' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. THE GREAT BOER WAR. Arthur Conan Doyle. COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS. G. IV. E. Russell. FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO. E. S. Grogan. SPURGEON'S SERMONS. Sir IV. Robertson Nicoll, LL.D. SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD. Augustine Birrell, K.C., M. P. THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER. Colonel Durand. LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN. Lord Alorley. LIFE OF PAR NELL, R. Barry O'Brien. MEMORIES GRAVE AND GAY. Dr. John Kerr. A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. S. Reynolds Hole. AT THE WORKS. Lady Bell. MEXICO AS I SAW IT. Mrs. Alec Iwecdie. PARIS TO NEW YORK BY LAND. Harry de Windt. LETTERS OF DR. JOHN BROWN. JUBILEE BOOK OF CRICKET. Prince Ranjitsinhji. BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD. Louisajebb. SOME OLD LOVE STORIES. T. P. O'Connor. FIELDS, FACTORIES, & WORKSHOPS. Prince Kropctkin. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY. Dr. Chalmers. THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. ill. E. Durham. LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY.— I. & II. Sir George O. Trevelyan, Hart. WHAT I SAW IN RUSSIA. Hon. Maurice Baring. WILD ENGLAND OF TO-DAY. C.J.Cornish. THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS. Mrs. Alec Tiveedie. THE VOYAGE OF THE " DISCOVERY."— I. & II. Captain Scott. FELICITY IN FRANCE. Constance E. Maud. MYCL! M BS I N THE ALPS AND CAUCASUS. A.E.Mummery. JOHN BRIGHT. R. Barry O'Brien. POVERTY. B. Seebohm Rowntree. SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. Commander E. Hamilton Currey, R.N. FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES. A. Milliard Atteridge. THE CRUISE OF THE "FALCON." E. E. Knight. A. K. H. B. (A Volume of Selections.) THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS. jack London. GRAIN OR CHAFF? A. Chichele Ptowden. LIFE AT Till-', ZOO. C. /. Cornish. THE FOUR MEN. Hilaire Belloc. CRUISE OF Till': "ALERTE." E. F. Knight. FOUR FRENCH ADVENTURERS. Stoddard Diivey. A R EA I' I N( 1. /.'. F. Benson. FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. G. IV. R. Russell. 15,000 MILES IN A KETCH. Captain R. du Baty. KNOWN TO THE POLICE. Thomas Holmes. THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES. Arminius Vambery. THE CITY OF THE WORLD. Edwin Pugh. THE PANAMA CANAL. J. Saxon Mills. THE ISLAND. Richard Whiteing. Etc., etc. O H 'hers to folloiv. The Pleasant Land of France BY ROWLAND E. PROTHERO M.P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 93 THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN AND N'KW VORK PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. In the Preface to the First Edition of The Pleasant Land of France, published in 1908, were the following words : "If anything con- tained in these pages helps to disperse a single national prejudice, or to place any features in the genius and character of our neighbours in a fairer light, their object will have been gained." Within sound of the guns, the passage seems strangely out of date. In 1915, the Third Edi- tion of the book finds England and France closely allied, fighting side by side, each for its existence as a nation, and together for the ideals that both allies hold in common of civili- sation, of individual liberty, of ordered demo- cratic progress. As one people, the two nations have shared the most poignant of human emo- tions. Together, the}' have been thrilled with anxiety in reverse, with pride in deeds of heroism, with grief for pain and death, with the passage through doubt, misgiving and uncertainty to the confident hope in ultimate victory. In vi PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. the lifetime of the present generation, at any rate, it seems incredible that two nations, which have once been thus united, should again be sun- dered as strangers. The Pleasant Land of France is, avowedly, a rambling book, which, without any attempt at completeness, touches on certain aspects of a many-sided national life and character. The subject gives to the ingredients a first flavour of unity ; but otherwise, the only link between the component parts is the binder's thread. It is not, however, an accident that four out of the seven articles deal with the life of pro- vincial and rural France. In our own country the stress would be disproportionate. As yet it is not so with our neighbours. In the provinces still beats, if not the brain, at least the heart of France. The provinces are the school of the nation's virtues of thrift, perseverance and industry, the stronghold of its domestic affec- tions, its wholesome simplicity and natural refinement. Provincial life has put into prac- tice the dominant ideal of social equality. The friendliness and easy familiarity of its inter- course prepares us to see the nation— man, woman and child — draw together in the face of national danger as members of one great family, unanimous in feeling, single of purpose, capable of any sacrifice. Still essentially a people of the soil, the French people have PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION, vii lavished on the land not only their labour but their affection. They cling to it with dogged pertinacity, ready to defend it to the death with a passion of energy and determination. With something of that warm love which the average Frenchman bears towards his mother — one of the strongest influences in his life — he seems to embrace the Mother Earth of his native land. His patriotism is not a cold calculation of self-interest, but a flame of emotional en- thusiasm. The land exacts from those who till it the tribute of assiduous toil, which leaves its trace in much that is hard, grinding and even brutal. It has not been transformed into a garden without effort, and the effort must always be sustained and continued. But it repays the labour with a generosity so abundant as to steep French provincial life in an atmosphere of gaiety, liveliness, social comfort and human well-being. Travellers in haste, dazzled by the richness of Nature's bounty, often forget the obstinacy of industry by which it is elicited. Beneath the brilliancy of the natural gifts which are so attractive in the French nation, there lie the tenacity of purpose and the patient perse- verance in which for centuries a peasant race has been trained and nurtured. In the great struggle in which France is engaged, those solid qualities, disciplined and strengthened by daily viii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. contact with the soil, are of priceless value. It will not be the first debt that the nation has owed to the land. Five and forty years ago, all seemed lost. The calamities of 1 870-1 had overwhelmed the intellectual leaders of France with a sense of their own impotence in action. War with its brutal logic had shattered the fine-spun theories of her politicians. In her despair she turned to the quiet strength of her working people. During the two wonderful summers which succeeded the war, the peasant, toiling early and late in cornfield and orchard, in pasture and vineyard, drew from the soil the riches which freed the country from the clutch of the conqueror. In 1915 France relies on the same strong support, not to avert the consequences of defeat, but to make sure of the victory, and the heart of every Englishman and Englishwoman goes out with her armies. Rowland E. Prothero. April 1915. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Only two of the Essays in this volume refer to political discussions of the day. The essay on French Farming, written in 1887, describes the position of agriculture before the estab- lishment of the Meline tariff in 1892. It may therefore serve as a starting-point for com- parisons with existing conditions. For this reason it has been left practically untouched. It was written at a crisis when great changes seemed imminent in British farming. But in this country matters moved more slowly than was expected. Now, however, as in 1887, French experience may be useful in sobering extravagant expectations, and in preparing the country for that increased intervention by the State which necessarily accompanies the estab- lishment of small owners or small tenants. The third essay tells the story, little known in this country, of boycotting and other forms of agrarian outrage in France. The present con- dition of Ireland gives the history an interest which, is unfortunately living. The other essays deal with social, literary, or x PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. historical subjects, which touch on no political disputes. As the title of the essay on Some Modern French Poets indicates, the choice is arbitrary, and no attempt is made to trace the modern history of French poetry. The essay includes some verse translations. Madame Duclaux, an English poetess and mistress of both languages, might succeed in rendering French poems into English poetry. The ver- sions contained in these pages are less ambitious in their aim. In France I have spent many of the happiest days of my life. To her pleasant land I owe a lasting debt of gratitude. If anything con- tained in these pages helps to disperse a single national prejudice, or to place any features in the genius and character of our neighbours in a fairer light, their object will have been gained. I have to thank the Editors of the Quarterly, Edinburgh, Nineteenth Century and Contem- porary Reviews for their permission to re- publish such portions of these essays as have been previously published in their pages. My thanks are also due to Mr. E. H. Coleridge, Mr. G. H. Holden and the Rev. Harold Watts for help in the correction of the proofs. Rowland E. Protiiero. January 30, 1908. CONTENTS. Roses of Jericho : A Day in Provin cial France .... French Farming .... Tenant-right and Agrarian Outrage in France .... A Faggot of French Folk-lore Rabelais ..... fontainebleau .... Some Modern French Poets 4 J 40 186 263 3 2 7 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. ROSES OF JERICHO: A DAY IN PRO- VINCIAL FRANCE. AROSE of Jericho resembles at first sight a bunch of withered roots ; but plunged in boiling water it expands, unfolds and regains its former shape. Our memories are, in a sense, roses of Jericho. They seem to be dead ; but a sound, or smell, or sight, warms their dried- up fibres into a sudden renewal of life, and re- creates, in all their freshness, hours of our past experiences. Every winter, thousands of English travellers rush through provincial France on their way to the Riviera, without bestowing a thought on the millions of lives which are being spent in the little towns and villages through which they are carried in the night express. The very names of the stations are unknown to them ; except from a momentary blaze of confused light 116 14 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. and the increased roar of the train, they are even unaware of their existence. If any chain of association is aroused by what they see, it is generally one which, by contrast or comparison, carries them back to their own homes. Arrived at their destination, surrounded by their fellow- countrymen, occupied with their imported amusements, they have often neither the time nor the wish to study the natives of the country in which they are guests. Such a study cannot be pursued in company ; it is necessarily soli- tary ; it does not lend itself to the excitement of competition ; it is unaccompanied by the delightful thrill of danger ; it is not an athletic exercise ; still less is it a stepping-stone to London society. The result is, perhaps, in some respects to be regretted. We know next to nothing of our nearest neighbours, for it is in the quiet of the provinces, rather than in the parade and glitter of cosmopolitan Paris, that the heart of the French nation is beating, and that the best aspects of the national character are presented. Satisfied, as is only natural, that the Englishman is the ideal type of humanity, we are apt to decide that a Frenchman is inferior to ourselves because he is deficient in certain qualities which we prize. We do not consider whether our criticism is well founded, or prejudiced, or based on traditions which never had, or long ago have ROSES OF JERICHO. 15 lost, any justification. We are, in fact, so keenly alive to his defects that we are blind to the many points in which he is our superior, and which ought to modify our judgment. We regard him, for example, as wanting in manliness, in stability, in reserve and self-restraint. We condemn his taste in neckties, despise his boots, and suspect that he wears white lining to his trousers. We laugh at his sporting achievements, and believe that he regards a meet as something between a picnic and a review, or shoots only for the sake of the noise and the society. The Frenchman, on what appear to him equally good grounds, feels the same contempt for us. The result was that, at the end of the nineteenth century, the two nations had drifted further apart in their sympathies than they ever were in the previous century, when, though constantly at war, they understood each other better. To the traveller who knows and loves rural France, such a journey as we have spoken of is at least different. It has one pleasure to com- pensate the discomfort — that of retrospect. Every detail awakens some recollection or association. Now it is a turn in the limbs of a tree, standing out dark against the horizon on the summit of a copse-clad hill ; now it is a farmstead, with its high-roofed grange, its sharp-pointed turret, its pigeon-cote, and one window red with the lamp of a lonely watcher. 16 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Sometimes it is the short, sharp yap of a sheep- dog, or a snatch of song from a group of belated countryfolk returning from market — sounds that are the next moment lost in the rattle of the already distant train. Faster than the hurry- ing express speeds the memory, recalling scenes that are as disconnected as the visions of a dream, but yet seem to group themselves round some provincial town or upland village. Alight at one of these obscure stations, and make your way to the little town which it serves. It matters little for the purpose where the town may be situated, provided that it is far enough away from bustling centres of trade to have escaped some of the conventionalities that follow in the wake of material progress. It is best to reach it by an omnibus, if not a diligence ; for, though the distance be not greater than five miles, the delays, the frequent halts, the dust, the self-importance of the driver, the clatter of the arrival, and the interest with which the coming of the vehicle is expected by the natives, all create the impression that thirty times that space divides the journey's end from the start- ing-point. The town must have seen better days, but, though decayed, it should not be entirely dead ; it should rather be the centre of local life, the seat of a market, the chef -lieu of the arrondis- sement. It has not yet adapted itself to the ROSES OF JERICHO. 17 fashion of the day ; it has no bald, boulevarded, Parisianised streets, wide, straight, and long as a day without bread, in which the traveller is frozen by the wintry wind or grilled by the sum- mer sun. It has bits of old ramparts shaded with plane trees, and labyrinths of lanes en- gineered on the mediaeval principle — dear alike to statesmen and architects — that one good or bad turn deserves another. It has, in fact, an abundance of corners and crevices, in which may grow the flowers and the weeds of the past. The very name of the hotel at which the traveller alights will help to foster the illusion that he has put not only miles, but centuries, between himself and his ordinary surroundings. Its sign, de la Haute Mfre Dieu or de V Image, carries him back to the days when men relied for safety in their journeys rather on the hand of an unseen Protector than on the latest sani- tary patent of Jennings. So, too, the names of the streets serve to strengthen the same impres- sion. Here he can sip honey with the Bourdon blanc, caper with the Chevres qui dansent, caracole on his destrier by the side of the Quatre jih d'Aymon, hunt Huguenots in the rue des Renards, or make the best of both worlds with the Chapcaux Violettes. The houses that rise on cither side of these quaintly named and tortuous streets are in keeping with the old-world atmos- 18 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. phere. They belong to every age and every style. Here is one with high-pitched roof and timbered front, its three stories jutting out one above the other like an inverted staircase. Another, decorated with the broken escutcheon of some noble family, fascinates the passer-by with the grotesque figures, into which its joists are carved, or that grimace from the gable-ends. On the door of a third, huge nails trace mys- terious hieroglyphs, some Protestant's con- fession of faith or some Leaguer's curse on Henri Quatre. A fourth, of less ambitious type, bears upon its front the symbols of a burgher's noblesse de la cloche. A fifth, standing back a few paces from the street, with a stone-paved courtyard, where pigeons are wooing with all the formal courtesies of Sir Charles Grandison, has an iron gateway, worked in the style of Louis the Fifteenth, with marvellous interlaced branches, the masterpiece of some unknown Jean Lamour. There are but few windows in these narrow streets through which the passer-by can peer ; probably also but few interiors, even if he could see them, would repay his curiosity by presenting any characteristic features. The furniture is modern, and gives no clue to the habits or tastes of the owners, past or present. Crimson plush and gilding are as omnipresent as once were black horsehair and mahogany in this country. At the most a few crudely ROSES OF JERICHO. 19 coloured prints from Spinal, in staring red and blue, suggest the churchwoman. But more rarely the style is distinctive. Here, for exam- ple, is a house which must once have belonged to a good citizen who prospered under the First Empire, and bequeathed to careful heirs the alabaster clock, the pier-glass set in its frame of fluted columns, the lyre-backed chairs, and the sofa with its arms adorned with brazen heads of rams or sphinxes. Here, rarer still, is another in the style of the eighteenth century ; the walls are wainscoted with varnished walnut- wood, with the panels decorated with scenes of the chase, or of Arcadia ; in a corner stands a bed of painted wood ; on the chimney-piece groups of faience de Luneville represent the four elements or the four seasons ; from the walls hang a pair of prints — L' Amour et Psyche and L' Amour desarme. Whatever may be the taste of the present owner, we may feel sure that in the days of her great-grandmother there lay in the drawer of the chiffonier, by the side of the piece of tapestry work, a volume of Voltaire's tragedies, and that the good lady declaimed scenes from Zaire, or hummed La Belle Bour- bonnaisc, as she prepared her pickles and pre- served her jam. Emerging into the business street of the town, the traveller passes into modern life, and, if it be market day, plunges into a scene of bustle 20 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. and picturesque confusion. Carts and gigs, tilted against the edges of the cobbled roadway, crowd the thoroughfare. The pavement is thronged with market-gardeners, farmers, pig- jobbers, horse-dealers, fowl-merchants, people with thick voices, thick red necks and thick sticks, wearing new blouses and fur caps. Shrillest and shrewdest bargainer of all, and conspicuous among the men with her bulgy cotton umbrella, her short skirts, her strong boots, and her round black straw hat, is the maitresse femme, who has been early left a widow. Stout, high-coloured, with sharp black eyes twinkling under thick eyebrows, and with something more than a suspicion of a mous- tache, she is given over, body and soul, to saving money. If she for a moment falls into a fit of abstraction — and you might almost as soon catch a weasel asleep — one hand unconsciously forms a cup, and above it mechanically rises the other, as though she were counting her sous by transferring the coins from the right hand to the left. Yet she has her virtues. Her bar- gain may be hard driven ; but, once struck, she will carry it out with strict honesty and scrupu- lous punctuality. The crowd grows denser, the noise more con- tinuous, as we approach the little place, which opens on the main street. Along its northern side runs the grey and buttressed wall of the ROSES OF JERICHO. 21 Church of St. Austremoine, whose western front still remains, from base to summit, a floral burst and laughter of stone, though its sculptured niches were defaced by the Hugue- nots, and its cloister, half-destroyed at the Revolution, is now used as a granary, which bears upon its makeshift door the rudely daubed inscription " Liberte, figalite, Fraternite." In its centre stands a fountain of the epoch and in the delicate style of the Renaissance, sur- rounded by avenues of limes, beneath which at intervals are placed benches of stone. On the side opposite to the church stretches the white front and green verandah of the Cafe de la Paix. On ordinary days the place, except in the evening, is almost a deserted spot. A retired citizen occupies one of the seats, a grizzled militaire suns himself on another, warming himself into the fancy that he is once more in Algeria ; on a third sits the grocer's maid-of- all-work, her hands clasped under her white apron, dreaming of her native village, and paying little heed to the over-dressed child which plays by her side in the dust. But to-day the place is bright with the red and blue um- brellas that shade the stalls, and noisy with the clatter of the keenest chaffering. Yet, busy though the scene is, it is steeped in that in- definable atmosphere of gay leisure which is the heritage of a people who, in spite of their 22 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. indefatigable industry, have yet succeeded in keeping on good terms with idleness. The itinerant tinman, the vendor of brown earthen- ware, and the dealer in damaged goods — a strangely miscellaneous assortment, which ranges from tattered books to rusty fire-irons — are the only representatives of the masculine gender among the stall-keepers. One or two men, with the abstracted air and shuffling gait which in France are peculiar to the unpro- tected male, are doing their marketing. But, for the rest, buyers and sellers alike are all women, and all appear to be middle-aged. Vain as a Papal bull against a comet is that Salic law passed by Frenchmen to exclude French women from ruling over them. The very existence of such a law is at once the admission of a danger and the acknowledgment of a defeat. Women, with their thumbs thrust through the handles of their doorkeys, and their knitting needles stuck into the bodies of their gowns, try, basket in hand, to cheapen their pur- chases. Beside the stalls of vegetables, eggs, poultry and fruit, sit or stand rows of women, who to the eyes of the foreigner are all curiously alike. Dressed in plain cloth gowns, with blue aprons tied round their ample waists, their sleeves turned up to the elbows and showing their bare arms — browned and roughened by exposure — they one and all have apple cheeks, ROSES OF JERICHO. 23 short square chins and snub noses, set in the white framework of the caps from which their grizzled hair escapes in rebel locks. Bright- eyed, quick in movement, ready of tongue, lively in gesture, they seem by their vivacious vitality to give the lie to the premature wrinkles, which tell a tale, not so much of years, as of a hard, preoccupied and anxious life. The Cafe, like the place, is transformed by the bustle of the market. On ordinary days between the hours of ten and twelve, or from two to four, the whiskered waiter, in his black jacket and white apron, would be lounging at the door, smoking his cigarette in the verandah among the box-trees in green tubs, the wooden tables covered with brown oilcloth, and the footstools. Within, the fat landlord might be playing piquet with the auctioneer, the veterin- ary surgeon, or the retired militaire. But no stranger is present, unless it is a black-suited commercial traveller, who, in a quiet corner, contemplates with pride the elaborate flourish which concludes the report of his morning's work. Even the throne behind the bar, placed in a commanding situation to face the door, and flanked on either side by an edifice of punch- bowls crowned with a pyramid of billiard balls, would be unoccupied. But to-day all is different. Not, indeed, the external or internal decorations — they remain as they were. O inside, the rabbit 24 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. still hangs suspended, by the side of a painter's palette, from a festoon of pink ribbon which loosely binds together the three piled billiard cues. Inside, the panels, which alternate with looking-glasses in covering the walls, still repre- sent groups of musketeers and amazons, who, with their every-day air of detached uncon- cern, drink champagne out of tall glasses in glades of hollyhocks. But the marble-topped tables within, and the wooden tables without, with fresh handfuls of sawdust thrown beneath them, are thronged with guests. Backwards and forwards hurries the waiter ; the fat land- lord bustles to and fro, ministering with his own hand to the wants of his more important guests ; the stout, comely dame de comptoir, with a new riband in her dark hair, occupies her throne, and, with lynx-eyed quickness, anticipates the wishes of her visitors by the incessant ring- ing of her bell. The Cafe, on such a day, or any evening, offers infinite scope for observation and reflec- tion. In France, its life is led by all the world, from the highest to the lowest. A history of cafes would be the most important chapter in the history of modern French society ; clean, bright and gay, they are the salons of the democracy. We have, to our national loss, nothing like them. There is a babel of voices ; but the chief stimu- lants are coffee or sorbets, and drunkenness is ROSES OF JERICHO. 25 practically unknown within their doors. At nearly every table there is the keenest gamb- ling ; the faces of the players are ablaze with eagerness ; the air resounds with " J'en donne " or " Je coupe et atout " ; cards or dominoes are banged down with a triumphant emphasis which rings through the room. But two lumps of sugar are the stake, and give that zest to the game which the English clerk or shop-boy craves, and too often gratifies by a fraud upon his mas- ter. If there are soldiers quartered in the town, the room becomes a shifting scene of blended colour. Here the blouse, there the broadcloth ; here the light blue and silver of a hussar, there the dark blue and green facings of the chasseurs a pied, or the red facings and red-plumed shako of the artillcrie a pied, or the red facings and red pompom of the infanterie de la ligne. Officers and men take their pleasures together under the same roof, but distinctions in rank are pre- served by punctilious salutes. The groups of officers are worthy of a moment's study, because in the knots that gather at the various tables may be marked those common differences in origin which to us are so rare as to present in- superable difficulties. By the side of the grizzled veteran, who has won his epaulettes from the ranks, sits the smooth-faced lad who has jumped into the same grade through the Ecole. I 26 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Wearied with the hubbub of the market, and dizzy with the babel of the Cafe, the traveller seeks to vary the scene. He has not far to go. He has but to cross the river and gain the summit of the hill above. On this side of the town the ground rises sharply towards a rocky crest, crowned by the ruins of a feudal fortress — a dismantled castle, whose solid keep has alone defied the powder of Mazarin. A steep path, deeply worn in the rock, winds upwards. A wrinkled sibyl, distaff in hand, herds the soli- tary goat which browses on the scanty herbage of its banks ; a bare-headed, bare-footed girl, knitting as she goes, marshals her flock of geese with a sv/itch ; a priest, with half-shut eyes and his thumb in his closed breviary, repeats his midday prayers, as he follows its windings, courting the line of diapered shadow which the plane trees cast upon the path. So far as human voices go, it is a silent spot, from which the traveller, seated among the ruined walls, looks down on the town nestling below the hill and encircled by the river. All around, the air is resonant with the chatter of jackdaws, the hum of insects, and the chirrup of grasshoppers. But these sounds, like that of the sheep cropping the short herbage, merely serve to intensify the still- ness and the solitude. Only the ceaseless rataplan of the bats of the washerwomen, rising from below, remind him that he is near the haunts of men. ROSES OF JERICHO. 27 The castle and its owners have played a stir- ring part in French history. The path itself, worn by the traffic of centuries, is that by which the mail-clad men-at-arms hurried down to hold the ford, or drove their booty to their fast- ness. No wise man travels without a hobby. One is an architect, or a botanist, or a geologist, or a fisherman ; another a student of manners and customs ; another a conqueror of Alpine peaks. Nor is the Muse of history so cold a prude that she can never put off her dignity. When once her robe and buskin are laid aside, and she has escaped the glacial influence of the critic, she becomes the most genial, accommo- dating and resourceful of companions. Never in the way and never out of it, she requires no paraphernalia of fishing-rods, or hammers, or specimen-cases, or ice-axes. She neither dwells apart on inaccessible peaks of snow, nor hides in antediluvian formations ; she is no shy nymph, only to be wooed and won in excep- tional conditions of wind and sky and water. At home in all weathers and all places, she can, with a wave of her hand, people the grass-grown streets of dull villages and humdrum towns with all the picturesque and motley actors in a brilliant past, and carry her companions back to the fresh spring morning of the world, when poetry and romance sparkled like dew on forms of life which now are parched and dust-be- 28 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. grimed. Happy those with whom she travels, and nowhere happier than in provincial France. So now, if that were the present object, we might close our eyes and hear again the clank of men-at-arms, or conjure up the gay va-et- vient of mediaeval court and hunting-lodge. But France of to-day, not France of the past, is the theme. If the traveller, following the path which leads away from the town, reaches the nearest village, he will find it silent and deserted. The men are in the fields : the women at market, • the washing-place, or har- vest. Sunning themselves before their doors, may sit a few white-capped old women, their trembling hands clasped over their sticks, their shoulders covered with gay-coloured hand- kerchiefs on which are printed battle scenes. The rhythmic tap of the cradle rockers within some cottage may tell its tale of infant life. A horse splashes through the half-dried pond ; the blue-green ducks quack, as they wallow in its slime. But other sounds there are none. The traveller retraces his steps and descends along the path, by which groups of market-women, chattering faster than their legs can carry them, are now returning to their homes among the villages on the plateau above. The river lies below him. If he be wise, he will seek its banks. The river is a sluggish stream, maintaining between flat banks an undeviating course. Yet, ROSES OF JERICHO. 29 if the fierce, turbulent Loire, with its sudden and disastrous floods, is truly the river of revolution- ary France, a stream of this more common type more adequately represents the ordinary aspects of French provincial life and character. It has passed through no stage of enthusiasm or ro- mance ; it was grown up when still a brook. It flows through centres of human life, caring for no other world than that of men. Easy of access, keenly alive to external impressions, suffering no passing object to escape the alert- ness of its notice, quick to reflect on its surface the most passing lights and ephemeral shadows, it will never achieve a romantic end by pre- cipitating itself from a precipice. So, too, the Frenchman — intensely and essentially objective, rarely pausing to analyse his own feelings or those of others, concentrated but not ab- sorbed in the immediate object of his pursuit, projecting himself readily and rapidly into the feelings of those by whom he is for the moment surrounded — has overleaped the stage of imag- inative romance which separates the child from the man. The average Frenchman remains, through- out his life, in many respects a child, just as the average Englishman remains, if not a schoolboy, an undergraduate. The Frenchman se range, when his English contemporary is wandering in the Rocky Mountains of thought or of reality. 30 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, many of the national characteristics are gov- erned by the fact that the intermediate stage between the child and the man — that of boyhood — is a transition through which the one never passes, and from which the other never emerges. A Frenchman, for example, courts admiration with the simplicity of a child ; he has a child's boastfulness, and a child's power of making believe. He calls the solitary box-tree in a painted barrel, by the side of which he drinks his coffee, a bosquet de verdure ; he describes his square yard of garden, with its miniature bed of dahlias, as a vaste jar din d'agrement ; with the eagerness of a six-year-old, he solicits your appreciation of their beauties. To him they are what he says ; he prizes them not at their material, but at their relative value. He has fathomed the true secret of happiness, and is a wiser philosopher than the man who sneers. At least he is no hypocrite like the Englishman, who would rather bite his tongue off than ex- press all the admiration that he feels for his own possessions ; — who affects to belittle them, describes his rural palace contemptuously as his " little bachelor box in the country," and would be seriously offended if his depreciation were accepted literally. The Frenchman never feels the personal sense of the ludicrous ; he has no perception of incon- ROSES OF JERICHO. 31 gruities ; he knows nothing of mauvaise honte ; he is a stranger to the self-consciousness of un- recognised dignity ; he cannot understand the meaning of the word " prig," because at no time, though often self-important, does he take the serious view of life, or of his part in it, the precocious conception of which distinguishes that variety of the human race. It is as a child that he can take delight in simple, almost in- fantine pleasures, that he enjoys himself freely and often selfishly, expresses his emotions openly, whether of joy, pleasure, affection, or rage, and walks in processions as if he were part of a pageant, not as if he were a shame- faced criminal. He cannot sympathise with the Englishman's dread of attracting attention. He cannot comprehend why the only emotion which it is desirable to display in public is ill-temper, or why crayfish a la Bordclaise should be eaten with the same air of stoical indifference with which we sit down to a cold mutton chop. If he is immoral, he is so frankly and without disguise ; he bangs the front door noisily as he goes or returns, while the Englishman, shoes in hand, lets himself out and in with a latch- key, and probably officiates the next morning at family prayers. It is, again, because he is never a boy, that the Frenchman remains a child in the zest with which he pursues his immediate end, the naturalness of his enjoyment, 32 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the perpetual freshness of his interests. He never mortgages the present for the future. It is this concentration on the passing moment which gives to French life its elan and abandon, its directness and rapidity, its sparkle, allure- ment and caprice. Perhaps, also, it is the same persistence of the child, which explains the incalculable element in the national character — an element that is ever present, and from time to time reveals itself in some deed of astonishing heroism or the reverse. Travellers in provincial France are prepared for the contrast. Pros- perous districts, rich in corn and wine, in fat beasts and fruits and flowers, seem to be the fitting home of men absorbed in making the best of life and getting from it its best. Yet, above the sea of waving wheat, there looms some grey mysterious monument of the Druids ; down upon the group of white green-shuttered cottages frowns some grim fortress of mediaeval feudalism ; out of a mist of fruit-blossom soars some heaven-aspiring triumph of Gothic archi- tecture. These were parts of the lives of the ancestors of the present generation of French- men. They tell of faculties and feelings that lie dormant among descendants, whose lives seem more secure and tranquil. But they hold in them the promise that the nation is ever read}? to attempt the impossible, to endeavour to conquer the boundaries of human effort, ROSES OF JERICHO. 33 and to add some new epic to their magnificent heritage. But the river has other lessons to teach. By the side of the stream stand rows of poplars, and under the shade of every tree sit fishermen watching intently the motions of their floats. Every age and rank are represented. The pro- vincial dignitary, laden with the affairs of state, sits between two ragged urchins, both more successful than himself. Their tackle is equally miscellaneous ; it ranges from the mast of " some great ammiral " and a line capable of holding Leviathan himself, to a mere twig, a coloured string and a crooked pin. Their common prey is the gudgeon, and the sport is par excellence the national pastime of provincial France, the index and the school of national character. It is here that the good people of the provinces acquire habits of frugality and patience, and are trained to be content with little and to make the most of everything. It is here that the rural shopkeeper was taught the motto, au-gagne-petit, which is the canon of his trade. Me apportions his family to his income : his quiver is never so full that he is forced into fraud. His pleasures are domestic; his dissipation is the cafe, where his sugar gives him a keener interest in his game than the bet which the British shop-boy robs the till to pay. It is here that the peasant lias learnt to cultivate 2 34 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. every barleycorn of soil, to utilise every possible coign of vantage, to collect the droppings of his cattle as carefully as the gold-seeker sifts sand for ore, and, prodigal of nothing but himself, sparing of everything except his labour, to toil the livelong day for infinitesimal rewards. Nature is bountiful to him, but he does not squander her largess. He himself, his wife, his cow, his dog, are beasts of draught and of burden ; his baby, as soon as it can toddle, is a herder of flocks ; the puff-ball puppy is trained to guard its master's property ; even the animals eat within their tether. As gud- geon-fishers the industrial classes have learned to live on food which the British pauper throws to the dogs. If wealth be attained, they neither slacken their exertions nor increase their expen- diture. They still don the blouse, whose purple patches are as honourable to them as the gaudy quarterings with which heralds adorn the coats of our successful tradesmen. The women wear their simple caps rather than affect those Parisian novelties which on the heads of some of our fellow-countrywomen are as grotesque as the kiss bestowed by Titania on the cheek of Bottom. Small and unworthy of notice though the single gudgeon may be, the friture is incom- parable. The lesson has been learned in many ways, and the influence of the national pastime ROSES OF JERICHO. 35 is not only culinary but literary, social and moral. From it the man of letters has learnt the art of raising a dainty palace out of airy nothings and of building on slender facts his un- rivalled generalisations. In society it has taught the Frenchman the value of small talk, and the unwisdom of only opening his mouth when he thinks that he has hooked a salmon. Morally it has revealed to him the secret that happiness consists, not in an isolated day of expensive enjoyment purchased by a vast outlay of time and trouble, but in the succession of small pleasures which lie at his feet — that it is, in fact, rather a mosaic of an infinite number of tiny gems than the single jewel of great cost, which philosophers seek and seldom find. The jostling of young and old in pursuit of the same sport keeps the grandpere in touch with the bebe. The juxtaposition of rags and respectability on the banks of the same stream carries on the work of the Cafe, and promotes the kindly feeling of rural classes. It also fosters that contempt for appearances which enables the country gentleman to tether his cows under his dining- room windows, to dispense with liveries for his servants, and to drive in his antiquated shay a horse not unacquainted with the plough. Gudgeon-fishers can have no false shame. Finally, the absurd disparity between the means and the end in guclgeon-iishing — a dis- 36 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. parity which runs through other forms of French sport — accounts for the absence of any sense of incongruity which in France meets and amuses us on every side. When, with imper- turbable gravity, the cat's-meat man pro- claims his wares with a fanfaronade of trumpets which might herald the approach of a conqueror of kingdoms, we feel that he must occupy his spare time in fishing for gudgeon with a bar- ber's pole and a hawser. The same reflection may explain, in French literature, the frequent contrast between the grandiloquence of the exordium and the insignificance of the con- clusion ; it may also help us to comprehend the process of thought by which a would-be land- scape gardener, with a taste for topiary work, can cheaply satisfy his passion by clipping the back of his poodle into rosettes and pompons, or to understand the habit of mind of the carter who gravely harnesses with bits of string an ass no bigger than a dog as the leader to the mag- nificent Percheron who stands eighteen hands high in the shafts. In England natural gudgeon-fishers are un- fortunately rare. But they may be trained ; and never had any nation a greater need of reviving a lost art or practising a forgotten craft. Much is talked about " salmonising " the Thames. It would be more useful to stock it with gudgeon. If we could only establish an ROSES OF JERICHO. 37 inspector of gudgeon fisheries in the place of the guardians of our salmon, the country would be happier. But writer and reader alike are weary of moralising. It is growing late in the evening of an early autumn day. Summer is dving ; a shiver passes over the plain, and faint white mists begin to float in undulating wisps across the flat meadows. It is time to make for the bridge and the town. On the bridge is gathered a motley crowd. Sleek citizens have closed their doors, and sallied forth, with their wives and sons and daughters and servants, to take the air ; peasants bid adieu till the next market day to the dancing lights of the local metropolis, and, laden with baskets and bundles, tramp sturdily home- wards ; artisans lean over the bridge to catch the freshness of the river breeze ; on the para- pet sit men and women, boys and girls, chatter- ing and twittering like swallows on a church tower. Here the bucherons, bent double be- neath their loads, rest their burdens against the sides of the bridge to interchange a pinch of snuff. There washerwomen poise their hottes upon the wall and free their arms for a gossip. Beneath, great timber-laden barges shoot silently from under the arches, and lose themselves in the dark shadow of the poplars beyond. Above, soldiers swarm like bees, gather into knots, disperse, and collect again. Reservistes of all 38 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. shapes and sizes, uniform only in the inevitable red trousers and long blue coat, stand awkwardly at attention to salute a group of officers who pass clanking down the pavement. Now and then a tramp slouches by, begging his way, not like the mediaeval palmer, to the Holy Land, but to Paris. Two priests, enjoying a hard-earned holiday, pause by the parapet ; the one short, round and rubicund ; the other tall, spare, severe. It is ever thus ; the jour gras always hunts in couple with the jour maigre. The one leans his paunch against the bridge, doffs his tricorne, mops his face, and looks down upon the lights dancing on the stream below ; the other stands erect, gazing across the mirror which the river holds out to life, into the depths of the distant shadows. Sportsmen, faultless in all the details of their appointment, followed wearily by their liver-and-white pointers, tramp over the bridge into the town. A grey-bearded goat jumps upon the parapet, looks inquisitively at the water below, shakes his head, leaps down, and scampers off, as the wild reedy note of the herds- man's pipe blends with the blare of the cowhorn with which a personage in a general's uniform hawks copies of Le Petit Journal at a half- penny apiece. Down the centre of the bridge pours an incessant stream of vehicles. Over the paved causeway clatters a " dogue cart," ROSES OF JERICHO. 39 with jangling bells, and Cesar or Minos yelping in advance. The great grey horses strain against their lyre-shaped painted collars, and strike sparks from the stones as they answer to the whips and shouts of the drivers in the effort to drag the high-wheeled timber-laden waggons up the steep pitch of the crown of the bridge. Creaking and groaning over the pavement lumbers a bullock cart, as rude in construction as the state coach of King Dagobert. Ante- diluvian hooded gigs pass by at a steady pace, filled with peasants, the women holding lanterns on their ample knees, the horses going at a dogged, patient trot, as though they knew that they must travel far on into the night before the home is reached in one of the little clearings of the forest of the Laigue. From the town beyond comes the lively rattle of the drums, as with quick step the patrol beats the rataplan through the streets, and all is over for the day. FRENCH FARMING. ENGLAND draws her supplies from the civilised world, while France is self- sufficing, and might be self-supporting. Eng- land concentrates her agriculture on bread, milk, and meat ; the produce which is raised in France is as varied as it is abundant. No comparison between the two countries in respect of fertility is fair if it is based solely on products of which our farmers have made a speciality. While variety is the essence of French husbandry, quantity and quality within a limited range are the characteristic of English farming. Within her own borders France produces not only the necessaries but the luxuries of exist- ence, all that is required to enjoy as well as to support life. England can breed no finer horses for their respective purposes than the Anglo- Norman carriage-horse, the sturdy Percheron, the heavy animal of the Boulonnais, or the mettled race bigourdane of the plain of Tarbes. Of her native cattle France is justly proud. The white Charollais-Nivernais cattle are un- rivalled for their precocity and their power of FRENCH FARMING. 41 work. The golden-hued cattle of the Parthenais, with their delicate heads, large soft eyes, and black points, fill the markets of Cholet, or are bought up by Norman graziers for the rich pastures of the Vallee d'Auge ; like the Li- mousin cattle, they are excellent in the plough, but are slow in arriving at maturity. No finer beef is sent to market than that of the Man- celle breed crossed with the Durham, which the Comte de Falloux has brought to perfection ; and England cannot dream of competing with the veal of Champagne. The cows of the Cotentin have no superiors as milkers. The bright- coloured red Salers or Auvergne cattle, with wide-open, backward-sloping, tapering horns, or their rivals of the d'Aubrac breed, with their white muzzles and badger-coloured hides, or the race femcline of Franche-Comte, are praised for their excellence in meat, milk, and work. Agriculturists in the south again have their special breeds, such as the race gasconne or the race ariegeoise — the strongest workers of dis- tricts south of the Garonne — the races bazadaise, garoiuuiisc, landaise, and basqiiaisc. The department of the Aisne, and especially the neighbourhood of Soissons, holds its own with its merinos and metis-merinos against the English Leicesters, while the mutton of the Berrichon or the Solognot is as famed for its delicacy as that of Clun Forest or Wales, and 42 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the ewes of the Larzac breed, on the pebbly causses of Aveyron, produce the celebrated Roquefort cheese. The mules of Poitou, of Barcelonnette (Basses-Alpes), and of Hautes- Pyrenees are famous for their size and strength. The long-necked, wall-sided, round-backed, long-legged white pig, once so familiar in rural districts, is improved by judicious crossing; and the pure races Craonnaise, Normande, Limousine and Perigourdine are not to be de- spised. In the production of milk, butter, and cheese the Vallee d'Auge, the terre classique de I'herbe where grass is literally the bras d'or, and the districts of Isigny and Gournay are un- rivalled by the richest pastures of which this country can boast. The eggs and poultry of the fowl-yards of Western Normandy supply food both to France and England. The northern departments not only feed thousands of cattle on the pulp of the beetroot, but manufacture enough sugar for home con- sumption and foreign exportation. The mul- berry plantations of Gard or H6rault, the wool of the Aisne, and the flax of the Pas de Calais supply the raw material of the textile fabrics of France. " Les arbres de Normandie," as Bernardin de St. Pierre called the apple trees, produce cider in abundance ; wines and spirits of all kinds and qualities are manufactured from vines, beetroot, or potatoes ; hops supply the FRENCH FARMING. 43 wants of her people, though the loss of the Alsa- tian provinces has reduced the growth ; olive- yards and walnuts produce oil for domestic use. France supplies the English markets with her early vegetables, the asparagus of Argen- teuil, the artichokes and broccoli of Roscoff, and the kitchen-garden produce of the environs of Paris or the hortillons of Amiens. Every grocer's shop in Europe contains her almonds, her preserved fruits, her dried apples, or her tinned vegetables. According to the season she floods Covent Garden with her strawberries, cherries, pears, apricots, and plums ; her chasse- las grapes from Thomery, her peaches from Montreuil, or her melons from Vaucluse. Angers sends her flowers, famous since the days of King Rene, and Grasse her perfumes to every part of the country. Nor is France deficient in the more solid sources of national wealth. She has coal, iron, lead, stone, timber, slate, and clay for earthenware in rich abundance. La Belle France fairly earns the enthusiasm of her patriotic inhabitants by her natural fertility. France is, in fact, a country of varieties and of differences ; her climate, her soil, her scen- ery, her agricultural practices, her land tenures are no less diversified than her crops. Every climate, except that of the tropics, is repre- sented in the country. Her soil is, on the whole, superior to that of England, and in one respect 44 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. she has a marked advantage. Berri has its brandes, Gascony its landes, Champagne its bald, dusty chalk hills ; but throughout the length and breadth of the country there are none of those stubborn clays which break the heart of the English farmer. Her scenery is said to be monotonous ; yet every district, even among those which bear no marked features, differs from its neighbour. The rolling, treeless, unen- closed plains of Picardy are totally unlike the small, well-wooded, double-hedged fields of Normandy, or the closeries of Anjou, or the copse-clad labyrinth of short, choppy hills and valleys of the Vendean bocage, where the peas- antry could literally fulfil the command s'egail- ler, and disperse themselves like dew. The uniformity of English agriculture, land tenures, and civilisation imprint monotony on much of her rural economy. But throughout France diversities of climate, land-ownership, and land tenure have left their mark. Here farm labour- ers are hired by the year, and arc lodged and fed in the farmhouse ; here they have their separate homes — houses which they have purchased with their savings — and small properties that supple- ment their weekly wages. Each flock of sheep is here the property of a single owner, here of many Provencal sheepmasters ; here, as in Champagne, the common herdsman leads the flocks of the villagers to the pastures. Here is FRENCH FARMING. 45 a metayer or a viaitre valet ; here a peasant pro- prietor, or a Picard holding under the droit de marche ; here a rack-rented tenant-farmer, or a Breton domanier a congement. Each differ- ent system of land tenure affects the grouping of the rural population. In Seine-et-Marne or Somme, large farms and farmsteads, isolated from one another, are the rule, as on a smaller scale they are in Brittany. In Champagne, Picardy, or La Brenne the cultivators of the soil are grouped together in villages ; a palisade of hedge and trees marks the clusters in which, on the high table-land of the Pays de Caux, the Cauchois congregate ; in Marche the farmers are clustered together in village communities of peasant owners, each village group consist- ing of members of the same family. Architec- tural peculiarities mark the differences of climate or of soil ; the white, flat-roofed, red-tiled houses of the south, the Norman farmsteads standing in the midst of pastures and orchards, the Pyrenean dwellings built of flints interspersed with courses of brick, the whitewashed buildings of Saintonge, the brick walls and slated roofs of the Ardennes, the black, lava-built dens of the Auvergnat, the sombre granite houses of the Breton, the thatched" cottages of the Marche, the cave dwellings burrowed into the chalk cliffs of the Loire, each tell their own, and each a different story. 46 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Variety is at once the charm and the solid advantage of France. It is by her diversities of soil and climate that her peasant proprietary thrives. By the same diversity she is protected against foreign competition or adverse seasons. As in England the relations of landlord and tenant-farmer constitute practically the only system of land tenure, and corn-growing and cattle-feeding her only agricultural industry, so her districts are purely agricultural or purely manufacturing. It is not so in France, and too much stress can hardly be laid on the contrast. On the one hand, her land tenures are more flex- ible and more elastic, and her modes of culti- vation more diversified, so that all her eggs are not stored in a single basket ; on the other hand, agriculture and manufacture are not separated into distinct districts. The squalid haunts of English trade are surrounded at the best by blackened wastes ; in French Flanders dense population and high farming advance hand in hand. At the doors of factories, at the brink of coal-pits, is some of the best cultivated land in the world, land which affords recreation and profit to thousands of artisans. The impor- tance of this feature in its bearing on the happi- ness of the industrial population and on the alleged pulverisation of the ownership of French soil can hardly be exaggerated. To attempt within the limits of a single essay FRENCH FARMING. 47 a detailed picture of the varied rural economy of France would be an impossible task. I pro- pose first to sketch the history of her agricul- tural progress ; and, secondly, to glance at the existing condition of the cultivators of the soil, in order to see whether the varied relations of labour with land which prevail in France have stood the strain of agricultural depression better than the uniform system of landlords and tenant-farmers with which we are familiar in England. Traces still linger of the primitive method of common field husbandry upon which, in France as well as in England, was superim- posed the feudal system. In Marche, for in- stance, the border country of " no man's land " which separated the roitclct of Bourges from his English rival in Aquitaine, are to be found family communities grouped in villages con- sisting of from ten to twenty houses, inhabited by men of the same name who farm their private properties and enjoy the use of common lands. The Department of the Creuse, which repre- sents part of this district, contains about 3-J mil- lion acres. Of this, 1,900,000 acres are owned by peasant proprietors, and 650,000 acres are held in common. Interesting as it would be to trace the growth of this system out of the primitive village communitv, and to follow the steps by which it was almost universally ex- 48 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. changed for some form of feudal tenure, my present object is rather to sketch the growth in importance and efficacy of the despised prac- tice of agriculture. At *first in France, as well as in England, the monks were the only pioneers of good farm- ing. The North of France owes some of its agri- cultural pre-eminence to the start which it ob- tained through the great monastic establish- ments with which it was studded. Already in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the monas- teries had begun to reclaim the vast forest of the Ardennes which stretched from the east to the sea coast. In other districts their influence proved less advantageous. La Brenne in Berri, like the Vale of Evesham, was sacrificed to their desire for grain crops, when pasture was the natural source of wealth. Yet even here it has been to the monks of St. Cyran and Meobecq that the Brennois owes the pisciculture of the district, with its three well-arranged ponds a menu, a norrain, and dgros poisson. With the fourteenth century begins the litera- ture of French farming. And here, on the thresh- old of the history, appears a distinctive differ- ence in point of development between French and English agriculture. Charles V caused the treatise of Crescentius of Bologna to be trans- lated into French, and paid 1,000 livres to " le rustique Jean de la Brie, dit le Bon Berger," FRENCH FARMING. 49 for his " Livre de Berger." Thus, while in Eng- land the gentry succeeded the monks as pioneers of agriculture, in France it is the State, whether represented by the monarchy, the empire, or the republic, which followed the Church in pro- moting the progress of good farming. The six- teenth century witnessed a general impulse to the study of agriculture. It was now that Her- rera in Spain, Tarello in Italy, Heresbach in Ger- many, Fitzherbert and Tusser in England wrote upon the subject. In 1554, Charles Estienne, a member of the illustrious family of printers, published his " Praedium Rusticum," which was the first methodical work on French agri- culture. It contains disquisitions on every- thing necessary for country life, descends into such details as the management of bees, and con- cludes with a curious chapter on sport and on birds and beasts of chase. As Googe trans- lated Heresbach, so Gervase Markham made an English version of the " Praedium Rusticum." The gentry began to pay attention to the culti- vation of the soil. Michel de l'Hopital solaced his exile from court with his farm at Etampes. One other book of importance belongs to this period. In 1563 Bernard Palissy, the Huguenot potter, wrote his " Recepte veritable par laquelle to us les homines de la France pourront appren- dre a multiplier et augmenter leur tresors." It may be compared with Fitzherbert's treatise 50 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. on surveying, and Markham's " Improvement of the Weald of Kent." Religious wars checked further progress. When peace was restored, Henry IV and Sully laboured to promote a better state of things. Strong in the faith that arable and pasture farm- ing is the nursing-mother of a State and the true gold mine of Peru, they protected agri- cultural implements from seizure for debt, offered rewards for the reclamation of wastes, opened out new roads, and urged the adoption of new crops and improved practices. Nicot had already introduced the tobacco plant ; the potato was known as food for cattle ; beetroot, hops, and forage crops were ready for use, but their value was little understood. To destroy the wolves which devoured sheep by thousands, Henry revived the louvetiers whom Francis I had instituted ; to improve the French horses he organised the State-breeding establishments. In Olivier de Serres, Seigneur du Pradel, the father of French agriculture, the king and his adviser found an able coadjutor. At Henry's request, de Serres wrote a treatise on the silk- worm. But his great work is his " Theatre d'Agriculture," published in 1600. He wrote of the beetroot : " Le jus qu'elle rend en coulant est semblable au sirop a sucre." It was two centuries before his hint was taken, when France was thrown back by the loss of her colonial FRENCH FARMING. 51 sugar supplies upon her native resources. He also insisted on the value of sainfoin, and intro- duced it into the Vivarais. Arthur Young was an enthusiastic admirer of the great French agriculturist, made a pilgrimage to his birth- place, Villeneuve de Berg (Ardeche), and sub- scribed to the statue then being erected to his honour. Once more a dreary interval elapsed during which agriculture remained stationary. Colonial and commercial enterprise, or foreign aggran- disement, absorbed the energies of the Min- isters of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. As in England so in France, little use was made of the new crops which subsequently enriched the country. No care was bestowed on the improve- ment of live stock ; horses alone received atten- tion ; the Government haras date from the seventeenth century, and the only important work published in the period is the " Parfait Marechal " of Jacques de Soleyssel. Yet the name of Dom Pierre Perignon of the Abbey of Hautvilliers, near Epernay, who died in 1715, deserves to be venerated as the inventor of champagne. The tide of fashion set in the direction of Le Notre 's improvements, who laboured to show how L'Art peut subjuguer la Nature rebelle. The patronage of Louis XIV was reserved for 52 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. this " Capability " Brown of the seventeenth century, and for Jean de la Quintinie, the first kitchen gardener of the day. On the peasantry the reign of the " Grand Monarque " inflicted cruel hardships. The fre- quent risings of the Jacquerie in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries proved that even the proverbial patience of a rural population was limited. Throughout the sixteenth century re- bellions had been frequent ; Guienne had had its Piteaux in 1541, and Auvergne its Gauthiers in 1562 ; in 1594 Perigord was harried by the Croquants, whose name passed into a common expression for a " poor wretch " : Passe un certain croquant qui marchait les pieds nus. But the peasants had never before known such misery as between 1680 and 1750. In 1697 they were obliged, as Boisguilbert states in his " Detail," to sell the land which they had pain- fully acquired in the two preceding centuries. Famine was chronic in rural districts ; bread made of fern leaves was the diet of the peasantry, and they died like flies. The winters of 1709 and 1740 were two of the severest ever known ; the cattle plague which visited the country in 1747 carried off its victims by the thousand ; taxes grew heavier every day, and their inci- dence fell exclusively on the industrial classes. The nobility Hocked to Paris, became absentees, FRENCH FARMING. 53 and vied with one another in lavish display, for which the peasant paid. Campaigns abroad denuded the country of its strength at home ; the wars of religion or of the Fronde had turned districts, like Berri and Sologne, into deserts, the peasantry wandered over the country, list- less, livid spectres, neglecting their land because they had no certainty of reaping its fruits, living on roots and herbs. Vauban, in his " Dime Royale," states that one-tenth of the people were beggars, and that five-tenths of the remainder could give no alms because they were starving. The revocation of the edict of Nantes destroyed hundreds of local industries which had eked out the earnings of the peasantry. Thus, to take a single district in the North of France, the hat factory of Neufchatel near Caudebec, the paper-mills of Vire, the cloth works of Coutances, the pin factories of Conches and Laigle, were either wholly or partially closed. The old Burgundian saving applied in the seventeenth century to many parts of Central France : Lii mil truis ci at quarante et huit A Xuits de cent resterent huit. Even the measures taken by the Government to prevent the recurrence of famine aggra- vated the evil. Everything was sacrificed to corn; the time for sowing was riNspd by law; vineyards were ploughed up ; no new crops 54 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. could be introduced ; the impoverished soil be- came more and more exhausted. The second half of the eighteenth century- witnessed a complete change. We turn, as it were, from the sombre etchings of La Bruyere to the smiling pictures of Watteau. The best side of the reign of Louis XV and of the ascen- dency of Madame de Pompadour is the encour- agement offered to agriculture. The period from 1750 to 1789, in spite of many dark fea- tures, is the brightest we have yet reached in the history of French husbandry. Farmers felt the spur of commercial progress. Political science and philosophy combined to encourage agriculture. Law's disastrous enterprises had so shaken the old commercial system, that France welcomed with delight the theory that Quesnay and the physiocrats pushed to extrava- gant lengths, and believed land to be the only source of wealth, and tillers of the soil the only productive labourers. The Encyclopaedists and Rousseau stimulated the love of rural life by their doctrine of a return to nature. Country pursuits became a passion : Choiseul est agricole et Voltaire est fermier. Agriculture was officially recognised as a de- partment of the administration in 1759. The agromanie was encouraged not only by Louis XV, his mistresses, and his Ministers, but by FRENCH FARMING. 55 men of science like Buff on. Sevres china pre- sented its idyllic pictures of Arcadian felicity ; and Voltaire, the darling of the hour, wrote : Et Ton ne doit pas moins pour le soutien du trone A la faux de Ceres qu'au sabre de Bellone. Enlightened prelates, like the Archbishop of Bordeaux or the Bishop of Agde, who intro- duced into Lower Languedoc the African sheep of the race barbarine, vied with the lay peers in agricultural zeal. The Marquis de Turbilly was the Townshend of the new movement, and offered the best example of a reforming landlord. He improved his estates near La Fleche, re- claimed wastes, and incited his tenantry to healthy rivalry. He was the adviser of Louis XV, and of Bertin, the first Minister of Agriculture, and his Memoire sur les defrichements " (1760) was studied by Arthur Young. A host of agri- cultural writers sprang up, among whom may be mentioned Duhamel de Monceau and Mira- beau, the father of a more celebrated son, whose " Ami des Hommes " was published in 1755. In 1751 the first agricultural newspaper, the " Journal Economique," was set on foot by Guettard and Boudet. An agricultural society was established at Rennes in 1757, and this example was followed in every part of the country. In 1761 a central society was formed at Paris, to correspond with the various local 56 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. societies. A veterinary school was created at Lyons in 1762, chiefly through the instrumen- tality of Charles Bourgelat ; and four years later a second was founded at Alfort. Prizes were offered at provincial academies on agricultural topics ; courses of lectures were given on botany ; steps were taken to establish itinerant inspectors and professors ; finally, Bertin him- self opened the model-farm school at Annel- les-Bertinval near Compiegne. The movement culminated in the reign of Louis XVI, who placed himself at its head. Marie-Antoinette had her dairy at the Trianon, and Louis, by the aid of Daubenton, formed his flock of merinos at Rambouillet with the Abbe Tessier for its head shepherd. Great landlords followed the royal example, like the Due de Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the patron of Arthur Young, who established his model farm at Lian- court, or the Due de Bethune-Charost, of whom Louis XV said, " il n'a pas beaucoup d'ap- parence, mais il viviiie trois de mes provinces." It was now that Parmentier introduced the potato into cultivation as an article of human food, and his name is commemorated in a soup ; turnips were imported from England into the North of France, and the Government spent a considerable sum on the purchase of seed from English farmers ; mangel-wurzels were brought from Germany ; the use of sain- FRENCH FARMING. 57 foin and colza spread in the northern districts. Now also Althen, whose romantic life was chiefly passed in slavery in the East, introduced madder into the district of Vaucluse, made the fortune of the province, and died in miserable poverty. Gilbert, who might almost be called the Arthur Young of France, was the apostle of judicious rotations, and sought to improve the old three-course system, with its wasteful fallows, by using such crops as lucerne, clover, vetches, and sainfoin. The Government redoubled its efforts to pro- mote the growth of farming. It recognised the value of statistical information, and charged intendants with the duty of procuring from every parish returns, many of which are still extant, of the prospects and results of the harvests. It distributed tracts and treatises, encouraged men of science to investigate the principles of farming, fostered stock breeding. New systems, crops, and implements were introduced ; new blood was imported from Denmark to improve the Breton horses ; the Dishley sheep were smuggled into the North of France to cross with the merinos. Forest laws were better administered ; rivers and water- courses were cleaned, straightened, and em- banked. Fiscal imposts were lightened ; ex- emptions from taxation conferred on the best farmers ; military duties modified in the in- 58 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. terests of the tillers of the soil ; aid was dis- tributed to those who had suffered from floods, storms, bad harvests, or the cattle plague. It is curious to notice the demand for free trade. Wages, it was said, could not rise unless corn was rendered dearer by permission to export. France at the end of the eighteenth century was a free trader for the same reason which now in the twentieth century makes the nation pro- tectionist. Other economists were more vision- ary or more enlightened. Turgot and Mirabeau dreamed of free trade in corn in peace and war, with friends and enemies. One of Turgot's first measures as a Minister was to authorise the free circulation of corn within the limits of the kingdom, a measure which he had advocated in his famous letters written as intendant of the Limousin. In 1787 freedom to export corn out of the country was granted. A committee of agricultural inquiry was appointed, on which sat such men as Lavoisier, Dupont de Nemours, Tillet, and the Abbe Lefebre. Its recommen- dations throw considerable light on the existing state of agriculture. The committee complains of the inability of corporate bodies to grant leases, the incidence of tithes, the vexatious rights of common pasture. It deplores the small quantity of live stock, and points out the means of carrying a larger head afforded by roots and artificial grasses. It proposes to encourage do- FRENCH FARMING. 59 mestic industries by the cultivation of flax and hemp and the establishment of spinning schools. It advocates, as the Abbe Rozier had already done, the creation of experimental farms. It urges the reclamation of sandy wastes by the growth of pines. The credit of this last recom- mendation was due to Bremontier, who was per- mitted to carry out his plan on the sterile dis- tricts between the Gironde and the Adour. In the reign of Louis XVIII a statue was erected on the dunes, which he had fertilised, to the memory of the man who conquered for his country upwards of 370,000 acres. For the most part the Government proved powerless to carry out its projected reforms ; an empty treasury, an exhausted credit, a corrupt currency, presented insurmountable obstacles. As though in mockery of deferred repentance, these tardy efforts only served to accelerate the Revolution. The peasantry were still exposed to cruel injustice. Inequalities of taxation, local and personal, urban and rural, exemptions bestowed upon the rich, different laws, customs and usages created a chaos of inextricable confusion which readily lent itself to endless waste, corruption and wrong. Turgot and Xecker failed to break up the corn rings ; societies of jobbers still raised and lowered prices ; and it was the royal specu- lations in these operations which gave rise to the 60 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. legend of the " Pacte de Famine," and sent the Paris mob to seek the boulanger at Versailles. Like all these tardy efforts at reform, the fashion- able pursuit of agriculture and the sympathy of philosophers only rendered revolution more imminent. Formerly the peasant was sunk in torpid acquiescence ; he accepted his con- dition as inevitable ; his mind was concentrated on the accumulation of sou after sou to gratify his soif du sillon. Now he awoke to find that he was the only productive labourer, the sole representative of the virtues of primitive society ; landlords apologised for the feudal dues which they exacted ; State tax-gatherers admitted the fiscal system to be intolerable. As the peasant paid his dues at the mill, the bakehouse, the winepress, the bridge, the market ; as he was dragged from his plough to labour for others, while his own land lay unfilled — his smouldering discontent was fanned into a flame. No longer torpid and apathetic, he was alert, open-eyed, straining his ears to catch the faintest whisper of coming change. At last two passionate desires banished every other feeling from his mind — the fierce wish to sweep away those royal, ecclesiastical, and feudal dues which he was told were as unjust as he knew them to be oppressive, and the intense longing to possess the land which he was assured was his by natural right. FRENCH FARMING. 61 When the storm burst, the condition of the peasant was indisputably improved. Terri- torial privileges were abolished, feudal incidents disappeared ; the peasant proprietor was freed from his fetters. Though the Revolution did not create, it greatly enlarged his class. In the fourteenth century peasant proprietors were numerous in France, and, on the whole, they increased continuously. In 1697 they were forced, as we have seen, to sell their estates. But this check was only temporary. Forbon- nais points out that in 1750 impoverished landlords sold their lands to their tenants. Necker states that there was in his time line immensite of peasant proprietors. Doniol (" Hist, des Classes Rurales ") savs that before the Revolution a quarter of the soil had passed into their hands. Arthur Young goes further when he declares that in 1787 a third of the land was tilled by peasant owners. The returns on which the land tax was based in 1790 show that, in many districts, the number of proprie- tors then amounted to two-thirds of those among whom the land is now divided. It is probable that before the Revolution there were four millions of peasants who farmed their own land. The sale of the lands of the Church, the nobles, and the communes increased their num- ber by nearly a half. It would have added many more, but that the sale of the common 62 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. lands was suspended because it deprived com- moners of their rights. The early extinction of commons in the north is one of the most im- portant causes of its agricultural supremacy. The National Assembly, the Convention, and Napoleon interested themselves in the promotion of the science of farming. Ex- perimental farms were established at Sceaux and Versailles ; Gilbert was employed to im- port merinos from Spain ; a national sheep- fold was established at Aries ; Napoleon ordered an accurate agricultural survey of the country. But the real energies of the country were absorbed elsewhere, and progress was suspended. Thouin, Francois de Neufchateau, the Comte de Chanteloup, Francois Yvart, and many others vainly strove to inculcate the union of science with practice. Their words fell unheeded on the ears of a nation absorbed in the conquest of the world or a death-grapple for existence. Another cause which impeded the growth of scientific agriculture was the ill- success of theorists. As Gabriel Plattes, Jethro Tull, and Arthur Young failed in land manage- ment, so the Marquis de Turbilly, the Comte de Chanteloup, and Althen lost fortunes by their experiments. In more peaceful times France has advanced with great rapidity. Among the crowd of names associated with recent progress we shall mention only three — FRENCH FARMING. 63 names hardly less familiar in England than in France — those of Mathieu Dombasle, de Gas- parin, and Leonce de Lavergne. The first- named conferred inestimable benefits on the country by the improvements which he effected in agricultural implements. His statue at Nancy represents him in his simple farming dress, holding in his hand the " Annales de Roville " ; at his feet is the plough, which symbolises his extraordinary influence on the cultivation of the soil. Since 1840 thousands of acres have been added to the profitable occupation of the country. Waste lands have been broken up, marshes drained, sands planted, foreshores enclosed ; in Brittany alone 750,000 acres have thus been brought into cultivation. New roads have been opened up, new facilities of transport provided, new markets brought to the door of the farmer. Agricultural education, adapted to the scientific and the ignorant, has been organised by the State in a manner which cannot fail to produce important results. In the best cultivated districts of France the soil is well tilled, and the crops are well adapted to the requirements of the locality ; the best implements are employed ; marl, lime, and manures are freely used ; the wasteful system of fallow is abandoned. Farm buildings have im- proved, and, if France uses less machinery in 64 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the cultivation of the soil, it is because less is required. But, true to her character for variety, the difference between the best and the worst cultivated districts is startling. The cereal produce of the country has more than doubled since 1815 ; the area of wheat cultivation has extended, to the restriction of rye and maslin ; and, though the average yield of wheat per acre scarcely exceeds half that of England, that of. oats has nearly doubled, and the French farmer competes successfully with his English rival both in the quantity and in the quality of his barley. In industrial crops the most noticeable feature is the extended cultivation of sugar beetroot, the lever of northern farmers, which has increased fivefold in the past forty years. In meadow management and in dairy farming the French are admittedly our rivals ; they are our superiors in the produce of their poultry- yards. In horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs a marked improvement is manifest both in quan- tity and in quality. Yet the great deficiency in the rural economy of France still continues to be the comparatively small quantity of its live stock. For this there are several reasons. The peasant proprietor values his cattle for their work, as well as for their milk, meat, and manure. He cannot afford to keep two sets of animals, horses for the plough and cattle for the butcher. But this question FRENCH FARMING. 65 of employing cattle in agricultural operations has recently assumed a new aspect. Formerly the peasant killed his cattle either too soon or too late — as young calves, or as worn-out ani- mals from the plough. He still rears calves for the butcher, an operation which we in England regard as wasteful, but which is profitable for small landowners. He still sends his cattle to the market after they have served their time at the plough. But he no longer sends them when they are aged and worked to skin and bone. He uses them carefully for five or six years, and then sells them to the grazier before they are too exhausted to be fattened. French- men urge that the beef of healthy animals is far better than that of the unnaturally pre- cocious beasts which our farmers send to market at two years old. Again, sheep have declined in numbers, and it is obvious that this diminution is the inevitable result of the exten- sion of a peasant proprietary. There is no room for a flock upon his small holding. The ex- tinction of value pdtiirc, and parcours, and common rights has destroyed the only means which the peasant possessed of keeping sheep. Other causes combine to produce the same re- sult. Wool no longer fetches its price, and the peasant will not eat mutton. Since the days of Bakewell English sheep have been bred for meat ; French sheep from the time of 66 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Louis XVI have been valued for their wool. If it is said, Why not breed sheep exclusively for meat ? the answer would be, Who is to eat it ? Parts of Bas-Languedoc, and especially the department of the Aude, are the only dis- tricts with which I am acquainted in which the beef of the pot-au-feu is replaced by mutton. The labourer fed on the farm in Touraine or Anjou expects beef, and turns up his nose at mutton ; domestic servants will rarely touch it. Except in the towns it is hardly eaten. But if we trace to this deficiency of live stock the defects of French farming, the ultimate cause of both defects and deficiencies is the slow growth of the population. All the improvements to which we have alluded have been effected without the stimulus of rapidly increasing num- bers. In the seventeenth century the popula- tion of France was about twenty millions. In 1881 it was 37,672,000. The " Journal of the Statistical Society " for January 1881 states that while the birth-rate exceeds the death-rate in Sweden by 11. 5 per thousand, in Denmark by 11. 1, in the United Kingdom by 9.2, in France the annual excess is only 2.3. In some districts the population is actually declining. This remarkable contrast between England and France explains the divergence in the agri- cultural history of the two countries. In many points French agriculture has fol- FRENCH FARMING. 67 lowed the same lines of development as English farming. Both countries felt the impulse given to agriculture in the sixteenth century, which in both countries gave birth to a great agricul- tural literature. The misery of rural France in the central portion of the period is paralleled by the condition of the rural population under the Tudors, though the causes were in the one case civil war, in the other industrial revolution. Towards the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, agri- culture revived in both countries, only to be in both countries checked as the period advances. From 1740 onwards the progress of both coun- tries was rapid. Farmer George, like Louis XVI, headed the movement ; great landlords followed the royal lead ; Lord Townshend, Bishop Watson, Arthur Young, Sir John Sinclair, Mr. Coke of Norfolk, each had his French rival. In both countries the taste was accompanied by a change in the prevailing tone of philosophy and literature ; in both, the State recognised the need of improvement by the creation of agri- cultural boards. From this point the histories of the two countries diverge rapidly asunder. The reasons of the divergence are sufficiently obvious. The French Revolution of 1789 was diametrically opposed to the agricultural con- vulsions which changed the face of rural Eng- land in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. 68 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. France offers no parallel to the commercial exigencies which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries required the home production of wool, and evicted crowds of small farmers from the land to make room for the shepherd, his dog, and his flock. So again the circumstances under which the French and English Revolutions took place were widely different. The population of France remained stationary, while that of England increased at the rate of geometrical progression ; the one country, confronted by the practical problem of making bread and meat for the million, concentrated her energies on the wholesale production of corn and cattle ; the other, opposed by no such difficulty, developed a different system of land tenure and of farm- ing. The effect of the French movement was to tighten the peasant's hold upon the land, of the English to loosen it from his grasp. Population, then, is the factor which has mainly determined the course of agricultural development in England and in France. The contrast between the private enterprise of Eng- land and the State intervention of France is due to the different directions which the same all-powerful cause has given to farming. At home the Church, and subsequently great land- lords and large tenant-farmers, revolutionised agriculture ; in France the Church and the State have been the chief pioneers of improve- FRENCH FARMING. 69 ment. Where properties are large, State inter- ference is rarely necessary, because enlightened self-interest generally coincides with public policy. But among a mass of ignorant owners minute, isolated policies prevail, and the State alone regards larger interests. At the close of the eighteenth century the existence, not merely the commerce, of England imperatively demanded large holdings, owned by capitalist landlords, and let to capitalist tenants. By this means only, when no foreign produce supple- mented native resources, could the soil supply food to its vast population. France has felt no such overwhelming pressure of population ; no inexorable law of demand and supply has divorced her peasantry from the soil. In Eng- land, for public purposes, the State favoured the growth of a small class of capitalist land- lords ; in France the State sacrificed the few to the many, and promoted the increase of small owners who stand on the border-line of pauper- ism. In England the State leaves agricultural improvement to private enterprise ; in France, the State supplies the capital and direction in which her land-system is wanting. It would be a tedious task to describe minutely all the means by which in France the State discharges the duties which arise out of her agricultural policy. But there are not wanting signs that the French system of land-tenure may, before 70 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. many years are past, become, to a certain ex- tent, the English system. From this point of view a brief summary of some of the leading features of State aid appears necessary. In France, as in Germany, Italy, and the United States, agriculture is recognised as a department of the administration. Elementary agriculture is taught in primary schools, where children learn to distinguish between plants, grasses, and soils ; often a plot of ground is attached to the school, which serves as an experi- mental farm. The school teachers are supplied with training in the subject by departmental professors, who, under the orders of the Minister of Education, give courses of lectures in the ecoles nor males. The rest of the system of agricultural education falls under the direction of the Minister of Agriculture. Three classes of schools are provided— (i) the fermes-ecoles ; (2) the ecoles pratiques or regionales ; (3) the ecoles nationales. The fabric is crowned by the Institut Agronomique, which was removed from Versailles and reconstituted at Paris in 1876. The fermes-ecoles are numerous and useful ; among them are those of Trois Croix, near Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), St. Gauthier at Dom- front (Orne), Nolhac (Haute-Loire). Many of these primary agricultural schools were founded by private enterprise after the Restoration, FRENCH FARMING. 71 but in October 1848 they were recognised as part of the administrative system of the State. Lads enter these farm schools as apprentices, not as pupils. They must not be over sixteen at the time of entrance ; they are fed and treated as labourers ; they go through a course of two or three years, and at the end leave the school with a certificate which qualifies them to act as bailiffs. If they show any decided aptitude, they may obtain a bursary at one of the ecoles nationalcs. The cost of each farm pupil to the State is about £10 ; the State also defrays the expenses of the salary of the director and his assistants. The director obtains the labour of the pupil for nothing, and manages the farm for his own profit and at his own risk. The ecoles pratiques are assisted and super- intended by the State. It was intended that these should be distributed among the twelve agricultural regions into which France is divided. These agricultural high schools are designed for the sons of the wealthier class of cultivators. The cost is from £16 to £20 a year. The pupils learn practical agriculture and the elements of physics, chemistry, natural history, botany, veterinary science, and stock breeding. They did not, in the first years of their establishment, prove particularly successful. The three ecoles nationales are placed in the centres of three districts of France. They are 72 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Grignon, near Versailles (Seine-et-Oise) ; Grand Jouan, near Nozay (Loire-Inferieure) ; Mont- pellier (Herault), formerly La Saulsaie (Ain). All three schools were founded before the Second Empire — Grignon in 1827, Grand Jouan in 1832, La Saulsaie in 1840. They were all of them adopted by the State in October 1848. Grignon is a huge brick building of the seven- teenth century. It was given by Napoleon to the Duke of Istria, and bought from his widow by Charles X for an agricultural college. Auguste Bella was the first director. The course of in- struction lasts two and a half years ; and each year is divided into two terms, the first from October to March 15, the second from March 15 to August. All the pupils are obliged to pass the entrance examination, unless they have previously taken the degree of Bachelier es Sciences. They may be either externes or internes. The externes pay £8 a year for their lectures ; the internes pay from £40 to £44 for their board, lodging and lectures. There are bursaries in each of the three colleges, which are filled up by open competition among the pupils of the farm schools. The Institut Agronomique, which crowns the fabric, forms a faculty of agriculture. Besides these schools of the general practice and science of agriculture, there are special schools such as sheep, cheese and dairy farms, FRENCH FARMING. 73 the gardening establishment at Versailles, the school of drainage and irrigation at Lezardeau near Quimperle, the three veterinary schools of Lyons, Alfort, and Toulouse, and the horse- breaking schools like that near Caen. In 1879 departmental professors were appointed, whose duties are twofold. Under the direction of the Minister of Education they lecture at the normal schools to pupils who are being trained as schoolmasters ; under the instructions of the Minister of Agriculture, they hold conferences in each canton with the agriculturists, teachers, and proprietors, perambulate all the country villages to observe agricultural processes, keep in touch the various local societies, and spread the knowledge of improvements. By the law of June 16, 1872, each department is to be provided with a Professor, and their agricultural duties were minutely defined in a circular of M. Tirard in 1 881. Agricultural shows and competitions, as well as horse-races, are encouraged by the State. The great central show is held at Paris ; but, for the promotion of provincial competitions, the whole country is divided into twelve regions, Algiers forming a thirteenth. These concours rcgionaux are under the direction of the State, which gives the prizes and pays the expenses of the judges. Agricultural societies have been formed under State patronage for the depart- 74 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. ments, the arrondissements, and even for the cantons. Veterinary science is a subject to which the State pays great attention. There is a veterinary officer attached to each arron- dissement, who has passed through the four years' course at one of the three veterinary schools, and has received the diploma entitling him to practise. The powers of the veterinary officers are considerable. All the foreign live stock is subjected to a veterinary examination at one of the points at which it is permitted to be imported, and only sound animals are allowed to enter the country. Internally the existing law contains most stringent provisions for the slaughter of infected cattle. State indemnities are granted to owners of slaughtered animals. The State interests itself in the breeding of horses, cattle, and sheep. The Ministry of Agriculture contains, for instance, a Directeur des Haras, who has under him inspectors-gene- ral and inspectors. At the Haras du Pin there is a free school, in which is taught every detail connected with the management of horses. There are twenty-one depots of the great Haras de Pompadour ; and more than 2,500 stallions are placed at the disposal of the owners of mares. Nor is the State aid confined to education and the improvement in live stock. Each arrondissement has its Ingenieur des Ponts et Chaussees who assists proprietors in all drain- FRENCH FARMING. 75 age operations. In each arrondissement again there is the agent voyer, who inspects the roads of the district in his care. There are three different classes of roads, the chemin vicinal, departemental, and national. The first class is kept in repair by the Communes, the second by the Department, the third by the State It is the duty of the road overseer to assess the expenses of the repairs. Lastly, the State assists works of irrigation, reclamation, and similar improvements, in- directly through the Credit Foncier, and directly with subventions and loans. It has facilitated means of transport, subventioned the erection of bridges in place of the old ferries, assisted canals, railways, and roads. It has aided in works of irrigation like those of Verdon (Bouches-du-Rhone), St. Martory (Haute- Garonne), Lagoin (Basses-Pyrenees), La Bourne near Valence. It has helped to improve barren wastes by such means as winter submersions in the valleys of the Durance, the Arc, and the [sere. It has attempted to replant the forests, and so check the ruinous floods so common in the mountainous districts of the Alps. It has assisted in the reclamation of La Sologne, the barren tract of heath and furze or sandy wastes diversified with marshy ponds, which formerly belonged to the Orleanais, and now makes up part of the Departments of the Loir-et-Cher, 76 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the Cher, and the Loiret. Thirty years ago the district was a desolate, thinly populated plain, soppy as a sponge in winter, dry as a cinder in summer, and so unhealthy that the average length of human life was only twenty-seven years, inhabited by a stunted race whose stupidity passed into the proverbial saying of un niais de Sologne. The State set on foot drainage works, cleaned out the watercourses, introduced marl, planted pines, and set an ex- ample which has been followed by many pro- prietors. So, too, it has aided to drain the district of the Dombes (Departement de l'Ain), where grass alternates with water, and cattle with fish, and to bring into cultivation the landes of Gascony by pine plantations. Private companies, working with concessions from the State, reclaim bays of the sea on the west coast, and convert the marshes into polders ; thus in the bays of Mont St. Michel, des Veys, and Bou- geneuf, thousands of acres have been reclaimed by the Compagnies des Polders de l'Ouest and de Bouin. The agricultural histories of France and England run parallel for centuries, and then diverge in opposite directions. We have already traced the course of development which French agriculture has followed, and alluded to one aspect of the different results which have been attained — namely, the contrast between private FRENCH FARMING. 77 enterprise and State intervention. Another result is represented by the absence of peasant proprietors in the one country and their presence in the other ; another by the uniformity of English, and the variety of French, land- tenures. It remains to glance at these last two points, to investigate the condition of the peasant proprietary of France, and to inquire which of her land-systems has best stood the strain of agricultural depression. France and Corsica contain, roughly speak- ing, 132,000,000 acres. How is this property cultivated, and how divided ? Both questions are difficult to answer. French statistics are often handled by English writers with very little caution. Thus, no account is taken of whether Corsica is, or is not, included. Or again, in comparing the produce of 1840 and 1852 with that of 1862 and 1873, it is often forgotten that, by the annexation of Savoy and Nice, France gained an increase of nearly 3,000,000 acres, and that, by the Treaty of Frankfurt in 1871, she lost rather more than this through the surrender of Bas-Rhin and parts of Haut-Rhin, Meurthe, Moselle, and Vosges. By the annexa- tion she acquired backward provinces ; by the surrender she lost some of her best cultivated soil. It i^ therefore easy, if these facts are not taken into account, to establish a marked retro- gression in agriculture between the years 1862 78 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. and 1873. Again, in estimating the produce of different classes of crops, several stumbling- blocks arise. Thus, under the head of " fari- neux " are included not only the ordinary cereals, but chestnuts and potatoes, which cover an area of more than 3J millions of acres. Again, in the returns for 1840 and 1852, mountain pastures are not included under the head of productive land ; in the returns for 1862 and 1873 they are so included. Again, in calculating the number of owners, it must be remembered that the number of cdtes foncieres supply an illu- sory test, since several cotes may be the prop- erty of the same proprietor. Lastly, the word parcelle, on the increase of which English oppo- nents of peasant proprietorship are apt to base their charge of the pulverisation of the soil, gives rise to ambiguity. Its meaning, as a term of land-surveying and of law, is not necessarily a small plot isolated from its neighbours and belonging to a different proprietor ; it does not always imply a different ownership, but only a division and a different cultivation. Even those who bear in mind these pitfalls find statistics a difficult subject, and I can only vouch for the approximate truth of the figures given below. Reducing hectares to their rough equivalents in English acres, these 132 million acres are thus distributed : 65^ million acres are arable ; FRENCH FARMING. 79 the extent of cereal crops is about 40 million acres, of which wheat occupies 17 millions, and the remainder is distributed between barley, oats, rye, maslin, buckwheat, maize, etc. There are 18-J- millions of grass land ; 61 million acres devoted to the culture of the vine ; 3| millions appropriated to gardens, orchards, chestnuts, mulberries, olives, and almonds. 93! million acres are agriculturally productive. The re- maining 38^ million acres are thus disposed of : woods and forests, 21 millions ; marshes, moun- tains, bogs, barren lands, 11 millions ; lakes, rivers, watercourses, meres, and pools, if mil- lion ; finally 4J million acres are occupied by towns, roads, etc. The classes who own or cultivate this land are very various. But one remarkable feature deserves notice, because it presents so great a contrast with England, namely, the proportion which the rural population bears to the total population of France. At the close of the eight- eenth century Lavoisier estimated that fourteen millions out of twenty-five were engaged in agriculture. In 185 1 the industrial classes numbered 83 per cent, of the total population, and 56 per cent, were agriculturists. In 1876 the industrial population had risen to 90 per cent., and 53 per cent, were engaged in the culti- vation of the soil. The classes of which this large rural population is composed consist of 80 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. landowners and tenant-farmers, including me- tayers, domaniers, and maitres valets, and labourers, whether hired by the week, the day, or the year. The first important question which arises is : How is the landownership distributed ? In 1842 the population of France consisted of 33,000,000 souls or 7,000,000 families. Of these 7,000,000 families, 5,500,000 possessed land ; 5,493,000 enjoyed annual incomes ranging from 3/. to 400/. ; the remaining 7,000 derived incomes from their estates exceeding the last-mentioned sum. M. de Lavergne calculated in 1862 that 37I million acres were owned by 50,000 owners whose estates averaged 750 acres ; yj\ millions by 500,000 owners whose estates averaged 75 acres ; and yj\ millions by 5,000,000 who held properties averaging y\ acres. In other words, that one-third of the land was held by 50,000 owners, one-third by 500,000, and one- third by 5,000,000. The statement is too neat and clear-cut to be absolutely true. Yet, so far as the number of small proprietors is concerned, it is substantially confirmed by the calculations of M. Bochin in 1871, and M. de Foville in 1884. M. Bochin reported to the Societe des Agricul- teurs that 14,000,000 names were entered for the land tax, and that, if 5,000,000 names were struck off as duplicates, the soil would be found to be divided between 9,000,000 proprietors, FRENCH FARMING. 81 of whom 5| millions, the exact figures named by M. de Lavergne, are medium-sized and small proprietors. Half of this last class, added M. Bochin, are in a state bordering on desti- tution, paying no direct taxes, and even re- ceiving parish relief. Thirteen years later M. de Foville divides properties into five classes : (i) very small, below 7 acres ; (ii) small, from 7 to 15 acres ; (iii) middle-sized, from 15 to 125 ; (iv) large, 125 to 500 ; (v) very large, above 500. He proceeds to show that, roughly speaking, Class (i) occupies ioj per cent, of the whole land of France. » (ii) » i5i » (i»i) „ 39 .. (iv) „ 19 ., (v) „ i6i Thus we may say that 64I per cent., or two- thirds, of the whole land of France is held by proprietors of small or middle-sized estates, ranging from below 7 acres to 125 acres. It is very difficult to group the departments by the size of properties ; yet, if it could be done, interesting light might be thrown upon the conditions necessary for the existence of peasant proprietors. The greatest proportion of large properties is to be found in two regions ; the one situated in the south, south-west, and south- east, the other in the central districts upon the borders of the Loire. Thus, in the Hautes- 82 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Alpes 69 per cent, of the properties are over 300 acres ; the Cher comes next with 54 per cent. ; the Bouches-du-Rhone third, with 53I per cent. In the Basses-Alpes, Alpes-Maritimes, Hautes-Pyrenees, Pyrenees-Orientales, Basses- Pyrenees, Herault, Ariege, Lozere, properties of 300 acres average from 30 to 50 per cent, of the whole. So again, to take a central district, in Loiret, Cher-et-Loir, and Indre, from 40 to 50 per cent, of the properties are large. The southern zone of large properties consists in whole or part of mountain and hill. Here, it might be supposed on the analogy of Wales or the New Forest, was the locality best adapted to the peasant proprietor, because here he has rough pasture for his live stock. But as a matter of fact the rough pasture is nearly always let to Provencal shepherds, who come up with their caravans of sheep for the transhumance, which lasts for six of the summer months. This remark applies strongly to Hautes-Alpes, which stands first in the proportion of large properties, for it contains the famous mountain pastures of Orres and Vars. Cher stands second on the list, and may be taken as a representative of the central district of large properties. Here again is a country covered with wide expanses, called brandes, in which wild heath, sandy wastes, and marshy pools preponderate. It was one of the favourite hunting districts of the French mon- FRENCH FARMING. 83 archs. Here are situated the proverbially barren tracts known as La Sologne and La Brenne ; here, too, are fed the flocks of Berri, which are the sheet-anchor of the country, as is testified by the arms of Bo urges — three rams argent on a field azure, with a shepherd and shepherdess as supporters. Bouches-du-Rhone, the third on the list of high averages, contains two large districts whollv unsuited to peasant farming. The first is La Crau, a dry, treeless, uninhabited plain, on which some 200,000 sheep cower in the winter before the mistral, and pick up a meagre livelihood before the transhumance. The second is the Camargue, a district which is repeatedly flooded. Like La Crau, it is largely given up to flocks of sheep, which, during submersions, have a right of asylum (droit d'espleche) on the first- named plain. The departments in which large properties are rarest are the following : Gers, Charente, Haute-Loire, Blanche, Lot, in which only 6 to 10 per cent, of the properties exceed 300 acres ; and Charente-Inferieure, Rhone, Tarn-et-Ga- ronne, and Seine. It is impossible to assign any general reasons for the relatively large number of peasant proprietors in these departments. In each different locality much depends on the character of the soil and climate, the special crops, the rate of agricultural wages. Thus, for instance, in Blanche, with its unrivalled 84 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. pastures, its ready markets for eggs, poultry, and butter, its fruit orchards, and its domestic industries, peasant proprietors flourish. Owing to the amount of grass and to the decrease of population, but little agricultural employment is provided. Consequently wages are very high, and self-farming is profitable. The same re- marks apply to the neighbourhood of Paris, where the rural population is attracted into the city, and where market-garden produce com- mands a ready sale. In Rhone, again, where manufacturing industries abound which give employment to thousands of peasant pro- prietors, tenant-farming is unprofitable, while at the same time the market is good, and the peasant supplements his earnings in the muslin works of Tarare, or some of the numerous manu- factories of Givors. So, lastly, Charente-Infe- rieure is well suited to a peasant proprietary. Its soil varies between the reclaimed marsh- lands of La Rochelle and Rochefort to the valleys and gently undulating plains of Saintes, the well-wooded district of St. Jean d'Angely, or the heathy ground of Jonzac. Peasant proprie- tors, who number considerably more than half of the adult male rural population, are to be found in the richest districts, where, besides the vine and the ordinary cereals, hemp, flax, fruits, and garden vegetables are grown in great abundance. There is also a large trade carried FRENCH FARMING. 85 on in horses. One farmer breeds the colts, the other buys them at six or eight months and sells them at two or two and a half years old. Lastly, every farmhouse has its still for the manufacture of spirits ; large quantities of oil are extracted from walnuts ; and the paper works on the river Touve employ thousands of artisans who are also small landowners. It appears, then, that in purely agricultural districts, where hired labour is cheap, or in mountainous and barren tracts, peasant pro- prietors do not thrive. On the other hand, the system of small farms worked by their owners succeeds wherever population is dense, labour dear, manufacturing industries abundant, and markets good for garden stuff, dairy produce, or poultry. The absence or presence of peas- ant proprietors depends on certain conditions of success, without which no peasant pro- prietor is eager to buy the land. They will not thrive wherever they are planted, a fact which is often overlooked by theorists who point to the French peasant as a proof that owners of land will make gardens out of deserts. The fact is, no French peasant makes the attempt where it appears useless. If he can command some specially fertilising substance like the seaweed which the Breton peasant collects, or if he enjoys exceptional advantages of climate like that of Roscoff, his industry and energy 86 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. know no limits, and he will in a few years trans- form a wild coast into a ceinture doree. But it is not inland, — on barren moors of heath, ling, broom, and stunted pine, — that he thrives or even exists. A closer review of French farming will prove the point that the presence or absence of peasant proprietorship depends on the presence or absence of some essential conditions of success. Compare the district round Yvetot and that near Neufchatel, both in Seine-Inferieure. The first is a sheep pasture, the second a rich grass country ; in the one, one-fifth of the land- owners are peasant proprietors, in the other seven-tenths. Again, the most barren district in Maine-et-Loire is the country of Bauge and Segre ; the richest is the vicinity of Saumur. In the first, large properties and metayers are the rule ; in the second, half the land is owned and tilled by peasant proprietors. In Mayenne, where cattle breeding is extensively practised on a large scale, there are only 25 per cent, of peasant proprietors to 26 per cent, of metayers, and 49 per cent, of tenant-farmers. In Finis- tere, on the other hand, where the peasant has reclaimed a country, which fattens a quantity of stock on the rich plain of the Leonais, which possesses the ceinture doree of the coast and supplies the peasant with fertilising manure, the Breton will give anything for land : 53 per cent, of the farmers are peasant owners culti- FRENCH FARMING. 87 vating estates averaging i6| acres ; 41 per cent, of the remainder are tenant farmers, and 6 per cent, are metayers. The Department of the Indre contains three distinct region- — the Boischaud, Champagne, and Brenne. The first district is comparatively fertile ; the second and third are unproductive, barren, or marshy tracts, where the chief product is sheep, and at night- fall the only sound to be heard for miles is the cry of the curlew or the bark of a sheepdog. In Boischaud, seven-tenths of the land i^> owned and tilled bv peasant proprietors ; in Champagne and Brenne large estates are almost the univer- sal rule. Again, in the Department of Saone- et-Loire, the Maconnais, which is the richest district, contain- 90 per cent, of small owners ; the Autunois, which is almost the poorest, has onlv 25 per cent. The two great corn-grow- ing districts of France are Beauce and Brie. The first is an arid, unwatered plain, where sheep and cereals alone can be produced, where natural pasture is hardly to be found, and where high farming is necessary. There the peasant proprietor is practically extinct. Brie is a well- watered tract, which in a dry season grows more wheat than even Beauce produces in a wet year. It abounds in large [arms, but in the grassy valleys are numbers of small pea-ant proprietors who till their own plots and eke out their earn- ings by hiring themselves out as labourers, by 88 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. rearing calves, or by dairy produce and market gardening. On the other hand, such districts as Creuse, Puy-de-D6me, Franche-Comte, and Champagne may be quoted against my contention. But, in point of fact, these apparent exceptions prove the point. Thus, the Creuse is a barren district, purely agricultural, in which wages are cheap, and peasant proprietors enormously preponder- ate. But it is to be noticed that here every peasant proprietor enjoys common rights, and thus he is enabled to exist. Yet here and throughout Auvergne, in which commons are numerous, the peasantry could not exist on their land. For nine months every year the Marchais leaves his home and hires himself out as a stone- cutter or a mason ; so also, for the same period, the Auvergnat emigrates in search of employ- ment as a chimney-sweep, a scavenger, or a por- ter. Their wages enable the family to live dur- ing the winter, and, if necessary, to buy out brothers and sisters, and so avoid the partage force. These districts are often quoted, it may be observed in passing, as instances of the bad farming of small proprietors. This is unfair to the peasant. The farming is really done by the old men, the women, and the children ; the stalwart youths are rarely at home during the months of agricultural labour. Again, in Franche-Comte there are upwards of 90,000 FRENCH FARMING. 89 holdings, only Soo of which arc above 100 acres, and 50,000 are under 12 acres. Yet the district is mountainous, and, therefore, apparently militates against my contention. The explana- tion is, that the mountain.- arc not let to Pro- vencal shepherds, but are the common lands of the upland villages, and that every peasant plies a trade. Many parts of Champagne consist of bald, bare, dusty chalk hills, which are natu- rally unproductive. Yet no country possesses more small farmers, owning the land they till. The inhabitants are clustered together in vil- lages, standing a considerable distance apart, and the pastures are held in common. Only the land which stands close to the village is well farmed. As you recede farther from the hamlet, the cultivation deteriorates, and at the boundaries it is miserable. Every one of the village inhabitants is entitled to keep sheep in proportion to the acreage of his freehold ; and every morning the common herdsman gathers the live stock and guides them to the common pastures. It i- by these common pastures that the peasant fanner holds his own, when he would starve on the produce of his arable plot. The condition and prospects of the peasant proprietor afford agricultural writer- a favourite theme. In France the system ha- its opponents as well as its advocates. One school of writer-, founded by Arthur Young, urge that the plough 90 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. is the only effective instrument of national pros- perity, and that any land system which turns arable fields into spade-wrought gardens is not only deleterious but deadly to the health of a State. Gardens are valuable auxiliaries to com- fort, but it is only by a broad system of agri- culture that nations are fed. In the end it is said that the inevitable result of the partage force will be either to check the population or to divide estates by logarithms. The argument is supported by the positive decrease of the Norman peasantry who secure the advantages of primogeniture by unigeniture, or by the pulverisation of land in districts like Chalonnes on the Loire, where each estate is so minute that the proprietors enjoy it for a year turn and turn about. In the one case the country is denuded of its strength, and every year grows weaker relatively to foreign nations ; in the other this crumbling (emiettcment) of the land renders the soil a mere sand-heap of disconnected atoms. These arguments of opponents are strengthened by other considerations. The peasant proprietor is miserably lodged. He has often only a single ground-floor room, entered by a door which is the common entrance of the cowhouse and the kitchen. In this room, divided by a mere partition from the stable, the family cook, cat, sleep, live, and die, sharing the accommodation the house affords with the FRENCH FARMING. 91 cow, the pigs, and the poultry. In many parts of rural France the cowhouse and stable are separated from the dwelling ; but even then the house consists of one large ground-floor room, which is kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom in one, for the farmer, his family, and perhaps his hinds. The solitary window, for the iniquitous door and window tax offers a premium to the worst ventilated dwelling, is stained and dimmed with dirt, spotted with the excrements of flies, decorated with cobwebs which prove that the window has not been opened in the memory of man. The floor, too uneven to be swept, is made of beaten earth or ill-fitting flags. At the door is a festering mass of rotten straw, a shallow cesspool as it were, into which stable, cowhouse, and pigsty are drained, and on to the top of which is thrown the filth of the house. Again, the peasant proprietor is miserably fed. His food varies with the district, and also with his disposition. He might eat better food, but such is his parsimony that he makes a pleas- ure of self-denial rather than denies himself a pleasure. In Brittany many of the peasants live on porridge made of buckwheat without milk, potatoes, rye bread, and buckwheat pan- cakes without butter. If they are a little better off, they add milk and salt butter, and pork and cabbage two or three times a week. Their drink is water or cider. In Normandy, on the 92 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. other hand, food is good and abundant ; at its worst it consists of galettes of maize with a little bacon, butcher's meat once a week, and cider. In Anjou the farmer is well fed, and the peasant proprietor and the hired labourer share the same simple abundance. In Touraine all classes can enjoy abundance of food. The hired labourer expects, if fed on the farm, to have meat once a day ; he turns up his nose at mutton, and prefers white wine to red. In the central dis- tricts of France chestnuts are the staple diet of the rural population. In Berri, Marche, Limou- sin, and Auvergne, chestnuts are first placed in a well-heated room, then skinned, and boiled in a very small quantity of water, cov- ered closely in and steamed so as to retain their flavour ; they are then converted into a sort of porridge or paste and eaten hot. This diet is eked out with bread made from buckwheat or rye, and potatoes when the latter are not all wanted by the pigs. Chestnuts are also Varbrc a pain in the Cevennes, and are said to be more nutritive than potatoes. The position of the peasant, thus miserably lodged and poorly fed, is said to be precarious and perilous. He is a proprietor only in name. The real owner is the moneylender, and the peasant proprietor is a veritable serf. So fierce is the soif dn sillon that, to gratify it, the peasant raises money at ruinous rates to buy land. He never expends FRENCH FARMING. 93 a loan on improvements, but rounds off his pos- session by an additional purchase. No doubt this charge is in the main true. In some parts of France the mortgage debt is said to be 80 per cent, of the value of the land. On the other hand it should be borne in mind that the general average is only 16 per cent., and that when a man can raise capital at a cheap rate and use the money to advantage a mortgage is a profitable commercial transaction. Again, it is said that the peasant i> badly educated. He has never learned to read himself, and having prospered without education denies it to his children. Besides, he requires his boy to drive the teams, his daughter to herd the sheep. The average of persons above six who can neither read nor write in France is, speak- ing roughlv, 30 per cent. Doubs (Franche- Comte) is the best educated oi the departments, with a proportion of only 6 per cent, unable to read or write. The lowest proportions are— Haute-Yienne or per cent., Finistere 5b per cent., Indre-et-Cher 54 per cent., and Allier and Nievre 49 per cent. Haute-Yienne and Indre- et-Cher are two of those central province's ot FYance which possess a considerable proportion of large properties ; and here mi >iiais ./< Nte the estate in litigation, or force the land on the market, when it either ruins the owners by producing too little or their neighbours by producing too much. It divides the estate into such minute -trips that there is not space to employ a full-sized spade. A turn of the plough on the wrong .-Me for a single svason robs one man of hi^ property or doubles that oi las neigh- 96 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. bour. Trespasses are necessarily frequent, and behind them follows litigation. Revolutionary legislation has added fourfold to the truth of the feudal maxim, Qui terre a, guerre a. It splits up the estate into separate and often distant plots, so that each individual pro- prietor owns several scattered parcels. Hence arise a loss of productive soil by the number of fences and unprofitable roads, a waste of time, and an increase of expense by the necessity of carrying implements, crops, and manure from point to point. Thus subdivided, distinct prop- erties are so interlaced that agricultural prog- ress is checked, and cultivation reduced to one level, and that level the lowest. To such a length is pulverisation carried, that a peasant proprietor is ruined by a single adverse season. His capital is exhausted, and he sinks from a landowner into a hired labourer. Between 1826 and 1835, for instance, half the landed properties in the kingdom changed hands ; and half of these changes were due not to gifts or inheritances, but to sales, forfeitures, or ex- changes. The land thus passes rapidly from hand to hand ; it is tcrre volante ; immovable property circulates more frequently than mov- able ; it is invested in as a speculation ; it is treated almost as if it were stock to be benight and sold on 'change. Again, it is alleged that the tendency of a FRENCH FARMING. 97 peasant proprietary is to revert to the rudi- ments of civilisation. Co-operation and divi- sion of labour cease. The peasant tries to produce all that he wants upon his farm ; to have a plot for his vineyard or apple orchard, a piece of arable for breadstuff, a meadow for his cow. It cuts him to the heart to buy. Con- sequently he cum ploughs up land which i^ best suited by nature for pasture, and thus wastes the natural advantages of the soil or climate. Lastly, it mav be urged that compulsory division leaves no adequate authority, and no clear- sighted public interests. In a mountainous district, for instance, like the neighbourhood of Fmbrun, it is no one's business to clear out watercourses, and a single goat may cause an inundation. Mountain torrents strew the plains with pebbles spreading outwards like a fan, and threatening to convert an Arabia Felix into an Arabia Petnea. The evil is to -Mine extent met in such cases bv State interference, and by the powers vested in the Prefet, under certain circumstances, to form a syndicate for works of drainage, irrigation, and protection against floods. Other arguments may be urged on the score of agriculture against the system; but I do not consider them established. It is, for instance, said that the peasant proprietor is an obstacle to high farming. lie cannot keep the 4 98 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. best stock ; he has not land enough for sheep ; he cannot afford to grow wheat. But the soil of France, like that of England, is no longer young ; and the question is whether intensive farming is not the best method by which an old country can supplement the supplies it draws from virgin soils ; in other words, whether the French peasant proprietor who with un- remitting toil and infinite patience concen- trates his energies on agricultural produce, which is naturally protected by its rapidly perishable nature, is not steering a better course than the tenant farmer who competes with new countries in the production of corn, beef, and wool. Of most of the troubles which beset tenant-farmers, peasant proprietors have little experience. Farms of any size are difficult to let, especially if they range above 150 acres. But the small farmer lives by his butter, his market garden, and his poultry-yard. His eggs are collected by hucksters or cocotiers, who carry them to the central depots to be packed. From an English point of view, the subdi- vision of land is excessive ; but we have not the same variety of soil, climate, and crops, which complicates the agricultural question in France. But it is urged that, though the partage force may not yet pulverise the land, it must do so eventually ; and that then the impoverished FRENCH FARMING. 99 peasant proprietor will find that there are no employers of labour, but onlv small owners as poor and miserable as himself. In theory, this result seems inevitable ; in practice, it does not necessarily follow. The outcry against small properties had commenced twenty wars before the Revolution ; it was to them that agricultural societies even then attributed the backward condition of farming. The sale of large corporate and private estates, and the distribution of common lands among the com- moners seemed to intensify the evils of a system which the part age force perpetuated. It was not till after the Restoration that com- pulsory subdivision began to be dreaded. Previously pulverisation was checked bv foreign wars; civil law made a man a land- owner, military law marched him off to Auster- litz or Borodino. Yet equal partition had already begun to produce some bad results, for in 1826 the (iovernment issued a manife>to offering special facilities and reduced fees to all landowners who wished to surrender their estates through inability to pay tin* laud tax of 10a 1 . an aire on their estates. Since that period, however, the peasant ha.- not merely retained, but extended his hold upon the land ; he has saved money, arid, except in rare in- stances, has theck'd pulverisation "an point" to use the words of Benjamin Constant, who ioo THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. foretold the fact, " au dela duquel il deviendrait funeste." How has he achieved these results ? The peasant has extended his hold upon the land mainly at the expense of middle-sized estates, which are too large to be worked by the labour of the proprietor and his family, and become unprofitable if tilled by hired labour. Large estates have for the most part remained intact. French landlords rarely have the bulk of their property in land, and family arrange- ments are easily effected among the rich. The peasant has also saved money. He has made his small holding pay because he does not hire labour, or grow corn, or depend upon wool. He is a market gardener, a vinedresser, a florist, a dairyman, and a poulterer. He grows certain special crops which require incessant and minute attention, for which the soil and climate of the country offer him facilities. He rears little or no stock. He feeds calves for the veal market ; he cither breeds or breaks in mules and horses ; he sells his colts as soon as they are weaned, or at two and a half years old ; and this division of labour places a profitable in- dustry within the reach of the small peasant owner. Lastly, he has avoided, except in cases which scarcely affect the question of farming, the pulverisation of the land. Parcels have recently increased very slowly, and within the last three or four years they have positively FRENCH FARMING. 101 decreased. This seems to show that the peasant is not so hungry for land as to buy it when its produce is comparatively valueless, or to split it up into lilliputian estates which cannot be tilled at a profit. Often the peasant is attracted away from the land bv high wages or the delight of town life ; he is not unwilling to sell his land and seek his fortune in trade. In Normandy he preserves hi- estate intact bv instinctively practising the principles of Malthas, of whom he has never heard. In the north several small proprietors throw their land together and let it as a single farm to one of their number or to a stranger, under whom they work for wages. Sometimes one of the coheirs carries on the farm, paying rent to his brother and sister, or the two latter abstain from marriage and live under hi- roof, working as hired labourers. Difficulties Lire doubtless experienced when partition- of 'and arc- insisted upon, which p-sult in numbers of interlaced pi. its belonging to different ' win r-. But i v : an,u< - are more in - quent -in ■• e tk--,- partitions are no longer tax 1 as double -ales, and the Government mi still d( > 1111:1 h nn 1 re f< >r *k ir eno > nt . Without ini upon tin e.— eiili of the />tates were too small to offer inducements to landlords to adopt a country life, or large enough to sup- port them as courtiers, the system was grossly abused. Landlords resided in towns because town life offered more distraction to the wealthy, or more professions to the poor. I hey knew nothing of farming, abandoned the sentiment of their position, looked upon their land as so much capital realising a certain interest, and generally handed it over for fixed payments to bailiffs, who sublet to the metayers. fhis middleman, frequently a solicitor, was, like his employer, a citizen. He knew too little of farm- io8 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. ing to improve the yield from the land, and yet was determined that it should yield three rents. The terms of the tenancy grew more harsh, and the contribution to the stocking of the farm (cheptel) more niggardly. No artificial manure was used ; the plough was that of Triptolemus ; the cropping antiquated and barbarous. The metayer, never receiving any advice or in- struction, surrounded by other tenants as igno- rant as himself, plodded on in the footprints of his ancestors, content if he could avert star- vation from himself and his family. With his land and farmbuildings he was given a cheptel, consisting of eight oxen for the plough, half a dozen lean, wretched, inbred cows, a small flock of sheep, and two or three sows. All the animals were dwindling to half their proper size. Two-thirds of the land was arable ; an unmanurcd meadow occupied one-tenth of the farm ; the rest was left, with the assistance of broom, heath, or gorse, as coarse pasture. The land was incessantly cropped for potatoes, buckwheat, maize, barley, rye. The metayer's own contribution to the stock was about a fourth of that of the proprietor — two carts, two or three wooden ploughs, two harrows (also of wood), the harness of the oxen, sickles, hoes, and other implements. Within recent years the system has been revo- lutionised. Divisions of property compelled FRENCH FARMING. ioo landlords to reside on their estates, supervise the letting and management of the metairies, and dispense with fanners or middlemen. If landlords are interested and skilled in agricul- ture, the system offers exceptional advantages. The tenancy is not inherently aggressive ; it does not lend itself so readilv to the reclamation of land as a peasant proprietary ; it is rare to find metayers who have reclaimed land. But where the landlord is ready and competent to take the initiative, the tenure has achieved wonders. It doubles the capital, entrusts to the brains the direction of the enterprise, and supplies the incentive of self-interest to the labour. One condition of success is that the farm should not be too large to be cultivated by a single family. If hired labour is employed, the conditions of the tenancy become com- plicated bv the question of wac^es, and misun- derstanding? frequently arise. The size of an arable metayage farm varies from thirty to seventy acres. In vine-growing countries the holdings are smaller. The land is generally let on lease for three or six years; afterward- the tenure is renewed by the tacite reconduction, subject to a six months' notice to quit on either side. Far more capital is put into arable farms by both the partners. Formerly the value of the landlord's cheptel rarely r>.-r above £40, no THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. and the tenant's contribution often fell below £10. Now both parties often contribute from £yo to £100 apiece, besides the capital which the landlord has sunk in the improvement of his land. The metayer pays a necessary rent, which represents half the land tax, half the seed corn, the rent of his house and private garden, his use of potatoes, milk, and wood, and the profits of his poultry-yard, the larger share of interest on invested capital which belongs to the land- lord. This rent varies from is. to 2s. an acre. Subject to the deduction of this sum, or its equi- valent in kind, the profits or produce of the farm are equally divided. The landlord contracts to keep the buildings in repair, to maintain the fire insurances, and to pay the taxes. The metayer agrees to keep the fences and imple- ments in good order, to till the soil and tend the stock en bou -pere defamille. All forage crops grown on the farm are to be consumed on the premises ; the milk is set aside, in the first instance, to rear the calves — the surplus belongs to the metayer. The cattle and other live stock are valued at the commencement of the tenancy ; at the close of each year, or at the expiration of the lease, the profit or loss is shared between the partners. All the expenses of 'cultivation fall upon the metayer. The course of cropping, the sale and purchase of stock, and the general plan of management arc determined by agree- FRENCH FARMING. tti ment between the partners ; in case of dispute the landlord's will prevails. In vine-growing districts the metayer, bnrdier, or megcr, is often rather a maitre valet than a metayer proper. The proprietor finds a vigncronnage complet, that is land, vines, buildings, implements, utensils, pays half the taxes, and defravs half the cost of the straw and poles ; the tenant undertakes the culture of the vine, the vintage, and the operations of wine-making. The profits are divided upon terms which vary with each con- tract. The essentia! difference between the metayer and the maitre valet is that the latter contributes nothing to the joint enterprise ex- cept his labour. He is a metayer in embryo ; he occupies a lower step in the social ladder. He takes a farm for a year, and cultivates the soil under the direction of the landlord, lie is paid a fixed sum of money, and a fixed pro- portion of the produce. He also shares in the success of the farm, receiving, for instance, a tenth of the flc< ee? or of the increase of the live stock. The system is very common, not only in the vineyards but on the arable farms of the south. Very often farms are taken by associa- tions of metayers called pcrsonniers, or by com- panies of iiuutrcs valets, who work under the supervision of their leader, or hourrai. Some of these associated farmer- have cultivated the same land for many years in succession ; and 112 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. when they break up, the farm is generally taken on by one of the old association. Metayage is the most important, but by no means the only, modification of the ordinary relations of landlord and tenant which prevail in France. Two of the others might be studied, if space allowed, in their bearing upon the Irish land question. The domaine congeable of Brit- tany still finds supporters, and prevails exten- sively in Finistere. Of the droit de marche of the Picard farmer, with its dark tale of agrarian crime and outrage, and its immemorial practice of boycotting land-grabbers or depointeurs, I will only observe, as a coincidence, that it must have been familiar to every divinity student of Douai or St. Omer. But, for practical purposes, the condition and prospects of peasant pro- prietors and metayers are of greater interest to English agriculturists. No one will deny that the system of peasant proprietors is socially advantageous. It affords a training to the rural population for which we in England have found no substitute. It checks the centralisation of pauperism, the overgrowth of population, and the migration into towns. The element of stability which it contributes to the State is more valuable to the French than ourselves. There the towns arc inflammable as touchwood, while the country ignites more slowly. Yet even in England it is useful to have FRENCH FARMING. 113 a class of slow-thinking men, who will answer political firebrands with " Cela est bien, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin." But, while con- ceding the advantages of a peasant proprietary, we cannot ignore the difficulties which beset its artificial creation. The poverty and misery or the wealth and happiness of French peasants are often exaggerated, in the interests of poli- ticians or of theorists. I have endeavoured to show that the small owner is not superior to the ordinarv conditions of agricultural success. He will not thrive wherever he is planted, or exist on land which, starves a rabbit. The chief con- ditions of his prosperity do not exist in England. We have few commons, few domestic industries, no union of agriculture with manufacture, few special crops for which his minute labour is peculiarly adapted. Some of these conditions can be created ; but it i^ well to bear in mind what is entailed in the legislative establishment of a peasant proprietary, as well as to recognise the duties and expenses which such a system throws upon the State. Finally, 1 have drawn attention to the nit- tayage system, because it has in France proved the best shelter for tenant-farmers against the agricultural storm. The capacities of the tenure have been severely tested, and it has not broken down. This faet should at least remove the pre- judices, based on obsolete condition^, which are H4 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. entertained towards metayage. The English farmer has lost the whole or the greater part of his capital. Metayage suggests a means of unit- ing capital and labour, self-interest and intelli- gence, in the cultivation of the soil. But the experiment must necessarily fail unless implicit confidence exists between the landlord and his working partner. TENANT-RIGHT AND AGRARIAN OUTRAGE IN FRANCE. N' OTHING is new under the sun. Ireland enjoys no monopoly of agrarian outrage ; she cannot even boast the invention of boy- cotting. France affords a proof that land hun- ger alone, whetted by no race hatred or religious prejudice, can so transform tin.; character of a peasantry that they shrink from no crime against a legal system which they regard as tyrannical and oppressive. In the ancient province of Picardy every feature of Irish land agitation is reproduced, and lias prevailed for centuries. The droit dc marchc of Picardy corresponds more or less closely to the tenant-right of Ireland, and both have treated the law of the land as a dead letter. In France the combat began at least as early as 1679. Without intermission, from thai day to this, law has been defied and its administration baffled by secret coalitions among tenant- farmers, by boycotting, incendiarism, destruc- tion of crops, breaking of implements, maim- n6 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. ing of cattle, mutilation of horses, assassination of land-grabbers, and all the familiar forms of agrarian terrorism. Special legislation, en- forced by the most despotic of governments, failed to stamp out the illegal custom for which a handful of tenant-farmers were contending. Fines, martial law, suspension of local tribunals, extraordinary powers vested in royal officials, billetings of soldiers on suspected villages, im- prisonments, executions, transportations, only acted like water on burning oil : they spread the area of disaffection. The tenant-farmer has triumphed ; to-day Picardy is as peaceful as a humdrum English county. What was the nature of the disturbance ? How has the pacification been achieved ? The centre and heart of the agrarian outrages to which the droit de marche has given rise are the districts of Picardy known by the sinister title of Sangterrc or Santerre, forming a por- tion of the Department of the Somme. It in- cludes the arrondissements of Peronne and Montdidier, together with the canton of Corbie in the arrondissement of Amiens. Here are clustered most of the numerous villages, such as Belloy, Bouchoire, Lihons, Rouvry, which boast the addition to their names of " en San- terre." The greater part of the district lies in a niche between three railways, bounded on the north by the line from Amiens through Nesle TENANT-RIGHT .... n 7 and Ham to Tergnier, on the west by the main line from Amiens to Paris, on the south-east by the branch line from St. Just through M»>nt- didier, Roye, Chaulnes and Peronne to Cam- brai. It is a great rolling plain, traversed by the departmental road from Amiens through Roye to Noyon. Though it nowhere rises above 400 feet, it forms a tableland, furrowed bv numerous valleys, the channels of little streams which create the peat bogs for which Picardv is famous. The cultivators of the soil are con- gregated in villages; detached farmhouses or farmbuildings arc scarce. No hedge is to be seen for miles, and, except round the villages and by the side of the roads, there arc but few trees. Before the crops are cleared, the billowy tumult of the corn lends a charm to the landscape : but after harvest the district wears a singularly melancholy a-pect, with its monotonous out- lines, confined horizon, and solitary expanse. Santerre possesses no coal-fields and no important manufacture-. Stocking - weaving flourishes in the neighbourhood of Montdidier, and Peronne carries on some trade in cotton prints. But practicallv the district i- purely agricultural. The land is chiefly arable, though Moislains, the largest village in the canton of Peronne, is surrounded by some line pas- tures. The soil varies widely in (juality. 1 he best is an crgile douce mingled with -and ; the n8 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. medium is a sandy clay mixed with a species of Oxfordshire " stone-brash," known by the local name of cornu ; the worst is a marl which nothing but incessant labour will render fertile. Of the nine cantons which form the arrondisse- ment of Peronne, the largest proportion of poor land is to be found in Bray and Peronne ; and it is in these two cantons that the droit de marche has been enforced in the most exaggerated form. The best land is found in Roissel, Combles, and Nesle, where the droit de marche is comparatively restricted. The soil is cultivated in holdings of various sizes. Small farms of between 10 and 75 acres are tilled by the owners who, in addi- tion, often occupy land as tenants ; middle- sized farms range from ioo to 500 acres ; a few large farms rise from 500 to 1,500 acres. Speak- ing generally, land in Santerre is now divided in equal proportions between these three classes, with an increasing preponderance in favour of the smallest class. The term droit de marche is derived from the marche, or lot of land which forms the object of a lease, or from the same word used in the sense of the primitive contract on which the right is by some supposed to depend. It may be translated as tenant-right. By it the tenant- farmer means three things : his claim, subject to the payment of his annual rent, to a perpetual enjoyment of the marche or plot of land which TENANT-RIGHT .... 119 he occupies ; the power to dispose of his droit to his representative by sale or will ; and, if the land comes into the market, the right of pre-emption. He denies the landlord's right to let or sell the holding over his head, to evict him for another tenant, to raise his rent, or refuse the lease to his nominee. He only recognises the rights of the nominal owner by paving an annual rent, and certain premiums fur the ad- mission of new tenants or the renewals of old leases, called respectively intrudes or pots dc vin. A landlord has a farm to let. The land is not free land, but is subject to the tenant-right. The owner of the land has no voice in the selec- tion of the farmer ; the new tenant is the repre- sentative of the late occupier, from whom he has first acquired the tenant-right by purchase or inheritance. This nominee of a third person on entering into possession pays to the land- lord a sum of money called the intrude, which is generallv equivalent to ;i year's rent, and is payable whenever the farm changes hands. This payment is, so to speak, the premium tor the tenant'-, investiture. On some estates another sum, called chupcau, or /><>/ dc via, is payable whenever the lease is renewed. ddie intrude varies in amount with the rela- tionship which the incoming tenam bears to his predecessor in title. Thus, a stranger acquiring 120 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the tenant-right by purchase, pays more than a collateral descendant ; the rate is almost nothing in the case of a tenant in a direct line of descent. The new tenant is, as has been said, the nominee of the former occupier ; he has acquired from him, whether by purchase or inheritance, the tenant-right with all its acces- sory privileges. Theoretically, the purchase- money paid for the tenant-right represents the value of the tenant's interest in the land after satisfying the landlord's claim for rent. It necessarily varies in amount, and fluctuates with the rise or fall in rent or agricultural prices. This perpetual readjustment of the balance is practically neglected ; it is the weak feature of the system, and the point in which tenant-right has been most abused. Certain communes of the canton of Peronne, notably Brie, Bou- vincourt, Mons-en-chaussec, and Estrees-en- chaussee, have distinguished themselves by the extravagance of their claims. Landlords have been powerless to raise the old rents of half a century ago. Consequently, in 1836, the value of the tenant-right was estimated at nearly three-quarters of the value of the land. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the soil of this canton is for the most part of so poor a quality, that it can only be rendered profit- able by unremitting toil. In other cantons farmers have allowed rents to follow the rise in TEXAXT-RIGHT .... 121 prices. The value of the tenant-right through- out the whole district of Santerre ranges from 500 to 1,200 francs the hectare. Free land -ells for about £40 the acre. The tenant-right may, therefore, be calculated as between a quarter and a half of the value of the land. A farmer has purchased from his predecessor his tenant-right ; he has paid the landlord his premium : he has taken a lease. What is his position ? Leases are generally for nine or eighteen years ; but, whatever clauses are in- serted to provide for the surrender of the farm at the expiration of the specified term, the tenant considers himself as a co-proprietor of the land. He has acquired a right against all the world, a right which he can transmit to his representatives or successive lessees of the farm on the conditions contained in the original lease. Of this joint ownership he considered the payment of rent in kind to be a sign ; at the present dav he pays in money, but the amount is calculated upon the market price, on certain days, of a fixed quantity of corn. The land- lord has parted with all control over his prop- erty ; he cannot choose his tenant ; he cannot raise the rent, or enforce new conditions. The landlord receives his pots dc vin, intrades, and rent ; but the tenant regards these payments as entitling him to the hereditary enjoyment of the land, and as conferring the power to dispose 122 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. of his farm by will, sale, gift, or sub-lease. In Picard phrase the tenant says of the farm, ch'est a Dieu et a mi, and treats it accordingly. Jealous of his independence, he often conceals from the landlord even his name. The rent or the intvade is sometimes paid by third persons, and the receipt is drawn in blank. Before the Revolution landlords could always re-enter upon their land when a lease had ex- pired, and cultivate it themselves. Tenant- right only protected the farmer against his own class. When the landlord grew tired of gentle- man-farming, he was bound to re-let the farm to the representatives of the original tenant whom he had dispossessed. In 1867, even after the lapse of twenty years, men were willing to pay 150 francs the hectare to purchase from the evicted tenant his vague prospect of re-entry. So long as landlords could dispossess tenants, fixed terms were necessary for the protection of the latter. It is under this moderate form that the droit de marche exists in parts of San- terre, and in the arrondissement of St. Ouentin. But in the greater part of the district the farmer has now protected himself against his landlord as well as against his neighbour. Since 1789 tenants cannot be dispossessed even by owners of the soil who want to cultivate it themselves. Commercial interests have, in fact, changed the quarter from which farmers anticipate danger. TENANT-RIGHT .... 123 A new peril threatened tenant-right when land speculators bought up land, which was sold at a low price because it was subject to the tenant-right, dispossessed the tenants, and threw the intermixed holdings of which the old farm consisted into one large colza, wheat, or beetroot farm. In former days then- was little risk of the landlord taking into his own hands a farm which was made up of small detached parcels, and on which there were no farm- buildings. He had little or no inducement for the necessary outlay of capital. The Santerre farmer only feared that his neighbours might outbid him, and annex his holding to that which they already occupied. Another privilege, which is of infinite value to the tenant-right farmer, is the right of pre-emption. When land was offered for sale, tin tenant-occupier claimed the first offer. No purchaser would bid till lie had exercised his option. The prin- ciple of the tenant-right is now confined to land. But it one- extended to everything which could form the object of a contract of letting and hiring. Thus, places in the market or seal- in church were transmitted in perpetuit\, and could not be aequired except with the consent of the last occupier. Similarly, ploughmen, threshers, reapers, and shepherds auil > r : 1 1 ■ •, a dip "-. ■■■.:- ' " Dipointcr »e dit d'un tennier qui, par line encln re, obtiei I to re afieriin'v : . . ' ■ ' ■: - un d-te i Ian - le S.i uin- espece ile c .utrat taeite qui interdil aux t ru d'un autre >ai Les rare- i'llr.n u ;i dt; cet usa^e s >nt tppcl Neither of tin — ■ eith ;s offers any deiivation . .t tin w rd. Main- writers connect " .: e j intl " are! trandate it . a br< ach of fai true derivation is that ot I >u Caii-ie : " 1 '• - punctuare, le] privare, ab lovere, n> tris etiam dipiiinter." I'i word was added to tii'- Ot-s^ary by I irpenticr in 171 thus confiniiiiu tin- vii--.v that recent events had to the tei int-' rl.ii: Al N i\ oi taking ■ ich tin r up in el 1-- : it ha< 1 >i>pro- briuni, because there the tenant-riidit has disa] ; and. 134 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. The farm labourers refuse to work for him ; his sons can find no employment, his daughters no husbands, his servants no places ; and the stain of a depoiniement is irremovable. If his ricks or his barns are on fire, the neighbours assemble, and stand by with folded arms, re- fusing to render him any assistance. In i860 two poor women helped a depointeux and his family to extinguish the flames by carrying pails of water. They were compelled to leave the district. The law is entirely baffled. The perpetrator of a crime may be known to every one ; his name may be on every lip ; but no evidence can be produced. Instances are known in which witnesses, under the first impulse of horror or compassion, have given evidence ; but in the law court, at the trial, they have sworn that they know nothing, and were sub- orned by the authorities to give false testi- mony. Agrarian crime courts publicity, as though to proclaim its open defiance of the law and its absolute sense of security- in 1780 a shepherd of Mesnil Bruntel took the place of another without compensating his predecessor ; a few days later he was shot as he was walking down the village street in broad daylight between two friends. In 1783 the cure of Dompierre, near Peronne, took his glebe into his own hands : the following Sunday two hundred persons TENANT-RIGHT .... 135 assembled at church ; the cure was shot at the high altar, and no one saw the shot fired. A few years later, at Villers Guislain, a farmer took his neighbour's farm. He was shot at church in the middle of the congregation. Again, no one saw the crime committed, and, at the inquiry, all swore that they had seen nothing. Every village has some similar tradition ; of later events they are more reticent. Between July 1775 and November 177b, in the district of Peronne alone, twenty-live crimes, " plus crimi- ncls les uns que les autres," were brought before the law courts ; in no instance was the criminal discovered. Besides these cases, numerous other crime- were well known to private indi- viduals. In i/^/ the Provincial Assembly of Picardy met. A memorial relating to tenant- right was read before a sub-committee, and finally discussed in the Assembly.* The dele- gates decided to address the king to put down a svstem which was not only disastrous in its immediate effects, but dangerous to the most sacred right- of property. In 1S10 a Code Rural was projected, and local committees were ap- pointed to frame suggestions. Two of these committees, those of Douai and Liege, de- manded the suppression of the right, which they characterised as " un odieux et revoltant * " Prorvs-v. Ti' d de fA-nuM',- de la ^rn.r.iliU' d'Amicns," pp. ioy-ij (Ainiciii <-l P. iris, i/dS). 136 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. abus." At that very moment ten cases of incendiarism were before the Criminal Court of the North. The committee insist on the powerlessness of the executive to enforce the law. Justice was baffled not only by the impos- sibility of obtaining evidence, but by the sym- pathies of local tribunals. Vrely is a village near Rosieres, where the Abbe of St. Eloi at Noyon possessed land. In 1779 the land was let to a depointeux named Dangest. Within six weeks of his entry upon the farm, Dan- gest's farmbuildings, ricks, and stables were burned to the ground. He took the hint, and threw up the lease. Five years later the Abbe again tried to raise his rents ; the land was at once thrown upon his hands. He issued the statutory notices, and applied, under the existing law, to the tribunal of Montdidier to aid him in exacting the rent from the com- mune. They decided against him with costs. It is easier to collect old instances of the system of terrorism than to cite modern cases. The weapon is partially laid aside, because it has done its work. Landlords as well as law- yers have acquiesced in a usage which they are powerless to resist. In 1865 a landlord threw a number of small tenant-right holdings into a single farm, expended considerable capital on the erection of buildings and other improve- ments, and let the whole to a Belgian farmer. TENANT-RIGHT .... i 37 Four years in succession the crops were no sooner housed than they were burned. In 1870 they were only saved by being threshed in the open field. The landlord was compelled to come to terms with his evicted tenants. In 1845 the farmers of Bouvincourt refused to pay an in- creased rent. Judgment was obtained against them for the amount ; it remained unpaid. Finally a company of soldiers was sent to en- force the payment. The villagers wire armed, and had mounted an old cannon, captured from the Spaniards in 1636, upon lour coach wheels. For many years the gun, which formed one of the pieces justificatives, stood in the corridor of the Palais de Justice at Peronne. The gun was removed by the Prussians in 1S71, but the carriage still remains. In 1S6S there were ten cases of incendiarism before the criminal courts which were attributed to the droit dc marchc. The two following instances occurred within the memory of a man little over fifty. At Chipilly, a village between Corbie and Bray, a landlord took his land into his own hands. His house and farmbuildings were burned to the ground. In the same neighbourhood, thir- teen horses belonging to a dcpointcur had their tongues cut out. Within the last fifty years, in the neighbourhood of Pennine, a landlord re-entered upon a number of tenant-right farms, and cultivated them himself. The tenant- 138 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. right demanded that, when tired of farming, he should re-let the land to the representatives of the original tenants. Instead of complying with the usage, he let them at an increased rent to the mayor of the commune. A few weeks later the mayor was found drowned in a well. Cases of violence are admittedly becoming rarer every day. The end which terrorism secured is now attained by more peaceful means. But there can be little doubt that, if the occasion arose, the Picard peasants would again deserve the title, which has locally belonged to them for centuries, of " metteux de feu." Legislation failed to stamp out tenant-right. Yet the exceptional means adopted for its sup- pression were such as only a despotic govern- ment could frame or enforce. Special legisla- tion against the droit de marche commences with the royal edict in November 1679. The edict first states the offence. Farmers refuse to surrender their farms, or to permit the rent to be raised, or the conditions of their lease to be altered ; they dispose of the land as their own, by will, exchange, sale, or partition ; they retain possession by a system of threats, violence, and outrage, of which, however, " il est presque impossible d'avoir des pre uves." Existing law failed to check the abuse. Louis XIV had, therefore, determined to employ legislation of an extraordinary nature and exceptional TENANT-RIGHT .... i 3 g severity. His edict deals with two points, the passive resistance of boycotting and the con- nivance of local authorities. It renders the in- habitants of the commune in which boycotted land was situated responsible for the rent and cultivation ; it ousts the jurisdiction of local tribunals, and empowers the intendant of the province to deal with all crimes of an agrarian origin. A second Order of Council, issued in June 1707, vests jurisdiction over all agrarian offences in a special commissioner ; orders all farmers who held land without leases and against the consent of the landlord, at once to surrender their farms ; f< »rbids under heavy penalties all notaries to embody in legal documents stipu- lations relating to tenant-right, and calls upon them to furnish to the commissioner lists of all persons who, to their knowledge, claimed any such rights. On November 3, 1714, another edict was pub- lished. It recapitulates the abuses of the droit de marchc, and re-enacts, with increased sever- ity, the provision of the edict> of 1679 and 1707. It gives remarkable extension to the system of responsibility. The evicted occupier was treated as a hostage for the safety of new tenants. If any violence was committed against the person or property of a depoiutcur, the former tenant was held responsible. Without 140 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. any proof of complicity, the intendant was em- powered to throw him into prison, to keep him there till he proved his innocence, and, if he failed to disprove his guilt within three months, to sell his property, and compensate the injured persons. In March 1724 a still more severe edict was promulgated, renewing with increased penalties all previous provisions, and designed to cut at the very root of the droit de marche. Under the ancien regime tenants holding land after the ex- piration of the term contained in their lease, were considered to have their lease implicitly renewed. This implied renewal {tacite reconduc- tion) was now abolished in Santerre. All tenants were ordered either to obtain a formal renewal of their leases, or within three months from the date of the edict to notify their surrender of the farms. Those who continued to occupy the land without written leases were liable on the first offence to pay double the rent, on the second to imprisonment and transportation to the colonies with their wives and families. When land was thrown upon the landlord's hands by the sur- render of a farm, statutory notice was to be given of the fact upon the church door. If no new tenant offered himself, the letting value of the land was to be estimated by experts, and half the rent was exacted from the former occupier and the remaining half from the TENANT-RIGHT .... 141 commune. The commune was also held respon- sible for the cultivation of the land. Land- owners and new tenants, with their properties, families, and servants, were placed under the protection of the former occupier and the com- mune. If any of the greater agrarian crimes of murder or incendiarism were committed against them or their properties, and the perpetrator was not discovered, the former occupier, his wife, and his children, were to be thrown into prison ; unless within three months his inno- cence was proved by the conviction of the guilty persons, he and they were to be trans- ported to the colonies, and all his property was to be sold to make compensation. If the sum realised proved insufficient, the deficiency was to be made up by the commune. The wife and children of a man executed for agrarian crime, if living under the same roof at the time of the committal of the offence, might be arrested and transported to the colonies. The commune were required to render every assistance to the officers of justice, and the intendant was em- powered to billet soldiers upon the inhabitants for an indefinite period. New edicts in 1732 and 1747 filled up the gaps which, were left in 1724. Decrees of October 1732 and October 1747, applied the principle of communal responsibility to minor agrarian outrages, such as the maiming of cattle, and 142 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the destruction of standing crops, trees, or agri- cultural implements. The commune was held responsible for all offences of this description, and was required to make compensation, and was further punished with double contributions to the corvees, militia, and other extraordinary charges. This severe legislation was met by the peas- ants with the savage energy of desperation. A proclamation of Louis XV, issued in 1764, extends the provisions of the preceding edicts to the greater part of the north-east of France. Yet the address of the Provincial Assembly of Picardy in 1787 proves that tenant-right con- tinued to defy the law. Before any action could be taken upon their demands for severer measures, the Revolution had commenced. In 1810 no attention was paid to the suggestions of the committees of Douai and Liege, recom- mending a more Draconian code. A ferocious legislation, relentlessly enforced, failed to sup- press an illegal usage which rested only on an agricultural basis, and was supported by no race hatred. No religious prejudice con- tributed to its vitality, for the Church lent its influence to the maintenance of law, and more than one cure was threatened or boycotted for advising his parishioners to submit. Law and fact were at open variance, and law proved as powerless to alter facts as the Pope's Bull to check a comet. TENANT-RIGHT .... 143 Tenant-right in Picardy is still a living force. Yet undoubtedly it exercises at the present moment a far less important and more restricted influence than at anv previous period of its known history. What then are the causes of its decreased importance and of its present con- dition ? Fresh tenant-rights are now rarely acquired. Both the natural and legal causes of their growth have all but ceased to operate. Most of the land in Santerre which is available for farming purposes has been already reclaimed. Yet the droit de marchc still affords a ready means of compensating tenants for the labour of clearing forest land. A few years ago a land- lord was anxious to clear 250 acres of wood. He cut down the trees, and handed over the land to a tenant to stub the roots, giving him a tenant- right, recorded in his lease, of 200 francs the acre. The practice and law of letting and hiring have also been modified by the Code Civil in a direc- tion favourable to the tenant. Under the ancien regime leases were short. On Church lands in the arrondissement of Peronne the term was nine years, and any longer periods ren- dered the whole contract null and void. On lav lands the term was also nine years. X< >w leases run in Santerre for eighteen years. Not only were leases short, they were also precarious. They were governed by the Reman law maxim, 144 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. " Emptori fundi necesse non est stare colonum " ; and the proverb, " Mort romp tout louage." In other words, if property changed hands dur- ing the continuance of the lease, the new owner might evict the tenant. Revolutionary legis- lation secured to the tenant quiet enjoyment during the continuance of his term. Article 1743 of the Code Civil confirms the law of 1791. If the tenant holds under a bail authentique {i.e. a lease executed between the parties before a public notary) or a lease for a fixed period, he cannot be dispossessed during the con- tinuance of the term unless provision has been made to the contrary. The tenant is now secure for nine, or even eighteen years. But, as Hector Crinon says, " How quickly the time comes round. And then there is a rise of rent, a pot de vin and a notary's fee ! Resistance is impos- sible, for the landlord holds the handle of the spade. Refuse the terms and you are evicted from the land your family has held for centuries, compelled to serve others as a farm labourer, or reduced to beggary." It is, by the way, to be regretted that the Satires picardes of Hector Crinon, himself a labouring man and a haricotier, have not been translated out of the Picard patois for the benefit of those who take too rose-coloured a view of the comfortable life of peasant proprietors. Undoubtedly an incom- ing tenant expends capital in the purchase of TENANT-RIGHT .... 145 his predecessor's tenant-right, which might be more profitably employed on his farm. On the other hand, he gains security and length of tenure. Without the tenant-right, and under the old legal conditions, forest land in Santerre would never have been reclaimed. While tenant-right is no longer reinforced from the old sources, it is constantly being ex- tinguished. Land subject to tenant-right is sold or let for a third or a quarter less than free land. The old landowners of the district for the most part acquiesce in a burden which has descended to them, together with their property, from generation to generation. Many new purchasers, on the other hand, have bought tenant-right land at a cheap rate, and sold it at the price of free land, or raised the rents to the level of the letting value of tcrrc litre. Such cases have always provoked opposition ; but some of the large sugar companies have defied the conse- quences of the tenant-right more successfully than individual landowners. On the other hand, M. Vion, who twenty years ago was one of the most widely known and scientific agricul- turists of the district, gives evidence from his own experience of the respect which the best landowners show to the rights of their truant-. M. Vion's father was a tenant-right farmer at Lceuilly, near Peronne. He had bought the right from his predecessor in title at Ooo francs 146 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the hectare. Several years ago the landowner was anxious to sell the land. M. Vion pere offered 1,500 francs the hectare ; a neigh- bour offered 2,100 francs — the price which the land would have fetched as terre libre. The landlord accepted the offer of M. Vion. Another instance fell within M. Vion's personal ex- perience. He himself was not only a landed proprietor, but rented land of which he pur- chased the tenant-right. The land which he thus occupied was put up for sale. As the possessor of the tenant-right, he purchased it at 2,300 francs the hectare, instead of paying the price of free land, namely, 3,000 francs. In- stances may be quoted in which the high- handed action of landlords has extinguished a burden on their property which the law regards as illegal. But for every single instance of the kind ten cases might be alleged in which the droit de marche has been extinguished, either because the farmers themselves purchased the land over which they claimed the tenant-right, or because landlords redeemed the right by paying to the tenant-farmer an indemnity. Either way the droit de marche triumphs. Before the Revolution the ownership of the soil was vested in a few large proprietors, many of whom were religious corporations. Now more than a third of the land is held by peasant proprietors. From this division of the soil spring TENANT-RIGHT .... 147 two important consequences, each of which diminishes the importance of the droit de mar die. Formerly farmers clutched their tenant-right with the convulsive grip of men who knew that, if it escaped their grasp, their last hold upon the land was gone. The soil was not only their one ambition but seemed their sole means of livelihood. Now they have seen more of the world. Land is repeatedly in the market. It costs a little more to become a peasant pro- prietor ; but the tenant-right farmer im- proves his social position. Under the changed circumstances of landed property, the old system of terrorism is rendered impossible. The peasantry are divided among themselves. Defiance of the law by means of a secret coali- tion is difficult when the members of the union no longer form even a bare majority, and when men of their own class are arrayed on the side of order and interested in the maintenance of rights of property. The redemption of tenant-right by landlords also became a frequent source of the extinc- tion of the droit do marche. Many landlords acquiesced in the existence of the tenant's claim. They derived from it, especially in days :>f agricultural depression, important advantages. Their rent, intrudes, and pots de vin were se- cured to them by the solidarity of their tenants and by the fear that non-payment would 148 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. forfeit the tenant-right. Farmers are less un- willing than formerly to permit landlords to redeem the droit de marche. Legal and social changes diminished the paramount importance which once attached to the right. The opening up of the country by new roads and railways, the alteration of the old three-course system of farming, the introduction of new agricultural methods and implements, operated in the same direction. Small tenant-right farmers see new resources and new means of acquiring wealth placed at the disposal of large tenants, from which they themselves are debarred by the size of their holdings. Before the Franco-Prus- sian war French peasants hoarded their savings in holes in the floor ; their loans to Govern- ment opened their eyes to the fact that land is not the sole or the most remunerative invest- ment. They are more easily induced to sell their tenant-right, and embark their capital in farm- ing on a larger scale, or in other enterprises which yield greater returns. But here again every redemption of the droits de marche, though it extinguishes the right, is a defeat for the law. It is a practical recognition of a usage, the existence of which the law repu- diates. Another factor in the extinction of the droit de marche is the droit d'ainesse, which is op- posed to the interests of the younger children. TENANT-RIGHT .... 149 But too much weight may easily be attached to the influence of this last cause. No doubt the law of partition under the Code Civil stamps the creation of an eldest son as unjust to the remainder of the family. The factor is more powerful in theory than in practice. The droit d'ainessc of Picard tenant-right is in harmony with the deep-rooted sentiments of the people, and its operation is limited. It bears hardly upon sisters, because, if they sell to the repre- sentative of the familv, their portions are docked of half their value ; but in the case of brothers it only consists in the obligation to lease or sell their portions of the tenant-right land to the occupier of the farm. Considering the sacrifices which are daily made in rural France to evade the law of partition and keep together family land, little importance can, in my opinion, be assigned to the contrast between the effects of the law of partition and the custom of the droit d'aiuesse. Arguments might be founded upon the restricted area and decreased importance of the droit dc marcJie to invoke exceptional legis- lation against tenant-right in Ireland, it i> here only necessary to say that such reasoning would be founded on a misconception of the history of the droit dc marchc. Except in the few in- stances whore landlords succeeded in confiscat- ing tenant-right, penal legislation can claim 150 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. no share in the suppression of the farmer's claim. On the other hand, so far as the Code Civil in- directly sanctions the principle for which tenants contended, and facilitates the division of prop- erty and the growth of a peasant proprietary, it has greatly contributed to the extinction of the droit de marche. The area and the importance of the droit de marche are diminished by the completeness of its success ; every acquiescence by landlords in the principle of perpetual leases, every re- demption by them of the tenant's claim, every purchase of his holding by the farmer at prices below those of terres libres, is a triumph for its principles. The executive did not require new powers ; it only needed the - means to make their existing powers respected. A handful of tenant-farmers resisted the ordinary law ; though opposed to the most despotic govern- ment of the day and supported by neither race- hatred nor religious prejudice, they found it equally easy to baffle an exceptional legislation of extraordinary severity enforced with the most ruthless ferocity. A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. THERE are moments when even the most fastidious taste sickens of wheaten loaves and asks for barley bread — times when the appetite inclines to rustic fare, though it be seasoned with grey salt, served on a red table- cloth, and eaten with a two-pronged fork of steel. In such a mood some stray reader may not despise the rude traditions of unlettered peasants. The legendary lore of France is rich. No- where does it better love to linger than around those Druidic remains which stud the north and west of France, and still hold the popular imagination enthralled with their fresh and potent spell. The sites on which these remains were reared are chosen with instinctive skill. Sometimes they overlook vast panoramas of open plain, standing on rising ground, whence the priest, at the summer or winter solstice, might catch the first glimpse of the orient sun, or whence sacrificial lire might call to sacrificial tire across the length and breadth of the land. Some- times they lie by the sides of running streams, hidden in dark, deep-recessed, wood-clothed 152 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. glades, where, remote from the profane gaze of the uninitiated, mysterious rites might be performed. What were the distinctive purposes of these different megalithic monuments it is not now the object to inquire. Little light is thrown by the surface of the stones themselves on such a topic. After the lapse of centuries it is often difficult to distinguish the artificial work of tools from the natural effect of the constant action of water upon stone. Thus the Pierre du Benitier near Villac (Dordogne), and the Sabol an Diol (Cotes- du-Nord) appear to bear shallow basins and channels carved upon their faces. Traditionally these hollows were receptacles for the blood of victims ; but it is probable that, like several of the so-called Kist-vens, many were due to the continual dropping of the rain. On the other hand, from the number of stones which are thus distinguished, and from the regularity of the forms, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that many are artificial. Be this as it may, the most primitive of these erections, like the ear- liest Hebrew altars, were certainly virgin blocks* of unhewn stone, on which no trace of human labour could be found. The stones served as places of sacrifice and of burial, as temples, sanctuaries, landmarks, bounds, and, like the * In the parish of Bains near Redon (Ille-et-Vilaine) is a spot covered with stone monuments. It is called " Gwerchmen," literally " virgin-stone." A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 153 stones of Bethel and Sinai — so their common name of temoins implies — as pillars of testimony. In the ancient Eastern world similar stones passed from symbols of eternity and emblems of divinity into gods themselves. So, too, in the degeneracv of Druidic Pantheism, upright obe- lisks first svmbolised the forces of nature, and then received the worship of deities. Rude as they are, they were scarcely rougher than the statue of Venus at Paphos, which was nothing but a simple conical stone. Silent guardians of the secrets of the past, they baffle the inquiry of a curious age, and it is a true poetic instinct that has prompted the French peasantry to trace round them the magic circle of awe and mystery. These grey granite masses, huge, unhewn, misshapen, are scattered over many districts of France. Among the wild scenery of Brittany, they seem in strange, unconscious harmony with surroundings as savage as themselves. Here all is in keeping ; they are at home ; their presence is appropriate. But along the course of the Vienne, in the midst of the garden of France, thev resemble Puritans at Whitehall in the days of Charles II. Unwelcome, unbidden guests, thev watch with reproachful eyes the gaiety and abandonment of nature ; uncouth intruders on the fertile soil of Touraine, they seem to reprove by their primness the varied beauty of the land, the crystal brightness of its 154 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. streams, the emerald verdure of its meadows, diapered with the tender green of vineyards, or coloured by flowering forests of fruit-trees. Yet here, too, though the setting is incongru- ous, and the effect is produced by contrast rather than by harmony, the impression they create is hardly less striking. They do not stand companionless in their isolation from their surroundings. By their side, and like them records of powers that have passed away, is gathered a medley of remains whose associa- tions condense into one glance the history of the land. Here stretches a Roman road advancing straight towards its goal, a fit emblem of the national genius of constructors who were diverted by no obstacle from their destined end ; here stands a dismantled feudal fortress, round which memory and imagination may once again hear the shock of lance and the battle-cries of mail- clad warriors ; here rise the arches of a ruined abbey — once the living tomb of human souls wrestling in penitential prayer with the pas- sions and the promptings of the flesh. And the lesson they suggest is that which is contained in Arnold's lines : Race after race, man after man, Have thought that my secret was theirs, Have dreamed that I lived but for them, That they were my glory and joy ; They are dust, they are changed, they are gone I remain. A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 155 Captive Rome, with her utilitarian products, still leads her captors into captivity. For the others, on ne pretc qu'aux riches ; material wealth is on the side of the modern world ; the castle is a storehouse of artificial manure ; the abbey is a granary ; the Druidic stones themselves are a daily sacrifice to Macadam. The most common forms of Druidic monu- ments are menhirs, dolmens, allecs centrales, pierres branlantcs, and cairns. Cromlechs, or, to use the mediaeval term, malli are compara- tively rare. They are, however, not infre- quently found in Brittany, and are to be met with in Perigord and elsewhere. Such a mallus may still be traced near Marsac, in the neigh- bourhood of Perigueux, and traditionally the chief stone in the circle (lo Peyro dans nan tours) on certain nights turns round nine times. Menhirs* or Peulvens, are single upright stones. In the charters and legal documents of the Middle Ages they are often referred to as landmarks and boundaries — pierres de homage or haittcs homes. In the local administration of mediaeval times they were, like the English shire oak:-, important features — on one the lord of the manor distributed salt, on another justice. The people speak of them as les palets, ies mul- ches, or les cailhntx de Gargantua ; and, though the remark is in the nature of a digression, it is * Men - btonu ; hir - luug. 156 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. curious to notice how omnipresent is the name of the gigantic sire of Pantagruel. Mont St. Michel is a rock thrown by his father, Grand- go usier, as a stepping-stone when he was on his way to England to help King Arthur ; one of the white cliffs above Duclair, on the Seine, below Rouen, is Gargantua's pulpit ; in the canton of Pontoise (Seine-et-Oise) is a huge menhir known as le palet de Gargantua ; the rising ground on the plain of Montlevicq (Indre) is the mud that dropped from his sabot ; near Clion (Indre) is a hill called Le-pied-de- Bourges, which fell from his foot as he was coming from Bourges at a single stride ; the pierre Bise, near Redon (Ille-et-Vilaine), was placed there by Gargantua ; the pierre de la Mignon, near St. Aubin du Cormier (Ille-et- Vilaine), was a stone which Gargantua carried in his pocket to defend himself from the dogs, as he went to visit his lady-love. Poitou liter- ally bristles with his quoits, his ninepins, and his palaces. But, with this exception of Gar- gantua, it is rare to find in the local names of these stones any commemoration of mythical or historical characters, though there are the Said du Holland and the Pierre des Huguenots, both in the arrondissement of Fougeres (Ille- et-Vilaine). The most curious record thus chronicled is in La Vendee. The cruelties of Soubise, the famous Protestant leader, who was A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 157 finally defeated by Louis XIII in 1622, are there preserved alive in popular memory. As wolves are often called " Soubises," so his name is interchangeable with that of the devil, and menhirs may be equally called picrrcs du Diablo and picrrcs dc Soubisc. It may be added that the site of his castle (Chaise-Giraud) is still haunted by his unquiet shade. Dolmens are vast masses of stone laid horizon- tally and table-wise on two or more vertical uprights. In Berri they are still used as tables for the nocturnal feasts of the Marks, tall, hid- eous women, with long black hair, and flabby breasts reaching to their thighs, who invite the shepherds to their embrace. The peasant of Perigord calls a dolmen in his patois pcyro- levato, or, sometimes, pcyro-lato (i.e. pierre levee). One, in the department of the Dordogne, is called le Cms dc la Voigc, in allusion to the tradition that under it, during a terrific storm, a shepherdess was sheltered by the Virgin. Another is called la Cabanc du Loup. In the wild picturesque district of Lozere they are known as lou gcoyon, or the giant, or as peym- geoyondo (gigantic stone). When one end only of the table reposes on its support and the other is buried in the ground, the mishap is in Berri attributed to the wilfulness of the giant, who thought that he could, alone and unaided, place the slab upon its legs. 158 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. When the dolmens are prolonged so as to form an avenue they are called Allies couvertes, or, in popular language, Grotte aux Fees, Maison des Nains, or Palais de Gargantua. In Brittany (C6tes-du-Nord) one is called le lit de St. Jean, and another (Finistere), le lit de St. Ronan. Both are places to which barren women resort for superstitious practices. Rocking-stones (Pierres branlantes or tour- nantes) were largely used for purposes of rural divination. They are also known by the more popular name of Casse-noisettes (Perigord — casso nousillo) . Lastly, there are heaps of stones, galgals, or cairns. In Roman times similar cairns were sometimes raised at the turning-points of roads or on the summits of hills, in honour of Mercury, the protector of commerce and in- dustry. One of the names by which they are locally known is Meurgers or Murgets. It is difficult to resist the suggestion that in this pro- vincial word the tenacity of popular memory has preserved the name of Mercury. Under these various forms Druidic remains are thickly scattered over the northern and western districts of France. How and why were they brought to the spots where they now are fixed ? Perigord is rich in these remains, but, in that paradise of gourmets, life is too easy to foster the A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 159 growth of legends, which thrive best in stonier soil. The peasantry are credulous enough re- specting the stones themselves, but they do not occupy their minds with inquiries into their origin. It is not in a country whose patron saint might be Courtois, the famous artist who won by his pates the favour of the great Fred- erick and an European fame, — it is not in the country of partridges, of delicately flavoured oronges, of rich Bergerac, of celestial, per- fumed truffles — the soul of Perigordian cookery — that we can expect grand imaginative legends. So far as I can discover, there is no distinct explanation of their origin current among the people. Brittany, on the other hand, gives a char- acteristic explanation. Its superstitions have the grave, sad, and mystic tone which belongs to a province that has been the nursing-mother (jf thinkers preoccupied with religious questions. As fishermen plying their perilous trade on a dangerous coast, as husbandmen wresting by main force a scanty subsistence from a niggard soil, the Breton peasant gives free play to the sombre imagination of the Celt. The mysteries of the unseen are very near to their daily life. They realise to themselves in dramatic form the spiritual world by which they art' sur- rounded, and speak as if the conflict oi lieu veil and hell for the possession of the land were 160 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. waged before their very eyes. The stones that strew the land are due, in their belief, to dia- bolical agency. This explanation is not indeed universal. The lits de St. Jean and St. Ronan have been already mentioned ; and in the can- ton of Bourbiac (C6tes-du-Nord) stands a vast menhir which, as popular tradition tells us, grew year by year like a plant till the cruci- fixion of our Lord, when its growth suddenly ceased. Sometimes also the stones seem to be endowed with the power of resistance to the Evil One. Thus at Cleder there is one which is scored with the devil's talons. He tried to raise it, that he might hurl it at the church which St. Pol was building at Leon, but it could not be moved. The grey, gigantic warders of a past civilisation that keep watch over the solitary plain of Karnac are, according to one Breton legend, a host of pagan warriors whom St. Comely turned into stone. There is also the Pierre de St. Phillibert, between Quimperle and Moelan, which gives immediate relief to the colic, if the stomach is rubbed upon it. In one instance, at least, the historical account has been preserved in the local name ; not far from Lezardrieux are three dolmens which are called Men-ar-Rumpct, or Stones of the Druids. But the theory of diabolic agency is the most popular and widespread throughout Brittany. Tradition tells us that the Archangel Michael A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 161 condemned the conquered Satan to labour in raising Mont St. Michel, which was destined to be the stronghold of heaven against the power of hell. Desperate were the devil's efforts to exe- cute his task. There are the Epaulc-du-Diable and the Faix-du-Diable, both of which show marks of his bones. Near Louvigne-du-Desert lies a stone which the devil strove with might and main to move. So fiercely did he struggle that, in the long nick which runs down the whole length of the Pierre-du-Diable, may be traced his thin, sharp-pointed spine. But these pecu- liar marks on stones are not always evil in their origin. Thus in the commune of Lougnac (Correze) there is a stone marked with the font- print of God. It was once no uncommon sight to see the shepherds prostrated in simple adora- tion before lou pecJia del boun Dion. But to resume the common Breton tradition. Pass- ing by Antrain (Ille-et-Yilaine) with two enormous block-, one under each arm, the devil dropped the Pierre Longuc, which still lies on the spot where it fell ; the other fell on the Champ Dolent near Dol. At Ilingle, near Dinan, is a dolmen called Pierrc-dc-Dial at Pleleuf and at Louvigne-du-Dcsert is the Cadoner-an-Diol , or Devil's Chair, on which he may still be seen sitting in different shapes. Another stone in the C6tcs-du-Nord, in which small babins and channels may be traced, is 6 162 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. known as the Sabol-an-Diol, or Devil's Shoe. The theory of Satanic worship is probably the parent of a tradition and a practice common in the country. Sometimes the overthrow of these stones is attributed to the patron saint of the district, as if the powers of heaven and hell were here in conflict ; thus, in the neighbourhood of Guingamp is an Allee couverte which was over- thrown by St. Jolivet. And it was the common, if not the universal, practice in Brittany to bury unbaptized infants in the neighbourhood of these Druidic remains. So, too, the peasant of Perigord, who sees at nightfall faint flickering lights playing round menhirs or dolmens, knows that these feux-follets are the spirits of those who have died without Christian baptism. Is it altogether absurd to hint that in this popular fancy and practice may be enshrined the remote historical fact that some of these stones were once the burial-places of heathens ? South of the Loire different answers are given to the questions how and why the Druidic stones were reared in the spots where they now are found. In the replies of the peasantry of Touraine and Berri, or of Bas Poitou and La Vendee, something of the provincial character may be traced. In neither do we find the full stature of the grand and gloomy imagination of the Celt. The legend of Bas Poitou and La Vendee A FAGGOT OF FRFXCH FOLK-LORE. 163 resembles that of Brittany. Nor is this sur- prising, if it is remembered that, down to B.C. 27, Armorica included almost all the country between the Loire and the Garonne. But the legend is Breton with a difference. Bas Poitou is a country of lawyers, not of poets ; its inhabitants are too sensible to dream, too wise to attempt to fly. The controversies of the law-courrs, and the spirit of contra- diction inherent in the legal mind, turned into satire whatever of poetry the country con- tained, it has no ballads, but its notls en langu^e poictcvin, of which Rabelais speaks, are tart satirical verses. Consequently there is a strong legal colouring, as well as a tinge of satire in the definite, and, as a theory, satisfactory answer which the peasant of the district gives to the question of the origin of the Druidic remains. Off the coast near Sables d'Olonne are two islands, Noinnoutier and lie d'Yeu. 1 he smaller island is famous for the Font de St. Martin. St. Martin, the thaumaturgist of Gaul, desired to cross over on a missionary expedition from Notrc-Dame-de-Monts to the island of Yeu ; bat he had no means of making the tran- sit. So he determined to play a trick upon Satan. He made a curious mechanical fan ol ice, the cooling effect of which was miraculous As he expected, the ruler of hell was tempted by this 164 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. fan. One day Satan met him, and asked, " Martin, wilt thou sell me thy fan ? See, here is gold for the purchase ! " And even as he spoke, the grass, the leaves, the pebbles, nay, even the trunks of the trees themselves were turned into gold. " Thy gold perish with thee ! " replied Martin ; " yet this fan will I give thee on one condition — that thou makest me a bridge, so that I may pass over dryshod to the Island of Oia." " I will make thee thy bridge," said the Evil One, " if the first soul that passes over it may belong to me." " Be it so ! " said Martin ; " only the bridge must be made this very night, and finished before cockcrow." " A bargain — a bargain ! " cried Satan, hardly able to contain himself for joy ■ at the prospect of holding the saint in his grip. Then, as evening fell, he summoned round him all the rank and file of his infernal troop — goblins, and imps, and gnomes, and dwarfs, and witches, and sor- ceresses, and wise women. " Good news ! " said he, " Martin, that Apostle of Christ, our mortal foe, shall be ours this very night." At his words there burst from the troop a yell so fiendish that the men of Tours and Poitiers cowered in terror, and the sailors of a ship far out at sea, making her way to Marseilles, fell on their knees, and crossed themselves in fear. " He will be ours," continued Satan, " if, before the cock crows, you can throw a bridge from the A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 165 mainland to the Island of Oia. To work, then, at once ! I will go and make the village cock drunk, so that he may not crow so earlv." Then the devilish troop scoured the country far and near, bringing stones in their hands or on their backs, and working with desperate energy. Huge rocks were poured into the sea : the work was all but done ; and but half tin night was gone. Already at low-tide St. Mar!;-"; might have walked acre-- in safety. There wanted but a few more stones. Suddenly, the village cock, excited and :vst]< --s with hi? debuueh, crowed a tipsy crow, full two hours before tin dawn. Satan was taken in ids own trap. The work stopped as though by magic. All round tin country, for leagues and leagues, the devils were compelled to drop their stone- : a.j ! tin mark of 1 1 1 aw they were n-iee to cut in . one enormous block is visible to this day, while hundred- are scored by their talons. So St. Martin obtained his bridge. The legend of Toitraine and IVm is pretty and fanciful rather than imaginative ; it ha- neithcr the detiniteness nor the -nine touch of the explanation of Poiiou. tin -touc-, v dropped by fairies, who were condemned, in punishment for some unknown crimes, to carry them from point to point between nightfall cockcrow, if l he dawn broke be! or, was completed, the stones fell from the hands 166 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. of the fairies and were imbedded in the soil. Therefore the punishment has never been com- pleted, and every evening, at nightfall, the fairies return, and, with low sobs and moans, wander disconsolately round the spot until day- break. Near the Mer Rouge, in the swampy district of La Brenne, is the Pierre a la Fade. The stone was to be carried by a fairy, in pun- ishment for some crime, to serve for the foun- dations of the Castle of Bouchet. The cock crew before she reached her destination ; the stone fell and could never again be moved. If the traveller passes the pool at night, he will see a feeble flickering light wander before him over the water. It is the fairy, who has never been able to complete her 'penance, and there- fore always haunts the spot. The only trace of gloomy grandeur about the stone traditions of Berri and Touraine is connected with the Pierre a Norn, near Arminie. No one knows, nor ever can know, its name ; for whoever knows it dies immediately. Almost universally the stones are popularly supposed to be the guardians of treasures. Near Fougercs, for instance (Ille-et-Vilaine), is the Pierre du Tresor. It is to this superstition that many stones owed their destruction. Those who dig for treasures find themselves drawn by unseen hands, slowly but irresistibly, down- wards. The adventurers must drop their A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 167 spades and flee. The stone that bars the entrance is watched with jealous care by the fairies, or the fr adds. But once a year, on Palm Sunday, the power ceases. When the priest in the procession reaches the door of the church, and the " Atollite Portas " (" Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! ") is sung, the stone rises from its place, and leaves an entrance. Then the man who has courage may enter, and find himself in the presence of vast treasures. But it is only for a brief space that the stone re- mains raised. When the words of the sacred hymn are ended, it falls back in its place, and no power on earth can raise it again. Many are the victims of greed who have for ever vanished from the light of day. The Pe Rocker, near Bernard, was the scene of a terrible disaster. Two of the fradets, under the form of black dogs, guard the treasure that is hidden there. Once a year, on the Feast of Palms, at the grand celebration of the mass, the way is opened to the vault. One Palm Sunday a mother and her child were sitting by the Pe Roc her when the way was opened. The child entered, and came out again with her pinafore hilled with gold. Her mother forced her to return. She passed the black dogs in safety, for the bell still rang; but the moment it ceased, the aperture closed over the belated treasure-seeker. The screams of the mother attracted the people ; the priest himself came ■i68 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. with cross and holy water ; but the opening re- mained closed, and the victim never again saw the light of day. Another legend of similar character ends more happily. A poor widow woman was herd- ing her sheep, and knitting in the moat of the Castle of Boussac, and her only child sat in her lap. It was Palm Sunday, and, as the priest approached the door of the church, a stone flew out of the castle wall, and disclosed a passage. With the child in her arms the woman entered, and saw a heap of gold. Putting the child down, she rilled her arms with all that she could carry, staggered with it to the door, hurried out, threw the money on the turf, and rushed back to fetch the child. But the stone had sprung back to its place, and no trace of it appeared. She prayed to the Virgin and to the Saints, but her prayers seemed of no avail. That night, ex- hausted by weeping, she fell asleep, and in her sleep she saw a vision. A fairy of surpassing beauty appeared to her, and told her not to weep ; on the same day a year hence, and at the same hour, the door would open again. " If then," said the fairy, " thou renderest back all the money that thou hast taken, thou wilt receive again thy child. Only, every Saturday night, thou must place at the foot of the wall a child's shift, clean from the wash ; and every Sunday morning thou wilt find the A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 169 child's dirty one. By this token thou shalt know that she still lives." This the mothei did, and at the close of the year she restored the gold, and received back her child. It would be impossible to chronicle half the superstitions which cluster round Druidic remains. Here, for instance, is the Pierre dc- gonttante, or Dropping Stone, which is the sub- ject of superstitious worship, because, when the liquid drops cease to flow, then the Day of Judgment is at hand. Hen' is a stone which, on a certain night of the year, dances in strange fantastic fashion ; but woe to the man who sees it, for lie i- pursued and crushed. Here is another, which, in wet weather, glows with a deep red colour, popularly supposed to be the in- delible stain of the blood of victims. Here is the Pierre percec, through the hole in which, accon: ing to local traditions, sacrificial victims placed their heads and were then decapitated with the Sacred Knife. A nosegay passed through this hole is an irrevocable pledge of fidelity between lovers; blades of grass plucked at its base, moss scraped from its surface, protect tin's.- who carry them against the evil spirit- that mam through the country. Nearly all tin- stones possess some miraculous gifts of 1 io others belong other attributes. 1 ho- a shde down the Faix du 1 liable, or the A' (Ille-et-Vilainej, brings good i n is 170 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. in obtaining husbands. Near Neuilly (Aisne) there is a stone with two channels cut in its surface, from which the bride and bridegroom drink in the presence of their friends, and arc ever afterwards happy in their married life. At Bucy, in the same department, the bride slides down a stone on her sabots. It became a proverbial expression for a woman who has by her misconduct forfeited her prospect of honourable marriage— Elle a casse son sabot. But it is not only round the stones which stud the north and west of France that super- stitions linger. Imagination takes a thousand forms. The treasury of Breton legends has already been explored, and in other provinces it is vain to expect traditions of the same sombre imaginative splendour. Beyond the confines of Brittany is found no such impressive portent of war as the spectacle of Arthur's host — grim warriors who, mounted on grey horses with wide-opened, snorting nostrils, scour the mountain sides. Yet Brittany is not the only province in which the supernatural swayed the popular imagination. Elsewhere in France, if legends are less imposing and less deeply tinged with religious colouring, they are more characteristic of the French nation. The " esprit grivois, malicieux, spirituel," — the gay raillery, with its bright fancy and subacid flavour of sly malice, is best represented in other A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 171 districts. The country between the Loire and the Garonne is still peopled with strange phan- tom forms ; the barren districts of la cam- pagne Berrichonne, where children shepherd wild-looking sheep on heaths that know no other signs of life, the marshy wastes and glittering ponds of La Sologne, the sti Tin- swept dunes of La Vendee — all are rich in legendary lore. Even in Normandy the shrewd peasant shud- ders as Gailerv and his hounds sweep bv him on the wind. Like the " Grand Veneur " in the forest of Fontainebleau, this phantom hunts- man and his spectral pack are often seen by belated rustics. In Perigord it is called /a chasse-vulante ; the leader * > i the ghostly troop, which rushes through the skv with the neigh of horses, the clack of whips, the bay of hounds, and the cries of the huntsmen, is a t;i!l woman clad in white from head to font, and mounted on a white horse. Its appearance portench terrible calamities, and, as such, it preceded the French Revolution. In other districts ot tin* same province it is called the Chassc dit rm Herod. Because of the Ma-sn re ol tin- It cents the king and his court were condemned thus to travel for cvi r through the air. I he Poitevin obtain- charms a ;ain-t tin ' Galeric or C/msse-brn/uet, or, ,1- it 1 -ometmu-?. called, the Chasse St. Hubert. I'h- 1« ml, as 172 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. told in La Vendee and Poitou, runs as follows : Gallery was a great noble, who had neither the fear of God before his eyes nor any bowels of compassion for the peasant. Every week he openly profaned the Holy Day of the Lord. It chanced at length that one Sunday, during the very hour of the celebration of the mass, he put up a stag with his hounds, and fol- lowed after it in hot pursuit till the stag took refuge in the cave of a hermit. The holy man was busied with his devotions ; but when Gallery came up, he refused to surrender the dumb guest which had sought the shelter of his cell. As Gallery persisted, the hermit threatened him with the vengeance of Heaven, if he did not, that solemn day and hour, bow his knee in wor- ship to God. But the cruel noble scoffed at the warning, and made as though he would seize the prey by force. Then the hermit pronounced upon him the Divine sentence. " Go," he cried, " sinful man ! pursue thy chase as thou wilt ; the Almighty has condemned thee to hunt for ever from sunset to sunrise." And from that time to this the spectral stag, chased by the hounds and followed by the pricker cheering on his phantom pack, sweeps through the sky. Poitou and La Vendee are the haunts of loups-garous and gar aches, human beings who are compelled to assume the shape of wolves, A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 173 and love to devour the raw flesh of children. In Perigord the sons of priests are obliged at certain hours of the night to become ani- mals. The Ichorous, as they are called, are seen to leap in human shape from the windows of their houses, and rush to the nearest stream. They plunge into it, cross to the farther side, don the skin which the devil has placed on the bank, and scour the country till daybreak. Somewhat similar to the loups-garoits and leberous are the bidochcs ; but they are harmless, and generally take the shape of gnats. Nothing can break the spell that lies upon them, unless their blood be made to How. Against ordinary lead or steel they are proof. But when the gun is loaded with three pieces of consecrated bread collected at the three Christmas celebrations, the enchantment may be broken. It was so in the case of a girl named Dormez, the daughter of wealthy parents near Niort, who assumed the form of a goat. She was struck bv a charge of consecrated bread ; blood flowed, and she recovered her human shape. But the villagers, dazzled by the rich- ness of her jewels, killed her, and buried the In >dy in a hastily dug grave among the dunes. Her parents, distracted at her loss, were guided by her favourite dog to the spot where she was buried, and the crime was discovered. The place is still called La fosse a Dormez. 174 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. It is unlucky to kill a bidoche, and another of these dunes commemorates the fate of one and the disastrous consequences that followed. It is called la casse a la Reine, for it was the Queen of the North who nightly crossed the seas to play upon the sand in the shape of a goat, and at that spot was killed. A peasant charged his musket, not with the consecrated bread, but with a bullet blessed by the priest. His aim was true ; the spell was broken. She stood before him a queen, clad in gorgeous rai- ment, glittering with gold and gems. But the bullet had struck her to the heart. " Ah ! luck- less man ! " she faintly said, " had I been wounded only, I would have given thee wealth, and honour, and all that thy heart could desire ; thou and thy family should have been rich, noble, fortunate. But my heart is pierced, and thine is not touched. Therefore thy name shall be a byword for misfortune from gener- ation to generation." So saying, she died. The curse was fulfilled to the very letter. The man himself lived barely a year ; his house was burned ; his cattle sickened ; his crops were blighted. All that his family put their hands to failed. Good luck deserted them ; they went from bad to worse, and now are sunk into the lowest scale of fortune. Another monster which haunts the district is the Miaquc, which leaps on the backs of A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 175 horses, and rides them furiously all the night through, till the}- are worn to skin and bone. The animals are found in the morning, their manes twisted and knotted, splashed from head to foot, and in a lather of foam. Pieces of clover are placed on the Druidic stones which abound in this part of the country to preserve the peasant from the cheval-nuilet. Tins is a white horse, saddled and bridled, winch invites weary, footsore travellers to mount. It even bends its knees if the peasant is aged, in order that he may the more easily reach the saddle. But woe to the man who mounts ! The animal bounds away at headlong speed, dashing through forests and over rocks, and generally ends by throwing its rider over a precipice. Sometimes the ciieval-malct has neither head nor tail. L'pon it arrives the GuiUa-neu or New Year. On dark and stormy nights giants prowl through the land, and the name of the ogre Gar- gantua is everywhere. Nearly every Druidic stone is connected with some legend. In Touraine, for instance, near the Chateau La Valliere, stands the Menhir du Vaujour, at a point where two valleys meet. Lvery niejit three ladies, riding on white horses, leave the wooded hills from which tiie valleys spring, pass down the Vallee des Dames, and celebrate strange religious ceremonies at the Menhir, then ascend the Vallee du Vaujour, where they 176 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. hold their nightly revels, and at cockcrow disappear. La Birette, a phantom figure shrouded in white, traverses Berri, bringing misfortunes to all that encounter it. Round the Fosse des Diables, in the Forest of Chante- loube, are heard mysterious sounds, and spec- tral figures flit to and fro through the deep shadows of the trees ; he who loses his way in the forest, and draws near to the Fosse, never returns again, alive or dead, to this world of mortals. As has been said, the Maries, tall, hideous, black-haired women, call to the shep- herds from the tops of the dolmens which serve as their couches, and invite them to their em- brace. By the side of the streams the laveuses de nuit ply their ghostly trade, while round the Druidic remains which stud these provinces gleam strange fires, and unearthly figures cele- brate wild festivals. At Christmas the Poitevin lights his Yule log, which burns for the whole cctave, and is called the Cosse de Neu. At the same season every animal has an extra morsel of good pasture, called guillaneu. On the Eve of St. John fires blaze out in innumerable parishes throughout France south of the Loire. In Poitou the ma- terial of the fire is called le fougeau de St. Jean. Each of the peasants is provided with a hazel bough, from which hangs a bunch of St. John's wort ; its charred embers are a sovereign remedy A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 177 against toothache. The hazel bough itself is a preservative from all kinds of maladies. As the fire dies down, stones are thrown into its embers ; whoever throws the largest stone is fortunate in the coming year. Walnut twigs burned in the fire are passed over the backs of the cattle to protect them from disease. The crepe poitevine is a sort of pancake which is tossed in the pan three times a year : at New Year's Day, to have money throughout the next twelve months ; at Candlemas, to make the dough rise in the oven ; at Shrove-tidc, to preserve the corn from the blight. The two islands off Sables-d'Olonne, Xoir- moutier and lie d'Yeu, have their distinctive superstitions. Noirmoutier is haunted by Braillayds, who, on dark stormy nights, utter piercing cries of distress, and so induce the fishermen to believe that there are shipwrecked mariners to be saved. When they have lured their would-be saviours to the verge of some dangerou- rock, they rise from the water and disappear with a mocking laugh into the mist and spray. All along the sandv shores of the Ray of Biscay legends abound. In La Vendee, near the sea, stood a great city, called Boslebet. It was rich beyond description, full oi all that was sumptuous and splendid. The' poorest were clothed in silks and soft velvets, and fed from 178 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. silver dishes ; the food was of the daintiest, the wine was of the rarest. But the city was en- chanted ; and the peasants looked askance upon its inhabitants, and crossed themselves when its walls rose in sight. One May the winter had lasted far on into the early spring ; storms raged continuously, and had as yet abated none of their violence, and the fishermen were starv- ing. Desperate from cold and hunger, Pierre Lebceuf knocked at the gate of the enchanted city, and craved admittance. The warders received him with open arms. He was clothed in gorgeous apparel, and conducted through glittering galleries to a stately hall, where a rich banquet was preparing. Yet the fisherman was uneasy in his mind, doubting what might be the purport of this splendid hospitality. His guides had left him in order to give notice of his coming, that his meal might be made ready, and he was alone. He peered carefully into all the corners of the hall, sounded the floor with his foot, tried the panels with his fist. At last, in a dark niche of the building, covered by a heavy curtain, he found a high narrow door. Half opening it, he saw himself on the edge of a vast pit, filled with the arms and legs and heads of hundreds of human beings who had been foully murdered. Close to him lay the head of his own brother, whom he and his widowed mother believed to have been drowned A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 179 off Noirmoutier. The eyes glared with an ex- pression of wild horror, and the features were distorted with pain. Then he saw that he was in a great strait. But he called to his aid a stout heart and a ready wit, and boldly asked his hosts if he might leave them for an hour in order to draw his nets higher up upon the shore, for the wind had turned, and they were all that he possessed in the world. He would save them, and return at once, bringing his mother with him. They suffered him to depart, strictlv charging him to return with all -peed. Pierre passed the gates, and rushed forth to raise the alarm. The whole countryside came to- gether ; they stormed the enchanted city, destroyed a full half of the inhabitants, and the priests pronounced a solemn curse upon its cruel walls. Yet, man's vengeance was not severe enough to expiate crimes that had wearied Heaven itself. The sea rose in it> wrath- ful fury, and buried Beslebet beneath a rain of sand. On ^till evenings can be heard, even to this day, the cries of the imprisoned people, and the choked peals from the belfries as the slow-pacing hours revolve. Another of these buried cities is at Lourdes. Many years ago the old city, which was oi vast size, and densely populated, stood on the bor- ders of the lake. But the inhabitants were wicked, and God determined to puni-h their 180 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. crimes. The lake rose, and flooded the town, and even now on St. John's Eve can be heard the bells of the buried city. A similar legend is current in Languedoc. In the commune of St. Pau, not far from Toulouse, is a lake which popular superstition believes to have swallowed a church and its worshippers. A cluster of enor- mous stones, called the Nine Stones (Las Naou P eyres), together with one solitary one (La Peyre Soule), are said to be a cemetery and a cross — all that now remains visible of a church and a village. The story runs as follows : It was Sunday, and the mass was being celebrated before a crowded congregation, when a pack of hounds gave tongue outside. The officiating priest, who was a keen sportsman, forgetting in the excitement of the moment the place where he stood, and the sacred office which he was performing, cried out, " If Bellaoude " (his fa- vourite dog) " is there, I will wager that it is all over with the hare." In punishment for his blasphemy, the waters rose and swallowed the church, the celebrant, and the worshippers. The tone of this last legend is widely different from that of Breton superstitions. There is about it the touch of sly malice, the covert gibe at the Church, which characterise this group of provincial stories. Another and a stronger illustration of the esprit gaulois is afforded by one of the many legends that have gathered A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 181 round the quaint mouldering figures which adorn the churches. Every visitor to Amiens will remember the figure and the legend of St. Firmin ; less known, though similar, is the story associated with the remote church of Angles, a little town on the left bank of the Troussepoil, about twenty miles from Roche- sur-Yon. Upon the gable of the church stands the figure of a beast like a bear, out of which issues a cross. The story is that the valley of Troussepoil was the haunt of a huge animal, with long hair, which ravaged the country for leagues round, devouring the women, chil- dren, and cattle. Every morning and evening he bathed in the river, and the name which it bears at the present day is derived from the smoothness of the beast's coat when he emerged from the water. The whole country groaned under the infliction and implored the aid of the Church. The Papal Legate came with pomp and ceremony, and exorcised the bea>t ; but his word:- were powerless, for he had early that morning, as day broke, kissed a comely milk- maid. The Abbot of Fontaines was not more successful ; for, though a kind man and chari- table, he had drunk four bottles of wine after midnight. The Abbot of Talmond had no better fortune ; in his zeal to rid the land of the foul pest he broke the he. el of a peasant who < r ot in his way. But a n " Iv uian, named 182 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Martin, was at that time Abbot of Angles. He determined to make the attempt to save the country from this monster. Five days and nights he fasted and prayed ; on the sixth day he sought the lair of the beast. At the first sign of the cross it yielded, and followed him as gently as a lamb back to Angles, while the people shouted their alleluias of triumph. But the girls laughed at him, asking, " Father Martin ! how long hast thou been the devil's shepherd ? " The holy man, making no reply, caused the beast to rise up to the gable end of the church, and with a second sign of the cross turned it into stone ; and there it is to this day. Then turning to the girls who had laughed, he said, " Hitherto men have spoken of the angelic beauty of the maidens of Angles ; henceforth ye shall be ugly." And straightway it was as he said ; and the maidens of Angles are noted for their plainness to the present time. The beast of the Troussepoil may have been similar in size and shape to the mysterious gvande bete which still haunts Berri. It is an animal with great fiery eyes, wide branching horns, as large as an ox, and covered with long red hair. It pursues benighted peasants to their homes, but it does them no harm. If they run, it runs ; it stops when they stop, turns when they turn, and alwavs keeps close behind them, with its hot breath passing over their necks. A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 183 Fairies abound in all three districts. In Poitou they are often kindly ; they dross the horses or feed the sheep, and the animals that are tended by the fairies are always fat. In Berri, as has been previously shown, they played an important part. It was the fairies who brought the gigantic dolmens, and the stones are dropped promiscuously here and there, because the fairies were surprised on their way between given points by the crow of the cock. A ford over the river Arnon is similarly the work of a fairy. She intended to dam up the bed of the stream entirely, that so she might walk over drvshod. For this end -lie gathered together a vast heap of earth and stones, which she carried in her pinafore. Coming near to the river, nhe threw in a part, which forms the present ford. Before she could cast in the rest, a rival fairy changed herself into a mosquito, and stung her on the nose. She dropped the mud upon the bank, and now the place of the ford is marked by a little hill at the side of the stream. Folk-lore has perhaps a scientific value for students of ethnology, and may supply connect- ing links between distant peoples. In France, the character of the provincial legend- n tlects the character of the different province-. But this faggot has no scientific value. In this material, cultured century, we have ceased to 184 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. believe the legends that may still find some credence in rural France. With us " tales of the loup-garou in the forest " have passed into a proverbial expression for the extreme of improb- ability. Yet these were " the pleasant old stories and tales of former times " which the good Grandgousier told to his wife and her women, as he sat " warming himself over a good, clear, great fire, and, waiting upon the broiling of some chestnuts, was very serious in drawing scratches upon the hearth with a stick burnt at one end, wherewith they did use to stir the fire." These again were the stories which Iseult of Brittany told her children to beguile the weariness of her joyless, blighted life, and which She gleaned from Breton granddames, when a child, In every hut along this sea-coast wild ; She herself loves them still, and, when they are told, Can forget all to hear them, as of old. We no longer narrate these stories in the domestic circle with the unquestioning faith of the easy-going days of Grandgousier. We do not even, like Iseult, recount them to our children, lest, perhaps, they should laugh at our credulity. Some of us listen to popular legends with thinly veiled contempt ; others hasten to prove that Gargantua, like Hercules, is the sun drying up the rivers and devouring the crops ; others may, I hope, hear them with A FAGGOT OF FRENCH FOLK-LORE. 1S5 wistful regret for the faith, the poetry, and the romance that they enshrine, and for the moment, in the soft twilight of fancy, suspend those critical faculties which destroy poetic faith. RABELAIS. THE tide of the popularity of Francois Rabelais has alternately ebbed and flowed. His immediate fame is attested by the sixty editions through which " Pantagruel " passed in the sixteenth century. Montaigne places Rabelais in the same rank as Boccaccio, second to Ovid and Ariosto ; he was the " bon pere " of Brantome ; the Cardinal du Perron called " Pantagruel " " le livre " par excellence. But barely fifty years had elapsed before a reaction commenced, which culminated in the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Though La Fon- taine and Moliere did not scruple to draw largely from his overflowing treasury, and though Madame de Sevigne was ready mourir a rire at his rich humour, his gigantic offences against decorum blinded the world to the daring origi- nality of his fantastic genius. The age of the " Grand Monarque " was opposed to the six- teenth century. Its spirit was out of sym- pathy with Rabelais' iconoclastic ideas ; its taste was outraged by his plain-spoken style, its refined licence scandalised by the open coarseness of his manners. It ceased to mul- RABELAIS. 187 tiply editions of " Pantagruel," and passed from the notes and commentaries of Huet, Pas- serat, and Menage to the abridgements and expurgations of the Abbes Perau and dc Marsy. The general tone of feeling is expressed in Vol- taire's remark that Rabelais was " un philo- sophe ivre qui n'a ecrit que dans le temps de son ivresse." A few years later and the tide had once more turned in favour of Rabelais, iiis earnestness, wisdom, and philosophy were still depreciated ; but his claims to rank among gnat humorists were generally acknowledged. Again Voltaire expressed the altered taste of the dav when, in 1700, he wrote to Madame du Deffand : " Rabelais, quand il est bon, est le premier des bons bouffons." For the last century the stream has flowed steadily in the same direction. The reputation of Rabelais, not only as a humorist, but as a deep thinker, a zealous reformer, a pro- found satirist, was carried forward on the tide of the French Revolution to a height from which, to say the least, it has never receded. His place is secured among the master-minds of the world. Few writers have been more pillaged or more imitated. Besides La Fontaine and Moliere, Racine, Boileau, Beaumarchais, and I 'iron are indebted to him for the foundations ot some of their most famous passages; even \ oltaire, in " Le Pauvre Liable, " did not hesitate to copy, almost sentence by sentence, Rabelais, 188 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. attack upon the monks. Crowds of writers, famous and obscure, paid his genius the sincere flattery of imitation. " Les A ventures du Baron de Fasneste " and " La Confession Catho- lique du Sieur de Sancy," by Agrippa d'Aubigne ; the " Voyage dans la Lune " of Cyrano de Bergerac ; . the " Gil Bias " of Le Sage ; the " Contes Drolatiques " of Honore de Balzac, are among the most illustrious scions of " Pan- tagruel." Foreign men of letters were equally appreciative of his genius. Without Rabelais Spain would have lost the obra jocosa of Que- vedo, and England would have been the poorer by the loss of " Gulliver's Travels " and " Tris- tram Shandy." He has received more con- sistent honour from England than from his own fellow-countrymen. Shakespeare possibly alludes to him in " As you like it,"* and three books of " Pantagruel " were translated in the seventeenth century. Sou'they, one of the purest of English writers, refers to him repeatedly ; Hallam, the most impartial of critics, blames the French for their unjust depreciation of his intellectual powers ; Scott's healthy tem- perament found much to admire in his genial humour ; Coleridge regarded him as the deep- est and boldest thinker of his age, and classed * Sec act iii. sc. 2 : " You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first." The allusion to Rabelais is not certain, because Gargantua was a popular hero before the publication of " Pantagruel." RABELAIS. 189 him with Shakespeare, Dante, and Cervantes among the great creative minds of the world. But if his audience in this country has been lit, it has also been few. Many who write allusively of Rabelais as the French Aristophanes, the modern Lucian, the Democritus of his age, the impersonation of the esprit gaulois — many of those who speak of the cure of Meudon in familiar terms of intimate acquaintance, — ■ presume, on the authority of a plausible line in Pope, that he was a mere merry-andrew. It is rare to find any one who has even attempted to read the immortal romance which makes Rabelais as truly the representative of the French Renaissance as Voltaire was the intel- lectual embodiment of the critical movement of eighteenth-century France. Few would be the guests if the host, like the Cardinal du Perron, admitted none to his table but students of " Pantagruel." Deserted would be the road to preferment if the passport to an abbey or a cardinal's hat was, as in the case of Louis Bar- bier, a knowledge of Rabelais. The age, the man, and the book are profoundly interesting. Why, then, is " Pantagruel " so little read ? Much of the humour lias lost its savour with the disappearance of the social conditions on which it turned. On the twen- tieth centurv a wealth of local end personal allusion is wasted. We know little of the ro- igo THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. mances of false chivalry which Rabelais paro- dies ; we are wearied by the gigantic buffoonery ; we are sated with a vinous hilarity which harps mechanically on a single string ; our literary taste is offended by the wearisome redundancy with which he exhausts his various topics. But the chief reason still remains. To all but students of literature " Pantagruel " must necessarily remain a sealed book because of its terrific indecency. No writer, ancient or modern, can rival Rabelais for the volume of the torrent which he pours forth of undisguised, unadulterated, and elaborate filth. Three ex- cuses are pleaded for his obscenity — the man- ners of the age, the distinction between coarse and seductive pictures, and the necessity of the times. The three apologies are true, but they do not wholly excuse Rabelais. His indecency is characteristic of an age of unblushing licen- tiousness, and belongs to a period when language went stark naked. As Dutch writers spoke of Petronius Arbiter as " vir sanctissimus," so the ladies and gentlemen of the Court of Francis I found Rabelais " delectable." Nor is Rabelais an immoral writer. He never panders to im- pure passions, uses no colours to lure to de- struction, takes no sickly delight in tickling the fancy with dreams of unhallowed enjoyment. His freedom of speech is absolutely unbridled ; but, though he says whatever comes uppermost, RABELAIS. 191 he strips licentiousness of its gay disguises and exhibits vice in all its naked deformity. As a priest nature had for him no mysteries, as an anatomist no sanctities. Yet for all this no one can rise from the perusal of " Pantagruel " as a whole with any feeling of disgust for the author. Coleridge's remark may seem exagger- ated, but it is not far from the fact. " 1 could write a treatise in praise of the moral elevation of Rabelais' work which would make the Church stare and the Conventicle groan, and yet would be truth and nothing but truth." The third excuse for Rabelais is that, as a satirist, he was obliged to work by bints and in masquerade. Like Aristophanes, he disguises his face in the wine-lees. Like Montesquieu, again, in the " Lettres Persanes," he distracts attention from his attacks upon society by his pictures of the nude. Voltaire, to whom the experience of the "Lettres Philosophic pies " taught the same secret, represents Rabelais explaining to Lucian and Erasmus in the Elysian Fields the method which lie followed. ' Voyant que la sagesse et la science ne menaient qu'a l'hopital 011 au gibet . . . je m'avisai ctre plus fou que tous mes compatriotes ensemble. Je pris mes compatriotes par leur faible ; je parlai de boire, je dis des ordures, et avec ce secret tout me fut permis." Rabelais make- the same excuse for himself. When Pan urge cursed the 192 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Pope-hawk in the Ringing Island, iEdituus warns him to speak low. Panurge changes his note with " Let us drink," and the sacristan replies, " Vous parlez bien a cette heure ; tant que vous parlez ainsi, vous ne serez jamais here- tique." L'homme qui rit n'est pas danger eux. Rabelais' buffoonery enabled his protectors to save him from the Sorbonne. He assumed the mask to elude the search of heresy-hunters, and donned the cap and bells to escape the san beniio. The truth of the apology is confirmed by the fact that his most serious words are immediately followed by his wildest freaks of buffoonery. But though numerous passages of grave and solemn beauty, of earnest kindly wisdom, and unaffected elevatidn of moral feel- ing, might be quoted from his works, it seems impossible to deny that he chose the particular disguise of roystering animalism because it was most congenial to his jovial temperament ; and, after all is said, the intense geniality, the natural heartiness, the fresh joviality of the gros rire tourangeau are the most sincere pleas that can be urged in mitigation of the penalties he justly incurs by his offences against taste and decorum. Rabelais has at least met with retributive justice. His obscenities protected him from immediate persecution ; they have also robbed him of post- humous rewards. They reprieved him from the stake, but consigned him to a literary oubliette. RABELAIS. 193 Nothing can be done with so incorrigible an author. He must be taken as he is, or not at all. In the original French he is unintelligible to all who have not made a special study of the provincialisms and dialects of the ancient Gallic tongue. He cannot be Bowdlerised, for expur- gation would be extinction. English readers can study him, if they will, in a translation which is a masterpiece of vigour, rivalling the original in its command of the linguistic re- sources of obscenity. Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty set to work upon his version with patriotic zeal. He determined to show the world that a true Briton could not be outdone in his native treasures of obscene language by the most erudite of Frenchmen. It is enough to say that he succeeded.* A family author Rabelais can never be ; but the: originality of * Sir T. I'rquhart stood in need throughout his life of all the Pantagruelian philosophy. He was bom in 1611. He travelled in his y. .uth through sixteen different kingdoms, and returned with a ku >wledge of foreign tongues, which probably procured him his pi ice in the Court of Charles I. He was knighted in 1 '■-! 1. Kui! in his " I'romptuary of Time," he tracer- 111 \n:' 1 at t > the red earth from which Adam w.t^ created. Faithful to his master's can ■-. In } >in< 1 the ri-ing ■ 1 Mackenzie nf l'l line, and was proscribed as a rebel by the K-tatc> of I'a:l .• . nt. At the battle of \Y .rcester he was taken prisoner, ai ! retired to the 1 nv ( , mtries. Tr iditi >n declai thai . ! in a lit of laughter on hearing the new-, ,,l the r< I Charles II. He only completed three books of " lVuitagruel." The last two book- of Rabelais wen- tran-lated hv " •■■ Mot- teux, a Huguenot refugee, who died und htable cir- cumstance;) in bt. v '■-■-. nt Danes in 1716. 7 194 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. his genius, the serious purpose, the humour, the insight into human nature, the moral ele- vation which characterise many passages of " Pantagruel," together with the historical and etymological value of the work, justify some attempt to present a true sketch of the life and writings of a man who, as the great ver- nacular satirist of a stormy and excited period, created a new province in the modern world of letters, moulded the form of the language of his country, and profoundly influenced the destinies of the French Reformation. In the altered conditions of modern society, and in the wide extension of knowledge, no author of the present day can hope to exercise the widespread influence of such universal indi- vidualities as Rabelais or Shakespeare. Both are universal, but with a broad difference. Shakespeare's works can be spoken of without reference to the man or his age. There is in them hardly a touch of personal idiosyncrasy ; they possess within themselves principles of life which have preserved them incorruptible, because they are uncircumscribed by circum- stances, unconditioned by time or place, un- alloyed by prejudices or predilections. It is not so with the great French humorist. It is impos- sible to separate " Pantagruel " from the period when it was written, or from the personality of its author. Rabelais himself is a mystery. The RABELAIS. TQ5 ardent student wears the guise of the rovstering Bohemian; the encyclopaedic master of all the sciences is also the indefatigable jester and ex- travagant buffoon. Hi> friends paint him as the determined foe of ignorance, the profoundest of thinkers, the universal man of letters who, like Pico della Mirandola, could maintain a thesis dc o»u:i re scibili ; his enemies describe him as a profligate libertine, a rubicund leering Silenus, a drunken hiccuping monk, who mumbled his mass but mouthed his drinking song, and shortened his vespers that he might lengthen his carouse. His strange and original genius increased the mystery by indulgence in the wildest freaks. He delights to drop from the heights of wisdom to the depths oi folly, to breathe the rare atmosphere of wind-swept summits of thought or to wallow up to the neck in the mire of his obscenities. " Panta- gruel " is no less an enigma than its author. Viewed from one bide, it is an allegory enriched with broad humour, piquant satire, sparkling witticisms, dramatic representations of charac- ter, containing an inexhaustible store of infor- mation on the habit.-, manners, and customs of the dav, exhibiting the nn»t exalted ideal oi moralitv thai was conceived by any writer ol the epoch. lv from a dill'. ; nt 4; point, it ir- the mi • -; mediaeval romance-, a gigantic burlesque, a frolic iq.6 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. of absurdity, an outpouring of vinous drivel, a huge and reeking dungheap. These two conceptions of the Homere bonffon and his work are aptly represented in the two extant portraits of Rabelais which assert the strongest claims to be considered genuine. The first, coloured by popular fancy or black- ened by the spleen of outraged opponents, represents him as the sensual Franciscan who died with a profane pun upon his lips. The second is drawn by the hand of an admirer, who detects a lofty purpose beneath the Titanic outbursts of ribald laughter, and sees in his terrific indecency a mask which the necessities of the times compel him to assume. Neither of the two portraits appears to be contemporary, or to date from a period anterior to 1620. The first, which is on wood, in the museum at Ver- sailles, was engraved by Isaac Sarrabat in the beginning of the eighteenth century. It gives the full-face of a man, turning slightly towards the left and looking towards the right, wearing a priest's cap with a small medallion in front, and dressed in a black gown trimmed with fur. The broad strong nose and wide-open nostrils, the large eyes surmounted by heavy eyebrows, the thick sensual lips, the mocking smile, give the ordinarily accepted portrait of the Ecorcheur dcs Veaux. The other picture is to be found in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier, where RABELAIS. 197 several specimens of his handwriting are care- fully preserved. It represents him with a grave, dignified, reflective countenance, a smooth, broad, unwrinkled forehead, largo hazel eves full of fire, a florid complexion, mobile lips, large nose, and chestnut beard and moustache. He wears the red gown of a doctor of medicine, with a square red-tufted cap. Upon the picture is inscribed the year 1537, the date at which Rabe- lais took his doctor's degree ; but it appears that the portraits in the gallery of the Faculty, which extend from H. de Guintonia in 1239, were painted by the order of Chancellor Ranchin in 1610-20. The question, therefore, arises, to which no satisfactory answer can be given, whether this particular portrait is copied from a contemporary picture or is merely an imagin- ary representation, like the bulk of its com- panions. One tiling seems to be certain. The Versailles portrait is not a true likeness of Rabelais. ; ' l.e portrait qu'on voit de Rabelais." says Tallemant des Reaux, " n'est pas fait sur luy ; on l'a fait a plaisir a pen pres comme on croyait qu'il etoit." If both portraits are imag- inary, which gives the truer impression of the man ? In the one he is the buffoon, the tippler, the Silemis ; in the other the thinker, the scholar, the man of science. Which was Rabe- lais ? It is the purpose of the following pages to offer an answer to the question. 198 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. The age of Rabelais, the man himself, and his writings are, as has been said, deeply inter- esting, and it is under these three heads that the subject will be treated. Born between 1483 and 1495, Rabelais died in 1553. His life thus extends over a period which witnessed the spread of the Renaissance, the growth of the Protestant Reformation, the commencement of the Catholic reaction. The winter of the senile Middle Ages had broken up before the warm spring of the Renaissance. New hemispheres were added to the worlds of thought and action. Navigators, scholars, thinkers were inspired by a spirit of enterprise and adventure which swept over Europe with the resistless flow of the returning tide that suc- ceeds the inactive ebb. Every feature of Rabe- lais' work betokens a transition period. The taste, the manner, the form are mediaeval ; the criticism, the hatred of ignorance, the contempt for superstition, the thirst for study, the classic culture, the independence are modern. Rabe- lais represents the thoughts, the exultation, and, at rare intervals, the regrets of the epoch. Analysis, method, freedom of thought were sap- ping the foundations of the social, the scientific, the philosophical, and the religious systems, and all the steps in the coming change are repre- sented in " Pantagrucl." Anatomist, physician, botanist, astronomer, proficient in architecture, RABELAIS. log skilled in navigation, versed in law, deeply read in philosophy, learned in Latin, Greek. Hebrew, and Arabic, and possessing a smattering of many spoken languages, Rabelais brings to bear upon his vast -abject that universality of knowledge which characterises the epoch. Thou field of learning was rapidly widening, it was still limited ; he was not compelled to specialise his labours but took the whole lor his province. Lie lias the n>\ ing humour of Burton, who am< >ng English writer- most closely resembles him ; he was not tiie slave of any one science, but roamed having an oar in even" man's boat, tasting of ever) - dish, sipping of every cup. Rabelais is a humanist neither of the Italian nor of the Northern school. His monastic and medical training and the natural bent of his genius stunted the imaginative, artistic, poetic side of his nature, turned him toward- a < ritieal study of humanity, encouraged his inclination towards scientific investigation. He was a stranger to that love of the picturesque which inspired Italian poets and artists. Archaeolo- gist though he is, he feels none of the en- thusiasm ; 1 antiquity which thrilled IVtr; as he sat anions the Baths oj 1 )i ■ . ', ian. I he • ; in 1' >r woman wl and flanii d up < >nce more in tl t Michael Angelo was extinguished in his breast. 200 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. His sentiments are those of a mediaeval monk. " Woman," says Pantagruel, " comes between man and the love of God." Whether Gargamelle died of joy at the death of Picrochole is all one to Rabelais : "I care not for her, or any other woman." He has no feeling for beauty and no artistic insight. The everlasting clang of the bells of the Eternal City impressed him more vividly than all the poetry of her ruins. Nor was his attitude towards the Renaissance that of the humanists of Germany or of Holland. Unlike the Italians, who sought in classic culture beauty of form and refinement of taste, the Northern nations seized upon the practical side of the re- vival of letters. The determination to see things as they were without reference to tradition or authority was the dynamic force of a move- ment which led by no uncertain steps to the overthrow of the ecclesiastical fabric. The stress which the Dutch and German humanists laid upon the right of private judgment, their appeals to the supremacy of reason, their insistence upon the union of morality with re- ligion, brought them more directly into collision with the Church of Rome than the pagan morals or bantering incredulity of the Italians. In his liberality of thought, his encyclo- paedic knowledge, his unsatisfied craving for study, Rabelais is a true child of the Renaissance. He declares war on all that the Middle Ages had RABELAIS. 201 worshipped — the love of martial conquest, the life of contemplation, mortification of the flesh, scholasticism, and the sounding words which scarcely concealed their emptiness. The inspi- ration of the movement is upon him. He feels the ecstasy of its renewed life. But its effect on his mind was widely different from the artistic passion of Italy or the practical devotion of Ger- many. The ideal which he seeks is freedom of thought, the right of every man to pursue know- ledge how and when he will, the libertv to wor- ship God as he understood His divinitv. He protests against intolerance, but he cares noth- ing for doctrinal definitions ; to him dogmas, whether of Protestantism or Catholicism, are accidents of time and circumstance. He looked for a gradual reconstruction of the world through the spread of education and of science, a process which was necessarily slow, and, in the face of surrounding circumstances, impossible. The foes of culture were the same as they had ever been: on the one hand the priesthood, on the other the unlearned — the narrowness oi fana- ticism or the panic fear of ignorance. It was because authority checked speculation, upheld shams, discountenanced study, asserted absurd pretensions, and bound living men to dead forms by the iron chains of tradition, that he arraigns the Papacy, the monasteries, and all the learned professions in one sweeping, comprehensive 202 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. indictment. " Pantagruel " is an attempt to promote the course of progress in France by the removal of everything that obstructed its ad- vance in religion, law, education, institutions, or society. And the basis of Rabelais' humani- tarian enthusiasm is his faith in the natural goodness of mankind. Restraint creates the evil which it is designed to check. Shake off the fetters, and the innate potentialities of hu- man excellence will have room to expand. Meanwhile the true wisdom is that of the Panta- gruclian philosopher, who strips himself of all that is transitory and passing, possesses his own soul in patience, labours all his life to advance the spread of knowledge, strives to discover the " great perhaps," and dies in the bosom of the Church in which he was born. The absorbing interest of Rabelais' attitude towards the French Renaissance consists in its representative character, and in his relation through the sixteenth-century movement to the intellectual changes which preceded the Revo- lution. There was a period in his life when he inclined towards the Reformation, and readers of " Pantagruel " in its existing form and its English translation * may possibly imagine * Motteux, Ins English editor and translator, who was himself a Protestant, omits Rabelais' references to the Calvini-ts of Geneva. Thus, in the fourth book, among the " monstrous brood of eavesdropping dissemblers, superstitious pope-mongers, and priest-ridden bigots " which anti-nature had engendered, Rabelais RABELAIS. 203 that he was always a Protestant at heart. Cal- vin says of him that he had once tasted tin- Gospel,* and in the first book of " Pantagruel " he showed himself to have been a supporter of Reuchlin against Ortuin and the theologians of Cologne. He treats the Papacy with .-rant cere- mony, attacks indulgences, pilgrimages, and superstition- observances; he scoffs at the pur- chase of pardons ; he lashes with the full force of his satire the vices of the monastic system. But these features of his satire are in no degree proofs of his Protestantism. More positive evi- dence of his inclination towards the Reformed doctrines will be found in his advocacy of a return to the simplicity of Gospel-teaching, his insistence with St. Paul on the spirit a- oppos< d to the letter, his education of Pantagruel to read the Bible in Hebrew and Crook, and finally in Pantagruel's promise that in his kingdom of Utopia the Gospel shall be preached " pure- ment, simploment, et entierennnt, si que abus d'un tas des papelars et faulx prophrtes, qui ont par constitutions humaines et inven- includes " lv> ■ i.-s C.ilvii Mottfu: the fifth ' . • contain; 1 c from the *•■(,.. ! . : : .' ! . . Alii it 1 t G> •:■ Cur istud i 1 luucndi aut ridendi a 1 204 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. tions depravees envenime tout le monde, seront dentour moy exterminez." But in time this feeling changed. The intellectual tyranny of Geneva became more distasteful to his mind than the cautious liberty of Rome. He found, and with him a crowd of Frenchmen whose latent leanings towards Protestantism were similarly checked, that the Huguenot leader was not the apostle of liberty, but that Calvin was more rapacious in his attacks on human freedom than the great Pope-hawk himself. The narrow- ness of the Protestant dogmas repelled him, and although up to a certain point he had fought by the side of the Reformers, the alliance was gradually exchanged for hostility. Calvin wrote against him as the preacher of a creedless, soul- less Epicureanism ; Henri Estienne complained that " il jette souvent des pierres dans notre jardin " ; Ramus denounced him as an atheist ; Robert Estienne reproached the men from whom he had himself fled for his own life because they had not burned the author of " Pantagruel." Rabelais was not backward in his reprisals. He had attacked the fasts of the Catholics, but he did not find that the meat diet of the Cal- vinists made them more tolerant or less suspi- cious ; both were equally enemies of that science which was his mistress. His humanitarian fervour was diametrically opposed to the Hugue- not doctrine of original sin, and he pours forth RABELAIS. 205 his ridicule upon the "yea verily" of Calvin's catechism. The religious ideal which he puts forward in Theleme is neither Calvinist nor Roman. He excludes from his abbey all who foment religious discord ; he foresees the ex- tinction of art and letters which will inevitably result from the impending struggle between Protestant and Catholic, and he throws in his lot with neither the one nor the other. Rabelais held aloof from the conliiet because he saw too clearly the faults of both the com- batants. His physical temperament also tended to make him a spectator rather than an actor. More eager to attain liberty of thought than doctrinal truth, Rabelais was totallv without the martyr-spirit. He shudders at the execu- tion of Jean Caturce at Toulouse in 15 ;_> ; but while Dolet openlv protests against it, the huge sanity of Rabelais inclined him to a policy which, like that of Pantagruel, avoided similar dangers. Pantagruel and his attendant- visit Toulouse, " mais ils n'v demeurcnt gueres quand ils virent qu'ils faisaient briiler leurs regents touts \ i is comme harengs saurets." And the times were full of peril. Jean Leclcrc, the wool- carder of Meaux, was tortured and burned at Mctz in 1525. Louis de Berquin, the friend of the Marguerite des Marguerites, was the first victim of a Commission of Lnquiry, which resembled Alva's Tribunal of Blood. Bonaveii- 206 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. ture Desperiers broke out into open infidelity in his " Cymbalum Mundi," and committed suicide either to avoid the inevitable result or in a moment of insanity. Clement Marot was imprisoned for eating bacon on Friday : " Par le morbleu ! voila Clement — Prenez-le ; il a mange le lard ! " : and finally died in exile. Anne Dubourg was disgraced and at last put to death for his religious opinions. For the same reason £tienne Dolet was tortured, hanged, and burned on the Place Maubert in Paris. Three of these men were Rabelais' most intimate friends, and he himself was more than once obliged to flee for his life. He well knew that the king, 'in his paroxysms of piety, was, to use the phrase of Brantome, " un peu rigoureux a faire brusler vifs les heretiques de son temps." He was ready to go, as he said himself, " jusques au feu exclusive- ment " in matters of opinion. But, like Marot, he feared the flames. " L'oisivete des pretres et cagots Je la dirois, mais gare les fagots ; Et des abus dont l'Eglise est fourree, J'en parlerois, mais gare la bourree." It is not, therefore, surprising that Rabelais, in doctrinal, if not in disciplinary, reforms, imitated the cautious silence of Jean du Bellay and other free-thinking prelates among his con- RABELAIS. 207 temporaries. But meanwhile the writings of the great vernacular satirist leavened the masses with something of his own discontent at the de- velopment of the struggle between the dominant religion and its Protestant rival. Rabelais represents the scientific impulse of the French Renaissance, its passion for libertv of thought, its humanitarian fervour, its hopes of the Re- forming movement and its disappointment in the Genevan tyranny, its eternal acquiescence in the established faith, and its growing scep- ticism and gradual negation of all creeds. And the stern restraint of the feelings which the Renaissance engendered, and which Rabelais cast into a popular form, gives additional impor- tance and HLrriiiicance to his writings. Checked by tlie Church and by the selfish monarchy which succeeded the break-up of the feudal aristoeracv, the ideas expressed in " Panta- gruel " assumed more formidable and more menacing svmptoms. It is worthy of note that, at the Revolution, Rabelais was recognised for the first time since the sixteenth century, as one of the master-minds of the world. During all periods that have witnessed great changes men are known only in reference to some particular point where their existence touches the broad stream of history. Stirring centuries like the sixteenth are too absorbed in the interests of masses to follow those of 208 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. individuals ; consequently, the materials for the life of Rabelais are scanty. The " Lues Boswelliana," which .chronicles with infinite particularity the everyday doings of private persons, belongs to modern tastes and tamer times to compensate. In the case of Rabelais, for the lack of authentic memorials, a popular biography has been created, resembling that which surrounds the name of Shakespeare. But three centuries after the death of the satirist we may be pardoned if we lay little stress on the elaborate discussions which have centred round episodes in his career, and chronicle the commonly accepted facts of his life without entering into a criticism of disputed points. The father of Rabelais lived in the house which became the " Lamproie Inn " at Chinon, and was also the proprietor or the tenant of a vineyard in the neighbouring village of Seuilly, which lies at some distance to the left of the road from Chinon to Saumur. At Chinon, or at Seuilly, Francois Rabelais was born between 1483 and 1495. Probably Rabelais never knew the meaning of maternal affection. The only domestic relationship on which he dwells with any tenderness is that of father and son— the love of Gargantua for Grandgousier, of Panta- gruel for Gargantua. It is possible that a pas- sage in the fifth book of " Pantagruel " may be coloured by the bitterness of personal feel- RABELAIS. 209 ing. On the Ringing Island Pantagruel asks /Edituus how the clerk-hawks are bred, if the Pope-hawk is bred from the cardin-hawks, and the cardin-hawks from the bis-hawks, and the bis-hawks from the clerk-hawks. When he hears the answer, he is surprised that women, who bear their sons nine months in their womb, cannot endure them nine years or even seven, in their house ; but clap a shirt over the urchin's clothes, lop a few hairs from his crown, and by some Pythagorean metempsychosis transform the boy into a clerk-hawk. Rabelais may be here recalling his own experience. Be this as it may, he was at an early age set apart for the priesthood. Near the Clos de la Deviniere beyond Seuilly stood the Abbey of St. Sepulchre, and there the boy began his education. From Seuilly he passed to the Convent of La Basmette, near Angers, and possibly to the University of Angers. It was at this period of his life that he made the acquaintance of the famous family of Du Bella v, as well as of Geoff roi d'Estissac, afterwards Bishop of Maillezais. In 15 1 1 Rabelais was admitted into priest's orders as a Franciscan friar in the fraternity established at Fontenay-le-Comte, in Lower Poitou. Like Erasmus, he disgusted the friars by his secular leaning. He had not taken the vow of ignorance, and he was probably more galled by the restraints upon intellectual pleas- 210 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. ures than by those upon licentious indulgences. Science was even now his austere mistress, and, in spite of his writings, his life, like that of Balzac, may have been free from sensual vices. Relying upon the Vulgate, the Church steadily set her face against the study of Greek and Hebrew. But Rabelais and his friend Amy taught themselves both languages, and corre- sponded with Budseus and other scholars. From scholarship to Lutheranism seemed to the Franciscans a natural step. Rabelais' ortho- doxy was doubted, and the suspicion was con- firmed by his purchase of books printed in Germany. He was suspected by his brethren, and his studious habits and satirical tongue made him still more unpopular. Numerous stories are told of his escapades, immoralities, and profanities, and if any of these are true they may have contributed to his leaving the Franciscan Order. Popular tradition relates that he was condemned by the chapter to the terrible punishment of imprisonment in pace — to be walled up in his cell and fed only on bread and water during the term of his natural life — that the sentence was executed, and that he was only rescued by the armed intervention of Andre Tiraqueau, the governor of the district of Fontenay, and himself a native of the town. Where truth begins and legend ends is uncer- tain ; but two facts stand out beyond dispute. RABELAIS. 211 He received some notable kindness from the famous jurisconsult, of whom he speaks as " le bon, le docte, le sage, le tant humain et tant equitable Tiraqueau " ; and in 1524 he had left the Franciscans with a papal indulgence obtained for him by D'Estissac, enabling him to enter the Abbey of Maillezais, belonging to the scholarly and learned Order of the Benedictines. But he was not long contented with his new situation. It is even doubtful whether he ever entered the abbey ; at any rate he speedily assumed the secular garb, and once more became a citizen of the world. But his monastic experi- ences had left upon his mind an ineffaceable impression, fie never spares the monks or for- gets his hatred of the class. Throughout his crowd of actors he attributes no good charac- teristic to the priesthood. The next live years of Rabelais' life are diffi- cult to follow. Part of the period was spent at Maillezais or at Liguge' under the protection of D'Estissac, an easy-going, semi-pagan pre- late, who winked at the ecclesiastical offence of his old school-fellow and made him his secre- tary. Like Rousseau at Les Charmettes, Rabe- lais dabbled in poetry and devoted himself to botany. It was along the banks of the river (lain that lie acquired that knowledge of herbs and plants which appears in " Pantagruel " and which he applied to the practice of modi- 212 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. cine. Other friends of his youth had been the brothers Du Bellay, and Rabelais next ap- pears as secretary to Guillaume du Bellay, Sieur de Langey, who, according to Brantome, was a skilful soldier, a loyal servant, but no cour- tier ; " il ne scait ni quand le roy se leve, ni quand le roy se couche, mais il scait bien ou sont les ennemis." It was at the Chateau of Glatigny, near Langey, that Rabelais revised and corrected Guillaume du Bellay's Latin treatise on the stratagems of war, as well as the Latin poems and discourses of his brother Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, cardinal and diplo- matist. Part of the house which belonged to Rabelais in the village of Langey was standing at the end of the eighteenth ' century, and at Sonday, a neighbouring hamlet, the tradition is preserved that he was cure of the parish. In September 1530 the name of Rabelais was entered as a student on the register of the Uni- versity of Montpellier, where Louis XII had recently founded four chairs to promote the study of medicine. There he passed through the prescribed course with distinction, if any credence is to be attached to popular legends. A doctor's gown, which was believed to be his, was for many years carefully preserved, and every medical pupil was invested with it after passing his fifth examination. The ceremony was said to commemorate the recovery by RABELAIS. 213 Rabelais of certain privileges, of which the University was deprived by Chancellor Duprat. But it seems at least probable that the gown, embroidered with the letters F.R.C., was not the gown of Franciscus Rabelcesus Chinonensis, but that of Francois Ranchin, the great re- forming Chancellor who governed the Uni- versitv between 1610 and 1620. In 1532, after the delivery of the public lec- tures necessary for a bachelor's degree in medi- cine, Rabelais left Montpellier for Lyons, which, after Paris, was now the chief literary centre of France. The sixteenth century was the most splendid epoch in its civilisation. As the com- mercial link between France and Italy, Lyons had been the first city to profit by the arts and refinements of the Italian Renaissance. Sebas- tien Gryphe made the printing presses of Lyons famous throughout Europe ; Jean Grollier, the Maecenas of the age, was an inhabitant of the town, and round him gathered a knot of dis- tinguished friends. Though the Societe Ange- lique, in which antiquarians have seen one of the earliest of literary societies, had no or- ganised existence, many intellectual interests were represented among the citizens of Lyons, or among the strangers who, like Rabelais, Marot, Dolet, and Desperiers, were attracted within its walls. Among the inhabitants were Pagnini, the Orientalist and Hebrew lexicographer ; 214 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Pierre Tolet, one of the most skilled physicians of the day ; Guillaume du Choul, the anti- quarian and archaeologist ; Symphorien Cham- pier, the founder of many public institu- tions, whose munificence is not only celebrated in " Pantagruel " but commemorated in the street nomenclature of Lyons ; Michel Seve, poet, and, as Joachim du Bellay calls him, " docte aux doctes esclaircy " ; Barthelemy Aneau, principal of the College de Lyon, poet, translator, and parent of the French opera. Nor was Lyons without its literary ladies. Though Louise Labe, " la belle cordiere," was only seven years old in 1532, yet women like Pernette du Guillet and the sisters Claudine and Sibylle Seve were poetesses whose reputa- tion has not yet wholly disappeared. To Lyons Rabelais was mainly attracted by the fame of its printing presses. There he published two medical treatises, and two Latin pieces which he erroneously supposed to be " ex reli- quis venerandae antiquitatis."* He also assisted in the correction of the learned works which issued from the press of Gryphe. With litera- ture he united the practice of medicine, for he * (1) Hippocratis ac Galeni libri aliquot. Ex recognitione Fr. Rabelaesi. Lugduni apud Gryphiuin, 1532. (2) Johannis Mainardi Ferrariensis Epistolarum medicinalium tomus secundus. Lugduni apud Gryphium, 1532. (3) Ex reliquis venerandas Antiquitatis Lucii Cuspidi Testamentum ; item Contractus ven- ditionis antiquis Rouiaiiorura tempoiibus initus. Lugduni : Gryphius. 1532. RABELAIS. 215 had been appointed physician to the Hotel- Dieu of the town. It is to be hoped that he suc- ceeded better as a doctor than he had hitherto prospered as a man of letters. Piqued by the failure of his previous works, he revenged him- self upon the taste of the day by a parody on the popular tales of chivalry. " The Great and Inestimable Chronicle of the Great and Enormous Giant Gargantua " was composed, as the author tells us, in the intervals allotted to eating and drinking. It was published in 1532. The success of the Chronicle was as gigantic as its hero. It is founded on the popular legends of Touraine. Gargantua was one of the Celtic deities of Brittany ; but south of the Loire he was transformed into an ogre. According to tradition he travels through the country in search of adventures, bearing his servants in his pocket, and f< dlowed by a goblin loaded with pro- visions. When their master pleases they halt and dine. The servants cook the food and lay the table, and when the giant feeds cast into his mouth the salt and mustard with shovels, while the goblin pours down his throat a dozen barrels of wine. Then he sleeps thirty hours at a stretch, guarded by his attendants. Traces of the legend are scattered all over the country ; Gargantua's quoits, footprints, pulpits and nim pins are almost universal. This popular hero Rabelais made the central figure of his 216 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. romance, linking him on to the legends of Arthur and of Merlin. The Chronicle is a mere farrago of nonsense, a burlesque on the giants and enchantments of romance, intended for sale by the travelling bisuars at country fairs and markets in the company of " Jehan de Paris," " Robert le Diable," or " Richard Sans Peur." Yet there were sold, says Rabelais, more copies in two months than will be sold of the Bible in nine years. Encouraged by his success, Rabelais in the same year brought out a sequel to the Chronicle in " Pantagruel." The work is no longer a mere extravagance, or a boisterous caricature of ro- mantic literature. The fiction has assumed a serious character ; it has a design and a pur- pose. King Arthur, Merlin, Gog and Magog, and other legendary heroes have been dis- banded, and Pantagruel, though a giant, stands in the streets of Paris. Don Quixote, the burlesque hero of popular fiction, became the model of ideal chivalry ; so Pantagruel assumes human characteristics and changes into the noblest and wisest of mortals. With all the freshness of twenty, yet with the ripe experience of fifty, Rabelais thus began his laugh at the world. Moliere wooed with persistency the Queen of Tragedy before he discovered that he reigned supreme in the heart of the Comic Muse. So it was with Rabelais. It is not the least RABELAIS. 217 singular feature in his strange career that half a century elapsed before he recognised the natural bent of his genius and knew himself to be a born satirist. Into this new direction he pours all the treasures of his varied experience, all the materials which he had gathered as a Franciscan friar, a Benedictine monk, a secular priest, a medical student and a doctor, the sec- retary of a bishop and a great captain, the companion of wits, scholars, soldiers, and statesmen. The rich vein of broad and jovial humour upon which Rabelais had struck in " Pantagruel " could not have been a new dis- covery. Its flashes must have often set the bishop's table in a roar, if it had never con- vulsed the frayter at Fontenay-le-Comte. What Rabelais had discovered was not the existence of a gift of which he was previously unaware, but the faculty of talking to the world with the same unconstrained ease with which he con- versed among his most familiar associates. When he had once tested his powers he exer- cised them without apparent fatigue. Besides the " Gargantuan Chronicle " and " Panta- gruel," which were written within a few months of each other, he issued an " Almanach " in 1532,* which was afterwards annually con- tinued up to 1550, and the " Pantagruelian * Almanach pour MDXXXII calcule sur le meridien de la noble cite de Lyon et sur le climat du royaume de France. 2i8 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Prognostication,* in which he attacked the so- called science of astrology. In 1534 Jean du Bellay, passing through Lyons on a diplomatic mission to Rome, invited Rabelais to accompany him. The proposal was accepted. During the whole of his sta}? in Italy Rabelais studied with all a scholar's enthusiasm the antiquities of Rome, superintended excavations, made voluminous notes, and prepared to write a book on Roman archaeology. He found himself, however, fore- stalled by a Milanese named Marliani, whose work he subsequently published at Lyons, with additions and corrections. His prolonged ab- sence of many months cost him his post at the Hotel-Dieu of Lyons. But he by no means neglected his medical studies. It was now that he delivered his anatomical lecture, illus- trated by a public dissection of the body of a criminal who had been hanged in the city. This anatomical illustration was probably the first ever witnessed in France, and the excite- ment which it created is evidenced by the verses of Dolet. His freedom from professional ties gave him greater leisure for literature. In 1534 he pub- lished his edition of Marliani's " Topographia,"t * Pantagruoline prognostication Certaine veritable et ifallible pour la mil DXXX1II nouuellemet composee au profit et aduise- met des ges estourdis et miliars dc nature par maistre Alcofribas Architriclin dudict Pantagruel. f Joannis-Bartolomtei Marliani mediolensis topographia anti- que Romie. Lyon : Seb. Gryph. 1534. RABELAIS. 219 with a dedication to Cardinal du Bellay. In the following year he produced his " Vie inestimable du grand Gargantua," which definitely super- seded the original Chronicle and now forms the first book of " Pantagruel." It is still full of ab- surdities and extravagances, but the form and the matter are recast, so that the work may be an appropriate prelude to its successor. In tone and spirit it is entirely changed. Like Luther, Rabelais had seen the corruption of the Papacy at its very centre ; he had visited Rome in the train of a cardinal who was a pagan philosopher rather than an ecclesiastic. " Gargantua " was written at the time when he hoped most from, and was most inclined to, the Reformed doc- trines. In " Pantagruel " he had satirised the affected gibberish of pedantic scholars, the ab- surdities of the technical jargon of lawyers, the trivialities of the scholastic theology ; but in " Gargantua " he pours forth all his satire upon the monks and the glaring contrast which was afforded by the capabilities and the actualities of the monastic system, assails the superstitious extravagances of the day and those who en- couraged them for their own profit, and sketches a wild poetic scheme which contains many practical suggestions for an ideal ecclesiastical socialism. " Gargantua " is full of audacious satire against the ecclesiastical system, and there were 220 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. many passages in the original edition which would have brought Rabelais within the reach of the heresy-hunters. He had touched the shield of the Church with the point of his spear, and, in view of the hostility which he had aroused, it is not strange to find him once more at Rome in 1536. The pantheism of Leo X had made strictness in dogmatic faith for the time impossible. The Papal city was the safest sanctuary for all whose orthodoxy was doubtful. To this second period of Rabelais' sojourn at Rome belong his letters to the Bishop of Maille- zais, which give a minute account of the disposal of his time, the confidence which Cardinal du Bellay reposed in him, his studies of archaeology, botany, and languages, and his interest in con- temporary pol^ics. His prime object was, doubtless, to put himself en regie with the Church ; he received the Papal permission to re-enter a Benedictine monastery and to prac- tise medicine, with the restriction, universal in the case of the clergy, of not using fire or the knife in any surgical operation. The commence- ment of the following year found him at Paris and present at a banquet to Dolet ; at its close he was at Montpellier, where he took his doc- tor's degree in medicine and lectured for two years. In 1540 he came to Paris, to enter the colle- giate church of St. Maur des Fosses, where du RABELAIS. 221 Bcllay had procured him a canonry. Here he might have led a life of ease in a spot which he described as " un paradis de salubrite, amenite, serenite, commodite, delices de tous honnetes plaisirs d'agriculture et vie rustique." But he had obtained leave to practise medicine wher- ever he wished ; and his enthusiasm for the art, together with his roving disposition, made him a wanderer in many parts of France. During this period he composed the third book of " Pantagruel." It appeared in 1546 with his name attached, instead of the anagram Alcofribas Nasier, which he had hitherto adopted. By the first two books Rabelais had not only pro- voked the hostility of all the monasteries in the land, but aroused the enmity of the Parliament of Paris and of the Sorbonne, the most jealous guardian of orthodoxy. The great protectress of men of letters, Marguerite of Navarre, was living remote from the world, wrapped in mystic con- templation ; Dolet, Desperiers, and Marot had been burned at the stake, driven to suicide, or forced into exile for smaller offences than his own. He required all his caution to escape their fate. The third book was read by Francis I before its publication, and appeared " avec privilege du roi " in 1546. The death of Francis I in the next year, fol- lowed as it was by the disgrace of du Bellay, left Rabelais without a protector. His enemies 222 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. seized their opportunity to attack him. He fled precipitately to Metz, where he with diffi- culty supported himself as a doctor, and after- wards made his way to Rome. The birth of the second son of Henry II in 1549 was the signal for great rejoicings at the Papal Court, and Rabelais assisted in preparing the different spectacles with which the occasion was cele- brated. He sent an account in several letters addressed to the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had succeeded Jean du Bellay in the favour of the Court. " La Sciomachie et festins faits a Rome " * procured for Rabelais his restoration to France, as well as the favour of the Cardinal, who made him cure of Meudon. During his wanderings Rabelais had completed a fourth book ; but he felt that even the powerful pro- tection of the Guises was not sufficiently strong to save him from the Sorbonne. He therefore obtained the leave of Henry II to publish the book, and dedicated it to the Cardinal Odet de Chatillon, who, as the elder brother of Ad- miral Coligny, led the opposition to the Guises. Thus secured on all sides, the fourth book of " Pantagruel " was published in 1552. But, though it appeared " avec privilege du roi," the Parliament of Paris forbade its sale and sum- * La Sciomachie et festins faicts a Rome au palays du R. Cardinal du Bellay, pour l'hcureuse naissance de M. le due d'Or- leans. Lyon : Seb. Gryph. 1549. RABELAIS. 223 moned its author before their bar. Ultimately the salt- was permitted, but at the cost of Rabe- lais' surrender of his ecclesiastical benefices. In February 1552 he resigned his preferments, and a year later died in Paris in the Rue des Jardins, and was buried in the cemetery of the parish of St. Paul. But all traces of the place of his interment have been lost for upwards of two centuries. The peaceful picture of the close of the life of the cure of Meudon is probably apocryphal. It is -aid that the last days of Rabelais as a parish priest were exemplary. His house was the resort of the learned, but its doors were never closed to the pour. He had no infirmities, except his enormous size. He had formed an excellent library of rare and curious books, and retained his love of study to the last. No day passed of which he did not spend some portion in teach- ing the children to read and sing. People flocked from Paris to hear him preach or cele- brate mass, or to enjoy his genial hospitality. Thus at Meudon his life passed tranquilly away, and there he died at peace with the Church and in the odour of sanctity. So runs the pleasant legend of the venerable cure. But the facts of history are inexorable. It is at least doubtful whether Rabelais ever exercised the functions of parish priest at Meudon ; it is certain that he did not hold the cure more than two vears, that he 224 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. had resigned it before his death, and that he died in Paris. On the other hand, his death- bed is surrounded with legends which are less edifying and perhaps equally fabulous. As in his lifetime numbers of books were attributed to him which he indignantly repudiated, so after his death his enemies vied with his indiscreet friends in associating preposterous stories with his name. Broad jests and floating witticisms current among the vulgar were fathered upon Rabelais, on the principle that such traditions gain in reality by association with a well-known figure. Every stage in his death is accompanied with some farcical impropriety, and it is now too late to sever truth from falsehood. Even his mule did not escape from slander. Imitating the irreverence of her master, she entered a church and drank the holy water. Rabelais' will is said to have been made in the words, " I have nothing ; I owe much ; the rest I leave to the poor." But twenty-six years before the death of the supposed testator the same dis- position of worldly goods is quoted by Erasmus in a letter to Budasus. Tradition relates that, after he had received extreme unction, he told a friend " qu'on lui avait graisse ses bottes pour le grand voyage " ; that he called for his Bene- dictine domino, in order to receive the blessing of those " qui in Domino moriuntur " ; that he greeted the page of Cardinal de Chatillon, who RABELAIS. 225 had been sent to ask him how he was, with, " Je vais querir un grand Peut-etre. Mon- seigneur est au nid de la pie ; dis-lui qu'il s'y tienne. Pour toi, tu ne seras jamais qu'un fou " ; that he saluted the priest who brought him the Sacrament with the words, " Je crois voir mon Dieu tel qu'il entra a Jerusalem triomphant et porte sur un ane " ; and, finally, that his last utterance was, " Tirez le rideau ; la farce est jouee." The drop of the curtain is as old as Augustus. " Ex uno disce omnia." No Life of Rabelais was written till a cen- tury after his death. In the meantime his true features were forgotten and distorted. The character of his writings invited misrepresen- tation. On the serious side of " Pantagruel '* the clergy, the monks, the Protestants, were interested in blackening his character, in order to minimise the effect of his satires. On its lighter side the enormous indecencies exposed him to the charge of personal immorality, while the gigantic buffooneries gave colour to his identification with countless popular stories which presented him in the light of a drunken jester without reverence for things human or divine. Both directly and indirectly he had offended the lawyers. He laughs at their inter- minable processes, at the ignorant idleness of judges like Bridoye, at the hair-splitting chican- ery of the law-courts. He ridicules their trea- 8 226 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. tises, which, like " Tariboles de Droict," buried the broad principles of Roman jurisprudence under a mass of subtle distinctions and profit- less commentary. So long as he had treated of their civil processes he had only mocked ; but when he touches upon their administration of criminal justice he brands the profession with indelible disgrace. The Furred Law Cats and the Gripemenalls were not likely to be tender to the memory of Rabelais. His caricatures of polite euphuism, his ridicule of elegant affectations of style, his contempt for the pedantic use of hy- brid Latinisms, ran counter to the literary creed of the day. He did not, like the members of the Pleiade,* disdain the old French romances as fit only for the floral games of Toulouse, but founded his satirical work on a cycle of myths deeply rooted in the popular imagination. He was, moreover, personally disliked by two of the leaders of the poetical clique whicli zealously supported the Parliament and the Sorbonne. Ronsard was his neighbour at Meudon, and saw in Rabelais his successful rival in the favour not only of France, but of their common patron, the Cardinal of Lorraine. Joachim du Bellay, a spare, vinegar-faced, melancholy dreamer, had been his companion at Rome in the house- hold of the Cardinal du Bellay, and no two men * Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay, Remi Bellau, Joan Dorat, Jean-Antoinc Baif, Ponthus dc Tisard, Etienne Jodelle. RABELAIS. 227 could have been more antipathetic in their views of life. While Rabelais lived the Pleiade kept silence. No sooner was he dead than they assailed his memory. The satirical verses of Ronsard and du Bellay gave the permanence of literary form to the hostile estimate of his character. Du Bellay wrote two Latin epitaphs upon him, in one of which he nicknames him Pamphagus, in the other (Enophilus. Ron- sard's satire is more bitter. In his " Epi+aphe d'un Biberon " he speaks of Rabelais as the "... bon biberon qui beuvoit ccpendaut qu'il vivoit," and as the boon companion who "... panni des escuelles grasses San? nulle honte se touillant * Ail' at dans le vin barbouillant Cunune une grenouille en la fange." Those who reflect upon the known facts of Rabelais' life, the uncompromising boldness of his satires, the persecutions which he volun- tarily risked by his zeal for reform ; those who consider his passionate pursuit of science, his enthusiasm for his multifarious studies, his encyclopaedic knowledge, and the extraordinary width of his learned interests ; those, linally, * St' touillcr is a local word, used at the present day in the districts of Perche and Maine, = " to dirty oneself." 228 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. who remember the reputation and the position of the men with whom he habitually asso- ciated on terms of intimate friendship, will find it difficult to accept the hostile estimate of Rabe- lais' character. If we turn from the facts of his life to the general tone of his writings, the diffi- culty of reconciling the two portraits and of discriminating between truth and falsehood confronts the student under a different form. Here too the question arises, Which is the genuine man, — the eager reformer or the jovial boon companion, the audacious satirist or the vinous buffoon ? But it is worth noticing that only old men like Grandgousier, or ignorant animals such as Friar John, drink to excess ; that it is only Panurge, the "coward, the knave, the cynic, who wallows in debauchery ; that the true hero, Pantagruel, indulges in no undue gratification of sensual appetites ; and that in the ideal Abbey of Theleme there is no ban- queting-hall, no cellar, no kitchen, and no men- tion of the pleasures of the table or the senses. Further, it is unfair to test the character of writers by the tone of their writings. Moliere was a silent observer, Beranger serious and melancholy, Balzac absorbed in the pursuit of letters. Lastly, the negative evidence does not stand alone. Numerous passages in " Pan- tagruel " prove that Rabelais had his high thoughts, his pure ideals, his serious moments, RABELAIS. 229 his deep religious susceptibilities ; that his soul was burdened by hours of mystic melancholy, was subject to unutterable speculative longings, and capable of grand poetic flashes. The framework on which the five parts of " Pantagruel " are hung, without discussing the genuineness of the text, may be thus briefly sketched : The first book, which was printed in 1535, and is, therefore, in order of publica- tion, the second, relates the miraculous birth of Gargantua, his education, his exploits, and his friendship for Friar John of the Chopping Knives. The second book, printed in 1532, appears to be in its early portions an inferior repetition of the first. It describes the birth of Pantagruel, the gigantic son of Gargantua, who is sent to be educated in Paris, where he meets Panurge and engages him as a com- panion. The first two books were published under the signature of Alcofribas Nasier. The third, printed in 1546, was the first to which Rabelais appended his name. The fourth book appeared in 1552, and the fifth in 1564, eleven years after the death of Rabelais. In the last three parts Panurge is the chief figure. They tell us how he fared as the ruler of Salmigon- din ; how he desired to take a wife, but fears that his marriage may prove unhappy ; how, after consulting every one in vain, it was agreed that Pantagruel, Friar John, and him- 230 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. self should inquire of the Oracle of the Holy Bottle ; and how they visited strange countries in the course of their voyage. Upon this absurd basis is piled mountain- high a mass of miscellaneous matter. The book is unique in the literature of the world. Here, raked together, are anecdotes, dissertations, quaint scraps of obscure learning, dialogues, sarcasm, wit, humour, proverbs, allegory, and astounding obscenity. Written with long inter- vals between the several parts, " Pantagruel " represents all the changes which the opinions of Rabelais underwent between fifty and seventy. It passes from the extravagant caricature of the Gargantuan chronicle, in which it originated, to a blending of sarcasm and burlesque, and finally to satire, open, undisguised, audacious. The tone is changed. In the first two books Rabelais writes as a reformer of the school of Erasmus ; in the last three he becomes more and more sceptical, less hopeful of the fulfilment of his ideal. The illusions of his comparative youth are dispelled ; universal liberty seems as distant as when he was condemned to the punishment in pace ; his laughter grows harsh and bitter. Thus " Pantagruel " affords a con- crete illustration of the passage which France underwent from the gay freedom of the Renais- sance to the gloomy distrust which was bred of the fanatical intolerance of both Catholics and RABELAIS. 231 Protestants. The theory that the whole work is allegorical, and that the actors are real his- torical characters, may be dismissed as trivial. The construction of keys is wasted labour, and, if shades can laugh, the " gros rire tourangeau " must shake the nether world at a search as profitless as that for the philosopher's stone. Like all great writers, Rabelais does not paint pictures of his contemporaries ; he puts to- gether many different features that have struck him, but portraiture is not his object. He might say with Moliere, " Je prends mon bien ou je le trouve." He makes the same casual references to men of the time which Swift makes to Whig and Tory leaders in Blefuscu and Lilliput. Pantagruel " satirises the social fabric of the sixteenth century ; but it is un- necessary to reduce its gigantic proportions to the dwarfish stature of a libel upon a particular Court. Rabelais is a universal moralist, not a satirist of individuals, and his work is a general criticism of the world, a Titanic outburst of laughter against shams, a sweeping protest against every form of intellectual restraint, a comprehensive indictment of all obstructions to mental liberty. " Pantagruel " is for students of costume a book of fashions, enumerating the stuffs, the colours, the dresses, the jewels, the furs in which mediaeval society was adorned. Lor his- 232 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. torians of games it is a book of sport, of falconry and venery, of manly exercises and diversions. Of games at cards alone Rabelais enumerates more than two. hundred different combinations. It gives a plan of domestic architecture, an inventory of household furniture, a menu of mediaeval banquets as well as of rustic fare. It is a treatise on the art of medicine, a manual of anatomical science, a handbook of botany, a compendium of the processes and procedure of mediaeval law. It gives a catalogue of the contents of monastic libraries, and from it may be compiled a diary of the daily life of a Francis- can friar. It affords a specimen of the dialectics of logicians and the philosophical exercises of the doctors of the Sorbonne. It is a valuable monograph on mediaeval education, a treatise on the arts of war and navigation. It enumer- ates all the known pieces of ordnance from the culverin to the falcon ; it is a museum of the mail, an armoury of the weapons, of the Middle Ages. It is a repertory which contains the superstitious practices of the day, astrological science, Virgilian lotteries, and all the current modes of presaging the future. It is a " Bi- bliotheque bleue " of rustic romances, a collec- tion of anecdotes and proverbs, a magazine of scraps of popular songs, a glossary of local idioms, a dictionary of dialects, an inexhaust- ible vocabulary of picturesque provincialisms. RABELAIS. 233 In a word, it is an enormous scrap-bag of mis- cellaneous articles. No adequate impression could be conveyed, within reasonable limits, of the multifarious contents of such a work. Three points may, however, be selected — mainly from the first book — to illustrate the method in which the various subjects are treated — education, ecclesi- astical abuses, and Rabelais' Utopian ideal. The first serious topic which is touched upon in " Pantagruel " is education ; for this, in Rabelais' conception of Renaissance movement, was the all-important factor. Grandgousier, who belongs to the rude, easy-going age that was passing away, gives his son Gargantua the ordi- nary education of a youth of noble birth in the Middle Ages. He is brought up like a page among the women in the licentious atmosphere of a court. He is taught to read by a tutor who consumes five years and three months in the task. At the end of that time he can say his alphabet as well backwards as forwards. Next he is exercised in logical and grammatical gym- nastics, which destroy thought in order to pre- serve its forms. He learns by heart, and word for word, antiquated treatises and obsolete text-books of the twelfth century. In this way he spends thirty-five years and two months. His body is as neglected as his mind. He is told that it is waste of time for him to wash 234 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. or clean himself ; consequently he only smooths his hair with the German comb — that is, with his fingers and thumb. After gorging himself at breakfast he hears from twenty-six to thirty masses, mumbles the Hours and his litanies, and, with a Paternoster from St. Claude, says more prayers than sixteen hermits could have offered. Then, with his heart in the kitchen, he studies for half an hour. At his dinner he eats to excess, and sleeps for three hours " with- out thinking or speaking any harm." He wakes to drink, read a little, gabble more prayers, visit the kitchen in order to see what meat is on the spit, sups, goes to bed, and sleeps till eight the next morning. Gargantua learns his lessons perfectly, studies hard, and satisfies his tutors and examiners ; yet every day he becomes " more foolish, doited, and blockish." Seeing that Gargantua thus went from bad to worse, Grandgousier consults a friend about his son. The friend advises that the new learn- ing should be tried, and offers to illustrate its efficacy in the person of his page, Eudemon, a lad barely twelve years old. In the presence of the whole Court, Eudemon, with his cap in his hand, his hair smoothly brushed, a clear and open countenance, beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyes steady, standing up straight on his feet, and yet full of youthful modesty, asks Gargantua's leave to become one of his house- RABELAIS. 235 hold in the style and manner of Cicero. Gar- gantua, though four times his age, cannot say a word in reply, but " hides his face in his cap and blubbers like a cow." Grandgousier discharges the old teacher, and engages Ponocrates, who is the representative of the Renaissance. The method of Bossuet is exchanged for that of Fenelon. The sketch which follows is a remarkable proof of Rabelais' enlightened views on educa- tion. The old mediaeval " trivium " and " quad- rivium " is abandoned for the Greek moasike and gymnastike. The mind and the body are to be developed by intellectual and physical exercises ; instruction is to be combined with amusement ; the pupil is to be taught to ob- serve and note things for himself. Gargantua now rises at four. He takes a bath, and while he is being rubbed some pages of the New Testament are read to him, and then he says his prayers. He breaks bis fast with the lightest possible food, and alter he has dressed himself he re- ceives a variety of lessons, followed by three consecutive hours of reading. Then he plays at ball, and, after changing his shirt, goes for a walk and returns to dinner. During the repast he hears some pleasant historv of warlike achievements, and talks with his tutor on the nature of the vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat which are served at table. Dinner ended, he 236 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. washes his eyes and hands in fresh water, and gives thanks to God in praise of His bounty and goodness. The hour for digestion is devoted to music, or to cards, which were made the instruments of arithmetical instruction. An- other three hours are then devoted to study. Next follow various bodily exercises. He rides, practises with the lance, hunts, leaps, swims, and enjoys various forms of sport. Once more he takes a bath, rubs himself carefully down, changes his clothes, and returns at a foot's pace through the woods and fields to his house. On the way he and his tutor botanise and collect specimens of different plants. Or he visits the workshops of the different trades, asks the arti- sans to explain their industries, and never fails to reward them handsomely. Supper follows. It is the fullest meal of the day, and is accom- panied by learned conversations and closed by grace. After supper he plays at dice or cards, or on musical instruments, or visits men of learn- ing, and, above all, distinguished travellers. The day ends with a study of the heavens and a recapitulation of all that has been read, seen, learned, or heard during the day. Finally, when the hour came for repose, the pupil and his master " prayed to God the Creator of all things, falling down before Him, strengthening their faith in Him, glorifying Him for His bound- less munificence, giving thanks to Him for the RABELAIS. 237 past, and commending themselves to His clem- ency for the future." And so to bed. Once in each month they made an excursion to some neighbouring village, and spent their time " in the greatest cheer imaginable, sporting, making merry, drinking healths, playing, singing, dan- cing, tumbling in some fair meadow, unnestling of sparrows, taking of quails, and fishing for frogs and crayfish." In the contrast which Rabelais draws be- tween these two systems of education he satir- ises what he represents to be the daily life of the Franciscans. He shows how its fruit is gluttony, dirt, and ignorance. As has been said, he never spares the monks, but attacks them with some of the concentrated bitterness of a renegade. In comparing Friar John's conduct with that of his brethren at the assault upon the vineyard of Seuilly, he illustrates the apathy of the monastic bodies, their want of practical energy, their incapacity to cope with events when action is required. When Picrochole's army pours into the vineyard, the monks knew not which saint they should invoke. The bell was rung to sum- mon the chapter, and it was decided to hold pro- cessional services, chanting the contra hostium insidias and repeating the responses pro pace. Now there was in the monastery a cloister monk named Friar John of the Chopping 238 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Knives,* young, gallant, nimble, lusty, handy with his weapons, bold, resolute, adventurous, tall, spare, wide-mouthed, long-nosed, quick to rattle off the Hours, gabble masses, despatch vigils ; in a word, a true monk, if ever there was one since the monking world monked a monkery ; and for the rest, a learned clerk — within the covers of his breviary. This monk, so soon as he heard the noise that the enemy made in the vineyard, came out to know what it meant. And when he saw that they were gathering the grapes which were to serve for next year's wine, back he comes into the choir of the church, where were gathered all the rest of the monks, stark silly with bewilderment, like so many bell-founders, chanting in plain song impctum inimicorum. Whereat he cried out, ' Well sung ! well sung ! In God's name, why don't ye sing " Baskets, good-bye ; the vintage is o'er " ? Devil take me if there be not rascals in our vineyard cutting the grapes and vines in such fashion that there will not be a single berry for years to come. By the belly of St. James, what shall we poor wretches have to drink in the meantime ? ' Then said the Lord Prior, ' What does this drunken beast here ? Away with him to prison for troubling our divine service.' * Erere Jean ties Entommeures, in modern French des entamures. Urquhart calls him I'riai John of the Funnels, as though the word was cntonnoirs. The passage which follows is a condensed and free version of the original. RABELAIS. 239 ' Nay,' said Friar John, ' let us think of our vine service, that that be not troubled ; for you, my Lord Prior, love good wine, as does every honest man. Never yet did man of worth dis- like good wine ; that is a monastic apophthegm. But these responses that you sing here, by God, men, they are not in season. Wherefore is it that oar Hours are short at vintage, and in win- ter long ? Brother Mace Pelosse, of blessed memory, true and zealous servant of religion — devil take me if I lie — told me, and I well remem- ber it, that the reason was that we might in this season well press the juice and make the wine and in the winter swallow it up. Hark ye, my masters : ah ye that love 1 good wine, follow me ! St. Anthony burn me if the coward shall wet his lips with a drop who will not fight to save the vines ! ' So saving he threw off his habit, seized the staff of the cross, which was made of the heart of a sorb-apple tree, long as a lance and thick as a man could grasp, and fell upon the enemy, who, without order, ensigns, drums, or trumpets, were gathering the grapes. The standard-bearers had laid their ensigns against the walls : the drummers had knocked out the heads of their drums to fill them with grapes ; the trumpets were choked with clusters; all were in disarray. So sudden and furious was his onset that he turned them over like swine ; they went down before him like grass before 240 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. a mower ; never was corn so threshed by a ploughman's flail as were they hammered by his merciless staff. There was no escape. One cried to St. James, another to St. George, some died without speaking, others spoke without dying ; some died speaking, others spoke dying. Thus by the single-handed prowess and valour of Friar John was destroyed all that army which had entered the vineyard to the number of thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-two, besides the women and little children, which are always understood." Had the monks been deficient in practical energy because of their excess of piety or of study, they might have been pardoned, but Rabelais will not allow them this excuse. Their bad Latinity is a frequent mark for his satire. " En notre abbaye," says Friar John, " nous n'etudions jamais, de peur des auripeaulx " (ear-ache.) " Notre feu abbe disait que c'est chose monstrueuse de voir un frere savant. Magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes. Pour ma part, corps Dieu, je n'etudie jamais." They do nothing to earn their wealth. Why, asks Rabelais, is a monk shunned by all the world ? He answers the question in the words of Gargantua : — " For the same reason that a monkey in a RABELAIS. 241 family is always teased and provoked. The monkey does not guard the house like the dog, or draw the plough like the ox ; he yields neither milk nor wool as the sheep ; he carries no burden like the horse. It is the same with the monk. He does not till the soil like the hus- bandman, defend the country like the soldier, cure the sick like the physician, preach like an evangelical doctor, teach like the schoolmaster, provide necessaries for the commonwealth like the merchant. ' But at least,' says the kindly Grandgousier, ' they pray to God for us.' ' Xot a bit of it,' returns Gargantua ; ' all that they do is to torment the neighbourhood with the ting-tang jangle of their eternal bells.' ' Right,' cried Friar John, ' a mass, a matin, a vesper well rung arc half said.' ' They mumble out legends,' continues Gargantua, 'and psalms of which they understand nothing ; they string together Paternosters and Ave Marias without apprehending the meaning of what they say. I call it mocking God and not praying to Him. If they pray for us. Heaven help us ! it is be- cause they fear to lose their victuals and fat messes of pottage.' " Nor is his attack confined to the gluttony, ignorance, apathy, dirt, and idleness of the monks. He arraigns the whole ecclesiastical fabric from the Pope downwards. In the nether 242 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. world the magnificence of the Papacy is gauged at its true worth. Julius II cries hot pudding pies ; Boniface VIII is a scummer of pots, Nicholas III a paper-maker ; Alexander VI, with a sly allusion to the skill of the Borgias in poisons, is a rat-killer. In the fifth book he laughs at the adoration of the Popes, their assumption of the title of God upon earth, the wars which they wage in the name of religion, the decretals upon which their power is based. On the Ringing Island Pantagruel and his com- panions obtain access with great difficulty to the cage of the Pope-hawk. Panurge looks at him curiously for a while, and then exclaims, " Maudite soit la bete ! elle a l'air d'une huppe." On the same island they sec an old green-headed bis-hawk snoring in his cage. Panurge takes up a stone to wake him, but iEdituus stays his hand with " Hold, hold, honest friend ! Strike, wound, poison, kill, and murder all the kings and princes in the world, by treachery or how thou wilt, and as soon as thou likest unnestle the angels from their cock-loft. Pope-hawk will pardon all this. But never be so mad as to meddle with these sacred birds, as thou lovest the profit, welfare, and life not only of thyself but of thy friends and relations, alive or dead, or to be born for a thousand generations to come. For RABELAIS. 243 so lone; wouldest thou entail miser}' upon them." Nor is it only the abuses of the monastic system or the flaws in the ecclesiastical fabric that Rabelais attacks. He does not spare the religious practices. For instance, he strongly condemns pilgrimages. In the war between Picrochole and Grandgousier six poor pilgrims are caught between the hostile armies, and are brought before Grandgousier. They have visited the shrine of St. Sebastian, near Nantes, to pray him to save them from the plague. " ' Ah, poor men ! ' said Grandgousier, ' do you indeed think that St. Sebastian verily sends the plague ? ' ' Yes, surely,' answered one, 'for so our preachers tell us.' 'And can it be so ? ' cried Grandgousier. ' Do the false prophets teach you such abuses ? Do they so blaspheme the saints and holv men of God as to liken them unto the devils, who work nothing but evil unto mankind ? Truly 1 greatly marvel that your king should suffer such scandalous doctrines to be preached. But go your ways, poor men, in the name of God the Creator, to whom I pray for you, that He will guide you per- petually, that ye be not henceforward so ready to undertake these idle and profitless journeys. Look to your families ; labour every man 244 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. diligently in his vocation ; instruct your chil- dren ; live as the good apostle St. Paul directs you. In so doing God, His angels, and His saints will guard and shield you, so that no plague or evil can at any time come nigh you.' ' Rabelais has endeavoured to show what wretched dens of ignorance and inactivity mon- asteries sometimes were. He proceeds to frame his own ideal institution, in which men and women may pursue religion, virtue, truth, and science. The Abbey of Theleme deserves special notice, because the gross parodies of Crazy Hall and Medmenham Abbey have defamed the memory of the institution and its founder. Friar John's services in the war against Picrochole required to be rewarded. He is offered the Abbey of Seuilly ; he might have been Abbot of Bourgueil or St. Florent, or both. But he refuses all. " How," he asks, " shall I govern others, that cannot govern myself ? " So he is allowed to create his own " As you like it," to institute an order " a son devis," to found his own Abbey of Theleme. By the side of the Loire he rears a stately abbey, a thousand times more splendid than Bonnivet or Chambord. Yet no walls enclose it in ; no chapel localises its worship. Bells were the monastic con- science ; they regulated the life of the monk, and proclaimed his death. But here no clocks RABELAIS. 245 or dials or bells tell the passage of time. The day, like the thoughts or the money of the inmates, was their own. Like Fontevrault, Theleme was a duplex monaster ium. Half the building was allotted to the men, half to the women. Only fair high-born ladies of sweet disposition, only gay, comely youths of gentle condition were permitted to dwell therein. Idlers, flatterers, bigots, hypocrites, law prac- titioner.-, usurers, fomenters of dissension were shut out. The age at which the inmates en- tered is fixed, but no period is laid down for leaving. Youths entered the abbey between twelve and eighteen, maidens from ten to fifteen. They might spend their lives within Theleme ; but if they wished to leave they were permitted to depart, taking with them their money and the lady of their choice. They took no perpetual vows of chastity, obedience, or poverty, but wire free, wealthy, and at libertv to marry. To each of the inmates is assigned a private oratory. There is no church for an official wor- ship ; there are no churches for different creed-. Religion is what each person chooses to make it ; times of prayer are not prescribed. Harmoniously dressed in rich, bright-coloured liveries of damasks, >atins, or velvets, which are changed from day to day at the will of the ladies, men and women study in the great 246 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. libraries Hebrew and Greek, Latin, Spanish, and Italian ; in their hours of recreation they paint, sing, play, compose verses, and act come- dies, or sit in the fair pleasure-gardens with their mazes and flowering fruit-trees which fringe the river Loire, or join, each gallant under the eyes of the lady whose knight he is, in the games and sports of the tennis-court, the lists, the racecourse, and the chase. Their lives are controlled by no laws, statutes or regu- lations ; they eat and drink, sleep and work, according to their own good pleasure. Yet no hour of the day is wasted ; all are occupied in training the body and the mind, in developing all the faculties, physical as well as mental. The rule of the order is summed up in " Fay ce que vouldras." There is no need of any other, for honour prompts to virtue and forbids vice. Man is at heart naturally inclined not to evil, but to good ; it is only restraint which creates his desire for what is forbidden. The descrip- tion closes with a prophecy discovered when the foundations of the abbey were dug. It is a cry of hope, a sursum corda, " Pauvres humains qui bon heur attendez, Lcvez vos cueurs et mes dits entendez." And then, in obscure and cautiously veiled language, Rabelais foretells the final triumph of divine truth, science, and philosophy, which RABELAIS. 247 shall emerge from the bloody conflict of Catho- lics and Protestants. The audacity of Rabelais' satire upon the Church is the more remarkable because he was at no pains to secure an ally by playing upon the superstitions or flattering the follies of kings. At a time when rulers obeyed the pre- dictions of a Ruggieri or a Nostradamus, he ridiculed the false science of astrology, and claimed that the stars were no respecters of persons. At a time when a Francis I sate on the throne, he did not hesitate to administer bold and honest rebukes to the warlike follies of kings. " Ces diables de rois ne sont que veaux et ne savent ni ne valent rien sinon a faire des maux es pauvres sujets et a troubler tout le monde par guerre pour leur inique et detestable plaisir." He denounces the in- humanity of mediaeval war. " Yae victis " is not upon Li- lip- ; his ideal ruler does not seize the kingdom of his rival, or detain his son as a hostage, or harry his dominions. He dislikes every kind of warlike conquest. Yet if a countrv is to be annexed, it must be humoured like a child, tended as a ^ick person, fostered like newlv-planted trees. Such conduct is the duty ol kings, and the only course which is truly nival is to do good and to eschew evil. These sentiments were not then the common- places they new are. During the sixteenth 248 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. century, in the heat of the rivalry between Francis I and Charles V, their utterance was bold. Rabelais' picture of Picrochole's council of war and that ruler's hot-headed dreams of universal conquest has coupled his imaginary monarch with Pyrrhus and La Laitiere in La Fontaine's immortal verse. In a future life war- like heroes will receive their deserts. In Hades Hector serves as a scullion ; Xerxes sells mustard ; Alexander the Great is a patcher of old breeches and boots ; Hannibal mends kettles ; Camillus makes wooden shoes. Mean- while an Epictetus sits attired in the French fashion, under a pleasant arbour, with a bright company of merry maidens. Rabelais' horror of war nerves him to contrast weak-minded sovereigns, puffed up by the flattery of greedy courtiers and infatuated by lust of conquest, with peaceful God-fearing monarchs who have before them the good of their subjects, whose creatures they acknowledge themselves to be. He does not bow with the courtly adulation of an official preacher, with the phrase upon his lips, " Sire, we are almost all mortal ! " But at a time when France was bleeding to death from the devastating campaigns of Francis I, he honestly exposes the follies of dreams of con- quest, paints_ the horrors which wars entail upon the poor, and opposes to the vainglorious fury of a Picrochole the Homeric grandeur of RABELAIS. 249 a Grandgousier, who knows that the best crown of a king is the love of his subjects. As a satirist Rabelais is, in fact, the lineal descendant of the Gaul who plucked the beard of the Roman senator as he sat on his curule chair. Yet whatever is really great and good he passes by as unfit for his purpose, and he is very far from b( ing a destructive sceptic like Lucian. All that is bombastic, false, cowardly, or mis- chievous he detects, under whatever disguises it may be concealed, strips off its tinsel deco- ration, and holds it up for ridicule in his pictur- esque and vigorous prose. As a humorist his method is unlike that of his countrymen. He does not deal in hints or allusions; his banter is rather rustic than courtly ; it is plain-spoken and detailed, not light or delicate. One feature of his humour is now more com- mon than when the exactitude of his calculations and the particularity of his descriptions first produced their effect ; his meanest messen- gers have names, parents, and habitations. Nor docs Rabelais more closely resemble the humorists of other countries. He does not champion the past like Aristophanes, and he has not a trace of the Greek dramatist's clear-cut grace and precision : he is without Cervantes' melancholv or Swift's contempt for fellow-men ; he is not a psychologist like Sterne. His humour is not more closely akin to the dry exaggeration 250 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. of the American or the " pawky " shrewdness of the Scotchman, than it is to the sly innuendo of his own fellow-countryman. But its charm lies in its complete abandonment, the headlong outpouring of everything that enters his mind, the vigour of his assimilating power, the resist- less play of his exuberant fancy. Although his touch is heavy and his fun is worked out with a detail which is often excessive in its elaboration, yet his faculties seem to run their own course, and his discursiveness owes its humorous efficacy to the complexity of the as- sociations and suggestions which his gift of combination enables him to string upon a single thread. The process of connection is never, in appearance at least, laborious ; his mind seems to work instinctively, impelled by an un- failing buoyant gaiety. His humour is the Pythic fervour of the poet working in the field of extravagant drollery. He pours out his ab- surdities with a lordly disregard of decorum and with the mock solemnity of intoxication ; and he holds himself at perfect liberty to skip, dilate, digress, halt, or hurry when and where his caprice pleases. Side by side with his un- bridled zanyism are piled up, like Pelion upon Ossa, in most ridiculous contrast, prodigious masses of learning. Rabelais has hardly a literary predecessor whom he does not parody or imitate. Greek and Roman poets and RABELAIS. 251 historians, monastic chroniclers, theologians, civilians, — all are rifled, and their possessions thrown into the seething cauldron of his wit. Thence they emerge not in an undigested mass, but classified, arranged, and marshalled for each particular purpose. Nor does Rabelais accept with the omnivorous appetite of a mere de- vourer of books all the crude theories pro- mulgated by the ancients, but he applies the processes of the critic to the narratives. The abundance of illustration would be pedantic if it were not for the ease with which the learning is borne and for the ludicrous incongruity of the associations. Scraps of varied knowledge, par- ticles of monastic lore, fragments of science, shreds of legal learning, morsels of history, sacred o± profane, are poured forth and swept airing on the broad brimming tide of his humour, jumbled up with quaint conceits, rude horse- play, popular proverbs, contemporary allusions, and local idioms. The result is a kaleidoscopic compound of the most recondite knowledge with the broadest buffoonery, grand ideas with puerile plays upon words, vinous drivel with profound allegory, stupendous grossness with high purpose both religious and moral. Rabelais' power of exciting a laugh is strong and masculine. He does not extort a smile by sly malice or neatly turned innuendo, but raises a hearty laugh by a broad humour which is often 252 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. regarded as his distinctive gift. His narrative power and dramatic genius are equally striking. Space does not allow any illustrations of the former. Of the latter it may be truly said that nothing can exceed the vivid force and dis- tinctness with which Rabelais makes his readers picture the characters of his fiction. Many of the minor portraits are hit off with bold, telling strokes ; in perfect keeping are the conduct and language of the scholastic orator, the decre- talist, or the Pyrrhonist philosopher. Some- times, indeed, as in the case of Grandgousier or Gargantua, the human traits are lost in the gigantic proportions which lift the actors out of the world of mortals into the fantastic regions of mediaeval romance. But Rabelais' dramatic and creative faculties find their fullest scope in the characters of Pantagruel, Panurge, and Friar John ; it is in their figures that he most conspicuously displays his keenness of observa- tion and profound knowledge of human nature. Pantagruel is " l'idee et l'exemplaire de toute joyeuse perfection." To the calm, wise figure of his ideal king Rabelais opposes the pedantry of scholars, the ignorance of monks, the charla- tanism of sophists, alchemists and astrologers, the chicanery of lawyers, the hairsplittings of theologians, the profitless dialectics of logicians, the worldly ambition of ecclesiastics. In greater detail he contrasts the poetry of his character RABELAIS. 253 with the prose of his companions, — with the gross animalism of Friar John or the soulless learning of a shifty adventurer like Panurge. Possessed of a rare combination of learning, common-sense, and energy, a worthy pupil of Eusthenes and Epistemon, wise, good, modest, dreamy, and speculating on the mysteries of life with something of a Hamlet's melancholy, Pantagruel stands aloof from his two com- panions, like a spectator. .Considerate to their weaknesses, he seems to descend among their adventures like a superior being from another sphere. Between Friar John and Panurge the contrast is sharp and many-sided. Friar John personi- fies the animal good, Panurge the natural evil, that are inherent in humanity. The former is the embodiment of rude health and physical enjoyment. He is a lusty, fearless, jovial com- rade, transparently honest, and with all his coarseness often surprising us with an unex- pected delicacy of feeling, always ready with his knife for a joint or his hanger for a foe ; a fight- ing, swearing Friar Tuck, the deepest drinker in any company, a second Samson in demolish- ing his enemies single-handed. Ramping through the world like a bull, he is devoid of religious sentiment, and though he lards his speech with imperfect sentences from his breviarv he is the most ignorant of monks. He 254 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. is a man of vigorous, energetic temperament, by nature destined for a soldier, by profession forced to lead an uncongenial life of contem- plation. Panurge is a more complicated character. He is more philosophical than Falstaff, though his connection with Pantagruel suggests a compari- son with the witty companion of Prince Hal. Nor, again, does he resemble the shrewd peas- ant Sancho Panza, though at first sight the similarity of the relationship between the ideal Don Quixote and his realistic servant is close. Panurge combines the mischievous ingenuity of a Paris gamin with the wrinkled experience of a man of fifty ; but he is rather a Puck than a Mephistopheles, and it may be doubted whether the latter personage could be conceived by a Frenchman. His reckless gaiety and his keen wit cover a multitude of sins. Furtive, witty, unprincipled, a spendthrift, a rake, and a coward, he has abandoned passion for cynicism, and exchanged love for libertinism. Ready and resourceful, without conscience, shame, or virtue, he is a railer at God and the Church, yet intensely superstitious in moments of peril, a strenuous upholder of orthodoxy, a bitter foe to the heresy of Raminagrobis. A Villon in his Bohemian licence, an Amyot in his wealth of learning, a Figaro in his gaiety, a Gil Bias in his knowledge of the world, a Due de Richelieu RABELAIS. 255 in his dissolute effrontery, despising ideals or elevated sentiment, he is a type of those witty, adroit, unprincipled, self-seeking, pleasure-loving reprobates of whom French history and French fiction afford numerous examples. Round these central figures, together with those of Grandgousier and Gargantua, Rabelais has painted his strange panorama of sixteenth- century life. The elaboration of the three prin- cipal characters would alone show that there was far more than mere burlesque in " Pan- tagruel." What, then, is the relation which the Homere bouffon bears to the intellectual move- ments of the sixteenth century, a period which in the antagonism of faith and culture so closely resembles the present age ? The magic word which sums up the Rabelaisian philosophy is " Drink." How are we to interpret the sibyl- line oracle of the Holy Bottle ? Rabelais' character and opinions as they are revealed in his writings forbid us to Slip- py >se that he means only to teach the old lesson, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," though it is characteristic of his manner that that interpretation is left open to the reader. He is m>t a scoffing, creedless preacher of sensual- ism. Possiblv he may have drifted far from the moorings of the ancient creed ; but even of this there is no evidence. He nowhere speaks with irreverence of Christianity, and there is nothing 256 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. to show that he had left its pale or rejected any of its principles. He assails the discipline rather than the doctrines of the Roman Church ; he attacks the ignorance and idleness of the mo- nastic orders, the false miracles and relics, the purchase of absolution, the sale of indulgences, the power and ambition of the Papacy ; but he is no advocate for doctrinal revolution. When Pantagruel weeps for the death of the great God Pan, whom he understands to be the " great Saviour of the faithful, who was put to death at Jerusalem," we seem to see the spirit of the Renaissance shedding a regretful tear over the beauty of universal faith. Rabelais is a be- liever in the immortality of the soul, though the form in which he casts his creed is rather that of Goethe than of the Church. " ' Je crois,' dit Pantagruel, ' que toutes ames intellectives sont exemptes des ci^eaux d'Atropos.' " Numer- ous passages illustrate his faith in the exist- ence of a God, and his definition was borrowed by Pascal. " May that intellectual sphere," says the priestess of the Bottle, " whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, which we call God, keep you in His almighty protection ! " It is in this connection remarkable that Rabelais does not, like the majority of the humanists, throw in his lot unreservedly with the Platonists, but continues a disciple of the Aristotelian philosophy. On RABELAIS. 257 this side he inclined rather to mediaeval scholas- ticism than to the thought of the Renaissance. Culture was Rabelais' passion, ignorance his detestation. But he does not sever the develop- ment of the intellect from interest in practical life or from the growth of religion. Drink deep at the fount of learning ; drain to the dregs, if you can, the Holy Bottle of science ; strive, body and spirit together, to hold intercourse with all that is divine. Scholastic disputations, dogmatic definitions, legal pedantries, false sciences are only masks assumed by ignorance and fetters imposed upon the human mind by fashion. Life, in its fullest and widest sense, consists neither in monastic seclusion from the world, nor in the extravagant mortifications of Catholics, nor in the intolerant austerities of Protestants ; it is not the easv-going apathv of a Grandgousier nor the simple, instinctive great- ness of a noble but imperfectly educated savage like Gargantua : it is not the natural animalism of a healthy Philistine like Friar John ; still less i- it the cynical, unsympathetic, unspiritual culture of a Panu'rge. Churchmen had starved the intellect or mortified the body, that so they might increase the ecstasy of the spirit ; they had anticipated the grave by a voluntary death in life and a complete renunciation of tin- world. The men of the Renaissance fed the animal soul with the newlv discovered wonders of the mind, 258 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. or with the beauties of artistic culture ; but they destroyed the spiritual soul, because they left the body plunged in refined debauchery. Both had greatly erred. Neither the extinction nor the idealisation of the body satisfies the highest conceptions of humanity. Drink deeply, says the oracle of the Holy Bottle, at the spring of science and of learning, for all the abuses of society are the monstrous brood of ignorance ; seize not on one or the other side of man's dual being, but cultivate the whole of humanity, and not this or that part. Let spirit and body pursue the same end in unison ; exercise all the faculties at once, spiritual as well as animal, immaterial as well as sensual ; labour to attain the true wisdom, but disdain not to pluck the flowers of enjoy- ment that bloom by the way. Accept life cheer- fully, not sadly. Draw from the senses whatever of pleasure they have to offer ; kindle the mind with all that the heart possesses of passion and of enthusiasm ; but permit not the spirit to be overwhelmed by that which is its vehicle ; suffer not the soul to be degraded by the mere gratifi- cation of sensual appetites, or chilled by the exclusive culture of the intellect, or stunted by withdrawal from the practical affairs of men. Refuse not the wisdom of antiquity, but pay it no extravagant reverence, lest the learning of the ancients become a burden rather than an RABELAIS. 259 aid. Use it as the foundation on which to build, each one for himself raising his own edifice, independently and unhampered by his pre- decessors. Culture alone will quicken the mental vision, so that men may see by what mists of ignorance they are blinded. Till culture is spread abroad universally, the leisured, refined ataraxia of the Abbey of Theleme must neces- sarily remain a vain, impossible dream. And, meanwhile, what is the true Pantagruelian phi- losophy ? Acquiesce in the present, says Rabe- lais, so far as it is unalterable ; pay no heed to the conte>t between the bigots of Rome and Geneva, for their strife is as meaningless as the bells of the Ringing Island, as void of living warmth as the frozen words that fell on the deck of Pantagruel's ship. Drink ever at the fount of science ; strive to the utmost to help forward the cause of progress by spreading abroad learning and culture ; and preserve une certain.e gaiete d'esprit confite en mespris des choses fortuites," for the true Pantagruelian philosopher ever maintains " a spirit of jollity pickled in scorn of fortune." Rabelais will always retain the fresh interest which he derives from his intellectual con- nection, through the Renaissance and the Re- formation, with the French Revolution. Of that momentous movement he is the earliest harbinger, liis doctrine of human liberty was 260 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. not far removed from the theory of return to Nature, seeing that both were based on enthusi- asm for the natural goodness of humanity. But Rabelais not only supplied his countrymen with great dynamic ideas ; he also gave them the forms in which they might be expressed. His services to the French vernacular tongue are so incalculably great that they cannot here be wholly ignored. When he began to write, the grammar of his native tongue was in complete confusion ; verbs were conjugated differently according to the custom of each province ; words were disguised beyond detection by the fashion of the day, the caprice of individual writers, or the lawlessness of dialects ; spelling and pronunciation were entirely divorced. Before the powers and proper use of the letters or the original roots of the language could be ascertained, it was necessary to study the patois. It was in this respect especially that Rabelais was the predecessor of the great French gram- marians, a pioneer of discovery in fields where Ramus and the Estiennes subsequently laboured. But it was not in grammar that Rabelais did his most useful work. When he began to write, French prose was in construction ungrammatical, in style involved, slow-moving and heavy, in command of words meagre and poverty-stricken. Bringing to bear upon his style a mind trained in the niceties of the classics, he gave his prose RABELAIS. 261 epigrammatic neatness and supple flexibility, secured simple and logical forms for his con- structions, studied the balance of his phrases, added point and energy to his sentences. Above all, Rabelais enriched the language and increased its amplitude of resource. Col- lectively, French dialects were wealthy, indi- vidually they were poor. There was no vernacu- lar official language, for Latin was the language of the Church and the law-courts. Each group within the langue d'oil and the langue d'oc was infinitely divided, so that speech varied as you passed from province to province, village to vil- lage, and even from one part of a city to another. Travelling, as Rabelais did, from one end of France to the other, everywhere registering the sayings of the fields, the streets, the markets, and the taverns, he was peculiarly qualified to effect the requisite work of accumulation. Not only did he seek new creations in coinages from Greek, Latin, and Italian, but he gathered to- gether all the original resources of the different dialects. He saw that the best mode of reviving the strength of the language was to bring back into use the picturesque phrases and lively idioms of the provinces, to restore the almost obsolete words on which the popular imagination had stamped its energetic impress. Here is an oath from Lorraine, here an affirmation from Champagne, here a salute from the shores of 262 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the Mediterranean, here an interrogative from Provence, here a descriptive epithet from Nor- mandy. But naturally he is peculiarly rich in the patois of the centre, and especially of Touraine, Anjou, and Poitou. If space per- mitted, a curious collection of words might be compiled from " Pantagruel " which may still be heard in the " Garden of France." Nothing escaped his far-reaching net. Every word that was coined in the esprit gaulois to discriminate nice shades of character, to satirise, ridicule, or banter, Rabelais has saved from loss and pre- served for future use. It is not the least of his claims to the gratitude of his countrymen — and it is one which will be most universally conceded — that he so enriched and amplified the literary resources of his native tongue that the civilised world is content to be the debtor of France. FONTAINEBLEAU. ^T O public building in France appeals to the t historical imagination more eloquently than the Palace of Fontainebleau. None awak- ens so rich and varied a group of striking asso- ciations ; none is so thickly haunted with mem- ories of the past ; none is tenanted by the ghosts of so brilliant a crowd of famous men and women. It is a document to which twenty kings have set their sign-manuals, a chronicle in stone of the history of France, a dumb yet eloquent preacher of the mutability of human greatness. Successive sovereigns from 1137 to 1870 — from Louis le Gros to Xapoleon III — have enriched it with memorials of their rule. Within its pre- cincts, by ancient custom, the royal wives of monarchs have brought into the world the heirs to the throne. Upon its buildings the uncrowned queens of France — from Diane de Poitiers to Madame de Pompadour — have lavished their luxury, their caprice, and their extravagance. The ermine of Anne of Bretagne, the porcupine of Louis XII, the pierced swan of Claude of Lorraine, which are so conspicuous on the walls 264 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. and ceilings of Blois, are absent from Fontaine- bleau. But, beginning with the salamander of Francis I, there is scarcely a king, a queen, or a mistress whose memory is not preserved in the buildings of the palace. Here is the monogram of Henry II, so constructed that it may be read as that of himself and Catherine de Medicis or Diane de Poitiers ; here are Diane's crescent moons, her stags, her leverets, her bows and arrows ; here is the S and arrow, which com- memorates la belle Gabriclle with a pun upon her surname of Estrees, and by its side is the mono- gram of her royal lover, Henry IV, and his wife, Marie de Medicis. Here, again and again re- peated, are the lilies of France, the balls of the Medicis, the famous " girony of eight " of Navarre. Here, also, are the monograms of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa, of Louis XV, and of Marie Antoinette. Here, finally, is the imperial bee of Napoleon I. In the course of centuries the rude hunting- lodge of early kings, the donjon-keep which stood in the centre of the chers deserts of St. Louis, was transformed into an enchanted palace, surpassing in its beauty the fabled abode of Morgana, which became in turn the Chez Soy of Francis I, the belle et delicieuse residence of Anne of Austria, the demeure des siecles of Napo- leon I. During the passage of years it has been FONTAINEBLEAU. 265 the favourite home of kings and queens, the birthplace of princes, the refuge of exiled sover- eigns, the prison of a Pope and a king of Spain, the bower of royal lovers, the scene of the triumphs and defeats which constitute the glory and the pathos of French history, the stage on which the actors in its brilliant comedies or ghastly tragedies have played their striking parts. Nor is Fontainebleau content to record only the rise and fall of dynasties. Its interest is not exclusively historical. It is artistic also. Seven centuries of changing taste have left their mark upon its walls. It is a mosaic of stone and colours, into which are dovetailed the various stages in the history and progress of French art. Upon its walls some of the greatest of French architects, sculptors, and painters have in- scribed their genius. From Fontainebleau emanated the first great artistic movement in France. It would be unjust to ignore the early efforts of Louis XII and his minister, Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, or to depreciate the native genius displayed in the Chateau of Blois. But the impulse given to art by the brilliant group of Italian artists which Francis 1 gathered round him at Fontainebleau — by Rosso, Primaticcio, Niccolo dell' Abbatc, and many others— was as great as it was indisputably general. From the Ecole de Fontainebleau Claude Lorraine derived 266 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. his magical light, and Poussin drew his tragic note. And from the sixteenth century onwards, each successive step in the glory or the decadence of French painting, architecture, or sculpture, is chronicled in the buildings or the decoration of the palace. Their records carry us from the Italian Renaissance of Francis I, in which, in the first flush of their inspiration, the newly imported classic elements conquered the Gothic forms of native growth, to the pure classicism of Henry II ; from the bastard Renaissance of Henry IV to the flowing lines and wealth of colour by which the artists of Louis XIII de- parted from the antique model ; from the pom- pous emphasis of Louis XIV to the charming but capricious grace of Louis XV ; from the classic art of the Empire to the Gothic Revival of the Restoration. Historically and artistically, Fontainebleau is the jewel of French palaces. And the brilliance of the gem is enhanced by the unrivalled beauty of the setting. The frame is worthy of the picture. In its diversity the forest stands alone among the forests of France. Every variety of tree — poplars and chestnuts, maple and birch, oaks and junipers — flourishes in abundance. The wild and savage scenery of Salvator Rosa alternates with the calm and peaceful landscape of Claude Lorraine. Stone- henges and Karnacs of moss-covered rock, rich- FONTAINEBLEAU. 267 coloured platieres, or ridges of sandstone, bare, naked, boldly outlined hills, present abrupt contrasts with tree-clad slopes, tranquil plains, quiet pools, like the Mare aux fees, or the Mare aux serpents, and turfy sweeps, such as that near the woods of Bas Breaux, where Pan himself might be content to shepherd his flocks. Here are masses of curiously scaled grey stone, resembling primeval lizard-like monsters, petri- fied as they approached their prey ; while, above and around them, twisting, writhing, and contorting into fantastic shapes, rises a forest growth of junipers, which look like the wild figures of a corybantic dance. Here, too, are " secular " oaks — " green-robed senators of the woods " — whose forms may well have sheltered Charlemagne, as popular tradition asserts, or concealed the dark spectral form of the " Grand Yeneur," or shaded the velvet cheek of Diane de Poitiers. And, dotted here and there among the trees, gleam the white tents of the >oldiers, who make of the forest a camp of exercise, and whose blue and red uni- forms, cooking fires, and picketed horses give life and colour to its sombre depths. As the first great movement of French art emanated from the palace, so the last great movement has found its source in the forest, which has inspired the genius of Millet, Rousseau, Diaz, Corot, and the modern Barbi/on School of 268 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. French painters. The simple poetry of natural life is the discovery and the revelation of its founders. It was not the shy grace of a Dryad, nor the spiritual ecstasy of a Madonna, nor the smile of a Bacchante, which was their in- spiration, but the mystery of the woods, the savage gloom of a forest, the rude pathos of humble toil. It was in the forest that Corot brought to perfection his art of arresting the momentary changes of nature, and of blending the green of leaves and grass with the grey of his fleecy clouds ; here, too, Rousseau acquired his emotional apprehension of landscape, and Diaz bestowed on the glades of sylvan scenery the glow of colour in which his Spanish instinct delighted. And, above all, it was on the out- skirts of the forest that the Homer of rural life — but a Homer in patois — caught, and fixed upon his canvas, the cadenced, rhythmic move- ment of the sower and the painful, laboured effort of the overladen woodcutter, or trans- lated into form and colours the terrible page in which La Bruyere describes the hopeless un- eventful toil of the French peasant, or revived the pious sensations of his own Norman child- hood, when, at declining day, the peasants raise themselves erect from their toil to repeat the Angelus Domini mmtiavit Marice. Fontainebleau sums up in itself the history of the French nation and of French art. It will FONTAIXEBLEAU. 269 be possible in the following pages to indicate only a few of the associations which the forest and the palace suggest. The palace owes its existence to the forest. Official exigencies of State dictated the selection of the Louvre, St. Cloud, Versailles, the Tuileries, Yincennes, or St. Germains, as residences of French sovereigns. Chinon, the Windsor of Touraine, which crowns the line of cliffs that rise above the Vienne, was a stronghold that defied the English invader. Bourges afforded a refuge to the roitelet from his powerful rival, the king of England. Blois and Amboise and Angers were strongholds that com- manded the passages of the Loire. But Fontaine- bleau was emphatically a hunting lodge. The ancient province of the Gatinais (Pagus Wastinensis) on the left bank of the Seine was united to the French crown by Philip I in 1068. Within its limits was situated the ancient forest of Bieria,* which had become proverbial in the Middle Ages for the size and beauty of its trees. In the " Roman de la Rose " a hero bears a lance, the handle of which, cut in the forest of Thuerie, was so strong that " II n'en croit nulle telle en Bit-re." The whole country took the name of Biere, and the word still survives in official documents * In Low Latin, Bieria, or Uicrria, means a plain; hence the Bicricc Sylva means the forest of the plain. 270 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. and in the local nomenclature of the Depart- ment of Seine-et-Marne. But the name of the more modern palace was gradually extended to the forest, and entirely superseded its ancient title. Before the year 1068 it would be vain to seek for any mention of the palace of Fontainebleau. Between that date and 1137 the first royal resi- dence was built. In the latter year occurs the first record of the palace, though that record in itself affords a proof of its anterior existence. A charter of Louis VII is extant which closes with this protocol in Latin : " Given at Fon- taine-Bleaud, in public, in the year 1137, the first of our reign, there being present in our palace those whose names and signatures are subscribed below." The charter, which con- firms the foundation of the Abbey of Val-Sainte- Marie in Auvergne, is said to be actum apud fontem Bleaudi. The fons Blcaudi became Fon- tainebleau. But the origin of the term is lost in the mists of antiquity. Ancient antiquaries, delighting in that guess-work which threw dis- credit on their learning, exercised their ingenuity in explanations. Some invented an eponymous hero ; others argued that the word commemo- rated the sagacity of the dog " Blaut " which discovered the spring ; others traced the name to the clearness of the water, which made a French Callirrhoe of the " Fontaine-bellc-eau." FONTAI XEBLEAU. 271 All that can be said with certainty is that the etymology of the word is the Fontem Blialdi, and its meaning " the spring of the mantle " ; but the attempt to trace the derivation of the title must be abandoned to the imagination.* There existed, then, at Fontainebleau, in the first vear of the reign of Louis VII, a royal palace, which was capable of holding the king and all the groat officers of his court, and which was, with certainty, built at least as early as the time of his predecessor, Louis VI, called " the Fat." Nothing more unlike the modern palace can be imagined than this mediaeval donjon. Those who are familiar with the house of Jacques Coeur at Bourges know how, three cen- turies later, defensive strength was still at least as mucli the aim of builders as comfort or splen- dour ; on the inner side a palace, it is on the outer side a fortification. Fontainebleau in the days of Louis VII was a fortified castle, a gloomy keep occupying the site of the present " Cour Ovale," flanked by towers, protected by lofty walls, strengthened by a moat, and approached bv a drawbridge. Few traces remain of the early fortress, but the existing buildings were * The word '• Blialdus," " Blaudus," " Bliaudus," and other analogous f.rm-., is frequently met with in I"'.'. Latin docu- ment-. I>u Can.ie gives its meaning as vt-stis nferies, and illus- trates its use in Old Irench from the medieval romances — t\.,. " De mult rirhe bliaut fut la dame paree," " bliaut de saints," " bliaut de iourrure." 272 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. erected on its foundations, and its form is pre- served in the irregular shape of the courtyard. Within the baily of the fortress stood the chapel of St. Saturnin, bishop and martyr of Toulouse, finished, as the inscription in the subterranean crypt states, by Louis VII in 1169. Thus the feudal stronghold of the Cour Ovale formed the nucleus round which gathered, at different epochs, the present magnificent and heteroge- neous structure. Any one who passes from part to part of the great building, and asks himself " What happened here ? " " What king built this or that portion of the palace ? " " What effect did his life or death produce upon France ? " will gain a truer and more vivid knowledge of the history of the country than can be derived from the reading of many books. It was to Fontainebleau that Philip Augus- tus came from the Crusades ; here he spent the intervals of the war which he waged against Richard Cceur-de-Lion. Here, in 1191, he cele- brated Christmas in the company of a bril- liant throng of nobles with splendid festivities, before he offered thanks for his return at the shrine of the bienheureux St. Denis. Here, six years later, he signed a charter which conveyed the hermitage of Franchard to the monastery of St. Euverte of Orleans. The site of the lonely cave, hollowed in the rock, its floor worn by the knees of the hermits, who lived a life of FONTAINEBLEAU. 273 prayer, surrounded by fierce beasts of prey cr still more savage human beings, is now a cafe thronged with pleasure-seekers. The con- trast between a feudal donjon of Louis VII and the palace of Fontainebleau as it exists to-day sums up the history of France. The advice of Adolphe Joanne to the modern tourist, compared with the counsel of Abbot Stephen to the solitary recluse of Franchard, epitomises, as it were, another aspect of the passage of time from the twelfth to the twentieth century. Listen to the words which the abbot of St. Genevieve of Paris addressed to William de Bierria, who had left the religious house of St. Euverte of Orleans to occupy the newly founded cell in the forest of Biere or Fontainebleau. " Weep for thyself ; weep for thy neighbour ; weep also for the Lord. Weep for thyself, reviewing thy past years in bitterness of spirit. Weep for thy neighbour, that is for all who live or are dead in the faith of Christ. Wee]) also for the Lord, being weary of this present life, and desiring that which is eternal. Let thy first tear be shed, that God may remember no more against thee the wilful, or unwitting, sins of thy youth ; thy second, that the living may eschew evil and persevere in good works, and that the dead may rest in peace ; thy third, that thou mayest shortly be rid of the body of 274 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. this death, and be with Christ, crying, ' Alas, that my sojourn here is so long ! ' Let thy first tear, my brother, be a tear of penitence and con- trition ; thy second, a tear of compassion and pity ; thy third, a tear of faith and thanksgiving. " From prayer turn then to reading, and from reading to meditation, that so thou may- est mark, learn and inwardly digest what thou hast read, and store it in the garner of thy memory. But take heed lest, by overmuch reading, thine eyes be dimmed, or thy brain be made to reel. Be moderate in thy reading, and afterwards neglect not to walk to and fro in thy cell, or to go forth into thy garden and rest thy failing eyes by the sight of the green herbs that grow therein — few and scanty though they be — or by the contemplation of thy beehives, that so the bees may be to thee for an ensample and a consolation. Among such diversities of occupation, thou shalt regard the roughness of the desert as the foretaste of the joys of heaven." As the centuries advance, Fontainebleau is brought more and more closely into direct con- tact with the general stream of French history. Especially is it associated with the glories of St. Louis, of Francis I, of Henry IV, and Napo- leon I. Four of the greatest of French monarchs made Fontainebleau their favourite residence, and lavished their treasures upon its walls. FONTAINEBLEAU. 275 Fontainebleau was the centre of the chers deserts of St. Louis, endeared to him not only by the pleasures of the chase, but by the memory of his mother, Blanche of Castillo, who pas-ed much of her time in the neighbourhood. On the banks of the Loing, by the road to Ne- mours, arr still to be seen the vast ruins of her favourite Castle of Grcz. Her son shared his mother's love for the forest. St. Louis was the first great builder at Fontainebleau. Under the shadow of the donjon keep, he built the pavilion which still stands, and is still called by his name. Hunting was his favourite pas- time. It was probably no accident that the first didactic work on venery was composed in his reign— the " Book of King Modus and Queen Racio." He was not always so absorbed in crusading enterprises, or in dreams of heavenly beauty, as to neglect the delights of the chase. Among the treasures which he brought back from the Last were the grey dogs of Tartar race that he introduced into the forest. A more lasting monument of his passion for hunting still survives. Near the village' of Bois-le-Roi rises a little hill, the summit of which is crowned by the ruins of the hermitage of St. Louis. The king was separated from his attendants in the ardour of his pursuit of a stag, when he was suddenlv attacked by robbers. He blew his horn for assistance, but none came. He was 276 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. at his last gasp, when his courtiers rode up. In gratitude for his escape he founded a her- mitage, and dedicated it to St. Vincent, on whose day (January 22) he was thus rescued from danger. Many scenes in the life of St. Louis are associated with Fontainebleau. It was here that, in 1228, he confirmed the privileges of the University of Paris. Here, too, in 1259, Re- lieving himself to be at the point of death, he called his son to his bedside, and delivered to him one of those exhortations which Bossuet calls the sacred heirlooms of the children of St. Louis. " Son," said he, " I pray thee to make thyself beloved by the people of thy realm. For, verily, I had rather that a Scot should come out of Scotland, and rule the kingdom well and loyally, than that thou shouldest rule it ill and to evil report." The king was restored to health, and, in gratitude for his recovery, founded a hospital by the side of the castle, and within its walls, for the sick of the neighbouring country. He entrusted it to the care of the brethren of the Order of the Holy Trinity, com- monly called Mathurins. For a time he gave to the brethren the existing chapel of St. Saturnin,* * On the ruins of this subterranean chapel Francis I built the present Chapel of St. Saturnin, which is raised to the level of the ground. The older edifice, part of which belongs to the twelfth century, and is said to have been consecrated by Archbishop Becket, remains as a crypt. FOXTAIXEBLEAU. 277 but afterwards built fur their special use the chapel of the Holy Trinity, on the site of which the present chapel is founded. Thus, side by side, Church and State existed within the same walls. In architecture, as well as in politics, the union has produced strange irregularities, which are exemplified, not only in the Cour Ovale at Fontainebleau, but in the Escurial of Spain, the Mafra of Portugal, the Superga of Sardinia. Joinville records the words of St. Louis to his son. The same chronicler relates a trick which the king played upon his courtiers at Fon- tainebleau. On Christmas Eve a procession of courtiers entered the brilliantly-lighted chapel of St. Saturnin. The king's custom on that anniversary was to present the officers of the household with fur cloaks, and all wore the royal gift. But Louis had secretly caused a cross to be embroidered in dark silk on the backs of the cloaks, so that, as they passed into the chapel, each man saw the crusading symbol on his neighbour's back. Perplexed and be- wildered, they knew not how to interpret the king's purpose. But when St. Louis came for- ward, himself wearing the cross upon his shoulders, and asked whether they had the heart to tear off the badge and send him to the Holy Land alone, they cried with one voice, ' We will follow thee ! We will bear the cross ! " 278 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. At Fontainebleau in 1268 Philip the Fair was born. His reign formed a marked era in the history of France. Now was inaugurated the foreign policy of Henry IV and Richelieu. The strength of feudalism was weakened, the government concentrated, justice established, an army organised, the religious and secular power separated, and, to crown the whole, the nation was for the first time summoned to a States-General. The changes bore the trace of the vigorous personality of the active, resolute, persevering king. Like his grandfather, Philip added many buildings to the palace ; like him, he delighted in the pleasures of the chase ; and it was in the Forest of Fontainebleau, in 1341, when in pursuit of a wild boar, grand et mer- veilleux, that he met his death by a fall from his horse. Thus the king, within the appointed time, obeyed the summons of the illustrious victim of his policy, Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, who, at the stake, had bidden Philip to meet him " four months hence at the judgment seat of God." It was long be- lieved that the heart of Philip the Fair was buried at Avon, the mother parish of Fon- tainebleau. The accuracy of modern historians has discovered that it is his cook, and not his heart, that reposes there. It was in the castle of Fontainebleau that Charles V, surnamed the Wise, founded his FONTAINEBLEAU. 279 famous library, and here, as tradition asserts, by paintings on its walls Charles VII commemo- rated his victories over the English. But from the death of Philip the Fair till the accession of Francis I the stream of history flowed in other channels. Fontainebleau is associated with none of the great episodes in the struggle be- tween the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, or between the French and the English. The exigencies of State policy led sovereign after sovereign to prefer the castles of Touraine. It was, for example, at Chinon, or at Loches, that Charles VII passed his life, though, faithful to Agnes Sorel in death, it was at Jumieges that he desired to be buried by her side. It was at Plessis-les-Tours, in the turret chamber behind the existing guard-room of the Scottish archers, that Louis XI immured himself; it was in the iron cage or dungeons of Loches that his vic- tims languished ; and it was at Clery, near Orleans, that the " perjured prince " adored his "leaden saint." At Amboise Charles VIII founded his Italian colony, and in its precincts still exists the low-arched doorway which proved fatal to the king. At Blois Louis XII was born, and he preferred his birthplace to all his other castles, and it was to Blois that he invited tin great artist whom his secretary calls Leonard Davince. The modern Fontainebleau dates from the 280 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. gallant knight-errant, Francis I. A giant among his courtiers, a graceful horseman, an expert wrestler, a dexterous swordsman, Francis was hailed as the glass of fashion and the mirror of chivalry. Succeeding to the throne at the moment when the young nobility of France were wearied of the economies of " le bon roi Louis Douze," he enjoyed the means as well as the opportunity of indulging his love of lavish display. 'Deeply read in chivalric romances, he had framed to himself an ideal of a knightly king, and, in the opinion of his flatterers, he united the love of glory and highbred courtesy of Roland with the virtues of the most constant of lovers, Amadis de Gaule. It was Francis and the brilliant Pleiad of artists whom he gathered round him who were the true creators of the modern Fontainebleau. Everywhere his salamander appears upon the walls, ceilings, and woodwork, commemorating the victories of the king — to whom had yielded the bear of the Swiss, the eagles of the Germans, the viper of Milan. " Ursus atrox, aquilrcque leves, et tortilis anguis Cesserunt flammas jam, Salamandra, tua?." It was Francis I who reconstructed the ancient buildings and added tenfold to their extent and decorative splendour. Vast sums of money were expended on the palace, which he called " mon Fontainebleau," his beloved Chez Moi, and which FONTAIXEBLEAU. 281 was now transformed from a feudal castle into la vraie maison des rois, to quote the words of Napoleon I — la demeure des siecles. All the forces which had revolutionised society were reflected in the changes effected at Fontaine- bleau. Italian influences, grace, and refine- ment of manners, reverence for classical an- tiquity — everything, in short, that inspired the Renaissance movement — are imprinted on the style and the form of the architecture and the decoration. At one bound, as it were, we pass from the feudal world to modern require- ments — from defensive strength to tasteful elegance. The distinguished colony of Italian artists whom Francis employed upon the work powerfully affected the direction of the art of the French Renaissance. To the grave com- panions of St. Louis, or the rude warriors of the Middle Ages, succeeded the architects, painters, sculptors, metal-workers, and scholars of Italy. In the centre of the chers deserts, to which a saintly king came to dream of heavenly glory, rose a palace of Armida, the fitting scene for the ideal pageants of artists, or the gorgeous festivities of an Arabian Caliph. Fontainebleau became a French Vatican, in which Francis played the part of Leo the Magnificent, and made of his palace, in the words of Benvenuto Cellini, a second Rome. At the summons of this magnificent patron of 282 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the arts, the Maecenas of France, as he delighted to be called, Leonardo da Vinci came to Fon- tainebleau to be received with all the honours of his right divine of genius, to be petted and honoured by the king in his soured and querulous old age. Though Leonardo painted nothing in France, he brought with him into the country the famous " Mona Lisa," which is still one of the chief glories of the Louvre. In France he died, at the Chateau de Clous, in 1529, not, as tradition relates, in the arms of the king, but with his friend Malzi at his bedside. To Fon- tainebleau came also Andrea del Sarto, and here he laboured fitfully till he left his art for the soul- less beauty of his wife, to whom he sacrificed his splendid gifts. But neither Leonardo nor Andrea del Sarto is the creator of Fontainebleau. The plan of the new buildings was designed by the architect Serlio, and they were partly exe- cuted under the superintendence of Rosso, and subsequently of Primaticcio. Before the plans could be carried out, the space had to be en- larged. It is a significant commentary on the tendency of the time, that the religious order of the Mathurins, established by St. Louis, were bought out, and the buildings which they had occupied handed over to Italians inspired by the revived paganism of the Renaissance. It was now that the Cour Ovale, the site of the donjon of St. Louis, received something like its FONTAINEBLEAU. 283 present shape. The great courtyard, by which the palace is entered from the side of Paris, was also laid out in its existing form. Year after year, and reign after reign, vast treasures of money and of genius were lavished on the walls within and without, and the work of construction, destruction and decoration may be said to have continued to the days of Napoleon III. Under Francis I, Battista di Jacopo, called by the French Maitre Roux, and by the Italians Rosso, from the colour of his hair and com- plexion, was appointed " chief and superinten- dent over all the buildings, paintings, and other decoratii >n of the palace." He enjoyed a princely salar\\ a house in Paris, apartments at Fon- tainebleau, a canonry as abbe, and a train of attendants befitting his wealth and position. For some years he reigned alone, until his su- premacy was disputed by Primaticcio, whose ri>ine: genius attracted the notice of Francis I. In the palace are still preserved traces of the jealousy of the two great artists, each sustained bv the rivalry of a roval mi>tress. When Rosso poisoned himself in 1541, Primaticcio succeeded to his rival's place as chief and superintendent, and supported bv the Duchcsse d'Etampes, was enabled to rid himself of so formidable a competitor as Benvenuto Cellini. Round the quarrels of these great artists are interwoven 284 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the rivalries of the two royal mistresses. In the figure of Danae visited by Jupiter in the shape of golden rain is recorded the beauty of Anne de Pisseleu, the girl who was trained by Louise of Savoy for the part of royal mistress, and who, for twenty years, and till the death of Francis I, was maitresse en litre. The patroness of poets and painters, the protectress of the reformed religion, the wittiest of learned ladies, the most beautiful of bluestockings, she held her own against her rival Diane de Poitiers. But at the accession of Henry II came Diane's hour of triumph. Even during the lifetime of Francis the heart of Henry was held captive by his father's mistress, whose wonderful retention of her beauty, and her supremacy over two suc- cessive sovereigns, were attributed to sorcery. Her portrait, with the bow and arrows and hound of the chaste goddess Diana, her cres- cent moons, her monograms, her emblems, everywhere attest her absolute rule over Henry II, who, on all public occasions, wore her colours of black slashed with white. Nor was it only in depicting the rivalries of royal mistresses that the genius of artists was employed. Here, during the sixteenth century, laboured on buildings, frescoes, ceilings, panel- ling, paintings, sculptures, Lucca Penni, Naldini, Bellini, Pellegrini, Niccolo dell' Abbate, and a host of native artists, such as Jean Cousin, FONTAINEBLEAU. 285 Pierre Bontemps, Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, Jean Lescot, and Philibert Delorme. The agents of the king scoured Europe to collect arms, and jewels, and works of art. At Rome Primaticcio purchased for his royal master specimens of ancient statuary, and Vasari counts 125 famous masterpieces which thus passed into possession of the French. At Rome, also, were working a director and staff of skilled workmen, who copied and modelled the sculptures and bas- reliefs which Francis was unable to purchase or transport to France. Nowhere were the chefs d' centre of Italian cookery served on a greater profusion of gold and silver plate ; nowhere was the table adorned with such splendid specimens of the glass manufactories of Venice and the rival establishments in France. Matteo was summoned from Verona to superintend the metal-workers. Tapestries were brought from Arras and Brussels, and a manufactory was set up in Fontainebleau, where workmen executed the designs of Primaticcio. Manuscripts were gathered from Europe and from Asia to enrich the royal library, already enlarged by the collections brought from Blois and by the confiscated treasures of the Con- stable of Bourbon. Among the custodians of the royal library were Bade, Duchatel, Amyot, and J. A. de Thou. Priceless frescoes and pictures, statues of inestimable worth, rare manuscripts, 286 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. treasures of golden and silver plate, of gems, jewellery, and arms, made the Fontainebleau of Francis I and Henry II the admiration and envy of Europe. It was now that in the chapel raised upon the subterranean crypt of St. Saturnin, the crescent of Diane de Poitiers ap- peared above the altar, epitomising, as it were, the transition from the mediaeval piety of St. Louis to the cultivated taste and elegant licence of the Renaissance. In this magnificent palace Francis I received the Emperor Charles V. For once, and for once only, Rosso and Primaticcio laid aside their pro- fessional jealousies and personal rivalries, and united in the effort to celebrate the advent of such a guest with becoming magnificence. The ancient enemy of the French monarchy was met in the forest by troops of gods and goddesses, by fauns, satyrs, and woodland nymphs. Balls, masquerades, banquets, hunting parties, tourna- ments, illuminations, were organised in his honour. On the first night of his arrival 'the Duchesse d'Etampes herself brought the water to wash his hands, and the astute emperor — so runs the incredible legend — seized the oppor- tunity of conciliating the powerful mistress. He dropped into the ewer a magnificent diamond, which the duchess returned to him. He en- treated her to keep it, and so, it is said, won her over to his political schemes. FONTAINEBLEAU. 287 The works of Francis I were carried on by his successors. Catherine cle Medicis had inherited from her family, and brought from Italy, the love of the fine arts, and in this taste, at least, was in sympathy with her husband. In 1533 Catherine, then an orphan, and " a short thickset girl of thirteen, with a large head, flat face, and restless eyes," had been married to Henry of Orleans, a well-grown, handsome youth of fifteen. Even when just in her teens she was described as " very subtle-minded, reserved, full of ambition and artifice." The marriage with tiie daughter of the Florentine banker, which was the price paid by Francis for the support of Pope Clement VII in his claims to the imperial crown, was regarded bv the French aristocracy as a mesalliance. Over her husband Catherine had little in- fluence. He was already captive in the chains of Diane de Poitiers. But she was prepared to observe, to watch and wait ; for the stars had foretold her destined rule over the King of France. Like her father-in-law, and like her husband, she was an enthusiastic builder. Her special superstitions are strongly marked in the palaces she inhabited. At Chaumont, for instance, is the little turret by which she could ascend the roof to study the constellations. At Blois, again, the tower of her astrologer stands close to the chateau. 288 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. It was an age of building. At Chambord, Anet, Chenonceaux, the Louvre, Blois, great works were in progress. At Fontainebleau, under Henry II, the building and the decoration of the palace continued uninterruptedly, broken only by the occasional removal of some master- builder suspected of the new opinions. Here, at Fontainebleau, were born two of his sons, afterwards Francis II and Charles IX. The great work which commemorates the name of Henry II is the gallery, called after his name, on which Primaticcio and Niccolo dell' Abbate squandered their artistic talents. On the ceil- ing, and on the walls, are to be seen his mono- gram, which was capable of being read as H. C. or H. D., according to the sympathies of the supporters of Catherine de Medicis or of Diane de Poitiers. But in other decorations less am- biguity was possible ; everywhere predominate the emblems of la vieilte ridee, as her enemies called her, who caught and held for twenty years the heart of Henry II. It was from the study of this gallery, constructed and decorated in the purest style of the Renais- sance, that the great French artists who were destined to be the leaders of the French movement, and to give to the exaggerated imitation of Italian traditions the simplicity and purity of a native school, drew their inspiration. FOXTAIXEBLEAU. 2S9 In the tiltyard at the Palace of Des Tourelles, which then stood at the end of the Rue St. Antoine, and was still the royal residence at Paris, Henry met his death from the lance of Montgomery. But it was at Fontainebleau that his son and successor, Francis II, terrified by the conspiracy of Amboise, convened an extraordinary assembly to consider the affairs of the nation. The council met in August 1560, and, with the exception of the King of Navarre and Conde, it was attended by all the great leaders in the coming struggle between the Huguenots and the Catholics. The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine were present on the one side ; on tin- other, Colignv and his brother Chatillon. Moderate counsels found their spokesman in the Chancellor L'Hopital. The deliberations lasted four days. It was then that Colignv delivered a fiery speech, in which lie demanded toleration for the Calvinists, and, in words that must have sounded to his hearers like a threat, declared that 50,000 men would support his request. There, also, Jean de Montluc, Bishop of Valence, exposed the vices of the higher ranks of the clergy. The result of the conference was the convocation of the States-General at Orleans. Trusting to the king's safe-conduct, Conde attended its delib- erations. But he was arrested, condemned to the scaffold, and only escaped with his life 10 290 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. through the sudden death of the king in December 1560. Fontainebleau was the birthplace of Charles IX. Its forests were to him the enchanted Broceliande, in which he and his brothers had played the parts of the heroes of mediaeval romance. The half -mad boy excelled his pre- decessors in lavish expenditure on the festivities with which he sought to distract his mind. Here the courtiers ruined themselves and squandered their estates in the extravagance of their attire. Fashions changed from hour to hour. To-day the brim of the hat extended beyond the shoulders ; to-morrow the cap scarcely covered the head. Now the mantle reached to the ankles, now to the loins. One day shoes were worn " in the Greek fashion, as high as the middle of the leg ; another day they were in the fashion of Savoy, so short and narrow that they resembled tubes." A score of dresses, all richly embroidered with stores of laces, feathers, and ruffles, were required by any one who wished to make a decent appearance at court. At Fon- tainebleau lists for tournaments were erected, closed with barriers and commanded by bowers in which sat the courtly beauties. At one end stood an enchanted castle held by six adven- turous knights, and guarded by a monstrous giant and a diminutive dwarf. Here the princes and nobles of the court disported themselves ; FONTAINEBLEAU. 291 now dividing into Greeks and Trojans ; now, as wandering knights, rescuing fair ladies from the enciianted castle ; now dividing into com- panies and lighting against each other under chosen leaders. It was from Fontainebleau that Charles and his mother set out on their lengthy progress through the south of France, that fatal journey in which, as Protestant historians assert, the queen and the Duke of Alva plotted to ex- terminate the Huguenots. Tournaments and banquets and masquerades were redoubled after the massacre of St. Bartholomew. By a perpetual Arabian Nights' Entertainment Catherine vainly strove to lay the ghost of remorse, which her action had roused in the unhappy, lean, demented, red-haired youth to whom life had become a grievous burden. None of the French sovereigns showed a deeper love for Fontainebleau than Henry IV., and with no place are more events of his reign associated. His monogram, as well as his shield, quartering the lilies of France with the girony of eight which belongs to Navarre, are seen in every part of the palace. Sometimes his " 11 " is linked with the " M " of his wife, Marie de Medicis. Here and there the " S," traversed by an arrow, which was the punning device of Gabrielle d'Fstrees, commemorates, like the crescents of Diane de Poitiers, the ascen- dency of an uncrowned queen. The chapel of 292 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. the Holy Trinity, close to the great entrance of the palace, was his work. Upon it a number of French artists, among whom were Germain Pilon * and Jean Dubois, have employed their genius under the direction of Freminet. The origin of the chapel dates from 1608, when the Spanish ambassador visited Fontainebleau. Observing the mean appearance of the existing chapel, Don Pedro remarked that " God was more poorly lodged than the king." Henry was ready with his retort. " It is because," he re- plied, " the French do not enshrine their God, as do the Spaniards, only within four walls. They lodge Him also in their hearts." But the taunt produced its effect, and the chapel was its result. Its construction is, as it were, a translation into stone of the strong reaction against Protestantism which the seventeenth century witnessed in France. In the chapel have been celebrated innumerable rc^al marriages and royal baptisms ; but more interesting than these were the masses of St. Hubert, which were celebrated on the day dedicated to the patron saint of the chase in the presence, and for the safety, of " Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, Hound or spaniel, brach or lym, Or bobtail tyke or trundle tail." * Pilon is said to have executed some of the work at the chapel ; but, if the date now most commonly assigned for his death (1590) is correct, this is impossible. FONTAINEBLEAU. 293 There every year, from the reign of Henry IV to that of Napoleon III, masses were said " en presence des levriers, braques, bassets, chiens courants, batteurs, babillants, et toute la populace des chiens/' for whose preservation from danger prayer was made to Heaven. One of the favourite legends of the forest commemorates Henry's passion for the chase. In the early spring of 1599, the king was hunt- ing in the part of the forest which lies on the road to Moret, and near him were riding the princes and great nobles of his court. Suddenly the whole company heard the clang of horns, the cries of huntsmen, and the yapping of hounds, coming, as it seemed to them, from a spot at least half a league distant. The next moment the noises which had seemed so remote sounded in their very ears. The king sent the Comte de Soissons and other persons with him to dis- cover what the sounds meant. Yet, though they heard the noises all around them, they could not sec whence they proceeded. But in the densest part of the thicket they saw a tall black figure of very hideous countenance, who raised his head above the bushes, and said, M'cntcudcz-vons ? or Qu attendez-vous ? or, as some maintained, for they were too startled to be certain of the words, Amendcz-vons. And the next moment the spectre vanished. The courtiers returned and told the king what 294 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. they had witnessed. Then he sent for the char- coal-burners, the wood-cutters, the shepherds, and other persons, who are at all times and seasons in the forest, and inquired of them whether they had ever seen any such spectre, or heard similar sounds of huntsmen, horns, and hounds. And they replied that very often a tall dark man, accoutred as a huntsman, appeared to them, and that they called him the " Grand Veneur." It is added that Sully, while sitting in his cabinet, heard, almost at his win- dows, the noise of a hunting party. Believing that it was the king returning, he hastened to meet him. But he found no one there, and afterwards he learned that the king was at that moment three leagues away. " I know," adds Dan, " that many authors tell stories of the chase of St. Hubert, which they say that they hear in various places. Nor am I ignorant of what is told of the ' whipper,' who appeared to Charles IX in the Forest of Lyons, and who left the marks of the lashes of his whip upon a number of persons. Nor do I doubt that there may be demons who wander through the forest as well as through the air. But I also know very well that as to this ' Grand Veneur,' nothing can be said for certain." Was it in consequence of this warning ap- FONTAIXEBLEAU. 295 parition that, as Easter 1599 approached, Henry IV followed the counsel of his confessor, and dismissed Gabrielle d'Estrees for a fort- night from the court ? Was it poison which, during this same temporary absence, cut short her career at the table of the financier, Zamet ? A mystery hangs over the fate of Henry's fas- cinating mistress, who, as even Protestant his- torians relate, lived in the court without making a single enemy. Henry was not only an enthusiastic sports- man, but, like Francis I, a great decorator and builder. He laid out the gardens and the park, forming the " Mail Henri-Quatre," and adorn- ing the centre of the lake with its island temple. Many of the structures erected in his reign have been altered by his successors, and especially by Louis XV ; others still remain intact. The Galerie des Cerfs, as well as the Galerie de Diane, were his works. In the former Monaldeschi was murdered ; in the latter, built at the request of Gabrielle d'Estrees, the library is now ar- ranged. Henry's private cabinet still remains, at the door of which Biron was arrested. The " Salle de Conseil " is now the Musee Chinois ; but it is more interesting as the room in which was held the famous conference between Du Plessis Mornay and the Cardinal Du Perron. The detached pavilion on the east of the palace was built by the king for Sully, and, in order 296 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. to be convenient of access, it communicated with the main building by arcades. The open dome, under which passes the entrance to the Cour Ovale, was erected by him for the open- air baptism of his son, afterwards Louis XIII. In the Salle de Conseil at Fontainebleau on Tuesday, May 4, 1599, was held the famous conference, in which the Pope of the Protestants, Du Plessis Mornay, was confronted with the Bishop of £vreux, afterwards Cardinal Du Perron. In his book on the Eucharist * Du Plessis Mornay made a variety of quotations which the bishop alleged to be false. The con- ference was summoned not to decide points of doctrine, but to determine the authenticity of the Protestant quotations. In the centre of the Salle de Conseil, which ran along one side of the Cour Ovale, was placed a porphyry table. There, at one o'clock, the members of the Council took their places. The king sat at one end, having on his right the Roman Catholic champion, on his left the Protestant leader. At the opposite end of the table sat the secre- taries. Behind, and on either side of the king, were princes, great officers of State, archbishops, bishops, and nobles. Among the commissioners appointed to assist the king from the two hostile communions was Casaubon. The assembly took their places. A copy of * " Del'Institution . . . du Sainct Sacrement de l'Eucharistie." FONTAIXEBLEAU. 297 Du Plessis Mornay's work, printed in quarto form at Rochelle by Haultin, was placed before the king. By the side of the incriminated book was set a list of sixty passages selected from the 500 impugned by Du Perron. The inquiry be- gan with a further choice of nineteen passages from the shorter list, and on the authenticity of these the question turned. Nine passages only had been examined, and in the case of all, so say the Roman Catholic historians, had the mean- ing of the quotations been falsified, when the Protestant leader fell ill. His sickness, said his enemies, was feigned. Be this as it may, he did not return to the conference, which therefore was broken up. The defeat of their champion was a severe blow to the Huguenot cause, and many persons at once abjured Calvinism. Thus, rejoices Dan, " As it had pleased God to create the Hydra of heresy, so also it pleased Him to create the Hercules for its destruction." At Fontaincbleau also was enacted the first scene in the tragic fate of the Marshal de Biron. Biron, who was governor of Burgundy, was suspected by the king of intriguing with Spain and Savoy. His designs were betrayed by his secretarv, Lafin, who placed in Henry's hands evidence which proved the guilt of the Marshal de Biron. He was therefore summoned by Henry to Fontaincbleau. Biron arrived on Wednesday, June ij, 1002. He reached the 298 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. palace at six in the morning, and found the king just entering the garden. Henry received him graciously, and embraced him with much kindness. Then, taking him by the hand, he walked with him through the gardens, pointing out the buildings and other works which he was carrying out. He then pressed him closely to tell him the truth, promising him his pardon. But Biron, believing in the fidelity of Lafin, who had in fact betrayed him, replied that he had nothing to confess, and he refused a favour of which he had no need. After a long conversation, they parted for dinner. The meal ended, they walked in the Salle de la Belle Cheminee, and, as they looked at the equestrian statue of the king in full armour, which forms its central ornament, Henry asked the marshal, perhaps with the purpose of sounding him, " What, think you, would the King of Spain say if he saw me like that ? " Biron, in his usual brusque manner, and without casting about for graceful compli- ments, replied, " Sire, he would have no fear of you at all." The king was piqued by the answer, and shortly afterwards retired to his cabinet. Presently Biron was summoned to his presence, and again urged to make a full confession. Again he refused, asserting that he had nothing to confess. " I want," said the king to Sully, " to pardon this unfortunate FONTAIXEBLEAU. 299 man ; but I am afraid if I do so, he on his side will neither forgive me, nor my son, nor the State." Sully then endeavoured to induce the marshal to make a full confession. But he met with no better success. " I have nothing to tell the king or you," was Biron's answer. in the afternoon the king played at tennis, with the Comte de Soissons for his partner, against the Due d'Epernon and Biron. The marshal made a brilliant stroke, which elicited from the king the remark, " You are a fine player, marshal, but you are never on good terms with your partner." And the onlookers, interpret- ing the words by subsequent events, found in them a sinister meaning. Alter the set was finished the king went to supper. Once more, through the Comte de Soissons, he endeavoured to induce Biron to confess, but the latter strongly maintained his innocence. The next morning the king sum- moned him to the garden and asked him, " Well, Monsieur de Biron, is there no possible means by which we may learn something from you ? Then Biron lost his temper, breaking out into vehement invectives against all who had slandered him to the king. Henry at once took his measures. The. marshal's friends advised him to escape. The Comtesse de Roussi sent him a note, saying, " If you are not off at once-, in two hours vou will be arrested." While 300 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. playing at cards with the queen, the Comte d'Auvergne whispered in his ear, " It is not well for us to be here." Still, however, Biron lin- gered. At midnight, as he was leaving the king's apartment, he was arrested and confined in the Pavilion des Armes close to the tennis court. The next evening he was taken by boat to Paris to be imprisoned in the Bastille. There, a few weeks later, he was led by torchlight into the courtyard of the prison and beheaded. The one favour which Henry granted to his former friend was to spare him a public execution in the Place de Greve. Four years later Fontainebleau was the scene of a magnificent spectacle. The Dauphin of France, afterwards Louis XIII, and his two sisters were baptized in the baptistery erected for the purpose in the gateway entering the Cour Ovale. The whole of the courtyard was cov- ered over with an awning. All the grandees of the realm were present, and Pope Paul V was represented by his legate as one of the god- fathers. The ceremony, which began at four, ended at six. It was followed by illuminations, and banquetings continued into the next day. Never was such magnificence seen before. The hilt of the sword of the Due d'fipernon was set with i, 800 diamonds ; the dress of the Mar- shal de Bassompierre, which cost 600 crowns, was of violet cloth of gold, and in the em- FONTAINEBLEAU. 301 broidery there was employed 50 lb. weight of pearls. The baptism was accompanied also by strange portents in the sky. The heavens were lit up by a bright light which passed from west to east ; armies of men, some on fiery cars, some on foot, some on horseback, fought battles in mid-air ; the contest was furious, and multi- tudes seemed to be slain. The strange spectacle was interpreted by astrologers to mean that the young dauphin would receive the crown of Germany, reconquer Europe from the Turks, and overthrow the Ottoman Empire. Throughout the reign of Louis XIII the work of building and decoration continued without interruption. The monogram of the king and his wife, Anne of Austria, as well as inscriptions commemorating the victories of the modern Hercules over the Protestant heresies, attest the hand of the royal builder. He completed the chapel of the Holy Trinity ; he built the ex- ternal staircase by which the palace is entered on the western side, and in nearly all the rooms and galleries some traces of the decorative art of his reign may be seen. It is rather the art than the history of the time which is illustrated in the palace. Few events of the reign are connected with Fontainebleau. But it was here that the peace with England was signed in 1629. Hither, also, came more than once, borne in his huge crim- 302 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. son litter, Richelieu, whose clear-cut Dantesque features tell their tale of imperial purpose and high resolve, and from whose pitiless lips so often issued the words Pas de grace, which were fatal to hundreds besides Marion Delorme. Nor, if tradition be true, was Fontainebleau wholly unconnected with the birth of Louis XIV. In the neighbourhood of the palace is a village named Fericy, renowned for the blessed waters of St. Osmane, which were celebrated for their efficacy among childless women. In 1637 water from this fountain was conveyed to the Louvre, and, nine months later, the queen, who had hitherto proved barren, bore a son and heir to the throne. On May 4, 1643, Louis XIV succeeded his father. During his childish years few per- sonal associations connect him with Fontaine- bleau. The historical interest of the palace centres round two foreign queens, one of whom was an exile and the other had voluntarily ab- dicated her throne. In 1647 the palace offered an asylum to Queen Henrietta of England, and, nine years later, received Queen Christine of Sweden. With the latter guest is associated the tragedy of the death of Monaldeschi, whose sword and coat of mail are still preserved in the palace. The story of his murder which has been most generally followed is that told in the " Memoirs " of Madame de Motteville. FONTAINEBLEAU. 303 From her pen the story has received many em- bellishments. But among the Harleian MSS. is the official declaration of the only known eye- witness of the scene, and it is from his statement that the following account is mainly taken : In 1656 Christine, Queen of Sweden, had abdicated her throne, and passed through Paris on her way to Italy. She made her entry on horseback, accompanied by the Due de Guise, who represented the king, and was received at the Louvre with every sign of royal friendship. But in course of time her eccentricities, her manners, her language, her oaths so disgusted her hosts, that, in the following year, when she announced her intention of revisiting Paris, she was asked to halt at Fontainebleau. There, in October 1657, the king paid her a state visit, returning to the capital the next day. A few days later, on November io, was enacted that ghastly tragedy which sent a thrill of horror throughout civilised Europe. On November 6 the queen summoned to her pres- ence the superior of the convent of the Mathu- rins, Father Lebel. She received him alone, bound him over to secrecv, and consigned to his care a scaled packet of papers. The following Saturdav, on November 10, Lebel was again sent for. On entering the Galerie des Cerfs, the door was closely shut behind him. Halfway down the gallery stood the queen, one of the 304 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. gentlemen of her train, and three other persons with drawn swords. Christine asked for the packet of letters, broke the seals, showed some of the documents to her equerry, and asked if they were his. The equerry, who proved to be the Marquis de Monaldeschi, in trembling accents, denied that he had written them. They were, in fact, copies made by herself. Christine then showed him the originals, called him a traitor, and bade him acknowledge his hand. Monal- deschi then confessed the authorship of the let- ters, and, throwing himself upon his knees, im- plored pardon, casting the blame upon others, and making various excuses for his conduct. Then Monaldeschi rose, and retired with the queen, first into one corner, then into another, of the gallery, praying her to hear his explana- tions. She listened with a totally unmoved countenance, sometimes asking a question, but never betraying the slightest sign of anger, and resting upon a round-handled stick of black ebony. At last, turning to Lebel, she said, " Father, be my witness that I am doing nothing in haste, and that I allow this perfidious traitor all the time, and more than all the time, he could have expected, to justify his conduct." And, in the hearing of Lebel, the marquis con- tinued his pleadings. At the end of two hours, about three in the afternoon, she again turned to the priest, and said in a raised, but calm and FONTAINEBLEAU. 305 serious, voice : " leather, I am about to with- draw. I leave this man to you. Prepare him for death, and take care of his soul." At these words, both Lebel and the marquis threw them- selves at her feet, and pleaded for mercy. But Christine, addressing Lebel, told him that she could not grant him the favour which he asked. She had confided to Monaldeschi all her secrets, even all her thoughts, in the full belief that he was a faithful subject ; she had heaped upon him benefits, as if he were her own and dearly loved brother ; she had condemned many a man to the wheel for less offences than this traitor had committed, and she, therefore, adhered to her determination. So saying, she left the room. The three men with their swords drawn then came close to the marquis and urged him to confess, while Lebel, with tears in his eves, ex- horted him to ask pardon of God. Monaldeschi threw himself at the knees of the priest, and implored him to intercede with the queen. So piteous and moving were his entreaties, that Sentinelli, the leader of the three executioners, sought the presence of Christine, and begged her to spare him. He returned in a few minutes, and said, " Marquis, turn your thoughts to your soul and to God. You must die! " Then Lebel endeavoured himself to divert the queen from her purpose. He found the blue-eyed, hawk- nosed woman as calm and collected as if she had 306 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. given the simplest and most ordinary order. All his entreaties were utterly useless. He returned into the gallery, embraced the marquis, and exhorted him, in the most moving language at his command, to trust in God's mercy and pre- pare for death. At these words Monaldeschi uttered two or three piercing screams, and then, throwing himself on his knees before the priest, began to confess. In his agitation the confession was a jumble of Latin, French, and Italian. Before the confession was completed, the royal almoner looked into the gallery. Seeing him, Monaldeschi sprang to his feet, and, without waiting for the absolution, implored his intercession. Seizing his hands, he pleaded so earnestly that the almoner left the room, taking with him the chief executioner. In a few minutes the latter returned alone, and, with the words " Marquis, ask God's pardon ! with- out further waste of time you must die," drove him back against the wall at the end of the gallery. With his sword, he struck the victim in the stomach. Monaldeschi grasped the sword with his hand, and the other, drawing it from him, cut off two of his fingers. But the sword was bent, showing that Monaldeschi wore, as proved to be the case, a coat of mail. Then one or other of the armed men struck him a blow in the face, and the marquis, crying " Father ! father ! " FONTAINEBLEAU. 307 sank on his knees. Lebel drew near ; the exe- cutioners stood back ; and Monaldeschi, having completed his confession, received absolution. The moment that the words were said he received a violent blow over the head, and lay on the floor, making signs to the executioners to cut his throat. They struck him several times on the neck, but the coat of mail intercepted the blows. He was still living, when again the door opened, and the almoner entered. Crawling along the floor, the wounded wretch dragged himself to the feet of the almoner, and from him again received absolution. This given, Sentinelli drove his sword through the throat of Christine's victim. The marquis never spoke again. Ho lingered a quarter of an hour longer, while Lebel hung over him, crving "Jesus! Maria!" and other words of devotion. For many years the spot in the gallery where he breathed his last was marked with the word " Dieu," his last articulate utterance. At a quarter to four he was dead ; at a quarter to six his corpse had been removed to the church at Avon, where a tablet, bearing the inscription " cy gist monaldelxi," still marks the place of his interment. On the Sunday following Christine sent a sum of money to Lebel to pro- vide masses for the soul of her late, servant. The murder of Monaldeschi is the most strik- ing scene which connects the reign of Louis XIV 308 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. with Fontainebleau. Though the Grand Mon- arque paid frequent visits to the palace, and though it was here that, in 1661, he proclaimed, with festivities of extraordinary splendour, the birth of his son, yet Versailles and Marly were his favourite residences, and it was there that he celebrated the victories of Conde, Turenne, Vauban, and Luxembourg. The structural and decorative changes at Fontainebleau which were his handiwork betray the character of the king and of his age. The canons of pure taste, the laws of strict harmony, were forced to obey the will of the absolute despot. A pro- fusion of heavy gilding marks the pomp and emphasis of the Augustan age of the Grand Monarque. In ingenious mythological fictions are celebrated the splendours of its Caesar, who enters Dunkirk wearing the casque, breast- plate, and cloak of a Roman, surmounted by the wig of the Court of Versailles. As at Versailles, so at Fontainebleau, the king delighted in fountains, and the groups of statues in marble or bronze which adorn les cascades were the work of the sculptors of the period. It was at Fontainebleau that Louis XIV was first smitten with love for Louise de la Valliere. Here, in 1661, the year of his son's birth, the twenty-four violons du roi struck up the overture to the first representation of one of Moliere's comedies, in which the author him- FOXTAIXEBLEAU. 309 self played a part. Here, in 1690, James II of England found a refuge in the palace which had sheltered his mother. Here, from time to time, were celebrated the brilliant festivities which marked the early portion of the king's reign, and here, in gloom and darkness, the sun of France slowly set. Here, under the rule of Madame de Maintenon, piety became the fashion; here, in her pavilion, she shivered with the cold, while she consulted Mouthier on new dishes to tickle the jaded palate of Louis. And it was at Fontainebleau that two of the most momentous events of the king's reign took place. Within the walls of the palace he signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and in 1700 de- cided to accept the will of Charles II, which left the throne of Spain to his grandson, the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Philip V. The council at which this last important step was taken was held in the room of Madame de Maintenon. In all his doubts and difficulties the king had long been accustomed to consult the woman whom he nicknamed La Soliditc or La Raison. Such deference to the judgment of a woman, even if she had been, as was supposed, the legal wife of the sovereign, was extraordinary. " It was not without surprise," says Saint-Simon, that France saw her assume a public part in the deliberation of affairs, and the astonishment was extreme when two councils met in her apart- 310 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. ments to discuss the greatest and most im- portant question that had ever been raised throughout the whole length of the reign." It was on the instigation of Madame de Maintenon that Louis took the momentous step which upset the balance of power and plunged Europe into war. In September 1715 Louis lay dying. For months past his health had been impaired, though he resented the suggestion of Madame de Maintenon that he should eat more sparingly of strawberries and peas, and abstain from highly seasoned dishes. His death was received by a depressed, despairing people with every demonstration of delight. He left behind him a kingdom drained of its resources, an empty treasury, a heavy burden of debt, and commerce and manufactures, which were once flourishing, almost extinguished. Nor among the ener- vated aristocracy who thronged to an idle, vicious, hypocritical court, was there a single statesman who was capable of taking the helm of government. In the crowd that gathered in the faubourg to curse the conqueror, as his coffin was carried by bye-paths and unfrequented roads to St. Denis, might be seen the progenitors of that maddened mob who, eighty years later, violated his tomb, and scattered his ashes to the wind. Louis XV has left behind him innumerable FONTAINEBLEAU. 311 traces, both constructive and destructive, of his reign at Fontainebleau. There, as elsewhere, the court danced its giddy dance of death in the years which preceded the Revolution. Through- out the whole period which elapsed between the death of the Grand Monarque and the convention of the States-General the popular indignation was steadily increasing. During the dissipa- tions of the Regency, the dull decorum of the early period of the reign of Louis XV, the un- bridled debauchery of his later years, the movement gathered irresistible strength. With fatal skill the king carried on the work of destroying the grandeur of the French monarchy, and the part which he played at Fontainebleau was that of the destroyer of its buildings. His hand pulled down the famous Galerie d'Ulysse, in which, Piimaticcio and Niccolo dell' Abbate had painted the adventures of the king of Ithaca. His hand, again, demolished the Salle dc la Belle Chemince to make room for the theatre, which Madame de Pompadour raised in its place, and which was burned in 1856. Many existing portions of the palace date from his reign ; but their external appearance is mean and ineffective. Their internal decoration, on the other hand, is often exquisitely graceful. The roval apartments, for instance, are beauti- ful examples of the style of Louis XV, the ceilings adorned by Boucher, the panels by 312 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Charles Vanloo. Here, too, the artistic and the political histories of the time go hand in hand. The strength and vigour of the ancien regime were sapped and weakened, while the one re- deeming feature of a degenerate society was the ease and elegance of its manners. And even these were as artificial as were Boucher's affected grace, superficial charm of colouring, and figures drawn not from nature but from imagination. It was at Rambouillet or at Choisy that Louis worked his tapestry, or delved, or turned, or cooked, with his own hands, the most deli- cate dishes of his petits soupers. But at Fon- tainebleau, each in their turn, the four sisters of the house of Nesle reigned as mattresses en titre ; here, also, Madame dc Pompadour, and afterwards Madame du Barry, had their apart- ments. The Queen, Maria Leczinska, seven years older than her boy bridegroom, was a plain, unintellectual, narrow-minded woman of exemplary piety. She was the mother of many of the king's children ; but she was in- capable of retaining, if she ever possessed, his affections. Her time was spent at her toilet, or at her prie-dieu, or at the lansquenet table. Play ran high, and, if Voltare is to be trusted, cheating prevailed in the royal boudoir, as later it is said to have prevailed in that of Marie Antoinette. Whilst J. -J. Rousseau fled from FONTAINEBLEAU. 313 the court, Voltaire solicited its favours. One evening when he was in waiting as a gentle- man-in-ordinary of the royal chamber, the Marquise de Chatelet lost 84,000 francs at lansquenet in the queen's salon. Voltaire said to her in English, " You are playing with cheats." His remark was overheard, and he judged it prudent to take refuge at Sceaux, where he remained for several months in hiding. The true queen of France, and not only queen, but regent and prime minister, was Madame de Pompadour. A brilliant horsewoman, Jeanne- Antoinette Poisson had first attracted the notice of the king by her equestrian skill and her velvet habit of the bright blue known as V ceil du roi. Once installed as mistress, she completely dominated the king. Her fertile fancy and ready wit suggested amusements for his jaded appetite ; she carefully consulted his gastro- nomic tastes in company with her famous chef, Mouthier, who inherited the genius of his father, and boasted of his descent from a "line of cooks. Her indefatigable industry relieved his shoul- ders from all the burden of State business. Her supremacy was undisputed. Her artistic taste, aided bv the graceful fancy of Boucher, is associated with every detail of the style Louis XV. It was at her request that the manu- factories of Gobelin tapestry and Sevres china were placed under royal patronage. The choice 314 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. library which she gathered in her hotel, after- wards the £lysee Bourbon, the plates which she engraved, the pieces which she modelled in Sevres, the rare medals and masterpieces of furniture which she collected, prove that, low- born though she was, she was not unfitted to direct the fashion of art and of dress. It was in her theatre at Fontainebleau that, in 1752, was acted " Le Devin du Village," a new opera in one act, of which, says the " Gazette " of October 21, the " Sieur Rousseau de Geneve " is the author. Vast sums were expended on Madame de Pompadour's theatre, and, to make room for it, a masterpiece of six- teenth-century art was, as has been already said, destroyed by the king's orders. The people, dying of hunger, miserable and desperate, bitterly complained, according to the " Journal d'Argenson," of the reckless expenditure. The representation of " Le Devin du Village " thus groups in effective proximity the principal ele- ments of the impending Revolution — the grow- ing resentment of a starving people, the reck- less prodigality of the court, the charm of its high-bred society, the contempt for the glories of the past, and the man who, beyond all others, translated into an eloquent theory the callous offences of an aristocratic clique and the muttered execrations of an unprivileged majority. FONTAINEBLEAU. 315 In Rousseau's " Confessions " will be found an amusing description of the scene. With all his affectation of the ton Remain, Jean-Jacques was as shamefaced and self-conscious as an awkward schoolboy in the presence of the fash- ionable world. With untidy dress, unkempt beard, and ill-combed perruque, he found him- self placed in a prominent position in the centre of a gorgeously dressed crowd, and immediately oppor-ite the box in which were seated the king and Madame de Pompadour. Many of the men were elad in coat:- of that shade of blue which had come to be known, not as I' ceil du roi, but as bleu Pompadour, and which Voltaire himself did not disdain to wear. The ladies wore the fichus and coiffures a la Marquise ; the sword- knots of the soldiers wire tied in the rosette a la Pompadour. As soon as the great lights were lit, Rousseau found himself among the crowd of court beauties — the only man in that part of the theatre. He expected to be treated with haughty coldness. On the contrary, he found every one civil and attentive. Ill at ease, lie made speeches to himself. As to his beard, it was the work of nature. His dress was simple, but not dirty. If he was thought to be ridi- culous or impertinent, he cared nothing for undeserved blame. Thus soliloquising, he encouraged himself to bear with intrepidity the curiosity with which he was regarded., 316 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. His opera proved a complete success. The ladies all around him wept, and Rousseau also wept, delighted to give pleasure to so many women, who were " beautiful as angels." As to .the king, the music was, for the next twenty- four hours, always in his mouth. He never ceased singing, in a voice which was more out of tune than any other in the kingdom, " J'ai perdu mon serviteur." The triumph which his opera obtained put Rousseau al his ease. But during the night all his fears returned. He was to be presented to the king, and there was a talk of a pension. He wished, he says, so far as was compatible with the tone and air of severity that he had adopted, to show himself sensible of the honour paid him by the king. But his unreadiness of speech and his constitutional timidity convinced him that he would be en- tirely at a loss for words. Almost before day- break he pleaded ill-health, and fled from Fontainebleau. The Trianons at Versailles are more closely associated with Marie Antoinette than the bou- doirs of Fontainebleau. It was at Versailles, among her milkmaids and shepherdesses, that she struck the first blow in the cause of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" by abol- ishing the tabouret, a privilege of being seated in the presence of the king and queen. It was there also that she developed her passion for FOXTAIXEBLEAU. 317 gambling, for lavishing extravagant gifts on her favourites, for introducing outrageous fashions and head-dresses, like the " Oues-a-cos," * or mythological edifices. But, as a skilful horsewoman, she delighted in the Forest of Fontainebleau, and at the palace in the grace- ful refinement of her boudoir the artistic skill ol the age is well displayed. Upon its decoration the talent of Rousseau and Berthelemy was employed. In the centre of the parquet floor appear, from the midst of a sun, the letters M.A.," which formed the monogram of the ill-fated queen. Tradition attributes the iron- work of one of the windows of the bedroom to the blacksmith's skill of Louis XVI. In the adjoining bedroom her bed is preserved, hung with tapestry, designed bv a pupil of Boucher. The hangings were ordered at Lyons, and they were still unfinished when the Revolution broke out. Mere than twenty years later they were presented bv the city of Lyons to Marie Louise on her marriage with the Emperor Xapoleon I. None of the French palaces exercised so peculiar a fascination for Napoleon as the " demeure des siecles " of Fontainebleau. The palace was refurnished and redecorated, till it * " Quts-u-C" ? " i tin- l'rovenei] fur " (,_)uY^t-cv que ro.i ? " llv 1 v I Si aumarch u- in In- U< iti-.iu. It '.v.i -•■• . ■■ ! ■ I '.iri 1.1:1 to a head-dress introduced by Marie Ant linette. 318 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. was said that the wonders of Marly would have paled beside the magnificence of the imperial residence. It was here also that he lodged his royal prisoners, Charles IV of Spain in 1808, and Pope Pius VII in 1812. The pope had al- ready visited Fontainebleau as an honoured guest. In September 1804 Napoleon had invited the pope to give by his presence the highest religious sanction to the consecration and coro- nation of the first Emperor of the French. The sovereign pontiff was met at the Croix de St. Herem, in the heart of the forest, by Napoleon on horseback, and in hunting dress. Seated on the right of the consul, escorted by a troop of Mamelukes, the representative of Catholic Christendom entered the palace, through lines of troops, and amid salvos -of artillery. The pope's second visit was made under very differ- ent circumstances. Angry discussions and disputes subsequently broke out between the emperor and the pope, which ended in Napoleon's determination to confiscate the Roman States. The Castle of St. Angelo was occupied by the French troops in 1809, and the pope was removed from Rome to Savona. There he remained till June 1812. Suddenly the emperor, then on the eve of start- ing for the expedition against Russia, deter- mined to remove him to Fontainebleau. So rapidly was the removal accomplished, that the FONTAINEBLEAU. 319 pope arrived before the orders for his reception. Refused admittance at the gates of the palace, he was lodged till the evening in a house oppo- site the Cour des Adieux, now the famous Hotel de France. The house was then occupied by a dentist. Had it been the hotel, presided over by a worthy predecessor of the late Monsieur Dumaine or his widow, Pius VII would prob- ably have preferred to remain there during the whole time of his captivity. In the palace of Fontainebleau, in the apartments still known by his name, the pope lived for nearly eighteen months. When Napoleon returned from Russia, he charged the Bishop of Nantes to reopen negotiations with the pope on the subject of the Concordat. In January 1S13 the emperor himself arrived unexpectedly in the apartments of the pope. Embracing his captive with effu- sive affection, he protested his filial devotion. The pope, so runs the legend, replied with the single word, " Commediante." Beside himself with fury, Napoleon stormed and threatened. In the midst of the outburst, the laconic pope murmured another single word, " Tragediante." A second interview proved more successful. At Fontainebleau, in the presence of the em- peror, 'Marie Louise, and the whole court, the pope signed the famous Concordat on January 25, r8i >. But another year elapsed before the pope's 320 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. release. His signature of the Concordat did, indeed, make a change in his position. He was allowed the attendance of his suite, and twenty- seven cardinals were lodged in the palace or the town, each with their train of attendants, and each dressed, according as they had upheld or annulled the marriage with Josephine, in black or red. Their memory yet lingers in the culinary art of preparing " les haricots du Cardinal." It was not till January 1814 that the pope was released from his captivity at Fontainebleau. It was at Fontainebleau that Napoleon, riding with a single attendant day after day for hours together through the forest, had brooded over and planned the divorce of Josephine. Fontainebleau had been the scene of the cul- mination of his audacity and pride ; it was the spot on which he had meditated his most callous act of cruelty and ingratitude. By a fitting retribution, it was destined to be also the stage on which was enacted his downfall. Among the suite of apartments built by Louis XV, on the site of a gallery constructed in the reigns of Francis I and Henry II, is the room in which Napoleon signed his abdication on April 5, 1814. " The Allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon was the sole ob- stacle to the re-establishment of the peace of Europe, the emperor, faithful to his oath de- FONTAINEBLEAU. 321 clares that he abandons for himself and for his heirs all claims upon the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, including even that of his life, which he is not prepared to make in the interest of France." The writing-table on which the abdication was signed, the pen with which he wrote his name, are preserved in the room. Adjoining it is the bedroom where, on the night of April 12, as Baron Fain * relates, Napoleon attempted to commit suicide. During the retreat from Mos- cow Napoleon carried about with him a quantity of opium, which he had determined to take sooner than fall alive into the hands of the enemy. On this night of April 12 his valet heard him get up and, looking through the half-open door, saw him mix something in a glass of water, drink it, and then go back to bed. Shortly afterwards he was seized with the most violent pains. Dr. Yvan, from whom he had procured the poison, lost his head with terror, rushed out into the courtyard, leaped on a horse which he found tethered at the gate, and dashed into the forest. Meanwhile, the emperor gradu- ally revived ; the dose was either insufficient, or the drug had lost its strength. The next morning he had reconciled himself to life, and * Manuscrit de 1813, contcnant le precis des evenements de ccttc annee, pour servir a l'histoirc de I'empereur Napoleon. Paris, 1824-5. 2 vols. 8vo. II 322 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. surrendered himself to whatever destiny his star might have in store for him. On April 20, 1814, the emperor left Fontaine- bleau as a banished man. At 12 o'clock it had always been his practice to hold a review of the troops quartered at Fontainebleau. At the usual hour on this April 20 he left his room dressed in his uniform as a colonel of Chasseurs. With rapid step he descended the staircase of the great courtyard, and on the last flight paused to look quickly round him. General Petit came to the foot of the staircase to receive his orders, and a circle of officers was formed, in the centre of which stood the emperor. He raised his hand. It was the sign that he was about to speak. Every man was silent, and in the deepest still- ness he began the words : " Officers, non-com- missioned officers, and soldiers of the Old Guard, I come to bid you farewell." Then, having finished his speech, he embraced General Petit, and, covering the eagle with kisses, he seated himself in a carriage and drove rapidly away. With the farewell of Napoleon I the historical charms of Fontainebleau came to an end. There is no element of poetry in the flight of Charles X, still less in that of Louis Philippe. The downfall of Napoleon III is too recent to be invested with the glamour of romance. But let the imagination wander back over the cen- turies of French history, and what a wealth of FONTAINEBLEAU. 323 associations it conjures up, what dramatic scenes it re-enacts, what brilliant throngs of famous men and women it recalls to life ! As the shades of evening fall over the Cour des Adieux, and the wind sighs through the archways, the whole space is crowded with the shadowy figures of the heroes of a hundred fights, while they strain their ears to catch the hurried broken farewell of their dethroned and exiled emperor. Here is the site of the theatre where Jean-Jacques sat abashed by the presence of the brilliant society to which his eloquent theories proved so deadly a foe. In this salon Marshal Saxe, slumbering heavily on the prie- dieu, wins the heart of Maria Leczinska by the exemplary length of his prayers and confession ; in that, a gay crowd meets at the table where Madame de Pompadour dispenses her wit, her wine, and her smiles, and among them is Vol- taire, clad in the blue livery of the reigning fa- vourite. Here is the room in which Madame de Maintenon shivered, and knitted, and read her books of devotion, and here is the council cham- ber where her answer to the " Qu'en pense votre Solidite ? " of Louis XIV plunged Europe into twelve years of war. At the end of this long gallery, the wretched Monaldeschi implores for mercy, grovelling at the feet of the pitiless Christine of Sweden. Through this courtyard, borne by twenty liveried bearers, moves the 324 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. huge red litter of Cardinal Richelieu. Here is the garden, in which Henry IV walks with his hand on the shoulder of Biron ; here is the gal- lery, with its equestrian statue of the king, where the marshal lost by a clumsy answer his best hope of pardon ; here the doorway at which he was arrested, here the pavilion to which he was hurried, and which he only left for the Bastille and the block. Through this chamber rings the voice of Coligny as he demands toleration for the Protestants. Here the stout, muddy-complexioned Catherine de Medicis walks at nightfall, asking of the stars the time when vengeance and power shall be hers. Here is the doorway through which escapes the Duchesse d'litampes, fleeing from the revenge of her rival, Diane de Poitiers. Here is the chapel in which the fur-cloaked courtiers of St. Louis find themselves unwillingly pledged to leave France and join in the Crusades. And on all these scenes the architecture of the palace is an eloquent commentary. It is like the music which accompanies and explains the words. Each change in style and taste illus- trates the close connection between the art and the mental or the moral character of the age. The religious awe of the middle ages, the need of defence, the anarchy of feudalism, are pre- served in the crypt of St. Saturnin, and the shape of the Cour Ovale. The graceful paganism of FOXTAIXEBLEAU. 325 Francis I, twining round Gothic forms, which have not wholly lost their meaning or their strength, marks the transition from the feudal to the modern world, from the ages of faith to the classicism of the Renaissance, and, by its exaggeration, often betrays the sudden passage from simple ignorance to excessive refinement. In the reign of Henry IV the harmony between painting, sculpture, and architecture, which reached their perfection under Henry II, had lost its freshness, its spontaneity, its simplicity, its ease. The object of artists is novelty ; the decorations have lost their lightness, the details are vicious, the general impression is laboured, the instinctive perfection of taste is exchanged for imitation. Art, like every other depart- ment of national life, had lost its spirit in reli- gious and civil discord. In the reign of Louis XIII it had travelled yet farther from its classic inspiration. Still more marked was its decadence under the Grand Monarque. Size, profusion, pomp, emphasis, displav, charac- terise the gilding and the stucco, in which the achievements are celebrated of an all-powerful monarch, who makes the laws of harmony bow to his despotic will, and whose best artistic re- presentative is Boulle. Destruction was one keynote of the changes made bv Louis XV ; where his hand is the hand of the builder or the decorator, the work is wanting in strength, and 326 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. is scarcely more conspicuous for its grace and elegance than for its affectation, its whimsical caprice, its unprincipled irregularity. With the Empire stricter canons of taste and beauty were restored, the juster principles of classic art were revived, but at the sacrifice of the traditions of the past, and with the loss of its national inspiration. And, lastly, the revival of a love of antiquity, the reaction against the violence of revolution, the return of older habits of thought are displayed in the careful restora- tions of the Gothic revival which was inaugu- rated at the Restoration and was inspired by the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. HOW many of the countless Englishmen and Englishwomen who read French novels ever read French poetry ? The answer probably would be — scarcely any ; yet it is in verse that the finer spirit of French literature and of French national life is enshrined. Most of us know only the classic school of French verse, and it strikes us as cold and colourless. As the yEneid is an echo of the Iliad, as Virgil in a sense copied Homer, so Racine and Corneille, borrowing form and atmosphere from the Augustan age of Roman literature, appear to be still more remote from their original, and to fail by yet another stage in producing a national school of poetry. Yet the impression is certainly mistaken. The popu- larity, both contemporaneous and posthumous, of the classic poets of France proves that their work exactly caught the spirit of the generations which received their verse with such rapturous applause. Some part of the secret of their fresh vitality doubtless lies in the perfection of the 328 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. execution, and in the sonorous music of the language. It lies still more in their representa- tive character. They express with infinite art the genius of the French nation, its pride of empire, its self-sacrificing patriotism, its thirst for glory, its unfaltering confidence in the favour of the silent, invisible power which controls its destiny. They gather up into verse, not only the spirit and character of the nation, but the political tendencies, the social ideals, and the religious feelings of their age and race. The wide galleries of Versailles stand untenanted and silent ; the roar of its courtyards is hushed ; but the ocean roll of the seventeenth century rhythm sounds for ever of the greatness of France alike in the days of the great Mon- arch and of the third Republic. During the closing years of the eighteenth century, poetry suffered the same changes which destroyed the political and social institutions of France. The classic school ceased to be in close touch with national ideals. Still less was it vivified by the creative force of national genius. Its forms shrank into rigid conventions from which the spirit had departed. But the French Revolution produced no literary changes that at all corresponded to those which overthrew the foundations of social and political life. No re- public of letters was built up on the ruins of the classic despotism ; the aristocracy of art was SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 329 not dragged to the lamp-post ; the Versailles of language was not invaded by the vocabulary of the Fish-Market ; the nine Muses were never forced to don the cap of liberty or dance the Carmagnole. On the contrary, both the Con- vention and the Consulate affected the air and tone of Republican Rome. Nor did the Em- pire weaken the reign of the classic school. Its literary forms were rather cherished as distinc- tive of the French nationality ; foreign models were proscribed ; Napoleon himself aspired to see in attendance at his Court a second race of Racines and Corneilles. But even Emperors cannot raise poets by conscription. The enforced calm was treacherous. The great upheaval of thought which accompanied the French Revolution was not fully realised until the exuberance of destructive fanaticism had subsided, and the iron despotism of the Empire had fallen. Men thought earnestly and felt intensely. They studied individuals and local differences, not general truths and universal types. The new spirit revolted against classic traditions, and claimed to represent the progress of its own epoch. Enthusiasm supplanted ap- peals to reason. To proclaim the ideal became the only philosophy. The Hebrew spirit, so to speak, overpowered that of the Greek. But during the first twenty-five years of the nine- teenth century this seetliing mass of new ideas 330 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. was confined within the classic barriers. When once the romantic movement had swept away the ancient banks, the smooth canal-like waters of classic literature were invaded by a swirling torrent of action, narrative, passion, incident. French historical writing, drama, and romance were remodelled ; painting, sculpture, music obeyed the new impulse ; poetry sprang into fresh life as it touched again its mother-earth in nature and religion. Of this literary Revolution, Victor Hugo was the child, and for a time the leader. To many foreigners the vast volcanic range of his genius dominates the plain of French literature, even to the exclusion of any lesser heights, though each possesses its own distinctive charm. Never was a great writer, consciously or unconsciously, more completely the corridor through which passed the wind. Every phase in the changes that were transforming France is represented in his verse, as Victor Hugo passes from the ardent Catholic and zealous Loyalist, through the stage of the bitter satirist of Napoleon III, into the revolutionary poet and democratic prophet of Humanity. The many-sided youth- ful lyrist, whose impressions take their colour like iridescent bubbles from every passing ob- ject, and to whose lure love and nature came loyally as birds, did his best work in the four little volumes published during the transition SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 331 period of 1830-40.* The Revolution of 1830 was the storm which scattered his autumn leaves to the wind. Sitting, as it were, under the bare boughs stripped of old associations, he seems to ask himself how much remained of the senti- ments which inspired his youth. His religious and political faith was changed, but nature and home were about him still. The shadows deep- ened into the twilight of the second volume ; the noontide heat had parched the morning dew ; what moisture still clung to flowers had fallen from human tears. Equally representa- tive of contemporary feeling were the two next volumes. The wider outlook had brought dis- illusionment ; a faint flush did indeed tinge the horizon, but men knew not whether it heralded the dawn of a new day, or proclaimed the even- ing sunset. It was an age of transition, experi- ment, uncertainty, which culminated in the second Empire. Victor Hugo represents the Gothic side of the romantic movement ; with him French poetry recovered, out of the neglected regions of medi- aeval life, her youth, her directness, her vigour, her picturesque richness. But there was also, as part of the same movement, a classic re- vival — a protest against the second-hand imi- * " I.e.; Ivuillcs d'Aut'imne (1831) ; " " Lcs Chants du Crt'pus- culc (1835) ; " " Lcs V'oix Intciieurcs (1S37) ; " " Lcs Rayons et lcs Ombres (1840)." 332 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. tations of pseudo-classicism. Poetry drank once more direct from the original sources of her inspiration — the pure fountains of Greek beauty. With Theophile Gautier, she studied at first- hand the clear vision, exact representation, severe restraint, and statuesque simplicity of Greek art. One section of the Romanticists thus went back to the Greeks themselves ; another to the " Chansons de Gestes " of the Middle Ages ; another to nature, whether it is to be found in the rural life of Brittany or in the garrets of great cities. Out of this union of the Revolution and the romantic movement was bred the strange phase of literary society which Henry Murger revealed to Paris in his " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." Born in 1822, Murger was too youthful to be- long to the generation of young France and the period of 1826-30. Before ten years had passed, the force of the original movement was to some extent spent or perverted. The century was no longer vocal with great ideas and noble enthusiasms. The same feeling of disenchant- ment which Victor Hugo expresses in lyric verse characterises Murger's work. But Murger felt only the disillusionment without ever having experienced the illusion. He had never warmed himself in the broad splashes of sunlight that pre- ceded the grey mists of twilight. In his " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme " critics have found the SOI.IE MODERN FRENCH POETS. 333 charm of youth, its gaiety and irresponsibility. But, as it seems to me, its bursts of laughter are nervous, not hearty. It is a picture of youth which has grown old before its time, frittered away a great inheritance, and lost enthusiasm without gaining experience ; — a youth which masks its wounded vanity under a cynical con- tempt for great causes. If any one supposes that there is genuine gaiety in the book, let him read the verse dedication which is prefixed to " la Vie de Boheme." It would have been strange if Murger had been gay. Against cold and hunger, failing health, love betrayed and hope deferred, he made a gallant struggle, though his courage is that of passive resistance rather than of action. Too proud to show how deeply he had felt and suffered, he checked his feelings by an irony which is often bitter. He had neither the temperament nor the learning to see the classic gods and goddesses, or even Titania and her Court, dancing under the gaslight of the Paris streets. He could not combine Balzac with Perrault. A curious inquirer rather than a pro- found observer, excluded by want of education from the classic or romantic past, he painted only himself, his friends, and his surroundings, as they really were, with just that touch of idealism which was needed to give them stature and picturesqueness. 334 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Though necessity compelled Murger to write prose for bread, poetic fame was his earliest ambition. Verse absorbed his youthful energies, and death came to him as he was preparing for the press a volume of verse called " Nuits d'Hiver." It is in poetry that some of his best and truest work was done. It was here that he found consolation and hope ; here he reveals not only his brain but his heart ; here he writes not so much for the public as for himself. In their simplicity and sincerity the best poems belong to the new era, because they express the man himself, without ornament, device, or con- ventionality. As in his prose, so in such verse as " Le Testament," irony is often the styptic which he applies to his wounds. Sometimes, as in " La Ballade du Desespere," he sounds the very depths of discouragement, of desertion, of receding hope. More often the tone of the poems is tenderly elegiac. Charged with a wistful regret for the past, his verse is, so to speak, a reliquary in which he lays the ashes of his loves, real or ideal, and the memories of his departed dreams. In the two poems which follow, the mournful note is struck. Both belong to our early- Victorian age in sentiment, and suggest a parallel with the manner of Tennyson's youthful verse. In " Ma Mie Annette " he expresses the pain of the contrast between the hopes and the cruelties SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 335 of life. In " fitrennes " he affects to hide the sense of failure under the transparent veil of raillery. Some apology is needed for translations. When all the world reads French, is not the attempt to render French into English almost an impertinence ? Such a question must be present to the mind of every translator who recognises the difficulty of the task and the failure in the performance. But thousands who read French prose with ease do not read French verse with that facility which is essential to enjoyment. Apart from this, the prejudice against French poetry is widespread. It is too often supposed to be either frigid, or unwhole- some, or absorbed in the dexterous practice of the art. The truth is that the poetry of our neighbours is full of passion, of tender purity, and the determination to draw its inspiration from human life. Taste changes rapidly. Only an audacious critic would presume to pronounce a lasting verdict on modern French poetry. At least a dozen poets can show as good a title to be remembered as any of those from whom my choice is made. As a poet, Murger is for- gotten. As a poet, Coppee is already passing into oblivion. But, with the exception of the selections from Leconte de Lisle, the passages are chosen to illustrate the point that, through all the changing epochs of national life and 336 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. literary history, French poetry has never lost its simplicity, its tenderness, its pathos, its power of finding material in every-day scenes and common experiences. How can this truth be brought home to English readers ? Only, as it seems to me, by English renderings. It is in the hope that some may be tempted to seek the charm, finish, and grace of French poetry in its own language that these imperfect versions are offered. MY LOVE ANNETTE Awake ! my love Annette, I pray ! Be sure your smartest gown to wear ; They keep our own Saint's Feast to-day, And all the countryside is there. Our Jacqueline her peal has rung From the old tower at break of day ; " The Patron's mass will soon be sung, Come all, come quick," it seems to say. The priest is waiting, quick ! away ! Let's hasten on, Annette my dear ; If we're away when mass they say, There's One above would drop a tear. MA MIE ANNETTE Reveillez-vous, ma mie Annette, En branle dans le vieux clocher, Et mettez vos plus beaux habits ; Sonne la messe patronale C'est aujourd'kui grand jour de Et nous dit de nous depecher. fete, Allons, ma mie, allons plus vite, Le jour de fete du pays. Monsieur le cure nous attend. Sans nous si la messe etait dite, La Jacqueline matinale, Le bon Dieu serait mecontent. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 337 Awake ! my love Annette, I pray ! Be sure your smartest gown to wear ; They keep our own Saint's Feast to-day, And all the countryside is there. Each house its banner gaily flings Upon the street, with nosegays bright Festooned ; from ev'ry window rings The merry shout of laughter light : They're sitting there, the grandsires old, They pass the cup and eager chat Of days when youth and love were bold, And him who wore the small cocked-hat. Awake ! my love Annette, I pray ! Be sure your smartest gown to wear ; They keep our own Saint's Feast to-day, And all the countryside is there. When Evensong is duly said, Together arm in arm we'll go, Together we'll the meadows tread, And where the woodlands thickly grow ; Reveillez-vous, ma mie Annette, Des vieux amours de leur jeune Et mettez vos plus beaux age. habits ; Et de l'homme au petit chapeau. C'est aujourd'hui grand jour de fete, Reveillez-vous, ma mie Annette, Le jour de fete du pays. Et mettez vos plus beaux habits ; C'est aujourd'hui grand jour de Chaque maison est pavoisee fete, De drapeaux flottants et de Le jour de fete du pays. fleurs, Et Ton entend par la croisee Apres les vepres et complies, Sortir de joyeuses clamcurs : Bras dessus dessous, nous irons Ce sont les anciens du village Nous promener dans les prairies Qui devisent, autour d'un pot, Et dans les bois des environs ; 338 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. We'll loiter back by the Ven'elle, Where elder flowers, like flakes of snow, Their wild sharp fragrance blend so well With grass the scythe has just laid low. Awake ! my love Annette, I pray ! Be sure your smartest gown to wear ; They keep our own Saint's Feast to-day, And all the countryside is there. The grey-haired piper there you'll see, Swelling his cheeks his pipes to play ; He'll make us by the chestnut tree Dance all the Feast's last hours away ; And ev'ry lass, or dark or fair, Pretty or plain, will have her chance ; Some sweetheart, old or young, will dare This night to claim her for the dance. Awake ! my love Annette, I pray ! Be sure your smartest gown to wear ; They keep our own Saint's Feast to-day, And all the countryside is there. Nous reviendrons par la Venelle, Fera, pour terminer la fete, Oil neige la fleur des sureaux, Danser sous le grand marronnier. Dont la sauvage odeur se mele Et, laide ou belle, blonde ou Avec l'odeur des foins nouveaux. brune, Qu'il soit laid ou beau, jeune ou Reveillez-vous, ma mie Annette, vieux, Et mettez vos plus beaux habits; Pour la faire danser chacune C'est aujourd'hui grand jour de Saura trouver un amoureux. fete, Le jour de fete du pays. Reveillez-vous, ma mie Annette, Et mettez vos plus beaux habits; Comme une outre enllant sa C'est aujourd'hui grand jour de musette, fete, Cc soir, le vieux meiietrier Le jour de fete du pays. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 339 Annette ! Annette ! I call in vain ! Last year, the yellow sheaves among, Ah God ! how memory turns to pain ! I heard her sing her last sweet song, — And the last time I saw my love Pass from the threshold of her door, A white sheet lay her face above And to her home she came no more. My little love ! how hard and cold That pillow where her head she's lain ! What shrouded sleep her eyelids hold ! Annette will never wake again. Helas ! mon Dieu, je me rappclle Elle etait d'un drap blanc vetue Que l'an dernier, a la moisson, Et ne devait pas revenir ; Celle qu'en vain ma voix appelle Chanta sa derniere chanson. Car ma pauvre petite amie, De sa maison quand je l'ai Sur un froid et dur oreiller, vue Depuis longtemps est endormie Pour la derniere fois sortir, Et ne peut pas se reveiller. NEW YEAR'S GIFTS Past is the time for us and far away When life seemed full of all things fair and fine ; But I remember our glad childhood's day, Have you forgotten, Angele, cousin mine ? How lone; ago it was ! and one by one The passing years have touched us with their spell ; A MA COUSIXE ANGELE tfxRENXES Nous avons tous les deux laisse De notre enfance heureuse ? — derriere nous 6 ma cousine Angele ! Une epoque ou la vie est bien bonne et bien lis sont bien loin ces jours, et belle ; deja bien des fois Je in'en souviens encor, vous en Les ans nous ont touches en souvenez-vous passant de leur ailu ; 340 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. The fairhaired gladness and the laughter's sun Alas ! have fled, Oh cousin mine, Angele ! Wild scholars we, when, tedious school-hours flown, We danced to that old tune, with whirling feet, " To the woods we'll go no longer, the laurels are cut down." We go no longer to the woods, Angele, my cousin sweet ! Happier than I, it was not yours to part From home ; still doth your Mother's voice enshrine Whate'er is holiest within your heart ; I've lost that treasure, Angele, cousin mine ! Your daily labour proves a constant friend ; At night pure angels their white wings incline To shield from harm, and blessed dreams descend From heaven upon you, Angele, cousin mine ! Your voice is like your name, so soft in sound ; The soul of goodness do your eyes declare ; Et notre gaite blonde aux Conserve a votre cceur la sainte grands eclats de voix piete Helas ! s'est envolee, — 6 ma Qui n'est plus dans le mien, — 6 cousine Angele ! ma cousine Angele ! Ecoliers turbulents de la classe Vous avez le travail pour com- echappes, pagnon le jour, Pour danser en chantant l'an- La nuit un ange blanc vous tique ritournelle : couvre de son aile, " Nous n'irons plus aux bois, Et des songes benis descendent les lauriers sont coupes," tour a tour Nous n'irons plus aux bois, — Du ciel a votre lit, — 6 ma 6 ma cousine Angele ! cousine Angele ! Plus heureuse que moi, vous Votre parole est douce ainsi que n'avez pas quitte votre nom ; Le foyer de fatnillc, et la voix L'esprit de la bonte dans vos matcrnelle yeux se revele, SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 341 Your sixteen years a fragrance breathe around Of flowering youth — Oh ! Angele, cousin fair ! In olden days how joyously I flew, At earliest morning of the glad New Year, I squeezed my purse to find a gift for you ! Poor trifle was it, Angele, cousin dear ! But since those days the devil, as men say, Dwells in my purse, and Plutus will not hear ; He's deaf as well as blind, and when I pray He answers not — Angele, my cousin dear ! I bring no gift to celebrate the day — No brilliant keepsake where rich gems entwine, No casket chased in great Cellini's way, No sugared bonbons, Angele, cousin mine ! I press your hand, a gift you may receive — I kiss your brow, a brother's love to tell — Et vos seize ans fleuris embau- Plutus, l'aveugle dieu, que je merit la maison crois sourd aussi, D'un parfum de jeunesse, — 6 Car il ne m'entend pas, — 6 ma ma cousine Angele ! cousine Angele ! Autrefois, quand venait le jour Done, vous n'aurez de moi nul de l'an nouveau, present aujourd'hui, Scion le contenu de ma pauvre Ni keepsake eclatant, ni riche escarcelle bagatelle, J'arrivais tout joyeux vous offrir Ni bijou cisele par quelque iiion cadeau, Cellini, Qui ne coutait pas cher, — 6 ma Et ni bonbons sucres,— 6 ma cousine Angele ! cousine Angele ! Mais depuis ce temps-la le Vous n'aurez rien de moi qu'un diable, comme on dit, serrement de main, S'est loge dans ma bourse, et Ou qu'un baiser au front, — vaiuement j'appelle etrenne iraternelle, 342 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. And these poor verses — long before the eve, They'll be forgotten, cousin mine Angele ! Et puis ces pauvres vers que, ce Vous oublirez sans doute, — 6 soir ou demain, ma cousine Angele ! Murger, as we have seen, faithfully repre- sented the disenchantment of his generation ; yet he never yielded to some of its chief literary faults. Always a conscientious artist, he allowed no work to pass his hands unfinished. Few of his contemporaries had exercised the same restraint. Not only were freedom and direct- ness discredited by the exaggeration of imi- tators, but a gush of elegiac sentimentality had watered emotion down to weakness and turned the gaiety of France into spurious mourning. All the world wept, without genuine feeling, without respect for art, and without regard to form. Phoebus Apollo had lost his wings, and, as he shuffled in slippers down the Champs Elysees, he snivelled like an ordinary citizen. It had become almost a canon of the so-called school of common sense that strong feeling could only be expressed in weak rhymes or real emotion in bad grammar ; that there could be neither genius without false syntax, nor passion without imperfect prosody. It was against the maudlin tenderness and slatternly appearance of French poetry that in 1841 Theodore de Banvillc raised a protest. In the spring of that year a lad of eighteen SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 343 rans at the house of Alfred de Yigny, and, blushing like a girl, thrust a book into the hands of the servant ; then vanished down the street as fast as his legs could carry him., over- whelmed with shame at his own audacity. Now running:, now walking, only stopping to light the cigarettes which he smoked with feverish vehemence, he made for the open country as if pursued by the naked swords of avenging deities. At night, slipping through the streets like a thief, he returned home, to find Alfred de Yigny's card, covered with pencilled congratulations. The lad was Theodore de Banviile ; the book was " Les Cariatides," the volume of poems which first made him famous. Banviile takes his inspiration from the Renaissance. He is its Primaticcio in verse, and his work reveals the skill of an artist in delicately tinted bas-reliefs or arabesques. He is the reviver of forgotten metres, and disused rhythms. — tl :. not onlv of classic measures, but of the rondels, triolets, - ::rets ; and bal- •s which were the natural growth of French soil. In the form and manner of poetry, he is a great artist. Anions a number of words expressing the same order of idea he dis- tinguishes, with unerring insight, the ne which most definitely convevs his exact shade of ning. He chooses the rhyme winch makes moat perfect symphony in sound with tiie 344 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. desired impression. He feels, and conveys to others, a sensuous pleasure from the collocation of words, loves them for their own sake, the charm of their syllables, the enchantment of their colour, or their grace of movement, and he groups them so as to produce the richest pos- sible effect. In his skilful hands the metre adapts itself to the sense. He can make his verse an Amazon in a corselet of steel, a nymph babbling softly by a brook, even a dancer bal- ancing on the tight-rope. One thing only he was determined she should not become, — a citizen's wife plastered with jewellery. If Banville's matter had been equal to his manner, he would unquestionably have been a great poet ; but his substance is so inferior to his form that he cannot take this rank. Human sympathy is wanting ; his enthusiasms are verbal, his passions artistic, his emotions aesthetic. He is lavish of romantic allusions, because of the colour and richness which they lend to his verse, and not because he values the high ideals of feudal honour that underlie the coarseness of feudal manners. Even the classic past is to him poetic furniture, and it is as liter- ary stock-in-trade that he prizes the gods and goddesses of Olympus. His poetry represents the divinities of Greece and Rome dwelling in the marble halls of the Italian Renaissance, their golden tresses decked with roses, clothed SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 345 in purple and crimson, gleaming with topaz and amethyst. Not content with tinting his Venuses, he presents them in polychrome. It may not be altogether fanciful to trace Banville's peculiar temperament to the charac- teristics of the town and province to which both his parents belonged, and in which his own childhood was passed. The natural wealth of the Bourbonnais, with its fat meadows, cattle, vineyards, and fruit gardens, contributes some- thing distinctive to his artistic equipment. The pride of Moulins is the famous tomb of the Constable of Montmorency, which, by its mix- ture of Christian aspirations with pagan myth- ology and by the perfection of its sculptured figures, is an epitome in stone of the exquisite finish and Renaissance incongruities of Ban- ville's verse. The temperament of the inhabit- ants — apparently indifferent, loving fairs and holidays, eschewing definite statements, avoid- ing decisive answers, translating grief and regret into their characteristic provincial equi- valent of maatemps — resembles in much the optimistic temperament of Banville. He thinks and feels and sees lyrically. To the day of his death he unconsciously shuts his ears to the sound of misery, and hears again the sonorous strokes of Jacquemart and his wife, the famous bells which regulated from the Tour d'Horloge the easy lives of the citizens of Moulins. With 346 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. no conscious effort of will he closes his eyes to contemporary realities, and sees once more Font-Georges, with its white vine-clad house and moss-covered spring, where the songs and bats of washerwomen made cheerful music, while he played with his sister Zelie and her dog Calliste. A poet who depends so much on his mastery of the technicalities of his art, and whose form and workmanship excel the material, does not easily lend himself to translation. To foreigners, who are quicker to appreciate excel- lence of matter than excellence of manner, those poems which are inspired by some simple natural feeling are most attractive. But this is the smaller side of his work, and not, perhaps, that which most appealed to his own fellow- countrymen. One example of the most human and the least artificial side of his poetry may be taken. It is suggested by the old nursery ballad, the refrain of which haunted Murger and fascinated George Sand : " Nous n'irons plus au bois, les lauriers sont coupes." TO THE WOODS, ETC. To the woods we'll go no longer ; the laurels are laid low. The Cupids by their founts of stone, the Naiads in a row, Nous n'irons plus au bois, les Les Amours des bassins, les lauriers sont coupes. Naiades en groupe SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 347 Watch the waters in the sunshine, each wave with diamonds hemmed, Which once in silent streamlets from their urns were wont to flow. The laurels are cut down ; at bay the stag in covert low Hears the hunter's horn and trembles ; to the woods we may not go, Where of old the merry children went running to and fro, None watching save the lilies, each with heaven's own tears begemmed ; They have left the laurels lying, — the waving grass they mow, To the woods we'll go no longer ; the laurels are laid low. Voient reluire au soldi en cris- Oil des enfants charmants riait taux decoupt's la folle troupe Les nots silencieux qui coulaient Sous les regards des lys aux de leur coupe. pleurs du ciel trempes, Les lauriers sont coupes, et le Voici l'herbe qu'on fauche et ceri aux . les lauriers qu'on coupe. Ti ulle au sun du cor; nous Nous n'irons plus au bois, les n'irons plus au bois, lauriers sont coupes. It is as a master of his craft that Banville takes his place by the side of Victor Hugo and Theophile Gautier, as one of the great influences • in modern French poetry. The newer school of poets were called by various names, but were best known as Parnassians. They accepted the precepts of his " Petit Traite de la Poesie," and insisted on scrupulous obedience to the rules of prosody, on precision, clearness of outline, 348 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. exactitude of detail, variety of rhythmical move- ment. Virtuosos of all that was rare and ex- quisite in style, sybarites who could not endure a crumpled rose-leaf in the couch of the Muse, they adored their art with the passion of a lover for his mistress. A word robbed Baudelaire of sleep for a night ; a phrase for a week ; a page for a month : a volume deprived him of reason and life. But who can say that, even in this excess of worship of form, they were en- tirely wrong ? The clear-cut effigy on some disinterred coin reveals the features of a ruler whose existence history has forgotten ; the sculptured marble outlives the city whose palaces it once adorned. Yet even these are impaired by age. The clear-cut sculptured phrase alone survives time and defies decay. No single current has of recent years swept French poetry towards any definite goal. The directions in which it has been carried by the tide are many ; yet it has never failed to keep in close touch with human nature over an ever- widening range. No French poets have imitated the example of Walt Whitman, whose " barbaric yawp " spurns the artistic progress of the ages. On the contrary, they have steadily laboured to perfect the instrument, to adapt it to the progress of the century, and have relied on the accumulated resources of inherited and expanded art to give expression to modern ideas. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 349 The finest representative of the Gothic and classic sides of the romantic movement, as they are controlled by realism and disciplined by art, is probably Leconte de Lisle. He stood in a place apart from his contemporaries. National disasters and humiliations may have driven him to dwell remote from everyday life and to choose his subjects from the distant past ; but in his nervous, vigorous verse he caught the very spirit of bygone ages. His pictures are firmly drawn with the fewest possible strokes, all concentrated with singular restraint upon the effect which he wishes to produce. The first two of the following poems are taken from his : ' Poemcs Barbares " ; the last two from his Poemes Antiques." THE HEART OF HIALMAR Clear is the night and cold ; blood-red the snow ; Unburied tiiere a thousand heroes lie, Wild-eyed, with sword fast gripped ; none stirs below ; O'erhead black clouds of circling ravens crv. The distant moon looks down with cold pale glance ; Hfalmar rises midst the bleeding dead, LE CCEUR DE HIALMAR Une nuit claire, un vent glace. Au-dessus tourne et crie un v 1 La ncige e-^t rouL"\ de noirs corbeaux. Mille brave:; sont la qui dor- ment sans tombeaux, La lune froide verse au loin sa L'epee au poing, les yeux pale flarnmo. hagards. Pas un ne Hialmar se souleve entre led bouge. inorts sanglants, 350 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Leans with both hands upon his shivered lance, While his torn sides the crimson war- tide shed. — Hola ! is no one left with breath or voice ? Where are the stalwart youths, so gay of mien, Whose shout and laugh this morn bade all re- joice, Like blackbirds' song in spring when leaves are green ? They all are silent ; shattered is my helm ; My armour cleft where crashed the axe's blow ; My eyes weep blood. Strange sounds my ears o'er- whelm, — Is't ocean's roar or wolves who scent their foe ? Friend raven come ! who mak'st of men thy prey, My breast with iron beak tear wide apart, — ■ Thou'lt find us here to-morrow as to-day, — ■ To Ylmer's daughter bear my still warm heart. Appuye des deux mains au Est trouee, et la hache a fait trongon de sa lame. sauter ses clous. La pourpre du combat ruisselle Mes yeux saignent. J'en- de ses flancs. tends un immense mur- mure — Hola ! Quelqu'un a-t-il encore Pared aux hurlements de la mer un peu d'haleine, ou des loups. Parmi tant de joyeux et ro- bustes garcons Viens par ici, Corbeau, mon Qui, ce matin, riaient ct chan- brave mangeur d'hommes ! taient a voix pleine Ouvre-moi la poitrine avec ton Comme des merles dans l'epais- bee de fer. sour des buissons ? Tu nous retrouveras demain tels que nous sommes. Tous sont muets. Mon casque Porte mon cceur tout chaud a est rompu, mon armure la lille d'Ylmer. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 351 To Upsal, where the Jarls quaff foaming mead, And sing and clash gold goblets in their pride, Fly ! wand'rer of the heath, with arrowy speed, And bear my heart to my affianced bride. On that tall tower, round which the jackdaws wing, Thou'lt see her standing, palj with long black hair, Each slender ear clipped with a silver ring, And eyes more bright than stars when heav'n is bare. Tell her, dark me-senger, how well 1 loved ; Lay at her feet my heart, that she may see I low red and firm, not pale and weak, it proved ; Then, raven, Ylmer's child will smile on thee. Through twenty wounds my spirit flits. I die. I've lived my time. Haste, wolves, your thirst to slake ! Young, brave, unscarred and free, in the Sun's eye Mv seat among the Gods I rise to take. Dans Upsal, oil les Jarls boivent Va, sombre messager, dis-lui la bonne Here, bien que je l'airae, Lt chantent, en heurtant les Et que voici mon cceur. Elle cruehes d'wr, en eheeur, reconnaitra A tire d'aile vole, 6 rudcur de Qu'il est rouge et solide ct non bruyere ! tremblant et bleme ; Lherchc ma fiancee et porte-lui Et la fille d'Ylmer, Corbcau, te m. .11 cu ui'. sourira ! Au ' vapeur efface les Entretien lent et doux de la chemins ; terre et du ciel ! La lunc tristement baigne les Montez, et demandez aux etoiles noirs feuillages ; sereines L'oreille n'entend plus les mur- S'il est pour les atteindre un mures humains. chemin eternel. 12 354 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Oh ! seas, oh! dreamy woods ! Earth's tones of prayer! You answered me, when evil days were long ; Your magic wiled me from my black despair, And in my heart for ever rings your song. O mers, 6 bois Songeurs, voix Vous avez apaise ma tristesse pieuses du monde, infeconde, Vous m'avez repondu durant Et dans mon cceur aussi vous mes jours mauvais, chantez a jamais ! LYDIA Youth leaves us, and each ling 'ring grace departs, And Love's sweet longings also pass away, And easy sleep. Why need we vex our hearts For some Eternal Day ? Old Saturn bears our best years on his wing, And flowers the wind has wooed all fade at eve. Come, taste beneath the pine grove's shadowing What Love and Life may leave. Let us our snowy locks with roses crown, Drink ! we have time, yet dare we not delay ; All cares, oh Bacchus ! in thy cup to drown Is still the wisest way ! LYDIE La jeunesse nous quitte, et les Viens a l'ombre dcs pins ou sous Graces aussi. l'epais platane Les desires amoureux s'envo- Goiiter les tardives amours. lent avec elles, Et le sommeil facile. A quoi Ceignons nos cheveux blancs de bon le souci couronnes de roses ; Des Esperances eternelles ! Buvons, il en est temps encore, hatons-nous ! L'aile du vieux Saturne cmporte Ta liqueur, 6 Bacchus, dcs tris- nos beaux jours, tcsscs moroses Et la fleur inclinee au vent du Est le remede le plus soir se fane ; doux. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 355 Boy ! cool the wines in yonder bubbling spring, Bid Lydia come with her enchanting smile, Her silver lvre, and ringlets clustering Tied in Laconian style. Enfant, rcmpe les vins dans la Avec sa blanche lyre et ses source prochaine, cheveux nones Et fais veiur Lydie aux rires A la mode Laconienne. enjoues, After the death of Leconte de Lisle, Sully Prudhomme, who was born in 1839, and died in September 1907, was recognised as the first of French poets. Compelled in early life by a severe attack of ophthalmia to give up the engineering profession, he eventually decided to adopt literature as his pursuit. An ardent student of science and philosophy, a disciple and translator of Lucretius, he seems never to have forgotten the workshops of Le Creusot. He has two different styles, which are distinct, yet perpetually touch each other ; the style of youth (1855-78) ; the other that of maturer life. Even in his youthful verse he shows that microscopic insight into the depths of human consciousness which compensates for much that is repulsive in the pathological school of poetry. The secrets which he finds are the secrets of all the world, and they are expressed with an accuracy and a lightness of touch which heal the wounds that they re-open. Few poets have been able to finger those tender 356 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. chords without breaking them ; but Sully's touch is so true and tender that, as it were, he caresses them into music. His own life is in his verse, and it is the know- ledge that other lives besides his own are there expressed which enables him to strike the hidden chords of the heart with unerring truth. He achieves the task that he sets himself in the description which he gives of his verse in the lines " To Unknown Friends " (Aux Amis in- connus) . * One line may, like a friend who knows us well, Re-open wounds whose smart is not forgot ; The word that doth another's sufferings tell May drop, like tears, on our own anguish'd spot, Where hearts misjudged await their soothing spell. My verse, perchance, may reach you and restore, With lightning flash, the sleeping grief of old, Or by that one true word — long waited for — The sudden name of all you feel unfold, Nor tell the eyes from whom I learnt my lore. Parfois un vers, complice in time, Peut-etre un de mes vers est-il vient rouvrir venu vous rendre Quelque plaie oil le feu desire Dans un eclair brulant vos cha- qu'on l'attise ; grins tout entiers, Parfois un mot, le nom de ce qui Ou, par le seul vrai mot qui se fait souffrir, faisait attendre, Tombe comme une larme a la Vous ai-je dit le nom de ce que place precise vous sentiez, Ou le coeur meconnu l'attendait Sans vous nommer les yeux ou pour guerir. j'avais du l'apprendre. * I am indebted to my mother for the translations which are marked with an asterisk. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 357 TO THE READER * These flowers I gathered by the highway side, Where fate, for good and ill, has cast my days, I dare not give them wild and loosely tied ; I'll twine them in a wreath — to earn more praise. Still fresh, a rose is weeping tear on tear ; A pansy lifts her eyes of purple hue ; Then the calm lilies, dreamers of the mere, And budding corn — and there my life lies too. And thine, too, reader — is't not even so ? One fate is always ours in joy or woe — To weep Love's tears and think, but never know How we have lost in dreaming spring's best day, Then comes the hour when we would rise from play, And plant some seed before we pass away. AU LECTEUR J'avais cucilli ccs flcurs sur le Puis des epis naissants : ma vie bord de la route y sera toute. Ou m'ont jete les bons et les mauvais hasards, La tienne aussi, lecteur, car les Mais je n'osais livrer des sou- homines entre eux venirs epars ; Sont en cela pareils, qu'heureux J 'en fais une guirlande, ils ou malheureux, plairont mieux sans doute. Ils ont pleure d'amour et pense sans connaitre, Fraiche encore, une rose y Qu'ils ont au moins perdu vingt pleure goutte a goutte ; printemps a rever, J'y mets une pensee aux tene- Et qu'enfin tous un jour ont breux regards, voulu se lever Puis les plantes des lacs, de Et semer quelque chose avant de reveurs nenuphars, disparaitre. Sully's tone even in youth is uniformly au- tumnal, rarely vernal ; his songs are full of 358 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. sighs ; deep springs of wistful regret well up through the mournful lines, which express memo- ries rather than hopes. No French poet has depicted more sadly or more simply the melan- choly and dissatisfaction to which all thought- ful minds are subject. Doubtless the natural tendency was, in his case, accentuated by the overwhelming calamities of 1870, and by the consciousness of his own impotence in the sphere of action. Quiet in manner, reserved, fas- tidious, scrupulously sincere, delicate and even dainty in his refinement, he is in many ways a French Matthew Arnold. But his poetry is founded on a wide and true sympathy, which makes him one of the most companionable of French poets. Almost from the first the work showed a tendency towards the more austere manner of his later life. Ambitious to seek the poetic im- pulse at higher levels of thought than those which satisfied his contemporaries, he felt that poetry could not, without loss of its robustness and its manhood, stand aside from philosophy and science, and from the revolutions of thought which they have effected. It was his dream to be a nineteenth-century Lucretius, a Schopen- hauer or a Darwin of poetry ; yet, even when pre-occupied with these ambitions, he does not forget two great lessons of the Parnassian School. He has the accusing conscience of the genuine SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 359 artist, who spares no pains and neglects no resources to express his conceptions with the utmost perfection of language and harmony of versification. He treats his scientific or philo- sophical subjects, not with the lofty vagueness of Victor Hugo, but with the mathematical precision and exactitude of the Ecole Poly- technique. Yet the philosophical poetry of his later life, fine though it is in its intention and severity, is too fluent to require the labour of translation. He is at his best in the verse of his youthful period. It is mainly from this part of his work that the following poems are selected. EVENING * We wandered down, at break of day, A narrow path — heart close to heart ; At noon, upon the world's highway, I walk to right, you left — apart. No more we share one sky together. How bright is yours ! How black is mine ! Your choice is still the sunniest weather, I keep the side where nought will shine. LE SOIR A l'aube, la main dans la main, Nous n'avons plus un ciel parcil, Nous suivions une allee etroite ; Le votre est brillant, le mien A midi, sur le grand chemin, sombre ; Je marchu a gauche, vous a Vous avez choisi le soled, dxoite. J'ai garde le cote de l'ombre. 360 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Where'er you walk, gleams round you play — The very sand has diamond beads ; No beams e'er light with gladdening ray The cold grey soil my footstep treads. Bird-songs and whispers full of sweets, Caressing, woo your heart and ear ; Your hair the breeze, adoring, greets ; Your lip the bee, entranced, draws near. And I — I can but sing and sigh ; My heart's deep wound is ill at ease ; From leaf-hid nests the fondling cry Disturbs me more than it can please. But, love ! a sky for ever bright May make too keen our mortal joy ; The air's embrace has too much might ; The incense e'en of flowers may cloy. Then yearns the soul for that calm rest That laps us round at close of day, With half-shut eye, on some fond breast, To watch life's fever ebb away. Le jour vous rit, et sur vos pas Le cri des nids dans les buissons Le sable fin se diamante ; M'attriste plus qu'il ne m'egaie. Le jour pour moi n'enrichit pas Le sol gris que mon pied tour- Mais, 6 mon amie, un ciel clair mente. Est de trop d'ivresse prodigue ; La caresse eparse de l'air, Les chants d'oiseaux et les aveux L'encens meme des fleurs fa- Vous charment le cceur et l'o- tigue ; reille, La brise flatte vos cheveux, On sent dans l'ameuncherrepos Et vos levres tentent l'abeille. Descendre avec le jour qui baisse, Et moi par de vaines chansons Onchercheunappui,l'oeilmi-clos, J'attise dans mon rr»ur la plaie, La voile des desirs s'affaisse. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 361 Will you not come and take your seat By that highway at evening fall ? I'll wait you there. We two shall meet Where one deep shadow wraps it all. Ne viendrez-vous pas vous as- Ou je vous attendrai le soir, seoir Quand l'ombre la couvrira Sur le bord obscur de la route, toute? THE DEATH-AGONY Ye who will watch me when my end draws near, Speak not, I pray ! 'Twill help me most some music faint to hear, Then pass away. For song can loosen, link by link, each care From Life's hard chain. So gently rock my griefs ; but, oh ! beware ! To speak were pain. I'm weary of all words ; their wisest speech Can nought reveal ; Give me the spirit-sounds minds cannot reach, But hearts can feel : L'AGONIE Vous qui m'aiderez dans mon Bercez ma douleur ; je vous en agonie, supplie, No me dites rien ; Ne lui parlez pas. Faites que j'entende un peu d'harmonie, Je suis las des mots, je suis las lit je mourrai bien. d'entendre Ce qui peut mentir ; La musique apaise, enchante et J'aime mieux les sons qu'au dclie lieu de comprendre Des choses d'en bas : Je n'ai qu'a sentir : 362 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Some melody which all my soul shall steep, As tranced I lie, Passing from visions wild to dreamy sleep, — And, sleeping, die. Ye who will watch me when my end draws near, Speak not, I pray ! Some sounds of music murmuring in my ear Will soothe my way. My nurse, poor shepherdess ! I'd bid you seek ; Tell her my whim ; I want her near me, when I'm faint and weak On the grave's brim. I want to hear her sing ere I depart, Just once again, In one low simple note to touch the heart That old-world strain. You'll find her still ; the rustic hovel gives Calm hopes and fears ; Une melodie ou l'ame se plonge Et vous lui direz que c'est un Et qui, sans effort, caprice, Me fera passer du delire au songe, Au bord du tom- Du songe a la mort. beau, Vous qui m'aiderez dans mon D'entendre chanter, tout bas, de agonie, sa bouche, Ne me dites rien ; Un air d' autrefois, Pour allegement un peu d'har- Simple et monotone, un doux monie air qui touche Me fera grand bien. Avec peu de voix. Vous irez chercher ma pauvre Vous la trouverez : les gens des nourrice, chaumieres Qui mene un troupeau, Tivent tres longtemps ; SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 363 But in this world of mine one rarely lives Thrice twenty years. Be sure you leave us with our hearts alone Only us two ! She'll sing to me in her old trembling tone, Stroking my brow. She only to the end will love through all My good and ill So will the air of those old songs recall My first years still. And, dreaming thus, I shall not feel at last My heart-strings torn, But, all unknowing, the great barriers past, Die, — as we're born Ye who will watch me when my end draws near, Speak not, I pray ! 'Twill help me most some music faint to hear, Then pass away. Et je suis cl'im inonde oil Ton ne Pour nc pas sentir, a ma der- vit gucres niere heure, Plusieurs fois vingt ans. Que mon cocur se Vous nous laisserez tousles deux Pour m . p T us 'penser, pour que r:i ~'. !I , . l'homme meure Nos ccrurs s umront ; Coimne est n - ]>en . Elle chantera d un accent qui r t tremble, La main stir mon front. Vous qui m'aiderez dans mon Lors elle .ra peut-etre la seule agonie, Oui m'aimc toujours, N T e me dites rien ; Lt je in'i'ii irai dans son chant Faites que j'entende un peu d'ai'eule d'harmonie, Vers ines premiers jours, Et je mourrai bieu. 364 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. CHILD'S-PLAY My lady ! you were little then : Twelve years were mine ; Soon forgotten were your lovers, All left to pine. When we played among the others, You still I sought ; When small hands were intertwining 'Twas yours I caught. As in gold and purple glory, Poised o'er the rose, Tells the butterfly his story, All his heart glows ; Leaf by leaf, still nearer drawing, Is yet too shy All the honey-dew to gather She holds so nigh, So my heart was yearning wildly Your lips to press ; ENFANTILLAGE Madame, vous etiez petite, Le papillon sans appuyer J'avais douze ans ; Palpite, Vous oubliez vos courtisans Bien vite ! Et de feuille en feuille, hesi- tant, Je ne voyais que vous au jeu S'approche, et n'ose Parmi les autres ; Monter droit au miel que la Mes doigts frolaient parfois les rose votres Lui tend, , Un peu... Tremblant de ses premieres Comme a la premiere visite fievres, Faite au rosier, Mon coeur n'osait SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 365 Twas your slender fingers only I dared caress. Through me thrilled a sudden rapture ; Ah ! was it woe ? What made joy and pain forgather ? Love — long ago. Twelve years only — and a lover ! 'Tis not common. You too, lady, were you feeling Like a woman ? Did there come some thought bewildering As, half afraid, With your frock and with your dolly You stood and played ? If I praised — too soon a poet — Your tiny feet, Too soon fair, you leant and touched me With magic sweet. I at least have ne'er forgotten That eventide, Voler droit dcs doigts qu'il Vous faisiez bcaucoup d'embar- baisait ras, Aux levres. Trcs occupee De votrc robe, une poupee Je sentais en nioi tour a tour Au bras. Plaisir rt peine, Un melange d'aise et de gene : Si j'adorais, trop tot poete, I. 'amour. Vos petits pieds, Trop tot belle, vous me cour- L' amour a denize ans ! Oui, biez madame. La tete. Et vi mis aussi, N'aviez-vous pas quelque souci Nous menames si bien, un soir, De femme ? Le badinage, 366 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. When we set up house together, Bridegroom and bride. Gems you dreamed of, I dreamed over My vow to you ! Both were older than our years were, Both different too ! We played at the dance and dinner, — You wished it so, — Said that proper weddings must have Some pomp and show. You enjoyed it as a pastime, I thought it true, Told my love aloud, and whispered " Dearest " to you. On your cheek I ventured, dreaming, One kiss to leave. Play for me has all been over Since that spring eve. Que nous nous mimes en me- Qu'iln'estnocesproprementdites nage Sans 9a. Pour voir. Vous goutiez la plaisanterie Vous parliez des bijoux de Tant que bientot noces, J'osai vous appeler tout haut : Moi du serment, Cherie, Car nous 6tions differemment Precoces. Et je vous ai (car je revais) Baise la joue ; On fit la dinette, on dansa ; Depuis cc soir-la je ne joue Vous pretendites Jamais. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 367 PILGRIMAGES * Still remembering, wandering on, Vanished days of love I crave, Sweetest dreams my heart has known, — 1 can only find your grave. Though each year we fade and falter, Our young loves no ageing know, As that child's face cannot alter Which we wept o'er long ago. Let us lift the lids close-pressing On our dear ones' languid eyes. Ah ! their glance has no caressing ; Stern they lie in stony guise. They attract me, yet repel ; Through these years of parting sore Faith to them I've guarded well ; Ah ! they know me now no more. PELERIXAGES I'.n souvenir je m'aventure, Je souleve un peu les paupieres Vers lc~ jmirs pact's oil j'aimais, De ces chers et douloureux I 'our vi-itcr !a sepulture morts ; Des n ves que muii coeur a faits. Leurs yeux sont froids comme des pierres Avec des regards toujours forts, lant qu'on vieillit sans Les an iiirs ont toujours vingt Lour grace m'attire et m'op- ans, prosse ; Jeunes de la fixe jeunesse En depit des ans revolus, Des enfants qu'on pleure long- Je leur ai garde ma tendresse ; temps. lis ne me reconnaitraient plus : 368 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. I'm changed in brow, I'm changed in heart ; And they dread the farewell sneer Wherewith the aged bid depart Their youthful visions, once so dear. I stand, with love and pity rife, Yet dare not bend me o'er their tomb ; My kiss might warm them back to life, And theirs has been so full of gloom. J'ai change d'ame et de visage ; Et moi, plein de pitie, j'hesite, lis redoutent l'adieu moqueur J'ai peur qu'en se posant sur eux Que font les hommes de mon age Mon baiser ne les ressuscite : Aux premiers reves de leur coeur. lis ont ete trop malheureux. BY THE WATER'S EDGE To sit and watch the wavelets as they flow, Two, — side by side ; To see the gliding clouds that come and go, And mark them glide ; If from low roofs the smoke is wreathing pale, To watch it wreathe ; If flowers around breathe perfume on the gale, To feel them breathe ; If the bee sips the honeyed fruit that glistens, To sip the dew ; If the bird warbles while the forest listens, To listen too ; AU BORD DE L'EAU S'asseoir tous deux au bord d'un Aux alentours si quelque fleur not qui passe, embaume, Le voir passer ; S'en baumer ; Tous deux, s'il glisse un nuage Si quelque fruit, ou les abeilles en l'espace, goutent, Le voir glisser ; Tente, y gouter ; A l'horizon, s'il fume un toit de Si quelque oiseau, dans les bois chaume, qui l'ecoutent, Le voir f umer ; Chante, ecouter ; SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 369 Beneath the willow where the brook is singing To hear its song, Nor feel, while round us that sweet dream is clinging, The hours too long ; To know one only deep o'ermastering passion, The love we share ; To let the world go worrying in its fashion Without one care ; We only, while around all weary grow, Unwearied stand, And, midst the fickle changes others know, Love — hand in hand. Entendre au pied du saule ou Sans nul souci des querelles du l'eau murmure monde, L'eau murmurer ; Les ignorer ; Ne pas sentir, taut que ce reve Et seuls, heureux devant tout ce dure, qui lasse, Le temps durer ; Sans se lasser, Mais n'apportant de passion pro- Sentir l'amour, devant tout ce fonde qui passe, Qu'a s'adorer, Ne point passer ! THE ONE THING THAT LASTS How cold and wan the present lowers, O my true love ! around us twain ; How little of the past is ours ! How changed the friends who yet remain ! We cannot without envying view The eyes with twenty summers gay, For eyes, 'neath which our childhood grew, Have long since passed from earth away. CE QUI DURE Le present se fait vide et triste, Nous ne voyons plus sans envie O mon amie, autour de nous ; Les yeux de vingt ans resplendir, Combien pen du passe subsiste ! Et combien sont deja sans vie Et ctux qui restent changent tous. Des yeux qui nous ont vu grandir ! 370 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Each hour still steals our youth ; alas ! No hour will e'er the theft restore ; One thing there is that will not pass, — The heart I loved thee with of yore. That heart which plays in life its part, With love elate, with loss forlorn, Is still — through all — the child's pure heart My mother gave when I was born. That heart, where nothing new can light, Where old thoughts draw their cherish'd breath, It loves thee, dear, with all the might That life can wield in strife with death. If it of death the conqueror be, If there's in man some nobler part That wins him immortalitv, Then, love ! thou hast that deathless heart. Que de jeunesse emporte l'heure, Ce coeur oil plus rien ne penetre, Qui n'en rapporte jamais rien! D'oii plus rien desormaisne sort; Pourtantquelque chose demeure: Je t'aime avec ce que mon etre Je t'aime avec mon coeur ancien, A de plus fort contre la mort ; Monvraicoeur,celui quis'attache Et, s'il peut braver la mort Et souffre depuis qu'il est ne, ramie, Mon cocur d'enfant, le coeur sans Si le meilleur de l'homme est tel tache Que rien n'en perisse, je t'aime Que ma mere m'avait donne ; Avec ce que j'ai d'immortel. A PRAYER If you but knew the tears that fall For life unloved and fireside drear, Perchance before my lonely hall You would pass near. PRIERE Ahlsivoussavie/.commeonpleure Quelquefois devant ma demeure De vivre seul et sans foyers, Vous passeriez. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 371 If you but knew your power to thrill My drooping soul by one pure glance, You'd look towards my window-sill At times — by chance. If you but knew what soothing balm One heart can on another pour, Would you not sit — a sister calm — Beside my door ? And if you knew I loved you well, And loved you too with all my heart, You'd come perchance with me to dwell, And ne'er depart. Si vous saviez ce que fait naitre Vous vous assoiriez sous ma Dans l'ame triste un pur regard, porte Yuus regarderiez ma fenetre Comme une sceur. Comme au hasard. Si vous saviez que je vous aime, Si vous saviez quel baume ap- Surtout si vous saviez comment, port Vous entreriez peut-etre meme Au ceeur la presence d'un ceeur, Tout ^implement. In the best of his work Sully is engaged in analysing and recording his own experiences and srnsations. He is essentially a subjective poet ; — the mirror which reflects the fugitive lights and shades that flicker over the human heart. In Francois Coppee, on the other hand, the narrative and dramatic elements predomi- nate, lie passes out of himself, as it were, to observe the external world, to narrate stories of action, to paint scenes in the drama of real life. While he remained true to the vital tradi- 372 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. tions of the Parnassian group, he yet created a manner for himself. He had the rashness as well as the courage of the innovator. In the frank realism of his pictures of everyday life among the Parisian shopkeepers, clerks, and artisans, he oversteps, more often than Wordsworth, the border-line between poetry and prose. But each thought is expressed in easy rhythm and in clear, direct, natural language ; each detail of the scene is honestly observed, correctly drawn, carefully finished. The distinctive features of Coppee's verse were moulded by the circumstances of his childhood and early life. Born in Paris in 1842, Coppee was the son of a poorly paid War Office clerk, of whom he has painted a portrait in his autobiographical poem of " Olivier." To his mother's life of constraint and self-sacrifice he pays a thinly- veiled tribute in his " Sainte " (" Le Reliquaire "). Francois was their youngest child. A delicate boy, he had neither health nor inclination for sustained study at the Lycee St. Louis. He came to school with a sprig of lilac pressed into his grammar, and a ringing stanza of Alfred de Musset confounded with his Greek declensions. His training was acquired not in the class-room, but in real life. The dis- cipline came early enough. Before he was twenty-one, his father's death left his mother and unmarried sister dependent on his earnings SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 373 as a clerk. It was his dream to be a poet. Poor in pocket, rich in hope, he kept the end steadily in view, practising his art, continuing his studies, and eking out his meagre salary with copying or journalistic work. Between 1864 and 1869 he had published four slender volumes of verse. In January of the latter year his play " Le Passant " was produced at the Odeon. It made him famous. The blase taste of the decrepit Empire was fascinated by the virgin freshness of the little one-act dialogue : news- papers published every detail of the author's life ; cravats a la Coppee became the fashion. The Franco-Prussian war checked his success. The greatness of the national disaster drove Sully inwards ; it forced Coppee outwards. It strengthened Sully's tendency to strenuous seriousness ; it encouraged Coppee's inclination towards narrative and dramatic verse. Told off to do sentry-duty on the ramparts of Paris, shut up within its walls during the siege, an eye- witness to the horrors of the Commune, and, after peace was restored, struggling hard to gain his livelihood, he gives a vivid transcript of what he sees and feels at his own door. He learnt that, if the sympathy is genuine, and the feeling truthfully expressed, there is poetrv in the grocer's shop. To describe, in Parisian French, life as homely and familiar as that which Jasmin describes in the patois of Agen, is Coppee's gift. 374 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Born in Paris of Parisian parents, Coppee is a " Parisien Parisiennant," a Parisian of Parisians. Paris is his native place, his home, his mistress. Her streets were the stage of his humble tragedies ; each stone in her pavements was an acquaintance ; at every corner an association greeted him ; out of every alley flitted some phantom of his youth ; her plane- trees sheltered alike his first rhymes and his first loves. Paris was to him a personal living being. He loved to seek her outskirts, and thence to distinguish the various sounds which unite in the hum of her busy life ; to catch her tired sigh of relief as twilight creeps across the sky ; to watch her lights burst out, one by one, through the gathering darkness. He did not celebrate the glories of her great streets and palaces ; but he dedicated his genius to sing of the weak and forlorn, the pariahs of gay society, the obscure heroes and unknown heroines whom his pity detected among the newsvendors, nurses, grocers, and motherless child-mothers. None had treated Parisian life in Coppee's dis- tinctive vein. Literary Frenchmen, for the most part, were soldiers of fortune from the provinces, who sought Paris as the stage for the pursuit of fame ; they studied her Bohe- mianism as material for copy, and despised her respectability. To Copp6e, on the other hand, Paris was home. He was the poet of its SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 375 solid, unostentatious virtues ; the singer of the great, industrious, frugal, domestic city, which underlies the brilliant Paris of society, of novelists, and of politicians. Coppee has written in many moods. There is his love poetry ; there are the poems inspired by the scenes of the great war ; there are the genre pictures of domestic life, painted, for the most part, on too large a canvas for illustrative purposes ; there are, finally, the poems which show his directness and graphic force of narra- tive. Of two of these various moods, the follow- ing lines are examples : TO A GIRL ENGAGED * She like you had golden hair, She, whose eyes so soft and fair Left my heart all desolate ; Yet I'm glad, in my despair, For your wooing's happier fate. Why should grief our spirits sour ? All she gave was but one ilowcr ; Yet when lovers twain pass by, 1 can pray, " God on them shower Joy for all my misery." POUR UNE FIANCEE A MLLE. ALICE G. Elle t't.'.it blonde comme vous, Honteaceuxqu'aiKritladouleur! Celle dout lis yeux fins et doux Je n'ai ricn d'cllo qu'unc fleur ; Me laisserent l'ame blessee. Mais quand un couple d'amants Pourtant rnon cocur n'est pas passe, jaloux Jedis au bon Dieu : " Rer.dez-leur De vos bonheurs de fiancee. En felicity ma disgrace." 376 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. Though he's severed now from you, Yet your lover knows you true, And he sorrows when you weep. Did they weep, — I never knew, — Those sweet eyes of violet deep ? Let me make one humble vow : As I loved, may he love now ! Take the secret I confide. Grief my soul must ever bow : Lifelong joy be at your side ! Bien qu'il soit de vous separe, Qu'on vous aime comme j'ai- Votre ami se sent desire ; mais, II est triste comme vous l'etes. C'est le voeu que je me permets, Moi, j'ignore s'ils ont pleure, Le secret que je vous confie. Les charmants yeux de vio- J'ai de la peine pour jamais : lettes. Soyez heureuse pour la vie ! THE BURNT COTTAGE With swift and devastating stroke, The battle swept along this way, And the old house in ashes lay ; Look close ! you still can see the smoke. Some prints from Epinal hung there, A gun swung from the chimney hook ; The cabin wore defiant look, As though the foes of France to dare. LA CHAUMIERE INCENDIEE Pour Vceuvre du Sou des chaumieres. Fleau rapide et qui devore, Quelques images d'Epinal, La bataille a passe par la, Un fusil sur la cheminee ; Et la vieille maison brula ; C'Otait la chaumiere obstinee, Regardez, cela fume encore. Le vieux logis national. SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 377 You stumbled on the threshold rough ; So low the door, you had to stoop ; But on the fire there smoked the soup, Upon the shelf was bread enough. 'Twas dark and small, by time defaced ; The roof of oaten-thatch was made ; Yet, nestling in the alcove's shade, By the big bed a cot was placed. The spider with her lace of grey Across the ceiling used to sprawl ; Hut in the chinks of that old wall The twitt'ring swallows loved to play. Outside the door, at summer tide, In winter, by the fireside glow, The dwellers in that cottage low Knew yesterday both joy and pride. Against the storm a shield it made ; The children grew and flourished there ; The grandsire, when the noon was fair, Could bask beneath the trellis shade. Auseuilrugueuxoul'ontrebuche, Mais les trous nombreux du II fallait se baisser un peu ; vieux mur Mais la soupe etait sur le feu Etaient connus des hirondelles. Et lc pain etait dans la huche. L'cte, sur la porte, ct l'hiver, C'etait bien sombre et bien petit, Pros du foyer plein de lumiere, Avec un toit de paille chauve, Les habitants de la chaumicre Mais abritant sous l'humble al- Etaient encore heureux liier. cove Un berceau tout pres d'un grand C'etait l'abri contre Forage ; lit. La, les enfants avaient grandi ; L'ai'eul se chauffait a inidi L'araignee aux grises dentelles Sur le banc qu'une treille om- Habitait le plafond obscur ; brage. 378 THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE. They talked, in worldly ways unlearned, On which good girl they would decide To be the conscript-brother's bride, When he from soldiers' camp returned. Now, — past that home has swept the war, — Since those accursed Germans came, These ruins, black with smoke and flame, Stand where the cabin stood before. The grandsire asks for alms to-day ; He who, though only rich in heart, Cut always from his loaf a part For beggars tramping by the way. The son's by toil for wages bent ; Yet his young wife and children twain, Crouched in one squalid room, complain That they must starve to pay the rent. The brother, still to fame unknown, — They sent him to the war again, Not to return : on sunless plain, And German soil, he died — alone. Et Ton parlait nai'vcment Coupait largement dans la miche De choisir une brave lille Pour tous les pauvres du chemin. Pour le frere de la f ami lie Qui revenait du regiment. L'homme travaille dans les fer- mcs, — Maintenant, c'est apres la Et sa femme et ses deux petits guerre, Pleurent dans un affreux taudis Apres ces Allemands damnes ; Dont il ne peut payer les termes. Et ces pans de murs calcines Furent cette maison naguere. Le frere, soldat inconnu Qu'on a repris pour la cam- L'ai'eul aujourd'hui tend la main, pagne, Lui qui, n'etant pourtant pas Du fond de la froide Allemagne riche, N'est, helas ! jamais revenu... SOME MODERN FRENCH POETS. 379 But since our noble France will keep For ever, as she kept of old, Her pence, her silver coin, her gold, To dry the tears of those that weep, Oh, then, by that sad past we've known, Give now, give all, with open hand, ("rive for those homes that wasted stand, Give for those cradles overthrown. — Mai', puisque dans la noble I' ra II fut toujours, il reste encor, Sou, : die ou louis d'or, Urn: obole pour la soufirance, Au nom du douloureux passe, Donnez tous, donnez tout de suite, Donnez pour la maison detruite Et pour le berceau renverse ! THE END. PR1NTF.I) IN GREAT BRITAIN. Established 1798 T. NELSON AND SONS PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS THE NELSON LIBRARY OF NOTABLE BOOKS. Uniform with this Volume and same Price. FORTHCOMING VOLUMES. THE RIVER WAR. Winston Churchill. The tale of the great expedition in which Lord Kitchener first won fame is of the highest interest at a time when the writer and the chief figure in his narrative are con- trolling the destinies of Britain. (-dug- 4-) TRUE TALES OF MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE. Mrs. Le Blond. In this volume Mrs. Le Blond tells, for the benefit of those who are not mountaineers, some of the great stories of mountaineering. {Sept. i.) THE JOURNAL OF THE DE GONCOURTS. This book contains innumerable portraits and anecdotes of such men and women as Renan, Victor Hugo, Zola, Daudet, Turgenev, Sainte-Beuve, Gambetta, and Sarah Bernhardt. {Oct. 6.) ii ALREADY ISSUED. THE STORY OF MY STRUGGLES. Arminius Vambery. This is an autobiography of the life of one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived. Vambery was a Hungarian scholar who, in the middle of last century, penetrated into the remotest parts of Central Asia. He was a strenuous advocate of British claims, and closely in touch with the British Government. KNOWN TO THE POLICE. Thomas Holmes. In this book Mr. Holmes continues his experiences as a police court missionary. FIFTEEN THOUSAND MILES IN A KETCH. Captain Raymond du Baty. Alone in a little fishing ketch of forty-five tons Captain du Baty sailed first to Rio de Janeiro, and then crossed the South Atlantic to the little island of Tristran da Cunha. Sailing southward to the Antarctic seas, he spent many months upon the almost unknown island of Kerguelen, which American whalers call the Island of Desolation. He finally laid to outside Melbourne Harbour in July 1908, having covered 15,000 miles and made a voyage that was one of the most brilliant feats of modern seamanship. Illustrated by photographs taken by the author. A REAPING. E. F. Benson. A year's diary of life in London and in the country of two young married people. There is a slender thread of narrative, with many vivid incidents and pictures interspersed. FOUR FRENCH ADVENTURERS. Stoddard Dewey. In this book Stoddard Dewey has told the authentic tale of four incredible criminals. Every word can be justified from the records of the law courts. in SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. Commander E. Hamilton Currey. Iii this book Commander Currey tells a little-known, but most romantic story — that of the corsairs and pirates of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. They played a large part in the history of Europe and produced many leaders as great as any of the buccaneers of the Spanish Main. SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD. Augustine Birrell,K.C.,M. P. Sir Frank Lockwood, who was Solicitor-General in Mr. Gladstone's last administration, was one of the best- loved men of his time. The bluff Yorkshireman carried a breath of fresh air into politics and law and wherever he moved. Like Lord Bowen, he was one of that rare class — a true legal humorist, and his sayings will long be preserved as a tradition of the Bar. The book is writ- ten by Mr. Augustine Birrell, and is illustrated by several delightful cartoons and caricatures from Sir Frank's pen. THE GREAT ANDES OF THE EQUATOR. Edward Whymper. This is Mr. Whymper's second great travel book, the continuation to "Scrambles Amongst the Alps."' He was the pioneer of the great volcanoes of Ecuador, and m lie the first ascents of Chimbora/.o and Cotopaxi. The book is fully illustrated. POVERTY: A STUDY OF TOWN LIFE. B. Seebohm Rowntree. This is the first and most famous of Mr. Rowntree's sociological studies. Taking a small area in the city of York, he examined every detail of its economy, ami Ids careful and scientific enquiry has provided a basis oi solid lacl tor all future social advance. NELSON LIBRARY OF NOTABLE BOOKS CONDENSED LIST. Collections and Recollections, (ist The Great Boer War. [& 2nd Series.) life of John Nicholson. Dean Hole's " Memories." Life of Gladstone. Psalms in Human Life. Wild Life in a Southern County. The Forest. | The Golden Age. Sir Henry Hawkins's Reminis- Selected Essays. [cences. Life of Lord Russell of Killowen. Making of Modern Egypt. From the Cape to Cairo. Life of Alexander Hamilton. A Book about the Garden. Culture and Anarchy. Life of Frank Buckland. With Kitchener to Khartum. Unveiling of Lhasa. Life of Lord Dufferin. Life of Dean Stanley. Popular Astronomy. Round the World on a Wheel. Dream Days. | Path to Rome. The Life of Canon Ainger. Reminiscences of Lady Dorothy A Social Departure. [Nevill. Letters and Recollections of Sir Literature and Dogma. [W. Scott. Sermons by the Rev. C. H. Spur- Sir Frank Lockwood. [geon. The Making of a Frontier. Life of General Gordon. Collected Poems of Henry Newbolt. Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden. The Ring and the Book. The Alps from End to End. The English Constitution. The Life of Cobden. | In India. Life of Parnell. | Havelock's March. Up from Slavery. | MvConftdenc.es. Where Black Rules White. Historical Mysteries. Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth The Strenuous Life. [Century. Memories Grave and Gay. Recollections of Sir Algernon West. Life of Danton. | A Modern Utopia. A Pocketful of Sixpences. The Romance of a Proconsul. A Book about Roses. Random Reminiscences. The London Police Courts. The Amateur Poacher. The Bancrofts. | At the Works. Mexico as I Saw It. Eighteenth Century Vignettes. The Great Andes of the Equator. The Early History of C. J. Fox. Through the Heart of Patagonia. Browning as a Religious Teacher. Paris to New York. Life of Lewis Carroll. A Naturalist in the Guianas. The Mantle of the East. Letters of Dr. John Brown. Jubilee Book of Cricket. By Desert Ways to Baghdad. Some Old Love Stories. Fields, Factories, and Workshops. Life of Lord Lawrence. Problems of Poverty. The Burden of the Balkans. Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay —I. & II. What I Saw in Russia. Wild England of To-day Leav es from an Inspect or's Logbook. Through Finland in Carts. Voyage of the "Discovery." — I.&II. Felicity in France. Mv Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus. John Bright. | Poverty. Sea Wolves of the Mediterranean. Famous Modern Battles. The Cruise of the " Falcon." A. K.H.B. (A Volume of Selections.) The People of the Abyss. Grain or Chaff ? I Life at the Zoo. The Four Men. | A Reaping. Cruise of the " Alerte." Four French Adventurers. Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography. 15,000 Miles in a Ketch. Known to the Police. The Story of My Struggles. The City of the World. The Panama Canal. | The Island. THOMAS NELSON AND SONS. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. mm f APR 1 3 1998 QUARTER LC ,-,A UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 000145 044 4 DC5 E71p 1915