief, and the tall stripped poplars which grew by the stream in a scanty array, afforded no sufficient shade from that pitiless sun, and the furnace-heat of the rocks.

Numerous snakes swam across the stream, the only sign of moving life in the valley, for the village above was as still as the grave. No one would be willingly out in the noonday heat in such a place save a mad Englishman.

We crossed the brook, and could find no path up to the street, so we had to climb on our hands and knees over very rough ground, over a fence into a back-yard, and so by a passage into the street. There was no shade there, save six inches cast by the eaves of one side, and we were in the last extremity of suffering from the sun. But under one of the arches we found shade at last, and never was it more welcome. There we stayed and recovered ourselves a little before proceeding in search of a restaurant. There were several in the place, but the one to which we were recommended was at the base of the highest cliff, and accessible only by a zigzag stairway of many and hot steps. An old bare-headed dame showed us the way, tripping lightly up the steps, followed very slowly and with much fatigue by ourselves. We learned in the restaurant that our movements had been watched, and that we had been doing a very dangerous thing in exposing ourselves in the very focus, as it were, of the hollow “burning glass” of the white valley.

It was a relief to get into the dark, cool restaurant, and sit at a table by the open window, which was sufficiently overhung by the rock to allow of the volées being opened. How sweet the red wine tasted! and what draughts of it we imbibed until the strength came back to us, and we were able to enjoy a most recherché déjeûner, commencing with pâté de foie gras and ending with delicious fruit and coffee, faring far better than poor Zaccheus did among the ferocious beasts.

Our companions, who were many, in that dark half-cavern restaurant were chiefly women, past middle age and decidedly plain. We trusted their pious prayers would have the desired effect, but appearances were against it. We two, brother and sister, were taken for husband and wife, and it was clear from the interest we occasioned among the priests, and the remarks we could not help overhearing, that we were considered premature in making the pilgrimage, at so youthful an age.

After lunch we explored the many chapels which are formed in the caverns of the cliff, examining sanctuaries, altars, images, and pictures, all of historical interest to the Romish Church. But when people are reverently worshipping in their sanctuaries, alien though the religion may be, we do not feel at ease in “doing” such places in the tourist fashion; and though we could not join the worship, yet it seemed fitter not to disturb the kneeling and devout pilgrims, and we passed the sacred shrines without a too close and irreverent examination. But in these cool grottoes, with their dim and sacred light, there is at least a sense of peace and rest, which we enjoyed to the utmost. While sitting in a quiet corner, as we thought unobserved, a good nun brought us water to drink and chairs to put our feet on, to make us comfortable, as we looked fatigued, and we deemed it very thoughtful of her.

Glancing through the little pamphlet we have referred to, we noticed a sample of the patois of the district, which it may interest French scholars to read —

“Les oustals sul riou laï gléyzos sus oustals, laï rocos sur laï gléyzos lé castel sus laï rocos.”

Lingering in this restful spot, under the lofty vaulted roof, we were loath to venture into the blaze of the afternoon sun; but time was on the wing, and we wished to secure one more photograph. We therefore resumed our toilsome way up the long stone staircases, and presently stopped to take a general view of the valley from the giddy height on which we stood. Just as the apparatus was fixed up, a priest hove in sight, followed by a school of young students. As we were blocking up the path, we prepared to remove the instruments; but he politely refused to disturb us, and waited until we had finished, and then directed us to a more favourable standpoint for a better view.

But loud shouts from the driver of the diligence warned us that he could not wait any longer, and the sister only just managed to squeeeze into the interior, while the brother was glad to scramble on to the domed, zinc-covered top of the vehicle and sit astride it, hastily packing up his apparatus as he did so.

The bare-chested and brawny fellow who acted as driver, with his wide-brimmed straw hat garnished with red ribbons, blue shirt, and red sash, looked a picturesque and brigandish ruffian. As we were rather late, he kept the horses at a gallop, uttering wild yells at the top of his voice, and swinging his arms and brandishing his whip as if possessed. At this breakneck speed we rushed and rolled along the brink of the precipice, from which the road was only separated by a low and frail stone wall. There was nothing to hold on by on the hot round zinc top of the vehicle, and the bumping and sliding about which the photographer and his apparatus underwent as they sprawled there made him uncommonly glad when the ride came to an end.

“Curious one, traveller, tourist, pilgrim! go to Rocamadour. You will be enchanted, ravished with all its grandeurs, with all its magnificences, with all its memories. We have seen but once these blessed places, but we think still that our heart will always carry us back there, and we cease not to sigh for the happy moment of our return. Who can forget Rocamadour?”

To which we reply, not the man who visits it on a fiercely hot day. The driver coolly asked us an outrageous sum for our drive, more than three times as much as the other passengers paid. Finding that we were English, he thought it no sin to rob us. But the sister was equal to the occasion. She had ascertained the proper fare while in the bus, and we refused to pay more, and the amount was quietly accepted, without any apology or confusion at the detection of his attempt to cheat.

If any desire a more detailed description of the chapels through which we but loitered here, it is conveniently placed at the end of the chapter.

“Stair by stair, step by step, platform to platform, we mount without too much fatigue until we reach the great door. A little farther, and we arrive at a small plateau which is the centre of all the wonders of this ever-celebrated pilgrimage. All here is astonishing; we are struck, we are charmed,” and so on. “But let us hide our emotions and stop to prostrate ourselves before our Lady of Rocamadour. It is a black Virgin, erected, as it now stands, some years after the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ by Zaccheus the evangelist, to whom the inhabitants of the country gave the name of ‘Amateur du Rocher — Rupis amatorem Amadour.’ Three objects are above all venerated in this miraculous chapel: 1st, the Virgin, of whom we have spoken; 2d, the altar consecrated by St Martial, Bishop of Limoges, who came many times to visit his friend St Amadour; 3d, an ancient clock, miraculous, and made of wood and wrought-iron. This clock, according to the most authentic chronicles, has sounded by itself without human aid on several occasions (enumerating them by date). This spontaneous striking announced each time the deliverance of some poor mariners who had called for protection upon our Lady of Rocamadour. Banners, flags, tapestry, scrolls, and inscriptions, ever-burning lamps, and gifts of all kinds are mute but eloquent chronicles and souvenirs of miracles and prodigies obtained by the intercession of our Lady of Rocamadour.

“On the outside one sees a relic of mural painting representing the Dance of Death, image of the death on this narrow plateau (or table-land) of St Michel — a much-desired place of sepulchre. On the left, in the rock, the retreat of St Amadour, the little chapel, so elevated, so curious, of St Michel, on the wall of which is painted in huge letters the legend of St Christopher. One reaches the interior by a steep staircase, partly cut out of the rock. The altar is placed in a deep arch, covered with old paintings. At the side of the door of the chapel one finds an enormous and ancient coffer, covered with iron, destined to receive, to-day as it was then, the portion of the poor.

“Above is suspended to a heavy chain, and sunk in the rock, the shapeless and clumsy image of the sword of Roland. Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, going to rejoin the great emperor in Spain, offered to Notre-Dame of Rocamadour a gift of silver of the weight of his sword; but, betrayed by the infamous Ganelon, he was, with his brothers-at-arms, surprised and massacred in the gorge of Roncevaux. The few survivors brought his glorious Durandal to the sanctuary of Rocamadour. Below the chapel of St Michel is the ‘Magasin de Marie,’ where one can procure sportelles, medals, emblems, photographs, souvenirs of every nature of the pilgrimage. From this side there also opens a passage giving access to the frightful pathway which leads along the rock, at a formidable height, to a house placed there like an eagle’s nest, and having for sign ‘ A Marie!’ People anxious to pass some days at Rocamadour in silence and retreat are received there.

“Let us resume our subject.

“On the right, on a level with the miraculous chapel, and in an angle forming a retreat of a few metres, you admire the vast church of St Saviour, with a beautiful doorway, an arch supported in the middle by two gigantic pillars formed of eight columns, paintings, souvenirs of the kings of France, or of great persons who have visited these places, an ancient Christ which every one venerates on entering. Descending a few steps, and yet a few, and we are in the admirable chapel of St Amadour, where we reverence with a holy respect the relics of the saint.

“Reascending to the right of the table-land of St Michel, we enter successively the chapels of St Joachim, St Anne, St Blaise, St John the Apostle, and of St John Baptist, all with their ‘privileged altars and rich with indulgences.’ All are very beautiful; but that of St John Baptist is to our mind, in spite of its narrow proportions, the most delicate, the most elegant, and the most remarkable. It serves as the parochial baptistery. The founder was Jean de Valon, Chevalier of the Order of St Jean de Jerusalem, whose monument in delicate stone, finely sculptured, is placed in the wall, representing him lying, dressed in all his armour, and sleeping the sleep of the just.

“Adjoining is the huge reception-hall of Monseigneur the Bishop of Cahors, on the mantelpiece of which one sees the arms of the family of the actual bishop, Mgr. Grimardias: gules, with three hunting-horns posed two and one. This is a homage paid to his gentle descent, who, after the example of his revered predecessors, watches with so much zeal and solicitude to the least details the prosperity of this incomparable pilgrimage.

“From there, one casts a last wondering look on the enormous mass of rocks which overhangs the sanctuaries, and to which it serves almost as a roof and arch.

“From this point, already so high over the roofs of the village, we proceed to the summit, over the roofs of the churches, and on this mass of rocks is situated, we have said, the habitation of the priests charged with the care of Notre-Dame de Roc Amadour.

“Let us go and thank and congratulate these excellent brothers.

“If we obtain permission we will ascend by an interminable subterranean staircase which divides the sacristy from the church of St Saviour, pass under the vault, re-enter under the rock, and come out at last in the court of the ancient fortress.

“Otherwise, or if we prefer it, cross a vaulted passage and take our way slowly by turnings, so picturesque, by the little ascending pathway which leads more pleasantly to the peaceful, hospitable, and religious dwelling of our revered and dear guardians, as well as to the charming avenue shading the high plateau.

“The wonders of the lower rock are equalled by those on the summit, which are not detracted from by the modest simplicity of the missionaries, who live as simply as country priests. The exterior alone is majestic and grand. It seems that in pious thought they have only aimed at ornamenting these great modern buildings to render them more worthy of the sanctuary. Everything here preaches the love of Mary — all is for Mary. The great square tower, surmounted by a bell-turret, is adorned with a clock with a triple face. One ascends it by a stone staircase open to the sky, and one walks on the roof on the edge of the ramparts. One dreams of the middle ages whilst standing on those battlements, while from the giddy height one views timorously the deep and narrow valley below, where winds the tiny stream of Alzon.”

And so on ad infinitum.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SEASONS IN AVEYRON.

In this part of France winter glides almost imperceptibly into spring-time. There is usually no breaking up of hard long frosts, or melting away of deep snow, but, as a rule, spring-time grows gradually. With the lengthening days the weather grows warmer, the skies become more intense in their blueness, and the golden sunshine floods the land from dawn to dusk.

To be sure, there are occasional showers, but who minds showers, when between each one the sun shines out with added brightness, like the eyes of a child after a passion of tears? Then the fields are green with the springing wheat, and in the lengthening meadow-grass the scented violets hide, lending a delicious perfume to the soft warm air. There is a renewing of life on every side; each tree is pushing forth its baby leaves, and the hillsides that through winter have been bleak and almost bare, grow green and gold with blossoms of brake and broom.

The graceful breeze-swayed poplars down by the river don their spring crowns of tender greenness, and underneath the overhanging rocks the tiny new fronds of the maiden-hair unfold themselves to the light.

The river rushes madly and merrily on its course, and though very full in the early spring, it is not often muddy. It is the heavy thunder-showers of summer that make the water thick and coffee-coloured, not the gentle spring rains. Then the volume of water is greatly due to the melting of the snow on the high mountains of Aveyron and the Lozère. These are snow-capped often until the beginning of April, so that the river is well supplied with water. The waters of the Lot are not so clear and limpid as are those of the Tarn and Aveyron; still they are often beautifully clear and green, more especially in the spring-time. H. says that this greenness is clue to the chemical nature of the rocks through which the water filters; but we told him we did not want scientific reason for beauty, the river was green, and that was quite enough for us.

Snowdrops and primroses are flowers unknown in this part of France, but not so the violets. They blossom on every side, and their scent fills the air. The school-children hunt for the very first, and bring them to mademoiselle, and mademoiselle is expected to be well supplied with sous. One or two devoted little friends, however, won’t take sous. Needless to say that their violets are prized the most. Soon, cowslips, narcissi, and the white anemones take the place of violets; the lilacs, laburnums, and other flowering trees grow heavy with their flowers; and then in May the roses begin their reign, and the hay-fields and meadows are gay with flowers of almost every description. But we have forgotten the forget-me-not, the favourite flower of all; the flower beloved of all Frenchmen, for is it not the flower of sentiment, and are not all — yes, all French people — more or less sentimental? I wonder, if we could only look, how many sprays of myosotis should we find hidden away in the private desks of all French lovers! And then the flower-motto is so pretty — “The more I see thee, the more I love thee.” Why, the gift of a single spray is a declaration of love in itself.

In rural France it is necessary that flowers should be made to do the talking, for the language of love is a denied blessing to the youths and maidens. They may not whisper sweet nothings in each other’s ears whilst taking a moonlight stroll. No; poor things! they must always be chaperoned by mamma or escorted by papa; for them a stolen clasp of hands is the luxury of love, and one kiss, in presence of the whole family, is considered such a great privilege that it can only be allowed just before the day of marriage approaches. “You see,” said a French gentleman to us, “our young girls are kept, as it were, packed in cotton-wool until they are married. We know something of their accomplishments, everything about their fortunes, and nothing as to their dispositions, likes or dislikes, tempers or faults: they are angels sans doute, but angels of whom we know nothing.”

From the spring-time of earth to the spring-time of love! It is a natural transition for one’s thoughts to take. Thoughts should always be happy in spring; there is everything to make them so: the skies are blue, the birds are joyous, the fields are golden with kingcups, and even the river sings softly to itself, as it slips its shining waters over the pebbly beaches, that here and there jut out into its channel. The azure of the sky is repeated in that of the clustering forget-me-nots, and only the starred anemones are whiter than the fleecy clouds. The Virgin’s colours — blue, white, and gold — fit emblems of purity and peace and spring-time.

Our people look forward to and love the springtime exceedingly. “Oh,” they say, “but it is beautiful! it is beautiful, the spring-time. Now we will be happy all the day; we will promenade, we will gather the flowers, and one day soon we will take a basket of food and have a repast upon the grass. Oh, but that will be a grand distraction! a very good amusement!” And so they seem to find it. They laugh and sing and chatter incessantly, whilst the babies tumble and roll about, happy and contented, as only babies seem to know how to be.

When the fishing season commences, papa, mamma, and babies go off to some favourite trout-stream. Papa and big brother fly-fish in hopes to catch the timid trout. The youngsters search the rocky crevices for cray-fish, whilst mamma and nurse spread the cloth for déjeûner. Happy, merry people, caring nothing (for the time being) for politics, or other pleasure than that of making their children happy, and having a little pleasure themselves.

In the beginning of June comes the time of the cherries, the one time of all the year when a young man’s fancy is supposed to turn to thoughts of love, when maidens grow most sentimental, and loving looks and whispered words are exchanged whenever, either by chance or (let us whisper it) by appointment, true lovers meet.

The nights of May are made melodious with the song of the nightingale, which haunts each wooded dell; but in the beginning of June the birds sing no more during night-time, nursing cares take their attention, so their songs are only to be heard in the day-time.

Then comes summer — 90° in the shade day after day, week after week. Heat and dust and drought, and a season of languor for man and bird and beast. The people feel it themselves, although they are used to it. “Oh,” they tell us, “the heat is terrible! it is terrible! We wait and wait all day, and think that a breeze will spring up in the evening; but the evening arrives, and the breeze comes not. The nights are as hot as the days: we can do nothing but lie still and suffer.”

The poor oxen seem most to feel the heat; they look at one so pathetically out of their big eyes when one meets them toiling along the white weary road, harnessed to the heavily laden carts.

This year (1887) the heat has been so great that the vines have suffered, and in many a vineyard the grapes have withered away instead of ripening, so the poor peasants are in despair, and it is thought that wine will be both scarce and dear.

We have said that the poor oxen look tired in snmmer-time, but it must not be inferred from this that they are cruelly treated. On the contrary, they are never worked in the middle of the day: indeed to work them would be impossible because of the heat and the flies. These latter are the one great torment that one has to endure during the months of July and August, and the first three weeks of September. To the cattle they are simply a torture, and their masters knowing this, protect them as much as they can from these pests. The foreheads of the beasts are always covered up with a kind of mat or skin rug, in order to prevent the flies from biting that part. Then branches of elder are tied above their heads, because flies are supposed not to like the smell of this tree. How often have we seen the same thing done in rural England!

At all the railway stations in the south of France a drink composed of rum, gentian, and water is kept. This is often given to the servants of the different companies, and is considered a valuable remedy for many disorders caused by the excessive heat.

During summer-time nearly all the peasant population go bare-legged. They feel the cooler, no doubt; but the general view is not pleasing, cleanliness not being considered necessary to their happiness. With longing one looks forward to autumn, and with it comes relief from the heat. Of all seasons of the year in the south of France that of autumn is perhaps the most enjoyable. The great heat of summer is passed away, the days grow gradually cooler, and one can walk out in the middle of the day without discomfort. But it must not be supposed that there are no hot days. Oh no; sometimes, when one would think that the great heat had passed, it seems to come back again with renewed violence. Then the sun blazes, the air is hot and stifling, and the branches and leaves hang motionless. One Sunday this September we thought, What a lovely day we are going to have! for at early morning the sun was bright and the breeze was cool, so we decided to spend the day upon the river, and to dine at some village auberge. But, alas! the breeze died away, and the sun burnt fiercely in a cloudless sky. True, the river was beautiful, and the mountain-tops showed sharp and clear against the blue brightness of the sky. But all the loveliness could not atone for the heat and glare: 90° in the shade, and no shade to speak of, is not a pleasant temperature in the end of September, when one naturally looks for at least pleasantly cool weather.

So we were fain to dine at Capdenac, only six miles or so from home, and after dinner we could do naught but rest and read under the shade of the poplar-trees down by the river-side. Fortunately we had plenty of cushions in our little launch, so we contrived to make ourselves tolerably comfortable. Then we had an unlimited supply of grapes and peaches, and what was most to be desired, some English tea, which we made with the aid of a spirit-lamp. So we did not do badly after all in spite of the heat, and when the heat fell we steamed slowly back up the river, whilst the sky grew green and gold in the sunset, and the river turned to silver in the faint night mist that gradually rose upon its surface.

Is there anything more bewitching than an autumn sunset upon the river Lot? We think not. The clear sky shades from deepest blue to pale tender green, and the yellowing tops of the poplar-trees shine like burnished gold in the soft amber light. Beneath, the river lies, calm and still as a polished mirror, save only where its course is broken by a white foaming weir. In the clear water the sunset colours are reflected, and where the fern-clad cliffs drop down to the very edge of the river, one cannot tell where the rocks and water meet, so distinct is the reflection. Gradually the golden sunset glow fades away, and the tender light of the rising moon grows brighter and brighter, lending to the scene a new, though still charming aspect.

On many such evenings have we stayed on the river long after nightfall, content to steam slowly up and down the shining reaches that lie between the village of Bouillac and the quaint hamlet and chateau of La Roque. When all the land lay bright beneath the sunlight, we too were gay and merry; but as the day darkened and the quiet moonlight crept down the mountain-sides, we too grew quiet, not sad, perhaps, but thoughtful and content to be still.

Garden-parties are things unheard of in this primitive part of the globe, but we have what are much better — vineyard-picnics. When the purple and white grapes hang ripe on the vines, and the leaves are turning to scarlet and deep crimson, the peasant proprietors ask their particular friends to spend an afternoon in their vineyard.

The vineyards are steep, and the amount of climbing to be done something formidable. But oh, the grapes and the peaches! — they are delicious. Only, one is expected to eat such an alarming quantity of both kinds of fruit! We resign ourselves to our fate; and though the vineyard may be as steep as the roof of a house, we manage — by dint of propping ourselves up behind vine-poles — to sit down, or rather we just manage not to slide down feet-foremost to the valley beneath. Then into our laps the grapes and peaches are poured, and we proceed to convey them to our mouths. At last nature fails: we lose our appetites, and as the cry is “Still they come!” we have recourse to smuggling, and pockets come into requisition. When we can succeed in persuading our host that we really cannot eat any more, and when he is satisfied that we have tasted every kind of grape he has in his vineyard, he lets us depart, though not without presenting us with a large basket of fruit. During the month of September we are asked to many such grape-picnics, and greatly we enjoy the fun. People who only eat peaches by ones, and grapes by the half-dozen, can have no idea how delightful it is to sit in a vineyard and eat just as many as ever one likes.

We astonish and amuse the people very much by eating blackberries, which grow on every hand in countless thousands. The peasants never touch them, and look upon them as little better than poison. Even the school-children never think of eating blackberries, but pass them by unheeded.

We, however, accustomed to look upon blackberries as at least a useful fruit, thought we should like to make some jelly of that fruit, so we organised a blackberry-picnic. It was during holiday-time, so some of the little girls were only too willing to join our party, and for the first time in their lives help to pick blackberries. We elder ones enjoyed the fun from a little distance, where we sat in the shade of a hillside coppice, chatting and reading by fits and starts. The children’s merry voices floated up the hillside from where they were busy berry-picking in the ravine below, with full baskets, happy faces, and stained hands.

Soon, however, dirty hands were washed in a neighbouring brook, and we all proceeded to light a fire, boil the kettle, and get tea. Milk had been brought for the children, who only look upon tea as a somewhat nasty decoction or, as they would call it, tisane — something to be drunk as a remedy for sickness or headache. So the small people enjoyed their milk and the various good things we had provided for them, and we English folks enjoyed our tea all the more, that we had had some difficulty in making the kettle boil. Then we cleared away the remains of the repast, and sent the bairns home with the baskets of fruit, &c.

We stayed longer enjoying the sunset; but when the twilight fell we strolled homeward through the lanes and vineyards, reaching home just in time for seven o’clock dinner, to which we sat down with sharpened appetites.

How can we find words to describe a late October day in this beautiful valley! or where an artist who could fitly portray the glowing and varied tints of the fading foliage! Here is one mountain-side which is one deep orange glow, with the changing leaves of the chestnut-trees; down by the river the sloping hillside breaks away into an irregular cliff, the upper edge of which is fringed with the deep red leaves of the blackberry bramble, whilst in every crevice of its rocky surface the graceful ferns still grow green as they did in the spring-time. From the sunny vineyards the grapes have been taken, but there still remains the scarlet glory of the autumn leaves. The poplar-trees that just a little while since were only tipped with gold, are now yellowed to their base; and as the light wind sweeps over them they send down showers of leaves that look like flakes of golden snow in the softened sunlight.

As we stand upon the bridge and look up the river-valley, it seems as though the mountains close in on every side, so swift a curve does the river take. The river looks like a great lake, and the rugged mountain-side that seems to close in the farther end is still purple with the heather that grows in luxuriance in every nook and cranny of the bold grey rocks.

The winter is simply pleasant; but last winter there was positively a frost which covered a still pool or backwater of the river with ice. We sent to England for our skates, and for a day or two astonished the natives considerably.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LADIES GET LOST.

(TOLD BY THE SISTER.)

If the peasants of Aveyron are poor and dirty, those of the Lot are for the most part much poorer and much dirtier. Taken as a whole the Department of the Lot is rocky and unfertile. The department consists of a series of vast rocky plains, where only a very thin layer of soil covers the limestone. It is only in the river-valleys that any quantity of soil seems to have accumulated, and these valleys are very fertile and often very beautiful. Sometimes after journeying for some miles across a sterile plain, upon which the grass grows very scantily, and where the huge limestone boulders push through the soil at near intervals, one comes suddenly in full view of a lovely, verdure-clad undulating valley. The great limestone causse, as it is called, would seem to have been rent asunder by some hidden force, and right away down at the foot of the cliffs one sees a village nestling, surrounded by fields of living green, and shaded by spreading trees.

But the poor folks whose homes are situated upon the stony wilderness above have indeed a sad life of it. They experience the greatest poverty. Yet so they live from year’s end to year’s end, unwashed, badly housed and clothed, and fed worse than an English dog. Father, mother, and children all live in the one room of a stone hovel, and this single room is often shared by the goat, or it may be a couple of sheep. Bugs and fleas are in thousands, and the dirt that abounds on every side is simply awful. The peasants manage to cultivate a little maize, and this they make into a black and fearfully heavy kind of bread. Upon this bread, a few chestnuts, and the milk supplied by the family goat, the poor peasants manage just to keep body and soul together. Many children are cripples or deformed in some way, owing no doubt to the lives of dirt and privation lived by themselves and by their parents before them.

A fortnight ago Mary and I started off to pay a visit to a friend whose temporary home is situated in the wildest part of the Department of the Lot. We were asked to send a telegram the day before we intended to start, in order that our friends might send to meet us. This we did; but, alack and alas! when we reached Gramat, where we left the train, there was no sign of any carriage. We afterwards found that the telegram took two days on its journey, and a second one that we sent on from Gramat arrived at the same time as the first. N.B. — Advice to travellers in rural France. Letters may or may not arrive at their intended destination; telegrams generally have to make such a roundabout journey that they arrive at their destination too late to be of any use. One generally finds that the quickest way to send a message is to take it one’s self.

French Government officials seem to have orders and permission to pry into every one’s secrets, and thus, if a telegram has only to go to the next village, it must first be sent to the chief town of the department, and there be copied and registered. And when it does reach the final office, there is no messenger to take it to its final home. Oh no, it must wait to be fetched! or if a village gamin can be found handy, he may be persuaded to take it for a small consideration to be paid on delivery. I have known a telegram announcing the death of a husband to lie waiting at the station for two hours, until a passer-by might offer to take it up to the poor wife, who in consequence missed a train, and could not arrive in time for her husband’s funeral. But to get back to our journey, or rather our delay. We loitered about Gramat for a while, expecting every minute that some one would come to meet us; but as nobody turned up, we got a good dinner at a restaurant, which dinner cost the large sum of 1s. 3d. each. Then we went up to the post-office, and inquired if any telegram had arrived for us. I of course gave my name and address; but the sulky young post-woman was not satisfied with that, and calmly told us that unless I had in my possession a card or letter showing that I was the person I represented myself to be, she must refuse to say if anything had arrived for us. As it happened, I had neither, so I told her the name of the sender, but all to no purpose. Then I suddenly bethought myself that my name was engraved on the back of my purse, so I showed it to her, and at last, being satisfied, she consented to inform us that there was nothing for us. I never felt so sold before in all my life. However, we asked her which was the best hotel in the town, also to please send on any message that might come for us during the evening.

After promenading through several narrow tortuous streets, we reached the hotel. The host and his wife were evidently much surprised to see two young ladies turning up tired-looking and baggageless; but when we explained our situation, they were most kind, and immediately sent to the station for our effects.

We took a bedroom, for, it being already nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, we knew that even if the carriage came we could not possibly continue our journey until the next morning.

As we had not thought to pass the night at an auberge, we were not provided with soap; but the chambermaid kindly undertook to provide us with some, and after what was no doubt a long search she returned, bearing in her hand a diminutive morsel of scented and wonderfully lathery soap, — a piece left no doubt by some former voyageur.

When we again descended into the lower regions, we were met by the hostess (a fat smiling woman), who conducted us into a huge bare-looking apartment, furnished principally with two long tables, and a big wood-fire, which latter burned brightly on the large open hearth, the big foundation logs being supported by dog-irons.

We were offered seats right in front of the blazing fire, and the various inmates of the hotel found much amusement in coming in one by one to have a good stare at us.

At one of the long tables a very old woman was busy ironing, and taking into consideration the time she took to iron one pocket-handkerchief, the family ironing would most likely be a somewhat lengthy affair. There were a great many handkerchiefs to be ironed, so our interest in the process rather flagged. At last, however, these uninteresting articles were finished, and suddenly we became extremely interested, for tiny frilled caps, embroidered petticoats, &c., &c., appeared upon the scene. Then we knew at once the house possessed a baby: this proved to be so; and the baby itself soon made its appearance in the arms of its nurse, and a very jolly little baby it was too, as good as gold, as fond mothers say of their own offspring.

Whilst we were sitting waiting for dinner, we heard a sound of lamentation proceeding from the kitchen, and, on making inquiries, we ascertained that the pet puppy-dog had gone astray. Scouts were sent out in various directions, but Monsieur Puppy did not turn up. About six o’clock the hotel bus came along, and the truant puppy was found fast asleep in a corner of the vehicle. He had been for a drive to the station on his own account. He proved to be a sociable little black-and-tan terrier, and we had some fun nursing and playing with him. The old ironing woman watched us gravely for some time, and at last solemnly marched up to us with two large serviettes, deliberately placing one on each of our laps, remarking at the same time that now we could play with the puppy without soiling our dresses. We got tired of doggie, and dinner not being announced, we were seized, according to the manner of “those mad English,” with an exploring mania.

We felt rather, in fact, very, hungry, so we naturally directed our first steps towards the kitchen, at whose door sundry most savoury odours greeted our nostrils.

There is one thing to be said in favour of French auberges, at least in this part of France, and that is, that the cooking utensils of every kind are kept beautifully clean: the copper pans shine so that they might fitly serve as mirrors, and the tinned pans are always scoured and clean. Then another thing, one may watch the cooking operations, if one has a mind to; indeed French voyageurs (commercial travellers) may be often seen taking a turn in the kitchen, in order to see what the cook is preparing for dinner. The cook does not seem to mind; on the contrary, he or she appears to like people taking an interest in his or her culinary skill.

At our hotel the big range was in the middle of the large kitchen, and at the side of the room there was the usual charcoal-stove. These stoves are of peculiar construction. They are in shape like a kitchen-range, but are covered with glazed tiles. On the top there are a series of various-sized saucer-like holes: these holes are from time to time filled with half-burnt wood, and pots and pans containing soups and entrées of various kinds are set over the holes, that they may cook or keep hot. The wood-ashes fall through gratings placed at the bottom of said holes into an open space underneath, from whence they are raked out. Dishes of meat and vegetables are kept warm upon the dinner-table in much the same way. A zinc-lined grating-covered kind of box is filled with charcoal and placed upon the table, where it serves to keep the various dishes warm.

Another curious thing in these auberges is the wash-hand fountain. This consists of a huge bright copper filter-shaped cistern, which is screwed on the wall somewhere in the vicinity of the salle à manger. Underneath this fountain is a copper bowl, also fastened to the wall, and underneath that again is a cupboard, where clean towels and soap may be found. By turning a tap the water can be made to flow from the copper oddity into the receptacle underneath, and a hole at the bottom of the bowl lets the dirty water off again.

All the dining habitués, as well as occasionals, wash their hands at the fountain before going in to dinner, so that, whilst sitting at the dinner-table, if we heard the splash of water we knew that there was a fresh arrival.

At our table d’hôte there were about a dozen men, most of them evidently commercial travellers, and though they were all excessively polite to us two solitary ladies, they certainly regarded us with much interest. Mine host sat in his place at the head of the table, and was most attentive to us, continually worrying up the waiter to see that we were duly helped to the many savoury dishes which were brought in one after the other. The last meat brought in was the usual leg of mutton: this was placed upon the table to be looked at, in order that the assembled eaters might satisfy themselves as to its being in reality a genuine leg of mutton. It was then removed, to be carved and handed round, whereupon each male guest smacked his lips and remarked to his neighbour that it was good eating. By the way, dinners in these out-of-the-way French inns are perfect marvels of culinary skill combined with cheapness. For the sum of two francs fifty, one gets a splendid repast. Here is a specimen of the menu: —

Soup.

Stewed kidneys.

Fish.

Mushrooms.

Cutlets and potatoes.

Pâté de foie gras.

Fowls.

Leg of Mutton.

Cheese.

Dessert, and an unlimited supply of vin ordinaire.

Coffee is an extra, and may be taken either at the inn, or at a neighbouring café.

After dinner we ladies retired to our quarters in the sparely furnished big saloon. There came soon some of the commercials, who began their evening business of pattern-sorting, so that the two long tables were strewed with packages and patterns of cloths, prints, boots, shoes, and various other commodities of merchandise. We sat by the fire and watched the proceedings, but not for long. In fact, we soon became tired and sleepy, so we asked for our candles, and retired to our room, followed by the interested glances of a group of curious commercials who were clustered at the foot of the staircase.

Needless to say that we slept well in spite of all our troubles and uncertainties, also needless to say that the huge down coverlets slid from our beds on to the floor, where they remained until the morning.

Our beds were clean and comfortable, and no insects put in an appearance, for which we were very thankful.

Next morning we were awakened at an early hour by the chambermaid, who said that the hotel-keeper had received a telegram from our friends at Degagnac to the effect that we were to be driven by him half-way to our destination, when we should be met. We dressed quickly, washing as well as we could in the diminutive basins allotted to our use, and descended to the salle à manger, where our café au lait was waiting for us in two big bowls, flanked by two immense pieces of toasted bread, which toast we broke into the aforesaid bowls according to French custom. Our united bill for dinner, beds, and breakfast was ten francs, or 4s. 2d. each.

Whilst we were taking our cafe au lait, the waiter came in to say that the carriage was waiting; and, as the carriage was a covered one with a pair of horses attached, we drove off in fine style, after being bowed out by mine host and his family, also by a selection of the commercials.

Setting aside the fact that our steeds started off by running away on the wrong road, we got on finely. They, the steeds I mean, galloped into the station-yard, after nearly upsetting us by running against a gatepost. At the station two or three men managed to turn the horses’ heads, and the driver, who seemed rather a raw hand, finally succeeded in persuading them to take the right road. One animal insisted on cantering nearly all the way, and the other preferred to trot. The general effect was peculiar, to say the least; when both cantered it was no better, for they utterly declined to keep step, but bobbed up and down alternately, in the most drunken-looking style.

The morning was lovely, and we should have much preferred an open to a closed carriage. Why they gave us a close one we could not make out, unless it may possibly be against the strict rules of French etiquette for two unmarried ladies to skirmish round in an open vehicle with no other protection than that afforded by the driver. It was quite evident to us that the carriage had not been in recent use, for a few thousand flies had made it their winter quarters.

The roof of the carriage was rather low, and our hats, or rather the wired bows thereof, somewhat high, so, unfortunately for us as well as for the flies, the said bows acted as ceiling-brooms each time we moved our heads, and the flies buzzed about us in crowds. We opened the windows, flirted vigorously our pocket-handkerchiefs, and drove our enemies out into the sunshine. Having got rid of the flies, we settled ourselves to admire the scenery and the beautiful effects of autumn colouring.

Much could not be said for the scenery: it was decidedly stony — huge white limestone cliffs and boulders, with here and there a touch of red sandstone. The effects of colour were, however, truly splendid; the various shades of green contrasted vividly with the white rocks. The changing autumn foliage had taken upon itself every tint from bright orange to dark brown, and many of the smaller trees and shrubs were a bright scarlet. Overhead the sky was deeply transparently blue, with here and there a fleecy white cloud drifting slowly across it. Over all, and embracing all, the golden sunlight streamed, warm and bright as in the month of June. The day was truly one called back from the departed summer-time, one on which one felt that to live and enjoy life was quite sufficient.

When we reached the half-way village we found our friends waiting for us, very glad to see us, and very sympathetic over our past troubles. We were very glad to change our closed carriage for an open one, and so, chatting and laughing and enjoying the perfect weather, we made the rest of our journey, arriving at the Shanty at 12 o’clock, the hour for déjeûner, which meal we ate with appetites sharpened by our 30 miles’ drive. A well-cooked well-served French déjeûner is appetising, especially after a long journey; and no one knows better how to prepare a welcoming repast than an amiable French hostess.

I call our temporary dwelling-place the Shanty, because such it really was. Mr F—— , an engineer, was superintending some important tunnels which were being made on a new line of railway, and he had built for the use of himself and part of his family a house of wood, tolerably commodious, but very primitive — not too primitive, however, was it for comfort, and we passed a week there very happily. Monsieur and madame planned driving excursions to the neighbouring towns and places of interest, and one day we went in full state to the fair.

Now, a large fair in this out-of-the-world neighbourhood is a long-anticipated event, and no matter what the weather may be, young and old, rich and poor, go to the fair. Vehicles of every kind may be seen upon the road, coming and going, and certainly some of them are of the oddest description. One thing we noticed particularly, and that was, that the butcher’s horse was the fastest trotter, and that the butcher stood up to drive his steed. Why butchers’ horses in France as in England should be the fastest goers, and why butchers should stand up when driving, is, and perhaps always will be, a mystery.

The fair we went to was held at a town called Cazals. Now Cazals may or may not be a nice town; but of that we could not possibly judge, because it was packed so full of people that we could see little else. We were obliged to leave the carriage at an auberge situated just outside the town, for the simple reason that we could not drive through the closely packed narrow streets.

Arrived at the Square, where confusion seemed to reign supreme, we set ourselves to make the round of the stalls, upon which every mentionable article was laid out for sale at ever-before-unheard-of low prices. We wanted to buy some embroidery, and we were offered some at twelve sous the metre. We shook our heads and offered six, upon which madame, the seller, said “Non, non”; but she would take ten, and after a good deal of bargaining, &c., we compromised the matter and got it for eight, about its worth. Madame F—— had some commissions to fulfil, so my friend and I went shopping or stalling on our own account. We wanted to buy some toys for madame’s children. One very fascinating-looking pop-gun pleased our fancies very much, so when we were asked twelve sous for it we immediately offered eight, thinking that as madame had bargained in our behalf we would now be very clever and bargain too. But oh! we were not prepared for the shocked grieved air, that made us feel so ashamed of our offer that we gave the full amount at once.

Fairs are held in the smaller towns about once a-month, and fair-day is looked upon as quite a holiday. Everybody goes to the fair that can possibly spare the time, so that from early morning until dusk the road is full of passers-by, intent on business or pleasure. Young men and maidens go, because they get a chance of looking at and perhaps even of speaking to one another, a chance much prized in a country where the sexes are kept so much apart as they are in France, — a country where love-making in our acceptation of the term is an unknown quantity.

As to the older folks, they chatter and laugh as they stride along, as though care was a stranger to, and trouble had never come near them. Even the animals would seem to be enjoying themselves — the fact is, they are used to it, and fair-day brings an outing for them as well as for their masters. No French peasant would think of selling an animal unless he made some profit by it, so he takes it to fair after fair until he can make a good bargain. A gentleman friend of ours declared that the animals never did change hands at all, for that he had watched them particularly, and they invariably returned with the same people who had taken them to market. The fair itself is always a most animated scene. The cattle, horses, sheep and pigs, and their vendors are ranged around the place, and oh, the wrangling that goes on all the time! It is ear-splitting: everybody seems to be quarrelling, but it is not really so. After a time they all quiet down and adjourn to the various auberges for a bottle of wine, after which the homeward journey is made quite as gaily as the morning one had been. At a French fair one can buy almost anything in the way of food, clothing, furniture, and finery. The streets are lined with stalls, some covered and some not, and the sellers, though bullied by their customers to any extent, look so good-tempered, and take it all as such a matter of course, that it is quite amusing to stand and watch them.

The conscription is generally held upon a fair-day, and then the whole scene is indeed gay. As each batch of young fellows leaves the town-hall, a woman standing at the door pins streamers on their hats; in addition to this, the young men buy heaps of artificial flowers, with which they decorate themselves and their hats, and then off they go shouting, singing, dancing, to the nearest auberge. Those that have drawn lucky numbers are the gayest — they will only have a short term of service; but those that will be obliged to serve for five years are at first a little sober. This soberness wears off in a few minutes, however, and soon they are as merry as their comrades. The “Marseillaise” is naturally their favourite chant, but they have another which is also very much liked. At night, after the conscription is over, the young men march home in rows, eight or ten in a line, hand in hand. They sing the “Marseillaise” and the other favourite chant alternately, and when singing the latter each time they come to the chorus hats are thrown in the air, and two or three most unearthly yells are given out: that done, all is comparative quietness until the next time the chorus comes round. On reaching cross-roads, where some of the party may have to leave for another village, pistols are fired, and yelling indulged in to a great extent. When this happens, as it sometimes does, at one or two in the morning, it is rather alarming, for being perhaps wakened from a first sleep one naturally thinks just at first that something dreadful has happened.

When the time comes that the young men have to leave their village homes and go away to be soldiers, they are not so gay. There is sadness in many a village home or peasant’s cottage, for the French are an affectionate people, and families cling together with a great deal of warmth and affection. When any one speaks of the likelihood of an approaching war with Germany, the women will cry, ” Ah! speak not of that! speak not of that! We have sons in the army; and if there is war they will be killed, our hearts broken, and our homes left desolate.”

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I

THE JOURNEY TO " UN PAYS PERDU."

CHAPTER II

PHOTOGRAPHING A PROCESSION—THE PROVINCES OF THE LOT AND AVEYRON — A LOST COUNTRY — ITS BEAUTY AND ITS HISTORY

CHAPTER III.

OUR VILLAGE AND THE NEXT ONE — THEIR DIRT AND STINKS — BIRD-TRAPS — THE AUBERGES — LIFE IN THE STREETS.

CHAPTER IV

VINES AND VINEYARDS.

CHAPTER V.

LA ROQUE.

CHAPTER VI

A MEMORABLE DINNER AT AN AUBERGE.

CHAPTER VII

A VILLAGE FUNERAL.

CHAPTER VIII

A CRUISE DOWN THE RIVER.

CHAPTER IX

THE CONFIRMATION VISIT OF THE ÉVÊQUE — THE CALVARY — THE BISHOP IN THE STEAM-LAUNCH — THE RURAL PRIESTHOOD.

CHAPTER X

THE TOWNS.

CHAPTER XI

SUPERSTITIONS AND CUSTOMS.

CHAPTER XII

OUR STEAM-LAUNCH — A THUNDERSTORM — A DELICIOUS SWIM — EVENING ON THE RIVER — ITS DANGEROUS FLOODS.

CHAPTER XIII

ZOE'S LOVE-TROUBLE — BLANCHISSEUSES — THE RIVER — FERRIES AND FLOODS.

CHAPTER XIV

WE DINE WITH A WEALTHY PEASANT — THE SCHOOLMASTER AND SPORTSMAN — THE LIMITATION OF FAMILY.

CHAPTER XV

A BURNING MOUNTAIN.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PEASANT HUSBANDRY.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PEASANT'S FOOD — THE CHESTNUT HARVEST — THRASHING AND WINNOWING THE CORN — SHEEP-SHEARING — WASHING THE PIGS.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR — HIS PEIDE OF CLASS — HIS APPEARANCE — HIS SMALL HOLDINGS — HIS POVERTY AND WEALTH — HIS FRUGALITY AND THRIFT — UNCLEANLINESS — HIS DAUGHTER'S DOT AND TROUSSEAU.

CHAPTER XIX

THE MINE — DECAZEVILLE STRIKE — VAGRANTS — GLASS AND ZINC WORKS — DIFFICULTIES WITH THE WORKMEN — DYNAMITE OUTRAGES — SOCIALISM — THE MECHANICS' FÊTE-DAYS.

CHAPTER XX

"FÊTES" — THE "FÊTE DE DIEU."

CHAPTER XXI

HOME LIFE IN AVEYRON.

CHAPTER XXII

ROCAMADOUR.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SEASONS IN AVEYRON.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LADIES GET LOST.