Independent of the uses to which these capacious buildings are properly applied, they furnish the most agreeable place for rest and refreshment, during the heat of the day, being, as the traveller will frequently experience, the coolest and the sweetest place belonging to the inn.
During the rest of our day's journey, nothing occurred worthy of attention, until the descent into Peage de Rousillon, where we slept. Here the Rhone, of which we had lost sight, again appears winding through the broad rich valley which opens at the foot of the hill; and Mont Pilate also, after you have lost sight of it for the last seven or eight miles, and expect to see it behind you, again makes its appearance at a distance seemingly undiminished. So difficult is it to judge of the real bearings of objects in this clear air, which in fact is less favourable to the display of the grander features of nature, than our own misty Ossianic climate.
Our inn at Peage de Rousillon, although the only place in the neighbourhood at which we could have slept in any comfort, somewhat resembled, in its general style, those recorded in Don Quixote, and afforded similar adventures. In the midst of our supper, (which was by no means a bad one of the kind), in burst a fat German woman in a transport of fury, who thought herself ill-used in the allotment of the rooms; squabbling in a very discordant key with the landlady, who followed her "blaspheming an octave higher." Both were apparently viragos of the first order, and the keen encounter of their wits was so loud, that we turned a deaf ear to the German's appeal, and insisted on their choosing another field of battle. Battle however was the order of the day, or rather night, for both myself and my servant were roused in the middle of the night to put a stop to a drunken quarrel on the staircase, which we effected by ordering down stairs the Maritornes, who proved the bone of contention. The Hôtel du Grand Monarque, is evidently on a par with that class of inns in our English country towns, which bear the royal badge of the George and Dragon, through some fatality attendant on high names and dignities.
From Peage de Rousillon to St. Vallier, you traverse eighteen miles of flat road, only enlivened by the hills to the right of the Rhone, which, becoming gradually more rocky and abrupt, meet at length with a corresponding barrier on the left, and enclose the river in a narrow valley. Just beyond its entrance, which we had distinguished from above Peage de Rousillon, stands the town of St. Vallier, where the conducteur intended that we should breakfast. The Hôtel de Poste is a most dismal hole indeed, in every respect, and no appearance of any other inn: but soon after we learnt by experience, that wherever there is a café of tolerable appearance, it affords a much better chance for breakfast than any inn of the same rank. Neatness is the more the trade of the cafêtier, and his notions of breakfast much more English, than those of the inn-keeper, who is usually put completely out of his way by our habits.
"Eh! Messieurs," said a well-dressed bourgeoise, who saw us sauntering about near the door of her shop, "vous irez sans doute voir notre beau château: il fut donné par Jean de Poitiers au premier Seigneur de St. Vallier, et il a descendu jusqu'à Mons. de St. Vallier l'actuel proprietaire." Nothing could be more acceptable to idle wanderers than this information, and off we set at a round pace up a most filthy street, according to our directions; our heads full of crenelles, pont-levis, donjon, fosse, and the proper etceteras. I am not sure that we did not half expect to meet M. de St. Vallier himself, (a good baronial name) cap-a-pie at the barbacan gate, his lance in rest, and his visor down, like Sir Boucicault, or the Lord de Roye, or the doughtiest of Froissart's heroes. A long white-washed mud wall, with green folding gates, began somewhat to cool our Gothic enthusiasm—. "Perhaps the portcullis was destroyed at the Revolution." A bell hung at the gate. "Pshaw, it ought at least to have been a bugle-horn." When we had rung, instead of sounding a blast, not a dwarf, but a slipshod dirty girl, not much bigger, opened the door cautiously. "Il ne faut pas entrer: Monsieur ne permet personne de voir le château." We made involuntarily two steps forward; when lo! the end of a modern house, with a pea-green door and sash windows, and a shrubbery of lilacs interspersed with Lombardy poplars, blasted our sight. No longer ambitious of pursuing the lord of St. Vallier in flank, we hoped at least that a front view of his castle from the road to Avignon might afford some remains of feudal splendour. Off we set accordingly, and emerging from the dirty town as quickly as possible, beheld on turning round!—a large modern front, in the full smile of complacent ugliness, with a Grecian portico, not of masonry, but of red and yellow paint à la Lyonnaise; the whole edifice quite worthy of the Hermitage du Mont d'Or. The two short round towers on the sides might have been originally Gothic; but if really so, they had been most effectually disguised by white-washing, and new tiled tops, which very much resembled Grimaldi's red cap and his whited face. In front of the windows, instead of the sweeping lawns and dark avenues of which Mrs. Ratcliffe is so liberal, stood a large close-pruned vineyard, inclosed by a high white wall; at one end of which, and facing the front of his red and yellow château, M. de St. Vallier had built a red and yellow summer-house, with green shutters, to keep it in countenance. Very much diverted at our ludicrous disappointment, we sauntered along the road, which followed the course of the Rhone. At two miles distance, just where the river winds with a broad and rapid sweep into a woody gorge, with one blue mountain peeping over it, a black venerable old ruin, with turret and watch-tower, and every thing to render it complete, stood cresting an abrupt rock which hung over the river. Nothing, said I, shall persuade me that this castle is not the genuine gift of John of Poitiers, and the real object of our search. Down we sat at all events to sketch it, and meeting by good fortune a communicative young officer on the road, we learnt that this castle, called[12] Château la Serve, had in reality been the residence of the lords of St. Vallier; that many years ago it had been reduced by an accidental fire to its present state, and was finally wrested from the family at the Revolution. Of the present Château St. Vallier, and the estate annexed, they have remained in uninterrupted possession; and all admirers of the Gothic must rejoice that the ruin has been purchased by the commune of La Serve: for, standing as it does within view of the new château, no doubt it would have been brought to the state of that delectable domicile by the aid of the trowel and paint-brush.
From La Serve to Tain, the same style of country continues, without much alteration. The utmost exertions of the inhabitants seem necessary to struggle against the stony ungenial nature of the soil; and a black storm which was rolling to the right over Mont Pilate, appeared to menace the scanty crops of vines which their labour had produced. In every hamlet we heard the bells ringing, and saw the poor peasants crowding to the church to put up prayers against the coming hail, which at this season of the year is peculiarly fatal. If this be a superstition, it is surely not a contemptible or uninteresting one to witness: nor can one wonder at the influence gained over peasants thus instructed to associate Heaven with their daily hopes and fears. To our great satisfaction, after two or three vivid flashes of lightning, the clouds broke away to the north-west, and a light rain fell partially, more beneficial to the parched vineyards than hurtful to the hay, which even at this early season was in great forwardness in most places. On the whole, I should say that the district lying fifty miles south of Lyons, is a month more early than our own in point of climate and productions.
At Tain, the Rhone forces for itself a narrow passage into the vale of Valence, from among the rugged skirts of Mont Pilate, leaving on the one side Tain, and on the other Tournon; both backed by strong heights, which seem to guard the entrance of the defile. The situation of Tournon is striking, and very much corresponds with the ideas which one forms of a strong baronial hold upon the Rhine. A large portion of the precipitous hill which commands it, is connected with the town by a broken line of grim old walls and towers, which betoken the former importance of this position. Its castle, a building of a heavy conventual style of architecture, and standing on a fortified terrace, formerly belonged to the Prince de Soubisc, but is now converted, as we were informed, into a prison. To this purpose it is well adapted, as a leap from one of the round towers which breast the river at the angles of its terrace, would be fatal; and the character of despotism impressed on its walls seems to say, that in former times its uses were not very different. The resemblance indeed which it bears to the Château d'Amboise on the Loire, the scene of the Duke de Guise's murder, may possibly assist its effect on the imagination.
On issuing from this gloomy but not uninteresting spot, the eye opens upon an extensive prospect, rich in many of those features which we find scattered through the works of Claude and Salvator. To the right, the hills which hung[13] over the road to Tain, recede into a long perspective, terminated in the distance by a ruined castle on a pyramidical rock, near Valence; and the Rhone, following the same direction, winds away from the road in a slower and wider current than before. To the left, the outskirts of the Dauphiné Alps form a singularly wild and fantastic barrier, sometimes rising in abrupt pinnacles, and sometimes rent as if by an earthquake into precipices of some thousand feet of sheer perpendicular descent. The vale inclosed between these rough walls, and in the centre of which the Isere unites itself to the Rhone, appears a perfect garden in point of richness, cheerfulness, and high cultivation. We crossed the Isere, a strong and rapid stream, by a ferry, for our Itineraire, with its usual accuracy, forgot to mention that the bridge of which it speaks was broken down by Augereau on the advance of the Austrians. Within two or three miles of Valence, a rising ground, fringed with scattered oak underwood, affords a more distinct and striking semicircular view of the mountains to the left; and glimpses of others yet more distant, bordering an immense plain, through which the Rhone takes its course towards Avignon.
As we approached Valence, the ancient Civitas Valentinorum, we again observed the ruined castle which we had at first remarked, called Château Crussol. It stands on a conical cliff on the opposite side of the river, overlooking the town at about two cannon-shots distance. On inquiring into the history of this eagle's nest, we found that it had been in days of yore the fortress of a petty free-booting chieftain, who kept the inhabitants of Valence in a perpetual state of war and annoyance; a history which almost appears fabricated to suit its appearance and character. It bears a very strong resemblance, in point of situation, to the ruin within a mile of Massa di Carrara; which the tradition of the peasants assigns as the abode of Castruccio Castracani, the scourge of the Pisans. Seeing it relieved by a gleam of sunshine from a dark evening cloud behind it, we could fancy, without any great effort of imagination, that, like the bed-ridden Giant Pope in honest John Bunyan, it was grinning a ghastly smile of envy at the prosperity which it could no longer interrupt. Or, if this idea should seem extravagant, at least the two opposite neighbours present as lively a personification as stone and mortar can afford, of their respective inhabitants; the town of Valence flourishing in industrious cheerfulness, and the castle domineering, savage, poverty-stricken, and formed only for purposes of plunder and mischief.
In the suburbs of Valence we found an excellent inn, called the Croix d'Or, worthy to be recommended both for comfort, civility, and fair charges. A walk into the town of Valence itself has very little in it to repay the traveller, with the exception of the Champ de Mars, a sort of public garden bordering on the Rhone. Certainly no place ever united such a degree of dirt and closeness to so smiling an exterior. Its old Gothic walls still remain, and the streets therefore are probably built on the same scale as in those times when they crowded together for security against feudal aggressors.
May 9.—To Loriol five miles. The road passes through a country as beautiful and diversified as before, seldom deviating above a mile or two from the course of the river: corn and hay-fields, the latter fit for cutting, mulberry, almond, and fig-trees, cover every inch of ground. About a mile before we reached Loriol, and just after passing a small town called Livron, we crossed the Drome, over a noble bridge of three arches, constructed of a rough sort of whitish marble, and reminding us somewhat of a reduced section of the Strand bridge. Its massy solidity is not misplaced, as a view up the mountain glen to the left of it convinced us. Though the river was at this time low, the immense extent of dry beds of gravel showed what its volume and force must be when swoln by rain; and the cluster of gloomy mountains which close the valley from whence it issues, seem the perpetual abode of storms. In one of them I recognised the Montagne de Midi, whose form is so remarkably perpendicular when seen from Tain; and altogether, I have no idea of forms more wild and extraordinary upon so large a scale. The rocks of St. Michel, in Savoy, near St. Jean de Maurienne, are a miniature resemblance of them; but a better idea as to size and wildness, may be formed by those who recollect the mountains of Nant Francon, in Wales, and can imagine them not yet settled into place, after the first confusion of the Titanic war.
The view is worth several hours of an artist's time, and its effect is considerably increased by a solitary tower, resembling a moss-trooper's abode, which stands in the middle distance. It is called, as we understood, the Château de Crest, and is the relic of a state prison. On passing a corner of rising ground this wild valley disappears, and the same rich and cheerful country as has been already described recommences. The same unbroken rocky barrier bounds the Rhone on the right, while in front numberless peaks of very distant mountains become visible over the plain through which its windings are traced.
The neat-looking inn at Loriol probably affords better breakfasts than the café, which, in spite of its neat outside, is dirty and imposing, an exception to the usual rule.
To Montelimart fifteen miles: the first three we walked, and rested on a rising ground, commanding in each direction a long day's journey through this fine district. Our walk perhaps made us relish the more a bottle of the vin du pays, which Derbieres, a little village a mile or two farther on, afforded; but I have no doubt that worse is sold in Paris at seven or eight francs a bottle, under the name of pink champagne: it is at least worth the while of any thirsty traveller to try the experiment, if it were merely for the sake of the civil old landlady of the little inn. We could obtain no information from her respecting the history of a singular ruin on the opposite side of the river, excepting that it was called Château Crucis, and about seven hundred years ago was an abbey. Somewhat beyond this black pile stand two or three pyramidical rocks, projecting from the general line of hills, the same probably which the French Itineraire mentions as commanding a celebrated view, and exhibiting in themselves a geological curiosity. I doubt, however, whether any person would do well to cross the Rhone to explore them, upon the mere credit of that wise octavo.
Montelimart is a large old town, the ancient fortifications of which, as of Valence, remain in perfect preservation. The approach to it from Loriol gives by no means so favourable an idea of it as it deserves; and to estimate its beauties fully, it is necessary to visit the citadel, now used as a prison, which stands on a height above the town.[14] The view which it commands is uniformly mountainous in the back grounds, and flat and rich in its nearer details; but the finest part of it is towards the east. The snowy Alps near Grenoble, and the line of mountains from whence the Drome issues, and at whose foot Château Grignan is situated, are its prominent features; and the little farm-houses and tufts of trees in the rich pasture grounds which intervene, seem disposed by the hand of a painter.
Not to omit the luxuries of the palate as well as those of the eye, it is worth while to procure at Montelimart a wedge or two of the nogaux, or almond-cakes, which Miss Plumptre so particularly recommends. The genuine sort is as glutinous as pitch, and made in moulds, from whence it is cut like portable soup; and the makers at Montelimart, like the rusk-bakers of Kidderminster, have, I understand, refused a large sum for the receipt. Another of the good things of Provence, to which Miss Plumptre's Tour introduced us, was the confiture de menage, or fruit boiled up with grape juice instead of sugar. This is a preserve which you meet with in most of the commonest inns, but which is so easily made and little esteemed, that they do not bring it without a particular order. It is very much like asking for treacle at an English inn; nevertheless I, for my part, felt obliged to the fair tourist for an information which has served to mend many a bad breakfast; and a bad breakfast, as the world doth know, is the stumbling-block, or the grumbling-stock, of most Englishmen, travelled or untravelled.
The inn at Montelimart is excellent; but Madame must not be left to make her own charges. We should, however, have parted from her in good humour, had not her avarice affected persons less able to help themselves. The poor maid, who appeared jaded to the bone, confessed that her mistress detained half her etrennes, and I have reason to believe that she spoke truth.
To the classical ground of Château Grignan, which we visited next day, I shall devote a separate chapter.
May 10.—This was the day of the greatest interest and fatigue which we had as yet passed; and moreover afforded us a tolerably accurate idea, at the risk of our bones, of the nature of French crossroads. Having understood that the road from Montelimart to Grignan was inaccessible to four-wheeled carriages, we set off at four in the morning in a patache, the most genteel description of one-horse chair which the town afforded. Let no one imagine that a patache bears that relation to a cabriolet which a dennet does to a tilbury; for ours, at least, would in England have been called a very sorry higgler's cart. The inside accommodations were so arranged, that we sat back to back, and nearly neck and heels together, after swarming up a sort of dresser or sounding-board in the rear, which afforded the most practicable entrance. "Mais montez, montez, Messieurs, vous y serez parfaitement bien," quoth our civil conducteur, haranguing, handing, and shoving at the same time. The alacrity with which he and his merry little dog Carlin did the honours of the vehicle, and the stout active appearance of the horse (to say nothing of the whim of the moment, and the fine morning), reconciled us to a mode of conveyance no better than that which calves enjoy in a butcher's cart; and for the first few miles we forgot even the want of springs.
After travelling a league or two, the road began to wind into the outskirts of the range of mountains which we had first seen from Tain, and reminded us, in its general features, of some of the most sequestered parts of South Wales. The soil is generally poor, but derives an appearance of verdure and cheerfulness from the large walnut and mulberry-trees which shade the road, and the stunted oak copses through which it occasionally winds. We passed an extensive pile of building, of a character which we had not before observed, consisting of a number of small awkwardly-contrived rooms, without any uniformity, piled like so many inhabited buttresses against the outside and inside of a circular wall. This, it seems, is the property and habitation of one person, a M. Dilateau; but it certainly has more the appearance of the residence of a whole Birkbeck colony, each back-settler established in his own nook, amid the contents of his travelling waggon. A little farther, on the summit of a bare rocky ridge to the left, stands a castle of a more Gothic character, but equally uncouth and comfortless. It was demolished, as we understood, at the time of the Revolution; but in its best days must have been but a wretched residence, as no trace remains within many hundred yards of it, of any soil where tree or garden could have stood. To the genuine admirers of Mad. de Sevigné, however, even these cheerless mountain holds present an interesting object, as having been peopled by the honest country families whose ceremonious visits to Grignan afforded her many a good-natured laugh.[15] Or to treat the Château Race-du-fort (for such we understood to be the name of this last castle) with more respect, we may fancy its proprietor sallying forth, like old Hardyknute, at the head of his armed sons and servants, to join the seven hundred country gentlemen who volunteered their services, with the Count de Grignan at their head, in besieging the rebellious town of Orange.
We found it necessary, both from common consideration for the patache-horse, and our own necks, to walk up the two miles of steep ascent, which occur after passing this last castle. On the top of the hill all vegetation appears to cease, excepting a few shrubby dwarf firs, and a profusion of aromatic plants, such as juniper, lavender, southernwood, and wild thyme, which delight in the stony hot-bed afforded by the interstices of disjointed rocks. The view from the high table of ground to which we climbed at length fully repaid our exertions, and may be almost compared, for extent and beauty, to those from the church of Fourvières, and the Montagne de Rochepot. Towards the north we surveyed not only the valleys of Montelimart and the Drome, but nearly the whole of the route of the three preceding days, bordered on the one side by the abrupt and lofty mountains, from which the latter river takes its source, and on the other by the steep banks of the Rhone. On proceeding a little farther, over a road which consisted of the native rock in all its native inequality, we caught sight of the Comtat Grignan, and the great plain of Avignon, into which that district opens in a south-western direction, flanked on the east by a colossal Alp, called Mont Ventou, on whose long ridge traces of snow were still visible. In the centre of the Comtat,[16]Château Grignan is easily distinguished by the grandeur of its outline and proportions, and the tall insulated rock on which it stands, somewhat resembling that on which Windsor Castle is situated, though inferior in size. Its effect is somewhat heightened by several other smaller crags at different distances, which thrust themselves through the scanty stratum of soil, each crowned with a solitary tower, or little fortalice. In the feudal days of the Adhemars, ancestors of the Grignan family, who possessed the whole of the Comtat, these were probably the peel-houses, or outposts, of the old Château, in the quarter from which it would have been most exposed to attack. The Château Race-du-fort was, in all likelihood, also the key of the mountain glen leading to the hill which we were descending, and formed the line of communication with Montelimart, which was formerly included in the family territory. The records on this subject trace the foundation of the lordship of Grignan up to the days of Charlemagne, who is said to have created Adhemar,[17] one of his paladins, Duke of Genoa, as a reward for having re-conquered Corsica from the Saracens. Adhemar having fallen in a second expedition against the same enemy, his children divided his possessions: the elder remaining Duke of Genoa, another possessing the towns of St. Paul de Trois Château et Mondragon; and a third, the sovereignty of Orange. A fourth possessed the town of Monteil, called after him Monteil Adhemar, or Montelimart; and in 1160, the emperor Frederic I. granted to Gerard Adhemar de Monteil, his descendant and heir, the investiture of Grignan, with many sovereign rights, such as that of coining money. It was to this noble family that the Count de Grignan, whose third wife was the daughter of Madame de Sevigné, traced his blood and inheritance in a direct line.
As we reached the level of the plain, and approached the castle, its commanding height and structure seemed completely to justify Mad. de S.'s expression to her daughter, "Votre château vraiment royal." Few subjects certainly ever had such a residence as this; which, though reduced to a mere shell by the ravages of the Revolution, still seems to bespeak the hospitable and chivalrous character of its former possessor. It rises from a terrace of more than a hundred feet in height, partly composed of masonry, and partly of the solid rock. The town of Grignan, piled tier above tier, occupies a considerable declivity at the foot of this terrace, and communicates with the castle by a road which winds round the ascent, and terminates in a massy gateway.
On entering the town, we were directed to the Bons Enfans, kept by a man of the name of Peyrol; which, contrary to the expectations we had naturally formed of an inn not much frequented, provided us with a breakfast, which even the editor of honest Blackwood would delight to describe in all its minutiæ, for it was quite Scotch in variety and excellence, and served up with great cleanliness. It may be well to remark, that as far as I could judge from the appearance of the rooms, a family might spend two or three days here without sacrificing their comfort to their curiosity, and would be as well off as at the Quatre Nations at Massa, or the Tre Maschere at Caffagiolo, the models of little country inns. Our host, we found, was entrusted with the privilege of showing the castle by the Count de Muy, in whose family he had been a servant; and he accordingly accompanied us in our visit thither. On gaining the level of the terrace, we found the wind, which had been imperceptible in the town, blowing with such force, as to account for[18] Mad. de Sevigné's fears lest her daughter should be carried away from her "belle terrasse" by the force of the Bise. Persons travelling to the south of France for the sake of health, should be particularly on their guard against this violent and piercing wind, as well as that called the Mistral; both of which are occasionally prevalent in this country at most seasons of the year, and render warm clothing adviseable. I shall quote, as illustrative of the power with which the Bise blows, an extract from a letter by an intelligent traveller, written previous to the destruction of Château Grignan: "En faisant le tour du Château, je remarquais avec surprise que les vîtres du coté du nord étaient presque toutes brisées, tandis que celles des autres faces étaient entières. On me dit, que c'était la Bise qui les cassait; cela me parut incroyable; je parlai à d'autres personnes, qui me firent la même reponse: et je fus enfin forcé de le croire. La Bise y souffle avec une telle violence, qu'elle enleve le gravier de la terrasse, et le lance jusqu'au second étage, avec assez de force pour casser les vîtres." From the violence of the Bise wind this morning, and my subsequent experience of its force at Beaucaire, I have but little difficulty in believing this account; and conceive that the danger of yielding to the occasional temptation of heat, and wearing light clothing, cannot be too strongly insisted on in this country. Persons, indeed, who have not visited the south of France, connect its very name with the idea of uniform mildness; but in reality, its caprices render it, without proper caution, a more dangerous climate than our own.
On advancing to the balustrades of what appeared a projecting part of the terrace, we were surprised to find that it formed one of the towers of the lofty church of Grignan, on the top of which, as on a massy buttress, we were standing. A trap-door, formed by a moveable paving stone, admitted us upon the leads of the church, which are secured from the effects of weather by the additional casing which the terrace affords. Its interior communicates with the lower rooms of the castle by a passage, terminating in a stone gallery, where from its height above the body of the church, the family could hear mass unperceived, as in a private oratory. The establishment of this church, founded entirely at the private expense of the Count de Grignan's ancestors, was very rich, and consisted of a deanery, twenty-one canonries, and a numerous and well-appointed choir. From its lofty proportions, I should suppose that the internal decorations had also been costly; but much mischief, we were informed, had been done to it during the time of the Revolution by the same troop of brigands which burnt the castle, and which consisted of the refuse of the neighbouring towns, countenanced by the revolutionary committee of Orange. With a natural aversion to every thing noble, these ragamuffins directed their outrages particularly against the statue of the founder of the church, whose grim black trunk stands in the vestibule, deprived of its head. One almost regrets that the figure did not possess the miraculous power of revenge which the corpse of Campeador[19] exerted when the Jew plucked his beard, and fall headlong of its own accord into the thick of its assailants. The remains of Mad. de Sevigné, and of the Grignan family, however, were safe from their violence, as the adherents of the castle had taken the precaution of changing the position of the flat black stone inscribed with the name of the former, which marked the entrance of the family vault; and which has since been restored to its original place. The inscription on this stone, which stands, a little to the right of the communion-table, is simply, "Cy git Marie de Rabutin Chautal, Marquise de Sevigné;" the date of her death, April 14, 1696, annexed. Such a name, in truth, does not need the assistance of owl-winged cherubs, brawny Fames, and blubbering Cupids, those frequent appendages of departed vanity and selfishness; which would have been probably as repugnant to the wishes of the good marchioness, as inconsistent with her simple and unassuming character.
To return to the subject of the revolution, as it affected Château Grignan. Miss Plumptre, a writer of much research and general accuracy, and whose book would furnish twenty gentlemen-tourists with good materials, has, I believe, been misled as to one circumstance, the disinterment of Mad. de Sevigné, which, as far we could ascertain by inquiry, never took place from causes to which I have just alluded. The silk wrapping-gown, the expression of the features, and the respect with which the brigands beheld the corpse, are circumstances which Miss Plumptre's French informant appears to have accumulated, "pour faire une sensation;" and, had they taken place, our communicative guide, who was rather given to the melting mood, would have dwelt on them for the same purpose. They appear, however, to know nothing about the matter at Grignan, a place which Miss P. acknowledges herself never to have visited.
The work of destruction was more complete in the castle than in the church. The Count de Muy, whose family had become possessed by purchase of this splendid pile of building, inhabited it for half the year, doing extensive good, if one may trust the partial account of his old servant, and maintaining a mode of living which would have done honour to a legitimate descendant of the Adhemars. Eighty-four lits de maître, and servants' beds in proportion, were made up, we understood, during a visit paid to the count by the present king, then Count of Provence. These hospitable doings, however, were not to last long. The revolutionists broke into the castle, and having pillaged it of whatever they could turn to any use, burnt the remainder of the furniture, pictures, &c., in the market-place, to the amount of 20,000 francs. One fellow, now residing at Montelimart, had the good taste to select for his share the dressing-glass and writing-table known as those of Mad. de Sevigné. The castle, which they set on fire, continued burning for two or three days: yet such was the solidity and goodness of the masonry, that an imposing mass still remains, sufficient to give an idea of what it must have once been.
As the terrace remains uninjured, and many of the walls are still perfect, the castle might be rendered again habitable at a comparatively reasonable expense. But the Count de Muy is seventy, has no children, and has lost 25,000 pounds per annum by the revolution; a combination of circumstances not very favourable to the spirit of improvement. "C'est là," said Peyrol, pointing out a small house at the foot of the terrace, "c'est là que demeure l'homme d'affaires de M. le Comte; il y vient tous les ans pour peu de jours; moi je lui fais son petit morceau; et souvent je le vois se promener sur cette belle terrasse, les larmes aux yeux; c'est que Monsieur aimait passionnement ce beau château. Ah, mon Dieu! ça me fait pleurer; moi qui ai tout perdu; ma place, mon bon maître, et puis je gagne le pain ici avec beaucoup de peine: cette pauvre ville est abîmée; nous avons perdu tous nos droits, notre bailliage, notre cour de justice, tout, tout—" &c. Our host had apparently imbibed all his master's enthusiastic respect for the house of Grignan; for, finding that we had purposely deviated from our route to behold the residence of Mad. de Sevigné, his delight and loquacity appeared to know no bounds. The space of years, and the succession of owners from the time of the good Marquise and her son-in-law, to that of his own master, seemed to have no place in his mind. He had her letters by heart, I believe, for he quoted them with great volubility and correctness, a-propos to almost every question which we asked; and seemed fairly to have worked himself, by their perusal, into the idea that he had seen and waited on her. "C'est ici qu'elle dormait; voilà le cabinet où elle écrivait ses lettres; c'est ici qu'elle prisait ses belles idées." Nothing indeed could be more delightful, or more calculated to inspire fine ideas, than the situation of the ruined boudoir into which he conducted us at these words. It occupies one floor of a turret, about fifteen feet in diameter, and opens into the shell of a large bedchamber. Its large croisees, which look out in three directions, command an extensive bird's eye view of the Comtat Grignan, surmounted by the long Alpine ridge of Mont Ventou, and an amphitheatre of other smaller mountains: and enough remained of both apartments to give a full idea of the lightness and airiness of their situation, and of their former magnificence.
The walls, on which some gilding still remained, the stone window-frames, and the chimney-pieces, were still entire. From the door, we looked out into the long gallery[20] built by the Count de Grignan, and communicating with different suites of handsome rooms, or at least their remains. We explored them as far as was consistent with safety, and descended to the "belle terrasse," now over-run with weeds and lizards, in order to take[21] another survey of the castle, and form a general idea of the parts which we had separately visited. Though built at different periods of time, each part is in itself regular and handsome. The two grand fronts are the north and west, the former of which is represented in Mr. Cooke's first engraving of Grignan. The eastern part, facing Mont Ventou, is in a more ornamental style of architecture, somewhat resembling that of the inside square of the Louvre.[22] The southern part, affording a view of Mad. de Sevigné's window, and of the collegiate church founded by the family, is represented in the second engraving, the subject of which was sketched on the road to La Palud, whither we were bound for the night. In our way thither, we made a short detour, accompanied by our host, to the Roche Courbiere, a natural excavation on the rock, within sight of the terrace, and to the left of the road. This cool retreat, it may be recollected, was discovered and chosen by Mad. de Sevigné, as a sort of summer pavilion; and was embellished by the Count de Grignan with a marble table, benches of stone, and a stone bason, which collected the filterings of a spring that took its source from this cavern. I have since seen a drawing made previous to the Revolution, which confirms Peyrol's account. Even this modest hermitage, however, was not spared by the systematic spite of the brigands who destroyed the castle. Only one stone bench remains; the table and bason are demolished, and the spring now oozes over the damp floor as it did in a state of nature. On returning from this spot to the road, we crossed an open common field on the south side of the castle, planted with corn, and apparently of a better quality than the land in its vicinity. "Voilà le jardin," said our guide; "c'étoit là où il y avoit de ces belles figues, ces beaux melons, ce delicieux. Muscat dont Madame parle." The fine trees, which marked the limits of the garden, have all been cut down and burnt, with the exception of a row of old elms on the western side, forming part of the avenue which flanked the mail, or ball-alley, a constant appendage in days of old to the seats of French noblemen. The turf of the mail is even and soft still, and the wall on both sides tolerably perfect—"And now, Messieurs," said mine host, "you may tell your countrymen, that you have walked in the actual steps of the Marquise. C'est ici qu'elle jouoit au mail avec cette parfaite grace—et M. le Comte aussi—ah! c'étoit un plaisir de les voir." We hardly knew whether to laugh at, or be interested by the comical Quixotism of this man, who I verily believe had, by dint of residence on the spot, and thumbing constantly a dirty old edition of Madame's letters, worked himself up to the notion that he had witnessed the scenes which he described. We were induced, in the course of our walk, to inquire somewhat into his own history, which appeared rather a melancholy one, though common enough in the times through which he had lived. About a week after the pillage and destruction of Château Grignan, he was denounced as a royalist, and immured in the prison of Orange, in company with several gentlemen of the neighbourhood, acquaintances of his master. By means of a friend in the town, (for they were not all devils at Orange, as he emphatically assured us), he was enabled to procure a few common necessaries, to improve the scanty prison allowance of some of the more infirm; but his charitable labour soon ceased, for all were successively dispatched by the guillotine in a short space of time. In the course of three months, 378 persons perished by decree of the miscreants composing the Revolutionary tribunal at Orange, whose names were Fauvette, Fonrosac, Meilleraye, Boisjavelle, Viotte, and Benôit Carat, the greffier. One of their first victims was an aged nun of the Simiane family, canoness of the convent of Bollene, accused of being a counter-revolutionist; so lame and infirm, that her executioners were forced to carry her to the scaffold. Madame d'Ozanne, Marquise de Torignan, aged ninety-one, and her grand-daughter, a lovely young woman of twenty-two, perished in the same massacre. The personal beauty of the latter, which was much celebrated in the neighbourhood, had interested one of the brigands of Orange in her fate, who promised to exert his influence with the council of five, to save the life of the grandmother, on condition of receiving the hand of Mademoiselle d'Ozanne. The poor girl overcame her horror and reluctance for the sake of her aged relative, and promised to marry this man on condition of his success in the promised application. The life, however, of so formidable a conspirator as a superannuated and dying woman, was too great a favour to be granted even to a friend; and the only boon which he could obtain was the promise of Mademoiselle d'Ozanne's life, in consideration of her becoming his wife. "Eh bien! il faut mourir ensemble;" was her answer without a moment's deliberation, and next day, accordingly, both the relatives perished on the same scaffold. Poor Peyrol himself, after expecting the fatal Allons for many a morning, was at length relieved from his apprehensions by the fall of Robespierre, and obtained his release, on condition of serving in the army. After fighting for four years, with a cordial detestation of the cause in which he was engaged, he was disabled for the time by a severe wound, and obtained leave to return to Grignan, where he settled in the little inn; but the most severe blow of all was yet in store for him; for his wife died not long after, leaving him with five children. "Ainsi vous voyez, Monsieur, que j'ai connu le malheur. Au reste, Mons. de Muy m'a donné la clef de ce château, et cela me vaut quelque chose; car il y a du monde qui viennent quelquefois le voir." Then, relapsing into his habitual strain of complaint, he ended with, "Oh mon pauvre cher maître! ce beau, ce grand château! ah, j'ai tout perdu!" One bright moment, however, as he exultingly remarked, occurred during his compulsory service in the army; for it so chanced that he was one of the guard on duty during the execution of his former oppressor, Fauvette. "Moi à mon tour je l'accompagnois a cet echafaud où il m'auroit envoyé; il avoit la mine triste, un fleur de jasmin à la bouche; ma foi, ça ne sentoit pas bon pour lui."
Such is an exact transcript of our communicative host's conversation, which, notwithstanding the suspicion with which I regard the prattle of foreign guides, seemed to me not so much a well-conned lesson, as the genuine overflowing of such a disposition as honest Thady M'Quirk's. His interest in the persons and events of which he spoke, appeared as warm and genuine as his naïveté was amusing and we took leave of him with a strong feeling of good will towards himself and his little clean inn.
It is as needless to apologize for devoting a whole chapter to local circumstances connected with Madame de Sevigné's life, as it would be to detail the well-known social virtues which have erected this amiable and unpretending woman into a sort of household deity in the eyes of so large a class of persons, while the Lauzuns, the Montespans, and other gay and brilliant favourites of that period, are only recollected with disgust.
Our road to La Palud lay along the rocky vale first discovered from the heights above Château Grignan, which in fact is not so much a vale as a high plateau of ground enclosed between hills, like many parts of Castille. To the latter country, indeed, the Comtat Grignan bears a striking resemblance in the characteristic features which prevail through the greater part of it. The insulated grey rocks have forced themselves through the starved soil, like projecting bones; the parched fields are more full of pebbles than corn; and the stunted evergreen oaks, with their diminutive tough leaves of a dingy grey, though well enough adapted to the inhospitable ground in which they grow, present an appearance quite repugnant to our English ideas of verdure and vegetation. The immediate neighbourhood of Château Grignan, indeed, seems tolerably fertile, but it is difficult nevertheless to conceive from whence the adequate supplies for the Count's immense table were procured, or how the feudal contributions of such a country could have supported in earlier days the number of castles and towers, whose ruins we saw on the summits of every detached rock. These, from their resemblance to the "antiguas obras de Moros," which the muleteers used to point out, presented another feature strongly reviving my Spanish recollections. In the days of romance, this country must have been the Utopia of Troubadours, where each might in the compass of a short walk have taken morning draught, breakfast, nooning, dinner, and supper, at the strong holds of different barons. The first of these fortalices, called Chamaret le Maigre, presents a striking landmark from the town of Grignan; but, on a nearer approach, consists of little more than a tall slender tower upon an insulated rock; the rest is in ruins. At a short distance beyond this spot stands Montsegur, a little old fortified town upon a hill, which, from its name and appearance, may have been one of those cradles of civil liberty, where the "bon homme Jacques" first found refuge from his haughty feudal oppressors. A ruin of a more lordly description close to it, is called, as we understood, the Château Beaume: but the number of less important ruins, which occurred in this day's journey, is too great to admit of a particular description. A turn to the right between a couple of commanding heights, brought us out of this barren country into the wide and fertile plain of the Rhone, and under the walls of St. Paul de Trois Châteaux, the ancient Augusta Tricastinorum. From the respectable appearance of this town, we conceived ourselves in the high road to La Palud, and likely to be soon indemnified by dinner and rest, for the joltings of the day; but our driver, instead of taking the proper direction, lost himself in a series of inextricable cross roads, which terminated in a quagmire. In this slough of despond the unfortunate patache, from which we had descended, might have stuck for ever, but for the assistance of two shepherds, as wild in their attire, and as civil, as Don Quixote's friendly goatherds. By dint of their exertions and those of the floundering and groaning horse, the vehicle, which was too deeply imbedded in the muddy ruts to dread an overturn, was dragged out by main force; the driver sometimes wringing his hands in King Cambysses' vein, and sometimes strenuously applying his shoulder to the wheel. A franc or two dismissed our bare-legged friends grinning to their very earrings, and we pursued our road without further interruption, quite satisfied with this specimen of the loamy fatness of the soil. From the experience of this day, I certainly should recommend no one to make the detour to Grignan in a wheeled carriage of any sort. An active person might accomplish on foot, before breakfast, the whole distance from Montelimart to Grignan, and might reach St. Paul de Trois Châteaux, or perhaps La Palud, by night; but even lady travellers would find less fatigue in hiring saddle-horses and mules from Montelimart, than in being bumped at the rate of two miles and a half per hour, over roads which frequently seem a jumble of unhewn paving-stones. We afterwards understood that there was a direct road from Grignan to Orange, which would have saved us some distance, and could not have been worse than that which we travelled this evening.
At La Palud we found the servants and voiture established in the second inn, the name of which I forget. The accommodations, however, were decent and comfortable, and the charges moderate: and, on the whole, the appearance of this inn was nearly, or quite as good as that of the Hôtel d'Angouleme. The people of the latter house, to which the servants were originally directed, concluding that they had positive orders to await us there, persisted in demanding a price for every thing which more than doubled any charge yet attempted; an instance of pertinacious rascality which it is not amiss to mention, and which would have diverted us by its very absurdity, had we not been too tired to find amusement in any thing but supper and beds. In the course of this day and the next, we heard, for the first time, the Provençal patois, which seems a bad compound of French, Spanish, and Italian, with an original gibberish of their own. As far, indeed, as a slight and partial observation enables me to judge, I have been much struck by a similarity which the inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast bear to each other in language and character, a similarity so great, as to lead one to suppose them descended from the same original stock. The same savage originality of manner, (accompanied frequently by much good-humour and civility), the same extravagance of gesture, which seems the overflow of bodily vigour and animal spirits, the same red cap, and lastly, the same villainous compound of languages, mixed up in discordant cadences and terminations, appear to distinguish the inhabitants of Provence, Languedoc, Naples, and Genoa, and last and noblest of all, the Catalans.
May 11.—To Orange eighteen miles, through the same rich and extensive plain, from which the barrier of hills that accompanied us before, receded to a considerable distance; but which is still interrupted and broken occasionally by rocks of the wildest and most abrupt shape possible, with the addition in general of a frowning castle in ruins. The little towns of Montdragon[23] and Mornas, which we passed this morning, are each situated under heights of this description. The castle of the former, of which a plate is given in Mr. Cooke's work, I think even superior to that of Caerphilly, in South Wales, in the "awsome eyriness," as a Scotsman would express it, with which its detached masses are grouped. The castle of Mornas is not so remarkable, but the rocks on which it stands are very striking; for if they have any inclination out of the perpendicular, it is rather towards than from the road. It is indeed impossible, when you stand under the shade of this lofty barrier, and look up to the clouds drifting over it, to fancy that it is not in the act of toppling down upon your head. We had not as yet emerged from the land of castles, for, as in yesterday's route, almost every little town possessed some vestige of ancient fortification, a silent testimony to the peaceful virtues of "the good old days." The heat of the weather at this comparatively early season of the year, induced us to congratulate ourselves that we had not chosen a month, or even a fortnight later, for our excursion, particularly as the mulberry-trees, which in this thrifty country form almost the only shade, were beginning to lose their covering of leaves. Every where we met women and children carrying ladders, shaped exactly like those used by cocks and hens in roosting, or perched high in trees, stripping them for the food of the silk-worms. The natural gracefulness of the mulberry foliage is entirely destroyed by the unmerciful pruning and pollarding which it undergoes in this country, in order to concentrate it for gathering. Very little fruit, and that small and tasteless, is produced from these cabbage-cut trees; a circumstance which I mention to prevent disappointment, since, no doubt, many a gentle traveller may indulge, as I confess to have done, the luxurious hope of feasting on this fruit in perfection under every hedge-row in Provence. Another month would have rendered the heat of the country insufferable, and stript it of much of its beauty, by reducing to bunches of bare poles those trees which still continued to afford verdure and finish to the prospect.
Within a few miles of Orange we crossed the river Aigues by a handsome stone bridge, commanding a magnificent view of Mont Ventou. This mountain seems the most conspicuous landmark in the part of France which we were traversing, continuing visible as it does for two or three days journey with very little alteration of outline. To judge from its situation on the map, it could not be less than twenty-five or thirty miles from the place where we stood, though from the deception caused by its enormous length and height, and not uncommon in mountain scenery, it appeared accessible in a walk of two or three hours. I well remember, as an instance illustrative of this deception, the surprise of a Berkshire servant at Capel Curig, when informed that he really could not take an evening's walk to the top of Snowdon after littering up his horses, and return to supper. The effect in question is increased, and rather to the detriment of picturesque beauty, by the less hazy atmosphere of southern countries; but I never recollect so strong an instance of it, as in the view of Mont Ventou of which I am speaking. I was struck also by its great similarity to drawings which I had seen of Ætna from the Catanian coast, as well its outline, as the manner in which it rises from a cluster of satellite hills into the borders of the snowy region. Several scattered snow-ridges were visible near its top, contrasting curiously with the effect of the sun's rays reflected from its sides, which, instead of Campbell's picturesque "cliffs of shadowy tint" appeared a red-hot stony mass, and might be fancied by a slight effort of imagination, into Ætna covered with an eruption of burning cinders.
The approach to the celebrated arch of Orange, commemorating Marius's victory over the Cimbri, is marked by an avenue of Lombardy poplars which line the high road. The classical and sombre stone pine, which gives so striking an effect to the tomb of the Scipios (as it is styled) near Tarragona, would have been more in character as an accompaniment to this proud monument also; but since the days of[24] Alpheus and his red silk stockings, the taste for quelque chôse de gentil has constantly poisoned those classical associations of which the French are so fond. The grave Patavinian is still designated by the tom-tit appellation of Tite Live; and the majestic arch, whose history would have been so well illustrated by his lost annals, is tricked out with a poplar avenue, like a summer-house on Clapham-common.
The townsmen of Orange, however, deserve credit for the substantial style in which they have repaired one end of it, to prevent farther dilapidation, and for the manner in which the road is diverted from it on both sides in a handsome sweep, leaving a green space in the middle, in which the arch stands. We returned to it immediately after breakfast, and our second impressions were fully equal to the first. As[25] a work of art, it is certainly worthy of one of the proudest places in the Campo Vaccino, though of course its effect is more striking in the neighbourhood[26] of the victory which it commemorates. The bas relief on the side facing Orange, would not be unworthy of a place between the well-known statues of Dacian captives, which ornament the arch of Constantine. Different as were their respective æras, the stern thoughtful dignity of the barbarian chiefs, and the spirit which animates