Part 17

How narrow, how dirty, how cool! for even in summer the sun cannot come down in them--for the projecting balconies and the tallness of the houses; and between the fountains in the occasional open places and the incessant washings it is never dry. There is no pavement for the foot-goer but the sharp, round stones sticking up from side to side, and sloping down to the sluice-way in the middle. Donkeys with loads of cabbages, that nearly fill up the way, women with baskets on their heads, and staring strangers, and _gendarmerie_ in their cocked hats, marching two by two, and soldiers, and school-boys (not common in France), and anxious-faced merchants (still rarer out of the North), all troop together under gables, that would seem to totter were they not of huge oak beams, whose blackened heads peep out from the brick walls like faces of an age gone by.

What quaint carving! what heavy old tiles, when you catch a glimpse of the peaked roofs! what windings and twists! There are well-filled and sometimes elegant shops below, with story on story reeling above them.

Away through an opening, that is only a streak of light at the end, appears the ugly brown statue of the Maid of Orleans. There she was burned, poor girl!--and the valet, if you have the little English boy of the Hotel de Rouen, will tell you how, and when, and why they burned her; and he will ring the bell at the gate of a strange, old house close by, and beckon you into the court, where you will see around the walls the bas-reliefs of the Cloth of Gold. St. Owens too, which, after Strasburg Cathedral, is the noblest Gothic church in France, is in some corner of the never-ending curious streets. And on a fete day, what store of costume on its pavement! What big, white muslin caps,--flaring to left and right! What show of red petticoats, and steeple-crowned hats, and clumping sabots, and short-waisted boys, and little, brown men of Brittany!...

Many--many dull diligence--days lie between Rouen and the sunny southern town of Nismes; yet with the wishing we were there at once.

Where was born Guizot,--where are Protestant people,--where are almost quiet Sundays,--where there is a Roman Coliseum, dropped in the centre of the town,--there are we. On a December day, when I was there, it was as warm and summer-like,--the sunny side of that old ruin,--and the green things peeped out from the wall as fresh and blossoming, as if Merrie May had commenced her time of flowers. And the birds were chattering out of all the corridors, and the brown stone looked as mellow as a russet apple in the glow of that rich southern atmosphere.

The trees along the Boulevard--running here through the town--wore a spring-like air (there must have been olives or evergreen oaks among them), and though I cannot say if the peach-trees were in bloom, yet I know I picked a bright red rose in the garden by the fountain,--the great Roman fountain which supplies the whole town with water,--and it lies pressed for a witness in my journal yet. And there were a hundred other roses in bloom all around,--and a little girl was passing through the garden at the time, with one in her hair, and was playing with another in her hand. And the old soldier who limps, and lives in the little cottage at the gate of the garden, as patrol, was sunning himself on the bench by the door; and a canary-bird that hung over it was singing as blithely in his cage as the sparrows had been singing in the ruin.

And what was there in that charming garden spot of Nismes, with its wide walks and shade of trees, and fresh with the sound of running water and the music of birds? There was an old temple of Diana, and fountain of the Nymphs. Both were embowered in trees at the foot of the hill which lords it over the town.

The fountain rises almost a river, and alone supplies a city of forty thousand inhabitants. The guide-books will tell one that it is some fifty or sixty feet in depth, and surrounded with walls of masonry,--now green with moss and clinging herbs; and from this, its source, it passes in a gushing flood over the marble floors of old Roman baths, as smooth and exact now as the day on which they were laid. The old soldier will conduct you down and open the door-way, so that you may tread upon the smooth marble where trod the little feet of the unknown Roman girls. For none know when the baths were built, or when this temple of Diana was founded. Not even of the great arena, remarkable in many respects as the Roman Coliseum, is there the slightest classic record. Nothing but its own gigantic masonry tells of its origin.

Upon the top of the hill, from whose foot flows the fountain, is still another ruin,--a high, cumbrous tower. And as I wandered under it, full of classic fervor, and looked up,--with ancient Rome in my eye, and the gold AEgis, and the banner of triumph,--behold, an old woman with a red handkerchief tied round her head was spreading a blue petticoat over the edge of the tower to dry.

But from the ground beneath was a rich view over the town and valley. The hill and the garden at its base were cloaked with the deep black green of pines and firs; beyond was the town, just veiled in the light smoke of the morning fires; here peeped through a steeple, there a heavy old tower, and looming with its hundred arches and circumference of broken rocks--bigger than them all--was the amphitheatre of the Latin people, whose language and monuments alone remain. Beside the city--through an atmosphere clear as a morning on the valley of the Connecticut--were the stiff velvety tops of the olive-orchards and the long brown lines of vineyards;--away the meadows swept, with here and there over the level reach an old gray town, with tall presiding castle, or a glittering strip of the bright branches of the Rhone.

But not only is there pleasant December sun and sunny landscape in and about the Provencal town of Nismes, there are also pleasant streets and walks; there is a beautiful Roman temple,--_La Maison Carree_,--than which there is scarce a more perfect one through all Italy, among the neat white houses of the city. Within it are abundance of curiosities, for such as are curious about dates and inscriptions that cannot be made out; and there are Roman portals still left in the vestiges of the Roman walls....

There is the Grand Theatre for such as wish a stall for a month; and there is the grander theatre of the old Roman Arene. True, the manager is dead, and the actors are but bats and lizards, with now and then a grum old owl for prompter. But what scenes the arched openings blackened by the fires of barbarians, and the stunted trees growing where Roman ladies sat, paint to the eye of fancy! What an orchestra the birds make at twilight, and the recollections make always!

It was better than Norma, it was richer than Robert le Diable, to sit down on one of the fragments in front of where was the great entrance and look through the iron grating, and follow the perspective of corridors opening into the central arena, where the moonlight shone on a still December night,--glimmering over the ranges of the seats and upon the shaking leaves. And there was a rustle, a gentle sighing of the night wind among the crevices, that one could easily believe was the echo of a distant chorus behind the scenes:--and so it was,--a chorus of Great Dead Ones,--mournful and slow,--listened to by no flesh ear, but by the delicate ear of Memory.

There are rides about Nismes. There is Avignon with its brown ramparts and its gigantic Papal towers bundling up from the banks of the Rhone, only a half-day's ride away; and half a day more will put one down at the fountain of Vaucluse; where, if it be summer-time,--and it is summer-time there three-quarters of the year,--you may sit down under the shade of a fig-tree, or a fir, and read--undisturbed save by the dashing of the water under the cliff--the fourteenth Canzonet of Petrarch....

Coming back at nightfall, [the traveller] will have a mind to hunt through the narrow, dim-lighted streets of Avignon in search of the tomb of Laura, and he will find it embowered with laurels and shut up by a thorn hedge and wicket; and to get within this, he will ring the bell of the heavy, sombre-looking mansion close by, when a shuffling old man with keys will come out and do the honors of the tomb. He will take a franc,--not absolutely disdainfully, but with a world of _sang-froid_, since it is not for himself (he says) but for the poor children within the mansion, which is a foundling hospital. He puts the money in his red waistcoat-pocket, suiting to the action a sigh, "_Mes pauvres enfans!_" Perhaps you will add in the overflowing of your heart, "Poor children!"

As you go out of the garden, a box at the gate, which had escaped your notice, solicits offerings in behalf of the institution from strangers visiting the tomb. The box has a lock and key; the old man does not keep the key. You have a sudden suspicion of his red waistcoat-pocket, and sigh as you go out, _Les pauvres enfans!_

_Pont du Gard_ is the finest existing remain of a Roman aqueduct, and spans a quite deep stream, good for either fishing or bathing. Profusion of wild flowers grow about and over it, and fig-trees and brambles make a thicket together on the slope that goes down to the water.

One may walk over the top of the ruin--two yards wide, without parapet or rail--and look over into the depth three hundred feet below. The nerves must be strong to endure it, then the enjoyment is full. Less than half a day's ride will bring one from the Pont du Gard to the Hotel du Luxembourg of Nismes.

Montpellier is in Provence, the city of summer-like winters, and upon the river is Arles, with its Arena, larger even than that of Nismes, but far less perfect; and its pretty women--famous all over France--wear a mischievous look about them, and the tie of their red turbans, as if coquetry were one of their charms.

It is a strange, mixed-up town, that of Arles,--ruins and dirt and narrowness and grandeur, an old church in whose yard they dig up Roman coffins, and a rolling bridge of boats. Not anywhere in France are there dirtier and more crooked streets, not anywhere such motley array of shops amid the filth, red turbans and meat, bread and blocks, old coins and silks. Within the museum itself are collected more odd scraps of antiquity than can be found elsewhere together; there are lead pipes and stone fountains, old inscriptions and iron spikes, and the noblest monument of all is a female head that has no nose; but the manager very ingeniously supplies with his hand the missing feature.

Opposite the doors of this museum stands an obelisk of granite, which was fished out of the Rhone, and boasts a high antiquity, and upon its top is a brilliant sun with staring eyes. To complete the extraordinary grouping, upon another side of the same square is a church with the strangest bas-relief over its central door-way that surely madcap fancy ever devised. It is a representation of the Last Judgment; on the right, the angels are leading away the blessed in pairs, and on the left a grinning devil with horns, and with a stout rope passed over his shoulder and clinched in his teeth, is tugging away at legions of condemned souls.

There is rare Gothic sculpture within some old cloisters adjoining, and a marble bas-relief within the church, with a Virgin and Child in glory, was--I say it on the authority of an ingenious _valet de place_--of undoubtedly Roman origin.

Ancient sarcophagi may be seen here and there in the streets, serving as reservoirs at the fountains; and many a peasant of the adjoining country makes the coffin of a Roman noble his water-trough.

There belongs another antiquity to Provence besides that of Roman date,--it is that of the gay, chivalrous times of William IX., Count of Poitou, and all the gallant Troubadours who came after him. Then helmets glittered over the Provencal plains, and ladies wove silken pennants in princely halls. Then the tournament drew its throngs, and knights contended not only with their lances for martial fame but with their songs for the ears of love. Even monarchs--Barbarossa and Coeur de Lion--vied with Troubadours, and the seat of the Provencal court was the great centre of Southern chivalry. Arles had its court of love, more splendid than now, and its _arret d'amour_ was more binding than the charms of the brightest eyes that shine in Provence to-day.

Little remains of the luxurious tastes of the old livers at Arles. The cafe, dirty and dim, assembles the chivalry of the city, and a stranger Western knight, in place of baronial hall, is entertained at the Hotel du Forum, where, with excess of cheatery, they give him for St. Peray a weak, carbonated Moselle.

Let no one judge of the flat sand surface of Provence by the rich descriptions of the Mysteries of Udolfo, nor let the lover of ballad poetry reckon upon the peasant _patois_ as having the sweet flow of Raymond or Bertrand de Born.

A FRENCH FARMER'S PARADISE.

M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.

[So many woful stories are told us of the penury and strife for bare existence of the agriculturists of Europe that it is pleasant to read of happier scenes and more plentiful larders. M. Betham-Edwards, than whom few are better able to speak of the conditions of life in rural France, has drawn for us, in her "Holidays in Eastern France," a cheerful picture of such a scene, which we take pleasure in reproducing. We are here taken out of the beaten track of ordinary travel into "fresh scenes and pastures new."]

How delicious to escape from the fever, heat, and turmoil of Paris during the Exhibition to the green banks and sheltered ways of the gently undulating Marne! With what delight we wake up in the morning to the noise--if noise it can be called--of the mower's scythe, the rustle of acacia-leaves, and the notes of the stock-dove, looking back as upon a nightmare to the horn of the tramway conductor and the perpetual grind of the stonemason's saw! Yes, to quit Paris at a time of tropic heat, and nestle down in some country resort, is, indeed, like exchanging Dante's lower circle for Paradise. The heat has followed us here; but with a screen of luxuriant foliage ever between us and the burning blue sky, and with a breeze rippling the leaves always, no one need complain.

With the cocks and the hens, and the birds and the bees, we are all up and stirring betimes; there are dozens of cool nooks and corners, if we like to spend the morning out of doors, and do not feel enterprising enough to set out on an exploring expedition by diligence or rail. After the mid-day meal every one takes a siesta, as a matter of course, waking up between four and five o'clock for a ramble. Wherever we go we find lovely prospects. Quiet little rivers and canals, winding in between lofty lines of poplars, undulating pastures, and amber cornfields; picturesque villages, crowned by a church spire here and there; wide sweeps of highly cultivated land, interspersed with rich woods, vineyards, orchards, and gardens; all these make up the scenery familiarized to us by some of the most characteristic of French painters.

Just such tranquil rural pictures have been portrayed over and over again by Millet, Corot, Daubigny; and in this very simplicity often lies their charm. No costume or grandiose outline is here, as in Brittany; no picturesque poverty, no poetic archaisms; all is rustic and pastoral, but with the rusticity and pastoralness of every day.

We are in the midst of one of the wealthiest and best cultivated regions of France, moreover, and, when we penetrate beneath the surface, we find that in manner and customs, as well as dress and outward appearance, the peasant and agricultural population generally differ no little from their remote country-people, the Bretons. In this famous cheese-making country, the "Fromage de Brie" being the specialty of these rich dairy-farms, there is no superstition, hardly a trace of poverty, and little that can be called poetic. The people are wealthy, laborious, and progressive. The farmers' wives, however hard they may work at home, wear the smartest of Parisian bonnets and gowns when paying visits. I was going to say, when at church, but nobody does go there!

It is a significant fact that in the fairly well-to-do educated district, where newspapers are read by the poorest, where well-being is the rule, poverty the exception, the church is empty on Sunday, and the priest's authority is _nil_. The priests may preach against abstinence from church in the pulpits, and may lecture their congregation in private; no effect is thereby produced. Church-going has become out of date among the manufacturers of Brie cheese. They amuse themselves on Sundays by taking walks with their children, the _pater-familias_ bathes in the river, the ladies put on their gala dresses and pay visits, but they omit their devotions.

Some of these tenant-farmers--many of the farms being hired on lease, possessors of small farms hiring more land--are very rich, and one of our neighbors whose wealth has been made by the manufacture of Brie cheese lately gave his daughter one hundred thousand francs as a dowry. The wedding-breakfast took place at the Grand Hotel, Paris, and a hundred guests were invited to partake of a sumptuous collation. But in spite of fine clothes and large dowries, farmers' wives and daughters still attend to the dairies, and when they cease to do so doubtless farming in Seine et Marne will no longer be the prosperous business we find it. It is delightful to witness the wide-spread well-being of this highly-farmed region.

"There is no poverty here," my host tells me, "and this is why life is so pleasant."

True enough, wherever you go you find well-dressed, contented-looking people; no rags, no squalor, no pinched want. Poverty is an accident of rare occurrence, and not a normal condition, every one being able to get plenty of work and good pay. The habitual look of content written upon every face is very striking. It seems as if in this land of Goshen life were no burden, but matter of satisfaction only, if not of thankfulness. Class distinction can hardly be said to exist; there are employers and employed, masters and servants, of course, but the line of demarcation is lightly drawn, and we find an easy familiarity wholly free from impoliteness, much less vulgarity, existing between them.

The automatic demureness characterizing English servants in the presence of their employers is wholly unknown here. There are households with us where the servants might all be mutes for any signs of animation they give, but here they take part in what is going on, and exchange a word and smile with every member of the household, never dreaming that it should be otherwise. One is struck, too, here by the good looks, intelligence, and trim appearance of the children, who, it is plain, are well cared for. The houses have vines and sweet peas on the walls, flowers in the windows, and altogether a look of comfort and ease found nowhere in Western France. The Breton villages are composed of mere hovels, where pigs, cows, and poultry live in close proximity to their owners, a dung-hill stands before every front door, and, to get in-doors and out, you have always to cross a pool of liquid manure. Here order and cleanliness prevail, with a diffusion of well-being hardly, I should say, to be matched out of America.

Travellers who visit France again and again, as much out of sympathy with its people's institutions as from a desire to see its monuments and outward features, will find ample to reward them in Seine et Marne. On every side we have evidence of the tremendous natural resources and indefatigable laboriousness of the people. There is one point here, as elsewhere in France, which strikes an agriculturist with astonishment, and that is the abundance of trees standing amid cornfields and miscellaneous crops, also the interminable plantation of poplars that can be seen on every side, apparently without any object. But the truth is, the planting of apple- and pear-trees in fields is no extravagance, rather an economy, the fruit they produce exceeding in value the corn they damage, whilst the puzzling line of poplars growing beside canals and rivers is the work of the government, every spare bit of ground belonging to the state being planted with them for the sake of the timber. The crops are splendid, partly owing to the soil, and partly to the advanced system of agriculture. You may see exposed for sale, in little towns, the newest American agricultural implements, while the great diversity of products speaks volumes for the enterprise of the farmers.

As you stroll along, now climbing, now descending this pleasantly undulated country, you may see growing in less than an acre, a patch of potatoes here, a vineyard there, on one side a bit of wheat, oats, rye, and barley, with fruit-trees casting abundant shadow over all; on the other Indian-corn, clover, and mangel-wurzel in the green state, recently planted for autumn fodder; farther on a poppy-field, three weeks ago in full flower, now having full pods ready for gathering,--the opium poppy being cultivated for commerce here. All those and many more are found close together, and near them many a lovely little glen, copse, and ravine, recalling Scotland and Wales, while the open hill-sides show broad belts of pasture, corn, and vineyard. You may walk for miles through what seems one vast orchard, only, instead of turf, rich crops are growing under the trees. This is indeed the orchard of France, on which we English folk largely depend for our summer fruits. A few days ago the black-currant-trees were being stripped for the benefit of Parisian lovers of _cassis_, a liqueur in high repute.

We encounter on our walks carts laden with plums packed in baskets and barrels on their way to Covent Garden. Later on, it will be the peach and apricot crops that are gathered for exportation. Later still, apples, walnuts, and pears; the village not far from our own sends fruit to the Paris markets valued at one million francs annually, and the entire valley of the Marne is unequalled throughout France for fruitfulness and abundance.