We dip deep down into the woods on quitting the convent gates, then climb for a little space and come suddenly upon the edge of the plateau, which the wall was evidently raised to defend. Never did a spot more easily lend itself to such rude defence by virtue of natural position, although where the construction begins the summit of the promontory is inaccessible from below. We are skirting dizzy precipices, feathered with light greenery and brightened with flowers, but awful notwithstanding, and in many places the stones have evidently been piled together rather for the sake of symmetry than from a sense of danger. The points thus protected were already impregnable. When we look more nearly we see that however much Nature may have aided these primitive constructors, the wall is mainly due to the agency of man. There is no doubt that in many places the stupendous masses of conglomerate have been hurled to their places by earthquake, but the entire girdle of stone, of pyramidal size and strength, shows much symmetrical arrangement and dexterity. The blocks have been selected according to size and shape, and in many places mortised together. We find no trace of cement, a fact disproving the hypothesis that the wall may have been of Roman origin. We must doubtless go much farther back, and associate these primitive builders with such relics of prehistoric times as the stones of Carnac and Lokmariaker. And not to seek so wide for analogies, do we not see here the handiwork of the same rude architects I have before alluded to in my Vosges travels, who flung a stone bridge across the forest gorge above Remiremont and raised in close proximity the stupendous monolith of Kirlinkin? The prehistoric stone monuments scattered about these regions are as yet new to the English archaeologist, and form one of the most interesting features of Vosges and Alsatian travel.
We may follow these lightly superimposed blocks of stone for miles, and the enceinte has been traced round the entire plateau, which was thus defended from enemies on all sides. As we continue our walk on the inner side of the wall we get lovely views of the dim violet hills, the vast golden plain, and, close underneath, luxuriant forests. Eagles are flying hither and thither, and except for an occasional tourist or two, the scene is perfectly solitary. An hour's walk brings us to the Menelstein, a vast and lofty platform of stone, ascended by a stair, both untouched by the hand of man. Never was a more formidable redoubt raised by engineering skill. Nature here helped her primitive builders well. From a terrace due to the natural formation of the rock, we obtain another of those grand and varied panoramas so numerous in this part of the world, but the beauty nearer at hand is more enticing. Nothing can exceed the freshness and charm of our homeward walk. We are now no longer following the wall, but free to enjoy the breezy, heather-scented plateau, and the broken, romantic outline of St. Odile, the Wartburg of Alsace, as the saint herself was its Holy Elizabeth, and with as romantic a story for those with a taste for such legends.
Here and there on the remoter wooded peaks are stately ruins of feudal castles, whilst all the way our path lies amid bright foliage of young forest trees, chestnut and oak, pine and acacia, and the ground is purple with heather. Blocks of the conglomerate used in the construction of the so-called Pagan Wall meet us at every turn, and as we gaze down the steep sides of the promontory we can trace its massive outline. A scene not soon to be forgotten! The still, solitary field of Carnac, with its avenues of monoliths, is not more impressive than these Cyclopean walls, thrown as a girdle round the green slopes of St. Odile.
We would fain have stayed here some time, but much more still remained to be seen and accomplished in Alsace. Rothau, the district known as the Ban de la Roche, where Oberlin laboured for sixty years, Thann, Wesserling, with a sojourn among French subjects of the German Empire at Mulhouse—all these things had to be done, and the bright summer days were drawing to an end.
IV
FROM BARR TO STRASBURG, MULHOUSE AND BELFORT
The opening sentences of this chapter, written many years ago, are no longer applicable. Were I to revisit Alsace-Lorraine at the present time, I should only hear French speech among intimate friends and in private, so strictly of late years has the law of lèse-majesté been, and is still, enforced.
Nothing strikes the sojourner in Alsace-Lorraine more forcibly than the outspokenness of its inhabitants regarding Prussian rule. Young and old, rich and poor, wise and simple alike unburden themselves to their chance-made English acquaintance with a candour that is at the same time amusing and pathetic. For the most part no heed whatever is paid to possible German listeners. At the ordinaries of country hotels, by the shop door, in the railway carriage, Alsatians will pour out their hearts, especially the women, who, as two pretty sisters assured us, are not interfered with, be their conversation of the most treasonable kind. We travelled with these two charming girls from Barr to Rothau, and they corroborated what we had already heard at Barr and other places. The Prussian inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine—for the most part Government officials—are completely shut off from all social intercourse with the French population, the latter, of course, still forming the vast majority. Thus at Barr, a town consisting of over six thousand inhabitants, only a score or two are Prussians, who are employed in the railway and postal service, the police, the survey of forests, etc. The position of these officials is far from agreeable, although, on the other hand, there is compensation in the shape of higher pay, and much more material comfort, even luxury, than are to be had in the Fatherland. Alsace-Lorraine, especially by comparison with Prussia, may be called a land of Goshen, overflowing with milk and honey. The vine ripens on these warm hill-sides and rocky terraces, the plain produces abundant variety of fruit and vegetables, the streams abound with trout and the forests with game. No wonder, therefore, that whilst thousands of patriotic Alsatians have already quitted the country, thousands of Prussians are ready to fill their places. But the Alsatian exodus is far from finished. At first, as was only natural, the inhabitants could not realize the annexation. They refused to believe that the Prussian occupation was final, so, for the most part, stayed on, hoping against hope. The time of illusion is past. French parents of children born since the war had to decide whether their sons are to become Prussian or French citizens. After the age of sixteen a lad's fate is no longer in their hands; he must don the uniform so odious in French eyes, and renounce the cherished patrie and tricolor for ever.
The enforced military service, necessitated, perhaps, by the new order of things, is the bitterest drop in the cup of the Alsatians. Only the poorest, and those who are too much hampered by circumstances to evade it, resign themselves to the enrolment of their sons in the German army. For this reason well-to-do parents, and even many in the humbler ranks of life, are quitting the country in much larger numbers than is taken account of, whilst all who can possibly afford it send their young sons across the frontier for the purpose of giving them a French education. The prohibition of French in the public schools and colleges is another grievous condition of annexation. Alsatians of all ranks are therefore under the necessity of providing private masters for their children, unless they would let them grow up in ignorance of their mother tongue. And here a word of explanation may be necessary. Let no strangers in Alsace take it for granted that because a great part of the rural population speak a patois made up of bad German and equally bad French, they are any more German at heart for all that. Some of the most patriotic French inhabitants of Alsace can only express themselves in this dialect, a fact that should not surprise us, seeing the amalgamation of races that has been going on for many generations.
Physically speaking, so far the result has been satisfactory. In Alsace-Lorraine no one can help being struck with the fine appearance of the people. The men are tall, handsome, and well made, the women graceful and often exceedingly lovely, French piquancy and symmetrical proportions combined with Teutonic fairness of complexion, blonde hair, and blue eyes.
I will now continue my journey from Barr to Strasburg by way of the Ban de la Roche, Oberlin's country. A railway connects Barr with Rothau, a very pleasant halting-place in the midst of sweet pastoral scenery. It is another of those resorts in Alsace whither holiday folks flock from Strasburg and other towns during the long vacation, in quest of health, recreation and society.
Rothau is a very prosperous little town, with large factories, handsome châteaux of mill-owners, and trim little cottages, having flowers in all the windows and a trellised vine in every garden. Pomegranates and oleanders are in full bloom here and there, and the general aspect is bright and cheerful. At Rothau are several blanchisseries or laundries, on a large scale, employing many hands, besides dye-works and saw-mills. Through the town runs the little river Bruche, and the whole district, known as the Ban de la Roche, a hundred years ago one of the dreariest regions in France, is now all smiling fertility. The principal building is its handsome Protestant church—for here we are among Protestants, although of a less zealous temper than their fore-fathers, the fervid Anabaptists. I attended morning service, and although an eloquent preacher from Paris officiated, the audience was small, and the general impression that of coldness and want of animation.
From the sweet, fragrant valley of Rothau a road winds amid green hills and by the tumbling river to the little old-world village of Foudai, where Oberlin lies buried. The tiny church and shady churchyard lie above the village, and a more out-of-the-way spot than Foudai itself can hardly be imagined. Yet many a pious pilgrim finds it out and comes hither to pay a tribute to the memory of "Papa Oberlin," as he was artlessly called by the country folk. This is the inscription at the head of the plain stone slab marking his resting-place; and very suggestive it is of the relation between the pastor and his flock. Oberlin's career of sixty years among the primitive people of the Ban de la Roche was rather that of a missionary among an uncivilized race than of a country priest among his parishioners. How he toiled, and how he induced others to toil, in order to raise the material as well as moral and spiritual conditions of his charges, is pretty well known. His story reads like the German narrative, Des Goldmachers Dorf. Nor does it require any lively fancy to picture what this region must have been like before Oberlin and his fellow-workers made the wilderness to blossom as the rose. The soil is rocky and barren, the hill-sides whitened with mountain streams, the more fertile spots isolated and difficult of access. An elaborate system of irrigation has now clothed the valleys with rich pastures, the river turns a dozen wheels, and every available inch of soil has been turned to account. The cottages with orchards and flower-gardens are trim and comfortable. The place in verity is a veritable little Arcadia. No less so is Waldersbach, which was Oberlin's home. The little river winding amid hayfields and fruit-trees leads us thither from Foudai in half-an-hour. It is Sunday afternoon, and a fête day. Young and old in Sunday garb are keeping holiday, the lads and lasses waltzing, the children enjoying swings and peep-shows. No acerbity has lingered among these descendants of the austere parishioners of Oberlin. Here, as at Foudai, the entire population is Protestant. The church and parsonage lie at the back of the village, and we were warmly welcomed by the pastor and his wife, a great-great-granddaughter of Oberlin. Their six pretty children were playing in the garden with two young girls in the costume of Alsace, forming a pleasant domestic picture. Our hosts showed us many relics of Oberlin, the handsome cabinets and presses of carved oak, in which were stored the family wardrobe and other treasures, and in the study the table on which he habitually wrote. This is a charming upper room with wide views over the green hills and sunny, peaceful valley.
We were offered hospitality for days, nay, weeks, if we chose to stay, and even the use of Oberlin's study to sit and write in! A summer might be pleasantly spent here, with quiet mornings in this cheerful chamber, full of pious memories, and in the afternoon long rambles with the children over the peaceful hills. From Foudai, too, you may climb the wild rocky plateau known as the Champ de Feu—no spot in the Vosges chain is more interesting from a geological point of view.
After much pleasant talk we took leave of our kind hosts, not going away, however, without visiting the church. A tablet with medallion portrait of Oberlin bears the touching inscription that for fifty-nine years he was "the father of this parish." Then we drove back as we had come, stopping at Foudai to rest the horse and drink tea. We were served in a cool little parlour opening on to a garden, and, so tempting looked the tiny inn that we regretted we could not stay there a week. A pleasant pastoral country rather than romantic or picturesque is the Ban de la Roche, but close at hand is the lofty Donon, which may be climbed from Rothau or Foudai, and there are many other excursions within reach.
Here, for the present, the romance of Alsace travel ends, and all is prose of a somewhat painful kind. The first object that attracted our attention on reaching Strasburg was the new railway station, of which we had already heard so much. This handsome structure, erected by the German Government at an enormous cost, had only been recently opened, and so great was the soreness of feeling excited by certain allegorical bas-reliefs decorating the façade that for many days after the opening of the station police-officers in plain clothes carefully watched the crowd of spectators, carrying off the more seditious to prison. To say the least of it, these mural decorations are not in the best of taste, and at any rate it would have been better to have withheld them for a time. The two small bas-reliefs in question bear respectively the inscription, "Im alten, und im neuen Reich" ("In the old and new Empire"), improved by a stander-by, to the great relish of others, thus, "Im alten, reich, im neuen, arm" ("In the old, rich, in the new, poor"). They give a somewhat ideal representation of the surrender of Strasburg to the German Emperor. But the bombardment of their city, the destruction of public monuments and the loss of life and property thereby occasioned, were as yet fresh in the memories of the inhabitants, and they needed no such reminder of the new state of things. Their better feelings towards Germany had been bombarded out of them, as an Alsacienne wittily observed to the Duchess of Baden after the surrender. The duchess, daughter to the Emperor William, made the round of the hospitals, and not a single Alsatian soldier but turned his face to the wall, whereupon she expressed her astonishment at not finding a better sentiment. Nor can the lover of art help drawing a painful contrast between the Strasburg of the old and the new régime. There was very little to see at Strasburg except the cathedral at this time. The Library, with its 300,000 volumes and 1,500 manuscripts—the priceless Hortus Deliciarium of the twelfth century, richly illuminated and ornamented with miniatures invaluable to the student of men and manners of the Middle Ages, the missal of Louis XII., bearing his arms, the Recueil de Prières of the eighth century—all these had been completely destroyed by the ruthless Prussian bombardment. The Museum, rich in chefs d'oeuvre of the French school, both of sculpture and painting, the handsome Protestant church, the theatre, the Palais de Justice, all shared the same fate, not to speak of buildings of lesser importance, including four hundred private dwellings, and of the fifteen hundred civilians, men, women and children, killed and wounded by the shells. The fine church of St. Thomas suffered greatly. Nor was the cathedral spared, and it would doubtless have perished altogether, too, but for the enforced surrender of the heroic city. On my second visit ten years later I found immense changes, new German architecture to be seen everywhere.
Strasburg is said to contain a much larger German element than any other city of Alsace-Lorraine, but the most casual observer soon finds out how it stands with the bulk of the people. The first thing that attracted our notice in a shop window was a coloured illustration representing the funeral procession of Gambetta, as it wound slowly past the veiled statue of Strasburg on the Place de la Concorde. These displays of patriotic feeling are forbidden, but they come to the fore all the same. Here, as elsewhere, the clinging to the old country is pathetically—sometimes comically—apparent. A rough peasant girl, employed as chambermaid in the hotel at which we stayed, amused me not a little by her tirades against the Prussians, spoken in a language that was neither German nor French, but a mixture of both—the delectable tongue of Alsace!
Strasburg is now a vast camp, with that perpetual noisy military parade so wearisome in Berlin and other German cities, and, as I have said, there was very little to see. It was a relief to get to Mulhouse, the comparatively quiet and thoroughly French city of Mulhouse, in spite of all attempts to make it German. But for the imperial eagle placed over public offices and the sprinkling of Prussian helmets and Prussian physiognomies, we could hardly suppose ourselves outside the French border. The shops are French. French is the language of the better classes, and French and Jews make up the bulk of the population. The Jews from time immemorial have swarmed in Alsace, where, I am sorry to say, they seemed to be little liked.
This thoroughly French appearance of Mulhouse, to be accounted for, moreover, by an intensely patriotic clinging to the mother country, naturally occasions great vexation to the German authorities. It is, perhaps, hardly to be wondered at that undignified provocations and reprisals should be the consequence. Thus the law forbids the putting up of French signboards or names over shop doors in any but the German language. This is evaded by withholding all else except the surname of the individual, which is of course the same in both languages.
One instance more I give of the small annoyances to which the French residents of Mulhouse are subject, a trifling one, yet sufficient to irritate. Eight months after the annexation, orders were sent round to the pastors and clergy generally to offer up prayers for the Emperor William every Sunday. The order was obeyed, for refusal would have been assuredly followed by dismissal, but the prayer is ungraciously performed. The French pastors invoke the blessing of Heaven on "l'Empereur qui nous gouverne". The pastors who perform the service in German, pray not for "our Emperor," as is the apparently loyal fashion in the Fatherland, but for "the Emperor." These things are trifling grievances, but, on the other hand, the Prussians have theirs also. Not even the officials of highest rank are received into any kind of society whatever. Mulhouse possesses a charming zoological garden, free to subscribers only, who have to be balloted for. Twenty years after the annexation not a single Prussian has ever been able to obtain access to this garden.
Even the very poorest contrive to show their intense patriotism. It is the rule of the German government to give twenty-five marks to any poor woman giving birth to twins. The wife of a French workman during my sojourn at Mulhouse had three sons at a birth, but though in very poor circumstances, refused to claim the donation. "My sons shall never be Prussian," she said, "and that gift would make them so."
The real thorn in the flesh of the annexed Alsatians is, however, as I have before pointed out, military service, and the enforced German education. All who have read Alphonse Daudet's charming little story, La dernière leçon de Français, will be able to realize the painfulness of the truth, somewhat rudely brought home to French parents. Their children must henceforth receive a German education, or none at all, for this is what the law amounts to in the great majority of cases. Rich people, of course, and those who are only well-to-do, can send their sons to the Lycée, opened at Belfort since the annexation, but the rest have to submit, or, by dint of great sacrifice, obtain private French teaching. And, whilst even Alsatians are quite ready to render justice to the forbearance and tact often shown by officials, an inquisitorial and prying system is pursued, as vexatious to the patriotic as enforced vaccination to the Peculiar People or school attendance to the poor. One lady was visited at seven o'clock in the morning by the functionary charged with the unpleasant mission of finding out where her boy was educated. "Tell those who sent you," said the indignant mother, "that my son shall never belong to you. We will give up our home, our prospects, everything; but our children shall never be Prussians." True enough, the family have since emigrated. No one who has not stayed in Alsace among Alsatians can realize the intense clinging to France among the people, nor the sacrifices made to retain their nationality. And it is well the true state of feeling throughout the annexed territory should be known outside its limits. With a considerable knowledge of French life and character, I confess I went to Mulhouse little prepared to find there a ferment of feeling which years have not sufficed to calm down.
[Illustration: ETTENHEIM]
"Nous ne sommes pas heureux à Mulhouse" were almost the first words addressed to me by that veteran patriot and true philanthropist, Jean Dollfus.
And how could it be otherwise? M. Dollfus, as well as other representatives of the French subjects of Prussia in the Reichstag, had protested against the annexation of Alsace in vain. They pointed out the heavy cost to the German empire of these provinces, in consequence of the vast military force required to maintain them, the undying bitterness aroused, the moral, intellectual, and material interests at stake. I use the word intellectual advisedly, for, amongst other instances in point, I was assured that the book trade in Mulhouse had greatly declined since the annexation. The student class has diminished, many reading people have gone, and those who remain feel too uncertain about the future to accumulate libraries. Moreover, the ordeal that all have gone through has depressed intellectual as well as social life. Mulhouse has been too much saddened to recover herself as yet, although eminently a literary place, and a sociable one in the old happy French days. The balls, soirées and reunions, that formerly made Mulhouse one of the friendliest as well as the busiest towns in the world, have almost ceased. People take their pleasures very soberly.
It is hardly possible to write of Mulhouse without consecrating a page or two to M. Jean Dollfus, a name already familiar to some English readers. The career of such a man forms part of contemporary history, and for sixty years the great cotton-printer of Mulhouse, the indefatigable philanthropist—the fellow-worker with Cobden, Arles-Dufour, and others in the cause of Free Trade—and the ardent patriot, had been before the world.
The year before my visit was celebrated, with a splendour that would be ridiculed in a novel, the diamond wedding of the head of the numerous house of Dollfus, the silver and the golden having been already kept in due form.
Mulhouse might well be proud of such a fête, for it was unique, and the first gala-day since the annexation. When M. Dollfus looked out of his window in the morning, he found the familiar street transformed as if by magic into a bright green avenue abundantly adorned with flowers. The change had been effected in the night by means of young fir-trees transplanted from the forest. The day was kept as a general holiday. From an early hour the improvised avenue was thronged with visitors of all ranks bearing cards, letters of congratulation or flowers. The great Dollfus works were closed, and the five thousand workmen with their wives, children and superannuated parents, were not only feasted but enriched. After the banquet every man, woman and child received a present in money, the oldest and those who had remained longest in the employ of M. Dollfus being presented with forty francs. But the crowning sight of the day was the board spread for the Dollfus family and the gathering of the clan, as it may indeed be called. There was the head of the house, firm as a rock still, in spite of his eighty-two years; beside him the partner of sixty of those years, his devoted wife; next according to age, their numerous sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law; duly following came the grandsons and grand-daughters, then the great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, and lastly, the babies of their fifth generation, all accompanied by their nurses in the picturesque costume of Alsace and Lorraine. This patriarchal assemblage numbered between one and two hundred guests. On the table were represented, in the artistic confectionery for which Mulhouse is famous, some of the leading events of M. Dollfus's busy life. Here in sugar was a model of the achievement which will ever do honour to the name of Jean Dollfus, namely, the cités ouvrières, and what was no less a triumph of the confectioner's skill, a group representing the romantic ride of M. and Mme. Dollfus on camels towards the Algerian Sahara when visiting the African colony some twenty years before.
This patriarchal festival is said to have cost M. Dollfus half a million of francs, a bagatelle in a career devoted to giving! The bare conception of what this good man has bestowed takes one's breath away! Not that he was alone; never was a city more prolific of generous men than Mulhouse, but Jean Dollfus, "Le Père Jean," as he is called, stood at the head. He received with one hand to bestow with the other, and not only on behalf of the national, intellectual and spiritual wants of his own workmen and his own community—the Dollfus family are Protestant—but indiscriminately benefiting Protestant, Catholic, Jew; founding schools, hospitals, libraries, refuges, churches, for all.
We see at a glance after what fashion the great manufacturers set to work here to solve the problem before them. The life of ease and the life of toil are seen side by side, and all the brighter influences of the one brought to bear on the other. The tall factory chimneys are unsightly here as elsewhere, and nothing can be uglier than the steam tramways, noisily running through the streets. But close to the factories and workshops are the cheerful villas and gardens of their owners, whilst near at hand the workmen's dwellings offer an exterior equally attractive. These cités ouvrières form indeed a suburb in themselves, and a very pleasant suburb too. Many middle-class families in England might be glad to own such a home, a semi-detached cottage or villa standing in a pretty garden with flowers and trees and plots of turf. Some of the cottages are models of trimness and taste, others of course are less well kept, a few have a neglected appearance. The general aspect, however, is one of thrift and prosperity, and it must be borne in mind that each dwelling and plot of ground are the property of the owner, gradually acquired by him out of his earnings, thanks to the initiative of M. Dollfus and his fellow-workers. "It is by such means as these that we have combated Socialism," said M. Dollfus to me; and the gradual transformation of the workman into an owner of property, is but one of the numerous efforts made at Mulhouse to lighten, in so far as is practicable, the burden of toil.
These pleasant avenues are very animated on Sundays, especially when a universal christening of babies is going on. The workmen at Mulhouse are paid once a fortnight, in some cases monthly, and it is usually after pay-day that such celebrations occur. We saw one Sunday afternoon quite a procession of carriages returning from the church to the cité ouvrière, for upon these occasions nobody goes on foot. There were certainly a dozen christening parties, all well dressed, and the babies in the finest white muslin and embroidery. A very large proportion of the artisans here are Catholics, and as one instance among others of the liberality prevailing here, I mention that one of the latest donations of M. Dollfus is the piece of ground, close to the cité ouvrière, on which now stands the new, florid Catholic church.
There are free libraries for all, and a very handsome museum has been opened within the last few years, containing some fine modern French pictures, all gifts of the Dollfrees, Engels, and Köchlins, to their native town. The museum, like everything else at Mulhouse, is as French as French can be, no German element visible anywhere. Conspicuous among the pictures are portraits of Thiers and Gambetta, and a fine subject of De Neuville, representing one of those desperate battle-scenes of 1870-71 that still have such a painful hold on the minds of French people. It was withheld for some time, and had only been recently exhibited. The bombardment of Strasburg is also a popular subject in Mulhouse.
I have mentioned the flower-gardens of the city, but the real pleasure-ground of both rich and poor lies outside the suburbs, and a charming one it is, and full of animation on Sundays. This is the Tannenwald, a fine bit of forest on high ground above the vineyards and suburban gardens of the richer citizens. A garden is a necessity of existence here, and all who are without one in the town hire or purchase a plot of suburban ground. Here is also the beautiful subscription garden I have before alluded to, with fine views over the Rhine valley and the Black Forest.
Nor is Mulhouse without its excursions. Colmar and the romantic site of Notre Dame des Trois Épis may be visited in a day. Then there is Thann, with its perfect Gothic church, a veritable cathedral in miniature, and the charming, prosperous valley of Wesserling. From Thann the ascent of the Ballon d'Alsace may be made, but the place itself must on no account be missed. No more exquisite church in the region, and most beautifully is it placed amid sloping green hills! It may be said to consist of nave and apse only. There are but two lateral, chapels, evidently of a later period than the rest of the building. The interior is of great beauty, and no less so the façade and side porch, both very richly decorated. One's first feeling is of amazement to find such a church in such a place; but this dingy, sleepy little town was once of some importance and still does a good deal of trade. There is a very large Jewish community here, as in many other towns of Alsace. Whether they deserve their unpopularity is a painful question not lightly to be taken up.
[Illustration: COLMAR]
Leisurely travellers bound homeward from Mulhouse will do well to diverge from the direct Paris line and join it at Dijon, by way of Belfort—the heroic city of Belfort, with its colossal lion, hewn out of the solid rock—the little Protestant town of Montbéliard, and Besançon. Belfort is well worth seeing, and the "Territoire de Belfort" is to all intents and purposes a new department, formed from that remnant of the Haut Rhin saved to France after the war of 1870-71. The "Territoire de Belfort" comprises upwards of sixty thousand hectares, and a population, chiefly industrial, of nearly seventy thousand inhabitants, spread over many communes and hamlets. There is a picturesque and romantic bit of country between Montbéliard and Besançon, well worth seeing, if only from the railway windows. But the tourist who wants to make no friendly calls on the way, whose chief aim is to get over the ground quickly, must avoid the détour by all means, as the trains are slow and the stoppages many.
[Illustration: SKETCH BY GUSTAVE DORÉ, AETAT EIGHT YEARS]
V
THE 'MARVELLOUS BOY' OF ALSACE
I
It is especially at Strasburg that travellers are reminded of another "marvellous boy," who, if he did not "perish in his pride," certainly shortened his days by overreaching ambition and the brooding bitterness waiting upon shattered hopes.
Gustave Doré was born and reared under the shadow of Strasburg Cathedral. The majestic spire, a world in itself, became indeed a world to this imaginative prodigy. He may be said to have learned the minster of minsters by heart, as before him Victor Hugo had familiarized himself with Notre Dame. The unbreeched artist of four summers never tired of scrutinizing the statues, monsters, gargoyles and other outer ornamentations, while the story of the pious architect Erwin and of his inspirer, Sabine, was equally dear. Never did genius more clearly exhibit the influence of early environment. True child of Alsace, he revelled in local folklore and legend. The eerie and the fantastic had the same fascination for him as sacred story, and the lives of the saints, gnomes, elves, werewolves and sorcerers bewitched no less than martyrs, miracle-workers and angels.
His play-hours would be spent within the precincts of the cathedral, whilst the long winter evenings were beguiled with fairy-tales and fables, his mother and nurse reading or reciting these, their little listener being always busy with pen or pencil. Something much more than mere precocity is shown in these almost infantine sketches. Exorbitant fancy is here much less striking than sureness of touch, outlined figures drawn between the age of five and ten displaying remarkable precision and point, each line of the silhouette telling. At six he celebrated his first school prize with an illustrated letter, two portraits and a mannikin surmounting the text.
[Footnote: See his life by Blanch Roosevelt, Sampson Low & Co. 1885; also the French translation of the same, 1886.]
His groups of peasants and portraits, made three or four years later, possess almost a Rembrandt strength, unfortunately passion for the grotesque and the fanciful often lending a touch of caricature. Downright ugliness must have had an especial charm for the future illustrator of the Inferno, his unconscious models sketched by the way being uncomely as the immortal Pickwick and his fellows of Phiz. A devotee of Gothic art, he reproduced the mediæval monstrosities adorning cornice and pinnacle in human types. Equally devoted to nature out of doors, the same taste predominated. What he loved and sought was ever the savage, the legend-haunted, the ghoulish, seats and ambuscades of kelpie, hobgoblin, brownie and their kind.
[Illustration: SKETCH BY GUSTAVE DORÉ, ÆTAT EIGHT YEARS]
From the nursery upwards, if the term can be applied to French children, his life was a succession of artistic abnormalities and tours de force. The bantling in petticoats who could astound his elders with wonderfully accurate silhouettes, continued to surprise them in other ways. His memory was no less amazing than his draughtsmanship. When seven years of age, he was taken to the opera and witnessed Robert le Diable. On returning home he accurately narrated every scene.
At eight he broke his right arm, but became as if by magic ambidextrous, whilst confined to bed, cheerily drawing all day long with the left hand. At ten he witnessed a grand public ceremony. In 1840 Strasburg celebrated the inauguration of a monument to Gutenberg, the festival being one of extraordinary splendour. Fifteen cars represented the industrial corporations of the city, each symbolically adorned, and in each riding figures suitably travestied and occupied, men, women and children wearing the costumes of the period represented. Among the corporations figured the Peintres-verriers, or painters on stained glass, their car proving especially attractive to one small looker-on.
Intoxicated by the colour and movement of the fête, garlanded and beflagged streets, the symbolic carriages, the bands, civic and military, and the prevailing enthusiasm, the child determined to get up an apotheosis of his own: in other words, to repeat the performance on a smaller scale. Which he did. Cars, costumes, banners and decorations were all designed by this imp of ten. With the approval of his professors and the collaboration of his school-fellows, the Doré procession, consisting of four highly decorated cars, drawn by boys, defiled before the college authorities and made the round of the cathedral, the youthful impresario at its head. The car of the painters on glass was conspicuously elaborate, a star copied from a Cathedral window showing the superscription, G. Doré, fecit. Small wonder is it that the adoring mother of an equally adoring son should have believed in him from the first, and seen in these beginnings the dawn of genius, the advent, indeed, of a second Michael Angelo or Titian.
The more practical father might chide such overreaching vaticinations, might reiterate—
"Do not fill the boy's head with nonsense."
The answer would be—
"I know it. Our son is a genius."
And Doré père gave way, under circumstances curious enough.
II
In 1847 the family visited Paris, there to Gustave's delight spending four months. Loitering one day in the neighbourhood of the Bourse, his eye lighted upon comic papers with cuts published by MM. Auber and Philipon. Their shop windows were full of caricatures, and after a long and intent gaze the boy returned home, in two or three days presenting himself before the proprietors with half-a-dozen drawings much in the style of those witnessed. The benevolent but businesslike M. Philipon examined the sketches attentively, put several questions to his young visitor, and, finding that the step had been taken surreptitiously, immediately sat down and wrote to M. and Mme. Doré. He urged them with all the inducements he could command to allow their son the free choice of a career, assuring them of his future.
A few days later an agreement was signed by father and publisher to this effect: During three years the latter was to receive upon certain terms a weekly cartoon from the sixteen-year-old artist, who, on his side, bound himself to offer no sketches elsewhere.
[Footnote: This document was reproduced in Le Figaro of December 4, 1848.]
Meanwhile, Gustave would pursue his studies at the Lycée Charlemagne, his patron promising to look after his health and well-being. The arrangement answered, and in Le Journal pour rire the weekly caricature signed by Doré soon noised his fame abroad. Ugly, even hideous, as were many of these caricatures, they did double duty, paying the lad's school expenses, and paving the way to better things. Of caricature Doré soon tired, and after this early period never returned to it. Is it any wonder that facile success and excessive laudation should turn the stripling's head? Professionally, if not artistically speaking, Doré passed straight from child to man; in one sense of the word he had no boyhood, the term tyro remained inapplicable. This undersized, fragile lad, looking years younger than he really was, soon found himself on what must have appeared a pinnacle of fame and fortune.
Shortly after his agreement with Philipon, his father died, and Mme. Doré with her family removed to Paris, settling in a picturesque and historic hôtel of the Rue St. Dominique. Here Doré lived for the rest of his too short life.
The house had belonged to the family of Saint Simon, that terrible observer under whose gaze even Louis XIV. is said to have quailed. So aver historians of the period. The associations of his home immediately quickened Doré's inventive faculties. He at once set to work and organized a brilliant set of tableaux vivants, illustrating scenes from the immortal Mémoires. The undertaking proved a great social success, and henceforth we hear of galas, soirées, theatricals and other entertainments increasing in splendour with the young artist's vogue—and means.
The history of the next twenty years reads like a page from the Arabian Nights. Although dazzling is the record from first to last, and despite the millions of francs earned during those two decades, the artist's ambition was never satisfied. We are always conscious of bitterness and disillusion. As an illustrator, no longer of cheap comic papers but of literary masterpieces brought out in costly fashion, Doré reached the first rank at twenty, his Rabelais setting the seal on his renown. So immense was the success of this truly colossal undertaking and of its successors, the Don Quixote, the Contes de fées of Perrault and the rest, that he meditated nothing less than the illustration of cosmopolitan chefs 'd' oeuvre, en bloc, a series which should include every great imaginative work of the Western world! Thus in 1855 we find him noting the following projects, to be carried out in ten years' time:—illustrations of Æschylus, Lucan, Ovid, Shakespeare, Goethe (Faust), Lamartine (Méditations), Racine, Corneille, Schiller, Boccaccio, Montaigne, Plutarch's Lives—these names among others. The jottings in question were written for a friend who had undertaken to write the artist's biography.
The Rabelais, Don Quixote, The Inferno, and several more of these sumptuous volumes were brought out in England. Forty years ago Doré's bold and richly imaginative work was in great favour here; indeed, throughout his life he was much more appreciated by ourselves than by his countrymen. All the drawings were done straight upon wood. Lavish in daily life, generous of the generous, Doré showed the same lavishness in his procedure. Some curious particulars are given upon this head. Fabulous sums were spent upon his blocks, even small ones costing as much as four pounds apiece. He must always have the very best wood, no matter the cost, and it was only the whitest, smoothest and glossiest boxwood that satisfied him. Enormous sums were spent upon this material, and to his honour be it recorded, that no matter the destination of a block, the same cost, thought and minute manipulation were expended upon a trifling commission as upon one involving thousands of pounds. The penny paper was treated precisely the same as the volume to be brought out at two guineas. In the zenith of his fame as an illustrator, at a time when tip-top authors and editors were all clamouring for his drawings, he did not despise humbler admirers and clients. His delight in his work was only equalled by quite abnormal physical and mental powers. Sleep, food, fresh air, everything was forgotten in the engrossment of work. At this time he would often give himself three hours of sleep only.
Doré's ambition—rather, one of his ambitions—was to perfect wood engraving as an art, hence his indifference to the cost of production. Hence, doubtless, his persistence in drawing on wood without preliminary sketch or copy.
Perhaps such obsession was natural. How could he foresee the variety of new methods that were so soon to transform book illustration? Anyhow, herein partly lies the explanation of the following notice in a second-hand book catalogue, 1911—
"No. 355. Gustave Doré: Dante's Inferno, with 76 full-page illustrations by Doré. 4to, gilt top, binding soiled, but otherwise good copy. 42s. for 3s. 6d. London, n.d."
A leading London publisher consulted by me on the subject, writes as follows—
"Doré's works are no longer in vogue. One of the reasons lies in the fact that his pictures were done by the old engraved process. He drew them straight on wood, and there are, accordingly, no original drawings to be reproduced by modern methods."
The words "fatal facility" cannot be applied to so consummate a draughtsman as the illustrator of Dante, Cervantes and Victor Hugo. But Doré's almost superhuman memory was no less of a pitfall than manual dexterity. The following story will partly explain his dislike of facsimile and duplication.
An intimate friend, named Bourdelin, relates how one day during the siege of Paris, the pair found themselves by the Courbevoie bridge. One side of this bridge was guarded by French gendarmes, the other by German officers, Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, a dozen in all. For a quarter of an hour the two Frenchmen lingered, Doré intently gazing on the group opposite. On returning home some hours later he produced a sketch-book and in Bourdelin's presence swiftly outlined the twelve figures, exactly reproducing not only physiognomic divergences but every detail of costume! Poor Doré! In those ardently patriotic days he entirely relied upon victory and drew an anticipatory picture of France triumphant, entitled, "Le Passage du Rhin." But the French never crossed the Rhine, and the drawing was given to this friend with the words: "My sketch has no longer any raison d'être. Keep it in memory of our fallacious hopes."
III
In an evil hour for his peace of mind and his fame, Doré decided to leave illustration and become a historic painter. He evidently regarded genius as a Pandora's gift, an all-embracing finality, an endowment that could neither be worsened nor bettered, being complete in itself.
A reader of Ariosto, he had not taken to heart one of his most memorable verses, those mellifluous lines in which the poet dwells upon the laboriousness of intellectual achievement. Nor when illustrating the Arabian Nights had the wonderful story of Hasan of El-Basrah evidently brought home to him the same moral.
Between a Doré and his object—so he deemed—existed neither "seven valleys nor seven seas, nor seven mountains of vast magnitude." A Doré needed no assistance of the flying Jinn and the wandering stars on his way, no flying horse, "which when he went along flew, and when he flew the dust overtook him not."
Without the equipment of training, without recognition of such a handicap, he entered upon his new career.
In 1854 for the first time two pictures signed by Doré appeared on the walls of the Salon. But the canvases passed unnoticed. The Parisians would not take the would-be painter seriously, and the following year's experience proved hardly less disheartening. Of four pictures sent in, three were accepted, one of these being a historic subject, the other two being landscapes. The first, "La Bataille de l'Alma," evoked considerable criticism. The rural scenes were hung, as Edmond About expressed it, so high as to need a telescope.
Both About and Th. Gautier believed in their friend's newly-developed talent, but art-critics and the public held aloof. No medal was decreed by the jury, and, accustomed as he had been to triumph after triumph, his fondest hopes for the second time deceived, Doré grew bitter and acrimonious. That his failure had anything to do with the real question at issue, namely, his genius as a historic painter, he would never for a moment admit. Jealousy, cabals, prejudice only were accountable.
The half dozen years following were divided between delightfully gay and varied sociabilities, feverishly prolonged working hours and foreign travel. The millions of francs earned by his illustrations gave him everything he wanted but one, that one, in his eyes, worth all the rest.
Travel, a splendid studio, largesses—he was generosity itself—all these were within his reach. The craved-for renown remained ungraspable.
Even visits to his favourite resort, Barr, brought disenchantment. He found old acquaintances and the country folks generally wanting in appreciation. With greater and lesser men, he subacidly said to himself that a man was no prophet in his own country.
Ten years after the fiasco of his first canvases in the Salon came an invitation to England and the alluring project of a Doré gallery. The Doré Bible and Tennyson, with other works, had paved the way for a right royal reception. The streets of London, as he could well believe, were paved with gold. But many were the contra. "I feel the presentiment," he wrote to a friend, "that if I betake myself to England, I shall break with my own country and lose prestige and influence in France. I cannot exist without my friends, my habits and my pot-au-feu. Folks tell me that England is a land of fogs, that the sun never shines there, that the inhabitants are cold, and that I should most likely suffer from sea-sickness in crossing the Manche. To sum up, England is a long way off, and I have a great mind to give up the project."
Friendly persuasion, self-interest, wounded self-love carried the day. Reluctantly he decided upon the redoubtable sea-voyage. Whether he suffered from sea-sickness or no we are not told. In any case the visit was repeated, John Bull according the great Alsatian, as he was called, what France had so persistently withheld.
Doré was here accorded the first rank among historic painters. His gallery in Bond Street became one of the London sights; in fashionable society, if not in the close ring of the great Victorian artists, he made a leading figure. Royalty patronized and welcomed him. The Queen bought one of his pictures ("Le Psalterion," now at Windsor), and invited him to Balmoral. The heir-apparent, the late King, admired his talent and relished his society. By the clerical world he was especially esteemed, being looked upon as a second Leonardo da Vinci. And, in fine, Doré must be regarded as an anticipator of the Entente cordiale. "Gustave Doré," his compatriots would say, "he is half an Englishman!" Forty years ago our popular favourite might indeed have believed in the fulfilment of his dream. The Thorwaldsen Gallery of Copenhagen had ever dazzled his imagination. Bond Street was not Paris, certainly, but in the greatest metropolis of the world his memory would be for ever perpetuated. Turning to the dithyrambic utterances of the London Press at the time we can hardly wonder at the hallucination.
Here are one or two passages culled from leading dailies and weeklies—
"In gravity and magnitude of purpose, no less than in the scope and power of his imagination, he towers like a Colossus among his contemporaries. Compared with such a work as 'Christ leaving the Prætorium,' the pictures in Burlington House look like the production of a race of dwarfs whose mental faculties are as diminutive as their stature. And it is not alone the efforts of the English School of Painting that appear puny in presence of so great and gigantic an undertaking; the work of all the existing schools of Europe sinks into equal insignificance, and we must go back to the Italian painters of the sixteenth century to find a picture worthy of being classed with this latest and most stupendous achievement of the great French master."
Elsewhere we read—
"The most marvellous picture of the present age is to be seen at 35, New Bond Street. The subject is 'Christ leaving the Prætorium,' The painter is the world-renowned Gustave Doré."
A journal devoted to art-criticism wrote—
"In 'The Christian Martyrs' we have a striking, thrilling and ennobling picture."
And so on, and so on. Yet at this time among "the dwarfs" of Burlington House then exhibiting was Millais, and contemporaneously with Doré in our midst, 1870-1, was Daubigny, whose tiniest canvases now fetch their thousands!
It was during Doré's apogee in England that a well-known French amateur, also visiting our shores, was thus addressed by an English friend: "Come with me to Bond Street, you will there see the work of your greatest living painter."
"Our greatest painter!" exclaimed the other. "You mean your own. Doré is our first draughtsman of France, yes, but painter, never, neither the greatest nor great; at least we were ignorant of the fact till informed of it by yourself and your country-people."
Doré knew well how matters stood, and bitterly resented the attitude of his own nation. Accorded a princely welcome across the Manche, his work worth its weight in gold on the other side of the Atlantic, in France he was looked at askance, even as a painter ignored. He regarded himself as shut out from his rightful heritage, and the victim, if not of a conspiracy, of a cabal. His school playmates and close friends, Taine, Edmond About and Th. Gautier, might be on his side; perhaps, with reservations, Rossini and a few other eminent associates also. But the prescient, unerring verdict of the collective "man in the street"—
"The people's voice, the proof and echo of all human fame"—
he missed; resentment preyed upon his spirits, undermined his vitality, and doubtless had something to do with his premature breakdown.
The Doré gallery indeed proved his Capua, the long-stop to his fame.
IV
As a personality the would-be Titian, Dürer, Thorwaldsen and Benvenuto Cellini in one presents an engaging figure. His domestic life makes very pleasant reading. We find no dark holes and corners in the career of one who may be said to have remained a boy to the end, at fifty as at five full of freak and initiative, clingingly attached to a devoted and richly-endowed mother, and the ebullient spirit of a happy home. With his rapidly increasing fortune, the historic house in the Rue Dominique became an artistic, musical and dramatic centre. His fêtes were worthy of a millionaire, and, alike in those private theatricals, tableaux vivants or concerts, he ever took a leading part. An accomplished violinist, Doré found in music a never-failing stimulant and refreshment. Rossini was one of his circle, among others were the two Gautiers, the two Dumas, Carolus Duran, Liszt, Gounod, Patti, Alboni and Nilsson, Mme. Doré, still handsome and alert in her old age, proudly doing the honours of what was now called the Hôtel Doré. By his literary and artistic brethren the many-faceted genius and exhilarating host was fully appreciated. Generosities he ever freely indulged in, the wealth of such rapid attainment being dispensed with an ungrudgeful hand. To works of charity the great illustrator gave largely, but we hear of no untoward misreckonings, nor bills drawn upon time, health or talents. With him, as with the average Frenchman, solvency was an eleventh commandment.
Meantime, as the years wore on, again and again he bid desperately for the suffrages withheld, his legitimately won renown held by him of small account. To his American biographer he said, on showing her some of his pictures: "I illustrate books in order to pay for my colours and paint-brushes. I was born a painter."
On the lady's companion, an American officer, naively asking if certain canvases were designed for London or Paris, he answered with bitter irony—
"Paris, forsooth! I do not paint well enough for Paris." As he spoke his face became clouded. The gay, jovial host of a few minutes before sighed deeply, and during their visit could not shake off depression.
Two crowning humiliations came before the one real sorrow of his life, the loss of that gifted mother who was alike his boon companion, closest confidante and enthusiastic Egeria. Perpetually seeking laurels in new fields, in 1877 he made his début as a sculptor. The marble group, "La Parque et l'Amour," signed G. Doré, won a succès d'estime, no more. In the following year was opened the great international exhibition on the Champ de Mars, Doré's enormous monumental vase being conspicuously placed over one of the porticoes. This astounding achievement in bronze, appropriately named the "Poème de la Vigne," created quite a sensation at the time. Reproductions appeared in papers of all countries containing a printing press or photographic machine. But for the artist's name, doubtless his work would have attained the gold medal and other honours. The Brobdingnagian vase, so wonderfully decorated with flowers, animals and arabesques, was passed over by the jury.
Equally mortifying was the fate of his marble group in the same year's Salon. This subject, "La Gloire," had a place of honour in the sculpture gallery and won universal suffrages. The critics echoed popular approval. The jury remained passive. It was in the midst of these unnecessarily crushing defeats—for why, indeed, should any mortal have craved more than mortal success?—that Mme. Doré's forces gave way. From that time till her death, which occurred two years later, her son's place was by her side, floutings, projects, health and pleasure, forgotten, his entire thoughts being given to the invalid. No more beautiful picture of filial devotion could suggest itself to the painter of domestic subjects than this, Doré with table and sketching materials seated in his mother's sick-room, or at night ministering to her in wakeful moments. At dawn he would snatch a few hours' sleep, but that was all. No wonder that his own health should give way so soon after the death-blow of her loss.
"My friend," he wrote to an English boon companion, on March 16, 1881, "she is no more. I am alone. You are a clergyman, I entreat you to pray for the repose of her beloved soul and the preservation of my reason."
A few days later he wrote to the same friend of his "frightful solitude," adding his regret at not having anticipated such a blank and made for himself a home—in other words, taken a wife.
Some kind matchmaking friends set to work and found, so at least they fancied, a bride exactly calculated to render him happy.
But on January 23, 1883, Doré died, prematurely aged and broken down by grief, corroding disappointment and quite frenzied overwork and ambition.
He never attained recognition as a historic painter among his country-folks. One canvas, however, "Tobit and the Angel," is placed in the Luxembourg, and his monument to Dumas ornaments the capital. His renown as an illustrator remains high as ever in France. And one, that one, the passionately desired prize of every Frenchman, became his: in 1861 he was decorated with the Red Ribbon. Six of Doré's great religious subjects retain their place in the Bond Street Gallery, but for reasons given above his wonderfully imaginative illustrations are here forgotten.
The superb edition of the Enid (Moxon, 1868), a folio bound in royal purple and gold, and printed on paper thick as vellum, the volume weighing four pounds, awakens melancholy reflections. What would have been poor Doré's feelings had he lived to see such a guinea's worth, and cheap at the price, gladly sold, rather got rid of, for three shillings!
Doré's last work, the unconventional monument to the elder Dumas, was left unfinished.
Completed by another hand, the group now forms a conspicuous object in the Avenue Villiers, Paris.
The striking figure of the great quadroon, with his short crisped locks, suggests a closer relationship to the race thus apostrophized by Walt Whitman—
"You, dim descended, black, divine souled African...."
He surmounts a lofty pedestal, on the base being seated a homely group, three working folks, a mob-capped woman reading a Dumas novel to two companions, evidently her father and husband, sons of the soil, drinking in every word, their attitude of the most complete absorption. Classicists and purists in art doubtless look askance at a work which would certainly have enchanted the sovereign romancer.
"Will folks read my stories when I am gone, doctor?" he asked as he lay a-dying. The good physician easily reassured his patient. "When we have patients awaiting some much-dreaded operation in hospital," he replied, "we have only to give them one of your novels. Straightway they forget everything else." And Dumas—"the great, the humane," as a charming poet has called him—died happy. As well he might, in so far as his fame was concerned. La Tulipe Noire would alone have assured his future.
VI
QUISSAC AND SAUVE
One should always go round the sun to meet the moon in France, that is to say, one should ever circumambulate, never make straight for the lodestar ahead. The way to almost any place of renown, natural, historic or artistic, is sure to teem with as much interest as that to which we are bound. So rich a palimpsest is French civilization, so varied is French scenery, so multifarious the points of view called up at every town, that hurry and scurry leave us hardly better informed than when we set out. Thus it has ever been my rule to indulge in the most preposterous peregrination, taking no account whatever of days, seasons or possible cons, hearkening only to the pros, and never so much as glancing at the calendar. Such protracted zigzaggeries have been made easy to the "devious traveller" by one unusual advantage. Just as pioneers in Australasia find Salvation Army shelters scattered throughout remotest regions, so, fortunately, have I ever been able to count upon "harbour and good company" during my thirty-five years of French sojourn and travel.
To reach a certain Pyrenean valley in which I was to spend a holiday would only have meant a night's dash by express from Paris. Instead, I followed the south-eastern route, halting at—Heaven knows how many!—already familiar and delightful places between Paris and Dijon, Dijon and Lyons, Lyons and Nîmes; from the latter city being bound for almost as many more before reaching my destination.
Quite naturally I would often find myself on the track of that "wise and honest traveller," so John Morley calls Arthur Young.
Half-way between Nîmes and Le Vigan lies the little town of Sauve, at which the Suffolk farmer halted in July 1787. "Pass six leagues of a disagreeable country," he wrote. "Vines and olives."
But why a disagreeable country? Beautiful I thought the landscape as I went over the same ground on a warm September afternoon a century and odd years later, on alighting to be greeted with a cheery—
"Here I am!"
As a rule I am entirely of Montaigne's opinion. "When I travel in Sicily," said the philosopher of Gascony, "it is not to find Gascons." Dearly as we love home and home-folk, the gist of travel lies in oppositeness and surprises. We do not visit the uttermost ends of the globe in search of next-door neighbours. That cordial "Here I am!" however, had an unmistakable accent, just a delightful suspicion of French. My host was a gallant naval officer long since retired from service, with his English wife and two daughters, spending the long vacation in his country home.
High above the little village of Quissac rises the residence of beneficent owners, master and mistress, alas! long since gone to their rest. From its terrace the eye commands a vast and beautiful panorama, a richly cultivated plain dotted with villages and framed by the blue Cévennes. Tea served after English fashion and by a dear countrywoman, everywhere "le confortable Anglais" admittedly unattainable by French housewives, could not for a single moment make me forget that I was in France. And when the dinner gong sounded came the final, the unequivocal, proof of distance.
Imagine dining out of doors and in evening dress at eight o'clock in the last week of August! The table was set on the wide balcony of the upper floor, high above lawn and bosquets, the most chilly person having here nothing to fear. It is above all things the French climate that transports us so far from home and makes us feel ourselves hundreds, nay, thousands of miles away.
I have elsewhere, perhaps ofttimes, dwelt on the luminosity of the atmosphere in southern and south-western France. To-night not a breath was stirring, the outer radiance was the radiance of stars only, yet so limpid, so lustrous the air that cloudless moonlight could hardly have made every object seem clearer, more distinct. The feeling inspired by such conditions is that of enchantment. For the nonce we may yield to a spell, fancy ourselves in Armida's enchanted garden or other "delightful land of Faëry."
Not for long, however! Pleasant practical matters soon recall us to the life of every day. That laborious, out-of-door existence, which seems sordid in superfine English eyes, but which is never without the gaiety that enchanted Goldsmith and Sterne a hundred and fifty years ago.
Whilst host and guest dined on the balcony, the farming folk and such of the household as could be spared were enjoying a starlit supper elsewhere. Later, my hostess took me downstairs and introduced her English visitor to a merry but strictly decorous party having a special bit of sward to themselves, bailiff, vintagers, stockmen, dairywoman, washerwoman and odd hands making up a round dozen of men, women and boys. All seemed quite at home, and chatted easily with their employer and the visitor, by no means perturbed, rather pleased by the intrusion.
And here I will mention one of those incidents that lead English observers into so many misconceptions concerning French rural life. Little things that seem sordid, even brutifying to insular eyes, really arise from incompatible standards.
The Frenchman's ideal of material comfort begins and ends with solvency, the sense of absolute security from want in old age. Small comforts he sets little store by; provided that he gets a good dinner, lesser considerations go. I do not hesitate to say that the comforts enjoyed by our own farm-servants half a century ago were far in excess of those thought more than sufficient by French labourers and their employers. On the following day my hosts took me round the farmery, fowl-run, piggeries, neat-houses and stalls being inspected one by one. When we came to the last named, I noticed at the door of the long building and on a level with the feeding troughs for oxen, a bed-shaped wooden box piled up with fresh clean straw.
"That is where our stockman sleeps," explained the lady.
Here, then, quite contentedly slept the herdsman of a large estate in nineteenth-century France, whilst his English compeers two generations before, and in much humbler employ, had their tidy bedroom and comfortable bed under the farmer's roof. What would my own Suffolk ploughmen have said to the notion of spending the night in an ox-stall? But autres pays, autres moeurs. In Déroulède's fine little poem, "Bon gîte", a famished, foot-sore soldier returning home is generously entreated by a poor housewife. When she sets about preparing a bed for him, he remonstrates—
"Good dame, what means that new-made bed,
Those sheets so finely spun?
On heaped-up straw in cattle-shed,
I'd snore till rise of sun."
The compensations for apparent hardship in the case of French peasants are many and great. In Henry James's great series of dissolving views called The American Scene, he describes the heterogeneous masses as having "a promoted look". The French proletariat have not a promoted look, rather one of inherited, traditional stability and self-respect. One and all, moreover, are promoting themselves, rising by a slow evolutionary process from the condition of wage-earner to that of metayer, tenant, lastly freeholder.
Although the immediate environs of Quissac and Sauve are not remarkable, magnificent prospects are obtained a little farther afield—our drives and walks abounded in interest—and associations! Strange but true it is that we can hardly halt anywhere in France without coming upon historic, literary or artistic memorials. Every town and village is redolent of tradition, hardly a spot but is glorified by genius!
Thus, half-an-hour's drive from our village still stands the château and birthplace of Florian, the Pollux of fabulists, La Fontaine being the Castor, no other stars of similar magnitude shining in their especial arc.
Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian was born here in 1755, just sixty years after the great fabulist's death. Nephew of a marquis, himself nephew-in-law of Voltaire, endowed with native wit and gaiety, the young man was a welcome guest at Fernay, and no wonder! His enchanting fables did not see the light till after Voltaire's death, but we will hope that some of them had delighted his host in recitation. Many of us who loved French in early years have a warm corner in our hearts for "Numa Pompilius", but Florian will live as the second fabulist of France, to my own thinking twin of his forerunner.
How full of wisdom, wit and sparkle are these apologues! Take, for instance, the following, which to the best of my ability I have rendered into our mother tongue—
VANITY (LE PETIT CHIEN).
I
Once on a time and far away,
The elephant stood first in might,
He had by many a forest fray
At last usurped the lion's right.
On peace and reign unquestioned bent,
The ruler in his pride of place,
Forthwith to life-long banishment
Doomed members of the lion race.
II
Dispirited, their best laid low,
The vanquished could but yield to fate,
And turn their backs upon the foe
In silence nursing grief and hate.
A poodle neatly cropped and clipped,
With tasselled tail made leonine,
On hearing of the stern rescript,
Straightway set up a piteous whine.
III
"Alas!" he moaned. "Ah, woe is me!
Where, tyrant, shall I shelter find;
Advancing years what will they be,
My home and comforts left behind?"
A spaniel hastened at the cry,
"Come, mate, what's this to-do about?"
"Oh, oh," the other gulped reply,
"For exile we must all set out!"
IV
"Must all?" "No, you are safe, good friend;
The cruel law smites us alone;
Here undisturbed your days may end,
The lions must perforce begone."
"The lions? Brother, pray with these,
What part or lot have such as you?"
"What part, forsooth? You love to tease;
You know I am a lion too."
[Footnote: The first translation appeared with others in French Men, Women and Books, 1910. The second was lately issued in the Westminster Gazette.]
Here is another, a poem of essential worldly wisdom, to be bracketed with Browning's equally oracular "The Statue and the Bust," fable and poem forming a compendium.
THE FLIGHTY PURPOSE
(LE PAYSAN AND LA RIVIERE).
"I now intend to change my ways"—
Thus Juan said—"No more for me
A round on round of idle days
'Mid soul-debasing company.
I've pleasure woo'd from year to year
As by a siren onward lured,
At last of roystering, once held dear,
I'm as a man of sickness cured."
"Unto the world I bid farewell,
My mind to retrospection give,
Remote as hermit in his cell,
For wisdom and wise friends I'll live."
"Is Thursday's worldling, Friday's sage?
Too good such news," I bantering spoke.
"How oft you've vowed to turn the page,
Each promise vanishing like smoke!"
"And when the start?" "Next week—not this."
"Ah, you but play with words again."
"Nay, do not doubt me; hard it is
To break at once a life-long chain."
Came we unto the riverside,
Where motionless a rustic sate,
His gaze fixed on the flowing tide.
"Ho, mate, why thus so still and squat?"
"Good sirs, bound to yon town am I;
No bridge anear, I sit and sit
Until these waters have run dry,
So that afoot I get to it."
"A living parable behold,
My friend!" quoth I. "Upon the brim
You, too, will gaze until you're old,
But never boldly take a swim!"
As far as I know, no memorial has as yet been raised to the fabulist either at Quissac or at Sauve, but as long as the French language lasts successive generations will keep his memory green. Certain of his fables every little scholar knows by heart.
Associations of other kinds are come upon by travellers bound from Quissac to Le Vigan, that charming little centre of silkworm rearing described by me elsewhere. A few miles from our village lies Ganges, a name for ever famous in the annals of political economy and progress.
"From Ganges", wrote the great Suffolk farmer in July 1787, "to the mountain of rough ground which I crossed" (in the direction of Montdardier), "the ride has been the most interesting which I have taken in France; the efforts of industry the most vigorous, the animation the most lively. An activity has been here that has swept away all difficulties before it and clothed the very rocks with verdure. It would be a disgrace to common sense to ask the cause; the enjoyment of property must have done it. Give a man the sure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden." The italics are my own. When will Arthur Young have his tablet in Westminster Abbey, I wonder?