Edward Harrison Barker 
 
TWO SUMMERS IX GUYENNE 
 

Two Summers in Guyenne 
 
 H Cbronicle of tbe Mapsifce anfc Matersifce 
 
 EDWARD HARRISON BARKER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 WAYFARING IN FRANCE,' 'WANDERINGS BY SOUTHERN WATERS,' ETC 
 
 WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON 
 
 $ubli0lurs in ©rotnarg to $}er ^ajestj) the <Qxx«n 
 1894 
 
 [A II rights reserved ] 
 
P R E F A C E. 
 
 Of the four summers which the writer of this 
 ' Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside ' spent 
 by Aquitanian rivers, the greater part of two pro- 
 vided the impressions that were used in ' Wander- 
 ings by Southern Waters.' Although the earlier 
 pages of the present work, describing- the wild 
 district of the Upper Dordogne, through which the 
 author passed into Guyenne, belong, in the order 
 of time, to the beginning of his scheme of travel 
 in Aquitaine, the summers of 1892 and 1893, s p ent 
 chiefly in Perigord and the Bordelais, furnished the 
 matter of which this volume is mainly composed. 
 Hence the title that has been given to it. 
 
 It may be thought that there is not a sufficient 
 separation of interest, geographically speaking, be- 
 tween the tracts of country described in the two 
 books. The author regrets that it is not possible 
 to convey in a few words an idea of the extent of 
 the old English Duchy of Aquitaine as it was 
 defined by the Treaty of Bretigny. Still less easy 
 would it be to deal rapidly with its physical con- 
 trasts, its relics of the past, and its historical asso- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ciations. Surely no writer could pretend to have 
 exhausted the interest of such a subject even in 
 two volumes. 
 
 Before the final expulsion of the English, Aqui- 
 taine was gradually taking the name of Guyenne ; 
 but when this designation came to be definitively 
 applied, at the time of the Renaissance, Gascony 
 was not included in it, nor were Poitou, Saintonge, 
 Aneoumois and Limousin. Even when thus re- 
 stricted in its meaning, Guyenne still represented a 
 very considerable part of France, including as it 
 did the regions or sub-provinces known as the Bor- 
 delais, Perigord, the Agenais, the Rouergue, and 
 the Quercy. 
 
 If the author's work during the fifteen years that 
 he has been living in France has served to make 
 the people, the scenery, and the antiquities of this 
 ever-fascinating country somewhat better known to 
 those who speak the English language, he believes 
 that it is to his favourite mode of travelling that such 
 good fortune must be largely attributed. His faring 
 on foot has caused him to see much that he would 
 otherwise have never seen ; it has also widened his 
 knowledge of his fellow-men, and has helped him 
 to control prejudices which are not to be entirely 
 overcome, but ever remain an insidious snare to 
 the traveller and student of manners. 
 
 E. H. B. 
 
 Paris, May, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 l'AGE 
 
 THE UPPER DORDOGNE ----- i 
 
 ACROSS THE MOORS OF THE CORREZE - - ' 2 9 
 
 IN THE VISCOUNTY OF TURENNE - - - - 66 
 
 IN UPPER PERIGORD - - - - - 88 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE VEZERE - - - - 151 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE ISLE - - - - 1 80 
 
 FROM PERIGUEUX TO RIBERAC (BY BRANt6me) - - 2l8 
 
 THE DESERT OF THE DOUBLE - - - 244 
 
 A CANOE VOYAGE ON THE DRONNE - - - 28 1 
 
 BY THE LOWER DORDOGNE - - - - " 3 22 
 
 BY THE GARONNE ------ 378 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 DOORWAY OF THE ABBEY CHURCH AT BEAULIEU 
 
 (correze) ----- Fro?itispiece 
 
 A BIT OF AUVERGNE I 
 
 THE DORDOGNE AT LA BOURBOULE - - 3 
 
 A MOORLAND -WIDOW - - - - 1 5 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE RUE - - - - 2& 
 
 A WOMAN OF THE CORREZE - - - -29 
 
 A PEASANT OF THE MOORS - - - '34 
 
 PLOUGHING THE MOOR - - - - "53 
 
 A GORGE IN THE CORREZE - - - - "55 
 
 TURENNE ------- 66 
 
 A PEASANT OF THE CAUSSE - - - - 76 
 
 CHATEAU DE FENELON - - - - - 96 
 
 RETURNING FROM THE FIELDS ... - IO o 
 BEYNAC ------- 109 
 
 CLOISTERS OF THE ABBEY OF CADOUIN - - - 143 
 
 CHATEAU DE BIRON : THE LODGE - 146 
 
 TRUFFLE-HUNTERS - - - - - " I 5 I 
 
 CHATEAU DES EYZIES ----- 154 
 
 CHATEAU DE HAUTEFORT - - - - " I 79 
 
 A HOUSE AT PERIGUEUX - - - - 180 
 
 THE TOUR DE VESONI". - - " - - 214 
 
 THE 'NORMAN GATE' AT PERIGUEUX - - - 2l6 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE DRONNE AT BOURDEILLES - - - - 2l8 
 
 THE ABBEY OF BRANTOME - - - - - 222 
 
 CHATEAU DE BOURDEILLES - - 226 
 
 THE DRONNE AT COUTRAS - - - - - 281 
 
 A STREET AT ST. EMILION ----- 322 
 
 CHATEAU DE MONTAIGNE - - - " " 3 2 9 
 
 MONOLITHIC CHURCH AND DETACHED TOWER AT ST. EMILION 364 
 CONVENT OF THE CORDELIERS AT ST. EMILION - -3^7 
 
 TOUR DE L'HORLOGE AT LIBOURNE - - - 374 
 
 THE HILL OF FRONSAC ----- 376 
 
 BAZAS - - - " " " - 3** J 
 
 INTERIOR OF THE CHATEAU DE VILLANDRAUT - - 385 
 
 THE GARONNE ------ 387 
 
 CHATEAU DE MONTESQUIEU - 4°° 
 
 THE GARONNE AT BORDEAUX - 406 
 
 THE PALAIS GALLIEN AT BORDEAUX - - - 407 
 
THE UPPER DORDOGNE. 
 
 i^^r^^S^K32^A first time 
 
 I had left the vol- 
 canic mountains of 
 Auvergne and had 
 passed through 
 Mont - Dore and 
 La Bourboule, 
 following the 
 course of the Dor- 
 dogne that flowed 
 through the valley 
 with the bounding 
 spirits of a young 
 mountaineer de- 
 scending for the 
 towards 
 
 m£ the 
 
 great 
 
 A BIT OF AUVERGNE. 
 
 plains 
 
 ^JJ^ where the large 
 
 towns and cities 
 
 lie with all their 
 
 fancied wonders and untasted charm. But these 
 
 towns and cities were afar off. The young Dor- 
 
 dogne had a very long journey to make before 
 
 i 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 reaching the plains of Perigord. Nearly the whole 
 of this distance the stream would have to thread its 
 way through deep-cut gorges and ravines, where 
 the dense forest reaches down to the stony channel, 
 save where the walls of rock rising hundreds of feet 
 on either side are too steep for vegetation. Above 
 the forest and the rock is the desert moor, horrible 
 to the peasant, but to the lover of nature beautiful 
 when seen in its dress of purple heather and golden 
 broom. 
 
 I had not been long on the road this day, when 
 1 saw coming towards me an equipage more 
 picturesquely interesting than any I had ever met in 
 the Champs-Elysees. It was a ramshackle little 
 cart laden with sacks and a couple of children, and 
 drawn by a pair of shaggy sheep-dogs. Cords 
 served for harness. A man was running by the 
 side, and it was as much as he could do to keep up 
 with the animals. This use of dogs is considered 
 cruel in England, but it often keeps them out of 
 mischief, and I have never seen one in harness that 
 looked unhappy. Traces must help a dog to grow 
 in his own esteem, and to work out his ideal of the 
 high destiny reserved for him ; or why does he, 
 when tied under a cart to which a larger quadruped 
 is harnessed, invariably try to persuade himself and 
 others that he is pulling the load up the hill, and 
 that the horse or donkey is an impostor ? 
 
 The width of the Mont-Dore valley decreased 
 rapidly, and I entered the gorge of the Dordogne, 
 
THE GORGE OF THE UPPER DORDOGNE 
 
 where basaltic rocks were thrown up in savage 
 grandeur, vividly contrasting with which were bands 
 
 Jt 
 
 and patches of meadow, brilliantly green. Yellow 
 spikes of agrimony and the fine pink flowers of the 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 musk-mallow mingled with the wiry broom and the 
 waving bracken about the rocks. 
 
 It was September, but the summer heat had re- 
 turned, and when the road passed through a beech- 
 wood the shade was welcome. Here over the mossy 
 ground rambled the enchanter's nightshade, still 
 carrying its frail white flowers, which really have a 
 weird appearance in the twilight of the woods. 
 The plant has not been called dree without a 
 reason. Under the beeches there were raspberry 
 canes with some fruit still left upon them. After 
 leaving the wood, the scene became more wild and 
 craggy. The basalt, bare and sombre, or sparsely 
 flecked with sedums, their stalks and fleshy leaves 
 now very red, rose sheer from the middle of the 
 narrow valley, adown which the stream sped like 
 fleeing Arethusa, now turning to the right, now to 
 the left, foaming over rocks or sparkling like the 
 facets of countless gems between margins of living 
 green. 
 
 Then I left the valley in order to pass through 
 the village of St. Sauve on the right-hand hill. 
 There was little there worth seeing besides a very 
 ancient Romanesque archway, or, as some think, 
 detached portico leading to the church. 
 
 Many of the women of St. Sauve wore the black 
 cap or bonnet of Mont-Dore, which hangs to the 
 shoulders. It is a hideous coiffure, but an interest- 
 ing relic of the past. The prototype of it was worn 
 by the chatelaines of the twelfth century. Then, 
 
AN IMAGINATIVE COBBLER 
 
 however, it had a certain stateliness which it lacks 
 now. It is only to be seen in a very small district. 
 
 I consulted some of the people of St. Sauve re- 
 specting my plan of following the Dordogne through 
 its gorges. They did not laugh at me, but they 
 looked at me in a way which meant that if better 
 brains had not been given to them than to me their 
 case would be indeed unfortunate. I was advfsed 
 to see a cobbler who was considered an authority on 
 the byways of the district. I found him sitting by 
 the open window of his little shop driving hob-nails 
 into a pair of Sunday boots. When I told him what 
 I had made up my mind to do, he shook his head, 
 and, laying down his work, said : 
 
 4 You will never do it. There are rocks, and 
 rocks, and rocks. Even the fishermen, who go 
 where anybody can go, do not try to follow the 
 Dordogne very far. There are ravines — and 
 ravines. Bon Dieu ! And the forest ! You will 
 be lost ! You will be devoured !' 
 
 To be devoured would be the climax of mis- 
 fortune. I wished to know what animals would 
 be likely to stop my wayfaring in this effectual 
 manner. 
 
 ' Are there wolves ?' 
 
 'No; none have been seen for years.' 
 
 ' Are there boars ?' 
 
 1 Yes, plenty of them.' 
 
 ' But boars,' I said, ' are not likely to interfere 
 with me.' 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 1 That is true/ replied the local wiseacre, ' so long 
 as you keep walking ; but if you fall down a rock — 
 ah!' 
 
 1 I would not care to have you for a companion, 
 with all your local knowledge,' I thought, as I 
 thanked the cobbler and turned down a very stony 
 path towards the Dordogne. It is always prudent 
 to follow the advice of those who are better informed 
 than yourself ; but it is much more amusing — for 
 awhile — to go your own way. I had lunched, and 
 was prepared to battle with the desert for several 
 hours. It was now past mid-day, and notwithstand- 
 ing the altitude, the heat was very great. But for 
 the discomfort that we endure from the sun's rays 
 we are more than amply compensated by the 
 pleasure that the recollection brings us in winter, 
 when the north wind is moaning through the sunless 
 woods and the dreary fog hangs over the cities. 
 When I again reached the Dordogne there was no 
 longer any road, but only a rough path through high 
 bracken, heather and broom. Snakes rustled as I 
 passed, and hid themselves among the stones. The 
 cobbler had forgotten to include these with the 
 dangers to be encountered. To my mind they were 
 much more to be dreaded than the boars, for these 
 stony solitudes swarm with adders, of which the 
 most venomous kind is the red viper, or aspic. Its 
 bite has often proved mortal. 
 
 The path entered the forest which covers the steep 
 sides of the ever-w T inding gorge of the Dordogne 
 
ROCKS AND FOREST 
 
 for many leagues, only broken where the rocks are 
 so nearly vertical that no soil has ever formed upon 
 them, except in the little crevices and upon the 
 ledges, where the hellebore, the sedum, the broom, 
 and other unambitious plants which love sterility 
 flourish where the foot of man has never trod. 
 
 The rocks were now of gneiss and mica-schist, 
 and the mica was so abundant as to cause many a 
 crag and heap of shale to glitter in the sun, as 
 though there had been a mighty shattering of 
 mirrors here into little particles which had fallen 
 upon everything. There was, however, no lack of 
 contrast. To the shining rocks and the fierce sun- 
 shine, which seemed to concentrate its fire wherever 
 it fell in the open spaces of the deep gorge, succeeded 
 the ancient forest and its cool shade ; but the darkly- 
 lying shadows were ever broken with patches of 
 sunlit turf. Pines and firs reached almost to the 
 water's edge, and the great age of some of them 
 was a proof of the little value placed upon timber in 
 a spot so inaccessible. One fir had an enormous 
 bole fantastically branched like that of an English 
 elm, and on its mossy bark was a spot such as the 
 hand might cover, fired by a wandering beam, that 
 awoke recollections of the dream - haunted woods 
 before the illusion of their endlessness was lost. 
 
 The afternoon was not far spent, when I began 
 to feel a growing confidence in the value of the 
 cobbler's information, and a decreasing belief in my 
 own powers. It became more and more difficult, 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 then quite impossible, to keep along the bank of the 
 stream. What is understood by a bank disappeared, 
 and in its stead were rocks, bare and glittering, on 
 which the lizards basked, or ran in safety, because 
 they were at home, but which I could only pass by 
 a flank movement. To struggle up a steep hill, 
 over slipping shale-like stones, or through an under- 
 growth of holly and brambles, then to scramble 
 down and to climb again, repeating the exercise 
 every few hundred yards, may have a hygienic 
 charm for those who are tormented by the dread of 
 obesity, but to other mortals it is too suggestive of a 
 holiday in purgatory. 
 
 Having gone on in this fashion for some distance, 
 I lay down, streaming from every pore, and panting 
 like a hunted hare beside a little rill that slid singing 
 between margins of moss, amid Circe's white 
 flowers and purple flashes of cranesbill. Here I 
 examined my scratches and the state of things gener- 
 ally. The result of my reflections was to admit that 
 the cobbler was right, that these ravines of the 
 Upper Dordogne were practically impassable, and 
 that the only rational way of following the river 
 would be to keep sometimes on the hills and some- 
 times in the gorge, as the unforeseen might deter- 
 mine. Hitherto, I had not troubled to inquire 
 where I should pass the night, and this consideration 
 alone would have compelled me to depart from my 
 fantastic scheme. After La Bourboule there is not 
 a village or hamlet in the valley of the Dordogne 
 
A CONSERVATIVE WOMAN 
 
 for a distance of at least thirty miles, allowing for 
 the winding of the stream. 
 
 After a hard climb I reached the plateau, where I 
 saw before me a w T ide moor completely covered with 
 bracken and broom. Here I looked at the map, 
 and decided to make towards a village called Mes- 
 seix, lying to the east in a fork formed by the 
 Dordogne and its tributary the Chavannon. Going 
 by the compass at first, I presently struck a road 
 leading across the moor in the right direction. I 
 passed through two wretched hamlets, in neither of 
 which was there an auberge where I could relieve 
 my thirst. At the second one a cottage was pointed 
 out to me where I was told a woman sold wine. 
 When, after sinking deep in mud, I found her 
 amidst a group of hovels, and the preliminary saluta- 
 tion was given, the following conversation passed 
 between us : 
 
 ' They tell me you sell wine.' 
 
 4 They tell you w T rong — I don't.' 
 
 ' Do you sell milk, then ?' 
 
 1 No ; I have no beasts.' 
 
 As I was going away she kindly explained that 
 she only kept enough wine for herself. I had evi- 
 dently not impressed her favourably. Although I 
 think water a dangerous drink in France, except 
 where it can be received directly from the hand of 
 Nature, far from human dwellings, I was obliged to 
 beg some in this place, and run the risk of carrying 
 away unfriendly microbes. 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Having left the hovels behind me, the country 
 became less barren or more cultivated. There were 
 fields of rye, buckwheat, and potatoes, but always 
 near them lay the undulating moor, gilded over with 
 the flowers of a dwarf broom. It was evening when 
 I descended into a wide valley from which came the 
 chime of cattle-bells, mingled with the barking- of 
 dogs and the voices of children, who were driving 
 the animals slowly homeward. There were green 
 meadows below me, over which was a yellow gleam 
 from the fading afterglow of sunset, and in the air 
 was that odour which, rising from grassy valleys 
 at the close of day, even in regions burnt by the 
 southern summer, makes the wandering Englishman 
 fancy that some wayfaring wind has come laden with 
 the breath of his native land. Suddenly turning a 
 corner, I so startled a little peasant girl sitting on a 
 bank in the early twilight with a flock of goats about 
 her, that she opened her mouth and stared at me as 
 though Croquemitaine had really shown himself at 
 last. The goats stopped eating, and fixed upon me 
 their eyes like glass marbles ; they, too, thought 
 that I could be no good. 
 
 I hoped that the village of Messeix was in this 
 valley ; but no, I had to cross it and climb the 
 opposite hill. On the other side I found the place 
 that I had fixed upon for my night quarters. 
 
 Very small and very poor, it lies in a region where 
 the land generally is so barren that but a small part 
 of it has been ever broken by the plough ; where 
 
SEARCHING FOR A NIGHT'S LODGING u 
 
 the summers are hot and dry, and the winters long 
 and cruel. Although in the watershed of the 
 Gironde, it touches Auvergne, and its altitude makes 
 it partake very much of the Auvergnat climate, 
 which, with the exception of the favoured Limagne 
 Valley, is harsh, to an extent that has caused many 
 a visitor to flee from Mont-Dore in the month of 
 August. In the deep gorges of the Dordogne and 
 its tributaries, the snow rarely lies more than a few 
 days upon the ground, whereas upon the wind- 
 swept plateau above the scanty population have to 
 contend with the rigours of that French Siberia 
 which may be said to commence here on the west, 
 and to extend eastward over the whole mass of 
 metamorphic and igneous rocks, which is termed 
 the great central plateau of France, although it lies 
 far south of the true centre of the country. 
 
 At the first auberge where I applied for a night's 
 lodging, an elderly woman with a mournful face 
 declined to take me in, and gave no reason. When 
 I had left, she came after me and said, with her 
 eyes full of tears : 
 
 ' I have a great trouble in the house, that is why 
 I sent you away.' 
 
 I understood what she meant ; somebody dear to 
 her was dying. A man who was listening said his 
 brother-in-law, the baker, was also an innkeeper, 
 and he offered to take me to the auberge. I gladly 
 consented, for I was fearful of being obliged to 
 tramp on to some other place. Presently I was in 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 a laree, low room, which was both kitchen and 
 baker's shop. On shelves were great wheel-shaped 
 loaves (they are called miches in the provinces), 
 some about two feet in diameter, made chiefly of 
 rye with a little wheaten flour. Filled sacks were 
 ranged along the wall. In a deep recess were the 
 kneading-trough, and the oven, now cold. The 
 broad rural hearth, with its wood-fire and sooty 
 chimney, the great pot for the family soup hanging 
 to a chain, took up a large share of the remaining 
 space. I sat upon a rickety chair beside a long 
 table that had seen much service, but was capable 
 of seeing a great deal more, for it had been made 
 so as to outlast generations of men. Bare-footed 
 children ran about upon the black floor, and a thin, 
 gaunt young woman, who wore very short petticoats, 
 which revealed legs not unlike those of the table, 
 busied herself with the fire and the pot. She was 
 the sister of the children, and had been left in 
 charge of the house while her father and mother 
 were on a journey. She accepted me as a lodger, 
 but for awhile she was painfully taciturn. This, 
 however, her scanty knowledge of French, and the 
 fact that a stranger even of the class of small 
 commercial travellers was a rare bird in the village, 
 fully accounted for. The place was not cheerful, 
 but as I listened to the crickets about the hearth, 
 and watched the flames leap up and lick the black 
 pot, my spirits rose. Presently the church bell 
 sounded, dong, dong, dong. 
 
AT A VILLAGE BAKER'S 
 
 1 Why are they tolling the bell ?' I asked. 
 
 1 Because,' replied the gaunt young woman, ' a 
 man has died in the village.' 
 
 By pressing her to speak, she explained that while 
 a corpse lay unburied the bell was tolled three 
 times in the day — early in the morning, at mid-day, 
 and at nightfall. The conversation was in dark- 
 ness, save such light as the fire gave. It was not 
 until the soup was ready that the lamp was lighted. 
 Then the young woman, addressing me abruptly, 
 said : 
 
 1 Cut up your bread for your soup.' 
 
 I did as I was told, for I always try to accommo- 
 date myself to local customs, and never resent the 
 rough manners of well-intentioned people. The 
 bread was not quite black, but it was very dark 
 from the amount of rye that was in it. The soup 
 was water flavoured with a suggestion of fat bacon, 
 whatever vegetables happened to be in the way, 
 and salt. This fluid, poured over bread — when the 
 latter is not boiled with it — is the chief sustenance 
 of the French peasant. It was all that the family 
 now had for their evening meal, and in five minutes 
 everyone had finished. They drank no wine ; it 
 was too expensive for them, the nearest vineyard 
 being far away. A bottle, however, was placed 
 before me, but the quality was such that I soon 
 left it. To get some meat for me the village had to 
 be scoured, and the result was a veal cutlet. 
 
 I was not encouraged to sit up late. As the 
 
14 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 eldest daughter of the inn showed me my night 
 quarters, she said : 
 
 ' Your room is not beautiful, but the bed is 
 clean.' 
 
 This was quite true. The room, in accordance 
 with a very frequent arrangement in these rural 
 auberges, was not used exclusively for sleeping 
 purposes, but also for the entertainment of guests, 
 especially on fair and market days, when space is 
 precious. There was a table with a bench for the 
 use of drinkers. There were, moreover, three beds, 
 but I was careful to ascertain that none would be 
 occupied except by myself. I would sooner have 
 slept on a bundle of hay in the loft than have had 
 an unknown person snoring in the same room with 
 me. One has always some prejudice to overcome. 
 The bed was not soft, and the hempen sheets were as 
 coarse as canvas, but these trifles did not trouble me. 
 I listened to the song of the crickets on the hearth 
 downstairs until drowsiness beckoned sleep and 
 consciousness of the present lost its way in sylvan 
 labyrinths by the Dordogne. 
 
 At six o'clock the next morning I was walking 
 about the village, and I entered the little church, 
 already filled with people. It was Sunday, and this 
 early mass was to be a funeral one. The man for 
 whom the bell w r as tolled last night was soon 
 brought in, the coffin swathed in a common sheet. 
 It was borne up the nave towards the catafalque, 
 the rough carpentry of which showed how poor the 
 
A MOORLAND WIDOW 
 
1 6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 parish was. Following closely was an old and bent 
 woman with her head wrapped in a black shawl. 
 She had hardly gone a few steps, when her grief 
 burst out into the most dismal wailing I had ever 
 heard, and throughout the service her melancholy 
 cries made other women cover their faces, and tears 
 start from the eyes of hard-featured, weather-beaten 
 men. 
 
 Most of the women present wore the very ugly 
 headgear which is the most common of all in 
 Auvergne and the Correze, namely, a white cap 
 covered by a straw bonnet something of the coal- 
 scuttle pattern. There were many communicants 
 at this six o'clock mass, and what struck me as 
 being the reverse of what one might suppose the 
 right order of things, was that the women advanced 
 in life wore white veils as they knelt at the altar 
 rails, while those worn by the young, whose troubles 
 were still to come, were black. These veils were 
 carried in the hand during the earlier part of the 
 rite. Throughout a very wide region of Southern 
 France the custom prevails. The church belonged 
 to different ages. Upon the exterior of the Roman- 
 esque apse were uncouth carvings in relief of strange 
 animal figures. They were more like lions than 
 any other beasts, but their outlines were such as 
 children might have drawn. 
 
 I returned to the inn. The baker had come back, 
 and was preparing to heat his oven with dry broom. 
 I learned that he had not only to bake the bread 
 
A SUNDAY MORNING SCENE 
 
 that he sold, but also the coarser rye loaves which 
 were brought in by those who had their own flour, 
 but no oven. Three francs was the charge for my 
 dinner, bed, and breakfast. The score settled and 
 civilities exchanged, I walked out of Messeix, ex- 
 pecting to strike the valley of the Dordogne not 
 very far to the south. The landscape was again 
 that of the moorland. On each side of the long, 
 dusty line called a road spread the brown turf, 
 spangled with the pea-flowers of the broom or 
 stained purple with heather. There were no trees, 
 but two wooden crosses standing against the gray 
 sky looked as high as lofty pines. I met little 
 bands of peasants hurrying- to church, and I reached 
 the village of Savennes just before the grand messe. 
 Many people were sitting or standing outside the 
 church — even sitting on the cemetery wall. When 
 the bell stopped and they entered, literally like a 
 flock of sheep into a fold, all could not find room 
 inside, so the late-comers sat upon the ground in 
 the doorway, or as near as they could get to it. 
 As the people inside knelt or stood, so did they 
 who had been left, not out in the cold, but in the 
 heat, for the sun had broken through the mist, and 
 the weather was sultry. As I walked round the 
 church I found women sitting with open books and 
 rosaries in their hands near the apse, amidst the 
 yarrow and mulleins of forgotten grave mounds. 
 They were following the service by the open window. 
 I lingered about the cemetery reading the quaint 
 
18 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 inscriptions and noting the poor emblems upon 
 wooden crosses not yet decayed, picking here and 
 there a wild flower, and watching the butterflies 
 and bees until the old priest, who was singing the 
 mass in a voice broken by time, having called upon 
 his people to ' lift up their hearts,' they answered : 
 1 Habemus ad Dominum! 
 
 I had a simple lunch at a small inn in this village, 
 where I was watched with much curiosity by an old 
 man in a blouse with a stiff shirt-collar rising to his 
 ears, and a nightcap with tassel upon his head. 
 The widow who kept the inn had a son who offered 
 to walk with me as far as some chapel in the gorge 
 of the Chavannon. We were not long in reaching 
 the gorge, the view of which from the edge of the 
 plateau was superbly savage. Descending a very 
 rugged path through the forest that covered the 
 sides of the deep fissure, save where the stark rock 
 refused to be clothed, we came to a small chapel, 
 centuries old, under a natural wall of gneiss, but 
 deep in the shade of overhanging boughs. It was 
 dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and on St. John's 
 Day mass was said in it, and the spot was the 
 scene of a pilgrimage. Outside was a half-decayed 
 moss-green wooden platform on which the priest 
 stood while he preached to the assembled pilgrims. 
 The young man left me, and I went on alone into 
 the more sombre depths of the gorge, where I 
 reached the single line of railway that runs here 
 through some of the wildest scenery in France. I 
 
IN THE GORGE OF THE CHEVANNON 19 
 
 kept on the edge of it, where walking, although very 
 rough, was easier than on the steep side of the split 
 that had here taken place in the earth's crust. 
 Upon the narrow stony strip of comparatively level 
 ground the sun's rays fell with concentrated ardour, 
 and alone it was a brilliant bloom of late summer 
 flowers — of camomile, St. John's wort, purple loose- 
 strife, hemp-agrimony and lamium. At almost every 
 step there was a rustle of a lizard or a snake. The 
 melancholy cry of the hawk was the only sound 
 of bird-life. Near rocks of dazzling mica-schist was 
 a miserable hut with a patch of buckwheat reaching 
 to the stream. A man standing amidst the white 
 flowers of the late-sown crop said, in answer to my 
 questioning, that I could not possibly reach the 
 village of Port-Dieu without walking upon the line 
 and through the tunnels. 
 
 When I had left him about fifty yards behind, his 
 curiosity proved more than he could bear in silence ; 
 so he called out to me, in the bad French that is 
 spoken hereabouts by those who use it only as the 
 language of strangers : ' QuelmcHier qtie vousfaites ?' 
 
 I waved my hand in reply and left him to his 
 conjectures. 
 
 On I went, now over the glittering stones, now 
 wading through the pink flowers of saponaria, then 
 in a mimic forest of tall angelica by the water's edge, 
 until I realized that the peasant's information was 
 sound — that it was impossible to walk through this 
 gorge except upon the railway. 
 
20 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Presently the rocks rose in front of me and the 
 line disappeared into the darkness of a tunnel. I 
 did not like the idea of entering this black hole, 
 for I had brought no candle with me, but the 
 prospect of climbing the rocks was still more for- 
 bidding. It proved to be a short and straight 
 tunnel with daylight shining at the farther end. 
 After this came another short one, but the third 
 was much longer and had a curve ; consequently I 
 was soon in total darkness. The only danger to 
 be feared was a passing train, so I felt with my 
 stick for the wires between the rock and the metals, 
 and crept along by them. From being broiled by 
 the sun ten minutes before I was now shivering 
 from the cold. I longed to see again the flowers 
 basking under the warm sky, and to hear the grass- 
 hoppers' happy song. By-and-by I saw the blessed 
 light flashing at the end of the black bore. When 
 I came out again into the sunshine, I was following, 
 not the Chavannon, but the Dordogne. 
 
 The gorge widened into a valley, where there 
 were scattered cottages, cows, sheep, and goats. 
 Here I found a fair road on the western side of 
 the river, in the department of the Correze, and 
 being now free of mind, I loitered on the way, 
 picking strawberries and watching the lizards. It 
 was dark when, descending again to the level of 
 the Dordogne, I sought a lodging in the little village 
 of Port-Dieu. I stopped at a cottage inn, where an 
 old man soon set to work at the wood-fire and 
 
MORNING BY THE DORDOGNE 
 
 cooked me a dinner of eggs and bacon and fried 
 potatoes. He was a rough cook, but one very 
 anxious to please. The room where I passed the 
 night had a long table in it, and benches. There 
 was no blanket on the bed, only a sheet and a heavy 
 patchwork quilt. Ah, yes, there was something 
 else, carefully laid upon the quilt. This was a linen 
 bag without an opening, which, when spread out, 
 tapered towards the ends. Had I not known some- 
 thing about the old-fashioned nightcap, I should 
 have puzzled a long time before discovering what I 
 was expected to do with this object. The matter is 
 simple to those who know that the cap is formed by 
 turning one of the ends in. There were mosquitoes 
 in the room, but they sang me to sleep, and if they 
 amused themselves at my expense afterwards, I 
 was quite unconscious of it. 
 
 The murmur of the rushing Dordogne mingled 
 not unpleasantly with the impressions of dreams as 
 I awoke. I got up and opened the small worm- 
 eaten window -frame. High thatched roofs, not 
 many yards in front, were covered with moss, which 
 the morning rays, striking obliquely, painted the 
 heavenly green of Beatrice's mantle. Down the 
 narrow road goats were passing, followed by a sun- 
 burnt girl with a barge-like wooden shoe at the end 
 of each of her bare brown legs. The pure, life- 
 giving air that entered by the window made the 
 blood glow with a better warmth than that of 
 sparkling wine. I soon went outside to see some- 
 
22 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 thing of the place which I had entered in the 
 darkness. 
 
 I found that the village was built partly in the 
 bottom of the gorge and partly on one of its craggy 
 sides. Closely hemmed in by rocks and high hills 
 overgrown with forest was a bright and fertile little 
 valley, with abundance of pear and walnut trees, 
 luxuriant cottage-gardens, and little fields by the 
 flashing torrent, where shocks of lately-cut buck- 
 wheat stood with their heads together waiting for 
 the warm September hours to ripen their black 
 grain. 
 
 Many of the houses were half hidden in leafy 
 bowers. I threaded my way between these* towards 
 some ivy-draped fragments of an ancient priory 
 upon a mass of rock much overgrown with brambles 
 glistening with blackberries and briars decked with 
 coral-red hips. Before descending to the road and 
 beginning the day's journey I indulged for a little 
 while the musing mood of the solitary wanderer 
 in the grassy burying-ground on the edge of the 
 cliff. 
 
 I started for Bort ere the intensely blue sky 
 began to pale before the increasing brilliancy of the 
 sun. The road ran along the bottom of the deep 
 valley, where there was change of scene with every 
 curve of the Dordogne. A field of maize showed 
 how different was the climate here from that of the 
 bleak plateau above the deep rift in the rocks. I 
 stopped beside a little runnel that came down from 
 
THE RIPENING BUCKWHEAT 
 
 the wooded heights to pick some flowers of yellow 
 balsam, and while there my eye fell upon a splendid 
 green lizard basking in the sun. Here was another 
 proof of the warm temperature of the valley, not- 
 withstanding its altitude. As I went on I skirted 
 long fields of buckwheat upon the slope, but reach- 
 ing only a little way upwards. The white waxen 
 flowers had turned, or were turning, rusty ; but 
 what a variety of beautiful colour was on the stems 
 and leaves ! Greens and yellows passed into car- 
 mine, purple, and burnt sienna. A field of ripening 
 buckwheat has a charm of warm colour that gladdens 
 the eye, especially when the morning or evening 
 sunshine is upon it. But this glow of many tints 
 was a sure sign of approaching autumn ; so, too, 
 were the reddened stalks of persicaria, filling the 
 dry ditches by the wayside. 
 
 The valley narrowed, ' and upon its rocky sides 
 was many a patch of purple heather — little gardens 
 for the wild bees, but not for man. Neither peasant 
 nor local Nimrod ever sets his foot there. Still 
 higher, the outlines of the topmost crags were drawn 
 hard against the sky, for there was no vapour in 
 the air. Verily, the ground seemed quite alive with 
 brown lizards darting along at my approach and 
 raising little clouds of dust, whilst blue-winged grass- 
 hoppers — which, perhaps, would be more correctly 
 described as locusts — crossed and recrossed the road 
 in one flight. In the midst of such beautiful scenery, 
 and with such happy creatures for companions, I felt 
 
24 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 no wish to hurry. Moreover, the blackberries some- 
 times tempted me to loiter. If they are unwhole- 
 some, as French peasants often maintain, I ought to 
 have been dead long ago. Strange that this preju- 
 dice should be so general in France with regard to 
 the fruit of so harmless a tribe. But these same 
 peasants gather the leaves of the bramble to make a 
 decoction for sore throat. I passed a cottage that 
 had a vine-trellis, the first I had seen on this side of 
 the Auvergne mountains, and it was half surrounded 
 by a forest of beans in full flower on very high 
 sticks. In a sunny space was a row of thatched 
 beehives. 
 
 After walking some eight miles, I was not un- 
 willing to take advantage of a village inn. Here I 
 had a meal of bacon and eggs, haricots, cheese and 
 walnuts, with some rather rough Limousin wine. I 
 soon became aware that there was something amiss 
 in the rustic auberge, and catching a dim glimpse of 
 a figure lying in a bed in a small room adjoining, I 
 asked the young woman who waited upon me if 
 anybody was ill there. 'Yes,' she replied dolefully. 
 Then I learnt from her that her father, struck with 
 apoplexy, was lying in a state that was hopeless. 
 There is no escaping the mournfulness of life. 
 When our minds are least clouded the shadow of 
 death suddenly stands between us and the sun- 
 shine. I was in no mood to linger at the table. 
 
 What a relief to be out again in the sunshine and 
 the light air, to see the Dordogne flashing through 
 
THE 'ORGAN-PIPES' OF BORT 25 
 
 meadows where women were haymaking with bare 
 feet ! 
 
 It was early in the afternoon when I entered the 
 small but active town of Bort. The burg is only 
 interesting by its exceedingly picturesque situation 
 on the right bank of the Dordogne, under a very 
 high hill, capped by a basaltic table, which is 
 flanked towards the town, or rather a little to the 
 south of it, by a long row of stupendous columns of 
 basalt, known as the Orgues de Bort, from their 
 resemblance at a distance to organ-pipes. The 
 basalt here is of a reddish yellow. The table, with 
 its igneous crystallizations, lies upon the meta- 
 morphic rock. 
 
 I decided to climb to the summit of the pro- 
 digious organ-pipes, and to look at the world from 
 that remarkable point of view. For the greater 
 part of the distance the way lay up a tiresome 
 winding road on the side of the hill. A woman, 
 who was tying buckwheat into sheaves, said the 
 distance was 'three small quarters of an hour.' It 
 would have been simpler arithmetic to have said 
 'half an hour,' but the peasant thinks it safer not to 
 be more explicit than he or she can help. Experi- 
 ence has taught me that 'three-quarters of an hour,' 
 whether they are called little or not, mean an hour or 
 more, and that ' five quarters of an hour ' mean an 
 hour and a half, or even two hours. I passed a team 
 of bullocks descending from the moor with loads of 
 dry broom for the bakers, headed by a little old man 
 
26 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 in a great felt hat, with a long goad in his hand, 
 with which he tickled up the yoked beasts occasion- 
 ally, not because they needed it, but from force of 
 habit. This goad, by-the-bye, is a slender stick 
 about six feet long, with a short nail at one end, so 
 fastened that the point is turned outwards. A bul- 
 lock is not goaded from behind, but from the front 
 between the shoulder-blades, and it generally suffices 
 for the animal to see a man in front of him with a 
 stick. Instead of drawing back, as might be sup- 
 posed, he steps forward at his best pace. Cows and 
 bulls are harnessed to the wain and plough as well 
 as oxen ; they have all to work for their living. 
 English cattle are allowed to grow fat in idleness, 
 and their troubles do not begin until the time comes 
 for them to be eaten. It is otherwise in France. 
 
 On the banks were fragrant, mauve - coloured 
 pinks, with ragged petals ; but at the foot of the 
 Orgues was a rocky waste, where little grew besides 
 the sombre holly and fetid hellebore. 
 
 The view from the top of the cliff made me fully 
 realize the wildness, the sterility, the desolation of 
 nature in this region. Beyond the valley far beneath 
 me where the Dordogne lay, a glittering thread, was 
 the department of the Cantal. The whole southern 
 and eastern prospect was broken up by innumerable 
 savage, heath-covered or rocky hills, with little 
 green valleys or dense w r oods filling the hollows, 
 the southern horizon being closed by the wavy blue 
 line of the Cantal mountains. To the north-east 
 
EVENING BY THE RUE 27 
 
 the sky-line was marked by the Mont-Dore range, 
 with the highest peak of Auvergne, the Puy de 
 Sancy, clearly visible against the lighter blue of the 
 cloudless air. The feeling that prevailed throughout 
 this wide expanse of country was solemn sternness. 
 
 I returned to Bort, and as there were still about 
 two hours of light left, I crossed the river and went 
 in search of the cascades, two or three miles from 
 the town, formed by the Rue in its wild impatience 
 to meet the Dordogne. When I was skirting the 
 buckwheat fields of the valley in the calm open 
 country, there was a sweet and tender glow of 
 evening sunshine upon the purple-tinted sheaves 
 standing with their heads together. The Titan- 
 strewn rocks felt it likewise with all their heather 
 and broom. There was no husbandman in the 
 plain, no song of the solitary goat-girl, no creak of 
 the plough, no twitter even of a bird. It was not 
 yet the hour when Virgil says every field is silent, 
 but the repose of nature had commenced. 
 
 The dusk was falling when I reached a silk-mill 
 by the side of the Rue, and passed up the deep 
 gorge full of shadows, led by the sound of roaring 
 waters. A narrow path winding under high rocks 
 of porphyritic gneiss brought me to the cascade 
 called the Saut de la Saule, where the river, divided 
 into two branches by a vast block, leaps fifteen or 
 twenty feet into a deep basin to whirl and boil with 
 fury, then dashes onward clown the stony channel, 
 to leap again into the air and fall into another basin. 
 
28 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 I reached a rock in the channel by means of a tree 
 that had been laid between it and the bank, and 
 stood in the midst of the seething, broken torrent, 
 from which arose that saddening odour which water 
 in wild commotion gives forth when daylight is 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE RUE. 
 
 dying and the darkened trees stand like mourning 
 plumes. On either hand the forest-covered sides of 
 the ravine and their savage crags seemed to reach 
 higher as they grew darker. Where was I ? There 
 was a tree hard by that looked very like the infernal 
 elm beneath whose leaves the vain dreams cluster ; 
 but it was probably an oak. 
 
ACROSS THE MOORS OF THE CORREZE. 
 
 The night being- 
 passed at Bort, the 
 next morning I con- 
 tinued my journey 
 by the Dordogne. 
 Again the sky was 
 cloudless. I kept on 
 the right bank of the 
 river — the Limousin 
 side, leaving the 
 Cantal to some 
 future day, that may 
 never come. A little 
 beyond the spot 
 where the Dordogne 
 and the Rue met 
 and embraced up- 
 roariously, the path 
 entered a narrow 
 lane bordered by 
 tall hedges chiefly of hazel and briar overclimbed 
 by wild clematis — well termed the travellers joy, for 
 
 A WOMAN OF THE CORREZE. 
 
3 o Tiro SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 it is a beautiful plant that reminds many a wanderer 
 of his far-away home. 
 
 Then I passed under precipitous naked rocks, 
 with the river on the other hand, skirted by low 
 bushes of twiggy willow that looked like tamarisk 
 from a distance. The sun was now hot, and the 
 ground was again all astir with lizards. Looking 
 upon the path just in front of me, I brought myself 
 to a sudden stop. Had I advanced a step or two 
 more I could hardly have failed to tread upon a 
 serpent that lay dozing in the sun just in my way. 
 I was glad that I did not do so, for I recognised it, 
 by its olive skin with reddish patches, as the dreaded 
 aspic, or red viper. There it lay stretched out its 
 full length, about a foot and a half, either asleep or 
 enjoying the morning sun so much that it was in 
 no humour to move. I do not kill snakes indis- 
 criminately, like the peasants whenever they get the 
 chance, but this one being dangerous, I resolved that 
 it should never take another sun-bath. After being 
 roused by a blow, the creature did not attempt to run, 
 but did battle bravely, fiercely striking at the stick. 
 
 The path I had been following with so much 
 confidence dwindled away and was lost. Again the 
 gorge became a deep rift in the rocks, which left no 
 margin on which one could walk. The only way 
 to follow the windings of the stream would have 
 been to wade or swim. Once more I had to own 
 myself beaten by natural obstacles. The Dordogne 
 is a river that cannot be followed throughout its 
 
IN THE GORGE AGAIN 
 
 savage wildernesses, except perhaps in a light flat- 
 bottomed boat, and then not without serious diffi- 
 culties. Anglers might have splendid sport here 
 until they broke their necks, for the trout abound 
 where the shadow of a man seldom or never falls. 
 In the neighbourhood of towns and lar^e villages 
 the fishing is often spoilt by the casting-net. 
 
 Having realized the situation, I turned my back 
 to the stream and commenced climbing the steep 
 side of the gorge, choosing a spot where it was well 
 wooded, for the sake of the foothold. For some 
 distance the ground was green with moss and wood- 
 sorrel ; but the tug-of-war came when the vast 
 banks of loose stones — hot, bare, and shale-like — 
 were reached. On gaining the plateau, I threw 
 myself down upon the heather and looked at the 
 scene below. The mingling of rock, forest, and 
 stream was superbly desolate. Even the naked 
 steeps of slate-coloured broken stone had an im- 
 pressive grandeur of their own. 
 
 Leaving the Dordogne with the intention of 
 cutting off a wide bend and meeting it again the 
 next day or the day after, I struck across the half- 
 cultivated open country, hoping soon to find a village ; 
 for I had spent much time in the gorge and made 
 very little progress, while the sun had moved nearly 
 up to the centre of his arc. The rays fell fiercely, 
 and there was no shade upon the plateau. There 
 was a road, but it was abominable. Only tramps 
 understand the luxury of walking upon a good road. 
 
32 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 I came to a hamlet that looked very miserable. The 
 daily toil had scattered the men afield, and only a 
 few women were to be seen. Not one of them 
 wore a stocking, nor even a wooden shoe. Some 
 to whom I spoke did not understand me ; those 
 who understood told me that there was no inn in 
 the place — that there was no one who could give 
 me a meal. One of them must have thought that 
 I was begging my way, or was exceedingly hard up, 
 for she said : ' Ah ! mon pauvre ami, vous etes dans 
 un malheureux pays.' 
 
 Continuing, I came to a village which was not 
 shown on my map. Here I learnt there was a 
 single auberge, which was also the tobacco shop 
 and grocery of the place. It was kept by an old 
 man who lived alone. This inn was a cottage with- 
 out any sign over it. I tried the door, but it was 
 locked, and nobody responded to the noise I made. 
 It took me half an hour to find the solitary at the 
 farther end of the village. He returned with me, 
 and, opening the door, we both entered the only 
 room of the cottage. It was shop, bedroom, and 
 kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, and 
 near the window was a small stock of tobacco, snuff, 
 and groceries all mixed up. My host's back was 
 much bent and his face deeply furrowed. He 
 wore a shirt with a high collar, and a blue waistcoat. 
 He was an honest, kindly man, and seemed to take 
 pleasure in doing what he could for me apart from 
 the thought of gaining by it. 
 
AT A MOORLAND INN 33 
 
 In the way of food he had only eggs, bread, 
 cheese, and butter. It was decided that he should 
 fry some eggs. He lighted some sticks upon the 
 hearth, and there was soon a good blaze ; then he 
 laid his great frying-pan upon it, resting the long 
 handle upon a chair. While the butter was melting, 
 he opened a trap-door in the floor and went down a 
 ladder into his cellar. Presently he reappeared with 
 a litre of wine, and having set this before me, he 
 proceeded to crack the eggs and empty them into 
 the frying-pan. As a cook he had no pretensions, 
 but he knew how to fry eggs. When my meal was 
 ready, and he had placed everything before me upon 
 the bare board, he sat at a little distance eating a 
 dry old crust with a piece of goat cheese. This 
 was his lunch. I insisted upon his sharing the 
 wine with me, and this little attention made him 
 thoroughly confiding and cheery. 
 
 He was left a widower, he told me, with four chil- 
 dren, at the age of thirty-eight, and he would not take 
 a second wife because, his father having done so, he 
 remembered the trials and tribulations of his own 
 childhood which came of his having ' a mother who 
 was not a mother.' He said to himself, ' My chil- 
 dren shall not run the risk of going through what I 
 went through.' He toiled on alone, brought up his 
 family himself, added to his bit of land in course of 
 years, and acquired other property. His children 
 were now all settled in life, and he had given them 
 everything he had except the cottage in which he 
 
 3 
 
tmi 
 
 A PEASANT OF THE MOORS. 
 
TALK OVER THE WINE-BOTTLE 35 
 
 lived. I was struck by the strong virtue of this 
 illiterate peasant, who had evidently no notion of 
 his own value, and who would not have told the 
 simple story of his life passed amidst the moors of 
 the Correze had I not drawn it from him. 
 
 As I watched the old man, prematurely bent by 
 labour, eating his hard crust, cheerful and contented, 
 after giving to others the fruit of his many years of 
 toil, I thought, ' If man were nothing but an animal, 
 such a life would be not only absurd, but impossible.' 
 Another glass of wine made my host and cook still 
 more talkative. He told me that not lone ao'o he 
 had walked from this village to Tulle, distant about 
 thirty-five miles, to see a soldier son who was to 
 pass through the place with his regiment. He 
 started at three in the morning and arrived at five 
 in the afternoon, but was only able to exchange a 
 few words with his son. They could not even 
 ' break a crust ' together. The old man then turned 
 his face towards his village, and walked the whole 
 night. 
 
 1 I hope your son would walk as far to see you,' I 
 said, with a little scepticism in my mind. 
 
 This is what he replied, almost word for word : 
 
 ' Ah ! children do not do for their parents what 
 their parents do for them. The commandment says, 
 " Honour your father and your mother " — not honour 
 your children. Nevertheless, it is the parents who 
 deny themselves the most. As soon as your 
 children are married they generally forget you. 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Perhaps if I had married again I should be happier 
 now. All the same, I am contented. I can keep 
 myself. When I am no longer able to take care of 
 myself, my children must do something for me.' 
 
 I confess that I was sorry when the time came 
 for me to leave this old man, knowing well that I 
 should never see again his rugged face and his 
 kind eyes twinkling under their shaggy brows. 
 Perhaps he, too, had some such regret, for we had 
 had a long talk, and he may have tired out all his 
 other listeners, especially those of his own family. 
 When a man has grown old and is near the end, it 
 would often be better for him to go out into the 
 wilderness and talk to the rocks and trees than to 
 repeat the stories of his life upon his own hearth- 
 stone. Before 1 left the peasant fetched a bottle, 
 which he only brought out on rare occasions, and 
 insisted upon my drinking a parting glass with him. 
 
 I passed through another hamlet where there was 
 a high wooden cross. There were walnut-trees, and 
 men were knocking down the nuts. The women 
 here wore wide -brimmed black straw hats over 
 white caps. I soon left these figures behind, and was 
 alone in a birch-wood, where there were many yellow 
 leaves between me and the blue sky. Then I met 
 the road to Neuvic, and following it came to the 
 Artaud, a tributary of the Dordogne, threading its 
 way through deep ravines, amidst wild rocks, dark 
 woods, and bracken -covered steeps. The road 
 crossed the ravine upon a bridge of three arches. 
 
RAVINES AND WASTES 37 
 
 The scene was one to raise the mind above common 
 things. The stream rushed madly down the rocky 
 chasm with a mighty roar, now losing itself in the 
 leafy vaults of overhanging trees, now reappearing 
 like a torrent of fire where the glorious lustre of the 
 September sun struck it and mingled with it. 
 
 As I ascended the opposite hill a still deeper 
 ravine came into view, wooded down to the water 
 and all in dark shadow, except a rocky ridge facing 
 the sinking sun and bathed in warm light. 
 
 When the top of the hill had been reached, an 
 old man, who wore a large and very weather-beaten 
 felt hat, was sitting on the step of a wayside cross 
 with a flock of geese feeding around him. Next I 
 passed a bare-footed cantonnier breaking stones, 
 and he told me that if I made haste I might reach 
 Neuvic before dark. On the outskirts of a village — 
 Roche-le-Peyroux— a wandering tinker and his boy 
 were at work by the side of the road with fire and 
 bellows, and I felt a trampish or romantic desire to 
 stay with them awhile in the cheerful glow ; but 
 thinking of the coming night, I smothered the 
 impulse. 
 
 Upon the moor which I was now traversing was 
 a very old stone cross, upon which the figure of the 
 Saviour was rudely carved in relief. The form was 
 so uncouth as to be scarcely human. The head was 
 half as wide again as the space across the shoulders, 
 and the hands were nearly as large as the head. 
 How many centuries ago did Christian piety raise 
 
38 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 this rough image of its hope upon the moors amidst 
 the purple heather and the yellow broom ? 
 
 The road crossed another stream not far from 
 the spot where it fell into the Dordogne. There 
 was a wooded quietude here, with an odour of fresh 
 grass and water that enticed me to linger ; but the 
 evening light in the tops of the trees and the 
 twittering of the birds settling amongst the leaves 
 for the night spurred me on. I had walked many 
 miles since the morning, but had made very little 
 way according to the map, so full of deception is 
 this wild Limousin country to the wanderer who 
 does not know it. I had still some eight miles to 
 walk before reaching Neuvic. 
 
 There was a little mill at the bottom of the grassy 
 valley, but it seemed deserted by all living creatures 
 save a dog. This rather large and shaggy animal 
 seized the rare opportunity that was now offered 
 him for a little excitement. Not satisfied with 
 barking at me furiously from his own ground, he 
 followed me about a mile up the hill I had now to 
 climb, but without venturing very near. At length 
 I thought I had had enough of his company, so at 
 the next bend in the road I came to a stand beside 
 a heap of stones that a cantonnier had neatly piled 
 up in geometrical pattern. There I waited, and the 
 animal came on gaily, little expecting to find him- 
 self suddenly at close quarters with me. Just as he 
 turned the corner he raised a howl that said he was 
 both surprised and shocked. Skipping with great 
 
A DOG THAT WAS SURPRISED 39 
 
 agility, he avoided the next stone, and the expres- 
 sion of his face told me that he was already feeling 
 very home-sick. He turned tail as quick as he 
 could, and used very bad dog-language as the 
 stones followed him down the hill. As a rule, dogs 
 lose all their courage when they are out of sight of 
 their own homes, unless someone whom they know 
 well is near at hand to give them confidence in 
 themselves. 
 
 I am again upon the moor. There is a deep 
 silence over the heather, for the last bees have left 
 the pink and purple bells. But there is still a wan 
 glow in the air, which gives a sad beauty to the 
 quiet, mournful land. A boy is returning with, 
 some cattle after spending the day upon the heath, 
 and he sings as he thinks of his poor home, the 
 blazing sticks on the hearth, the soup, the buck- 
 wheat cake, or the potatoes. Through a mask of 
 silver birches I see a solemn ruddy light as of a 
 funeral-torch in the far western sky. The breath of 
 evening is made sweeter by the odour wafted from 
 some distant fresh-cut grass or broom that has been 
 drying in the September sun. A field - cricket, 
 waking up, breaks the silence with its shrill cry 
 that is quickly taken up by others near at hand 
 and far away in the dusk. The light and colour 
 of the day are now gone, but there is one beautiful 
 star flashing in front of me like a lamp of the 
 sanctuary when the vaulted minster is filled with 
 shadow. 
 
4 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 The rest of the walk to Neuvic was by night. 
 The first auber^e I entered in this small town of 
 some three thousand inhabitants was a little too 
 rough even for me. The family were at dinner, or 
 at supper, as they would say, eating upon the bare 
 board, without plates, potatoes boiled in their skins. 
 I do not doubt there were hollows cut in the table 
 to serve instead of plates, for this primitive con- 
 trivance still lingers in the wildest parts of the 
 Limousin. In answer to my inquiry as to bed 
 accommodation, I was told that I should have to 
 sleep in the same room with others, probably the 
 whole family. I had sufficient taste for civilization 
 left to decline the proposed arrangement, and went 
 in search of another inn. 
 
 Happily there was one, and of a better sort. It 
 was thoroughly rustic, but there was not the squalor 
 I had just encountered. In the kitchen, paved with 
 small pebbles, two months' accumulation of used 
 linen had been pressed down in an old wine-cask, 
 and boiling water was now being poured upon it 
 through a cloth covered with a layer of wood ashes. 
 In these rural places the washing-day is usually 
 once in two or three months. This simplifies 
 matters, but it needs a considerable stock of linen, 
 which, by-the-bye, peasants generally possess. The 
 wash-house odour that arose from the lessive was 
 not grateful, but I tried to accommodate myself to 
 it. On the floor was a baby swaddled up, and 
 tightly fitted into a small wooden cradle on huge 
 
AN UNPLEASANT TABLE COMPANION 41 
 
 rockers — a cradle that might have served for scores 
 of babies, and been none the worse for wear. 
 Although the fire on the hearth looked tempting, 
 the proximity of the wine-cask and the linen that 
 was being purified with potash made me glad to 
 hear that my meal would be served in another 
 room. 
 
 Considering the region, the dinner was not a bad 
 one. I had soup, veal, eggs, and a fair wine. I 
 had also a companion, but would rather have been 
 without him. He was a young man, whose appear- 
 ance gained by the contrast of a dusty wayfarer's, 
 and he gave himself airs accordingly. I set him 
 down as a petty functionary of the place, and a 
 pensionnaire of the auberge. All the time I was 
 with him his mind was exceedingly restless as to 
 my intentions and business in those parts, and such 
 explanations as I gave him to appease his insatiable 
 curiosity and awkwardly-veiled suspicion evidently 
 left him unsatisfied. 
 
 The next morning the hostess brought out her 
 police register for me to enter my name, nationality, 
 age, profession, destination, etc. I had no doubt 
 that my acquaintance of the night before had 
 reminded her of this little formality in order that 
 he might afterwards see what I had written. All 
 innkeepers in France are liable to a fine if they 
 do not make every traveller who passes the night 
 with them leave this record of himself for inspec- 
 tion, but the formality is much more often omitted 
 
42 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 than observed. I have not been able to overcome 
 my English dislike of the practice, which is annoy- 
 ing and useless, like much more that belongs to the 
 French administrative system. 
 
 By daylight I found Neuvic to be a cheerful, 
 pleasant little town, with a venerable-looking old 
 church, apparently of the twelfth century. It is 
 entered by a cavernous portal under a very massive 
 low tower, but the interior shows little of interest. 
 What struck me, however, as something quite un- 
 common was a small altar in the centre of the nave 
 just below the sanctuary. Upon it was an image of 
 the Virgin, which a boy told me had been found in 
 a neighbouring wood about a century ago. 
 
 On leaving Neuvic I noticed a woman carrying 
 to the baker's a large dish of edible boleti, known to 
 the French as cepes. This excellent fungus during 
 the late summer and autumn is a very important 
 article of food in France wherever there are exten- 
 sive chestnut-woods. The orange mushroom is also 
 much eaten in the same regions, for it likewise loves 
 the chestnut forest ; but it may be mistaken by those 
 who do not know the signs for its relative, the 
 crimson-capped fly-agaric, one of the most deadly 
 of cryptogams. 
 
 After seeing the dish of cdpes, I was not surprised 
 to find many chestnut-trees along the road that I 
 now took to St. Pantaleon. The country was less 
 barren than that which I had passed over the day 
 before. Although there was much heather, broom 
 
MOORLAND PICTURES 43 
 
 and furze, trees and pasture broke the monotony of 
 the moorland. Here was the better Limousin land- 
 scape — every knoll and mamelon covered with 
 heather and other moor-plants, woods and meadows 
 in the dells and dips. The numerous clumps of 
 silver birches, and the gorse arrayed in its new 
 flowers of bright gold, added to the charm of the 
 sunlit scene. 
 
 To me the weather was all the more delightful by 
 being very warm, for I had run away from winter 
 on the Auver^ne mountains. The whirring noise 
 of the grasshoppers as they flew across the road, 
 and the tremulous sheen of their wings, coloured 
 like blooming lavender, brought back to me the 
 best recollections of other wayfaring days in the 
 warm South, when all these things were new, and 
 the sight feasted upon them with the eagerness of 
 bees that suck the first flowers of spring. 
 
 I passed a little field of buckwheat that had been 
 cut some days and had fully ripened. A woman 
 was threshing out the grain with a flail upon a 
 spread canvas, surrounded by a circle of purple- 
 tinted cones, the sheaves leaning together. Now 
 the wide level moor returned, but Nature was not 
 quite the same here as she had been before. The 
 vast expanse was dotted over with dark little 
 juniper bushes. These were covered with berries 
 which nobody seemed to think worth the picking. 
 Rock-cist flourished, starring the turf all over with 
 its yellow discs. This moor was an absolute desert. 
 
44 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Long I walked without seeing another human being. 
 At length I met a woman carrying a distaff, and 
 tried to get into conversation with her, but it was 
 impossible ; she could not speak a word of French, 
 and I knew nothing of her Limousin patois. 
 
 By steadfastly following the road, I came to the 
 village of St. Pantaleon, on the brow of a hill over- 
 looking the Luxege, and stopped at a wayside inn. 
 It was a poor auberge ; but there was an air of 
 reaching toward some ideal of superior life and 
 softened manners that made itself felt in small ways 
 not to be described with any certainty, but none the 
 less real. The innkeeper, who was also a peasant- 
 farmer, possessed the doubtful blessing of a mind 
 that rose above what the logic of his existence, 
 sternly bound to a plot of grudging soil and the 
 petty needs of still poorer neighbours, demanded of 
 it. He was blessed or afflicted with that hunger of 
 knowledge and refinement which lifts and casts 
 down, rejoices and saddens. He knew that such 
 ambition with regard to himself was vain, that it 
 was his destiny to live out his days on the edge of a 
 moor in the Correze, and that it was his duty to 
 thank Heaven that he was sheltered and had suf- 
 ficient food, fuel, and clothing for himself and his 
 family : all this he knew, and he accepted his lot 
 bravely. But the fire was only damped down ; it 
 glowed in its hidden heart, and strove for a vent. 
 It was not lighted without a purpose. The peasant 
 had a son, to whom the flame had been passed on ; 
 
A YOUNG MAN 'IN PHILOSOPHY' 45 
 
 for he aimed at the priesthood. This has ever been 
 a refuge of ambitious minds that cannot rise by any 
 other means above the dulness of the peasant's life, 
 which is the more endurable the more the man is 
 able to place himself upon the animal level of his 
 plodding ox. The son was being educated in a 
 seminary, but he was now home for the holidays. 
 Presently he appeared. He was a youth of about 
 nineteen, wearing a blouse like any other peasant. 
 There was certainly nothing in his appearance to 
 indicate that he was destined for the cure of souls. 
 The proud father said : ' He is in philosophy.' The 
 young man had a twinkle in his eye that might have 
 been philosophical. Neither of them had a suspicion 
 of the vanity concealed in the high-sounding phrase. 
 But I am forgetting to say anything about what 
 was more important to me than aught else at that 
 time. I had to eat and drink in order to look at 
 nature with an admiring eye, note the interwoven 
 aims and motives and troubled duties of human life ; 
 to be ' in philosophy ' after my own humble fashion. 
 My meal was chiefly of fried eggs and ham, the 
 latter nearly as hard as leather. I ate in a small 
 room where there was a bed with a red curtain. 
 No knife was given me, for in these out-of-the-way 
 inns you are expected to carry your knife in your 
 pocket, which a century ago was the case in most of 
 the French hostelries. In the remotely rural dis- 
 tricts the ways of life have changed very slightly in 
 a hundred years. But if the knife was overlooked, 
 
46 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the white napkin and small tablecloth were remem- 
 bered. While talking with the aubergiste over the 
 coffee — there was really some coffee here that was 
 not made either from acorns or beans — he told me, 
 as an example of the low rate of wages in the dis- 
 trict, that a road - mender, who worked in all 
 weathers, was paid forty francs a month. In the 
 whole commune there were only two or three per- 
 sons who had wine in their houses. He lent me 
 his two sons — the sdminariste and his young brother 
 — to walk with me as far as the Luxege, and put 
 me on the path to La Fage, at which village I pro- 
 posed to pass the night. 
 
 As we left, a grand expanse of chestnut forest 
 came into view, following the hills that bordered the 
 curved line of the Luxege. The little river, like all 
 the tributaries of the upper Dordogne, runs at the 
 bottom of a deep gorge. Standing upon the brink 
 of it, I perceived that I was about to enter another 
 sylvan solitude of enchanting beauty. The dense 
 forest descended the abrupt escarpments to the 
 channel and hid the stream, and over the leafy 
 masses was that play of sunshine, shadow, and thin 
 vapour which I had so often watched in a dreamily 
 joyous mood lying at the foot of some pine in the 
 Vosges. 
 
 About half-way down the gorge was a ruinous 
 Romanesque chapel upon a rock, the polygonal apse 
 being on the very edge of a precipice. At each 
 exterior angle of the imperfect polygon was a 
 
A RUINED PRIORY 47 
 
 column with a cubiform capital. The interior was 
 all dilapidated ; the floor of the sanctuary had fallen 
 in, but the altar-stone — a block of granite — remained 
 in its place. This chapel belonged to a priory. 
 Little is left of the adjoining monastery except some 
 subterranean vaults and the gaping oven of the 
 ruined bakery ; all ferny, mossy, given up to the 
 faun and the dryad. The upper masonry was 
 carried away years ago to build a chapel upon the 
 hill. A bit of green slope, where the sunbeams 
 wantoned with yellow mulleins, wild carrot, and 
 bracken, was the cemetery, as a few stone crosses 
 almost buried in the soil plainly told. These crosses 
 doubtless mark the graves of nameless priors. And 
 the dust of the humble monk and serving brother, 
 where is that ? Every plant draws from it some- 
 thing that it needs to fulfil its purpose. It is as 
 good for the nightshade as for the violet ; flowers 
 that are rank and deadly, and others that are sweet 
 and innocent, strive for the right of clasping with 
 their hungry roots the dust 'of men. 
 
 The innkeeper's sons left me by an abandoned 
 mill on the other side of the stream, which was 
 crossed by a rough wooden bridge. Ascending the 
 opposite hill by a narrow path in the shadow of 
 chestnuts and beeches, and fringed with gorse and 
 heather, I passed another deserted house, the roof 
 of which had fallen in. The gorge was getting very 
 shadowy when I reached the tableland above it. I 
 saw the small town of Laplau in the plain away to 
 
48 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the left, but my path did not lie through it, for I 
 preferred the wilder country towards La Fage. 
 When I passed a little lake in a hollow, half sur- 
 rounded by firs, the slanting rays were diving into 
 its liquid stillness, over which the motionless trees 
 bent gazing at their likeness. 
 
 When the sun left me I was upon a hilly waste, 
 amid darkening bushes of holly and juniper, tall 
 bracken, heather, and gorse. The spirit of desola- 
 tion threw out broad wings under the fading sky ; 
 but from afar towards the west, whither I was going, 
 came through the dusk the shine and twinkle of 
 many fires that had been lighted by the peasants 
 upon their patches of reclaimed desert. They 
 flashed to me the sentiment of the autumn fields, of 
 hopeful husbandry, of laying up for the winter, and 
 preparation for harvests that would be gathered 
 under next year's sun. 
 
 Tired and hungry, I reached La Fage in the 
 darkness. The village looked very poor and dreary ; 
 but I had been told that it contained a ' good hotel,' 
 and I set about looking for it. It turned out to be 
 a rather large but exceedingly rough auberge. On 
 opening the door I saw a great kitchen with pebbled 
 floor, lighted only by the glow of embers on the 
 hearth. The figure of a woman standing in the 
 chimney opening was lit up by the glare. I walked 
 towards her, and asked her if she could give me 
 lodging. After scanning me very acutely for some 
 seconds, she replied, 'Yes.' She was puzzled, if 
 
AN OUT-OF-THE-WORLD HOSTELRY 49 
 
 not startled, by the apparition in front of her ; but 
 having thrown down my pack and taken a seat in 
 the chimney-corner like a familiar of the house, I 
 talked to her about the comfort of being in such a 
 place after a long walk in so wild a district as hers, 
 and succeeded in making her quite genial. She 
 was the mayor's wife, but she was not too proud to 
 cook for me after lighting a flickering oil-lamp. 
 While I was waiting for my meal peasants came in, 
 and had theirs at the bare tables, of which there 
 were several in the great kitchen. Their soup was 
 ladled out from the immense black pot that hung over 
 the fire, and the noise they made as they fell to it was 
 very grating to the nerves. But the wanderer in the 
 chimney-corner had no business to be there, unless 
 he was prepared to accept all that was customary 
 without wincing. My own dinner commenced with 
 some of this soup, which was like hot dishwater 
 with slices of bread thrown into it. The bit of 
 boiled veal that followed was an improvement, 
 although anything but a captivating dish. Goat- 
 cheese, hard and salt, and with a flavour that left no 
 doubt as to the source from which it came, made up 
 the frugal fare. I returned to the chimney-corner 
 and smoked in silence, now peering up the sooty 
 cavern where the wind moaned, and now watching 
 the clear-obscure effects of the dimly-lighted room. 
 Presently a trap stopped outside, and in walked the 
 aubergiste, accompanied by a sprightly little man 
 who I afterwards learnt was a pedlar. 
 
 4 
 
5 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Monsieur le maire was not exactly a polished 
 gentleman ; he took no notice of me after the first 
 searching glance. He made an unpleasant impres- 
 sion, but this wore off when I found that he was a 
 well - meaning man, who had not cultivated fine 
 manners. Why should he have cultivated what 
 would have been of little or no use to him ? These 
 rural functionaries are just like the people with 
 whom they live. The young s^minariste told me 
 an amusing story of a mayor of St. Pantaleon, who 
 had had a very narrow escape of being caught by 
 gendarmes when upon a poaching expedition. ' Tout 
 le monde est braconnier ici> added my informant 
 with a sincerity that was very pleasing. Of course, 
 he was a poacher himself when reposing from his 
 theological and philosophical studies. I thought 
 none the worse of him for that. After all, poaching 
 in France generally means nothing more immoral 
 than neglecting to take out a gun license, and to 
 respect the President's decrees with regard to the 
 months that are open and those that are not. 
 
 On my way to bed I saw in a corner of the stair- 
 case a spinning-wheel of the pattern known through- 
 out Europe. I was told that it had not been used 
 for many years. The distaff and spindle which 
 are to be seen on Egyptian monuments are 
 still employed by thousands of French peasant- 
 women, but the wheel invented in the sixteenth 
 century is rarely used now, unless it be by Martha 
 in the opera. 
 
THE MAYOR'S WIFE AND THE PEDLAR 51 
 
 The next morning I made friends with the pedlar, 
 who was about to start upon my road, and who 
 offered to give me a lift in his trap as far as La 
 Roche Canillac. Meanwhile, he had unpacked all 
 his samples of cloth with a view to doing a little 
 business with the mayor. This personage, however, 
 was not allowed to have much voice in the matter ; 
 it was his spouse who represented his interests in 
 the bargaining battle that was now waged with 
 deafening din and much apparent ferocity for three- 
 quarters of an hour. The little pedlar was used to 
 this kind of thing, and was quite prepared for the 
 fray. When the lady offered him, after much de- 
 preciatory fingering of the chosen material, two- 
 thirds of what he asked for the stuff that was to be 
 made into a pair of winter trousers for the mayor, 
 he spun round and jumped like a peg-top just 
 escaped from the string. Then he raged and swore, 
 said he was being mocked at, dabbed his hat on his 
 head, and made a pretence of gathering up his 
 samples and rushing off. The mayor watched the 
 scene with a quiet smirk on his face : he knew that 
 he would somehow get the trousers. I have no 
 doubt that he did have them, but I walked out 
 instead of waiting to see the end of the battle. 
 When I returned, the haggling was over, the hostess 
 and the pedlar were on the most affable terms, and 
 there was not a sign of the recent storm. 
 
 Presently the pedlar, myself, and the innkeeper's 
 son— a young man who had received his education 
 
52 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 elsewhere, and had learnt much that did not chime 
 in with his present surroundings — were in a light 
 cart, drawn by a lively horse, speeding along the 
 road over the moors. Here and there, near the 
 village, were small fields of buckwheat in the midst 
 of the heather and bracken. My companions ex- 
 plained that each commune was surrounded by a 
 considerable extent of moorland that belonged to it, 
 and that any native of the commune had the right 
 of selecting a piece, which became his absolute 
 property after he had cleared it and brought it 
 under cultivation ; thus anyone could have what 
 land he wanted in reason for nothing. Quite an 
 Arcadian state of things this, were not the conditions 
 of nature such as to chill the ambition to acquire 
 such freeholds. Three years of back - breaking 
 labour are needed before the land is fit to be put 
 to some profitable purpose. And then what does it 
 yield ? Buckwheat, and perhaps potatoes. Al- 
 though the peasants have the faculty of extending 
 their landed property in the manner described, the 
 consideration of means generally stands in the way. 
 They cannot afford to work and wait three years. 
 Their existence is truly wretched, and if it were not 
 for the luxuriant chestnut-woods, which cover the 
 sides of the narrow valleys or gorges with which the 
 barren plateau is deeply seamed every few miles, 
 the population of the region would be more scanty 
 than it is, for the chestnut goes far to sustain the 
 people through the worst months of the year. 
 
A PRIMITIVE PLOUGH 
 
 53 
 
 The plough used upon these moors, on the 
 causses of the Ouercy, and in some other districts 
 where the barrenness of the soil has kept the in- 
 habitants for centuries imprisoned within the circle 
 of their old routine, is one of the simplest that the 
 world has known. It differs but slightly from the 
 one figured in the most ancient of Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphs, and is really the same as that which was 
 used in Gaul under the Romans. Indeed, it has 
 
 PLOUGHING THE MOOR. 
 
 not the improvements that the Romans introduced. 
 Two poles forming an obtuse angle is the rough 
 shape of it. The wedge-like share is a continuation 
 of the pole that is held by the ploughman. Often 
 on the catisses, where loose stones are inseparably 
 mixed with the soil, the entire plough is of wood. 
 
 We passed through the village of Marcillac, near 
 the head of one of the valleys. The soil was 
 
54 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 much more fertile here, and a maize field was a sign 
 that the climate was warmer. There were, more- 
 over, pleasant gardens with fruit-trees and flowers. 
 Oleanders were blooming outside some of the 
 houses. But we had no sooner risen upon the 
 plateau again than the moor returned, and for seven 
 or eight miles it continued unbroken. The ground 
 was slightly undulating, and amongst the gorse and 
 heather were scattered innumerable juniper bushes. 
 
 On approaching La Roche Canillac the road 
 descended into a very deep valley by so many 
 turns and windings that I was thankful to be in the 
 pedlar's cart, especially as the mid-day sun smote 
 with torrid strength. But the scenery was of 
 exquisite beauty, and this valley will remain in my 
 memory as one of the most charming I have ever 
 seen. Luxuriant woods, flashing water, savage 
 rocks, emerald-green patches of meadow, little mills 
 by the riverside — I should add nothing- to the picture 
 by saying more. Upon the rocky hillside was the 
 burg of five hundred inhabitants. My companions 
 took me to an old auberge whose exterior was not 
 promising, but which was, nevertheless, well sup- 
 plied with food, and had a good cellar. The meal 
 served there was the best that had fallen to my lot 
 for several days. The sun had lost all the ardour of 
 mid-day when I took leave of the pedlar and the 
 mayor's son. I went away thinking that I might 
 travel far without finding two more kindly, honest 
 fellows. 
 
'.V' 
 
 A GORGE IN THP2 CORRKZF. 
 
56 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 I had hoped to reach Argentat by the Dordogne 
 that night, but I had stayed too long at the inn for 
 the plan to be practicable ; so I set off down the 
 gorge of the tributary with the intention of taking 
 my luck at a village catled St. Bazile. I was soon 
 in the shade of the chestnut forest, w T here boars were 
 said to be plentiful. As time went on, the scenery 
 became more solemn and awe-inspiring. Pines that 
 looked very gloomy in the late afternoon mingled 
 with the chestnuts, while black rocks, faintly flushed 
 with heather towards the sky, reared their jagged 
 outlines above the sombre foliage. All the while 
 the water in the gorge moaned or roared. It was 
 growing very dusk when the walls on either hand 
 rose like the sides of a pit. 
 
 I was beginning to ask myself in no cheerful 
 mood whether the map had not deceived me as 
 to the whereabouts of St. Bazile, when, to my relief, 
 I heard a church bell ringing not very far down the 
 stream. It was the angelus. How often has this 
 clear, solemn, heart-touching, and consoling sound 
 been to me what a familiar beacon is to the doubting 
 mariner ! Only wanderers in desolate places know 
 the sentiment that it carries through the evening air. 
 More welcome than ever before did it seem in this 
 black gorge. I pushed on, and presently the gloomy 
 walls widened out. Turning a bend of the torrent, 
 I stood in a glow of ruddy light that streamed from 
 the yawning mouth of an open-air oven that had 
 recently been filled with dry broom and kindled for 
 
ROUGH QUARTERS 57 
 
 the night's baking. Here was a fresh delight, for 
 there is nothing more cheering, more full of homely 
 sentiment in the dusk, than the view of such a 
 blazing oven. 
 
 This, then, was the village of St. Bazile de la 
 Roche, to give its full name. It could scarcely 
 have boasted a hundred houses. There was one 
 miserable little inn, kept by a widow. There I had 
 to pass the night, unless I preferred a cave or a 
 mossy bed under a tree. The poor woman managed 
 to find a piece of veal, which she cooked for me. It 
 seemed to be my lot now to eat no meat but veal. 
 As I sat down to this dish and a bottle of wine, two 
 men at another table were eating boiled potatoes, 
 without plates, and drinking water. The contrast 
 made me uncomfortable. There is some reason in 
 the selfishness that avoids the sights and sounds 
 and all suggestions of other people's poverty and 
 pain ; but those who take such base care of 
 themselves never know human life. I could not 
 offer these men wine without running the risk of a 
 refusal, but it was different with regard to a little 
 hump -backed postman who came in to gossip. 
 Half a litre of wine that, at my wish, was set before 
 him made him exceedingly cheerful. He told me 
 that he walked about twenty miles a day on the hill- 
 sides and in the ravines, and I suppose his pay was 
 the same as that of other rural postmen in France — 
 from £28 to £$2 a year. The inhabitants of St. 
 Bazile, he said, were all very poor, their chief food 
 
58 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 being potatoes and chestnuts. Before the vines a 
 little further down the valley were destroyed by the 
 phylloxera and mildew, the people were much better 
 off. Then there was plenty of wine in the cellars, 
 but now St. Bazile was a village of water-drinkers. 
 He spoke of the neighbouring parish of Servieres, 
 where, at the annual pilgrimage, women go barefoot 
 from one rock to the other on which the chapel 
 stands. 
 
 Before placing myself between the canvas-like 
 sheets, I opened the lattice window of my meagrely- 
 furnished room. The only distinguishable voice of 
 the night was that of the stream quarrelling with its 
 rocky bed just below. Before me was the high 
 black wall of hill and forest, above the ragged line 
 of which flashed the swarming- stars. 
 
 The angelus sounded again at four in the morn- 
 ing. Before seven I was out in the open air. I 
 saw the cure go up into the tower of his small 
 church, and ring the bell for his own mass. He 
 was probably too poor to pay a sacristan. A little 
 later he was in the pulpit catechising the children, 
 and preaching to the older parishioners between 
 whiles. A boy and then a girl would stand up, and 
 in answer to questions put to them would recite in an 
 unintelligible gabble the catechism they had learnt. 
 If one of them lost the thread and suddenly lapsed 
 into a speechless confusion of ideas, the cure pointed 
 the finger of reprobation at the unfortunate little 
 w T retch, and made him or her — especially him — feel 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST 59 
 
 the enormity of having a bad memory. While 
 waving his arm in a moment of rhetorical excite- 
 ment, he let his book fall upon an old woman's head. 
 1 Voilct ce que cest de faire des gestcs f said he with 
 a smile that was almost a discreet grin. The 
 children were delighted, and everybody laughed, 
 including the poor old soul, who had seated herself 
 under the pulpit so that she might hear well. 
 
 It was evident that the people of St. Bazile quite 
 understood their cure, and that he was just the one 
 for them. He was a strong man, over sixty years 
 of age, and he spoke with a rich southern accent. 
 Under his sacerdotal earnestness there was a sense 
 of humour ever ready to take a little revenge for 
 a life of sacrifice. There are many such priests in 
 France. 
 
 I had no sooner walked out of this village, on my 
 way to Argentat, than I became aware that the 
 Girondin climate was beginning to make itself felt. 
 The influence of the plains was overcoming that of 
 the highlands. The warm rocky slopes on each side 
 of the valley were covered with vines — alas ! dead or 
 dying. There was no hope for them. On the level 
 of the river were fields of maize, now ripening, and 
 irrigated meadows intensely green. There were 
 beehives, fifteen or twenty together on the sunny 
 slopes, and as I went on, the signs of human industry 
 and ease increasing, I saw petunias climbing over 
 cottage doors. There was a steep descent to 
 Argentat. The town lay in a wide valley by the 
 
6o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Dordogne, in the midst of maize and buckwheat 
 fields and green meadows, the surrounding hillsides 
 being covered here with chestnut woods, and there 
 with vines. I met a woman returning from market 
 with melons in her basket. Truly I had come into 
 a different climate. At the small town, made pretty 
 by the number of its vine trellises, I lunched. The 
 inn where I stopped is not worth describing ; but it 
 gave me a dish of gudgeons caught in the Dordogne 
 that deserved to be remembered. 
 
 I did not remain long at Argentat, for I was 
 determined to reach Beaulieu that night. A little 
 out of the town some girls whom I passed on the 
 road looked very suspiciously at me out of the 
 corners of their eyes, and reminded me that another 
 whom I had met that morning higher up the valley 
 took to her heels at the sight of me. An old woman 
 who had lived long enough to overcome such 
 timidity, asked me if I was a marchand, by which 
 she meant pedlar — the old question to which I have 
 grown weary of replying. About a mile from the 
 town I found the Dordogne again. It had grown 
 to quite a fine river since I last saw it in the ravines 
 below Bort. Many an eager affluent had rushed 
 into it, both on the Correze and the Cantal side. 
 Here most of the grass was dried up, and the fresh- 
 ness of the highlands was gone. Still the valley 
 was shut in by steep cliffs. Brambles climbed about 
 the rocks, where the broom also flourished, although 
 tangled with its parasite, the dodder. Looking up 
 
ON THE ROAD TO BEAULIEU 61 
 
 the crags, I recognised a wild fig-tree — the first I 
 had seen on this southward journey. 
 
 The valley became again so narrow that the road 
 was cut into the escarped side of the cliff, for the 
 river ran close under it. A woman with bare legs 
 and bare chest — really half naked — trudged by with 
 a heavy bundle of maize upon her head, followed by 
 a couple of red-haired children, their perfectly-shaped 
 little legs browned by the sun and powdered with 
 dust. How beautiful are the limbs of these peasant 
 children, however disfigured by toil and the inherited 
 physical blight of hardship their mother's form may 
 be ! With each fresh generation, Nature seems to 
 make an effort to go back to her ideal type ; but 
 destiny is strong. Old and new causes working 
 together are often more than a match for that most 
 marvellous force in all animal and vegetable life — 
 the love of symmetry. 
 
 Resting upon a bed of peppermint, blue with 
 flowers, under an old wall, whose stones were half 
 hidden by celandine and roving briony ; loitering 
 dreamily upon a wide waste of sunlit pebbles, watch- 
 ing the Hashing rapids of the river where it awoke 
 from its calm sleep to battle with the rocks which 
 had resisted incalculable ages of washing, the hours 
 glided by so stealthily that it was evening when I 
 reached a village which was still eight miles or more 
 from Beaulieu. 
 
 Turning into an inn, I fell into conversation with 
 a postman, who made me the offer of his company 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 during the remainder of the journey. I readily 
 assented, and gave him a glass of absinthe — his 
 favourite drink — before leaving. He did not need 
 it, for, as he confessed, he had been clinking glasses 
 with unusual zeal that day. He was a very droll 
 fellow, a striking type of the Southerner, whom it was 
 difficult to look at with a serious face, and whom no 
 one with any sense of humour could really dislike, 
 notwithstanding his immense vanity and his im- 
 measurable impudence. He had a thick black 
 beard, a long, sharp nose, dark eyes full of mis- 
 chievous mirth, and cheeks the colour of red wine. 
 He wore a stiff new blouse with a red collar — the 
 badee of his office — and a straw hat like a beehive. 
 The whole of the way to Beaulieu his tongue was 
 not still a minute. He told me stories of his bravery 
 and his love adventures with a most amusing accent 
 and intonation. The Rabelaisian expressions, which 
 give such a peculiar flavour to the conversation of 
 the ' people ' in Southern France, rolled off his 
 tongue with a sonority that could hardly have been 
 excelled at Nimes or Tarascon. His swagger, his 
 gestures, and his elocutionary power were amazing. 
 He would stop walking, and, placing his stick — 
 which he called his trique — under his arm, would 
 speak in a tragic stage-whisper ; then, clutching his 
 triqtie and flourishing it over his head, he would 
 burst out into a roar of laughter that made the dogs 
 bark in the scattered farms for miles around. Once, 
 when we were passing under high rocks, he shouted 
 
ONE WHO DID NOT STAND ON CEREMONY 63 
 
 with such a terrible voice that he brought some 
 loose stones rattling down upon the road so close to 
 us that my head, as well as his own, nearly paid the 
 penalty for thus exasperating the peaceful night. 
 This was either the effect of vibration or of the 
 sudden movement of some bird or other creature that 
 he had startled far above us. 
 
 Among other things of which this amusing man 
 talked to me was a visit of archaeologists, among 
 whom were a number of Englishmen, to Beaulieu. 
 
 4 If you had only seen them,' he said, ' outside the 
 church, all with their noses lifted in the air ! Grand 
 Dieit ! What noses !' 
 
 Long before we reached Beaulieu I had had more 
 than enough of the wild spirits of my comic post- 
 man. On entering the town he insisted upon taking 
 me to a hotel which he said he could recommend 
 to me with as much confidence as if I were his 
 brother. Then he left me ; but I had not seen the 
 last of him. He presently returned, while I was 
 enjoying the luxury of a quiet and well-served little 
 dinner. Seating himself in front of me without 
 waiting for an invitation, he helped himself with his 
 fingers to a dish of baked ctpcs, which I in con- 
 sequence relinquished, but with a complete absence 
 of goodwill. There was no getting rid of him, 
 short of telling him plainly to go, and this I could 
 not do after having accepted his companionship on 
 the road. He devoured all the mushrooms, express- 
 ing his astonishment between whiles that I did not 
 
6 4 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 like them. ' faime bien les champignons,' he kept 
 on repeating. ' Ca me va le soir. Ce nest pas 
 lourd! When the dessert was brought in, he picked 
 out the only ripe peach in the dish, and having 
 poured another glass of wine down his really terrible 
 throat, he declared that it had given him great 
 pleasure to make my acquaintance, and left me with 
 the hope that I should sleep well, and would not 
 forget the Beaulieu postman. I assured him, with 
 perfect sincerity, that I should never forget him. 
 
 When daylight returned I found Beaulieu a 
 pleasant little town lying under hills covered with 
 chestnut woods, and at a short distance from the 
 Dordogne. Its name, however, was probably given 
 to it on account of the fertility of the soil in this bit 
 of valley, where the cliffs that enclose the Dordogne 
 on each side fall back, and, by allowing a rich 
 alluvium to settle in the plain, give the husbandmen 
 a chance of growing something more profitable than 
 buckwheat. 
 
 Beaulieu was once the seat of a powerful Bene- 
 dictine abbey. The original monastery was founded 
 in 858 by Charles le Chauve, who placed it under 
 his protection. Although the territory was included 
 in the viscounty of Turenne, the Viscount Ray- 
 mond II., before he went crusading, made over his 
 suzerain rights with regard to the abbey and its 
 dependencies to the abbots, who thus became 
 temporal lords. There is nothing left of the 
 monastery ; but much of the abbey church, which 
 
THE ABBEY OF BEAU LIEU 65 
 
 dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, has 
 been fortunately preserved. The interior is not 
 remarkable, but the large and elaborate bas-relief of 
 the Last "Judgment which fills the tympanum of the 
 portal is considered the most precious example of 
 mediaeval sculpture in the Bas-Limousin. The face 
 of the Saviour, expressive of something above all 
 human passions and motives, shows a really God- 
 like combination of serenity and severity. The 
 fantastic spirit of the age is well set forth in the 
 tortured forms of the horrid reptiles and fabulous 
 beasts carved in relief upon the massive lintel, and 
 filling also the broad border at the base of the 
 tympanum. The same spirit finds even stronger 
 expression in the demon figure, so grotesquely long- 
 drawn out, carved upon the scalloped pillar that 
 supports the lintel. The abbey was pillaged by the 
 Huguenots, who lit a fire in the choir, which de- 
 stroyed much of the woodwork. Notwithstanding 
 the religious wars and the revolutionary convulsions 
 of the eighteenth century, the church has preserved 
 some of its ancient treasure, of which the most 
 precious object is a silver statue of the Virgin of 
 very curious workmanship, dating from the twelfth 
 century. 
 
TURENNE. 
 
 IN THE VISCOUNTY OF TURENNE. 
 
 What gives us the zest to wander until the hour 
 comes when we must fain be content to sit in the 
 porch, thankful if the evening sun shines warmly, 
 is the fascination of the unknown. As children, did 
 we not long to get at the horizon's verge, to touch 
 the painted clouds of the morning or of the sunset- 
 ay, and to grasp with our outstretched hands that 
 reached such a little way the blood-red glory of the 
 sun itself ? The garden, with its glowing tulips and 
 its roses haunted by gilded beetles, became too small 
 to satisfy the mind of infancy fresh from the infinite. 
 Surely, I thought, when I was again in the open 
 country beyond Beaulieu, I must have carried some- 
 thing of my childhood on with me, for me to go 
 wandering over these hot hills exposing myself to 
 
 [66] 
 
A MOUNTED PRIEST 67 
 
 sunstroke, weariness, and thirst for the sake of the 
 unknown. 
 
 The road at first led up vine -covered slopes 
 towards the west, where the waysides were blue 
 with the flowers of the wild chicory. A priest 
 astride upon a rough old cob passed me, his hitched- 
 up soutane showing his gaitered legs. The French 
 rural priests are generally rubicund, but this one 
 was cadaverous. He would have looked like Death 
 on horseback, swathed in a black mantle, but for 
 the dangling gaitered legs, which spoilt the solemn 
 effect. A very curious figure did he cut upon his 
 shaggy, ambling steed. On the top of the hill was 
 a village, in the midst of which stood a little old 
 Gothic church with a gable-belfry, and hard by was 
 a half-timber house, its porch aglow with climbing 
 petunias. 
 
 Beyond this village was a deep valley, the sides 
 of which were covered with chestnut-trees. On 
 ascending the opposite hill, I took a by-path through 
 a steep wood, thinking to cut off a long turn of the 
 hot and dusty road. It led me into difficulties and 
 bewilderment. The path disappeared, but I went 
 on. After climbing rocks densely overgrown with 
 brambles, which left their daggers in my skin, I 
 reached the top of the hill, and saw before me a 
 desert of disintegrated rock or drift dotted over with 
 low juniper bushes. Although it was the middle of 
 September, the sun blazed above me with the ardour 
 of July, and the rays were thrown back by the bare 
 
68 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 stones, on which there was not a trace of moss, nor 
 even lichen. These arid rocky places, so charac- 
 teristic of Southern France, have a poetry of their 
 own that to me is ever enticing. I love the stony 
 wastes and their dazzling sun-glitter. There I find 
 something that approaches companionship in the 
 prickly juniper, the narcotic hellebore, and the acrid 
 spurge. And these plants likewise love the places 
 where the world has remained unchanged by man. 
 The heat, however, was too great for me to linger 
 upon this shadeless hill, where every stone was 
 warm, and the reflected glare was almost as blinding 
 as that of the sun itself, which seemed so near. 
 
 Having crossed another valley, after much casting 
 about, I found the highroad again. The altitude 
 was considerable here, so that the view embraced 
 a wide expanse of the Correze and the department 
 of the Lot, which I was approaching. The scene 
 was everything that an English landscape is not. 
 No soft verdure, no hedgerows setting memory 
 astir with pictures of the flowering may and the 
 pink, clambering dog-rose gemmed with dew ; no 
 lustrous meadow crossed by shadows thrown by 
 ancient dreaming elms ; no flash from the briskly- 
 flowing brook : no, nothing of this, but in its place 
 a parched and rugged land of hills or knolls, stony, 
 wasteful, where for countless ages the juniper, the 
 broom, the gorse, and the heather have disputed 
 the sovereignty, the intervening valleys, timidly 
 cultivated, producing little else but rye and buck- 
 
A SHADELESS PLAIN 69 
 
 wheat, and the deep gorges sombre with over- 
 hanging trees. 
 
 This road was so tedious, so hot and dusty, that, 
 after walking a few miles upon it, I lost patience 
 altogether with what seemed to be its unreasonable 
 windings, and again made an effort to strike across 
 country by means of by-paths, in order to reach the 
 spot where, according to the map and compass, I 
 thought Vayrac ought to be. I came to a seven- 
 teenth century country-house, large enough to be 
 termed a chateau, but now the dwelling of some 
 peasant-farmer. It was a dilapidated, apparently 
 owl-haunted building, with a dovecote tower over 
 grown with ivy, and was half surrounded by a wall, 
 whose tottering, ornamental pinnacles told a story 
 of comparative grandeur that had come to grief in 
 this remote spot. The farmer had been winnowing 
 his corn outside, and the narrow lane was ankle- 
 deep with chaff. The only human being that I 
 could find here was a wild-looking girl, with a bush 
 of hair on her head, who made me understand, half 
 in French, half in patois, that I should never reach 
 Vayrac by the way I was going. She sent me off 
 in another direction. I walked on, I know not how 
 many miles, without coming to any village or wayside 
 auberge, over a shadeless plain in the department of 
 the Lot. There was no water ; consequently not a 
 bird was to be seen or heard. But there were myriads 
 of flies, and too many hornets for my comfort, for 
 some of them followed me with impertinent curiosity. 
 
jo TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 I confess that I do not like hornets. When I see 
 them, they remind me of the story of a donkey told 
 me by a man in these parts. He in his youth saw 
 an unlucky ass that, quietly browsing, unconscious 
 of indiscretion, disturbed a hornets' nest. Suddenly 
 the animal showed symptoms of unusual excitement, 
 which became rapidly more violent, until, after some 
 amazing antics, first on his front-legs and then on 
 his hind-legs, he rolled over on his back, and kicked 
 violently at the sky. His master knew what had 
 happened, but stood lamenting afar off, not daring 
 to go to the rescue. In a short time the poor 
 donkey ceased kicking, and swelled up in a manner 
 horrible to behold. 
 
 All nature now appeared to be baking. Even 
 the blackberries, which I ate by the handful to 
 slake my raging thirst, were warm. A long, straight 
 road that I thought would never end brought me at 
 length to Vayrac, where there was a good inn. 
 Oh, the luxury of rest at last in a shaded room, 
 with the companionship of a jug of frothing beer 
 just brought up from the cool cellar ! 
 
 * ■* * -* * 
 
 Months passed before I continued from this point 
 my journey on foot. The spring had come, and the 
 face of nature was wondrously changed. Over the 
 valley that I had seen before so parched had spread 
 the soft verdure of young grass ; hedges of quince 
 were all abloom, and at their roots the stitchwort 
 mingled its white starry flowers with the matchless 
 
THE SOUTHERN SPRING 71 
 
 blue of the Germander speedwell, so dear to English 
 eyes. The roadsides were bright with daisies and 
 the gold of the ill-appreciated dandelion. 
 
 A lane from Vayrac led up to the escarped sides 
 of the Puy d'Issolu — the Uxellodunum of the 
 Cadurci, according to Napoleon III. and others 
 who have made Caesar's battlefields in Gaul their 
 study. It was April, and from near and afar came 
 the warbling of nightingales. They moved amongst 
 the new leaves of almost every shrub and tree. A 
 very abrupt ascent through thickets brought me to 
 the tableland, where the turf was flashed with 
 splendid flowers of the purple orchis. From the 
 waste land the sombre junipers rose like scattered 
 cypresses in a cemetery. 
 
 If this was not the site of Uxellodunum, we may 
 pretty safely believe it to have been that of some 
 important oppidum of the Gauls. A circumvallation 
 there could never have been in a strict sense, for 
 where the plateau rests upon high calcareous walls 
 there was no need of a fortification. But elsewhere, 
 where the position was accessible from the valley, it 
 was protected by a strong wall. On the northern 
 side this rampart can be followed for a considerable 
 distance without a break. In one spot the soil 
 which has collected about it has been dug away, 
 leaving the masonry bare. It is not composed of 
 loose stones of various sizes, like that of the Celtic 
 city at Murcens, but of small flat stones neatly laid 
 together, with layers of mortar between ; a circum- 
 
n TWO SUMMERS IX GUYENNE 
 
 stance that sets one conjecturing and doubting. 
 The wall appears to have been six or eight feet 
 thick. The line of it now only rises very slightly 
 above the edge of the plateau. 
 
 I met a peasant who owned the highest part of 
 the tableland, and who managed to grow crops upon 
 it. Near his cottage he pointed out the remains of 
 an ancient structure, which he called the fort. The 
 masonry was of the same character as that of the 
 wall. Near to it were fragments of ancient pottery 
 and tiles, which he had dug out of the ground. 
 The tiles were very heavy and flat, with turned-up 
 edges, so that they could hang one to another. 
 There were holes, too, for the nails which held 
 them to the roof. Thrown on one side were human 
 bones, which had from time to time been turned up 
 by the plough. The peasant told me that his father, 
 while digging rather deeply, had found a skeleton 
 wearing a bracelet and part of a helmet. A visitor 
 to the Puy d'Issolu, many years ago, was allowed to 
 take these remains away, together with a quantity 
 of iron arrow-heads, on his promise to come back 
 and pay 600 francs for them. He never came back. 
 
 The view from the Puy takes in an immense 
 expanse of the solemn Limousin country. To the 
 south is the stone-strewn Ouercy, while to the 
 north and east is the still wilder Correze. On 
 the west lie the forests of Black Perigord. Look- 
 ing to the east, I saw the mountains of Auvergne, 
 the Mont Dore range rising beyond the Correze 
 
CJESAR AND THE CADURCI 73 
 
 against the blue sky, as white as the sugar towers 
 and pinnacles upon a bride-cake. Here it was 
 warm, like June weather in England ; there winter 
 still reigned upon the snowy hills. Standing against 
 the north-western horizon were the high towers of 
 the vast feudal fortress of the Viscounts of Turenne. 
 It was there that Madame de Conde, escaping from 
 Mazarin, planned the rising of Guyenne in 1648. 
 1 could only distinguish the towers, but I knew that 
 a little below them was the small mediaeval town of 
 Turenne, which grew up under the protection of 
 the Viscounts, who for centuries were virtually the 
 sovereign princes of this region. No lover of the 
 picturesque would waste his time by going there. 
 
 Descending from the tableland on the southern 
 side, where the rocks form a steep little gorge, I 
 came to the stream from which the besieged Cadurci 
 are supposed to have drawn their water-supply, until 
 it was cut off by Caesar. Looking at the spot, it 
 is easy to understand how it all happened. The 
 natural fortress, selected with so much judgment by 
 the Cadurci, was almost unassailable. To help them, 
 they had the cover of the wood that still fills the 
 gorge, but which was probably much denser then 
 than it is now. From his tower of ten stages, which 
 commanded the fountain, Caesar continually harassed 
 with darts, thrown by the tormenta, those who came 
 to the spring ; and he, moreover, tells us that he 
 caused a gallery to be tunnelled to the fountain- 
 head, and thus drew off the water, to the -utter 
 
74 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 astonishment and despair of the Cadurci, who per- 
 ceived in this disaster the intervention of the gods. 
 A tunnel such as he describes exists, and the stream 
 flows through it. At a point some distance higher, 
 the sound of gurgling water can be distinctly heard 
 beneath the stones ; and it was here probably where 
 the stream originally broke out, and where the 
 inhabitants of the oppidwn came with their vessels. 
 Napoleon III. had the subterranean gallery cleared, 
 and its artificial character was proved by the dis- 
 covery that massive beams of wood, of which there 
 were some remains, had been used to prevent the 
 soil from falling in upon the workers. It has now 
 been nearly filled up again by the calcareous deposit 
 of the water. The river mentioned by Caesar as the 
 one that flowed in the valley beneath Uxellodunum* 
 is a small tributary of the Dordogne, called the 
 Tourmente. This is assuming the Puy d'Issolu to 
 have been Uxellodunum. The most convincing 
 material proof that the two places are the same was 
 furnished by the discovery of the tunnel ; but some 
 strong corroborative evidence is to be found in local 
 names. The word pay affords no clue, for it simply 
 means a high place. In the dialect of the Viscounty 
 of Turenne the Puy d'Issolu is pronounced Lo Pe dd 
 Cholu. In the word Issolu or Cholu, we may have 
 something of the Celtic word, which was Latinized 
 
 * 'Flumen infimam vallam lividebat quae totum pcene montem 
 cingebat, in quo positum erat praeruptum undique oppidum Uxello- 
 dunum.'— «De Bello Gallico,' Lib. VIII. 
 
UXELLODUNUM 75 
 
 by Caesar after his custom ; but this verbal similarity 
 would not in itself go far to prove the identity of the 
 height near Vayrac with the position defended by 
 Drappes and Lucterius. Lying in the Correze at 
 no great distance from the Dordogne is the town of 
 Ussel — a name that approaches much more nearly 
 the sound of Uxellodunum. But an educated 
 native of Vayrac, whom I chanced to meet months 
 after my visit to the Puy d'Issolu, furnished me 
 with some local testimony which appears to be of 
 value in connection with a subject that has given 
 rise to so much controversy. The stream where it 
 issues near the base of the rocky height has been 
 known in the neighbourhood from time immemorial 
 as ' Lo foun Conino ' — Conino's Fountain. Conino 
 is a natural Romance corruption of Caninius, the 
 name of Caesar's lieutenant who in the first instance 
 directed the siege of Uxellodunum. The French 
 name for the stream at the bottom of the valley already 
 mentioned is derived from the Romance one, Lo 
 Tourmento. Now, as Caesar made so much use of 
 tormenta as engines of war, to prevent the besieged 
 Cadurci from drawing water, something may easily 
 have occurred to associate the stream with one of 
 these machines. It is to be observed, however, 
 that there are other streams in France to which 
 the name Tourmente has been given, and of which 
 the explanation is much more simple. 
 
 How solemnly still seemed this spectre-haunted 
 spot in the quiet evening ! There was the groaning 
 
76 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GVYENNE 
 
 murmur of the stream flowing down its subterran 
 passage, and there was the low and fitful warble of 
 
 ean 
 
 a nightingale ; but this was all. Who, passing by 
 here without foreknowledge, would suppose that on 
 
CELTIC HEROES 77 
 
 this bit of desert the great struggle between Rome 
 and Gaul was brought to a close ? What a wonderful 
 thing is a book, that it should preserve age after age, 
 with undiminished reality, all the torment, anguish, 
 and passion of a siege, and give a human interest 
 to rocks and streams, which without such aid would 
 tell us nothing of the horrid tumult that raged over 
 and around them ! Now T can see the half-naked 
 Gauls rolling down their barrels of naming pitch 
 upon the Roman engineers, and hear that great 
 clamour of the besiegers and the besieged of which 
 Caesar speaks. Above were the Celtic heroes 
 defending their last rock with the obstinacy of 
 despair, and ready to accept death in any form but 
 that of thirst ; and here were the veteran legionaries 
 exposing themselves day after day to the burning 
 pitch, the stones, and the arrows of the defenders, 
 with that disciplined courage and unwavering resolve 
 to conquer which made Rome the mistress of the 
 world. But the most terrible scene must have been 
 that in which the Gaulish warriors, after their sur- 
 render, had their hands cut off. What frightful 
 business was that, and what a heap of hands must 
 have been buried somewhere, either upon the table- 
 land or in the valley ! A deep-ploughing peasant 
 may long since have come upon an extraordinary 
 collection of little bones, and been much puzzled by 
 them. And poor Drappes, who, after his capture, 
 refused to eat, and died from starvation ; he must 
 have been buried somewhere near. But Nature says 
 
78 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 nothing about all these things ; she covers up the 
 traces of human ferocity with her new leaves and 
 moss, and smiles there as tenderly as upon children's 
 graves. 
 
 I passed the night at St. Denis, a modern place 
 brought into existence by the line to Toulouse. At 
 the auberge the evening was enlivened by dancing. 
 Two maids of the inn found partners in a couple of 
 rustic youths, and a young soldier en congd provided 
 the music by whistling, or imitating the hurdy-gurdy 
 with his mouth. For it was the bourrde that was 
 danced. 
 
 The next morning I was on the road to Martel, 
 with nightingales and blackcaps singing all around 
 from blossoming quince and hawthorn and copses 
 filled with a gold-green glimmer, until I reached 
 the bare upland country. Upon the barren causse, 
 besides the short turf, the gray ribs of rock, and 
 scattered stones, little was to be seen but dark little 
 junipers, tall broom, not yet in flower, hellebore, 
 with bright tufts of new leaves and evil-looking 
 green blossoms edged with dull purple, and the 
 numberless gilded umbels of the spurge, which in 
 springtime lend such beauty to the Southern desert. 
 In the dips and little dingles there were stunted 
 oaks with the brown foliage, that had been beaten 
 by the winter winds in vain, still clinging to them, 
 but which every breath of western breeze now 
 scattered, because the buds were swelling and the 
 unborn leaves were asking to come forth. At wide 
 
MARTEL 79 
 
 distances above the undulating, sterile land a farm- 
 house would appear, with high-pitched tiled roof, 
 and a pigeon-house rising like a tower at one end. 
 The stranger marvels to see such substantially-built 
 houses in the midst of such sterility; but he finds the 
 explanation when he has time to consider that there 
 are so many stones lying about that, where it is 
 possible to plough, the peasant heaps them up in his 
 field, or makes walls that are little wanted. Havino- 
 reached the top of a knoll, I saw beneath me many 
 old tiled roofs whose lines ran at all angles, and 
 above these rose the massive walls of a half-fortified 
 church, and various towers or fragments of towers. 
 I was looking at Martel. 
 
 According to legend and local history, Charles 
 Martel, after defeating the Saracens near this spot, 
 caused a church to be built on a piece of fertile land 
 a few miles from the battlefield, and dedicated it to 
 St. Maur. A town grew around church and 
 monastery, and was named Martel in honour of the 
 founder. In the early days of the Crusades, when 
 princes and barons rivalled one another in virtuous 
 zeal, a Viscount of Turenne decreed that inhabitants 
 of Martel who were convicted of sinnine against 
 the marriage tie should be dragged naked through 
 the town. The charter that contains this enactment 
 treats of villeinage also, and orders that whoever has 
 a man for sale within the limits of the viscounty 
 shall fix the price, and shall not change it after- 
 wards. 
 
So TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry 
 Plantagenet brought the English to Martel in the 
 twelfth century ; but it does not appear that they 
 obtained or cared to keep anything like a perma- 
 nent grip on the place until the fourteenth century. 
 Inasmuch, however, as Henry Short- Mantle, the 
 rebellious son of Henry II., met with no resistance 
 at Martel when he came thither, after pillaging the 
 sanctuary of Roc-Amadour in 1183, it may be con- 
 cluded that English influence was already established 
 there. In the market-place is a house a portion of 
 which was once included in a building that has now 
 nearly disappeared, but w T hich is known to every 
 inhabitant as the 'palace of Henry II.' On the 
 first floor, communicating with a spiral staircase, is 
 a room paved with small pebbles. On one side is 
 a broad chimney-place, just such as we see now all 
 through Guyenne, even in the towns. According 
 to the tradition preserved by the family to whom 
 the house belongs, it was in one of the chimney- 
 corners of this room that Prince Henry sat on the 
 evening of the day that he left Roc-Amadour. It 
 is uncertain, however, whether the Prince went to 
 Martel immediately after the sacrilege, or after a 
 pilgrimage that he made to the sanctuary to atone 
 for his crime, when he was suffering from the disease 
 that killed him. There is a local legend that he 
 was followed by two monks, who contrived to put 
 poison into his goblet ; but whether he was poisoned 
 or died of dysentery at Martel, as the chroniclers 
 
THE ENGLISH AT M ARTEL 8r 
 
 maintain, is a detail of small importance. That he 
 did die here, and very repentantly, on a bed of 
 ashes, and held up by the Bishop of Cahors, is a 
 historical fact. 
 
 An indubitable testimony of the English occupa- 
 tion of Martel is the heraldic leopard of the Plan- 
 tagenets. I found it carved in stone among the 
 ruins of King Henry's palace, and hard by I saw it 
 again upon a rusty fireplate that had been thrown 
 into a corner. There is not a native of Martel who 
 is not ready to talk of le Idopard anglais. 
 
 The English were never loved by the Martellois. 
 The people of this district are strong in their attach- 
 ments, and perhaps even stronger in their animosities 
 and prejudices. Without doubt the English did not 
 treat them with marked tenderness ; but there was 
 very little human kindness in the Middle Ages, and 
 the French, or the races which now compose France, 
 left nothing to be invented in the arts of cruelty and 
 oppression in the wars that they waged among 
 themselves before they learnt, or were forced to 
 learn, that it was to their interest to hold together 
 and form one nation. Moreover, the greater number 
 of the so-called English who kept a considerable 
 part of Aquitaine in continual terror for three 
 centuries were natives of the soil. 
 
 All the men of Martel who could carry arms 
 joined the forces of King John, who was defeated 
 by the Black Prince at Poitiers. The consuls of 
 Martel had to pay heavy ransoms for their fellow- 
 
 6 
 
82 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 townsmen who fell into the hands of the English. 
 Notwithstanding the disaster at Poitiers, the Mar- 
 tellois closed their gates and prepared for a siege, 
 after having obtained from the Viscount a company 
 of crossbow-men to help them in the defence. But 
 an English garrison was soon established at Mont- 
 vallent, only a few miles off, and this fact seems to 
 have demoralized the Martellois, who, after enduring 
 a few assaults, surrendered the town. The longest 
 period of unbroken English possession of Martel 
 appears to have occurred after this surrender. It is 
 probable that the Senechaussee, which now exists 
 under the name of the Hotel de Ville, was com- 
 menced about this time, although the King of 
 England must have been represented in the town 
 by his seneschal long before. By the treaty passed 
 between Henry III. and Reymond VI. of Turenne 
 in 1223, it was stipulated that the Viscount should 
 pay homage to Henry, but that the English officers 
 should exercise no jurisdiction in the viscounty, 
 except in the town of Martel, where the King could 
 hold his assizes with the consent of the Viscount. 
 It was, moreover, provided that in the event of 
 resistance on the part of his fiefs, the Viscount could 
 apply to the English seneschal at Martel for armed 
 assistance. The burghers were in the enjoyment 
 of their political franchises from the year 1256. 
 They had town councillors, who elected four consuls 
 every four years, who represented the borough in 
 the Etats Vicomtains — an assembly composed of the 
 
THE CHURCH AT MARTEL 83 
 
 principal landholders and dignitaries of the viscounty. 
 The more they tasted freedom the more the burghers 
 felt disposed to quarrel with the Viscount. In 1355 
 they sent a deputation to the Pope at Avignon 
 begging him to ask their lord if it was his wish that 
 the town should retain its privileges. The minutes 
 of the municipal meeting, at which this decision was 
 come to, are in existence, and they show how the 
 Romance language was written at Martel in those 
 days : 
 
 1 Item fo ordenat que Moss. Aymar de Bessa et P. Karti ano a 
 Vinho far reverensa al papa per nom de la vila eque l'hi recomendo 
 la vila. E quelh fasso supplicacio quelh plassa far am los vescomte 
 se bot que nos garde nostres previleges.' 
 
 This ancient town has suffered grievously from 
 that spirit of demolition which was so active during 
 the first half of the present century, but which in 
 France has been somewhat checked by the Com- 
 mission of Historic Monuments. There are people 
 who can remember when the town was surrounded 
 by two walls ; now only a few remnants of the 
 fortifications remain. The church is exceedingly 
 interesting. There are details indicating a very 
 early origin — they may possibly have come down 
 from the foundation ; but the structure in the main 
 belongs to the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. The 
 east end — the oldest portion — has more the character 
 of a stronghold than of a church. It has no apse, 
 and the terminating wall, which is carried far above 
 the roof, has a row of machicolations, and the massive 
 
84 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 buttresses by which it is flanked are really towers 
 pierced with loopholes. At the foot of the wall is 
 a deep pool of water, which serves as the horse-pond 
 for the town ; but it may originally have been part 
 of a moat. 
 
 In the tympanum of the twelfth-century portal is 
 one of those bas-reliefs representing the Last Judg- 
 ment upon which the artistic ambition of the early 
 Gothic period appears to have been chiefly directed 
 in this region. 
 
 The fourteenth -century Senechaussee, with its 
 embattled belfry, its little turrets or bartizans 
 hanging high at the angles of the wall, its dim 
 old court, with a deep well in the centre, speaks 
 with a ghostly voice of ancient Martel. This build- 
 ing, after the English left, was the residence of the 
 seneschals of the Viscounts of Turenne down to 
 the Revolution. In two of the rooms are chimney- 
 pieces very artistically carved in oak. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the demolition that has gone 
 on, bits of picturesque antiquity meet the eye every- 
 where in the old English town. Now it is a half- 
 ruinous watch-tower, now the Gothic doorway of a 
 thirteenth-century house, now a gateway that has 
 lost its tower, but whose wounds are covered with 
 yellow wallflowers in spring ; now a turret running 
 up an entire front, with little windows looking 
 out upon the quiet street, or some high-pitched 
 roof curving inward under the weight of years and 
 tiles. 
 
ARRESTED AS A SPY 85 
 
 The inn where I put up was like a hostelry of 
 romance. Entering by a broad archway, I passed 
 along a passage vaulted and groined, where corbel- 
 heads grimaced from dim corners ; climbed a stair- 
 case broad enough for a palace, and, having reached 
 the landing, saw a great room with hearth and 
 chimney to match, massive old furniture, pots and 
 pans of highly-polished copper, and a hostess stout 
 and cheery, who welcomed me as though I were an 
 old friend, and not a wanderer to whom food and 
 shelter were to be exchanged for money. This 
 good woman had evidently no faith in new fashions ; 
 she dressed as she did thirty years ago, and every 
 dish that she cooked for me was kept warm by a 
 pewter brazier filled with embers from the hearth. 
 One of these dishes was a goose's liver half roasted, 
 half stewed, and sprinkled with capers. 
 
 While at Martel I was arrested as a spy by an 
 o\di garde chanipctrc, who, seeing me taking notes of 
 the church, wished to know who gave me permis- 
 sion to ' make a plan of the town.' I did not reply 
 to him with the politeness that he evidently con- 
 sidered himself entitled to. It is probable that I 
 should have chosen my words with more circum- 
 spection had I guessed what an important person he 
 was ; but as he w r ore a blouse, and was squatting upon 
 a heap of stones which he had been pulling about, I 
 underestimated his dignity. That he united the 
 functions of cantonnier and garde did not occur to 
 me. He sprang to his feet, put on his official 
 
86 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 badge, and, seizing me by the arm, shouted : ' I 
 arrest you !' Then, when I took the liberty of 
 removing his hand, he called out : ' An sec ours f 
 
 But those to whom he appealed were women, 
 who preferred to let him manage his own business, 
 and who, moreover, were too much amused to inter- 
 fere. When he had calmed down a little I walked 
 with him to the deputy-mayor, whose office was 
 over a little shop. After hearing me and examining 
 my papers, this gentleman was satisfied that I was 
 not a very dangerous person, and he told me that 
 I had better forget the incident. 
 
 The fierce old man could not understand why I 
 was released. He even protested : ' II dit qiiil est 
 un anglais ; mats il le dit f 
 
 The deputy-mayor tried to calm him by observing 
 that I had a right to be an Englishman. The garde 
 then walked out, looking very hot and puzzled. 
 From his childhood he had heard of the English 
 as the worst tyrants that the region had known. 
 Was not the country strewn with the ruins of the 
 fortresses they had built ? To his mind they were 
 more dangerous enemies than the Germans, who 
 never came near Martel. I bear no grudge against 
 the old man. He believed that he was doing his 
 duty in arresting me, and if I had made more allow- 
 ance for his age and prejudices the unpleasantness 
 might have been avoided. To him the old struggle 
 with the English was almost as fresh as if it had 
 taken place in his father's time. 
 
THE WICKEDNESS OF THE ENGLISH 87 
 
 People who remain in the same place all their 
 days, and who never read, live much more in the 
 past than others, and remember injuries done to 
 their remote ancestors as if they, the latest descen- 
 dants, were still suffering from them. I remember 
 asking a woman in an inn not far from Martel how 
 an old gateway and other mediaeval buildings close 
 by had been brought to such a sad state of 
 ruin. 
 
 ' It was you,' she exclaimed, 'who did that — vous 
 autre s anglais f 
 
 And she looked so resentful for a few moments 
 that I wished I had let the sleeping dog lie. 
 
[ 88 ] 
 
 IN UPPER PERIGORD. 
 
 Leaving Martel, I crossed the valley of the Dor- 
 dogne, and passed on to other valleys southward and 
 eastward, as recounted in the story of my wander- 
 ings by ' Southern Waters.' Many months went by, 
 and then one summer day found me wayfaring again 
 by the Dordogne towards the sea. A little below 
 the point where I had crossed in search of the 
 Ouysse I came to the small town of Souillac. This 
 place, although fortified in the Middle Ages, played 
 a much less important part in the wars of the Quercy 
 than the neighbouring burgs of Martel and Gour- 
 don. Its interest lies mainly in its twelfth-century 
 church, and here chiefly in a very remarkable bas- 
 relief of the Last Judgment. This astonishing work 
 of art is to be found not where one would expect it 
 to be, namely, in the tympanum of the portal, but in 
 the interior, against a wall at the west end, over a 
 Gothic arch, whose transition from the preceding 
 style is marked by a billet-moulding. The sculpture 
 is in a high degree typical of the uncouth vigour of 
 the period. The two pillars supporting the arch are 
 so carved as to represent figures of the damned going 
 
A SERMON IN SCULPTURE 89 
 
 down into hell. The artist might have been inspired 
 by Dante had he not lived before the poet who col- 
 lected and fixed upon the sombre canvas of his verse 
 all the woeful visions of eternal punishment that 
 haunted the mediaeval mind. A man and woman 
 are descending to the abyss, he holding her by the 
 hair, and she clasping him by the waist, the faces 
 of both terribly expressive of horror that is new, and 
 utter despair. The meaning is plain enough : each 
 was the cause of the other's doom, and the sentence 
 of the Judge in the panel above has united them in 
 hell for all eternity. On the opposite pillar are 
 another couple, also clasping one another ; but their 
 faces express the blank and passionless misery of a 
 doom foreknown. Monk or layman, he who designed 
 the composition felt the necessity of giving this 
 tragic warning to his fellow-beings. Centuries later 
 an English poet expressed the same idea in verse : 
 
 ' The woman's cause is man's ! they rise or sink 
 Together, dwarfed or god-like, bond or free.' 
 
 One of the less conspicuous figures is going down 
 head foremost in the company of an animal that looks 
 very like a pig. This beast having been damned 
 by ecclesiastical sculptors in France as early as the 
 twelfth century, and probably earlier, it is not sur- 
 prising that a polite peasant, when he mentions it 
 by name, often excuses himself for his supposed 
 breach of good manners by adding : ' Sauf votre 
 respect. ' 
 
9 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Nearing a village not far from Souillac, and 
 wondering the while what had become of the pic- 
 turesque, I saw, as if by enchantment, a few yards 
 away, a little old church covered with ivy, and sur- 
 rounded by tombstones that were stained with the 
 dead colours of last winter's lichen ; one leaning this 
 way, another that, but all going down into the 
 grassy graves. A few chairs and a single bench 
 told that the people who came here to pray were not 
 many nor rich. Most of the flagstones were broken, 
 and the altar was almost simple enough to please a 
 Calvinist. It was the simplicity, not of intention, 
 but of poverty. Are such churches — lost amidst the 
 pensive trees, or bathed by the tender evening light 
 upon the vine-clad hillside — doubly hallowed, or is 
 it the poetry of old memories and ideal pictures 
 stored away behind a multitude of newer impres- 
 sions that moves us like the wind-blown strains of 
 half-forgotten melodies as we pass them in our 
 wanderings ? 
 
 Evening found me by the Dordogne, that flowed 
 calmly in a salmon-coloured light, thrown down by a 
 wasteful stony hill, itself lit up by a reflected glow of 
 the sinking sun. The meadows through which the 
 little path ran were dotted all over with golden spots 
 of lotus, and near the water the pale, pure yellow of 
 the evening primrose shone against the darkening 
 willows. The voices of unseen peasants, labouring 
 somewhere in the fields so long as the daylight 
 lasted, were carried up the valley by the breeze, just 
 
RIVAL BUTCHERS 91 
 
 loosened from its leash ; but the sound was only a 
 little louder than the whispering of the poplars. 
 
 The gloaming lingered until I reached the village 
 of Cazoules. At the inn where 1 decided to pass 
 the night I fell among bicyclists — quite a crowd of 
 them — all young, frantic with the excitement of some 
 break-neck run, and noisy enough to shock the dog's 
 sense of decorum, for he slunk off with his tail 
 between his legs. Having slaked their thirst, the 
 jovial band of enthusiasts sprang upon their steel 
 horses and dashed off into the darkness, where their 
 voices were quickly lost. 
 
 While waiting for dinner, I found nothing so 
 amusing as listening to a high dispute between the 
 hostess and a travelling butcher, with whom she 
 had long had dealings, but whom she had lately 
 deserted because she had found another who sold 
 cheaper. The butcher called his rival a ' dirty 
 sparrow,' but at length proposed to yield the sou on 
 each pound of meat by means of which the ' sparrow' 
 had scored his victory. In future all his meat was 
 to be sold at eleven sous, and on these terms he was 
 restored to favour. Thus, by playing one man off 
 against the other, the artful woman was able to save 
 quite a pile of sous every week on her general 
 expenses. The Frenchwoman of ordinary intel- 
 ligence, whether she belongs to the north or the 
 south, the east or the west, may be safely trusted to 
 beat any man of her own race at bargaining. 
 
 For a rural inn this one at Cazoules was good and 
 
92 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 substantial, but it provided a little too much irrita- 
 tion at night to be consistent with peaceful slumber 
 and happy dreams. This was not. perhaps, the fault 
 of the inn, but of the Dordogne Valley. As soon as 
 the day broke another enemy entered the field. The 
 flies then awoke, refreshed but hungry, and deter- 
 mined to make the most of a good opportunity. 
 The house-flies of the North, when compared to those 
 of the South, seem to have been well brought up, 
 and trained to live with human beings on terms of 
 civility, if not of friendship. The flies of Southern 
 France must be descended from those that were sent 
 to worry Pharaoh, and when one has lived with 
 them during the months of August and September, 
 one can quite believe that their ancestors exasperated 
 the Egyptian king to the point of promising any- 
 thing so that they might be taken from him. 
 
 It was not until I had walked away from Cazoules 
 that I realized where I was. I had left the Quercy 
 while wandering through those meadows as the sun 
 was sinking, and had entered Perigord — once famous 
 for troubadours, and now for truffles. Nobody can 
 live there to-day by making verses, and the repre- 
 sentative of the jongleur, who once sang from castle 
 to castle to the accompaniment of the mediaeval 
 fiddle, and who was so heartily welcomed at all the 
 baronial feasts and merrymakings, is now a wander- 
 ing beggar, who gathers crusts from the peasants by 
 his rude minstrelsy, that changes from the pious to 
 the obscene, or from the obscene to the pious, as the 
 
THE CASTLES BY THE DORDOGNE 93 
 
 character and taste of the audience may decide. 
 Many persons, however, contrive to prosper by 
 hunting for truffles in the exhilarating company of 
 pigs. It is not in this fertile valley that they 
 find them, but on the hillsides and stony table- 
 lands, where the oak flourishes, but never grows 
 tall. 
 
 I passed almost at the foot of one of those darkly- 
 wooded, precipitous hills or cliffs which now ap- 
 proach the water's edge and now recede for a mile 
 or more in this part of the valley ; widening or 
 diminishing the cultivated land accordingly as the 
 rocky sides of the fissure resisted the washing and 
 mining of the ancient waters. 
 
 On the top of the cliff stood a high round tower 
 — the keep of a small feudal stronghold. It is called 
 the Tour de Mareuil. Its position leaves little 
 doubt that in old times its owners, like so many 
 other nobles whose ruined castles crown the heights 
 on both sides of the Dordogne, levied toll upon the 
 boats that came up or went down the river. Naviga- 
 tion must have been always difficult on account of 
 the strong current and the numerous rapids and 
 shallows ; but the stream was a means of communi- 
 cation between Bordeaux, Perigord, and the Haut- 
 Quercy that was not to be despised, and probably 
 some care was taken to keep the channel open. 
 According to tradition, the English made frequent 
 use of it. The tolls were an important source of 
 income to the nobles whose fortresses overlooked the 
 
94 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 river. A sharp look-out was always kept from the 
 towers for approaching boats. 
 
 I was on my way to the castle where Fenelon 
 first saw the light, and in order to reach it I had to 
 cross the river. An old flat-bottomed boat, built for 
 conveying men, asses, and other animals from one 
 side to the other, lay off the bank, and two girls, who 
 were in charge of a flock of geese as well as of the 
 ferry, were willing to take me across. While the 
 elder ferried, the younger examined me carefully at 
 close quarters, and apparently with much interest. 
 Presently she asked me if I sold writing-paper. 
 After landing, I soon reached the village of St. 
 Mondane. Here I halted at an inn in the shadow 
 of old walnut-trees. A few yards off, under one of 
 the great trees, was a high wooden crucifix, around 
 which some twenty or thirty geese were standing or 
 lying down, all in a digestive or contemplative 
 mood, and through the openings between the boles 
 and the branches were seen the sunlit meadows 
 sloping to the low willows and the flashing river. 
 
 From St. Mondane a charming road or lane 
 between very high banks that are almost cliffs leads 
 upward to the Chateau de la Motte-Fenelon, where, 
 in 1 65 1, was born Francois de Salignac de la Motte, 
 known to the world as Fenelon. Having reached 
 the top of the hill, I soon came in view of a pictur- 
 esque mass of masonry with round towers capped 
 with pointed roofs, and with Gothic gables hanging 
 lightly in the air over dormer windows ; the whole 
 
FENELON'S CASTLE 
 
 95 
 
 rising out of a dense grove of trees in the midst of 
 a quiet sunny landscape. When quite near I found 
 that the grove was a sombre little wood of ever- 
 green oaks. The same wood, if not the actual 
 oaks, may have been there in Fenelon's time, for 
 the ilex is one of the commonest trees in Perigord 
 on the hills about the Dordogne. As a boy, while 
 climbing here, he may have torn his hose into 
 tatters, notwithstanding his precocious knowledge of 
 Greek. The future churchman may even have 
 robbed a jay's nest on this very spot. What 
 quietude and what deep shadow ! Not a leaf 
 stirred ; only a fiery shaft of sunshine forced its way 
 here and there through the dark roof of unchanging 
 green to the brown soil and the rampart's mossy wall. 
 Although the present castle was raised when 
 feudalism was nothing more than a tradition and a 
 sentiment, the outworks, consisting of two walls, 
 the inner one standing on ground considerably 
 higher than the other, were of exceptional strength, 
 and as they were originally, so they remain at the 
 present day. I passed through the outer and then 
 the inner gateway, and, in my search for a human 
 being, accident led me to the kitchen, which was 
 very large and entirely paved with pebbles. Here 
 I found the cook, who, I had been told, was the 
 only person in authority at that time. Surrounded 
 by four great walls, on which hung utensils that 
 were rarely handled except for the periodical scour- 
 ing, she looked as solemn as a cloistered nun. She 
 
9 6 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 consented, however, to show me the interior of the 
 castle, with a pathetic readiness which said that the 
 
 appearance ot an occasional visitor kept her from 
 sinking into hopeless melancholy. 
 
FENELON S BEDROOM 97 
 
 The most interesting room is the one in which 
 Fenelon slept. Here is to be seen his four-post 
 bedstead, each of the posts a slender twisted column, 
 the silk hangings and fringe looking very worn 
 and faded after being exposed to the light of over 
 two hundred years. Adjoining this room is the 
 salle a manger, the immense hearth, with seats at 
 the ingle corners, being covered by an elliptical 
 arch. Most of the furniture here and elsewhere is 
 of massive oak, carved in the style of the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries. The family into 
 whose possession this castle has passed, although 
 distinct from that of Salignac de la Motte, which 
 has now no representative, reverently preserves all 
 that associates the spot with the memory of the 
 illustrious author of ' Telemaque.' 
 
 From the top of one of the machicolated towers 
 I saw a vast expanse of country, singularly grand, 
 but very solemn. From each side of the Dordogne 
 Valley rose and stretched away into the distance 
 a seemingly endless succession of hills, broken up 
 by narrow gorges and glens. Over all, or nearly 
 all these hills lay a dark and scarcely varying 
 mantle of forest. This tract of country is well 
 named Perigord Noir. It is one of the few 
 districts of France which still draw a sum from 
 the Government yearly in the form of prize money 
 for the wolves that are killed there. 
 
 I returned to St. Mondane and continued my 
 journey westward by the valley, which brought me 
 
 7 
 
98 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 every day a little nearer to the sea — still so far 
 away. As I had no need to hurry, I sat awhile in 
 the late afternoon upon a low mossy wall, in the 
 deep shade of a dripping, whispering rock, from 
 which hung delicate green tresses of the maiden's- 
 hair fern. Above, the rock was lost in a steep 
 wilderness of trees and dense undergrowth, which 
 met the radiant sky somewhere where the eye could 
 not follow. The bell-like tinkle of water out of 
 sight was the only sound until I heard a patter- 
 patter of webbed feet coming along the road. A 
 flock of geese were moving homeward, followed by 
 a woman, whose feet were as bare as theirs, and 
 whose eyes were fixed upon her distaff and spindle. 
 She would not have noticed me had not the birds, 
 true to their ancient reputation, given the alarm. 
 
 A little later I had left the shadow of the wooded 
 rocks and was on the margin of the river, which 
 spread out broadly here between its shelving 
 banks of pebbly shingle. Then, to reach by the 
 shortest way the village where I intended to pass 
 the night, I had to turn once more from the water 
 and cross some wooded hills. Here the jays mocked 
 at the solemnity of the evergreen oaks, and the dark 
 forest echoed as with the laughter of fiends. 
 
 Grolejac was the curious name of the village I 
 was seeking, and which I at length found partly on 
 a hill and partly in the valley of the Dordogne. 
 Chance taking me to a house that bore the sign of 
 an inn, although it was at the back of a farm-yard, 
 
WAITING FOR DINNER 99 
 
 I thought I might as well stop there as anywhere 
 else. 
 
 I am waiting for dinner — seldom a cheerful way 
 of killing time. I do not, however, expose myself 
 to the risk of being irritated by the sight of my 
 willing but mechanical hostess scraping the white 
 ashes from the embers, parcelling out these into 
 little heaps of fire upon the hearth, throwing salt 
 into the swinging pot with a hand the colour of 
 which may be distressing to the imagination, then 
 tasting the soup : all this, and much more, I leave 
 her to accomplish in the gathering darkness of the 
 kitchen, and, sparing her the pain of lighting lamp 
 or candle while there is still a gleam of day, I 
 wander out beyond the houses of the village to a 
 quiet woodside, there to watch the coming of night, 
 which, whether it be accompanied by wailing winds 
 and storm-rack brimming with tears, or by that 
 grand serenity which grows in beauty as the light 
 fails, is always like the coming of death. 
 
 In the clear-obscure, the brown and yellow rocks 
 of bare limestone, at the foot of which is the small 
 inn, seem to be drawing nearer. All their details 
 become luminously distinct as the air grows darker, 
 while the caverns gape like the black mouths of 
 some stealthily approaching, monstrous, many- 
 headed form. Two men are still working in a field 
 of tobacco, and they go on until lights flash forth 
 from all the houses in the valley. Then they slowly 
 move off into the dusk with their ox and waggon. 
 
ioo TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 All about the fields, where the night crickets are now 
 chirruping and the flying beetles are droning, there 
 is a general movement of life towards the village' — 
 of men carrying their mattocks on their shoulder 
 or walking in front of the ox that has done his long 
 day's ploughing, of women and children, geese, 
 turkeys, and sheep. 
 
 I wonder if the wooden cross beside the tobacco- 
 field was put there to mark the spot where somebody 
 
 ,** * r^- --*- ^&^ 
 
 RETURNING FROM THE FIELDS. 
 
 died, in accordance with an old and beautiful custom 
 still much practised in these rural districts of France ; 
 but the thought of the laid table at the auberge 
 changes the train of ideas, so, following in the wake 
 of the last goose, I, too, take refuge from the night 
 in the now animated village. 
 
 Sitting alone at a great table in a room large 
 enough for a marriage feast, ill-lighted by an oil- 
 lamp, whose flame appears to be afflicted with St. 
 Vitus's dance — a room quite free from ornament, 
 
FRENCH CONSERVATISM 101 
 
 with furniture responding exclusively to the purposes 
 of resting, eating, and drinking, with curtainless 
 windows looking out upon the moonless night that 
 is beginning to sigh and moan at the approach of a 
 storm — my dinner is not a very cheerful one. Not 
 that I am necessarily unhappy when I take a solitary 
 meal. In this matter all depends upon the mood, 
 and the mood frequently depends upon influences 
 too subtle to be analyzed. The dinner was as good 
 as I had a right to expect it to be. A dish on 
 which the hostess had evidently striven to use her 
 best art was of orange mushrooms in a sauce of ver- 
 juice ; but the substantial one was a roast fowl — an 
 unfortunate bird that was just going to roost with 
 an easy mind, when my coming upset the arrange- 
 ments of the inn and the poultry house. One fowl, 
 at all events, had had good reason to think it was an 
 ill wind that blew me into the village. 
 
 It is a bad custom in rural France to kill fowls 
 just when they are wanted for the spit. Not only 
 is it unpleasant to think that a creature is not allowed 
 time to cool before it begins to turn in front of the 
 fire, but the art of cooking is placed at a dis- 
 advantage by the practice. It is of no use, however, 
 trying to convince the people of their error, even 
 when they kill poultry for themselves and can choose 
 their time : they will never do things otherwise than 
 in the way to which they have been accustomed. 
 The French are stubbornly conservative in every- 
 thing except politics. 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 As I felt the need of talking to-night, I fetched 
 the farming innkeeper from his kitchen and per- 
 suaded him to drink some of his own cognac. This 
 he did without wincing, but he soon returned the 
 compliment by bringing out of a cupboard a bottle 
 of clear greenish liquor, which he said was eau de vie 
 de jigues. It was something new to me. I had 
 tasted alcohol distilled from a considerable variety 
 of the earth's fruits, but never from figs before. It 
 retained a strong flavour of its origin, and might 
 have been correctly described as fire-water, for it 
 was almost pure spirit. 
 
 I drew this man into conversation upon the 
 peasant's life. All that he said was only confirma- 
 tion of the opinion I had already formed from other 
 testimony respecting the occupation of Adam when 
 he had to struggle with nature outside of the ter- 
 restrial paradise. Let a man own as much soil as 
 he can till with his hands, let him have an ox, too, 
 to help him : he can only live at the price of almost 
 incessant labour and rigorous frugality. This is 
 the normal condition of the peasant-proprietor's 
 existence. 
 
 ' The peasant who works seriously,' said the 
 farmer, ' does not sleep more than four hours a 
 night during the summer months. He goes to 
 bed at ten, and gets up at two. This would not 
 hurt him if he were better fed, but he eats little 
 besides his soup, and drinks bad piquet te' 
 
 The man went back to his kitchen, and then 
 
A STORMY NIGHT 103 
 
 to his bed close by ; the flame of the lamp became 
 sick unto death, for it now wanted oil, and the house 
 grew so quiet that the squeaking of the rats and the 
 pattering of their feet could be heard from places 
 that seemed far away. But for the rumbling of the 
 thunder, the only sound from the mysterious world 
 outside would have been the scream, now like the 
 cry of a cat, now like a puppy's bark, of an owl 
 flying with muffled wings up and down the valley. 
 Very different, however, was this little owl's cry from 
 the madman's shout of the great eagle owl, which 
 I had often heard in the rocky vale of the Alzon. 
 I threw open the window of my bedroom and looked 
 out upon the night. It was illumined, not by moon 
 nor by stars, but by lightning flashes, which followed 
 one another with such rapidity that there was no 
 darkness. The quivering flame threw an awful bright- 
 ness into the great woods upon the tops of the hills. 
 
 A few hours later I was wandering through these 
 woods, which were now filled with another light that 
 dried the dripping leaves. 
 
 Some miles of forest, then cultivated slopes, and 
 at length the Dordogne again. I was growing 
 rather weary of searching for the mediaeval town of 
 Domme, when I recognised it by its old ramparts 
 upon the summit of a high bare hill, which looked 
 very forbidding indeed where it changed to rock, 
 whose naked escarpments seemed to float as in- 
 accessible as a cloud in the blue air far above the 
 valley. As I climbed the shadeless stony hill in the 
 
104 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 mid-day sun-glare, I thought that if the soldiers of 
 five or six centuries ago used strong language as 
 they toiled up here in their heavy armour, it was 
 excusable. I was wellnigh repenting of my reso- 
 lution to reach Domme, when, by a turn of the road, 
 I found myself not many yards in front of a fortified 
 gateway of the fourteenth century, with a drum- 
 tower on each side connected by a curtain with the 
 ramparts. At first glance nothing seemed to be 
 wanting-. The towers, however, were ruinous in the 
 upper part, and the battlements had disappeared. 
 
 With the help of a local pork-butcher, who kept 
 the key, I was able to enter the towers of this gate- 
 way. In each was a guard-room of considerable 
 size, and the men-at-arms while on duty there 
 evidently found that in time of peace the hours 
 lagged, for some of them had carved upon the wall 
 with their knives or daggers crucifixes and repre- 
 sentations of the Virgin and Child, all closely 
 imitated from church sculpture, painting or window 
 decoration of the Gothic period. Many names are 
 cut in Gothic character on the same walls ; a further 
 proof that the vanity of man has ever sprouted in 
 much the same way as now. The antiquary, because 
 he has his own prejudices, perceives an abyss be- 
 tween the act of the Cockney tourist of to-day who 
 carves his name upon an old tower or a menhir, and 
 that of a man who five centuries ago, for no better 
 reason than the other, left upon a guard-room wall 
 a similar record of his passage. The man of the 
 
THE ENGLISH AT DOM ME 105 
 
 present is a vulgar defacer of interesting monuments, 
 whereas he of the past added to their interest, and 
 prepared a pleasant little surprise for the archaeolo- 
 gist who might walk that way a few centuries 
 later. 
 
 Enough of the fortifications of Domme remains to 
 show what a very strong place it was in the Middle 
 Ages. Much of the wall where the town was not 
 naturally defended by the high naked rock, forming 
 a frightful precipice that no besiegers would have 
 attempted to scale, has been well preserved. 
 Standing upon some bastion of this rampart, with 
 the deep valley far below him and the sky above 
 him, the wanderer may allow his fancy almost to 
 convince him that he is really standing upon some 
 1 castle in the air.' Of the many rock-perched towns 
 of the South, this is one of the most remarkable ; 
 although, with the exception of the fortifications, 
 little remains of archaeological interest. 
 
 According to the chronicles of Jean Tarde, a 
 canon of the neighbouring town of Sarlat, who 
 wrote at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of 
 the seventeenth century, Domme was first taken by 
 the English in 1346, but not without the help of 
 1 quelques traistres! From this stronghold they 
 harassed the surrounding country, ' while the armies 
 of one and the other party were in Normandy 
 and Picardy, and that battle of Cressi (Crecy) 
 was fought to the disadvantage of the party of 
 France. Towards the end of the year a truce was 
 
106 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 accorded, but it was in no way observed in Perigord 
 by the English.' 
 
 The correct date of the capture of Domme appears 
 to have been 1347. The men who treasonably 
 delivered up the place were afterwards hanged by 
 the French party when they regained possession of 
 the stronghold. In 1369 the English again invested 
 the rock, this time under the command of Robert 
 Knolles. (Tarde, who spelt all English names as 
 he had heard them pronounced in the country, 
 writes Robert Canole.) The place was then so well 
 defended, and success appeared so far off to the 
 partisans of Edward III., that the siege was raised 
 in despair at the end of a month ; and the annalist 
 goes on to say that the English then marched into 
 the Quercy and took Roc-Amadour. Domme, how- 
 ever, fell into the English power again ; but in 141 5 
 it was once more in the hands of the French. Then 
 we read that the seneschal sent the crier into the 
 public place to proclaim ' de par le Roy ' that every 
 inhabitant of Domme was forbidden to leave the 
 town with the intention of living elsewhere, under 
 the penalty of having any property that he might 
 possess in the town confiscated. The motive of this 
 ordinance is explained as follows : ' The wars had 
 already rendered the country so desolate, that at 
 Domme, where the ordinary number of inhabitants 
 who were heads of families was a thousand, there 
 were now no more than a hundred and twenty. The 
 people who had left had abandoned everything, and 
 gone to Spain or elsewhere.' 
 
AN EXECUTION 107 
 
 From the bare and windy hill I went down again 
 into the quiet valley, where, when a few more miles 
 were left behind, I came to La Roque-Gageac, a 
 village at the foot of high-reaching rocks of fantastic 
 outline, not far from the Dordogne. Many houses 
 long ago seem to have climbed far up the warm 
 limestone under the shelter of cornice and canopy, 
 fashioned by the sculptor Time, braving all the 
 storms of centuries, and the danger of being hurled 
 in fragments towards the valley by some falling crag. 
 
 In an open space, forming a little square, a man 
 and a woman were holding down a pig, one at each 
 end of a board, where the animal had been stretched 
 out against its inclination, while a third person had 
 the knife ready for action. And the spot chosen for 
 the execution was immediately in front of a very old 
 and interesting shrine, with gabled roof, surmounted 
 by a rude Gothic crucifix. I caught a glimpse of 
 the pale statue and the flowers before it ; but only a 
 glimpse, for the struggles of the doomed pig, and 
 the momentary expectation of seeing the red stream 
 gush forth, made me turn away. One sees much 
 that is anything but poetical in the romantic land of 
 the troubadours. 
 
 Near this strikingly-picturesque village is a cave 
 such as one might read of in a story of fanciful 
 adventure. It is in a rock beside the Dordogne, 
 where the river rests in a deep pool. The entrance 
 is under water, and it can only be reached with 
 safety by a good diver when, the sun shining at 
 
10S TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 a certain hour, and the light striking in a particular 
 way, the passage into the cavern is lit up. A boy 
 had made the dive successfully not long before my 
 visit to this place, but he found so much to interest 
 him in the cave while it was lighted a little by the 
 borrowed gleam from the water, that he lingered 
 there until, the sun moving on his course, the angle 
 of refraction suddenly changed. The child had 
 not the courage to take a plunge into the dark gulf, 
 where there was no beacon to guide him, and where 
 he might have struck against the rock. He there- 
 fore remained the rest of the day and all night in 
 the cavern. When the sun again lit up the pas- 
 sage leading from his prison, the boy plunged, and a 
 few seconds afterwards he was sitting on the river- 
 bank drying himself in the sun. 
 
 ***** 
 I have entered upon the tenancy of a small house 
 beside the Dordogne at Beynac, a village a few 
 miles below La Roque, partly crouching beneath a 
 very high rock, and partly built upon its terraces or 
 ledges up to the inner wall of a feudal castle that 
 was much modified and refashioned in later ages 
 under the pressure of two forces — time, that ruins, 
 and the eternal striving of each generation to attain 
 its own ideal of comfort and elegance. But the 
 grand old keep still rears its rectangular mass 
 behind and far above the later masonry, and when 
 the evening sun shines upon it, the stones, no longer 
 gray, wear again their bright colour of six or seven 
 
BEY N AC 
 
 109 
 
 centuries ago. Presently, as the glow moves 
 higher, the battlements and machicolations take a 
 golden clearness that marks every detail against the 
 blue depth of sky whose fire is fading and preparing 
 to change into the calm splendour that mingles with 
 
 BEYNAC. 
 
 the dusk. Between the base ot the rock and the river 
 is just space enough for a road, which is dazzlingly 
 white now, and well powdered with dust ; but in 
 winter it not infrequently disappears under water. 
 
 On the opposite shore, above a shelving beach of 
 yellow pebbles and a broken line of osiers, stretch 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 meadows that are intensely green in spring, and 
 would be quickly so again if rain were to fall ; but 
 now they are very brown, and the long-tailed sheep 
 that wander over them, tinkling their bells, like to 
 keep near the Dordogne, where they can moisten 
 their mouths from time to time, and thus help 
 themselves to imagine that they are eating grass. 
 Beyond the reach of meadow, almost at the foot of 
 high wooded hills which mark the boundary of the 
 valley on that side, is a modern chateau ; but the 
 architect found his model for it in the past, when 
 castles were more picturesque than comfortable. 
 When the amber-tinted towers are seen through 
 the haze of a summer morning against the back- 
 ground of wooded hill, one thinks that in just such 
 a castle as this Tasso or Spenser would have put 
 an enchantress, whose wiles, combined with the 
 indolent influence of the valley, few pilgrim knights 
 taking the eastward way to Roc-Amadour would 
 have been able to resist. 
 
 I found the valley so hot in the steady blaze of 
 summer that, having reached Beynac, I felt no inclina- 
 tion to go any farther. I thought I would stop there 
 until cooler weather came, and live meanwhile princi- 
 pally in the Dordogne. Several families from different 
 parts of Perigord had already come here to spend a 
 mildly exciting and not too costly river season ; and 
 there they were, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, 
 splashing in the blue tepid w T ater, with their clothes 
 laid carefully in little heaps upon the pebbly beach 
 
A M USING THE FISH 1 1 1 
 
 or upon the brown grass by the osiers. Despising 
 the shelter which in more fashionable watering- 
 places is thought indispensable, they lazily un- 
 dressed and dressed in the open air with an 
 appreciation of sunshine and regardlessness of 
 apparel that w r as almost lizard-like in its freedom 
 from conventional restraint. 
 
 I was charmed by the spectacle as I meditated 
 upon the opposite bank. The more I meditated 
 the better I liked the idea of tarrying in a spot 
 where Arcadian simplicity of life was so unaffectedly 
 cultivated. I resolved that I, too, would take a 
 house -at Beynac if there was one to be had, and 
 that I would have what I figuratively termed my 
 ' caravan ' brought up here. At the auberge — the 
 only one in the place — I learnt that there was but a 
 single house still vacant, and that it was not a very 
 beautiful one. A young fisherman started off bare- 
 foot to fetch the owner from his village, four miles 
 away. The country had to be scoured for him, so 
 that it was long before he showed himself. 
 
 While waiting, I went out and amused the fish in 
 the Dordogne by pointing a borrowed rod at them, 
 and tempting them with the fattest house-flies I 
 could find ; but as soon as they saw the bait they all- 
 turned their tails to it. My angling was a complete 
 failure. And yet there were multitudes of fish 
 swimming on the surface ; the water seemed alive 
 with them. I concluded that they were observing a 
 solemn fast. 
 
ii2 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 At length the fisherman returned, looking very 
 hot and dusty, and of course thirsty. He was 
 accompanied by a hard-baked man of about sixty — 
 a peasant, apparently, but one who had put on his 
 best clothes in view of an important bargain that 
 was to be made. He had cunning little eyes, and a 
 mouth that seemed to have acquired from many 
 ancestors, and from the habits of a lifetime, a con- 
 centrated expression of rustic chicanery which told 
 me that no business was to be done with him with- 
 out a fight. 
 
 He led the way to his house, which was on the 
 road just above the river. I came to terms with 
 him for a month, after the expected fight ; but it 
 was not until he had gone away that I began to 
 realize that I had not distinguished myself by my 
 wisdom in this transaction. Even the villagers, 
 who are not dainty in the matter of lodging, 
 described the house as a baraque. It gave me 
 the same impression when I saw the inside of it ; but 
 I closed my eyes to its drawbacks, because I had 
 taken a fancy to Beynac, and this was the only fur- 
 nished dwelling to be obtained there. I thought all 
 the little drawbacks belonging to it, such as the 
 rustic hearth to cook upon, pots with holes in them, 
 rusty frying-pans, deficiency of crockery, and more 
 than a sufficiency of fleas, would be overcome some- 
 how, as they had been elsewhere during my pere- 
 grinations in out-of-the-way districts, where the 
 traveller who nurses his dignity, and has a proper 
 
SETTLING DOWN 113 
 
 regard for the comforts of life, never thinks of 
 stopping. But things did not settle down this time 
 quite so quickly as I had expected. 
 
 After the arrival of the ' caravan ' I took to fishing 
 — always with the same rod borrowed of the black- 
 smith-innkeeper — with a zeal that I had not known 
 since I was a boy. I found that things settled 
 down better when I was out of the way. But there 
 was something that settled down only too rapidly. 
 This was the kitchen floor. There was a bare rock 
 forming the back wall of the house, and adown it a 
 runnel of water gently trickled. In the wet season 
 it lost all modesty, made a lake that rose above the 
 boards, and tried to find an exit by the back of the 
 chimney. This explained why the fire needed two 
 days' coaxing and blowing before it would burn, 
 notwithstanding that our servant had been reared 
 in the knowledge of such chimney-places and their 
 humours. It also explained why somebody's foot 
 went through the floor in a fresh place two or three 
 times a day. At the end of the first week one had 
 to stride or jump over half a dozen chasms to get 
 from one side to another. About the same time 
 four or five of the lower stairs gave way from rotten- 
 ness, so that it needed no little agility to reach the 
 bedrooms. The old man had to come and mend 
 his house, and because he had a guilty conscience 
 he brought a basket of figs with him ; but, instead 
 of owning that the wood was rotten, he insinuated 
 that it had been maliciously danced upon. 
 
 8 
 
ii 4 TW0 SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 But the heat was the worst tribulation. The 
 house, with all its windows without persiennes — a 
 detail I had quite overlooked — faced the south, so 
 that during- the hottest hours of the day the sun was 
 full upon it, and the heat was over one hundred 
 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. It was the most 
 scorching August that had been known even in the 
 South of France for years. The recollection of 
 those burning hours in that shanty will be ever 
 green. 
 
 Nevertheless, the time spent at Beynac left some 
 pleasant memories. The days were fiery, and, 
 when the south wind blew, almost suffocating ; but 
 when the sun went down into the west there usually 
 came a beneficent change. During the few minutes 
 that the golden circle lay seemingly upon the edge 
 of the world, a boat crossing the river appeared to 
 glide over unfathomable depths of splendour ; then 
 gradually over the fields of maize and tobacco, and 
 where the yellow stubble of the corn long since 
 reaped had been left, there spread the deep-toned 
 lustre of evening. As the brown dusk filled the 
 valley, and under the sombre walnut-trees the way- 
 side cross became like the spectre of one, shrill 
 voices of old women were heard calling the geese 
 and turkeys that still lingered in the fields. 
 
 The geese were often left to come home by them- 
 selves, after spending the day along the banks of the 
 river. They belonged to various people, but, being 
 eminently sociable birds, they started off together in 
 
A SUMMER NIGHT BY THE DORDOGNE 115 
 
 flocks of fifty or more. Although there must have 
 been causes of jealousy and rivalry among them, they 
 never seemed to quarrel. They knew when it was 
 time to go home by the failing light, and in the 
 dusk I often met them marching along the road 
 like a regiment of soldiers. As they reached houses 
 to which some of them belonged, detachments would 
 fall out and the others would go on. Every bird 
 would return to the place which had for it the sweet 
 associations of its gosling innocence. 
 
 It is now night — the calm summer night w thout 
 a moon, but spangled with stars. Among those 
 which the Dordogne reflects and holds as if they 
 were its own, is the planet Mars, which gleams redly 
 in the midst of a swarm of lesser yellow lights. The 
 river here is broad and still ; there is not ripple 
 enough to make a beam tremble. If the stars in the 
 water flash, it is because the rays are flashed from 
 above. Just below the village there are rapids, and 
 a faint murmur comes up from them, but it is borne 
 under by the shrilling of the crickets that have 
 climbed into the osiers and poplars all along by 
 the water's edge. Now and again there is a great 
 splash in the middle of the stream, which makes one 
 think that a fish large enough to swallow some un- 
 suspecting Jonah of Perigord must be there in a 
 playful mood ; but this is merely the effect upon the 
 imagination of a sudden noise breaking in upon the 
 monotonous sounds of the night which are so much 
 like silence. 
 
n6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Lured by the freshness of the air and the serene 
 glory of the starlit sky, I wander off down the 
 valley to a spot where the river, all in turmoil, 
 washes and wears away the flanks of rocks rising 
 sheer from its bed like a wall. Looking back, I can 
 see very distinctly the dark mass of the castle and 
 the church by its side high above me against the sky, 
 and every minute or so the lightning-flash from a 
 storm far away in the west brightens the sombre 
 masonry and the rock beneath. 
 
 Centuries ago in this light, the rock, the fortress, 
 and its church must have looked much the same as 
 now. An Englishman, who had campaigned with 
 the Black Prince, standing where I am — the road 
 was probably a mule track then — would have seen 
 against the sky the picture that sets me dream- 
 ing of the past. But the quietude of the summer 
 night might have been disturbed by sounds that are 
 not heard now. It is unlikely that so large a castle, 
 containing so many men-at-arms and officials as 
 must have been deemed necessary to its safety and 
 dignity, would at this early hour have been wrapped 
 in silence more complete than that of the valley. 
 There would surely have been some people breathing 
 the cool air on the platform of the keep besides the 
 watchman, some soldiers pacing the chemin de ronde, 
 although peaceful days may have returned to the un- 
 lucky land of Guyenne ; and the clamour of strong 
 voices would have come down to the river. But now 
 the castle is quiet as its rock which was beaten by the 
 
A TRAVELLING THEATRE 117 
 
 waves of a vanished sea, and those who still live in it 
 are like the keepers of a cemetery. That donjon^ 
 whose dark form seems to stand amidst the stars, only 
 serves to mark one of the many tombs of feudalism 
 which rise above the smiling but capricious Dor- 
 dogne like menhirs — monuments of older illusions- — 
 along the ocean-scalloped coast of Brittany. 
 
 Animated as Beynac became late in the afternoon, 
 when the little society, composed of extraneous 
 particles, met in costumes that were airy, fantastic, 
 elementary, anything but ceremonious, to exchange 
 civilities in the water, life on the whole was so mildly 
 exciting that when one day a small caravan, drawn 
 by a donkey and preceded by a young man half 
 hidden by a great straw hat and wildly beating 
 a drum, entered the place, there was a great and 
 tumultuous movement of the population. Every- 
 body wanted to know what the donkey and the 
 young man proposed to do at Beynac. On the 
 caravan had been painted ' Thddtre de la Gaitd} 
 which threw light upon the object of the intruders. 
 The donkey drew up in front of the inn, and the 
 excited crowd waited with ill-contained impatience 
 to see the company of players descend from the 
 battered travelling trunk on wheels. At length a 
 pretty little girl of about twelve, with large and 
 lustrous brown eyes, came out of the box. She was 
 the company. She was in the charge of her mother, 
 who superintended the artistic arrangements, as well 
 as the culinarv and financial, but did not venture 
 
n8 TirO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 upon the stage. The young man looked after the 
 donkey and the drum, and filled up his time by 
 catching fish for the company and her mother. The 
 stable of the auberge was hired for evening use as a 
 salle de spectacle, and at one end a very diminutive 
 stage was set up by means of rough planks and old 
 pieces of carpet. 
 
 Everybody who could afford to spend a penny or 
 twopence upon vanity and worldliness went to see 
 the performance. It was quite a fashionable gather- 
 ing. The best society were by common consent 
 allowed to take the best seats— very hard benches — 
 the less ambitious crowded behind, with minds fully 
 made up not to allow themselves to be carried by 
 enthusiasm beyond the expenditure of two sous when 
 the plate went round ; while favoured children, who 
 were not expected to pay anything, because they had 
 nothing, climbed into the mangers, and packed them- 
 selves as close together as aphides on a rose-stalk. 
 The stable had been carefully cleansed, but the horsey 
 odour that belonged to it could not be swept out. 
 This, with the bad ventilation, and a temperature 
 almost equal to the hatching of eggs without hens, 
 was a drawback ; but the audience was in no humour 
 to be critical. A small handbell was rung, two 
 pieces of old carpet were drawn back, and the little 
 girl made her bow to the audience in a costume as 
 near to that of Mignon as she and her mother could 
 make it. She sang : 
 
 ' Connais-tu le pays ou fleurit l'oranger ?' 
 
A CHILD ACTRESS 119 
 
 and other airs from the opera in a small, bird-like 
 voice, unaccompanied by any music. For three hours 
 the child sang, acted, and danced in the suffocating 
 stable, lighted by two petroleum lamps. The next 
 day I saw Mignon sitting on one of the shafts of 
 the caravan and gnawing the ' drumstick ' of a fowl. 
 The child-actress was the prop of her mother and 
 the donkey ; her talent also kept the youth, who 
 began to agitate the nerves of Beynac with his 
 diabolical rataplan hours before each perform- 
 ance. 
 
 One morning, soon after sunrise, the donkey, 
 which had begun to think that this time it had really 
 been pensioned off, was put into the shafts, and the 
 caravan gradually disappeared upon the white road. 
 Then the village became quite dull again ; but it was 
 roused from its torpor by the annual fete. This was 
 the chief event of the year. The peasants came in 
 from the scattered villages and from the isolated 
 farms lying in the midst of the chestnut woods. All 
 the women coifed themselves with their best ker- 
 chiefs, the heads of most of the young girls being 
 resplendent with brilliant - coloured silk. This 
 coiffure resembles that of the Bordelaise, but it is not 
 so small, nor is it folded so coquettishly. There was 
 much love-making — sometimes exquisitely comic by 
 its rustic naivete — and there was a good deal of 
 dancing to the maddening music of two screaming 
 hurdy-gurdies. 
 
 At Beynac I made the acquaintance of a French- 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 man who, after angling for riches — a sport at which 
 he lost much bait and caught nothing— turned all his 
 attention to the fish in the Dordogne. He resolved 
 that he would run no more risk by casting his bread 
 upon the wider waters, but that he would make the 
 most of what remained to him by withdrawing to 
 some riverside nook, where his love of the uncon- 
 ventional, and his taste for a free life in the open 
 air, could expand, emancipated from all servitude to 
 society, including the necessity of keeping up what 
 is called l an appearance.' 
 
 What, to my mind, helps greatly to make France 
 such a pleasant country to live in is the large 
 amount of social liberty that one enjoys there. 
 Except in great towns, and in those places which 
 are thronged at certain seasons by cosmopolitan 
 crowds, people can live as simply as they please, and 
 they can wear anything, however cheap or even 
 shabby, without risk of being diminished on this 
 account in the opinion of others. They are liked or 
 disliked, respected or despised, as their conduct and 
 dealings become known and judged. 
 
 The Otter — this nickname had been given to my 
 new acquaintance by those who were jealous of his 
 fishing skill — when he was out in his boat never 
 wore anything finer than corduroy trousers, a short 
 blue jacket of the cotton material from which blouses 
 are made, a straw-hat, and espadrilles, into which he 
 put his bare feet. No heavier clothing is consistent 
 with happiness in such a climate as that of the Dor- 
 
AFTER CRAYFISH 12: 
 
 dogne Valley during the summer months. When, 
 by gliding- over the transparent water, which 
 revealed the pebbles at the bottom almost in the 
 deepest places, and the shoals of fish as they passed 
 up and down the stream, the temptation to plunge 
 became irresistible, the blue jacket and the other 
 garments were thrown off in a few seconds, and the 
 fish were startled by the descent of a black head and 
 beard, followed by the rest of that human form which 
 Carlyle has compared to a forked radish. 
 
 Sometimes the Otter made nocturnal expeditions 
 far up the channels of the little streams that fall into 
 the Dordogne. Then he was after crayfish. The 
 ordinary method of catching these crustacese, namely, 
 with a piece of netting covering a small wire hoop, 
 and baited with meat, had little charm for him. 
 There was another much more in keeping with his 
 passion for movement. He would walk up the beds 
 of the streams quite heedless of the water, holding 
 in one hand a lantern, and having the other free to 
 make a grab at every crayfish he might see scuttling 
 out of harm's way over the stones or sand. As he 
 went slowly up the narrow valleys, the gleam of his 
 lantern through the osiers, the tall loose-strife and 
 hemp-agrimony startled the owls, the hedgehogs 
 and the weasles ; but not the sound of water wailing 
 in the darkness, nor the cries of disturbed animals, 
 nor the weird blackness of overhanging trees that 
 hid the stars, troubled his nerves. On he went, 
 through water-meadows, at the bottom of gloomy 
 
122 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 little gorges, and by the fringe of the forest, until he 
 had wandered miles away from Beynac. We very 
 nearly met one night, both being out with the same 
 object in view. I, however, had very little of his 
 zeal for the sport, and was less interested by the 
 crayfish than by the fantastic indistinctness of trees 
 and shrubs and flowers, which, in the light of the 
 stars and the lantern, seemed to belong to a world 
 with which I was but vaguely familiar, although 
 I had travelled all over it in dreams. 
 
 Sometimes I used to go out fishing with the Otter 
 on the Dordogne. When the casting-net was left 
 at home (it was of little use when the water was 
 clear) chub-fishing with the flying-line was generally 
 the chosen form of sport. Here I may say that my 
 companion, who could turn his hand to anything, 
 made his own rods from hazel-sticks. Where the 
 water was sufficiently deep, the boat was rowed and 
 steered with a single-bladed paddle, but where it was 
 shallow much better progress could be made by 
 polling. These are the two methods invariably 
 used by the fishermen and ferrymen of the Dordogne, 
 and it is astonishing with what success they can get 
 a boat up the rapids without having recourse to the 
 towing-line. 
 
 When we went chub-fishing, we took the boat a 
 mile or so up-stream, and then let it drift down with 
 the current near a bank that was fringed with willows 
 and acacias. Although we needed only six inches 
 of water, the depth was sometimes miscalculated, 
 
CHUB-FISHING 123 
 
 and we went aground on a bank of pebbles. Then 
 the Otter, whose bare feet were always ready for 
 such emergencies, stepped out into the sparkling 
 current, and hauled or pushed the boat over the 
 obstacle. What with rapids and banks of pebbles, 
 the excitement of boating on the Dordogne above 
 Lalinde never flags. It looked very easy to throw 
 a line with a worm on it towards the shore, and then 
 draw it back, but the chub showed such little eager- 
 ness to be caught by me that I generally preferred 
 to steer and watch my companion pulling them out 
 as he stood in the prow, his face nearly hidden under 
 the thatch of his straw hat. When the fish were in 
 a biting humour, he had one on his hook every time 
 he threw the line. 
 
 There are few trout in this part of the Dordogne, 
 but in tributary streams, like the charming little 
 Ceou, they are plentiful. Carp are abundant, but 
 they are very difficult to take with the line, and 
 even with the net, except in time of flood, when they 
 get washed out of their holes, and the water being 
 no longer clear, their very sharp eyes are of little 
 use to them. Then a lucky throw will some- 
 times bring out two or three carp weighing several 
 pounds each. The fish commonly caught are mullet, 
 perch, barbel, gudgeon, bream, and chub. As a 
 food-supplying river, the Dordogne is one of the 
 most valuable in France, and, owing to the rapid 
 current and the purity of the water, the fish is of 
 excellent quality. 
 
124 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 The fixed belief of all the riverside people in this 
 and other valleys is that fish should be cooked alive. 
 You enter an inn and ask for a friture of gudgeon. 
 In a few minutes you see the victims, which have 
 been pulled out of a tank with a small net on the 
 end of a stick, jumping on the kitchen table, and 
 they are still jumping when they go into the boiling- 
 grease. I am not among those who have grown 
 callous to such sights, common as they are in France. 
 To see fish scraped, opened, and cooked while still 
 alive gives me disgust for it when it afterwards 
 appears on the table. I can imagine somebody say- 
 ing : ' Why look at what goes on in the kitchen ?' 
 That somebody does not quite understand what 
 rural France is. In a country inn we invariably pass 
 through the kitchen to reach the room set apart for 
 guests, and it has often fallen to my lot to seek rest, 
 shelter, and food in a poor auberge, where the 
 kitchen is also the common room of the family and 
 outsiders. 
 
 A Beynac character that left on my memory a 
 lasting impression was old Suzette. Suzette might 
 have been any age between fifty and seventy. She 
 had no beauty, but she must have had a little vanity 
 left, for when I showed her a photograph I had 
 taken of her, she put her hard old hands together, 
 swayed her head from shoulder to shoulder, and 
 actually wept. She could not speak much French, 
 but she said as well as she could that she did not 
 know that she had grown so ugly. I have noticed, 
 
OLD SUZETTE 125 
 
 however, that my photographs have a tendency to 
 draw tears or angry expressions from most of those 
 on whom I operate, which I can only account for by 
 the reason that these people have not the pleasure 
 of paying for their portraits. What is done for 
 nothing is seldom appreciated. Suzette, not wishing 
 to hurt my feelings, soon wiped out her eyes with 
 her largest knuckle, and, having composed her 
 countenance, thanked me for having photographed 
 her. She had had a rough life, but as she had 
 known little else but hardship and privation, she 
 was contented with what Providence considered 
 enough for her. This was now a two-roomed 
 cottage to live in, and for food a bunch of grapes, 
 a peach or a pear to eat with her bread in the fruit 
 season, a few walnuts to go with it in autumn or 
 winter, chestnuts to boil or roast, and a piece of 
 fat bacon hanging to a beam, from which she cut only 
 just enough at a time to disguise the water which, 
 when thickened with bread, a handful of haricots, and 
 some scraps of other vegetables, made her daily soup. 
 She was a widow now, but although whenever she 
 spoke of her dead husband her head began to wag 
 and the tears to start from her eyes, she had less 
 care and worry and pain as a lonely woman than when 
 she was bearing children and working harder than 
 any pack-mule to bring them up. Her husband was 
 a fisherman of the Dordogne, and she sold his fish in 
 the Sarlat market, some eight miles distant from 
 where they lived by the river. In order to be early 
 
i 2 6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 in the market, she had to start at about two in the 
 morning, and the road, which was uphill all the 
 way, ran between woods where the wolves, descend- 
 ing from the vaster forests of Black Perigord, often 
 howled in winter. She told me it frequently 
 happened when she reached the market that her 
 arms and hands were so benumbed with the cold 
 that she could not take the basket of fish from her 
 head. As a widow, she had lived for a while with 
 a married son, but the young woman soon turned 
 the old one out. Poor Suzette told the story 
 without bitterness ; she recognised the law of nature 
 in this expulsion of the mother when she was of no 
 further use to her children, and accepted thankfully 
 the ten francs a month which her son allowed her. 
 She managed to live by fetching and carrying for 
 anyone who would give her two or three sous for 
 an hour's trudging. She used to take my letters 
 to post at the nearest railway-station, and no one 
 who merely noted how nimbly her bare feet moved 
 along the hot, dusty road would have supposed that 
 she had left her youth so far behind her. Battered 
 and pinched and harassed as she had been by 
 destiny, she still believed in the working out of 
 eternal justice, and one day before sunrise she 
 started off on a pilgrimage to a distant sanctuary, 
 and did not return until after many hours. With all 
 this she was gay, and could tell a lively story with 
 plenty of Southern salt. She was a good bit of 
 human nature, worth studying. 
 
THE ENGLISH AT SARLAT 127 
 
 Sarlat, where old Suzette went to sell her 
 husband's fish, was a very important stronghold of 
 Black Perigord in the Middle Ages, and the chief 
 place in that Sarladais which the English kings of 
 Norman and Angevin descent found such a toueh 
 bone to pick. The way to it from Beynac leads up 
 steep valleys and gorges, covered with dense forest. 
 Here wolves are to be seen occasionally in winter, 
 but the wolf country begins a little to the north of 
 Sarlat, and stretches towards the Limousin. The 
 town appears to be composed of one long street, and 
 to be dismally uninteresting. There is, however, 
 an old Sarlat that lies a little off the main artery, 
 and which a lazy visitor who does not like the 
 trouble of asking questions might easily miss. 
 There are few scenes more original and picturesque 
 in France than that presented by the ruinous old 
 church, half open to the weather, and the ancient 
 houses that form a framework round it. Under the 
 lofty Gothic vaulting are wooden shops and shanties, 
 and, looking up, you see the smoke from bakers' 
 ovens hanging about the ribs of the great arches, 
 which it has blackened. 
 
 Of the old houses, one of the most remarkable is that 
 which was the residence of the philosophical writer, 
 Etienne de la Boetie, the friend of Montaigne. It 
 is an interesting example of the French Renaissance, 
 the exterior being richly ornamented with carvings. 
 
 A very rough, bad time had the men of Sarlat 
 during the long years that they were fighting inter- 
 
128 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 mittently for their lives and property with the law- 
 less bands of so-called English, who had turned so 
 many rocks into fastnesses, and who issued from 
 their fortified caverns, that they made almost im- 
 pregnable, to prey upon the unfortunate people who 
 strove to live by husbandry. These hardened 
 ruffians and freebooters had no respect for treaties, 
 and inasmuch as peace never lasted long, and the 
 English kings of that epoch always liked to feel that 
 they were ready for anything that might happen in 
 France, the companies of brigand soldiers who 
 preferred to serve under the leopards rather than 
 under the golden lilies were left to do pretty much 
 what they pleased in the wilder parts of Guyenne. 
 
 After the treaty that followed the battle of 
 Poitiers they continued their depredations, heedless 
 of the orders communicated to them by the English 
 commissioners. They carried their raids up to the 
 walls of Sarlat, even at the time of vintage, although 
 this season was much respected in the Middle Ages 
 by violent men, from a motive that was perhaps not 
 disinterested. They seized the bullocks that were 
 harnessed to the waggons, and bore them off to their 
 strongholds. It is but fair to add, however, that 
 the Sarladais did not formally submit to English 
 authority until 1361 — five years after the battle of 
 Poitiers. Then Chandos went to Sarlat and re- 
 ceived the submission of the burghers. Soon after- 
 wards Edward III. confirmed all the privileges they 
 had been enjoying under the kings of France. But 
 
THE FRUIT SEASON 129 
 
 they did not remain quiet long. Persuaded by 
 Talleyrand and other nobles, they rebelled in 1369, 
 and the town became again French. Speaking of 
 this event, Tarde observes : 
 
 'And behold how and when the salamander* 
 was again placed under the three fleurs-de-lys, 
 having carried the leopards in chief only eight years 
 two months and a half.' 
 
 The people of Sarlat often boast that their town 
 never submitted to the English. In this matter, 
 however, they are in error. 
 
 September came, and I was still at Beynac, 
 although I had found another house. The fruit 
 season was then at its height. Peaches were sold 
 at three sous the dozen, a good melon cost about the 
 same sum, and figs were to be had almost for 
 nothing. On these terms quite a mountain of fruit 
 could be placed upon the table for half a franc. 
 There was often no necessity to run into this ex- 
 travagance, for the people at Beynac are good- 
 natured, and they would frequently send a basket of 
 their earliest grapes or other fruit. Although the 
 present might have been made by a woman with 
 bare feet, her feelings would have been hurt had 
 money been offered in return. 
 
 One day rather late in the month, having grown 
 ashamed of inactivity, I carried my knapsack down 
 to the river and put it into the Otter's smallest boat, 
 
 * This reptile was borne in the arms of Sarlat. 
 
i 3 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 which he called the pdrissoire, although it was not 
 really a canoe. He was the chief builder of it, and as 
 a contrivance for bringing home to man the solemn 
 truth that life hangs to a thread or floats upon a 
 plank — perhaps the worst state of the two — it 
 certainly did him infinite credit. It was a flat- 
 bottomed outrigged deal boat, very long, and so 
 narrow that to look over one's shoulder in it was a 
 manoeuvre of extreme delicacy, especially where the 
 rapids caused the water to be in wild commotion. I 
 was told that it would go down stream like an arrow, 
 and so it did. There was no need to row hard, for 
 the current took the fragile skiff along with it so 
 fast that the trees on the banks sped by as if they 
 were running races, and every few minutes brought 
 a change of landscape. It was very delightful ; 
 only one sensation of movement could have been 
 better — that of flying. 
 
 The water was as blue as the sky above, and over 
 the valley, the wooded hills, and naked rocks lay 
 the sunshine of early autumn, tender in its strength, 
 mingling a balm with its burning. I seemed to be 
 floating swiftly but gently down some lovely but 
 treacherous river of enchanted land. And where is 
 the river that lends itself better to this illusion than 
 the Dordogne — ever charming, changing, and luring 
 like a capricious, fascinating, and rather wicked 
 woman ? Now it flows without a sound by the 
 forest, where the imagination places the fairy people 
 and the sylvan deities ; now it roars in the shadow 
 
A VOYAGE DOWN THE DORDOGNE 131 
 
 of the castle-crowned and savage rock, over which 
 the solitary hawk circles and repeats its melancholy 
 cry ; now it seems to sleep like a blue lake in the 
 midst of a broad, fair valley, where in the sunny 
 fields the flocks feed drowsily. 
 
 The depth of the water was as variable as the 
 strength of the current. Sometimes I saw the 
 stony bed seven or ten feet below, and then quite 
 suddenly the boat would get into rushing water that 
 sparkled with crystal clearness over a bank of 
 pebbles, and I expected momentarily to hear a grat- 
 ing noise and to feel myself aground ; but the little 
 boat went over the shallows like a leaf. I passed a 
 bank large enough to be called an island. The 
 water had not covered it for months, and it was all 
 thickly overgrown with persicaria, which the late 
 summer had stained a carmine red, so that the 
 island was all aflame. The swallows that dipped 
 their wings in the water, the kingfishers that flew 
 along the banks or perched on the willow stumps, 
 and the graceful wagtails, were for some miles my 
 only river companions — excepting, of course, the 
 fish, with which a treacherous current or a sunken 
 rock might have placed me at any moment on terms 
 of still closer intimacy. 
 
 But time flew like the boat, and I soon came in 
 sight of a charming little village whose houses with 
 peaked roofs seemed to have been piled one upon 
 another. Here upon stones in the water I recog- 
 nised the human form supported by two bare legs, 
 
i 3 2 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 and in the posture as of a person about to take a 
 dive, which is not perhaps very graceful, but is one 
 that certainly lends character to the riverside scenery 
 of France. Two or three women were rinsing their 
 linen. 
 
 On nearing St. Cyprien the current became 
 swifter and the turmoil of the rapids so great that I 
 prepared my mind here to being swamped by the 
 waves. The question whether I would abandon or 
 try to rescue my knapsack after the wreck was dis- 
 tressing. The risk being over, it was with a sigh of 
 relief that I beached the boat, now half full of water, 
 at the nearest spot to the small town. Having 
 moored it and given the sculls in charge of a 
 man whose house was close by, I was soon walking 
 in the warm glow of the September afternoon by 
 cottage gardens where the last flowers of summer 
 were blooming. 
 
 The small burg of less than three thousand in- 
 habitants which bears the name of the African 
 saint was probably, like many others, much more 
 important in the Middle Ages than it is now. In 
 accordance with the building spirit of the past, so 
 strongly pronounced throughout Aquitaine, and 
 obviously inspired by a defensive motive, the houses 
 are closely packed together on a steep hillside. A 
 few ancient dwellings, notably one with a long 
 exterior gallery, show themselves very picturesquely 
 here and there. The town grew up at the foot of 
 an abbey, of which the church still existing exhibits 
 
ST. CYPRIEN 133 
 
 a massive tower that might easily be mistaken at a 
 little distance for an early feudal keep. The lower 
 part of this tower is Romanesque. The interior 
 of the church is in the very simple pointed style 
 of the twelfth century, but the interest has suffered 
 much from restoration. What is chiefly remark- 
 able here is the carved oak of the reredoses and 
 pulpit. 
 
 The English in 1422 took the town of St. 
 Cyprien and besieged the abbey, which was a 
 veritable citadel where the inhabitants in the last 
 resort found shelter. A French force coming, 
 however, to the relief of the people, the English, 
 who were probably not very numerous, deemed it 
 prudent to retire. 
 
 There being still an hour or more of daylight, 1 
 continued the ascent of the hill above the houses 
 and the solemn old church to find a certain Chateau 
 de Fages, which I knew to be somewhere in the 
 locality. A woman working her distaff and spindle 
 with that meditative air which the rustic spinners so 
 often have, her bare feet slowly and noiselessly 
 moving over the rough stones, pointed out to me a 
 little lane that wound up the deserted hill between 
 briars bedecked with scarlet hips and bits of ancient 
 wall to which ferns and moss and ivy clung, tinged 
 by the waning golden light. I passed through vine- 
 yards from which the grapes had been gathered, 
 then rose by broom and blackthorn to the level 
 land. 
 
i 3 4 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 I looked in vain for the castle. I might have 
 searched for it until darkness came, but for the help 
 of a boy who was taking home a goat. At length I 
 found it lying in a hollow, a sufficient sign that it 
 was never a stronghold. In feudal times it was 
 probably a small castellated manor belonging perhaps 
 to a knight who could not afford to build himself a 
 donjon on some eminence and to fortify it with 
 walls ; but centuries later what remained of the 
 original structure was patched up and considerably 
 enlarged. Now, as I saw it in the dusk, it seemed 
 a very ghost-haunted place. The building had not 
 fallen into ruin ; it was still roofed, and might easily 
 have been made habitable ; but there was no glass 
 in the windows ; all the rooms were silent with that 
 silence so deep and sad of the long-deserted house 
 which is not sufficiently wrecked by time and decay 
 to have lost the pathos of human associations. The 
 breath of the dying twilight stirred the ivy leaves 
 upon the wall of the detached chapel where never a 
 person had prayed for many a year, and the goblin 
 bats came out from the shadowy places to flutter 
 against the pale sky. Then I felt that 1 had 
 lingered long enough on this desolate spot, and the 
 thought of the awaking hearths brightening the little 
 town with the blaze of wood made me hasten through 
 the heather and gorse that had grown up on the 
 grave of many a vine. 
 
 The next morning saw me afloat again. As I was 
 getting away from the shore a man called out to me : 
 
RUSH IX G THE RAPIDS 135 
 
 "Your boat is worth nothing! If you try to pass 
 the third bridge you will go to the bottom !' 
 
 He spoke very seriously, and I wished to take 
 further counsel of him ; but having once got into 
 the current, it carried me off at such a rate that 
 while I was thinking of putting a question I was 
 taken out of speaking distance. I shot through one 
 of the arches of the first bridge, and soon found 
 myself in water that was a little rough for my poor 
 skiff. Here were the rapids again. I had been 
 warned against these before I left the inn. There 
 was no turning back now, and if the commotion of 
 water had been ever so great I should have had 
 to take my chance in it. The Otter's advice when 
 I came to rapids was to pull as hard as I could in 
 the middle of the current. I followed it, and my 
 shallow boat, which had just been described as 
 worthless, darted into the midst of the turmoil, and 
 went through it all as swift as a swallow on the 
 wing. The river, however, had risen considerably 
 during the night, and the strength of the current 
 having much increased in consequence, my belief 
 in the pdrissoires worthiness was not sufficient to 
 make me run the risk of being swamped at the third 
 bridge. I therefore landed at the next one, which 
 was close to the village of Siorac. It seemed that I 
 had only just started from St. Cyprien, and yet I 
 had travelled about six miles. With the help of 
 a willing man the boat was carried to the railway- 
 station, which was not far off, and its journey home 
 
i 3 6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 having been paid, I ceased for awhile to be a water- 
 farer, and became again a wayfarer. 
 
 Although there was not much to interest me at 
 Siorac, I stayed there to lunch in a small inn, where 
 an old woman grilled me a chop over the embers, 
 and then set before me a pile of grapes, another of 
 pears, and a third of fresh walnuts. The fruit was 
 to me the best part of the meal, for the long hot 
 summer had caused me to look upon meat very 
 much as a necessary evil in the routine of life. 
 While I was seated at the table, the old woman, 
 who now dozed over her distaff in the chimney- 
 corner, would start up every five minutes or so, as 
 if from the beginning of a nightmare, and rush at 
 the flies, which were ravenously busy upon the 
 grapes and pears that I had set aside for them. 
 She hated them with a hatred so fierce and bitter 
 that I thought it rather unbecoming at her time of 
 life. 
 
 1 On ne pent rien manger, ' she said, ' sans que ces 
 diables y touckentJ 
 
 This was quite true ; but it was not the flies' 
 fault that their parents were prolific, and that they 
 had been hatched in a climate eminently conducive 
 to their vigour and happiness. Their numbers and 
 their voracity showed that they, too, were compelled 
 by the struggle for life to be active and enterprising. 
 Unlike some beings of a higher order, they did not 
 take this trouble sadly ; but, then, they were Southern 
 flies. 
 
PATES DE FOIE GRAS 137 
 
 Having driven them from the table, the aged 
 woman nodded her head with vindictive satisfac- 
 tion, and murmured, ' Cest dgal ; elks vont bientot 
 crever' — unmindful of the fact that she, too, had 
 reached the season of life when the frost comes 
 suddenly and catches people unawares. 
 
 I returned to the river and crossed the bridge. 
 On one side of it was a high statue of the Madonna 
 and Child, with these words on the pedestal : ' Pro- 
 tectrice du pont, priez pour nous' The inscription 
 further stated that the statue was raised in remem- 
 brance of the Mood of 1866. That was in the time 
 of the Empire ; nowadays the Government despises 
 all heavenly assistance in the department of roads 
 and bridges, and religious statues are no longer 
 erected in such places. Just before reaching a 
 village called Coux, I was confronted by a very 
 large army of geese, and while the foremost row 
 advanced to the attack with outstretched necks and 
 bills laid near the ground, the others cheered them 
 on. For a minute or so matters looked very serious ; 
 then goose and gander courage failed completely, 
 until the army worked round to my rear, when the 
 screams of defiance arose again. 
 
 Poor wretches ! their high spirits were not going 
 to last long. They would soon have to undergo 
 the cramming process, which a goose detests, for, 
 unlike a pig, it will never of its own will eat more 
 than it needs. In a few weeks the livers of most of 
 them would be made into those excellent truffled 
 
138 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 pdtts de foie gras, which it is the pride and profit of 
 Perigord to send far and wide. 
 
 A grand old elm, such as one does not often see 
 in France, stood in front of the village church — 
 a Transition building with a Romanesque portal. 
 Beyond this place the land became marshy, and 
 considerable tracts of it had been planted with 
 Jerusalem artichokes, each of which had now its 
 yellow head that tells its relationship to the sun- 
 flower. These artichokes are much grown by damp 
 woodsides, and on other land of little value, in the 
 valleys of Perigord. They are rarely used as food 
 for man, for the French, notwithstanding the wide 
 range of their gastronomy, including as it does 
 squirrels and tomtits, and even snakes in certain 
 localities, as well as various herbs and vegetables 
 seldom or never eaten in England, have not been 
 able to acquire a liking for the tubers of the arti- 
 choke. The plant is cultivated for feeding cattle, 
 the whole of it doing good service in a region where 
 there is but little grass. The multitude of golden 
 flowers floating, as it were, on sombre green waves 
 light up the autumnal landscape with a new flame 
 when the skies turn gray. 
 
 A solitary man whom I found working a loom in 
 a cottage by the side of the river kept a ferry-boat, 
 and with his help I crossed again to the other bank. 
 Wandering on with a somewhat vague purpose, I 
 soon found myself — now under a gray sky — on a 
 marshy flat, which a backwater of the Dordogne 
 
A GLOOMY GROVE 139 
 
 had almost made an island. Here there were many 
 low shrubs of dwarf elder covered with berries ; 
 pools, and wide ditches, where the dark water 
 scarcely moved, all fringed with tall reeds ; while 
 here and there was the gleam of a white flower 
 upon the erect stem of a marsh-mallow. But what 
 gave to this spot a strange and almost weird 
 character was the number of great hoary willows, 
 thirty or forty feet high, with gnarled and twisted 
 boles, scattered over the dark green grass. It was 
 a melancholy grove of fantastic dream -haunted 
 willows, such as belongs to the South and the 
 Virgilian muse : 
 
 1 Umbrarum hie locus est, somni noctisque soporae.' 
 
 And the sad solitude, in which there was not a 
 sound of moving leaf or singing bird, seemed to be 
 peopled by the ghosts of men who were waiting and 
 weeping out their hundred years on the Stygian 
 shore. 
 
 Hoary willows, dark alders, and then the road. 
 This led me to Le Buisson — a place possessed of 
 the blue devils, and which exists merely out of 
 compliment to the railway-junction here. Having 
 made arrangements for returning to the inn, 
 I wandered out again to look at the river in the 
 gray evening, and at the bridge where it was 
 predicted that I should go to the bottom if I re- 
 mained in the little boat. I crossed fields from 
 which tobacco and maize had lately been carried, 
 
Ho TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 and reached the bridge of evil prophecy. The 
 river certainly seemed to be doing its best to sweep 
 away the piers, and when it escaped from the 
 arches it raised its voice to a roar ; but it seemed 
 to me that on one side the pdrissoire would have 
 gone through gaily without being swamped. The 
 cry of troubled water in the dusk fascinated me. 
 I lingered, and yet felt the strong impulse to hurry 
 back to the society of men, out of the sound of 
 the angry river, whose slaty waves flashed out 
 strange gleams. What is it in the gloom and 
 horror of nature that so draws us and yet warns 
 us to flee ? The day was ending stormily. The 
 poplars wailed, and bent under the lash of the 
 rising wind ; dark masses of cloud stood still in the 
 sky, whilst others, torn and scattered below them, 
 rushed hither and thither madly. Every few 
 minutes the faint gleam of lightning, still far off, 
 brought to the black woods along the hills a 
 momentary return of radiance, as though it were the 
 fitful flashing of the day's dying lamp. 
 
 The roaring and wailing of the turbid flood 
 now seemed to be repeating in cruel mockery 
 the despairing cries of all the drowning people 
 who were ever the prey of the water-fiends that 
 draw downward in whirlpools to depths where 
 twilight passes into darkness, and take the form 
 of the long waving weeds that look so innocent, 
 but whose grasp is deadly, or guide the current 
 that utters never a sound as it seizes its victim and 
 
ON THE ROAD TO CADOUIN 141 
 
 bears him into an unfathomed gulf under the pitiless 
 rock. A voice within me cried ' Home !' but home 
 had I none anywhere of the staple sort : mine was 
 like a home on wheels. 
 
 As I returned to the inn across the fields, I saw 
 some scattered peasant figures moving slowly the 
 same way under the wild sky ; men with the ox that 
 was weary like themselves, women with bundles 
 of forage on their heads — melancholy forms or 
 phantoms in the dusky air, at one with nature in 
 unconscious sympathy. Then across the dim and 
 dreary plain, where the narrow path was lost to sight 
 after the first few yards, a railway lamp flashed like 
 the large red eye of some unimaginable monster of 
 the primordial marsh. 
 
 In the morning I was on the road to Cadouin. 
 The air was keen and a little frosty, for the hour 
 was early. Men were mowing the last crop of 
 grass, which was powdered with rime. After the 
 meadows came the woods, for the road went south, 
 and was therefore carried over the hills which rise 
 above the valley of the Dordogne. The woods 
 were mainly of chestnut, and, under the action of 
 the storm, followed by the first frost, many a nut 
 lay shining on the road within its gaping prickly 
 shell. After two or three miles of ascent the road 
 sloped downward, and it was not long before I 
 entered a very neat and trim little town, which, 
 however, was altogether village-like. This was 
 Cadouin, and in the centre stood its venerable 
 
142 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Romanesque church. I entered the building, which 
 was silent and very dim ; not a soul was there but 
 myself. Presently there was a moan in the tower, 
 which seemed so far away : the clock was striking 
 one of the quarters. Now the dim light brightened 
 suddenly, for the sun had risen high enough to dart 
 its rays through a window, and to flash upon a 
 column the brilliant colours of the glass. With the 
 exception of the apse, which is purely Romanesque, 
 the interior of this church is Gothic of the Transi- 
 tion ; but most of the capitals of the pier-columns 
 have a plain Romanesque outline. There is no 
 clerestory, the light being admitted from small 
 round-headed windows in the aisle walls. Much of 
 the building dates from the foundation of the abbey 
 of Cadouin, in the early part of the twelfth century ; 
 but the existing cloisters, which are what is most 
 remarkable here, date from the fifteenth century, and 
 owe much of their interest to the partial transforma- 
 tion of their style which they afterwards underwent 
 when the spirit of the Renaissance set in. The 
 Gothic tracery of the arches that face the quad- 
 rangle unites the strength of stone with the delicacy 
 of pencil drawing. In the late Gothic and Renais- 
 sance part, the ceilings are richly and floridly 
 groined, angelic and other figures forming the 
 termination of the low-reaching bosses, the groins 
 converging in fan-like order towards elaborately- 
 carved canopies against the wall. At one end of 
 this wing is a doorway, the jambs and lintels of 
 
THE HOLY SHROUD 
 
 143 
 
 which are heavily over-worked with carvings very 
 typical of the exuberant fancy of the early French 
 Renaissance. 
 
 For centuries Cadouin was a famous place of 
 pilgrimage, in consequence of the claim laid by the 
 abbey to the possession of the Holy Shroud. The 
 
 CLOISTERS OF THE ABBEY OF CADOUIN. 
 
 following is the history of the celebrated relic, 
 according to Jean Tarde : 
 
 'In the year 1100 Hugh, surnamed the Great, 
 brother of the King of France, and Bishop of Le 
 Puy, in Auvergne, having gone on a voyage beyond 
 the seas with Godefrey de? Bouillon, found means, 
 after the taking of Jerusalem, to recover this holy 
 relic, and, dying in Palestine, he left it in charge of 
 
i 4 4 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 a priest, his chaplain. The priest falling ill on board 
 ship, and perceiving that his end was drawing near, 
 gave the shroud into the hands of a clerk, a native of 
 Perigord. He, after the death of his master, took a 
 small barrel, in the middle of which he placed a parti- 
 tion. I n one half he put the sacred sheet, and his drink 
 in the other. In this manner he carried the relic 
 back to his native land, and placed it in a church near 
 Cadouin, of which he had charge. Fearing that 
 someone might steal his treasure, he left it in the 
 barrel, which he put away in a chest near the altar, 
 showing it only to a few of the monks of Cadouin. 
 But one day, while he was absent, fire broke out 
 and gained the whole village. All that was in the 
 church was consumed, excepting the chest that con- 
 tained the barrel. The monks of Cadouin, informed 
 of the fire, hastened to the spot, and, having broken 
 open the chest, took away the barrel, and carried 
 it to their own church. The clerk, on his return, 
 asked for what had been taken from him ; but the 
 monks said that, inasmuch as they had risked their 
 lives in saving it from the flames, it belonged to 
 them. The difference was arranged in this wise : 
 the clerk was received as a religious, and the keep- 
 ing of the relic was entrusted to him during his life- 
 time. He himself thought it safer there than in a 
 rural church.' 
 
 In 1392, when the country was distracted by the 
 dynastic wars between the crowns of France and 
 England, the Holy Shroud was taken for safety to 
 
ENGLISH 'BASTIDES' 145 
 
 Toulouse. Subsequently, the people of Perigord 
 wished to have it replaced at Cadouin, and the 
 Abbot and Chapter of St. Etienne at Toulouse 
 resisting, much litigation ensued. In 1455 some 
 monks of Cadouin took it away by stealth, and 
 brought it back to their abbey. Tarde mentions, 
 among other circumstances which tended to increase 
 the importance of the abbey of Cadouin, ' les bien- 
 faictz (Tune reyne d y Angleterre? 
 
 Had it not been for other plans, I should have 
 continued my journey southward from Cadouin as far 
 as the Chateau de Biron, one of the most instructive 
 relics of the past in Perigord, and have taken on 
 my way Modieres, one of the English bastides which 
 Edward I. farmed for ten years ; but I made my 
 way back to the Dordogne, with the intention 
 of ascending the valley of its tributary the Vezere. 
 I did not, however, return to Buisson, but took the 
 road to Ales, which lies a little lower clown the 
 stream. 
 
 While I was recrossing the hills the sun warmed 
 the world again, and led back the trembling summer 
 which had been scared by the early morning's frost. 
 The half-benumbed butterflies opened and shut their 
 wings many times upon the bramble leaves before 
 they could bring themselves to believe that that 
 pinch of winter was only a joke. It seemed a cruel 
 jest while the bloom of honeysuckle was upon the 
 hedges. 
 
 At Ales — a mere group of houses round a little 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 old church with a broad squat tower — I lunched in 
 a very wretched inn. If a pig had not been killed 
 at an early hour that morning I should have been 
 obliged to be satisfied with vegetable and egg diet ; 
 and the knowledge that the pig had met with such 
 
 CHATEAU DE BIRON : THE LODGE. 
 
 bad luck only a few hours before did not dispose 
 me in favour of the various dishes prepared from 
 the external and internal parts of him. The 
 aubergiste was an old boatman of the Dordogne, 
 who had steered many a cargo of wine floating 
 with him down-stream in time of partial flood ; but 
 
THE DESCENT OF THE AUVERGNATS 147 
 
 that was before the phylloxera had played havoc 
 with the vines. Now he had to get along as well 
 as he could by combining husbandry, pig-rearing, 
 and innkeeping. 
 
 On reaching the river again, I perceived that the 
 annual descent of the Auvergnats had commenced. 
 All the people who live by the higher waters of the 
 Dordogne, whether they belong to the Puy de 
 Dome, the Cantal, or the Correze, are called 
 Auvergnats in Perigord, or, rather, such of them 
 as come down the stream with their small barges 
 laden with wood, when the autumnal rains have 
 commenced, and there is sufficient water in the 
 river for their purpose. Sometimes, in their anxiety 
 to turn their wood into money, they start a little too 
 early, and being misled by an increase of the current 
 which is not maintained, they go aground after a 
 few days' navigation. I have seen one of these 
 boats stuck fast on a bank almost in mid-stream, 
 with the rapids nearly breaking over it with a roar 
 that could be heard a mile away. The wood is cut 
 in the forests, which stretch almost without a break 
 for many a league on both sides of the Upper 
 Dordogne, and is seasoned, dressed, and shaped 
 for barrel-making before it is put afloat. The 
 boats, which are some thirty or forty feet long, are 
 necessarily flat-bottomed, and are so roughly built 
 that there are usually gaping spaces between the 
 planks, which are calked with moss. They are 
 good enough for the voyage, which is their first and 
 
148 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 last. The men return, but never the boats. These 
 are sold as firewood at Libourne, when they have 
 discharged their cargoes. Where the water is deep 
 and comparatively quiet the speed is increased by 
 rowing with very long oars ; but where the current 
 is strong the boat has only to be steered. This, 
 however, is work that needs thorough knowledge 
 of the river. 
 
 The autumn is a merry time for these Auvergnats. 
 They look forward to it during the long months that 
 they are working in the woods. The annual 
 voyage to the Bordelais gives them an opportunity 
 of again seeing the old friends whom they have 
 been meeting for years at the waterside inns where 
 they frequently put up at night, because the descent 
 oi the Dordogne in the dark is rather too exciting. 
 They always say that they will start again in 
 the morning at sunrise, but it often happens 
 that the sun is very high indeed before they are 
 afloat. After all, an Auvero-nat is a man no 
 less than another, and because he lives on next to 
 nothing eleven months in the year is perhaps a 
 reason why he should feel that he has earned the 
 right to let his sentiments expand, and to light the 
 lamp of conviviality in his breast during the remain- 
 ing two or three weeks that he may be away from 
 home. 
 
 There is this, however, to be said : whatever 
 money he may possess, he trusts himself with very 
 little when he goes off on his annual river-voyage, 
 
LIMEUIL 149 
 
 and when he has sold his wood he is anxious to get 
 out of danger as quickly as possible. 
 
 I had to return some distance up-stream before I 
 was able to cross to Limeuil. This is one of the 
 most picturesque villages on the banks of the 
 Dordogne. It is built on the side of an isolated 
 rock, close to the point where the Vezere falls into 
 the broader river. Before crossing the bridge I lin- 
 gered awhile gazing at all those high-gabled roofs 
 with red and lichen-stained tiles rising from the blue 
 water towards the blue sky ; vine trellises mingling 
 their sunny green with the red of the roofs. 
 Where no houses clung, the yellow rock was splashed 
 with the now crimson sumach. 
 
 Then I climbed the long street over the rock and 
 cobble stones between walls half green with pellitory, 
 houses with high gables and rough wooden balconies 
 where geraniums shone in the shadow, and from 
 which the trailing plants hung low in that supreme 
 luxuriance which is the beginning of their death. A 
 few old women sat at their doors spinning, and geese, 
 in small companies of three or four, waddled out of 
 the way ; but there was no sound of any kind — 
 Limeuil was as silent as a cemetery. And yet there 
 were cafes, which gave the place a false air of liveli- 
 ness. Some tourists, attracted by the caverns in 
 the valley of the Vezere, had possibly wandered as 
 far as Limeuil ; but where were the inhabitants now ? 
 Had there been an epidemic, and were the old 
 women, whose heads were bent towards their knees 
 
150 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 while they clutched their distaffs, the few sur- 
 vivors ? 
 
 Taking the road to Bugues, I passed a small 
 church with an open belfry with a tiled roof sup- 
 ported by wooden pillars. It stood in a grove of 
 tall cypresses and weeping willows, and the grave- 
 stones lay scattered round about. The waning 
 sunshine seemed to fall more tenderly here than 
 upon the open fields where the ruddy pumpkins 
 flamed. It was nearly dark when I reached the 
 little town of Bugues. 
 
TRUFFLE-HUNTERS. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE VEZERE. 
 
 The spring has come again, and I am now at 
 Les Eyzies, in the valley of the Vezere : a paradise 
 of exceptional richness to the scientific bone and 
 Hint grubber on account of the very marked pre- 
 dilection shown for it by the men of the Stone Age, 
 polished and unpolished. It is about five in the 
 morning, and the woods along the cliffs are just 
 beginning to catch the pale fire of the rising sun. 
 Just outside my open window are about twenty 
 chickens in the charge of two mother hens, and as 
 they have not been long awake, they do their utmost 
 to make a noise in the world like other creatures 
 that are empty. As soon as the neighbour's door is 
 
 [ 151 ] 
 
52 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 open they enter in a body, and march towards the 
 kitchen. A female voice is heard to address some- 
 thing sharply to them in patois ; there is a scuffle in 
 the passage, and all the chickens scream together as 
 they rush before the broom into the road. This is 
 how the village day opens. 
 
 I am waiting for a man who has undertaken to 
 show me some caverns in the neighbouring rocks. 
 Meanwhile, another comes along, and makes mys- 
 terious signs to me from the road. He is barefoot 
 and ragged, and does not look as if he had a taste 
 for regular work, but rather as if he belonged to the 
 somewhat numerous class who live by expedients, 
 and have representatives in all ranks of society. He 
 has a small sack in his hand, to which he points 
 while he addresses me in patois. I tell him to come 
 in. The sack contains crayfish, and now I know the 
 reason of his mysterious air, for all fishing is pro- 
 hibited at this time, and he is running the gauntlet 
 of the garde-pfohe y who lives close by. The poor 
 ragamuffin has been out all night, wading in the 
 streams, and his wife, who looks, if possible, more 
 eager and hungry than himself, is waiting near, 
 keeping watch. He offers his crayfish for three 
 sous the dozen, and I buy them of him without feel- 
 ing that respect for the law and the spawning season 
 which I know I ought to have. But I have suffered 
 a good deal from bad example. There was a Pro- 
 cureur de la Republique not far from here the other day, 
 and the first thing he asked for at the hotel was fish. 
 
LES EYZIES 153 
 
 Presently the other man — the one I am waiting 
 for — shows himself. He is a lean old soldier of the 
 Empire, with a white moustache, kept short and stiff 
 like a nailbrush. Me is still active, and if he has 
 any disease he is in happy ignorance of it ; never- 
 theless, he confides to me that it is in the legs that 
 he begins to feel his seventy-two years. His face 
 has a very startling appearance. It is so scratched 
 and torn that it makes me think of the man of the 
 nursery-rhyme who jumped into the quickset-hedge ; 
 and, as it turns out, this one was just such another, 
 only his movement was involuntary. He tells me 
 how he came to be so disfigured. He was coming 
 home with some cronies, at a late hour, from one of 
 those Friendly Society meetings which in France, 
 as in England, move the bottle as well as the soul, 
 when, owing to an irregularity of the road, for which 
 he was in no way to blame, he took an unintentional 
 dive down a very steep bank, at the bottom of which 
 was a dense forest of brambles. As he was quite 
 unable to extricate himself, his companions, after a 
 consultation, decided to haul him up by the legs ; 
 and it was to this manner of being rescued that 
 he attributed most of the damage done to his 
 ears. 
 
 We passed under the ruined castle of Les 
 Eyzies, which was never very large, because the 
 shelf of rock on which it was built would not have 
 admitted of this ; but when defended it must 
 have been almost inaccessible. The ruin is very 
 
154 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 picturesque, with the overleaning rock above, and 
 the clustered roofs below. The village is continued 
 up the marshy valley of the Beline, which here joins 
 that of the Vezere. In the face of the overleaning 
 
 CHATEAU DES EYZIES. 
 
 rocks are orifices that strike the attention at once by 
 their shape, which distinguishes them from natural 
 caverns. They have been all fashioned like common 
 doors or windows on the rectangular principle, which 
 
THE TROGLODYTES 155 
 
 proves that they are the artificial openings of human 
 dwellings. The men who made their homes in the 
 side of the precipice, and who cut the rock to suit 
 their needs, must have let themselves down from 
 the top by means of a rope. To what age these 
 Troglodytes belonged nobody knows, but it is not 
 doubted that they came after the flint-working 
 savages, whose implements are found in the natural 
 caverns and shelters near the ground. 
 
 We continued up the valley of the Beune. The 
 banks under the rocks were starred with primroses, 
 and from the rocks themselves there hung with 
 cotoneaster the large and graceful white blossoms of 
 that limestone-loving shrub, the amelanchier. In the 
 centre of the valley stretched the marsh, flaming 
 gold with flags and caltha, and dotted with white 
 valerian. The green frogs leapt into the pools and 
 runnels, burying themselves in the mud at the shock 
 of a footstep ; but the tadpoles sported recklessly in 
 the sunny water, for as yet their legs as well as their 
 troubles were to come. I confess that this long 
 morass by the sparkling Beiine, frequented by the 
 heron, the snipe, the water-hen, and other creatures 
 that seek the solitude, interested me more than the 
 caverns which I had set out to see. I nevertheless 
 followed the old man into them, and tried to admire 
 all that he showed me ; but there was not a stalactite 
 six inches long the end of which had not been 
 knocked off with a stick or stone. The anger that 
 one feels at such mutilation of the water's beautiful 
 
156 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 work destroys the pleasure that one would otherwise 
 derive from these caves in the limestone. 
 
 A visit, however, to the now celebrated cavern 
 known as the Grotte de Miremont repaid me for the 
 trouble of reaching it. It lies a few miles to the 
 north of Les Eyzies, in the midst of very wild and 
 barren country. From any one of the heights the 
 landscape on every side is seen to be composed of 
 hills covered with dark forest and separated by 
 narrow valleys. Here and there the white rock 
 stands out from the enveloping woods of oak, ilex, 
 and chestnut, or the arid slope shows its waste of 
 stones, whose nakedness the dry lavender vainly 
 tries to cover with a light mantle of blue-gray tufts. 
 It is these sterile places which yield the best truffles 
 of Perigord. Sometimes trained dogs are used to 
 hunt for the cryptogams, but, as in the Ouercy, the 
 pig is much more frequently employed for the 
 purpose. A comical and ungainly-looking beast this 
 often is : bony and haggard, with a long limp tail 
 and exaggerated ears. A collar round the neck 
 adds to its grotesqueness. 
 
 One has to climb or descend a steep wooded hill to 
 reach the cavern, for the entrance is on the side of 
 it. The mdtayer acts as guide, and his services are 
 indispensable, for there are few subterranean laby- 
 rinths so extensive and so puzzling as this. 
 
 Although the principal gallery is barely a mile in 
 length, there are so many ramifications that one may 
 walk for hours without making a complete explora- 
 
THE CA VERN OF MIREMONT 
 
 157 
 
 tion of the dsedalian corridors, even with the help of 
 the guide. With sufficient string to lay down and 
 candles to light him, a stranger might enter these 
 depths alone and come to no harm ; but if he despised 
 the string and trusted to his memory he would soon 
 have reason to wish that he had remained on the 
 surface of the earth, where, if he lost himself, there 
 would be fellow-creatures to help him. Now with 
 the sticky and tenacious clay trying to pull off his 
 boots at every step, now walking like a monkey on 
 hands and feet to keep his head from contact with 
 the rock, he would grow weary after an hour or so, 
 and begin to wish to go home, or, at any rate, to the 
 hotel ; but the more his desire to see daylight again 
 took shape and clearness, the more bewildered he 
 would become, and farther and farther he would 
 probably wander from the small opening in the side 
 of the hill. Thus he might at length hear the moan 
 of water, and if it did not scare him, he would see by 
 the glimmer of his solitary candle the gleam of a 
 stream rushing madly along, then plunging deeper 
 into the earth, to reappear nobody knows where. 
 This cavern offers little of the beauty of stalactite 
 and stalagmite ; but the roof in many places has a 
 very curious and fantastic appearance, derived from 
 layers of flints embedded in the solid limestone, and 
 exposed to view by the disintegration of the rock or 
 the washing action of water. They can be best 
 likened to the gnarled and brown roots of old trees, 
 but they take all manner of fanciful forms. 
 
158 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 The little house in which I am living- stands 
 almost on the spot where some particularly precious 
 skeletons, attributed to prehistoric men and women, 
 were dug up about twenty years ago, when the late 
 Mr. Christy was here busily disturbing the soil that 
 had been allowed to remain unmoved for ages. 
 The overleaning rock, which is separated from my 
 temporary home only by a few yards, probably 
 afforded shelter to generations of those degraded 
 human beings from whom the anthropologist who 
 puts no bridle on his hobby-horse is pleased to claim 
 descent. Near the base is one of those sym- 
 metrically scooped-out hollows which are such a 
 striking peculiarity of the formation here, and which 
 suggest to the irreverent that a cheese-taster of pre- 
 historic dimensions must have been brought to bear 
 upon the rocks when their consistency was about the 
 same as that of fresh gruyere. According to one 
 theory, they were washed out by the sea, that retired 
 from the interior of Aquitaine long before the in- 
 teresting savages who made arrow-heads and skin- 
 scrapers out of flints, and needles out of bone, came 
 to this valley and worked for M. Lartet and Mr. 
 Christy. Others say that the sea had nothing to do 
 with the fashioning of these hollows, but that they 
 were made by the breaking and crumbling away of 
 the more friable parts of the limestone under the 
 action of air, frost, and water. While members of 
 learned societies discuss such questions with up- 
 turned noses, a rock above them will sometimes be 
 
VILLAGE PICTURES 159 
 
 unable to keep its own countenance, but, simulating 
 without flattery one of the human visages below, 
 will wear an expression of humour fiendish enough 
 to startle the least superstitious of men. 
 
 Upon the lower part of my rock is hanging the 
 wild rose in flower, and above it is a patch of grass 
 that is already brown, although we are in the first 
 week of May ; then upon a higher grass-grown 
 steep is a solitary ilex, looking more worthy of a 
 classic reputation than many others of its race. Its 
 trunk appears to rise above the uppermost ridge of 
 bare rock, and the outspread branches, with the 
 sombre yet glittering foliage, are marked against the 
 sky that is blue like the bluebell, as motionless as if 
 they had been fixed there by heat, like a painted 
 tree on porcelain. 
 
 On the other side of the house is a small balcony 
 that looks upon the road, the peaceful valley, and 
 the darkly- wooded cliffs just beyond the Vezere. 
 During the brief twilight — the twilight of the South, 
 that lays suddenly and almost without warning a 
 rosy kiss upon the river and the reedy pool — I 
 sometimes watch from the balcony the barefooted 
 children of the neighbours playing upon the 
 white road. Poor village children ! As soon as 
 a wanderer gets to know them, he leaves them 
 never to see them again. Living in a great city is 
 apt to dull the sensibility, and to close men up in 
 themselves. In a village you become forcibly in- 
 terested in surrounding humanity, and enter into the 
 
;6o TirO SUMMERS IN GUYENXE 
 
 lives and feelings of others. A young woman died 
 yesterday in child-birth, and was buried to-day. 
 Everybody felt as if the awful shadow that de- 
 scended upon the lonely house across the river had 
 passed close to him and her, and left a chill in the 
 heart. When the uncovered waggon bearing the 
 deal coffin wrapped in a sheet, and having at the 
 head an upright cross of flowers and leaves that 
 shook and swayed with the jolting of this rustic 
 hearse, moved towards the church, nearly the whole 
 of the population followed. Only the day before 
 another woman was carried along the same white 
 road towards the little cemetery, but the coffin then 
 was borne upon the shoulders of four persons of 
 her own sex. Now and again fatigue brought the 
 bearers to a standstill ; then they would change 
 shoulders by changing places. And the white coffin, 
 moving up and down as a waif on the swell of 
 the sea, passed on towards the glowing west, 
 where presently the purple-tinted wings of evening 
 covered it. 
 
 But the peasants are not sentimentalists — far from 
 it. Always practical, they are very quick to per- 
 ceive the futility of nursing grief, and especially the 
 unreasonableness of wishing people back in the 
 world who were no longer able to do their share of 
 its work. A young man came into the village with 
 a donkey and cart to fetch a coffin for his father who 
 had just died. 
 
 'Ape ! I dare say he was old,' was the reflection 
 
TWILIGHT ON A ROCKY HILL 161 
 
 of our servant — a Ouercynoise. If it had been the 
 old father who had come to fetch a coffin for the 
 young man, she would have found something more 
 sympathetic to say than that. 
 
 Sometimes at sunset I climb the rugged hill 
 behind the house. Then the stony soil no longer 
 dazzles by its white glitter, but takes a soft tint of 
 orange, or rose, or lilac, according to the stain of 
 the sky, and there is no light in the rocky South 
 that so tenderly touches the soul as this. Here the 
 spurge drinks of the wine of heaven with golden 
 lips wide open ; but the hellebore, which has already 
 lost all its vernal greenness, and is parched by the 
 drought, ripens its drooping seeds sullenly on the 
 shadowy side of the jutting crag, and seems to hate 
 the sun. Higher and yet far below the plateau is a 
 little field where the lately cut grass has been thrown 
 into mounds. Here the light seems to gain a deeper 
 feeling, and the small vineyard by the side holds it 
 too. It is one of the very few old vineyards which, 
 after being stricken nearly unto death by the phyl- 
 loxera, have revived, and by some unknown virtue 
 have recovered the sap and spirit of life. The 
 ancient stocks gnarled and knotted, and as thick as 
 a man's arm, together with the fresh green leaves 
 and the hanging bunches of buds that promise wine, 
 wear a colour that cannot be rightly named — a 
 transparent, subtle, vaporous tint of golden pink or 
 purple, which is the gift of this warm and wonderful 
 light. A cricket that has climbed up one of the 
 
 1 1 
 
1 62 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 tender shoots strikes a low note, which is like the 
 drowsy chirrup of a roosting bird. It is the first 
 touch of a fiddler in the night's orchestra, and will 
 soon be taken up by thousands of other crickets, 
 bell - tinkling toads, croaking frogs in the valley, 
 and the solitary owl that hoots from the hills. 
 Below, how the river seems to sleep under the 
 dusky wings of gathering dreams where the white 
 bridge spans it ! Beyond, where the blue-green sky 
 is cut by a broken line of hill and tree, the rocks 
 become animated in the clear-obscure, and the appa- 
 rently dead matter, rousing from its apathy, takes 
 awful forms and expressions of life. 
 
 My small boat had been lying on the Vezere 
 several days doing nothing, when I decided upon 
 a little water-faring up the stream. This canoe had 
 been knocked together with a few deal boards. It had, 
 as a matter of course, a flat bottom, for a boat with 
 a keel would be quite unsuitable for travelling long 
 distances on rivers where, if you cannot float in four 
 inches of water, you must hold yourself in constant 
 readiness to get out and drag or push your craft 
 over the stones. This exercise is very amusing at 
 the age of twenty, but the fun grows feeble as time 
 goes on. My boat was not made to be rowed, but 
 to be paddled, either with the short single-bladed 
 paddle which is used by the fishermen of the 
 Dordogne, and which they call a 'shovel,' or by the 
 one that is dipped on both sides of the canoe alter- 
 
ON THE VEZERE 163 
 
 nately. There being rapids about every half-mile 
 on the Vezere, and the current in places being very 
 strong, I realized that no paddler would be able to 
 get up the stream without help, and so I induced 
 my landlord to accompany me and to bring a pole. 
 He was a good-tempered man, somewhat adven- 
 turous, with plenty of information, and a full- 
 flavoured local accent which often gave to what he 
 said a point of humour that was not intended. The 
 voyage, therefore, commenced under circumstances 
 that promised nothing but pleasantness. It was a 
 perfectly beautiful May afternoon, with a fresh 
 north breeze blowing that tempered the ardour of 
 the sun. 
 
 The water changed like the moods of a child who 
 has only to choose the form and manner of his 
 pleasure. Now it pictured in its large eye, whose 
 depth seemed to meet eternity, the lights and forms 
 and colours of the sky, the rocks, and the trees ; 
 now it leapt from the shaded quietude, and, splitting 
 into two or more currents, separated by willowy 
 islets or banks of pebbles, rushed with an eager 
 and joyous cry a hundred yards or so ; then it 
 stopped to take breath, and moved dreamily on 
 again. Where the water w r as shallow was many a 
 broad patch of blooming ranunculus ; so that it 
 seemed as if the fairies had been holding a great 
 battle of white flowers upon the river. We glided 
 by the side of meadows where all the waving grass 
 was full of sunshine. On the bank stood purple 
 
1 64 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 torches of dame's violet, and the dog-rose climbing 
 upon the guelder rose was pictured with it in the 
 water. On the opposite bank stood the great rocks 
 which have caused this part of the river to be 
 called the Gorge of Hell. Here human beings in 
 perpetual terror of their own kind cut themselves 
 holes in the face of the precipice, and lived where 
 now the jackdaw, the hawk, the owl, and the bat 
 are the only inhabitants. In the Middle Ages the 
 English companies turned the side of the rock into 
 a stronghold which was the terror of the surround- 
 ing district. 
 
 This fastness was called La Roque de Tayac, 
 because the village of Tayac faces it on the other 
 side of the river. Although only a few fragments of 
 the masonry that was formerly attached to the rock 
 remain, the chambers cut in the solid limestone are 
 strange testimony of the habits and contrivances of 
 England's lawless partisans in these remote valleys. 
 The lower excavations evidently served for stables, 
 as the mangers roughly cut in the rock testify. The 
 horses or mules were led up and down a steep 
 narrow ledge. A perpendicular boring, shaped like 
 a well, connects the lowest chamber with those 
 above, and there can be no doubt that the nether- 
 most part served the purpose of a well or cistern. 
 By means of a hanging rope a man could easily pull 
 himself up to the higher stages and let himself down 
 in the same manner. In the event of a surprise the 
 rope would, of course, be pulled up. Woe to those 
 
AN OLD ENGLISH STRONGHOLD 165 
 
 who exposed their heads in this cylindrical passage 
 to the stones which the defenders above had in 
 readiness to hurl down ! But the river flowing 
 deeply at the base of the rock, no part of the 
 fortress could have been easy of access. Such was 
 the stronghold which obtained so evil a reputation 
 throughout a wide district as an almost impregnable 
 den of bandits and cut-throats. 
 
 We read that the English, who had fortified them- 
 selves at the Roque de Tayac, having ravaged the 
 country of Sarlat in 1408, the men of Sarlat laid 
 an ambush for them, and, taking them by surprise, 
 cut them in pieces. But the next year, their 
 numbers being again largely increased, they 
 resumed their forays with the result that the Sar- 
 ladais marched to the valley of the Vezere and 
 regularly besieged the Roque de Tayac. The 
 struggle was marked with great ferocity on both 
 sides. The fortress was eventually captured, but the 
 defenders sold their lives dearly, and many of the Sar- 
 ladais, instead of returning to their homes, remained 
 under the pavement of the church across the water. 
 
 Having passed the first rapids easily, we talked, 
 and the conversation turned upon — cockchafers ! 
 My companion had been much impressed by the 
 strange doings of a party of gipsy children whom 
 he had lately passed on the highroad. One of them 
 had climbed up a tree, the foliage of which had 
 attracted a multitude of cockchafers, and he was 
 shaking down the insects for the others to collect. 
 
1 66 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 But it was not this that made the teller of the story 
 stop and gaze with astonishment ; it was the use to 
 which the cockchafers were put. As they were 
 picked up they were crammed into the children's 
 mouths and devoured, legs, wings, and all. At 
 first he thought the small gipsies were feasting on 
 cherries. He declared that the sight disgusted him, 
 and spoilt his appetite for the rest of the day. In 
 this I thought his stomach somewhat inconsistent, 
 for I knew of a little weakness that he had for raw 
 snails, which, to my mind, are scarcely less revolting 
 as food than live cockchafers. He would take 
 advantage of a rainy day or a shower to catch his 
 favourite prey upon his fruit-trees and cabbages. 
 Having relieved them of their shells, and given 
 them a rinse in some water, he would swallow them 
 as people eat oysters. He had a firm belief in their in- 
 valuable medicinal action upon the throat and lungs. 
 His brother, he said, would have died at twenty-three 
 instead of at fifty-three had it not been for snails. 
 He told me, too, of a man who, from bravado, tried 
 to swallow in his presence, and at a single gulp, one 
 of the big pale-shelled snails — known in Paris, where 
 they are eaten, after being cooked with butter and 
 garlic, as escargots de Bourgogne — but it stuck in 
 his throat, and a catastrophe would have happened 
 but for the sturdy blow which his companion gave 
 him on the 'chine.' That a snail - eater should 
 criticise gipsies for eating cockchafers shows what 
 creatures of prejudice we all are. 
 
A STRUGGLE WITH THE RAPIDS 167 
 
 After passing the Nine Brothers — a name given 
 to nine rocks of rounded outline standing by the 
 water like towers of a fortress built by demi-gods — 
 we had our worst fight with the rapids, and were 
 nearly beaten. It was the last push of the pole 
 from the man behind me, when he had no more 
 breath in his body, that saved us from being whirled 
 round and carried back. Before one gets used to 
 it, the sensation of struggling- up a river where it 
 descends a rocky channel at a rather steep gradient 
 is a little bewildering. The flash of the water 
 dazzles, and its rapid movement makes one giddy. 
 There is no excitement, however, so exhilarating as 
 that which comes of a hard battle with one of the 
 forces of nature, especially when nature does not 
 get the best of it. This tug-of-war over, we were 
 going along smoothly upon rather deep water, when 
 I heard a splash behind me, and on looking round 
 saw my companion in a position that did not afford 
 him much opportunity for gesticulation. He was 
 up to his middle in the water, but hitched on to the 
 side of the boat with his heels and hands. He had 
 given a vigorous push with his pole upon a stone 
 that rolled, and he rolled too. Now, the boat being 
 very light and narrow, an effort on his part to return 
 to his former position would have filled it with 
 water ; so he remained still while I, bringing my 
 weight to bear on the other side, managed to haul him 
 up by the arms. After this experience, he was restless 
 and apparently uncomfortable, and we had not gone 
 
1 68 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 much farther before he expressed a wish to land on 
 the edge of a field. Here he took off the garments 
 which he now felt were superfluous, vigorously 
 wrung the water out of them, and spread them in 
 the sun to dry. I left him there fighting with the 
 flies, whose curiosity and enterprise were naturally 
 excited by such rare good luck, and went to dream 
 awhile in the shadow of the rock, on the very edge 
 of which are the ramparts of the ruined castle of La 
 Madeleine. This is the most picturesque bit of the 
 valley of the Vezere ; but to feel all the romance of 
 it, and all the poetry of a perfect union of rocks and 
 ruin, trees and water, one must glide upon the river, 
 that here is deep and calm, and is full of that mystery 
 of infinitely-intermingled shadow and reflection which 
 is the hope and the despair of the landscape-painter. 
 Now, in this month of May, the shrubs that clung 
 to the furrowed face of the white rock were freshly 
 green, and the low plaint of the nightingale, and the 
 jocund cry of the more distant cuckoo, broke the 
 sameness of the great chorus of grasshoppers in the 
 sunny meadows. 
 
 When I returned to my companion, I found that 
 he was clothed again, but not in a contented frame 
 of mind. He accompanied me as far as Tursac, and 
 then started off home on foot. He had had enough 
 of the river. There was still sufficient daylight for 
 me to continue the voyage to Le Moustier, but, 
 apart from the fact that I could not get up the rapids 
 alone, I was quite willing to pass the night at Tursac. 
 
A TRAVELLER ' IN THE DRAPERY' 169 
 
 Having- chained the boat to a willow, I walked 
 through the meadows towards a group of houses, in 
 the midst of which stood a church, easily distinguished 
 by its walls and tower. When I had arranged 
 matters for the night, I passed through the doorway 
 of this little church, under whose vault the same 
 human story that begins with the christening, 
 receives a new impetus from marriage, and is 
 brought to an end by the funeral, had been repeated 
 by so many sons after their fathers. The air was 
 heavy with the fragrance of roses from the Lady 
 Chapel, where a little lamp gleamed on the ground 
 beside the altar. As the sun went down, the roses 
 and leaves began to brighten with the shine of 
 the lamp, like a garden corner in the early moon- 
 light. 
 
 At the inn I met one of those commercial travel- 
 lers who work about in the rural districts of France, 
 driving from village to village with their samples, 
 fiercely competing for the favours of the rustic shop- 
 keeper, doing their utmost to get before one another, 
 and be the first bee that sucks the flower, taking 
 advantage of one another's errors and accidents, but 
 always good friends and excellent table companions 
 when they meet. I learnt that my new acquaint- 
 ance was ' in the drapery.' We were comparing notes 
 of our experience in the rough country of the Correze, 
 when he, as he rolled up another cigarette, said : 
 
 ' I had learnt to put up with a good deal in the 
 Correze, but one day I had a surprise which was too 
 
i 7 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 much for me. I had dined at one of those auberges 
 that you have been speaking of, and then asked for 
 some coffee. It was an old man who made it, and 
 he strained it through — guess what he strained it 
 through !' 
 
 I guessed it was something not very appropriate, 
 but was too discreet to give it a name. 
 
 ' Eh bien ! It was the heel of an old woollen 
 stocking !' 
 
 ' And did you drink the coffee ?' 
 4 No. I said that I had changed my mind.' 
 We did not take any coffee that evening. We 
 had something less likely to set the fancy exploring 
 the secrets of the kitchen, where, through the open 
 doorway, we could see our old peasant hostess seated 
 on her little bench in the ingle and nodding her 
 head over the dying embers of her hearth. Her 
 husband was induced by the traveller to bring up 
 from the cherished corner of his cellar a bottle of the 
 old wine of Tursac, made from the patriarchal vines 
 before the pestilential insect drew the life out of 
 them. The hillsides above the Vezere are growing 
 green again with vineyards, and again the juice of 
 the grape is beginning to flow abundantly ; but years 
 must pass before it will be worthy of being put into 
 the same cellar with the few bottles of the old wine 
 which have been treasured up here and there by the 
 grower, but which he thinks it a sacrilege to drink 
 on occasions less solemn than marriages or christen- 
 ings in the family. 
 
THE OLD WINE 171 
 
 ' You can often coax the old wine from them,' 
 said my knowing companion, ' if you go the right 
 way to work.' 
 
 ' And what is the secret ?' 
 
 ' Flattery : there is nothing like it. Flatter the 
 peasant and you will be almost sure to move him. 
 Say, " Ah, what a time that was when you had the 
 old wine in your cellars!" He will say, " N est-ce 
 pas, monsieur?' and brighten up at the thought of it. 
 Then you will continue : " Yes, indeed, that was a 
 wine worth drinking. There was nothing like it to 
 be found within fifty kilometres. What a bouquet ! 
 What a fm&gofit du terroir /" He will not be able 
 to bear much more of this if he has any of the wine. 
 Unless you are pretty sure that he has some, it is 
 not worth while talking about it. Expect him to 
 disappear, and to come back presently with a dirty- 
 looking bottle, which he will handle as tenderly as 
 if it were a new baby.' 
 
 Those whose travelling in France is carried out 
 according to the directions given in guide-books— 
 the writers of which nurse the reader's respectability 
 with the fondest care — will of course conclude that 
 the best hotels in the wine districts are those in 
 which the best wine of the country is to be had. 
 This is an error. The wine in the larger hotels is 
 almost invariably the ' wine of commerce '; that is 
 to say, a mixture of different sorts more or less 
 'doctored' with sulphate of lime, to overcome a 
 natural aversion to travelling. The hotel-keeper, in 
 
172 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 order to keep on good terms with the representatives 
 of the wine-merchants — all mixers — who stop at his 
 house, distributes his custom among them. Those 
 who set value on a pure vin du pays with a specific 
 flavour belonging to the soil, should look for it in 
 the little out-of-the-way auberge lying amongst the 
 vineyards. There it is probable that some of the 
 old stock is still left, and if the vigneron-innkeeper 
 says it is the old wine, the traveller may confidently 
 believe him. I have never known in such cases any 
 attempt at deception. 
 
 The next morning I reached Le Moustier. Here 
 the valley is broad, but the rocks, which are like the 
 footstools of the hills, shut in the landscape all 
 around. These naked perpendicular masses of lime- 
 stone, yellow like ochre or as white as chalk, and 
 reflecting the brilliance of the sun, must have afforded 
 shelter to quite a dense population in the days when 
 man made his weapons and implements from flints, 
 and is supposed to have lived contemporaneously 
 with the reindeer. Notwithstanding all the digging 
 and searching that has gone on of late years on this 
 spot, the soil in the neighbourhood of the once 
 inhabited caverns and shelters is still full of the 
 traces of prehistoric man. 
 
 Shortly before my coming, a savant — everybody 
 is called a savant here who goes about with his nose 
 towards the ground — gave a man two francs to be 
 allowed to dig for a few hours in a corner of his 
 garden. The man was willing enough to have his 
 
LE MOUSTIER 173 
 
 ground cleared of stones on these terms. The savant 
 therefore went to work, and when he left in the 
 evening he took with him half a sackful of flints and 
 bones. 
 
 In a side valley close to Le Moustier is a line of 
 high vertical or overleaning rocks. A ledge acces- 
 sible from the ground runs along the face, and nearly 
 in the centre, and at the back of it, are numerous 
 hollows in the calcareous stone, some natural, 
 others partly scooped out with the aid of metal 
 implements, whose marks can still be seen. Each 
 of these shelters was inhabited. Holes and recesses 
 have been cut in the walls to serve for various 
 domestic purposes, and on the ground are traces of 
 fireplaces, reservoirs for water, etc. The original 
 inhabitants of these hollows may have been savages 
 no more advanced in the arts than those who worked 
 flints, but it is certain that the latest occupiers were 
 much more civilized. Rows of holes roughly cut in 
 the limestone show where the ends of beams once 
 rested, and the use of these timbers was evidently to 
 support a roof that covered much of the ledge. It 
 is quite certain that people lived here in the Middle 
 Ages, and they might do so now but for the difficulty 
 of bringing up water. The security which the 
 position afforded could hardly have been lost sight 
 of in the days when the inhabitants of Guyenne 
 were in constant dread of being attacked. One 
 must therefore be guarded against wild talk about 
 prehistoric man in connection with these rock 
 
74 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYEXXE 
 
 dwellings, which in many cases were used as 
 fortresses during the three hundred years' struggle 
 between the English and French in Aquitaine. 
 
 My waterfaring back to Les Eyzies was for easier 
 than the voyage up-stream. Nevertheless, there 
 was some excitement in it, for when the rapids were 
 reached, the current snatched the boat, as it were, 
 from me, but carried me with it, by little reefs each 
 marked out as an islet as white as snow, by the 
 floating flowers of the water ranunculus ; but when 
 its strength failed, it left me to drift where, in the 
 dark shadow of rock and tree, the water rested from 
 its race. Presently the rapids were seen again 
 dancing in the sun, and the boat, gliding on to just 
 where the smooth surface curved and the current 
 took its leap without a ripple, darted forward like a 
 startled water-bird. Once a back current whirled 
 my fragile boat completely round. Then I remem- 
 bered the good advice of the friendly Otter at 
 Beynac with reference to going down these streams, 
 where the water has to be watched with some atten- 
 tion if one does not wish to get capsized : ' Tenez- 
 vous toujours dans le phis fort du coiirant! 
 
 Again in calm water, I recognised, beyond the 
 still grass and the scattered flame of the poppies, 
 the high walls of the fortress-like church of Tayac, 
 with the light of the sinking sun upon them. Then 
 a little lower down at the ford, which was my stop- 
 ping-place, a pair of bullocks were crossing the river 
 with a waggon-load of hay ; so that the picturesque, 
 
A CAVERN WITH A BAD NAME 17 S 
 
 the idyllic, and the sentiment of peace were all 
 blended so perfectly as to make me feel that the pen 
 was powerless, and that the painter's brush alone 
 could save the scene from passing away for ever. 
 
 Tayac and Les Eyzies form one very straggling 
 commune, and the church where the slain men of 
 Sarlat lie serves for the entire population. This 
 edifice of the eleventh and twelfth centuries deserves 
 a brief description. There is much grandeur in its 
 vast, deeply-recessed Romanesque portal, with 
 marble columns in the jambs and numerous archi- 
 volts. Then its high, narrow windows, and the low, 
 square towers, pierced with loopholes, give to it 
 that air o( the fortress which immediately impresses 
 the beholder. Without doubt it was built like so 
 many other churches of the same stormy and uncertain 
 period, to be used as a place of refuge in case of 
 danger. The entrance to the principal tower is 
 artfully concealed at the back of a chapel at the east 
 end, and can only be reached with a ladder. The 
 verv narrow passage makes two or more right 
 angles before it leads to the foot of the spiral 
 staircase — a disposition of great value in defence. 
 
 Having heard of a cavern in the garden of the 
 presbytery which, in the memory of living people, 
 was the refuge of a murderer whom the gendarmes 
 were afraid to follow underground, because it was 
 believed that he would knock them on the head one 
 after the other while they were wriggling through 
 the passage, and then quietly walk out by a back 
 
i 7 6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 way unknown to anyone but himself, I felt a strong 
 desire to explore this cave of evil repute. The idea 
 was all the more enticing because I was assured that 
 nobody had entered it but the murderer. I called 
 upon the cure, and asked him how he felt at the 
 prospect of a little trip underground in his own 
 garden. He did not seem to feel very eager for the 
 adventure ; but when I proposed to go alone, he 
 was too polite to let me depart with his best wishes. 
 He decided to accompany me. When he had put 
 on his oldest soutane, we started with a packet of 
 candles and a ball of string. 
 
 Priests' gardens are often very interesting, and 
 the one through which we now passed pleased me 
 greatly. It was a long strip, in two or three ter- 
 races, upon the rocky hillside. Many fruit-trees, but 
 chiefly almond, cherry, and peach, were scattered 
 over it. There was also a straggling vine-trellis, from 
 which there now spread in the June air that sweet 
 fragrance of the freshly-opened flower-buds of which 
 the poet-king Solomon sung. In the highest part 
 was the cavern. We had to crawl in upon our hands 
 and knees, and in some places to lie out almost flat. 
 As my friend the cure insisted upon going first, I 
 could not help thinking that the back view of him, 
 as he wormed his way along the low gallery, was 
 not exactly sacerdotal. Sometimes we passed over 
 smooth sand — evidently left by a stream that once 
 issued here ; at other times over small stones, which 
 were bad for the knees. We kept a keen look-out 
 
WILLIAM'S CHAPEL 177 
 
 for the remains of prehistoric men and beasts, but 
 only found the shells of eggs which a fox had 
 probably stolen from the cure's fowl-house. There 
 were also rabbits' bones, whose presence there was 
 to be explained in the same way. My companion, 
 however, having once entered his cave, was resolved 
 upon returning another day and digging conscien- 
 tiously in the sand, which appeared to be very deep 
 in places. He may since have unearthed some pre- 
 historic treasures there. The cavern was interesting 
 as showing the honeycombing effects of water on 
 limestone rock, but it did not lead very far into the 
 hill. The belief that the murderer escaped by 
 another opening than the one by which he entered 
 was founded on fiction. 
 
 After the cave exploration, the cure was so good 
 as to accompany me to a mysterious ruin in the 
 neighbourhood, which he believed to be of English 
 origin, because it was always spoken of by the 
 people of the locality as William's Chapel. The 
 English pronunciation of the name William had been 
 preserved in the patois. After this, I did not doubt 
 that his supposition was correct. Some English- 
 man was connected with the history of the building ; 
 but was it really a chapel ? The hill that we had to 
 climb to it was very high, and, although covered 
 with herbage, almost precipitous. The building- was 
 not on the summit, but on a ledge of rock some 
 distance down the cliff. The ruin consisted of only 
 a few fragments of wall, built very strongly of well- 
 
 12 
 
i 7 8 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 shaped stones laid together without mortar. Holes 
 cut in the rock showed where the ends of beams had 
 rested. The position was rather one for a fortress 
 than for a chapel ; but no doubt Englishmen of an 
 eccentrically religious turn appeared as early as the 
 thirteenth or fourteenth century, if not earlier. If 
 the people of the valley climbed up to William's 
 Chapel to say their prayers, they must have been 
 very pious indeed. 
 
 The strength of the current in the Vezere had 
 turned me from my first plan, which was to ascend 
 the river as far as Montignac, and take the road 
 thence to Hautefort, the birthplace of Bertrand de 
 Born, who was put into hell by Dante for having 
 encouraged Henry Plantagenet's sons to rebel 
 against their father. The sombre Florentine treated 
 the troubadour baron with excessive harshness, for 
 it is recorded of Bertrand that his repentance for the 
 sins of his restless and agitated life was so sincere 
 that he ended his days as a monk in the monastery 
 of Citeaux. # 
 
 Bertrand de Born was an evil counsellor to 
 Henry Court-Mantel, but a singularly attractive 
 figure of the twelfth century was this troubadour 
 noble, whose life in the world was divided between 
 the soothing charm of the ' gat spavoir 7 and the ex- 
 citement of war, and who was equally at his ease 
 
 * ' Mobile, agite, comme son aventureuse existence qui commenca 
 au donjon d'Hautefort et s'eieint dans le silence du cloitre de Citeaux. 
 — ' Discoitrs sur les celebritcs du Pirigordj par L. Sauveroche. 
 
BERT RAND DE BORN 
 
 179 
 
 whether he was holding the lance or the pen. He 
 had the tenderest friendship for the young Prince, 
 and mourned his death in the best elegy that appeared 
 at the dawn of modern literature. 
 
 Jk 
 
 \_ 
 
 
 ■tvsisb; 
 
 CHATEAU DE HAUTEFORT 
 
 Of the ancient fortress of Bertrand de Born, 
 Viscount of Hautefort, a few vestiges are left, which 
 may be easily distinguished from the later masonry 
 of the castle with which they are combined. 
 
HOUSE AT PERIGUEUX. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE ISLE. 
 
 It was in the full flame of noon on a hot June day 
 that we arrived at the headquarters which I had 
 chosen for my second summer in Perigord. It was 
 a little chateau, of which I was to occupy a small 
 wing, and also a low building that was quite de- 
 tached—all very plain and rustic, as, indeed, most 
 of the really old chateaux that are still inhabited are. 
 At this burning hour the place seemed as quiet as 
 the ideal retreat of a literary hermit could be. In the 
 large old-fashioned garden, where magnolias and firs 
 mingled with all kinds of fruit-trees, and lettuce- 
 
 [ iSo] 
 
FRENCH DOGS 181 
 
 beds were fringed with balsams, golden apricots 
 hung upon the branches that were breaking with 
 their weight, and seemed to say : ' There is nobody 
 here to eat us. We are quite tired of waiting to be 
 gathered.' 
 
 Suddenly there was a great noise of barking, and 
 three or four dogs that had smelt or heard strangers 
 rushed through the archway that led to the court, 
 which was so much like a farm-yard that no one 
 would know the difference from the description. 
 
 < Mees ! Mees ! Black ! Black !' cried a voice 
 from within. 
 
 There was nothing in the sound of these words to 
 cause astonishment, for most French clogs that move 
 in good society have English names. If you were 
 to call out at any respectable gathering of these 
 animals, whether in the North or the South, ' Fox,' 
 ■ Stop,' ' Black,' ' Mees ' (not Miss), the chances are 
 that they would all try to reply at once. 
 
 After the dogs came bare-footed domestics of 
 both sexes, who stared at us wonderingly, while 
 saluting politely, and evidently not wishing to show 
 their curiosity. Then, when we entered the court, 
 we were met by a great many fowls, ducks, and 
 turkeys of various ages. Not a few had apparently 
 just jumped out of their shells. Lastly came the 
 master and mistress of the house, advancing in the 
 slow and stately style of the times when the draw- 
 bridge would have had to be lowered, but moving in 
 the midst of the poultry. They were gracious and 
 
182 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 hospitable, and very soon we settled down, alto- 
 gether well pleased with our new quarters. 
 
 Here we were surrounded by trees just as 
 Robinson Crusoe was by his grove when it had 
 grown tall and thick. Now, the traveller in 
 Southern France who lingers as I am wont to 
 linger in my wanderings, will probably have cause 
 to pine, as I have pined, for trees about his house 
 to shelter him from the fury of the summer sun. 
 There are few houses that are not hovels or ruins to 
 be found, except where the land is fertile, and wher- 
 ever it repays labour the owner loathes a tree that 
 produces nothing but its wood. Thus we get those 
 wide, burning plains, where so few trees are to be 
 seen save poplars along the watercourses and wal- 
 nuts bordering the roads. Even these become rare, 
 as in journeying farther south the last low buttresses 
 of the rocky highlands are left behind. 
 
 Here, close to this retreat that I had chosen on 
 the banks of the Isle, some twenty miles below 
 Perigueux, rose, on the opposite side of the river, 
 high cliffs of white limestone with wooded brows. 
 The chateau was on a small island formed by a 
 curve of the river under the cliffs, and a short canal 
 drawn across the loop to facilitate the navigation of 
 the Isle. 
 
 A very lazy kind of navigation it was. Two or 
 three barges would pass in a day on their way to 
 Perigueux or Bordeaux. They were of considerable 
 size, and were capable of some sea-faring, but their 
 
A WEEDY CANAL 183 
 
 masts were now laid flat, and they were towed along 
 at the rate of two or three yards a minute by a lean 
 and melancholy horse that had ceased to care for 
 cursing, and was almost indifferent to beating. As 
 the navigation had been nearly killed by the railway, 
 the canal was allowed to fill itself with water-plants, 
 which were interesting to me, but exceedingly hurtful 
 to the temper of the bargees. They vented their 
 fury upon the engineer, who was absent, and the 
 horse that was present — unfortunately for the poor 
 brute, for somehow he seemed to be looked upon as 
 a representative of the negligent functionary. 
 
 ' You appear to be having a bad time,' said I one 
 day to a great dark bargee who was streaming from 
 every pore, as much from bad temper as from the 
 exertion of cracking his whip, and whose haggard 
 horse looked as if he would soon break off in the 
 middle from the strain of trying to move the barge, 
 which was stuck in the weeds. 
 
 ' A bad time of it ! I believe you. Sacr-r-r-rc ! 
 If I could only send that pig of an engineer to 
 Noumea I should be a happy man !' 
 
 If wishes could have wafted him, he would have 
 gone farther than New Caledonia long before. 
 
 One day, far on in the summer, this engineer 
 actually appeared upon the canal in his steam yacht, 
 and there was great excitement in the country. 
 The peasants left their work in the fields and ran to 
 the banks to gaze at him. He did not go very far 
 before he got stuck in the weeds himself. Then he 
 
184 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 reversed his engine, made back as fast as he could, 
 and was seen no more. 
 
 But I am going on too fast. I have not yet 
 described the chateau. The picture of it is clearly 
 engraved upon the memory, and a very pretty 
 picture I still think it ; more so now, perhaps, than 
 when the reality was before me, for such is the way 
 of the mind. I can see the extinguisher roofs of 
 the small towers through openings in the foliage 
 rising from a sunny space enclosed by trees. I can 
 see the garden, with its old dove-cot like a low 
 round tower, its scattered aviaries, its rambling vines 
 that climb the laden fruit-trees, its firs, magnolias, 
 great laurels, its glowing tomatoes and melons, its 
 lettuces and capsicums and scattered flowers, all 
 mingled with that carelessness which is art uncon- 
 scious of its own grace ; its daedalian paths, its 
 statues so quaintly placed in unsuspected corners, 
 its — well, the picture is finished, for now begins 
 the effort to recall its details. The eye's memory 
 is a judicious painter that never overcrowds the 
 canvas. I can see on that side of the build- 
 ing, which looks upon a much wilder garden, 
 where peach and plum trees stride over grassy 
 ground adjoining the filbert-grove that dwindles 
 away into the wooded warren, a broad line of tall 
 nettles in the shade against the wall. Hard by, on 
 the line — so it was said — of the filled-up moat, is a 
 row of ancient quinces, with long crooked arms, 
 green, gray, or black with moss and lichen, stretch- 
 
A MANOR-HOUSE IN PERIGORD 185 
 
 ing down to the tall grass, where in the dewy hours 
 of early darkness the glow-worms gleam. 
 
 This little chateau was never a stronghold to 
 inspire an enemy with much respect ; it was rather 
 a castellated manor-house, dating from the times 
 when even the residences of the small nobility were 
 fortified. Marred as it had been by alterations 
 made in the present century without any respect 
 for the past, it was still very interesting. In one of 
 the towers, said to be of the fourteenth, and cer- 
 tainly not later than the fifteenth, century, was a 
 chapel on the ground-floor with Gothic vaulting, 
 and which still served its original purpose. A con- 
 temporaneous tower flanking the entrance contained 
 the old spiral staircase leading to the upper rooms. 
 I often lingered upon it in astonishment at the 
 mathematical science shown in its design, and the 
 mechanical perfection of its workmanship. What 
 seemed to be a slender column round which the 
 spiral vaulting turned was not really one, for each 
 of the stone steps was so cut as to include a section 
 of the column as a part of its own block. The con- 
 trivances by which this staircase en colimacon was 
 made to hold together, and to hold so well as to 
 have lasted several hundred years, with a promise 
 to continue in the same way another century or two, 
 were deftly hidden from the eye of those unversed 
 in such technicalities. In the hollow at the foot of 
 the stairs was what I took to be a very old and 
 rough christening font, such as I had seen in village 
 
i86 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 churches. But it was not that ; it was called a 
 pierre a Vhuile. Its purpose a long time ago was 
 to receive the oil taken from the first pressing of 
 walnuts after the annual gathering. Then the 
 priests came and fetched what they wanted of it 
 to serve for the rites of the Church during the 
 year. 
 
 All this summer we lived out of doors, except at 
 night. Even Rosalie, our servant, did most of her 
 cooking in the open air with the aid of a portable 
 charcoal stove, which she placed in the shade of 
 some noble plane-trees that were planted by acci- 
 dent on the day of Prince Louis Napoleon's coup 
 cTe'tat. They were already tall and strong when 
 his Will-o'-the-wisp, which he had mistaken for a 
 star, sank in the bloody swamp of Sedan. When 
 the rising wind announced a storm, the swaying 
 branches shed their dry bark, which was piled upon 
 the hearth indoors, where a cheerful blaze shot up 
 if by chance the rain fell and the air grew chilly. 
 But very seldom did even a shower come to moisten 
 the parched land and cool the heated air. Thus the 
 plane-trees came to look upon the stove beneath 
 them as a fixture. 
 
 These open-air kitchens are by no means un- 
 common in Southern France durinor the hot months. 
 I have a pleasant recollection of dining one scented 
 evening in May with my friend the Otter at 
 Beynac in his garden terraced upon rocks above the 
 Dordogne. The table was under a spreading chest- 
 
LIVING IN THE OPEN AIR 187 
 
 nut-tree in full bloom. Not many yards away the 
 swarthy Clodine had her kitchen beneath an acacia. 
 Strange as it may seem, the hissing of her frying- 
 pan as she dropped into it the shining fish did not 
 mingle unpoetically with the murmur of lagging 
 bees overhead and the soothing plaint of the river 
 running over its shallows below. Nor, when the 
 purple flush faded on the water's face, and little 
 points of fire began to show between branches laden 
 with the snow of flowers, did the fragrant steam that 
 arose from Clodine's coffee-pot make a bad marriage 
 with the amorous breath of all the seen and unseen 
 blossoms. What is there better in life than hours 
 such as those ? 
 
 But now I am by the Isle. The plane-trees are 
 on the edge of a little dell, in the centre of which is 
 a smooth space encircled by many trees, forming a 
 dense grove. A rough table has been set up here 
 with the aid of planks and tressels. It is our dining- 
 table, and the centre of the grove is our sallc a 
 manger. Wrens and blackcaps hop about the 
 branches of the filbert - bushes, and when the 
 mdtaycrs lean cat comes sneaking along, followed 
 by a hungry kitten that is only too willing to take 
 lessons in craft and slaughter, the little birds follow 
 them about from branch to branch, scolding the 
 marauders at a safe distance, and giving the alarm 
 to all the other feathered people in the grove. 
 Here the nightingales warble day and night until 
 they get their young, when, finding that hunting 
 
1 88 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 for worms and grubs to put into other beaks than 
 their own is very prosaic business, they only sing 
 when they have time to fly to some topmost twig 
 and forget that they are married. 
 
 When the sun is near setting, a sound very dif- 
 ferent from the warble of a bird is heard close by. 
 It is some leader of a frog orchestra in the sedges 
 of the canal giving the first note. It is like a quirk 
 of gluttony just rousing from the torpor of satisfac- 
 tion. The note is almost immediately taken up by 
 other frogs, and the croaking travels along the 
 canal-banks as fire would if there were a gale to 
 help it. But the music only lasts a few minutes, for 
 the hour is yet too early for the great performance. 
 The frogs are only beginning to feel a little lively. 
 It is when the sun has gone quite down, and the 
 stars begin to twinkle upon the water, that the ball 
 really opens. Then the gay tumult seems to extin- 
 guish every other sound, and to fill the firmament. 
 Oh ! they must have a high time of it, these little 
 , green - backed frogs that make so much noise 
 throughout the warm nights of June. Sometimes 
 I creep into my canoe and paddle by the light of 
 moon or stars as noiselessly as I can along the 
 fringe of sedges and flags and bullrushes, hoping to 
 watch them at their gambols. But the frog is a 
 very sly reptile, and you must stay up very late 
 indeed in order to be a match for him in craft, 
 unless you dazzle his eyes with the light of a torch 
 or lantern. Then he is a fool in the presence of 
 
A HERMITAGE 189 
 
 that which is out of the order of his surroundings, 
 and his amazement or curiosity paralyzes his muscles. 
 It is in this way that those who want the jolly frog 
 just to eat his hind-legs a la poulette or otherwise 
 catch him with the hand, unless they have the 
 patience and the cruelty to fish for him with a hook 
 baited with a bit of red flannel. 
 
 Now I will speak of my own hermitage, my ideal 
 nook for writing, reading, and doing nothing, which, 
 after much wandering and vain searching, I found at 
 length here. Yes, I found it at last ; and I much 
 fear that I shall never find another like it. It lay at 
 the back of the chateau, beyond the shaded nettles 
 and the ancient quinces. My ordinary way to it 
 was through a piece of waste, which, with uninten_ 
 tional sarcasm, was called the ! Little Park.' It was 
 overgrown by burdocks, to which it had been aban- 
 doned for years — who could tell how many ? — and 
 was rambled over by turkeys, guinea-hens, and other 
 poultry. Then I passed through a little gate, 
 crossed another bit of waste that was neither lawn 
 nor field, skirted a patch of buckwheat, and entered 
 a small wood or shrubbery, where plum and filbert 
 trees grew with oaks and beeches, until I came to 
 water. This was the vivier of the chateau — a fish- 
 pond, long drawn out like a canal, and fed by a spring, 
 but which had been left to itself until it was nearly 
 shaded over by alders and other trees. At the end 
 farthest from all habitations was a little structure 
 built of stones, open on one side, and with small 
 
i 9 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 orifices in the three remaining walls. These could 
 be closed, and yet they were not windows. Their 
 purpose was much more like that of loopholes in a 
 mediaeval barbican. They were to enable the man 
 inside to watch the movements of migratory birds, 
 and to send his shot into the thick of them when, 
 unsuspecting danger, they chanced to come within 
 range. The little building was an affut. Near to 
 it was a sort of fixed cage, intended for decoy birds, 
 but it had lon^ been without tenants when I took 
 possession of this refuge from all the human noises 
 of the world. The other sounds did not worry me, 
 although they often drew me from my work. The 
 splash of a fish would take me to the water's edge, 
 where I would watch the small pikes lying like 
 straight roots that jut from the banks under water. 
 The cooing of the little brown turtles in the trees 
 overhead, the movements of a pair of kingfishers 
 that would often settle close by upon an old stump, 
 the magpies and jays, and especially the oriels, 
 would make my thoughts wander amongst the leaves 
 while the ink was drying in the pen. The oriels 
 tantalized me, because I could always hear them in 
 the crests of the trees, until, about the middle of 
 August, they went away on their long journey to the 
 South, but could very rarely catch sight of their gold 
 and black plumage. Although they will draw near 
 to orardens to steal fruit when thev have eaten the 
 wild cherries, they are among the most suspicious 
 and wary of birds. 
 
TOO MANY MOSQUITOES 191 
 
 The oriel is a strange singer. It generally begins 
 by screeching harshly ; then follow three or four 
 flute-like notes, which seem to indicate that the bird 
 could be a musician if it would only persevere. But 
 it will not take the trouble. It goes on repeating its 
 ' Lor-e-oh !' just as its tree-top companions, the 
 cicadas, keep up their monotonous creaking. 
 
 From my cabin I could see all the lights, colours, 
 and shadows of the day change and pass, but the 
 sweetest music of the summer hours was heard when 
 the soft sunshine of evening fell in patches on the 
 darkening water, and on the green grass on each 
 side of the brown path strewn with last year's 
 trodden leaves. 
 
 Sometimes a hedgehog would creep across the 
 narrow path, shaded with nut-bushes, oaks, and 
 alders towards the water, and at night — I was often 
 there at night — the glow-worms gleamed all about 
 upon the ground, and there were mysterious whis- 
 perings w T hose cause I could not trace. Yes, it 
 was an ideal literary hermitage, but as perfection is 
 not to be found anywhere on land or water, even 
 this spot had its drawback. There were too many 
 mosquitoes. My friend the owner of the chateau 
 often said to me, ' La moustique de £ Isle nest pas 
 mdchante ; but on this point I could not agree with 
 him. I bore upon me visible signs of its wicked- 
 ness ; but in course of time I and the ' mostiqite de 
 risle ' lived quite harmoniously together in the little 
 shanty under the trees. 
 
192 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Where the weedy and shady avenue leading to the 
 chateau made an angle with the highroad, there 
 was often a caravan or tilt-cart stationed for days 
 together. Sometimes it was the travelling house of 
 a tinker and his family ; in which case the man was 
 generally to be seen working outside upon his pots 
 and pans in the shade of a tree. Sometimes it 
 belonged to a party of basket and rustic -chair 
 makers, who gathered the reeds and hazel-sticks 
 that they needed as they passed through the country. 
 Some were gipsies, and some were not ; but all were 
 baked by the sun almost to the colour of Moors. 
 Having a taste for nomadic life myself, I used to 
 stay and talk to these people from time to time ; but 
 none of them interested me so much as the wander- 
 ing cobbler and his dog, whose acquaintance I had 
 made higher up the country amongst the rocks. 
 
 I can still see them both in the shade of the old 
 gateway ; the man seated in the entrance of the little 
 tower, where, at the top of the spiral staircase, is 
 the village prison ; the dog lying with his nose upon 
 his paws just within the line drawn by the gateway's 
 shadow across the dazzling road. They both came 
 one evening and took up their position here with as 
 much assurance as if it had been theirs by right 
 of inheritance. They soon set to work, the man 
 mending boots and shoes, and the dog making 
 himself disagreeable to all the male members of the 
 canine population for a couple of miles or so around. 
 Until the cobbler's companion settled down comfort- 
 
SURLY WANDERERS 193 
 
 ably, he had several exhilarating fights with local 
 dogs that looked upon him as an intruder and an 
 impostor. He really was both. He had no great 
 courage, but he had grown impudent and daring 
 from the day that he had first worn a collar armed 
 with spikes. When his enemies had taken a few 
 bites at this, they came to the conclusion that there 
 was something very wrong in his anatomy. After 
 the first encounter they were not only willing to 
 leave him alone, but were exceedingly anxious to 
 4 cut ' him when they met him unexpectedly. They 
 approached the gateway as little as possible ; but 
 when they were obliged to pass it, they drew their 
 tails under them, showed the whites of their eyes, 
 and having crept very stealthily to within ten yards 
 or so of the archway where the interloper appeared 
 to be dozing, they made a valiant rush towards the 
 opening. Notwithstanding these precautions, the 
 cobbler's dog, which had been watching them all the 
 while out of the corner of one eye, was often too 
 quick for them. 
 
 Man and dog were ludicrously alike both in 
 appearance and character. The beast was one of 
 the ugliest of mongrels, and the man might well 
 have been the final expression of the admixture of 
 all races, whose types had been taken by destiny 
 from the lowest grades of society. They were both 
 grizzly, thick-set, and surly. They both seemed to 
 have reached the decline of life with the same un- 
 conquerable loathing of water, except as a means of 
 
 13 
 
I94 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 quenching thirst. The dog, although some remote 
 bull-dog ancestor had bequeathed him short hair, had 
 bristles all over his face just like his master. They 
 were a couple of cynics, but they believed in one 
 another, and loved one another with an affection 
 that was quite edifying. The dog wished for 
 nothing better than to lie hour after hour near his 
 master, hoping always, however, for an occasional 
 fight to keep him in health and spirits. The cobbler 
 did nothing to make himself liked by the inhabitants, 
 but he could afford to work more cheaply than others 
 who were 'established,' and who had a wife and 
 children to keep ; consequently the pile of old boots 
 and shoes that looked quite unmendable rose in 
 front of him, and for three or four weeks he re- 
 mained in the same place stitching and tapping. 
 Having locked up his things at night in the tower— 
 • he had obtained permission to make this use of it — 
 he disappeared with his dog, and what became of 
 them until next day was a mystery. 
 
 I admired the blunt independence and practical 
 philosophy of this homeless man. Although he was 
 disagreeable to others, he was on good terms with 
 himself, and seemed quite satisfied with his lot. If, 
 when he had named his price for mending a pair of 
 shoes, anybody tried to beat him down, he would 
 say, 'Take them and mend them yourself!' His 
 incivility obtained for him a reputation for honesty, 
 and his prices were soon accepted without a murmur. 
 He talked to nobody unless he was obliged to do 
 
THE COBBLER'S DOG IN PRISON 195 
 
 so, and by his moroseness he came to be respected. 
 I managed to draw him into conversation once by 
 feigning to be much impressed by the comeliness 
 and amiable nature of his dog, and he then told me 
 that he had been wandering ever since he was a boy 
 in Languedoc and Guyenne, stopping in a village as 
 long as there was work to do and then moving on 
 to another. Wherever people wore boots or shoes — 
 if it were only on Sundays — there was always some- 
 thing to be done by working cheaply. 
 
 The silent cobbler might have kept his open-air 
 shop longer than he did in the shadow of the 
 mediaeval gateway, if his dog had not quarrelled 
 with the sole representative of police authority for 
 having put on his gala uniform, which included a 
 cocked-hat and a sword. For this want of respect 
 the animal was imprisoned in the room of the tower, 
 to the great joy of all the other dogs, but to the 
 intense grief of his master, who found it impossible 
 to turn a deaf ear to the plaintive moans that 
 reached him from above. And thus it came to pass 
 that they went away together rather suddenly in 
 search of a gateway somewhere else, the dog 
 earnestly praying, after his fashion, that it might 
 not be one with a tower. 
 
 One June morning, soon after sunrise, twenty- 
 seven mowers came to the chateau to cut the grass 
 in the great meadow lying between the river under 
 the cliffs and my moat— I called it mine because 
 it was almost made over to me for the time being, 
 
196 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 together with the bit of wood and the cabin. Each 
 mower brought with him his scythe, an implement 
 of husbandry which in France is in no danger of 
 being classed with agricultural curiosities of the past. 
 Here the reaping and the mowing machine make 
 very little progress in the competition between 
 manual and mechanical labour. In the southern 
 provinces, few owners of the soil have ever seen 
 such contrivances. People who cling to the poetic 
 associations of the scythe and the sickle — and who 
 does not that has been awakened by their music in 
 his childhood ? — must not cry out against the laws 
 which have caused the land of France to be divided 
 up into such a multitude of small properties, for it is 
 just this that preserves the old simplicity of agri- 
 culture as effectually as if some idyllic poet with a 
 fierce hatred of all machines were the autocratic 
 ruler of the country. Whether the nation gains or 
 loses by such a state of things is a question for 
 political economists to wrangle over ; but that the 
 artist, the seeker of the picturesque, the romantic 
 roamer, and the sentimental lover of old custom 
 gain by it can hardly be denied. 
 
 Some of the mowers were men of sixty, others 
 were youths of seventeen or eighteen : all were 
 contented at the prospect of earning nothing, but 
 of being treated with high good cheer. Now, 
 victuals and drink are a great deal in this life, but 
 not everything, and these men would not have come 
 on such terms had they not been moved by a neigh- 
 
A MOWERS' FEAST 197 
 
 hourly spirit. They were themselves all landowners, 
 or sons of landowners. Had wages been given, 
 two francs for the day would have been considered 
 high pay, and the food would have been very rough. 
 No turkeys would have had their throats cut ; no 
 coffee and rum would have been served round. In 
 short, this haymaking day was treated as an annual 
 festival. 
 
 A goodly sight was the long line of mowers as 
 their scythes swept round and the flowery swathes 
 fell on the broad mead in the tender sunshine, while 
 the edges of the belt of trees were still softened 
 by the morning mist. After the mowers, all the 
 workers employed on the home-farm, men, women, 
 and boys, entered the field to turn the swathes, 
 which in a few hours were dried by the burning 
 sun. On the morrow a couple of oxen drew a 
 creaking waggon into the field, and when the angelus 
 sounded from the church-tower in the. evening the 
 haymaking was over. But I have not yet described 
 the mowers' feast. 
 
 At about ten o'clock the big bell that hangs out- 
 side the chateau is rung, and the mowers, dropping 
 their scythes, leave the field and troop into the 
 great kitchen, which has changed so little for cen- 
 turies. The pots and pans hanging against the 
 walls, and the pieces of bacon from the beams, have 
 been renewed, but not much else. There is the 
 same floor paved with stones, now much cracked 
 and worn into hollows, the same hearth and broad 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 chimney with hanging chain ; and the long table and 
 benches stretching from end to end, although their 
 age is uncertain, were certainly fashioned upon the 
 exact model of others that preceded them. Richard 
 Cceur-de-Lion, when campaigning in Guyenne, may 
 have sat down many a time to such a table as this, 
 and to just such a meal as the one that is about to 
 be served to the mowers, with the exception of the 
 coffee and rum. 
 
 Let us take a look into the great caldrons, which 
 appear to have come out of Gargantua's kitchen. 
 One contains two full-sized turkeys and several 
 fowls, another a leg of pork, and a third a consider- 
 able portion of a calf. Then there is a caldron 
 of soup, made very 'thick and slab.' Home-baked 
 loaves, round like trenchers, and weighing 10 lb. 
 each, are on the side table, together with an 
 immense bowl of salad and a regiment of bottles 
 filled with wine newly drawn from the cask. 
 
 In the evening, when all the grass has been cut, 
 there is another and a greater feast. The work 
 being done, the men linger long at the table. Then 
 all the household is assembled in the great kitchen, 
 including the chdtelain and chatelaine, and the young 
 men who are known to have voices are called upon 
 to sing. They do not need much pressing, for what 
 with the heat of the sun during the day, then the 
 wine, the coffee and rum, theif blood is rushing 
 rather hotly through the veins. One after another 
 they stand up on the benches and give out their 
 
A 'REAPERS' SONG' 199 
 
 voices from their sturdy chests, which are burnt to 
 the colour of terra-cotta. They make so much 
 noise that the old warming-pan trembles against 
 the wall. Although they all speak patois among 
 themselves, they are reluctant to sing the songs of 
 Perigord in the presence of strangers. The young 
 men are proud of their French, bad as it is, and 
 a song in the cafe-concert style of music and poetry 
 fires their ambition to excel on a festive occasion 
 like this, whilst their patois ditties seem then only 
 fit to be sung at home or in the fields. At length, 
 however, they allow themselves to be persuaded, 
 and they sing in chorus a k Reapers' Song,' com- 
 posed long ago by some unknown Perigourdin poet, 
 who was perhaps a jongleur or a troubadour. The 
 notes are so arranged as to imitate the rhythmic 
 movements of the reaper ; first the drawing back 
 of the right arm, then the stroke of the sickle, and 
 lastly, the laying down of the cut corn. There is 
 something of sadness as well as of joy in the repeated 
 cadences of the simple song, and it moves the heart, 
 for now the old men join in, and the sound gathers 
 such strength that the little martins under the eaves 
 must be pressing troubled breasts against their 
 young. 
 
 This chateau had remained in the same family 
 for centuries, and the actual owner, although by 
 no means indifferent to the noble exploits of his 
 ancestors, had long ago settled down to the life of 
 an agricultural gentleman, and devoted what energy 
 
2 oo TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 may have come down to him from the Crusaders to 
 the cultivation of tobacco, the improvement of stock, 
 the rearing of pigeons and poultry, the planting of 
 trees, and a great deal more belonging to the same 
 order of interest. He was a strongly marked type 
 of the gentilhomme campagnard, in whom blue blood 
 combines perfectly with rustic tastes and simplicity 
 of manners. Like most men who live greatly to 
 themselves, he had his hobbies, and they were all of 
 a very respectable kind. One was to surround him- 
 self with trees ; another was to have all kinds of 
 captive birds about him. I was never able to know 
 exactly how many aviaries he possessed, for 1 was 
 always finding a fresh one curiously hidden in some 
 neglected corner. He liked to mix up all sorts 
 of birds together, such as pigeons, doves — tame 
 and wild— blackbirds, linnets, canaries, chaffinches, 
 sparrows, tomtits — no, the tomtits had been turned 
 out. I asked why. 
 
 'Because,' said M. de V., 'there is no bird so 
 wicked for its size as the titmouse. It pecks other 
 birds with which it is shut up so often in the same 
 part of the head that at length it makes a hole and 
 picks out the brains.' 
 
 He used to catch his birds by means of a long- 
 net, and his favourite place for spreading it was 
 along the side of the patch of buckwheat which was 
 sown to feed the captives. He was a true lover of 
 birds, and by observing them had stored up in his 
 mind a fund of curious knowledge respecting their 
 
METAYAGE 201 
 
 characters and habits. He only worked a portion 
 of his land with the aid of the servants of the 
 chateau ; the rest was farmed on the system of 
 me'tayage, for which he had a very strong liking. 
 He said it was far preferable from the landlord's 
 point of view to leasing, because the owner of the 
 soil remained absolute master of his property. He 
 could take care that nothing was done which did 
 not please him, for the metayer or colon was on no 
 firmer footing than that of an upper servant. If the 
 landlord was not satisfied with the manner in which 
 his land was treated, or if he suspected his me'tayer 
 of trying to take an unfair advantage of him in the 
 division of proceeds, all he had to do was to change 
 him for another. But it was the interest of both to 
 work well together, and it was the duty of the land- 
 lord to assist the metayer as much as possible, 
 especially when times were hard. 
 
 On this estate the colons were housed free, but 
 they paid one-third of the taxes. At the time of 
 sowing, the seed was found by the landlord, but the 
 colon returned half of the amount when the crop was 
 gathered. 
 
 Me'tayage, or the system of sharing results 
 between the landowner and the labouring peasant, 
 still flourishes in France, notwithstanding the severe 
 denunciations passed upon it by various writers. If 
 it were a very bad system, it would have fallen into 
 disuse long before now, for although the French 
 have a tendency to keep their wheels in old ruts, 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 they are as keen as any other people in protecting 
 their own interests. It is a system that would soon 
 become impossible without trustfulness and honesty. 
 On both sides there must be fair dealing. The 
 colon must feel that the landlord will help him in 
 time of trial and need, and the landlord must feel 
 that the colon is not trying to cheat him. In the 
 great majority of cases, the man who does the 
 ploughing, the sowing and the harvesting quite 
 realizes that honesty with him is the best policy, and 
 the owner of the soil knows that it is to his interest 
 to support his metayer, and encourage him with 
 judicious aid when the times are bad. The mdtayer, 
 who has hope of making a little money over and 
 above what is barely sufficient to support himself 
 and his family, and knows that results will depend 
 largely upon his own sagacity and industry, works 
 with a steady zeal that it would be unreasonable 
 to expect of the hired labourer, who, having his 
 measured wage always in his mind's eye, has no 
 incentive to do more than what is rigorously 
 expected of him. 
 
 It may happen that the mdtayer, with all his 
 labour — carried sometimes to an extreme that 
 degrades the man physically and mentally— and all 
 his frugality, which so often entails constitutional 
 enfeeblement and degeneration, because the nutri- 
 tion is not sufficient to correct the exhaustion of 
 toil, obtains really less value for his work than an 
 English farm labourer, and is not so well housed ; 
 
OLD-FASHIONED MANNERS 203 
 
 but, on the other hand, he enjoys a large amount of 
 liberty and independence, and has the hope, if he is 
 young, of being able to save money, buy some land, 
 and become his own master. A mdtairie is seldom 
 so large as to be beyond the working capabilities of 
 a man and his family. In Guyenne an estate of a 
 few hundred acres, if the land is productive, is often 
 divided up into several metairies. 
 
 Farm labourers are not an overfed or overpaid 
 class in Perigord. Food that is almost bread and 
 vegetables, and a wage of one franc a day, are the 
 ordinary conditions on which men work from sunrise 
 to darkness. Lodging is not always included. I 
 have known men in the full vigour of life earning 
 only the equivalent of ninepence halfpenny a day, 
 paying rent out of it, and presumably supporting a 
 wife and children. 
 
 The daily life at the chateau was quite old- 
 fashioned in its simplicity. Everybody rose w r ith 
 the sun, or very soon afterwards. At nine o'clock 
 the bell in the court rang for the principal meal, 
 which was called dinner. Kings dined at about the 
 same hour in the times of the Crusaders. Early in 
 the afternoon the bell rang again. This was for 
 collation, a very light repast, which was often 
 nothing more than salad or fruit and a frotte — a 
 piece of crusty bread rubbed w T ith garlic. At about 
 seven o'clock the bell rang for supper. 
 
 The small chateaux with which the whole country 
 hereabouts is strewn, notwithstanding that most of 
 
204 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 them have been partially rebuilt or grossly and 
 wantonly mangled without a purpose such as the 
 rational desire of increasing homely comfort may 
 excuse, even when combined with no respect for the 
 past, nevertheless contain numerous details that call 
 up in the mind pictures of the life of old France. 
 In the rat-haunted lofts and lumber-rooms may still 
 be seen, worm-eaten and covered with dust, the 
 cacolet — a wooden structure shaped like the gable 
 roof of a house, and which, when set upon a horse's 
 back, afforded sitting accommodation for two or three 
 persons on each side. There are people who can 
 still remember, on the roads of Perigord, the cacolet s 
 carrying merry parties to marriage feasts and other 
 gatherings. In a few of the great dining-rooms the 
 visitor will still notice the alcove volante — a bedstead, 
 that is a little house in itself, put into a cosy quiet 
 nook where a person can get into bed without being 
 observed by others in the room. A pretty senti- 
 ment caused it to be especially reserved for the 
 grandmothers, who, stretched upon the warm 
 feathers on the winter evenings, could rest their 
 weary limbs while listening to the talk of their 
 descendants and friends, until drowsiness began to 
 make confusion of the present and the past, and 
 then they would pull the cords which closed the 
 curtains and go to sleep. Poor old ladies, now 
 in their graves under the paving-stones of little 
 churches or beneath the grass of rural cemeteries, 
 how happy for them that they did not dream of the 
 
FEUDAL DOVECOTS 205 
 
 future in their snug alcoves near the fire — of a 
 revolution that would kill or scatter their descendants, 
 and of the strangers to their blood who would lie in 
 their beds ! 
 
 The detached dovecot is seen in almost every old 
 manorial garden. Although pigeons are seldom 
 kept in it, the structure has been preserved because 
 of its usefulness for various purposes and the solidity 
 of its masonry. In some of them is to be seen the 
 old spiral ladder or staircase winding like a serpent 
 round the interior wall from the ground to the 
 domed or pointed roof. By means of this ladder 
 the pigeons could be easily taken from their nests 
 as they were wanted. These great dovecots are an 
 interesting remnant of feudalism. Down to the 
 Revolution the right of keeping pigeons was still a 
 droit seigneuriaL To those who enjoyed the privi- 
 lege, the business was therefore a profitable one, lor 
 the birds (cd largely at other people's expense. 
 
 It is rare to find the ancient walls and towers 
 which stud the hills that rise above these valleys in 
 the hands of families who owned them even in the 
 last century. Terror of the Revolutionists caused 
 most of the small nobility of the country to forsake 
 their homes and lands, which were consequently 
 sold by the State rdvolutionnairement, and they 
 who acquired them were thrifty, sagacious people of 
 the agricultural, mercantile, or official class, whose 
 political principles bent easily before the wind that 
 was blowing, and whose savings enabled them to 
 
206 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 profit by the misfortunes of those who had so long 
 enjoyed the advantages of a privileged position. 
 The descendants of the men who seized their oppor- 
 tunity, and who purchased the estates of the refugees 
 — often at the price ' of an old song ' — generally 
 cultivate anti-Republican politics, for they have the 
 best of reasons to be suspicious of the ' great and 
 glorious principles ' by virtue of which property was 
 made to change hands so unceremoniously at the 
 close of the last century. 
 
 The present owners of most of the country houses 
 in Perigord, whether they belong to the old families 
 or the new families, whether they put the noble 
 particle before their names or not, have very much 
 the same habits and manners. Not a few of them 
 have never been to Paris, and in speech they often 
 use old French forms, which sound strange in the 
 ears of the modernized society of the North. 
 Although the accent is often drawling or sing-song, 
 their language is more grammatically correct than 
 that now ordinarily used in conversation. They 
 observe the true distinction of the tenses with an 
 exactitude that sounds stiff and pedantic to those 
 French people who move about, and who consider 
 that they live in the ' world.' To the unprejudiced 
 foreigner, however, it is not unpleasant to hear this 
 old-fashioned literary French spoken in an easy, 
 simple manner that removes all suspicion of affecta- 
 tion. 
 
 In the relations of master and servant, something 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT 
 
 207 
 
 of the old regime still survives. The master still 
 says tu and toi to his servant ; but if the latter were 
 to take the liberty of replying with the same pro- 
 noun, his insolence would be considered quite un- 
 pardonable. And yet no people appear to be 
 troubled less with false pride than the class of whom 
 I am speaking. Relatively large landowners, whose 
 names count for a good deal in the district, think 
 there is nothing derogatory in sending a maid- 
 servant to market to sell the surplus fruit and eggs. 
 Those who buy are equally practical. They haggle 
 over sous with their friends' servant just as if she 
 were a peasant driving a bargain on her own account. 
 It is the exception, however, when to this keen 
 appreciation of money warm-hearted hospitality and 
 disinterested kindness are not joined. 
 
 There was a chateau combining the country house, 
 the farm, and the ruin on the summit of the steep 
 hill that rose above our little island just beyond the 
 river. It often tempted me to climb to it, and one 
 day at the end of summer I wended my way up the 
 stony path. I met with that courteous reception 
 which so rarely fails in France to place the visitor 
 completely at his ease. I was surprised to find how 
 extensive the ramparts were, and how easily the 
 castle behind the modern house could have been 
 rendered habitable. But all the windows were open 
 to the weather. A Gothic chapel with groined 
 vaulting at the base of one of the towers had 
 been turned into a coach-house. Following an old 
 
208 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 servant who carried a lantern along a dark passage 
 leading to an oubliette, I saw what looked like a 
 large cattle trough, and inquired the use of it in such 
 a place. It was put to no purpose now, was the 
 reply, but it was intended for keeping a whole 
 bullock in salt. In the tumultuous ages it was 
 always necessary to be prepared to take immediate 
 measures in view of a siege, and at no period more 
 than during the wars of religion, when the owners 
 of these castles, whether they were Huguenots or 
 Catholics, had to be continually on the alert. When 
 there was fighting to be done, a salted bullock gave 
 less trouble than a live one. 
 
 The old man, having tied a string to the top of 
 the lantern, let it down through the round hole of the 
 oubliette until it touched the ground many feet 
 below. Then he told me that, when the dungeon 
 was discovered years ago, immediately beneath the 
 opening an old tree was found stuck about with 
 rusty blades and spikes, with their points turned 
 upwards. This story was confirmed by others. 
 
 In the garden on the edge of the cliff the myrtle 
 flourished in a little Provence sheltered from the 
 cold winds ; the physalis — beautiful southern weed 
 - — now laid its large bladders of a vivid scarlet along 
 the edges of the paths, and the walls flamed with 
 the red fruit of the pomegranate. 
 
 The most important feudal ruin in this district is 
 that of the Chateau de Grignols, the cradle of the 
 Talleyrand family. It was raised by Hely Talley- 
 
WITH THE WATER-PLANTS 209 
 
 rand, Seigneur de Grignols, at the close of the twelfth 
 century. Much of the outer wall and a few frag- 
 ments of the interior buildings remain. 
 
 I lived a good deal upon the water when I was 
 not in my hermitage under the trees or wandering 
 across country. I found in the water an ever-grow- 
 ing interest and charm. It often drew me from my 
 work, for my canoe was on the canal only a few 
 paces from my dwelling. On each side the high 
 banks were glorious with their many-coloured cloth- 
 ing of summer flow T ers. There were patches of 
 purple thyme, of blue stachys, and yellow gallium ; 
 there were countless spikes of yellow agrimony and 
 heads of wild carrot, and white ox-eyes looked out 
 from amidst the long grasses like snowrlakes or 
 summer. Near the water's edge, mingling w^ith 
 sedges, flags, marsh-mallows, bur-reed, and alisma, 
 were the golden flowers of the shrubby lysimachia 
 in dense multitudes, while from the canal itself rose 
 many a spike of water-stachys, with here and there 
 blossoming butomus, near the fringe of the banks. 
 Then there were the pond-weeds, and other true 
 water-plants, whose summer luxuriance nearly 
 stopped the navigation of the canal, and whose 
 pollen in July, collecting near the locks, lay there 
 upon the water like a thick scum. As my little boat 
 moved over them, I could note all the wondrous 
 beauty and delicacy of the strange foliage that lives 
 below the air, and preserves so much of the character 
 of the earliest vegetation of the earth. 
 
 14 
 
210 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 It is twilight, and I am paddling up to the river, 
 gliding now along by one bank and now by another. 
 A humming-bird moth, that seems to have been just 
 created, for the eye cannot follow its movement in 
 the dusky air, appears suddenly upon the topmost 
 flower of a stachys, and in another moment it has 
 vanished. Upon the broader and more open river 
 the day appears to revive. There is a faint lustre 
 upon the distant chalky hills and their corn-fields 
 that rise against the quiet sky. But the pale moon 
 just above them is brightening ; already the rays 
 are glinting upon the water. A little later the boat 
 is moving up a long brilliant track, where small 
 waves lap and quiver like liquid fire. It is now 
 night, and the forms of the alders in the air and on 
 the water have become weird and awful. I often 
 come alone at this hour, or later, to be filled with the 
 horror of them. There is a strong fascination in 
 their terrible and fantastic shapes, which may be 
 because the sublime and the horrible are so thinly 
 separated. Rarely does the same tree wear the 
 same ghostly appearance when seen a second time, 
 and a shape that may seem to one person appallingly 
 life-like may convey no meaning to another. 
 
 Had the gendarmes met me while water-wander- 
 ing at night, they would certainly have concluded 
 that I was a fish-poacher. All fishing by night in 
 French rivers and streams is illegal, but it is much 
 practised notwithstanding. 
 
 There are many carp in the Isle, weighing from 
 
CARP-FISHING 211 
 
 fifteen to twenty pounds, but they are very rarely 
 caught. The river is full of very deep pools, caused 
 by the washing away of the sand down to the solid 
 rock, and the carp seldom get within reach of a net 
 except when they are stirred up and washed out of 
 their lairs in time of flood. Then, when an old fish 
 gets entangled in a net, it is almost certain to break 
 through it, so that it is not with a feeling of pure 
 pleasure that the fisherman recognises by the weight 
 and tug that he has thrown his meshes over one of 
 these monsters. Nor does any better success attend 
 the angler — at all events, the angler who is known 
 in these parts. It is quite an extraordinary event 
 when a carp weighing more than five pounds is taken 
 with the line. The bait commonly used is boiled maize 
 or a piece of boiled chestnut. There is another method 
 of hooking these fish which I have seen practised 
 on the quays at Perigueux. The fisher has a very 
 strong rod, and also a strong line many yards long, 
 at the end of which is fastened, not a bait, but a 
 piece of lead two or three inches in length. To this 
 large hooks are fixed, wich barbs turned in all direc- 
 tions. The man, whose eyes have become very 
 keen with practice, sees some carp coming up or 
 going down the stream, and, throwing the plummet 
 far out into the river, he draws it rapidly through 
 the water, across the spot where he believes the fish 
 then to be. It is not often that he feels a tug, but 
 he does sometimes, and then follows a deadly 
 struggle, which may result in his landing a splendid 
 
212 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 carp that is worth more than he might earn by any 
 other industry in two days. 
 
 Among the peasants in this part of Perigord there 
 is a deeply-engrained superstitious horror of what is 
 called a rencontre. If a person falls suddenly ill, 
 especially if his sickness be not a familiar ailment, 
 he will begin to probe his memory, and to ask him- 
 self if he has lately sat upon a stone or the stump 
 of a tree. If he remembers having done so, he 
 murmurs, unless he should be free from the popular 
 superstition, ' Ah ! I thought so. This is a ren- 
 contre /' — by which he means that he has met one of 
 the three unholy reptiles, the snake, the toad, or the 
 lizard, although it was hidden under the stone or 
 stump. 
 
 1 Marie,' said I to an old farm woman who was 
 hobbling about with a rheumatic leg, ' what is the 
 matter ?' 
 
 4 Oh, mossieu,' said she, 'it's a rencontre. I sat 
 down the other day upon a stone.' 
 
 This made me inquire what was meant by a 
 rencontre. 
 
 I will only set down a few impressions of 
 Perigueux, there being already quite enough written 
 respecting the ancient capital of the Petrocorii. 
 The upper part of the town commands a pleasant 
 view of the valley of the curving Isle, with the 
 wooded hills that lead away towards the upper and 
 wilder country of Perigord ; but it is in the lower 
 town near the river, where the odours are strong, 
 
ANTIQUITIES OF PERIGUEUX 213 
 
 that the interest really lies. Here is the cathedral 
 of St. Front, a church in the Byzantine style of the 
 tenth century, and closely imitated from St. Mark's 
 at Venice. It is impossible to see it now, however, 
 without regret and disappointment. In many it 
 stirs both sorrow and anger. It is no longer one 
 of the most precious monuments of old France. 
 What we see now on the site of St. Front is a 
 new church, scrupulously rebuilt, it is true, accord- 
 ing to the original plan, and with a great deal of 
 the original material, but its interest is that which 
 belongs to a model : its venerable character, with 
 all the associations of the past, is gone. Whether 
 those responsible for the complete demolition of 
 the ancient structure when it threatened to fall and 
 become a heap of ruins were right or wrong in their 
 decision is a technical question on which very few 
 persons are now competent to give an opinion. 
 The plan of the church is a Greek cross, and, like 
 St. Mark's and St. Sophia's, it has five domes ; but 
 the building has, nevertheless, a feature of its own 
 which makes it one of the most original of churches. 
 It possesses a Byzantine tower. 
 
 In common with many towns of Southern France, 
 Perigueux shows remarkable vestiges of different 
 races and dominations. Remnants of Roman or 
 Gallo- Roman architecture stand with others that 
 belong to the dawn of mediaeval art, and others, 
 again, that are marked by the florid and graceful 
 fancy of the Renaissance. The ruins of the amphi- 
 
2i 4 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 theatre are insignificant compared to those at Nimes 
 and Aries, and there is no beautiful example of 
 Roman art like the Maison Carree at Nimes ; but 
 there is an exceedingly curious monument of anti- 
 quity, which was long a puzzle to archaeologists, but 
 
 THE TOUR DE VESONE. 
 
 which is now generally believed to be the cella of 
 a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to the city's tute- 
 lary divinities. It is called the Tour de Vesone, 
 and, indeed, it was supposed for centuries to have 
 been originally a tower. Its cylindrical shape and 
 its height (ninety feet) give it all the appearance of 
 
THE NORMANS IN PERIGORD 215 
 
 one. It is built of rubble, faced inside and out with 
 small well-shaped stones, and has chains of brick 
 in the upper part. The circle of the tower is no 
 longer complete, for about a fourth of the wall has 
 been broken down from top to bottom. The 
 ground is strewn with fragments of immense 
 columns and entire capitals, some Corinthian, others 
 Tuscan. These, doubtless, were parts of the peri- 
 style, which, with the exception of such scattered 
 fragments, has quite disappeared. There is some- 
 thing decidedly barbaric in the fantastic structure 
 that has come down to us, and it is difficult to 
 understand the motive of its height. Such a 
 cylinder rising far above the peristyle could not 
 have had a classic effect. This ruin stands in an 
 open field, and the foulness of the spot, although 
 quite in accordance with the Southern manner of 
 showing respect for antiquities, is nevertheless a dis- 
 grace to the sediles of modern Vesunna. 
 
 Another curiosity of the lower town is the ruin 
 of a very early mediaeval castle, said to have been 
 built by Wulgrin, surnamed Taillefer, the first of 
 the hereditary Counts of Perigord. Close to this 
 picturesque ruin is one of the ancient gateways of 
 the town. It goes by the name of La Porte 
 Normande, but its slightly pointed arch disposes of 
 the suggestion that the Normans were in some 
 manner concerned in its construction. 
 
 What interested me most at Perigueux was some- 
 thing that very few strangers, or even townspeople, 
 
2l6 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 for that matter, ever see, because it is hidden from 
 public view. This is a considerable fragment of 
 one of the early walls of the town, which, tradition 
 says, was thrown up in great haste at the approach 
 
 THE ' NORMAN GATE AT PERIGUEUX. 
 
 of the Normans during one of the incursions of 
 these adventurers up the valley of the Dordogne 
 and, its tributary, the Isle, in the tenth century. 
 It is a bit of wall that speaks to us in a language 
 by no means common. It is not built of stones 
 
ROMAN RUINS 217 
 
 such as could be found anywhere in all ages, but 
 is put together with the fragments of temples and 
 palaces which even now tell of the power and 
 splendour of Rome. The shafts of fluted columns, 
 capitals wearing the acanthus, pieces of cornice and 
 frieze, all mortared together with undistinguishable 
 rubbish, bear testimony in the quiet garden of the 
 Ursuline convent to the vanity of human works. 
 Vesunna, splendid city of Southern Gaul, completely 
 Latinized, with native poets, orators, and historians 
 speaking and writing the language of Virgil and 
 Cicero, raised temples, palaces, thermae, and a vast 
 amphitheatre to be used centuries later as material 
 for building a wall to keep out the Northern bar- 
 barians ! 
 
THE DRONNE AT BOURDEILLES. 
 
 FROM PERIGUEUX TO RIBERAC (BY 
 BRANTOME). 
 
 From Perigueux I made my way to Brantome in 
 the neighbouring valley of the Dronne — a tributary 
 of the Isle, which nobody who has not stifled the 
 love of beauty in his soul can see without feeling 
 the sweet and winning charm of its gracious in- 
 fluence. Between the two valleys are some fifteen 
 miles of chalky hills almost bare of trees, a dreary 
 track to cross at any time, but especially detestable 
 when the dust lies thick upon the white road and 
 the summer sun is blazing overhead. But how 
 delightful is the contrast when, going down at 
 length from these cretaceous uplands, where even 
 the potato plants look as if they had been white- 
 washed, you see below the verdant valley of 
 the Dronne, that seems to be blessed with eternal 
 spring, the gay flash of the winding stream, the 
 
 [218] 
 
ROMANTIC BRANTOME 219 
 
 grand rocks that appear to be standing in its bed, 
 and the cool green woods that slope up to the sky 
 beyond ! The pleasure grows as you descend, and 
 when at length you reach the little town you are 
 quite enchanted with the grace and elegance, the 
 poetic and romantic charm, of the scene. Although 
 the church, with its tower half built upon a rock, 
 dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the 
 influence of the sixteenth century is so strong that 
 no other is felt. The eye follows the terraces with 
 graceful balustrades in the shadow of old trees, 
 dwells on the fanciful Renaissance bridge, that looks 
 as if its first intention was to span the stream in the 
 usual manner, but, having gone some distance across, 
 changed its mind, and turned off at an abrupt angle ; 
 then the little pavilion in the style of Francis I., 
 connected with a machicolated gateway, fixes the 
 attention. There is something in the air of the 
 place which calls up the spirit of Shakespeare, of 
 Spenser, and of all the poets and romancers of the 
 sixteenth century ; you feel that everything here 
 belongs to them, that you are in their world, and 
 that the nineteenth century has nothing to do with 
 it. Upon these balustraded terraces, beside the 
 limpid river full of waving weeds, you can picture 
 without effort ladies in farthingales and great ruffs, 
 gentlemen in high hose and brilliant doublets ; you 
 can almost hear the lovers of three centuries ago 
 kissing under the trees — lovers like Romeo and 
 Juliet, who kissed with a will and meant it, and who 
 
220 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 were afraid of nothing. But Brantome has clearer 
 and more precise associations with letters than such 
 as these, which belong purely to the imagination. 
 Its name has been inextricably entangled with litera- 
 ture by Pierre de Bourdeilles, Seigneur de Brantome, 
 author of the famous and scandalous ' Memoires ' — 
 terrible chronicles of sixteenth-century venality, in- 
 trigue, and corruption, written in a spirit of the gayest 
 cynicism. Brantome — he is known to the world by 
 no other name now — was the spiritual as well as the 
 temporal lord here, for he was abbot of the ancient 
 abbey which was founded on this spot in the 
 eleventh century or earlier. His ecclesiastical func- 
 tion, however, was confined to the enjoyment of the 
 title and benefice, for if ever man was penetrated to 
 the marrow by the spirit of worldliness, it was Pierre 
 de Bourdeilles. What he has written about the 
 women of his time is something more than the 
 critical observations of a chronicler who was also 
 a caustic analyst of the female character. Such 
 was his cynicism that he, the Abbot of Brantome, 
 lauo-hed in his sleeve at the horrible strife of 
 Catholics and Huguenots in his own and neigh- 
 bouring provinces. It is true that he fought at 
 Jarnac against Coligny, but the admiral had met 
 him in the court of the Valois before these wars, 
 and knew him to be an abbe joyeux, without pre- 
 judices, if ever there was one. The astute chronicler 
 played his cards so well as to keep on safe terms 
 with both sides, and it was by this diplomacy of 
 
THE ABBEY OF BRANTOME 221 
 
 their lord and abbot that the inhabitants of Bran- 
 tome escaped the sword and the rope when Coligny 
 and his terrible German mercenaries entered the 
 weakly -defended place on two occasions in 1569. 
 On the first of these Coligny w r as accompanied by 
 the young Henry of Navarre and the Prince of 
 Orange. They were all made very welcome by 
 Brantome, and treated by him with 'good cheer' in 
 his abbey. He was rewarded for his diplomatic 
 talent, for he tells us that no harm was done to his 
 house, nor was a single image or window broken in 
 the church. No doubt he had turned to good profit 
 his distant relationship with Madame de Coligny. 
 On the second occasion the admiral merely hurried 
 through Brantome with his retires in full flight after 
 the bad defeat at Montcontour. 
 
 The abbey church of Brantome is not without 
 beauty, but it is the tower that is the truly remark- 
 able feature. It was raised in the eleventh century, 
 and although the architect — probably a monastic one 
 — observed the prevailing principle of Romanesque 
 taste, he showed so much originality in the design 
 that it served as a model, which was much imitated 
 in the Middle Ages. It is not only one of the oldest 
 church towers in France, but its position is one of 
 the most peculiar, it being built, not on the church, 
 but behind it, and partly grafted upon the rock. 
 
 Of the old abbey little remains ; but there is a 
 cavern, formerly in communication with the con- 
 ventual buildings, which contains sculptures cut upon 
 
222 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the rock in relief, which are a great curiosity to eccle- 
 siologists. They are the work of the monks, who 
 used this old quarry as a chapel, and, it would appear, 
 likewise as an ossuary in a limited sense, if the rows 
 of square holes cut in the rock were to serve as 
 
 7-~ 
 w 
 
 THE ABBEY OF BRANt6mE. 
 
 niches for skulls, as some have maintained. One of 
 the compositions in relief has given rise to discussion 
 among archaeologists. The first impression that it 
 conveys is that of an exceedingly uncouth represen- 
 
GRIM SCULPTURES 223 
 
 tation of the Last Judgment, but the Marquis de 
 Fayolle's explanation, namely, that the idea which the 
 sculptor-monk endeavoured to work out here w r as 
 the triumph of Death over Life, meets with fewer 
 objections. There are three figures or heads 
 symbolizing Death, of which the central one wears a 
 diadem that bristles with dead men's bones. Imme- 
 diately below is Death's scutcheon emblazoned with 
 allegorical bearings. On each side of this is a row 
 of heads rising from the tomb, in which a pope, an 
 emperor, a bishop, and a peasant are to be recog- 
 nised. In the middle part of the composition are 
 two kneeling angels blowing trumpets, and above 
 these is a vast and awful figure, apparently un- 
 finished, and scarcely more human in its shape than 
 some stalagmites I have met underground. Are we 
 to see here the Eternal Father, or Christ sitting in 
 final judgment ? It depends upon the interpretation 
 placed upon the work of the monk, who, with slow 
 and painful effort, gave fantastic life to his solemn 
 thoughts in the gloom of this old quarry, from which 
 stone had been taken to build the church. He was 
 a rude artist, such as might have belonged to the 
 darkest age, but certain ornamental details of the 
 bas-relief indicate that he was a man of the sixteenth 
 century. The walls of the cavern have been black- 
 ened by the damp, and these awful shapes reveal 
 themselves but slowly to the eye, so that they 
 look like a vague and dreadful company of ghosts 
 advancing from the darkness. 
 
224 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 A visit to this sepulchral cavern gives an appetite 
 for lunch at the good inn which is hard by, and at 
 whose threshold sits or did sit a very fat, broad- 
 faced landlord, seemingly fashioned upon the model 
 of an ideal tapster of old time. Here ^friture of the 
 famous gudgeons of the Dronne is placed before 
 the guest, whether the fishing be open or closed, 
 and a magistrate would feel as much aggrieved as 
 anybody if the law were not laughed at when its 
 observance would lay a penalty upon his stomach. 
 At the hospitable board of this inn I made the 
 acquaintance of a somewhat eccentric gentleman 
 who lived alone in a large old house, where he pur- 
 sued the innocent occupation of hatching pheasants 
 with the help of hens. In almost every room there 
 w T as a hen sitting upon eggs or leading about a brood 
 of little pheasants. This gentleman was more sad 
 than joyous, for he could not take his handkerchief 
 from his pocket without bringing out the corpse of a 
 baby pheasant with it — one that had been trodden 
 to death by a too fussy foster-mother. I owe him a 
 debt for having led me a charming walk by moon- 
 light to see a dolmen — the largest and best preserved 
 of all those I had already seen in Southern France 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 It was not without a little pang that I broke away 
 from the spell of coquettish Brantome and began my 
 wanderings down the valley of the Dronne. A few 
 miles below the little town the stream passes into the 
 
THE CASTLE OF BOURDEILLES 225 
 
 shadow of great rocks. I looked at these with 
 something of the regret that one feels when awaking 
 from a long dream of wonderland. I knew that they 
 were almost the last vestiges towards the west, in 
 the watershed of the Gironde, of the stern Jurassic 
 desert, gashed and seamed with lovely valleys, and 
 deep gorges full of the poet's k religious awe/ where 
 I had spent the greater part of three long summers. 
 And now, on the outskirts of the broad plain or 
 gradual slope of undulating land that leads on from 
 the darker and rockier Perigord, through the green- 
 ness of the lusty vine — led captive from the New 
 World and rejoicing in the ancient soil of France — or 
 the yellow splendour of the sunlit cornfields, towards 
 the sea that rolls against the pine-clad dunes, I felt 
 tempted to turn from my course and go back to my 
 naked crasfs and stone-strewn wastes. But I did 
 not 00 back. Life beina- so short in this world of 
 endless variety, we cannot afford to return upon our 
 path. 
 
 A little beyond where the double line of rocks 
 ended, I saw a round tower of unusual height with 
 machicolations and embattlements, in apparently 
 perfect preservation, rising from the midst of what 
 once must have been a fortress of great strength, 
 which on the side of the river had no need of a 
 moat, for it was there defended by the escarped 
 rock, to the edge of which the outer ramparts 
 were carried. This was the castle of Bourdeilles, 
 the seat of the family of which the Abbe de 
 
 J 5 
 
226 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Brantome was a younger son. I was soon able 
 to get a closer view of it. It is one of the most 
 instructive remnants of feudalism in Perigord, and one 
 of the most picturesque, by the contrast of its great 
 gloomy keep and frowning ramparts with the peaceful 
 beauty of the. valley below. The tall donjon, 1 30 feet 
 high, and most of the outer wall, are of the fourteenth 
 century. The inner wall encloses a sixteenth- 
 
 CHATEAU DE BOURDEILLES. 
 
 century mansion, marked with none of the pictur- 
 esqueness of the Renaissance period, but heavy and 
 graceless. In the interior, however, are sculptured 
 chimney-pieces and other interesting details. This 
 residence was built by the sister-in-law of Pierre de 
 Bourdeilles. The burg itself, which lies close to the 
 castle and is much embowered with trees, has some- 
 thing of the open, spacious, and decorative air of 
 
CHURCH-SCRAPIXG 227 
 
 Brantome. It tells the stranger that it has known 
 better days. The broad terrace, planted with trees 
 so as to form a quinconce, where the people stroll 
 and gossip in the summer evenings, is quite out of 
 keeping with a little place that has scarcely more 
 than a thousand inhabitants. 
 
 Near the castle gateway is the ' Logis des 
 Senechaux,' a small building of the fifteenth century 
 with turrets capped by extinguisher-like roofs, and 
 within a stone's throw of this is a small church, 
 dating from the twelfth century, the artistic interest 
 of which has been lamentably deteriorated by reno- 
 vation and scraping. The influence of the Byzan- 
 tine cathedral that rose in the old Roman city by 
 the Isle spread far, and numerous churches in Peri- 
 gord bear witness to the imitative zeal which it 
 inspired, especially in the application of domes to the 
 vaulting of the nave. This arrangement is frequently 
 to be found in connection with the pointed arch, and 
 such is the case at Bourdeilles. The apse is beau- 
 tiful, with its five tall windows and its columns with 
 Corinthian capitals in the intervening wall spaces. 
 Although the church is in no style that is recognised 
 as pure, it is typical of one that has been developed 
 in the district, and which is by no means without 
 grace ; but the scraping that it has undergone has 
 robbed it of the proper tint and tone of its age, and 
 the ideal interest that belongs to this. 
 
 But here is something from which the gray mantle 
 that the centuries have silently spun has not been 
 
228 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 lifted. I have gone down to the waterside to follow 
 the stream onward, and am held by the quiet charm 
 of a half Gothic bridge that was thrown across it five 
 or six hundred years ago ; the miller's house just 
 below, with its bright little garden flaming with 
 flowers a few inches above the water, and two great 
 wheels turning slowly, slowly, as if time and change 
 and the rush of life were the vain words of tiresome 
 fools. On the side of the bridge looking up-stream, 
 each pier is built out in the form of a sharp angle. 
 This was intended to lessen the push of the current 
 upon the masonry in time of Hood. A great many 
 old bridges in Guyenne show a similar design. 
 
 My road had now on one side the reedy Dronne, 
 and on the other overleaning rocks topped with 
 trees or shrubs, whose foliage reached downward as 
 if it were ever troubled by the futile longing to touch 
 the cool green water, and every little ridge or shelf 
 was marked out by a line of ancient moss. Old 
 alders had plunged their roots deep into the banks 
 of the river, and wmerever the sunshine struck upon 
 the upper leaves was a cicada scratching out its 
 monotonous note in joyous frenzy. 
 
 A long range of densely-wooded, rocky cliffs now- 
 stretched along the right bank ; but I, keeping to the 
 road on the other side, soon left the stream and rose 
 upon a hill dotted with low juniper bushes. The 
 scene in the widening valley below was full of 
 summer light and gladness. Men were mowing, 
 and women were turning the fallen swathes in the 
 
HUGUENOTS AND LEAGUERS 229 
 
 waterside meadows, and upon all the slopes above 
 were patches of yellow corn ready for the sickle. 
 In the green depth between the hills the river flowed 
 vaguely on in the shadow of tall poplars, and was 
 sometimes hidden by its reeds. 
 
 Here and there upon the higher ground, half 
 concealed by walnut-trees, were small chateaux or 
 farmhouses, with a castellated air derived from great 
 dovecots and towers, which last once served for the 
 defence of the manor-house or the little castle. 
 When the fury of the religious wars followed upon 
 that tidal wave of dilettantism and sensuality which 
 swept over Europe from the south to the north, and 
 which we call the Renaissance, and when Huguenots 
 and Leaguers gave such frequent dressings of blood 
 to the vineyards of Perigord, every house and 
 church that was in any way fortified was used as a 
 stronghold in the event of sudden attack. 
 
 From the broad landscape I turn to the w,ayside 
 flowers : the agrimony, the little lotus, the candy- 
 tuft — oettino- rare now that I have left the arid 
 stony region — the blue scabious, and, pleasanter 
 than all, the purple patches of dwarf thyme. 
 
 It was not yet evening when I came to Lisle, a 
 rather lame village near the Dronne. Here I fell 
 in with a plasterer, and he being a good-tempered 
 man, with some spare time on his hands, he offered 
 to show me before dinner the picturesque ruin of 
 an old bridge, known in the district as the Pont 
 d'Ambon. On our way to the river he talked much, 
 
2 3 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 and especially about his village, in which he took a 
 very lively interest. It had not changed its prin- 
 ciples, he said, for a hundred years. 
 
 ' And what are its principles ?' 
 
 ' Republican. We don't go to church here, 
 although there is no ill-will towards the cure.' 
 
 4 And is all the country about here Republican ?' 
 
 'Oh no, not at all. There is a village close by 
 that is full of religion. We are often called savages. 
 When the cure asked the commune to give him 
 200 francs a year for saying an extra mass on 
 Sundays, the majority of the inhabitants signed 
 their names to a paper offering him 300 francs a 
 year if he would say no mass at all.' 
 
 I said to myself that the cure of Lisle was not to 
 be envied the piece of vineyard that he had been 
 sent to look after. I had often heard stories such 
 as this. Faction righting provides the chief intel- 
 lectual stimulus in many a village and small town 
 of France. Where Republicanism is strong, the 
 mayor's party is often at bitter feud with those 
 who share the views and uphold the authority of 
 M. le curi. The sign that the ' advanced ' Repub- 
 licans give of their political faith is never to set 
 foot inside the church unless it be at a wedding 
 or a funeral. But what is especially worth the 
 attention of the philosophical observer is the extent 
 to which prevailing ideas in politics and religion 
 differ in the same district. Within a few miles of 
 a commune where Republicans and Freethinkers 
 
LOCAL PECULIARITIES 231 
 
 have complete control of local affairs, may be another 
 that is altogether Royalist or Bonapartist, and where 
 the cure is both popular and powerful. There is, 
 moreover, a very marked difference in the character 
 of the inhabitants of neighbouring places. In one 
 the prevailing characteristic may be mildness and 
 affability of manners, whereas in another it may be 
 truculence and incivility. Neither the influence of 
 politics nor of religion sufficiently accounts for these 
 differences in character. They seem to rest rather 
 upon obscure and remote causes, such as racial and 
 congenital tendencies. All this is especially observ- 
 able in the South of France, where the present 
 population has been formed from the blood of so 
 many races, which is very unequally mixed even to 
 this day. 
 
 When my talkative plasterer left the subject of 
 local politics, he took up that of the moon. Like all 
 country people, whether in France or in England, 
 he had the strongest faith in the influence of the 
 moon upon the weather. He, moreover, maintained 
 that moonbeams had a very corrosive and destruc- 
 tive action upon zinc. This fact, he said, had come 
 under his observation scores of times in his business, 
 which was that of roofing as well as plastering. 
 
 Thus talking, we came to the bridge, or, rather, 
 its sole remaining arch, now almost completely 
 hidden by ivy, briars, and other vegetation, by which 
 it has been gradually overgrown. The plasterer had 
 a sense of the picturesque, and he had not over-rated 
 
23 2 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the beauty of this spot. A little below the early 
 Gothic arch, from which the briars reached down to 
 the water, was an old mill, in the shadow of a high, 
 overleaning rock, and great trees made a vaulting 
 over the grassy lane, at the end of which the turn- 
 ing-wheel could be seen, with just a sparkle of even- 
 ing sunshine upon the dropping water. 
 
 The inn where I put up that night was a substantial 
 hostelry, containing all that was needful for the 
 entertainment of man and beast. Had I been a 
 Procureiir de la Rdpublique the law could not have 
 been broken in a more solicitous manner than it was 
 in my behoof. Not only did I have gudgeons, 
 en temps prohibe, but also partridge. It was not 
 until the bones were carried out that I felt that I 
 had missed an excellent opportunity of setting a 
 good example by declining to eat partridge in the 
 month of June. 
 
 I must have been put into the best bedroom, for 
 among other works of art which it contained was a 
 bridal wreath of orange-blossoms under a glass. I 
 surmised that when it decked the head of my hostess, 
 her form would not have taken up so much room in 
 the kitchen as when I saw it downstairs, passing 
 with a slow and dignified movement in the midst of 
 the saucepans and platters. I have often slept in 
 rooms where there have been bridal orange-blossoms 
 under glass. They always interest me, just as the 
 faded family photographs do which so frequently 
 deck the walls of the same room. They get me on 
 
A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FORTRESS 233 
 
 the lines of thought or sentiment which make us 
 enter when we are by ourselves into all that is 
 human. 
 
 The next morning, after seeing the church— a 
 Romanesque and Gothic structure of considerable 
 beauty — I returned to the Dronne, and, after cross- 
 ing it, continued upon the road eastward until I saw 
 the picturesque ruins of the Chateau de Marouette 
 upon a hill above me. Then I left the road, and 
 climbed the hill by a rocky path. This castle, dating 
 from the close of the sixteenth century, shows a 
 blending of feudal architecture with the Renaissance 
 style. In this respect it is like many others in the 
 district, but it is truly remarkable in having preserved 
 an outer wall, strengthened with round towers at 
 intervals, and enclosing two or three acres of land. 
 The fortress was raised by a Baron de Jarnac, and 
 must have been one of the last built to combine the 
 double character of family residence and stronghold. 
 The outer and inner ramparts, and the high, frown- 
 ing, machicolated keep, perched upon the rock and 
 overlooking the valley, prove that it was truly a 
 clidteail-fort, and one that ought to have been able to 
 give a very good account of itself. A fantastic effect 
 has been produced by attaching a plain modern 
 house without any character to the best-preserved 
 parts of the ruin. Agriculture must possess the 
 thoughts of those who are now living there. The 
 wide space between the outer and inner walls, as I 
 saw it in the early sunshine of the June morning, 
 
234 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 was a level floor of golden ears, nearly ready for the 
 reaper. 
 
 A storm overnight had moistened the earth ; the 
 breath that came from the flowery banks and the 
 glistening- leaves of oak and chestnut was very fresh ; 
 
 o o 
 
 all the birds that could sing were singing ; the sound 
 of the sweeping scythe and the voices of mowers 
 rose from the valley, and the spirit of peace and 
 gladness was over the land. 
 
 I took a road somewhat at random, and it led me 
 by many windings away from the Dronne, up hills, 
 where there were vines but no cornfields, and where 
 the wayside trees were chiefly plums, laden with 
 fruit fast purpling. And as I looked at the plums I 
 thought of the time when, after being dried in the 
 sun, they would become 'prunes,' and be scattered 
 about the world, many of them, perchance, in Eng- 
 land, where children would buy them with their 
 pennies, as I had bought others myself, when I 
 never supposed that I should walk by the trees that 
 bore them under southern skies. 
 
 A road-mender whom I passed saluted me with 
 the words, ' Bon soir /' although the hour was eight 
 in the morning. In these parts, however, don soir 
 is frequently said at all hours. It is a colloquial 
 peculiarity. Another is to address or speak of a 
 gentleman and a lady as ' Ces messiezirs' 
 
 At length I reached a plateau, where I saw not 
 
 far off, in a hollow surrounded by cornfields and 
 
 ruit-trees, such a number of red roofs that I con- 
 
A VILLAGE CHURCH 235 
 
 eluded I must have come to the little town of Mont- 
 agrier. A young peasant soon undeceived me : I 
 was near the village of Grand- Brassac. It was 
 clear that 1 had gone much farther from the Dronne 
 than I had intended, but, after all, it mattered little 
 where I wandered. I now said that I would see 
 Grand- Brassac, and that I might find something- 
 there worth the walk. I was rewarded beyond aught 
 that I had expected or hoped for. 
 
 Here I found a very remarkable Byzantine-Gothic 
 church of the thirteenth century, with a richly- 
 decorated front in strong" contrast to the defensive 
 motive so clearly expressed by the solidity of the 
 structure, the smallness of the windows, and espe- 
 cially by the height of the entrance — some ten feet 
 above the level of the ground. It is reached by 
 steps. Over the doorway, which has a pointed 
 arch ornamented with a star moulding, is a semi- 
 circular compartment containing several figures in 
 high relief, the central one of which represents the 
 Virgin enthroned. No satisfactory explanation of 
 the others has yet been found. Beneath the com- 
 partment is a row of very fantastic bracket-heads, 
 supposed to represent the Vices. Above it is a 
 canopy with sculptured medallions on the under-sur- 
 face, where the symbolical Lamb may be recognised 
 amongst winged dragons and other monsters. Close 
 to these is a monkey playing on the violin. Above 
 this canopy is another, shaped like a low gable, and 
 forming the upper frame of a further set of figures 
 
236 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 in relief, larger than those in the compartment 
 below. The central and highest figure is that of 
 Christ teaching. The Virgin is kneeling on the 
 right, and St. John on the left. St. Paul is shown 
 with the book of his Epistles, and St. Peter, wear- 
 ing a bishop's mitre, is holding his keys. Among 
 other details of this curious facade is the figure of a 
 kneeling knight in a coat of mail. Upon the ex- 
 terior side-walls are Roman arches en saillie, resting 
 upon corbels and very wide pilaster-strips that are 
 almost buttresses. In the interior, the Byzantine 
 influence is very apparent in the three domes, which 
 combine with the Gothic vaulting of the narrow, 
 dimly-lighted nave. The main walls are carried so 
 high as to hide the roof of the domes, and this goes 
 far to ofive to the church that air of a mediaeval 
 fortress which at once impresses the beholder. 
 
 As the fortune of the road had cast me upon this 
 village, I made up my mind to accept pot-luck here, 
 for the morning was no longer young, and I knew 
 not how far I might have to trudge before finding 
 better quarters. So I resolved to take my chance 
 at what looked like the best inn in the place, al- 
 though it was a very rustic hostelry that would have 
 repelled a wanderer less seasoned than myself to 
 the vicissitudes of the highways and byways. I 
 had, however, a cool little back-room with white- 
 washed walls to myself, and through the small 
 square window near the table where I sat I could 
 see something of the sunny world, with bits of tiled 
 
AN ABUSE OF PORK 237 
 
 roof and green foliage, as well as the lemon-coloured 
 butterflies that fluttered from garden to garden. 
 There was no lack of food in the auberge, for a pig 
 had been very recently killed. There were several 
 dishes, but they were all made up from the same 
 animal. When something- fresh came, I thought, 
 4 This, at all events, must be mutton or veal ' ; but 
 although it may have been cunningly disguised with 
 tomatoes or garlic, I perceived that it was pork 
 again. It was long after this adventure that I 
 could look at a pig with a lenient and unprejudiced 
 mind. 
 
 When I left Grand - Brassac, I so shaped my 
 course as to return to the valley of the Dronne, 
 but at a point much lower than that where I had 
 last crossed the river. The weather was now very 
 sultry ; not a breath of wind stirred, and thunder- 
 clouds were gathering in the sky. As the sun 
 glared between the layers of vapour, the cicadas 
 screamed from the tops of the walnut-trees, while 
 1 upon the dazzling white road felt that there was 
 no need of so much rejoicing. 
 
 A great dark cloud with fiery fringe now stretches 
 far up the sky from the south, and there is a con- 
 stant long-drawn-out groan of distant thunder. 
 This storm is no loiterer ; it is coming on at a 
 rapid pace, and it will be a fierce one. Still, the 
 haymakers keep in the meadow hard by the road, 
 working for dear life to fill the waggon, to which a 
 pair of oxen are harnessed, and to get it safely to 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the village on yonder hill before the floodgates of 
 heaven are opened. I hasten on to this village, 
 and reach it just before the rain begins to fall. It 
 is almost deserted ; everybody appears to be in the 
 fields. 
 
 On the very top of the hill is a little old church 
 surrounded by cypresses and acacias, and as the 
 sun, about to vanish within the folds of the cloudy 
 pall that is already drawn up to its flaming edge, 
 darts burning rays upon the still motionless leaves, 
 the cicadas a^ain scratch out their note with the 
 blind zeal of fiddlers who have made too merry at the 
 marriage- feast. 
 
 According to my wont, I pay a visit to the dead, 
 who lie scattered all around the old church. Scat- 
 tered do I say ? Why, the very ground on which I 
 walk is made up of them. When another dead 
 villager is buried, what occurs is merely a displace- 
 ment of human remains. As one body goes down, 
 the bones and dust of others come up to the surface. 
 Wherever I walk I see bones, and if I were an 
 anatomist I could tell the use and place of each in 
 the human economy. One might well suppose that 
 in these rural districts, where land is of so little value, 
 there would be but slight disturbance of dead men's 
 bones. Observation, however, tells a very different 
 story. These country churchyards are very small, 
 and nobody but the stranger seems to think that 
 there is any reason why they should be larger. 
 There is little or no buying of graves ' in perpetuity ' 
 
THE BOXES OF A VILLAGE 239 
 
 here, and very little grave-marking, except by 
 mounds and wooden crosses. Years pass quickly, 
 while the briar and the thistle and the bindweed 
 grow apace, like the new interests and affections 
 that spring up in the minds and hearts of the 
 mourners. Who are they who carry Mowers to the 
 graves of their grandfathers ? 
 
 Think of the population of an entire village being 
 swallowed up every fifty or seventy years by this 
 patch of ground that would make but a small garden, 
 and of this movement going on century after century ! 
 It is surely no matter for marvel that it has become 
 as difficult to hide the bones as the pebbles whenever 
 a bit of soil has been lately turned. They lie even 
 about the sides of the rough path that goes round 
 the church. Some fragments are so honeycombed 
 that they are as light in the hand as touchwood ; 
 others have undergone little, if any, chemical change. 
 Here people must often walk upon the bones of their 
 not very remote ancestors ; but they know, if they 
 think about the matter at all, that their turn will 
 come to be similarly treated by their own descen- 
 dants. There is no better place for meditating upon 
 all the vanities than one of these old rural cemeteries. 
 Turn not away, you other wanderers who may chance 
 to stray into these little fields consecrated to the 
 dead, and excuse your unwillingness to reflect by 
 muttering, ' Horrible !' There is nothing horrible, 
 after all, in these poor bones. What matters it 
 whether they are bleached by the sun or blackened 
 
240 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 by the clay ? It is good for you and for me to see 
 them here, and to realize how soon all men are 
 forgotten, how quickly their bones, mingling with 
 others, give no more clue to the individual life to 
 which they once belonged than a particle of dust 
 that dances in the sunbeam does to the matter from 
 which it parted. 
 
 It is not good, however, to stay moralizing in 
 a cemetery until a thunderstorm bursts over your 
 head. I remained so long here that I had to run 
 for refuge in a manner quite out of keeping with my 
 solemn train of thoughts. I entered the first door- 
 way that I saw open, and thus I found myself in a 
 cobblers shop. The cobbler was seated on a stool at 
 a low table covered with tools and odds and ends in 
 the middle of the room, sewing a boot, which he 
 held to his knee with a strap passed under his foot. 
 His apprentice was sitting near munching a piece of 
 bread. Both looked up with an astonished, not to 
 say startled, expression when 1 appeared simul- 
 taneously with a dazzling flash of lightning, followed 
 immediately by a terrific thunder-clap. The thought 
 expressed in the eyes of the cobbler as he looked 
 up was, ' Are you a thunderbolt, or Robert the 
 Devil ?' 
 
 I spoke to him and calmed him ; but although he 
 was satisfied that I was human, he evidently could 
 not make me out. Nor was this surprising, for the 
 village — St. Victor by name — lies quite off the track 
 of all but the inhabitants of a small district. The 
 
THE TOCSIN 241 
 
 man, however, made me welcome, and offered me a 
 chair. The sky was now the colour of dull lead, the 
 lightning-flashes were almost momentary, and the 
 thunder roared incessantly. Mingling with this 
 sound and that of the splashing rain was another — 
 the clang and scream of the bell in the church-tower. 
 It was rung as the tocsin, with that quick and wild 
 movement which had startled me elsewhere in the 
 depth of night with the cry of ' Fire ! Fire !' The 
 bell, however, was not rung now to give the alarm 
 of fire, and to summon everybody to lend a helping 
 hand in extinguishing the flames, but to persuade 
 the storm either to go somewhere else or to act with 
 moderation. This old custom — now dying out — is 
 no doubt founded on the religious belief that when 
 the church bell is rung with faith a storm will do no 
 harm ; but the country people join to the religious 
 idea the notion that the vibration of the atmosphere, 
 caused by the ringing, dissipates the storm or turns 
 it in another direction. Unfortunately for the 
 ancient custom, churches have frequently been 
 struck by lightning at the time when the bells were 
 being rung, and science is positive in declaring that 
 the electric fluid is attracted by an artificial commo- 
 tion of the atmosphere. On the causses of the 
 Ouercy, the peasants place bottles of holy water on 
 the tops of their chimneys as a protection against 
 lightning. The idea is that the evil power will not 
 strike the dwelling of those who put up a sign that 
 their habitation is blessed. These bottles on the 
 
 16 
 
242 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 chimney-tops puzzled me greatly, until at length I 
 inquired the reason why they were there. 
 
 There was to me something exceedingly grand 
 and elevating in this storm that raged upon the 
 hilltop, while the bell in the open tower, tossing like 
 a cask on the sea, proclaimed over all the house-tops 
 and the fields the fierceness of the struggle between 
 the celestial guardians of the church and village, and 
 the demons that thronged the air. I felt that I might 
 never have such an opportunity as this again, and 
 wished to make the most of it. The cobbler nearly 
 lost his temper at seeing me so wickedly elated. 
 Perhaps he thought that I might draw down a 
 judgment upon myself, and that he ran some risk of 
 being included in it for having harboured me. He 
 not only looked frightened, but frankly owned that he 
 was afraid. He was one of those men — of whom I 
 have known several — who can never overcome their 
 horror of a thunderstorm. At length the storm 
 began to move off and the bell stopped ringing ; 
 then the cobbler became quite cheerful. He brought 
 out a great jar of spirit distilled from plums, and 
 insisted upon my drinking some with him. He also 
 invited me to ' break a crust,' but this offer I declined. 
 Before I took leave of the good-natured man, he 
 seemed to have fairly shaken off the bad impression 
 I had made upon him by watching a thunderstorm 
 with interest and pleasure. 
 
 The sky having cleared, I continued my journey 
 towards Riberac, and reached the Dronne when the 
 
BY THE DRONNE 243 
 
 stormy day was ending without a cloud. There 
 was hardly a breath of wind to shake the drops from 
 the still dripping leaves, and the last groan of distant 
 thunder having died away, there would have been 
 deep silence but for the warbling of blackbirds 
 and nightingales. 
 
THE DESERT OF THE DOUBLE. 
 
 I am now at Riberac — the Ribeyrac of Dante's 
 commentators, who generally prefer to abide by the 
 old spelling. One might expect this ancient little 
 town to offer much interest to the archaeologist, but 
 it does not. Its interest lies almost wholly in its 
 literary associations of Arnaud Daniel, and of him 
 mainly because Dante chanced to meet him in 
 purgatory. Here was the castle — there is nothing 
 of it now — where the thirteenth-century troubadour 
 was born whom Petrarch described as l II grande 
 maestro d amove' and whom Dante made Guido 
 speak of as a poet in these words of unqualified 
 praise : 
 
 ' Questi ch' io ti scerno 
 Fu miglior fabbro del parlar materno : 
 Versi d'amore e prose di romanzi 
 Soverchio tutti.' 
 
 Dante having asked for the name on earth of 
 this gifted soul, the troubadour replied in the tongue 
 that he had learned from his mother's lips at 
 Riberac : 
 
 1 Jeu sui Arnaulz che plor e vai cantan.' 
 
 [ 244 ] 
 
ARNAUD THE TROUBADOUR 245 
 
 Arnaud's modern critics admire him less than did 
 Dante and Petrarch ; but he had a gift of sweet song, 
 and he owed it doubtless in no small measure to the 
 influence of the lovely Dronne, on whose banks he 
 must have often rambled in childhood — that season 
 when impressions are unconsciously laid up which 
 shape the future life of the intellect. No English- 
 man should pass through Arnaud's birthplace with 
 indifference, for he was the first to put into literary 
 form the story of Lancelot of the Lake. 
 
 Although Arnaud Daniel's castle has quite dis- 
 appeared, much of the church, that was almost a new 
 one in his time, still remains. It was originally 
 Byzantine-Romanesque, but in the sixteenth century 
 it underwent fantastic restoration, and was badly 
 married to another style without a name. What 
 struck me most on entering was the religious dark- 
 ness through which one sees the suspended lamp of 
 the sanctuary gleaming like a star, and behind it the 
 dim outline of the altar. This crypt-like appearance 
 is explained by the absence even of a single window 
 in the apse, which is covered by a semi-dome. The 
 Romanesque tower is very low and broad, with a 
 broach spire roofed with stones. 
 
 What a contrast to the deep shadow of the church 
 was the brilliant white light that I met outside, and 
 to the grave-like silence the sawing sound of the 
 cicadas, drunk with sunshine, in the neighbouring 
 tree-tops ! 
 
 I set out from Riberac to cross that tract of 
 
246 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 country between the Dronne and the Isle which is 
 known as the Double. It is still one of the most 
 forlorn wildernesses in all France ; but, like the 
 Camargue, it has been much changed of late years 
 by drainage and cultivation, and is destined to 
 become productive and prosperous. For incalculable- 
 centuries it had remained a baneful solitude, over- 
 grown with virgin forest, except in the hollows 
 between the low hills, which succeed one another 
 like the undulations of the sea ; and here, almost 
 hidden in summer by tall reeds and sedges, lay the 
 pools and bogs that poisoned the air and rendered 
 the climate abominable. In the midst of this marshy, 
 cretaceous desert, stretching between the Isle and 
 its tributary, the Dronne, and close to a wretched 
 fever-stricken village called Echourgnac, a small 
 community of Trappist monks established themselves 
 in 1868. They did not go there merely as ascetics 
 fleeing from the world, but also as philanthropists, 
 prepared to sacrifice their lives for the good of 
 humanity. Their mission was to drain and to culti- 
 vate this most unhealthy part of the Double, and to 
 improve the condition of the peasants who eked out 
 a miserable existence there. With what success the 
 monks have applied themselves to their task of 
 changing the climate by drainage, and assisting the 
 peasants in their struggle, is proved by the senti- 
 ments of the people towards them. When, under 
 the Third Republic, the unauthorized religious orders 
 were expelled from France, the inhabitants of the 
 
ON THE ROAD TO THE MONASTERY 247 
 
 Double threatened to resist by force any official 
 interference with the Trappists at Echourgnac, and 
 the agitation was so great that the counsel given 
 by the local authorities to the Government was to 
 leave these monks alone. It was acted upon. The 
 Trappists, like the Carthusians, were left undisturbed 
 in this and in other parts of the country. 
 
 When I had turned south-westward, on the road 
 to Montpont, I saw nothing for five or six miles 
 that corresponded to what I had been told of the 
 Double. Yellow corn-fields and green meadows 
 covered the fertile plain. It was not until I had 
 passed the village of St. Vauxains, and had reached 
 the top of the line of hills beyond, that the character 
 of the country changed decisively. Now, as I left 
 the broad and favoured valley, and reached the brow 
 of the hilly range that helps to keep the water stag- 
 nant and imprisoned in the Double, meadow and 
 corn-field grew scarcer and scarcer, and then passed 
 altogether into the wooded moorland. Cultivation 
 returned at intervals, then vanished again. I was 
 upon an undulating plateau with far-off higher hills 
 closing the horizon all around. The reclaimed land 
 was in the hollows or upon the surrounding slopes ; 
 but here, too, the scrubby forest might be seen 
 stretching for miles without a break. The heat was 
 intense, and the sky had become stormy. 
 
 When I left Riberac the blue above was without 
 a spot, but now heavy masses of cloud were hover- 
 ing in the sky. As yet there was not wind enough 
 
248 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 to rustle a leaf, and the dwarf oaks gave little 
 shelter from the ardent sun. The air that rose 
 from the heather and bracken was like the breath 
 of a furnace. There were a few scattered cottages 
 and farm-buildings, lying chiefly near the road, 
 and the turkeys and geese that roamed around them 
 were a sign that they were inhabited ; but I rarely 
 saw a human being. 
 
 I was resting awhile by a reedy pool fringed with 
 gorse and heather, and was listening to the oriels 
 answering one another upon their Pan-pipes, when I 
 saw coming towards me a figure which might have 
 disturbed me very much had I been living in those 
 days when — if there is any truth in legendary lore — 
 the devil only needed half a pretext for forcing his 
 society upon lonely travellers. This man — for man 
 it was — had a face so overgrown with coal-black 
 hair that very little could be seen of it excepting the 
 eyes and nose. Beard, whiskers, and moustache 
 were inseparably mixed up. What skin w r as visible 
 through the matted jungle of hair was little less 
 swarthy than a Hindu's. All the upper part of 
 this astonishing head was hidden by a large hat of 
 black straw, shaped like an inverted washing-basin. 
 The rest of the figure was clad in a frock of dark- 
 brown serge, with hanging hood. Not expecting to 
 see a Trappist where I was, I was startled for a 
 moment by the apparition, but I quickly guessed 
 that this was one of the brothers of the still distant 
 monastery who had been sent out on some little 
 
POISONOUS POOLS 249 
 
 expedition into the district. As he passed, he raised 
 his hat just enough to show that the close-cropped 
 black hair beneath it was turning gray. 
 
 The road led me through a little village where 
 there was an old Romanesque church. There were 
 numerous archivolts over the broad portal, and above 
 these was a horizontal dog's-tooth moulding with 
 grotesque heads at intervals ; but time had effaced 
 most of the carving. All about the church the long 
 grass and gaudy mulleins stood over the bones of 
 men and women who, like their parents before them, 
 had clung to their old homes in the midst of the 
 pestilential marshes, suffering continually from 
 malaria, watching their children grow paler and 
 paler, and yet never thinking of surrender. What 
 a strange combination of heroism, obstinacy, and 
 stupidity do we find in human nature ! But now 
 things had changed here. There was an air of 
 prosperity in the village, and the people said that the 
 fever had almost left them. 
 
 While crossing another bit of wild and deserted 
 country, I saw the dark gleam of poisonous pools 
 nearly hidden by sallows and reeds. The vibration 
 of my footsteps disturbed the vipers that lay near the, 
 hot road ; they slid down the banks and curved out 
 of sight amongst the roots of the heather. These 
 reptiles abound in the Double ; conditions that are 
 baneful to men are healthful to them. The sighinof 
 of the pines added to the sadness of the land, for 
 these trees now appeared in clumps along the way- 
 
250 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 side, and the storm-wind had begun to blow. The 
 sun was shining obliquely through a dun-coloured 
 haze when I reached the village of Echourgnac in a 
 cultivated valley. Here the cattle and the green 
 fields were signs of the cheese-making industry 
 carried on at the monastery. The conventual 
 buildings were now visible on the top of the neigh- 
 bouring hill, with the church spire higher against the 
 sky than all the rest. I made my way towards this 
 little fortress of asceticism hidden from the world 
 amidst the woods and marshes. 
 
 I had made up my mind to spend the night with 
 the Trappists, even if I was obliged to accept their 
 charity and to allow myself to be classed with those 
 tramps who have no literary pretext for their 
 vagabond ways. Indeed, I had been given to 
 understand by all to whom I had spoken on the 
 subject in the district, that the reverend fathers 
 gave money sometimes to the wayfarer, but accepted 
 none in return for food and shelter. That part of 
 me in which the conventional is concentrated said : 
 ' Stop at the inn ;' but the other part, which has the 
 curiosity and the errantry of the man who has never 
 .been perfectly civilized, said : 'Go on, and whatever 
 happens pass the night with the Trappists.' 
 
 Having reached the monastery gate, the next 
 thing to do was to pull the bell. The porter opened 
 first his wicket and then the door. The superior 
 could not be approached for a quarter of an hour, so 
 I was asked to wait in the lodge. Thus I had an 
 
IN THE PORTER'S LODGE 251 
 
 opportunity of becoming acquainted with the porter. 
 Although he was very much in religion, having been 
 a brother at Echourgnac since the foundation, he 
 might be termed without disrespect ' a jolly old soul.' 
 He was, as he said, a man who had no pretensions 
 whatever to be learned. His lack of book know- 
 ledge made him all the more natural. His age 
 appeared to be about sixty-five, but he had a body 
 that was still robust and vigorous under his dirty 
 brown frock, although he had been living so many 
 years on bread and cheese and vegetables, and short 
 commons withal. The post of porter must have 
 helped him not a little to bear up against the 
 discipline, for it allowed him the use of his tongue, 
 and the rule of silence would have been a more 
 severe trial to him than to many another. He 
 poured out some beer for me from a great stone jar 
 that he kept near at hand. I had heard that the 
 Trappists of Echourgnac added to their other 
 accomplishments the arts of beer-brewing and wine- 
 making, and was therefore not surprised by the 
 porter's kindly offer ; but when I noticed the yellow 
 colour and soup-like consistency of the fluid that he 
 poured out for me, I was sorry that I had accepted it. 
 
 4 It is a little -thick,' said the Trappist, whose keen 
 eyes had noticed that there was a lack of warmth 
 in the manner in which I took the glass from his 
 hand, 'but the beer is good. It is rather new.' 
 
 ' It must be very nourishing,' I replied, after 
 heroically draining the cup of tribulation. 
 
252 Tiro SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 ' Have some more ?' said this good-natured Trap- 
 pist as he raised the jar again. I saved myself from 
 a second dose by an energetic ' Merci /' and changed 
 his thoughts by asking him if he had been a long 
 time at the monastery. 
 
 ' I was one of the first lot who came here in July, 
 1868. There were twenty-two of us in all, peres et 
 freres, and two or three weeks afterwards seventeen 
 were down with fever. You can have no idea of 
 what it was here five-and-twenty years ago. The 
 country was unfit for human beings. The people 
 went shivering about in the heat of summer wrapped 
 up as they would be in the depth of winter. It was 
 pitiful to see them.' 
 
 He then entered into details respecting the clear- 
 ing of the land, the draining of the pools, etc. 
 Suddenly remembering the flip-ht of time, he dis- 
 appeared with my card, and left me in charge of the 
 lodge. Presently he came back, and told me that 
 the reverend father was unwell, and could not see 
 anybody, but that I could pass the night in the 
 monastery if I wished to do so. The porter led me 
 through a great farmyard, then through a doorway 
 into a room, in the centre of which was a large 
 table, and in the corners were four very small and 
 low wooden bedsteads with meagre mattresses, a 
 couple of sheets, and a coloured quilt. 
 
 When we entered, two men were seated at 
 the table eating bread and cheese and drinking 
 home-brewed beer. One was quite young, perhaps 
 
A MYSTERIOUS MAN 253 
 
 five-and-twenty, and it was to him that the brother 
 who parleyed with the outer world at the gate intro- 
 duced me, with the recommendation that he should 
 do all in his power for me, adding, with an emphasis 
 by which he gained my friendship for ever : ' Je 
 rdponds sur votes.' The young man said that as 
 soon as he had finished his own meal he would see 
 to my supper. I begged him to take his time, as 
 I was in no hurry. 
 
 The good porter, still solicitous, asked where I 
 was going to sleep, and the young man, who I after- 
 wards learnt was a postulant, pointed to a bed in 
 one of the corners. I was then left with my two 
 new acquaintances. The postulant had very soon 
 finished, and having brushed the crumbs off his 
 part of the bare board with his hand, he disappeared, 
 to see what he could find for me in the kitchen. 
 The man who remained also brought his meal to a 
 close, but he did not whisk the crumbs away ; he 
 brushed them into little heaps, and, wetting his fore- 
 finger, raised them by this means to his mouth. 
 He was about fifty ; his chin was shaved, but he 
 wore whiskers, and a long rusty overcoat hung 
 nearly down to his heels. He was very quiet, and 
 I thought he looked like a repentant cabman. There 
 was something about the man that excited my 
 curiosity, but I felt that, considering where I was, it 
 would be very bad taste to put any leading ques- 
 tions to him respecting his history. I nevertheless 
 found a way of getting into conversation with him, 
 
254 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 and he did not need much persuasion to talk. He 
 was rather incoherent, but I gathered from what he 
 said that he had wandered a good deal from 
 monastery to monastery, now in the world and now 
 almost ' in religion,' without finding anchorage any- 
 where. 
 
 'The world,' he said, 'is like a rotten plank, and 
 we are like smoke that comes and goes. If we do 
 not think of eternity, we are shipwrecked.' 
 
 Feeling, perhaps, that something in the world was 
 a little more solid after the bread and cheese and 
 beer than it was before, he was working himself up 
 to a communicative humour, and I was beginning to 
 hope that I should soon know what sort of a char- 
 acter he really was, when* the return of the postulant 
 changed his ideas as effectually as if a bucket of 
 water had been thrown in his face. When he 
 ventured to speak again, the younger man told him 
 that it was six o'clock, and that the whole com- 
 munity was now expected to observe the rule of 
 silence. 
 
 ' Do not be angry,' he added, as he heard the 
 other mutter something that escaped me. 
 
 ' I am not angry,' replied the owner of the long 
 coat as he glided softly out of the room. 
 
 I was now alone with the postulant, who made 
 matters pleasanter for me by giving a generous 
 interpretation to the rule of silence in so far as it 
 applied to himself. He told me that, as I had come 
 after the hour of the second meal, the frere cuisinier 
 
SUPPER WITH THE TKAPPISTS 255 
 
 was not in the kitchen, but at salve; consequently 
 there was no possibility of getting even an omelet 
 made for me. After looking, however, into all the 
 corners of the kitchen, my providential man had 
 discovered some cold macaroni, which he presented 
 to me in a small tin plate. I do not know how it 
 had been cooked, but its very dark colour made me 
 suspicious of it. Although I knew it was quite 
 wholesome, I thought it safer to leave it untouched, 
 and to be satisfied with bread and cheese. Now, 
 this cheese, made by the Trappists of the Double 
 upon the Port-Salut recipe, which is a secret of the 
 Order, is of excellent quality, and deserves its repu- 
 tation. The monastery bread, made from the wheat 
 grown by the monks, was of the substantial and 
 honest kind which in England would probably be 
 called 'farmhouse bread,' although the great wheel 
 or trencher-shaped loaves of the French provinces 
 might cause some surprise there. My meal, there- 
 fore, might have been worse than it was, and as it 
 was given to me for nothing, it would have been 
 very bad manners not to appear pleased. The 
 truth is, the novelty of my position — that of a tramp 
 taken in and fed on charity — amused me so much 
 that I found everything perfect. I had an idea ' at 
 the back of the head ' that I should find a way of 
 squaring matters financially with the holy men, but 
 I did not wish to tell it even to myself then. I 
 must confess that when a black bottle was placed 
 beside the bread and cheese on the bare table, I was 
 
256 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 weak enough to hope that it contained some of the 
 excellent white wine which I was told the Trappists 
 made ; but when the liquor came out the colour of 
 pea soup, I recognised the religious beer which had 
 already disappointed me. As I could get nothing 
 better, and the water being distinctly bad, the most 
 sensible thing to do was to be reconciled to the beer, 
 and in this I succeeded very fairly. Necessity is 
 not the mother of invention only. The wine, I 
 afterwards learnt, is only drunk at the convent in 
 winter. Much of it is sold to priests for sacra- 
 mental use. 
 
 When I had taken the keen edge off my hunger, 
 I began to feel a fresh interest in the postulant. 
 Somehow, he did not appear to me to be of the 
 stuff out of which monks, especially Trappists, are 
 made, although I know that in all that relates to the 
 interior workings of a man there are no outward 
 signs to be relied upon. There is puzzle enough in 
 our own contradictions to discourage us from trying 
 to find consistency in others ; but we try all the 
 same. We have a fine sense of proportion and 
 harmony when we analyze our fellow-beings, but 
 none whatever when we turn the faculty introspec- 
 tively. The sanctimonious undertone in which this 
 young man spoke struck me as being false, for there 
 was nothing in him that I could discover which 
 linked him to the ascetic ideal of life. But then the 
 question arose, Why was he there ? He was strong 
 and healthy ; he had a deep colour on his cheeks, 
 
MONASTIC BEER 257 
 
 and a humorous twinkle in his eye. He did not 
 look as if he had been crossed in love, or had re- 
 ceived any of the scars of passion such as might 
 account for his wish to become a Trappist. He 
 had seen something of the world. He had been to 
 Chili, among other countries, and the war there had 
 ruined his prospects, so he told me. I concluded, 
 from what he said, that on his return to France he 
 had sought a temporary refuge with the Trappists, 
 and that he preferred to remain under the shelter 
 that he had found there rather than run the risk of 
 worse in the struggle for life outside. Becoming 
 more confidential, he told me that what w r as most 
 difficult to be borne by those in his position was the 
 rule of absolute submission and obedience. 
 
 I had not been at the table long, when this postu- 
 lant glided out of the room, saying : 
 
 ' I will see if there is a way of getting another 
 bottle of beer. 1 
 
 Presently he returned with a bottle under his arm, 
 and then I learnt that the abbot had given orders 
 that I was to pass the night dans la chambre de 
 Monseigneur. The prospect of sleeping in the 
 bishop's bed furnished me with a conscientious 
 reason for not drawing the cork from the second 
 bottle of monastic barley-brew ; but my companion, 
 who was more or less in religion, did not give me a 
 chance of refusing, for he drew it himself and filled 
 two glasses. 
 
 'Nous a lions trinqiter,' said he. 
 
 17 
 
258 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 We clinked glasses, and talked with greater 
 freedom, although the postulant still spoke under 
 his breath — it was a habit that he had fallen into. 
 We were interrupted by a scuffling outside, and by 
 the opening of the door. A couple of monks in 
 brown frocks were on the threshold. A small gray- 
 bearded brother with a bent back held in one hand 
 a pewter plate and in the other a little basin of the 
 same metal. He. was the frere cuisinier, who had 
 returned from salve, and he had come to offer me 
 some vegetable soup and some more macaroni, 
 both of which I declined. Not a word did these 
 Trappists say, but they carried on with the postulant 
 a conversation in dumb show as to what my require- 
 ments would be on the morrow\ They stroked 
 their noses, rubbed their fingers together, and 
 grimaced so expressively all on my account that 
 I was much amused, and would have liked to laugh 
 outright ; but I durst not in such company. 
 
 When they had left I took a stroll outside, for as 
 yet I felt no inclination to go to bed, notwithstand- 
 ing that a bishop had slept upon the same mattress 
 that was waiting for me. Keeping within the con- 
 vent bounds, where no woman is allowed to set her 
 foot — that troublesome foot whose imprint may be 
 found on most of the paths that lead to a Trappist 
 monastery in the obscure forest of human motives — 
 wandering beyond the buildings, but still within 
 the enclosure, I came to a bit of waste land covered 
 with heather and gorse that overlooked the wooded 
 
THE BISHOPS BEDROOM 259 
 
 wilderness towards the west, as a headland bluff 
 overlooks the sea. 
 
 The sun had set, and the wild spirits of the storm 
 had drawn a translucent drapery of vapour from the 
 dark thundercloud hovering overhead to where the 
 fringe of the forest broke the blood-stained bar 
 upon the horizon's verge, and this luminous orange- 
 coloured curtain was crossed every moment up- 
 wards and downwards by silvery shafts of lightning. 
 Such an effect of sunset combined with storm was 
 like a new revelation of nature, and the sublimity 
 of the spectacle would have held me fast to the 
 patch of wild heath if the rain had not begun to fall 
 in splashes. The long summer day was over, and 
 the night came forth in trouble and with gushing- 
 tears. The roar of the thunder grew louder, 
 and the flash of the lightning brightened every 
 minute. 
 
 I returned to the monastery, and found the postu- 
 lant quite anxious to have done with me, and to put 
 me into the bishop's room. He was sleepy — every- 
 body gets sleepy in these country places at about 
 nine o'clock, irrespective of canonical hours, whereas 
 I grow livelier, like a night-bird, as the dusk deepens. 
 All the monks must have been in their cells snorino- 
 with the clear conscience which is the ofift of the 
 day that has been well filled up when I reluctantly 
 entered the only room in the place that had any 
 pretension to comfort, but which to me was like a 
 prison. I was making an effort to acquire the 
 
2 6o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 virtue of resignation, when the postulant spoilt the 
 mood by speaking again of beer. Had he picked 
 up in his wanderings the notion that an Englishman 
 could not live unless he were kept well supplied with 
 beer, or had he formed an exaggerated idea of the 
 seductiveness of the strange but innocent liquor that 
 the Trappists brewed ? Whatever his thoughts 
 may have been, he darted away in spite of my 
 endeavour to stop him, and presently reappeared 
 with another black bottle. I knew that he had not 
 obtained it without diplomacy, and that he had 
 made my unquenchable thirst the excuse ; but by 
 this time I had perceived that his solicitude was not 
 wholly unselfish. He muttered something about 
 ' charity ' as he filled a glass for me, notwith- 
 standing my refusal ; then vanished with the bottle. 
 He had promised to wake me at two o'clock for 
 matins. 
 
 When left alone, I made an inspection of the 
 bishop's room. It was spacious enough for fifty 
 people to dance in, and the furniture would not have 
 been greatly in the way. The stones which made 
 the floor had no carpet, not even the descente de lit, 
 which in France is considered indispensable even 
 when the floor is of wood. In the corner was a 
 low wooden bedstead with dingy curtains suspended 
 from a rafter, and a paillasse of maize-leaves with a 
 thin wool mattress above it. Coarse hempen sheets 
 and a coloured coverlet completed the bedding. By 
 the side against the wall was a broad prie-Dieu, with 
 
IMPRISONED 26] 
 
 a lithograph just above it of the Holy Child bearing 
 the cross. A plain table in the centre without a 
 cloth, a secretaire with high crucifix attached, another 
 bare table with washing-basin, jug, and folded towel, 
 with a few chairs and several religious prints, made 
 up the furniture. 
 
 This room was on the ground-floor, and looked 
 out upon a long covered terrace, with the farmyard 
 immediately beyond. I opened the sashes — I had 
 already prevailed upon the postulant not to fasten 
 the shutters — and, having blown out the candle, I 
 lit my pipe. I suppose if I had had any sense of 
 propriety I should have refrained from smoking in 
 the bishop's room ; but what was I to do, a prisoner 
 there at nine o'clock in the evening, and not a bit 
 sleepy? If it had been a fine evening, I do not 
 think I could have resisted the temptation to jump 
 out of the window and to stroll back to the patch of 
 imprisoned moor. First a cat and then a great dog 
 came sneaking along, and I tried to get on friendly 
 terms with them from the window ; but they, too, 
 seemed to have renounced the world, with all its 
 pomps and vanities, to conform to the Trappist rule, 
 for each of them looked at me with pity and re- 
 proach out of the corner of the eye, and described a 
 wide semicircle, at the risk of getting wet, in order 
 not to be drawn into conversation. But the storm, 
 at all events, had not been silenced ; the thunder 
 growled and groaned, and every half-minute the 
 lightning lit up all the stones and puddles of the 
 
262 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 great farmyard, beyond which my vision was cut off 
 by the roofs of the outbuildings. 
 
 Notwithstanding the unpleasantness of being shut 
 up, I felt that if the management of the weather had 
 been left to me I could not have arranged things 
 better for my first night in a Trappist monastery. 
 Here I was in the midst of the desolation of the 
 Double under the same roof with men who were 
 driven into this shelter by the desolation of their 
 souls. Tempest-tossed by the conflict of the spirit 
 and the flesh, wounded, perhaps, by secret griefs and 
 humiliations, strong, perchance, in the eyes of others, 
 while never sure of themselves from one hour to 
 another, putting out upon the same sea again and 
 again only to be thrown back upon the same desert 
 shore, they at length settled down here, and they 
 must have done so with the calm conviction that 
 they had found the medicine to suit their kind of 
 sickness in a life of incessant punishment of self and 
 labour for others. 
 
 It was about eleven when I felt tired enough to 
 lie down. I had not been in this position long 
 when something bit me. I thought I knew the 
 enemy, but I dared not whisper its name even to 
 myself, for I was overcome by its condescension. 
 From a bishop to me was a fall in the social scale 
 that ought to have made the most voracious insect 
 tremble on the edge of the precipice. Maybe it did 
 tremble before it yielded to temptation and forgot 
 its dignity. 
 
MATINS AND THUNDER 263 
 
 The storm continued all night with intervals of 
 calm. A little before two o'clock the bell was rung 
 for matins. The clang of the metal must have been 
 heard clear and shrill far over the Double, even 
 when the storm seemed to be rending the black 
 sails of the clouds asunder. The postulant fetched 
 me, as he had promised, and he led me through a 
 labyrinth of passages to the church. Although the 
 building was almost in darkness, I could see that it 
 was in the Pointed style, and that it was marked by 
 a cold elegance befitting its special purpose. The 
 nave was divided near the middle by a Gothic screen 
 of wood artistically carved, although the ornamental 
 motive had been kept in subjection. The half that 
 adjoined the sanctuary was somewhat higher than 
 the other, and here the Trappist fathers had their 
 stalls. The brothers' stalls were in the lower part. I 
 was led to a place below the screen. The office had 
 already commenced ; the monotonous plain-chant by 
 deep-toned voices had reached me in the corridors. 
 Perhaps it was half an hour later when the chanting 
 ceased. The lamps were darkened in the stalls 
 above the screen— in the lower part there was but 
 one very small light suspended from the vault — then 
 the monks knelt each upon the narrow piece of 
 wood affixed to his stall for this purpose, and for 
 half an hour with heads bent down they prayed in 
 silence, while the thunder groaned outside, and the 
 lightning flashed through the clerestory windows. 
 To the Trappists, who day after day, year after year, 
 
2 ^4 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 at the same hour had been going through the same 
 part of their unchanging discipline, heedless whether 
 the stars shone overhead or the lightning glittered, 
 there was nothing in all this to draw their minds 
 from the circle of devotional routine : I alone felt as 
 if I was going down into my grave. The gray light 
 that was now making the ribs of the vaulting dimly 
 visible was like the dawn of eternity breaking- 
 through the brief night called Death, which is not 
 perhaps so dark as it seems. At three o'clock the 
 chill and awful silence was broken by the white- 
 robed prior, who rose from his low posture like a 
 dead man in his shroud, and began to chant in 
 another tone and measure from what had gone 
 before. It had in it the sadness of the wind that 
 I heard moaning in the pine-tops on the moor 
 before the storm broke. The voice was strong and 
 clear, but so solemn that it was almost unearthly ; 
 and it seemed in some strange way to mingle with 
 the purity of the cold dawn that comes when all the 
 passions of the world are still, but which makes the 
 leaves tremble at the crime and trouble of another 
 day. 
 
 When the prior stood up, the brothers left to 
 begin their manual labour, each one in his allotted 
 place. The fathers remained in their stalls until 
 after the four o'clock mass, and then they, too, fell 
 to work until six o'clock— the hour of prime. I 
 soon followed the brothers, although not so far as 
 the fields, the cheese-rooms, and farm-buildings. I 
 
A SURPRISE ON WAKING 265 
 
 returned to my room ; but as I had to pass on the 
 upper side of the screen on leaving the church, I 
 looked at the two rows of white figures standing in 
 their stalls. It may have been the effect of the 
 mingled daylight and lamplight : whatever the 
 reason, I thought during those few seconds that 
 I had never before seen such a collection of strange 
 and startling faces. They were those of sombre 
 men who had walked through hell like Dante, and 
 who bore upon their calm and corpse-like features 
 the deep-cut traces of the flame and horror. 
 
 I took up my old place by the window, and 
 watched in the twilight of morning an aged brother, 
 with frock hitched up above his naked ankles and 
 his feet in great sabots, fetch sack after sack of what 
 I supposed to be bran, and carry it away on his 
 shoulders. He passed close to me, and looked at 
 me with an expression which I interpreted to mean : 
 1 You must be a lunatic to stare at me instead of 
 going to bed — you, who have Monseigneur's soft 
 bed, and are at liberty to sleep.' But no word 
 passed between us. At length I did go to bed again, 
 and slept. 
 
 I was awakened by a noise in my room, and on 
 opening my eyes I saw a long figure in white two or 
 three yards from me, and I realized that a Trappist 
 father was watching me. Then, when he perceived 
 that I was awake, he glided from the room without 
 saying a word. Had I spoken, he would have 
 replied, and explained what he wanted ; but I had 
 
266 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 not recovered sufficiently from my surprise to 
 remember the rule until he was gone. I now called 
 to mind that the postulant had told me over-night 
 that a certain father would show me round the 
 monastery after prime. This, then, was he, and I 
 was doubtless keeping him waiting, for it was seven 
 o'clock. A few minutes later he returned. I was 
 then at my ablutions. 
 
 Now, although I have grown pretty well accus- 
 tomed to go through this daily duty with the aid of 
 salad-bowls and slop-basins while living in the 
 French provinces, I think it good for the mind to 
 keep up the illusion of a thorough wash even when 
 this is practically impossible. When, therefore, the 
 Trappist stalked again into my room without giving 
 me warning, his costume, simple as it was, was 
 surpassed by the simplicity of mine. I told him 
 that I would be with him in two or three minutes, 
 and he retired with a slow and stately nod. I tried 
 very hard to keep my word, for I expected every 
 moment to see the door open again. When I 
 opened it myself, I found the father pacing slowly in 
 the passage. Knowing that there is not much to 
 be had in a Trappist monastery without asking, I 
 opened the conversation by making some delicate 
 allusions to breakfast. The truth is that the bread- 
 and-cheese supper was nothing to me now but an 
 unsatisfactory recollection, and, with the sense of 
 vacuum that distressed me, I was unwilling to follow 
 the monk upon the promised round, lest I should die 
 
THE FATHER ACCOUNTANT 267 
 
 of inanition on the way. He asked me what I 
 would like to eat, and I said, ' Anything that is near 
 at hand.' Had I suggested that a chop or a steak 
 would be suitable after so light a dinner, I should 
 not have had it ; but I might have received a large 
 measure of silent reprobation for my bad taste in 
 asking for it, and also for having reminded a Trappist 
 of such vanities of the past. 
 
 The father — he was becoming fatherly indeed — 
 w T ent to a cupboard of the sallc a manger already 
 described, and brought out what I had left of 
 the bread and cheese set before me the previous 
 evening. Having placed this on the table, with a 
 bottle of beer — the postulant had led me to hope for 
 coffee and milk, but there was evidently no escape 
 from malt liquor here — he withdrew to a little office 
 close by where he was wont to perform the daily 
 duty of keeping the cheese accounts of the monastery. 
 I felt sure that when he had reckoned up a few 
 figures he would be coming round to tear me away 
 from the bread and cheese, so I endeavoured to 
 hasten the consumption with as much speed as I 
 could decently put on. I was right in my conjecture. 
 I had not been seated five minutes, when he came 
 back and wandered half round the table. 
 
 1 fatirai Jini dans un petit moment, mon pere? 
 said I, as I cut off another piece of cheese, By- 
 the-bye, nobody should call a Trappist 'monsieur," 
 because the monk has ceased to have even a name 
 of his own other than his religious one, and has 
 
268 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 become a father or brother to everybody. He 
 returned to his accounts ; but he had not gone very 
 deeply into them when he saw me standing at the 
 door of his little den. He left his books at once, 
 and we walked side by side where he chose to lead 
 me. He was a rather tall man, with a face that was 
 an enigma. The features were so like those of the 
 late Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, that if the English Free- 
 thinker had disappeared mysteriously I might have 
 strongly suspected him of having turned Trappist. 
 
 This father volunteered no information whatever ; 
 it had all to be drawn out of him. He spoke in a 
 low voice, and, as it appeared to me, with something 
 of the hesitation of a man who is recalling his mother 
 tongue after many years of disuse, His face was 
 large and heavy ; but there was a keen light in his 
 eyes which at times was that of gaiety well kept 
 under. He soon let me see that even a Trappist 
 may give out an occasional flash of humour. 1 was 
 questioning him respecting the help that the monas- 
 tery gave to the poor, and he told me that in 
 addition to thirty or forty persons living in the 
 locality who received regular assistance every day, 
 about the same number of wanderers stopped at the 
 gate and waited for the bread and cheese which was 
 never refused them. 
 
 1 Men looking for work ?' I asked innocently. 
 
 ' Yes,' replied the monk, without moving a muscle 
 of his stolid face; 'and who pray to God that He 
 will not give them any.' 
 
DOCTORING THE FEVER-STRICKEN 269 
 
 It was evident that no sentimental illusions 
 respecting the begging class were entertained by the 
 community. The monk confirmed what people in 
 the country had already told me of the help afforded 
 by the Trappists to peasant agriculturists in diffi- 
 culties. The sick were, moreover, supplied with 
 medicines gratuitously from the small pharmacy 
 attached to the monastery. I did not ask the 
 question, but I concluded that at least one of the 
 fathers had a medical diploma. The medicine that 
 was chiefly wanted in the Double when the Trappists 
 settled there was quinine. The demand upon it was 
 very heavy years ago, but by removing to a great 
 extent the cause of the fever-breeding miasma, the 
 monks have been able to economize the drug. 
 
 Talking about these matters, we reached the 
 refectory. A great cold room with whitewashed 
 walls, and five long narrow tables with benches on 
 each side, stretching from end to end, was the place 
 where the monks took their very frugal meals. The 
 tables were laid for the first meal. There were no 
 cloths, and it is almost needless to add that there 
 were no napkins, although these are considered so 
 essential in France that even in the most wretched 
 auberge one is usually laid before the guest. 
 Trappists, however, have little need of them. At 
 each place were a wooden spoon and fork, a plate, a 
 jug of water, and another jug — a smaller one — of 
 beer, and a porringer for soup, which is the chief of 
 the Trappists' diet. Very thin soup it is, the in- 
 
270 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 gredients being water, chopped vegetables, bread, 
 and a little oil or butter. Until a few years ago 
 no oily matter, whether vegetable or animal, was 
 allowed in the soup, nor was it permissible, except 
 in case of sickness, to have more than one meal a 
 day ; but the necessity of relaxing the rule a little 
 was realized. Now, during the six summer months 
 of the year, there are two meals a day, namely, at 
 eleven and six ; but in winter there is still only one 
 that is called a meal, and this is at four. There is, 
 however, a gouter — just something to keep the 
 stomach from collapsing — at ten in the morning. 
 No flesh, nor fish, nor animal product, except cheese 
 and butter, is eaten by these Trappists unless they 
 fall ill, and then they have meat or anything else 
 that they may need to make them well. There is, 
 however, very little sickness amongst them. The 
 living of each Trappist probably costs no more than 
 sixpence a day to the community. Assuming that 
 the money brought into the common fund by those 
 who have a private fortune — the fathers, as a rule, 
 are men of some independent means — covers the 
 establishment expenses and the taxation imposed by 
 the State, there must remain a considerable profit on 
 the work of each individual, whether he labours in 
 the fields or in the dairy and cheese rooms, or con- 
 cerns himself with the sales and the accounts, or, 
 like the porter at the gate, tests with an instrument 
 the richness of the milk that is brought in by the 
 peasants, lest they who have been befriended bv the 
 
THE STOOL OF PENITENCE 271 
 
 monks in sickness and penury should steal from them 
 in return. To devote this surplus, obtained by a life 
 of sacrifice compared to which the material misery 
 of the beggars whom they relieve is luxury, to the 
 lessening of human suffering, to the encouragement 
 of the family, offering the hand of charity to the 
 worthy and to the unworthy — expecting no honour 
 from all this, not even gratitude — is a life that makes 
 that of the theoretical philanthropists and humanita- 
 rian philosophers look rather barren. Let every man 
 who lives up to an unselfish ideal have full credit for 
 it, whether he be a Trappist or a Buddhist. 
 
 At one end of the refectory, below the line of 
 tables, was a small wooden bench for a single person. 
 The monk pointed to it with half a smile upon his 
 face. 
 
 ' What is it ?' I asked. 
 
 4 The stool of penitence,' he replied. 
 
 Here the monk who had brought upon himself 
 some disciplinary correction sat by order of the 
 abbot in view of everybody, and had the extra 
 mortification of watching the others eat, while he, 
 the penitent, had nothing to put between his teeth. 
 I wondered if my cicerone had ever been perched 
 there, but I was not on such terms of familiarity with 
 him that I could ask the question. 
 
 From the refectory we went to the dormitory, an 
 oblong room with a passage down the middle, and 
 cells on each side — about fifty altogether. They 
 were very narrow, and were separated by lath and 
 
272 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENXE 
 
 plaster partitions, only carried to the height of about 
 six feet. These partitions, which had been white- 
 washed over, looked very fragile and dilapidated, 
 and altogether the appearance of this great dormitory 
 was wretched in the extreme. A glance into the 
 interior of two or three of the cells deepened this 
 impression. In each was a small wooden bedstead 
 about a foot and a half high, with nothing upon it 
 but a very thin paillasse, a black blanket (the colour 
 of the wool), and a little bolster. Upon a nail hung 
 a small cat-o'-nine- tails of knotted whipcord. 
 
 4 How often do you administer to yourselves the 
 discipline ?' I asked. 
 
 1 Every Friday,' said the monk. 
 
 To other questions that I put to him he replied 
 that about ten members of the community were 
 priests, and that fathers and brothers used the 
 dormitory in common. There was no distinction 
 between the two classes as regards the vows that 
 were taken. 
 
 We. passed into the cloisters, which were very 
 plain, without any attempt at architectural ornament ; 
 but the garden that filled the centre of the quad- 
 rangle was carefully kept, and the many flowers 
 there were evidently watered and otherwise tended 
 by hands that were gentle to them. Then I asked 
 if it was true that the members of the community, 
 when they passed one another in their ordinary 
 occupations, were allowed to break the rule of silence 
 only to say, ' Remember death !' 
 
THE TRAPPISTS' CEMETERY 273 
 
 1 No,' replied the monk, 'it is a legend that 
 originated with Chateaubriand.' 
 
 We reached the chapter-house, a plain room with 
 benches along the walls and a case containing a 
 small collection of books. I saw nothing of interest 
 here excepting a genealogical tree of the order of 
 Reformed Cistercians, called Trappists, showing its 
 descent from the Abbey of Citeaux, and a portrait of 
 Pere Dom Sebastien, Abbot-General of the Trap- 
 pists, who was a pontifical zouave before he put on 
 the monastic habit. 
 
 I asked to see the cemetery, and was led to an 
 uncultivated spot a little beyond the block of 
 convent buildings. A small grassy enclosure, with 
 a wooden paling round it, was the monks' burying- 
 place. About twelve had died in the twenty-five 
 years of the monastery's existence, but most of the 
 graves looked recent. This was explained to me by 
 the father, who actually smiled as he said : 
 
 'We who came here at the commencement are 
 getting old now, and are following one another to 
 the cemetery rather quickly.' 
 
 W T earers of the white frock and wearers of the 
 brown frock were lying in perfect equality side by 
 side as they happened to die, each having a small 
 cross of white wood standing in the grass of his 
 
 grave. I read : ' N. Raphael, monachus , natus 
 
 , professus , obiit .' The dates I took 
 
 no note of. With the exception of the name and 
 the dates, the inscription on each cross was the 
 
 18 
 
74 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 same. And the name, it need scarcely be said, was 
 the one taken in religion. 
 
 1 Do you know one another's family names ?' I 
 asked of the living monk by my side, who appeared 
 to have lapsed into meditation, thinking, perhaps, 
 how far his place would be from the last on the 
 line. 
 
 ' As a rule we do not. There are only two or 
 three monks here whose names I know.' 
 
 Lastly, I was taken to the farm buildings, where 
 there were about fifty cows and one hundred pigs. 
 A young brother, a novice, was busy, with his frock 
 hitched up, cleaning out the pigsties. He was 
 piously plying the shovel, but his face had not yet 
 acquired an expression of perfect resignation. He 
 was young, however, and perhaps he had been 
 brought up in better society than that of pigs. 
 
 I was invited with much kindness and courtesy to 
 stay until after the eleven o'clock meal ; but, grate- 
 ful as I felt to the Trappists for their bread and 
 cheese and home-brewed beer, which had enabled 
 me to sustain life for more than twelve hours, I was 
 quite content with what I had received in that way. 
 My curiosity being also satisfied, I gladly went forth 
 into the wicked world again after exchanging a 
 cordial farewell with the genial porter, who, when he 
 caught sight of me returning to his lodge, looked 
 sharply to see if the jar of beer was safe, and his 
 mind being made easy on the point, he begged me 
 to let him pour me out a glass. Then he gazed at 
 
A FORLORN DISTRICT 275 
 
 me with round eyes of surprise and reproach when I 
 declined the offer. 
 
 It was only a little past eight when I left the 
 monastery. ' Ah,' I thought, as I felt the gentle 
 glow of the early sunshine and breathed the fresh 
 air of the wide world, ' there is time enough for 
 me to become a Trappist.' 
 
 I continued on the road to Montpont. It was a 
 sad and silent land over which I passed, with fre- 
 quent crosses by the wayside, telling of the influence 
 of the monks. The words, ' crztx, ave P met 
 me amidst the heather and on the margin of lonely 
 pools. I was now in the most forlorn part of the 
 Double, where all around the eye rested upon forest, 
 swamp, and moor. Not that I found it dismal : I 
 drew delight from the lonesomeness, and revelled in 
 the wildness of all things. Sunshine and flowers 
 made the desert beautiful. The waysides were red 
 with thyme or purple with heather, and the bloom- 
 ing lysimachia was like a belt of gold around the 
 reedy pools. After walking some miles over this 
 country, patches of maize, potatoes, and vines told 
 me I was nearing a village. At length I came to 
 one, and it was called St. Barthelemy. It was on 
 the top of a bare chalky hill, and commanded an 
 extensive* view of the wasteful Double. It had a 
 windblown, naked appearance, like many villages 
 near the sea, although the ocean was still far from 
 here. Moreover, there was a strange quietude — 
 the stillness of a fever-stricken spot. The men 
 
276 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 and women looked undersized and prematurely old, 
 and the children were pale and thin. Although 
 the village was on a hill, the evil influence of the 
 marshes reached it. I was told, however, that it 
 had become much less unhealthy of late years. On 
 the highest spot was a poor and plain little church, 
 with a paddock-like cemetery on one side of it. 
 
 Although the hour was still early, I stopped for 
 a meal at St. Barthelemy, for it seemed to me that 
 I had been fasting a day or more. Choosing the 
 only inn that looked promising, I sat down in a 
 large room, where there were two long tables and 
 a bed in one corner. The shutters of the windows 
 were carefully closed to keep out the flies, and all 
 the light that entered came through the chinks and 
 cracks. In the South, people prefer to eat in semi- 
 darkness rather than be tormented by flies. The 
 only other person in the house was a young woman, 
 and she was very uncouth. She may have held 
 me in suspicion, for not a word would she say 
 beyond what was rigorously necessary ; but, as she 
 cooked much better than I had expected, I thought 
 no ill of her. She gave me, after an omelette au 
 cerfeuil, a fricassee of chicken, with very fair wine 
 of the district, red and white. Dessert and coffee 
 followed, and the charge was not much over a 
 shilling. 
 
 As I left the village, I noticed upon a low 
 building these words in large letters, ' De'pot de 
 Saugsues' and concluded that catching leeches in 
 
LEECHES 277 
 
 the pools about here was a local industry. On 
 inquiring, however, I was told that such was not 
 the case, but that a man here had had a quantity of 
 leeches sent from Bordeaux to supply the district. 
 
 ' But what is the meaning of this great liking for 
 leeches ?' I asked. 
 
 1 Well,' replied my informant, ' I should tell you 
 that the people about here always used to be bled 
 when they had anything the matter with them. 
 But the doctors will do it no longer, consequently 
 we do it ourselves.' 
 
 The sad-looking peasants, with pale dark faces, 
 whom I saw reaping their meagre wheat on the 
 outskirts of the village, seemed, like many more I 
 had met since I left Riberac, to be in much greater 
 need of blood than leeches. Women, wearing 
 straw-bonnets of the coal-scuttle shape, were reap- 
 ing with men in the noonday heat. Upon all the 
 burden of life appeared to press very heavily. 
 The chalky soil produced miserable crops of wheat, 
 maize, and potatoes that yielded no just return for 
 the labour expended. The luxuriance of the young 
 vines, planted where the old ones had perished from 
 the phylloxera, showed that the hillsides here are 
 better suited for wine-growing than for anything 
 else. 
 
 As I went on, the country became more sombre 
 from the increasing number of pines bordering the 
 road and mingling with the distant forest. Very 
 weird pines these were, chiefly covered with closely- 
 
278 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 packed dead foliage, with a living tuft of dark green 
 at the end of each branchlet. A living death seemed 
 to be their lot, and they moaned without moving as 
 the light wind passed on its way. 
 
 But the descent towards the valley of the Isle 
 had now begun. Huts built of brick and mud and 
 wood became frequent, with hedges of quince 
 bordering the gardens or little fields. Quite unex- 
 pectedly the river shone beneath me, and by follow- 
 ing its course downward I soon came to a large 
 block of scarcely connected buildings with high 
 Mansard roofs. This was a monastery of the 
 Carthusians. I did not recognise it at once as the 
 conventual establishment well known in the dis- 
 trict as the Chartreuse de Vauclaire, nor did I show 
 any better understanding as regards a certain 
 human form hoeing in a field beside the road with 
 back towards me. 
 
 Wishing for information, I hailed this fellow- 
 being as ■ Madame !' The figure straightened itself 
 immediately and turned towards me a head covered 
 with a broad-brimmed straw hat, such as women 
 wear in the fields ; but the face ended in a long-, 
 grizzly beard. Then I noticed that what I had 
 taken for a brown stuff dress was a monk's frock. 
 
 It was a Carthusian Brother whom I had ad- 
 dressed as ' Madame !' As he gave no sign to 
 indicate what his feelings were with regard to this 
 mistake, I thought it better not to make excuses, 
 but asked him if I was on the road to Montpont 
 
A RETICENT MONK 279 
 
 Learning that I was, I went on, and having reached 
 the convent, which I now recognised for what it 
 was, I pulled the bell of the porter's lodge. I was 
 at once admitted to the presence of a tall and 
 meagre Carthusian father, with a long, coal-black 
 beard and very dark eyes, with a fixed expression 
 that expressed nothing that I could be sure about. 
 What I fancied that I read in them was doubtful- 
 ness as to my motives, and the necessity of being 
 cautious. 
 
 By far the greater number of visitors who call 
 here ask for food. I wished to see the monastery. 
 After a little hesitation, this father, who before I 
 left him was so communicative as to tell me he was 
 a Spaniard, made a sign to me to follow him. He 
 showed me the church — which contains some in- 
 teresting carvings — the cloisters, and the cemetery ; 
 but every bit of information had to be drawn from 
 him as if it were a tooth. This was the kind of 
 conversation that passed between us : 
 
 ' Are there many monks here ?' 
 
 ' Not a small number.' 
 
 1 Do you make cheese ?' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' For sale ?' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Do you make the liqueur 7 
 
 'Oh no.' 
 
 He would have allowed me to leave with the 
 impression that the Carthusians of Vauclaire did 
 
280 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 nothing beyond observing the canonical hours ; but 
 I learnt from the peasants of the country that, like 
 the Trappists, they laboured industriously in clearing 
 and draining the desert. 
 
 My walk across the Double ended at Montpont, a 
 small agricultural centre on the banks of the Isle, 
 offering no charm to the traveller, unless he be a 
 commercial one. It was a little fortified town of 
 some importance in the Middle Ages. In 1370 the 
 Bretons in garrison at Perigueux besieged it, and it 
 was surrendered without a struggle by the baron, 
 Guillaume de Montpont, an English partisan. The 
 Duke of Lancaster then hurried up and besieged 
 the place with one hundred men-at-arms and five 
 hundred archers. For eleven weeks the little band 
 of Bretons held out, but a breach having been made 
 in the wall, Montpont again fell into the power of 
 the English. 
 
A Dr.* 
 
 THE DRONNE AT COUTRAS. 
 
 A CANOE VOYAGE ON THE DRONNE. 
 
 Before starting upon a long-thought-of voyage down 
 the Dronne, I resolved to make the canoe look as 
 beautiful as possible, so that it might produce a 
 favourable impression upon the natives of the 
 regions through which it was going to pass. I had 
 learnt from experience that when one can take the 
 edge off suspicion by giving one's self or one's 
 
 [ 281 ] 
 
282 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 belongings a respectable appearance, that does not 
 cost much, it is well to do it. 
 
 Therefore I sent the bare-footed Helie, who 
 always helped me when I had any dirty work on 
 hand, to buy some paint. Having first puttied up 
 all the cracks and crevices, we laid the paint on, and 
 as the colour chosen was a very pale green, the 
 effect was anything but vulgar. When the boat 
 was put on the water again it looked like a floating 
 willow-leaf of rather uncommon size. 
 
 Now, between the river Isle, where I was, and 
 the Dronne, where I wished to be, there was 
 an obstacle in the shape of some twelve miles of 
 hilly country. A light cart was accordingly hired to 
 convey the canoe and ourselves (I was accompanied 
 ononis adventure by an English boy named Hugh, 
 sixteen years old, and just let loose from school) to 
 the point at which I had decided to commence the 
 voyage down-stream. We left at five in the morn- 
 ing, when the sun was gilding the yellow tufts and 
 the motionless long leaves of the maize-field. When 
 we were fairly off— the boat, in which we were 
 seated, stretching many feet in the rear of the very 
 small cart — the most anxious member of the party 
 was the horse, for he had never carried such a queer 
 load as this before, and the novelty of the sensation 
 caused by the weight far behind completely upset 
 his notions of propriety. His conduct was especi- 
 ally strange while going up-hill, for then he would 
 stop short from time to time and make an effort to 
 
THE WAY TO GROW RICH 283 
 
 look round, as if uncertain whether it was all a 
 hideous dream, or whether he was really growing 
 out behind in the form of a crocodile. 
 
 The peasants whom we met on the road stood 
 still and gazed with eyes and mouths wide open 
 until we were out of sight. They had never seen 
 people travelling in a boat before on dry land. 
 When they heard we were English all was ex- 
 plained : ' Ces diables a" Anglais sont capable s de tout.' 
 While crossing the country in this fashion we 
 passed a spot on the highroad where a man was 
 getting ready to thresh his wheat. He had pre- 
 pared the place by spreading over it a layer of cow- 
 dung, and levelling it with his bare feet until it was 
 quite smooth and hard. It is in this way that the 
 threshing-floors are usually made. 
 
 1 You see that type ?' said the young man who 
 was driving, and who balanced himself on the edge 
 of a board. 
 1 Yes.' 
 
 ' Well, he owns more land than any other peasant 
 about here, and is rich, and yet, rather than turn a 
 bit of his ground into a threshing-floor, he brings 
 his corn where you see him and threshes it upon 
 the road.' 
 
 I said to myself that this man was not the first to 
 discover that one way to get on is to trespass as 
 much as possible upon the rights of that easy-going 
 neighbour called the Public. 
 
 The hills between the two valleys were, for the 
 
284 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 most part, wooded with natural forest, with a dense 
 undergrowth of heather and gorse. As soon as we 
 began to descend towards the Dronne, the great 
 southern broom, six or eight feet high, was seen in 
 splendid flower upon the roadside banks. We found 
 the Dronne at the village of Tocane St. Apre, and 
 we launched the boat below the mill about half a 
 mile farther down-stream. Then, having put on 
 board a knapsack containing clothes, a valise filled 
 chiefly with provisions, several bottles of wine, one 
 of rum (a safer spirit in France than some others), 
 and another of black coffee, made very strong, so that 
 it should last a long time, we took our first lunch 
 in the boat, in the cool shade of some old alders. 
 
 The wine had been already heated by the sun 
 during the journey, but the means of cooling it 
 somewhat was near at hand. We hitched a couple 
 of bottles to the roots of the alders, with their necks 
 just out of the water. The young peasant who had 
 driven us was invited to share our meal, and the 
 horse was left at the mill with a good feed of oats to 
 comfort him and help him to forget all the horrible 
 suspicions that the boat had caused him. The meal 
 was simple enough, for we had brought no luxurious 
 fare with us ; but the feeling of freedom and new 
 adventure, the low song of the stream running over 
 the gravel in the shallows, the peace and beauty 
 of the little cove under the alders, made it more 
 delightful than a sumptuous one with other sur- 
 roundings. 
 
UNDER THE ALDERS 285 
 
 Everything went as smoothly as the deep water 
 where the boat was chained, until the spirit-lamp was 
 lighted for warming the coffee. Then it was dis- 
 covered that the little saucepan had been forgotten. 
 This was trying, for when you have grown used to 
 coffee after lunch you do not feel happy without 
 it, so long as there is a chance of getting it. It 
 is exasperating when you have the coffee ready- 
 made, but cannot warm it for want of a small 
 utensil. The peasant went to the mill to borrow a 
 saucepan, and he brought back one that was just 
 what we wanted ; at least, we thought so until the 
 coffee began to run out through a hole in the 
 bottom. In vain we tried to stop the leak with 
 putty, which was brought in case the boat should 
 spring one ; but after awhile it stopped itself— 
 quite miraculously. Thus good fortune came to our 
 aid at the outset, and it looked like a fair omen of a 
 prosperous voyage. 
 
 We did not linger too long over this meal, for I 
 had not come prepared to pass the night either in 
 the boat or on the grass, and I hoped to reach 
 Riberac in the evening. The bottles were put away 
 in the locker, and what was not eaten was returned 
 to the valise. Then we parted company with the 
 young peasant, whose private opinion was that we 
 should not go very far. But he was mistaken ; we 
 went a long way, after encountering many serious 
 obstacles, as will be seen by-and-by. 
 
 The chain being pulled in, the boat glided off 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 like the willow-leaf to which I have already com- 
 pared it. I sat on my piece of sliding board about 
 the middle, and Hugh sat on his piece of wood — 
 which was the top of the locker — in the stern. We 
 both used long double-bladed paddles. In a few 
 seconds we were in the current, and in a few 
 more were aground. Although the canoe was flat- 
 bottomed, it needed at least three inches of water 
 to float comfortably with us and the cargo. We 
 were in a forest of reeds that hid the outer world 
 from us, and we had left the true current for another 
 that led us to the shallows. But this little difficulty 
 was quickly overcome, and I soon convinced myself 
 that, notwithstanding the dearth of water after the 
 long drought, it was quite possible to descend the 
 Dronne from St. Apre in a boat such as mine. 
 
 Now, as there was no wager to make me hurry, 
 and my main purpose in giving myself all the trouble 
 that lay before me was to see things, I put my 
 paddle down, and leaving Hugh to work off some of 
 his youthful ardour for navigation, I gave myself up 
 for awhile to the spell of this most charming stream. 
 Its breadth and its depth were constantly changing, 
 and in a truly remarkable manner. Now it was 
 scarcely wider than a brook might be, and was 
 nearly over-arched by its alders and willows ; now 
 it widened out and sped in many a flashing runnel 
 through a broad jungle of reeds where the blistering 
 rays of the sun beat down with tropical ardour ; 
 then it slept in pools full of long green streamers 
 
BEAUTY UNDER WATER 287 
 
 that waved slowly like an Undine's hair. Here and 
 there all about stood the waxen flowers of sagittaria 
 above the barbed floating leaves, cool and darkly 
 oreen. Close to the banks the tall and delicately 
 branching water- plantains, on which great grass- 
 hoppers often hang their shed skins, were flecked 
 with pale-pink blooms — flowers of biscuit-porcelain 
 on hair-like stems. 
 
 The splashing of a water-wheel roused me from 
 my idle humour. We had reached — much too 
 quickly — our first mill-dam. It was a very primi- 
 tive sort of dam, formed of stakes and planks, but 
 chiefly of brambles, dead wood and reeds that had 
 floated down and lodged there. Then began the 
 tugging, pushing, and lifting, to be continued at 
 irregular intervals for several days. The canoe was 
 less than three feet wide in the middle, but it was 
 more than six yards long, and this length, although 
 it secured steadiness and greatly reduced the risk of 
 capsizing in strong rapids or sinister eddies, brought 
 the weight up to about 170 lb., without reckoning 
 the baggage, which was turned out upon the grass 
 or on the stones at each weir. After passing the 
 first obstacle, we floated into one of those long deep 
 pools which lend a peculiar charm to the Dronne. 
 Usually covered in summer with white or yellow 
 lilies — seldom the two species together — these and 
 other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths 
 show their scalloped or feathery forms with perfect 
 distinctness far below the surface of the limpid water. 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Here, O idle water- wanderer, let your boat glide 
 with the scarcely moving current, and gaze upon the 
 leafy groves of the sub-aqueous wilderness lit up by 
 the rays of the sun, and watch the fish moving 
 singly or in shoals at various depths — the bearded 
 barbel, the spotted trout, the shimmering bream, 
 and the bronzen tench. Watch, too, the speckled 
 water-snakes gliding upon the gravel or lurking like 
 the ancient serpent in mimic gardens of Eden. 
 Mark all the varied life and wondrous beauty of 
 nature there. Above all, do not hurry, for little is 
 seen by those who hasten on. 
 
 At a weir of sticks and stones forming a rather 
 wide dam, overgrown by tall hemp-agrimony now 
 in flower, we met with our first difficulty. There 
 was no overflow to help us, for in this time of 
 drought the mill-wheel needed all the stream to 
 turn it ; so the boat had to be lifted over the stakes 
 and stones. Into the water we had to go, and 
 boots and socks, being now put aside, were not worn 
 again for five days, except when we went ashore 
 in the evening, and had to make an effort to look 
 respectable. 
 
 The dam being passed, the boat shot down a 
 rapid current ; then, as the bed widened out and the 
 water stilled, we were hidden from the world by 
 reeds, through which we had to force a way while 
 the sun smote us and frizzled us. Countless dragon- 
 flies flashed their brilliant colours as they whirled 
 and darted, green frogs plunged at our approach 
 
A WATERSIDE PICTURE 289 
 
 from their diving-boards of matted rush, or quirked 
 defiance from the banks where they were safe ; and 
 now and again a startled kingfisher showed us the 
 blue gleam of a wing above the brown maces of 
 the bulrushes and the high-hanging tassels of the 
 sedges. 
 
 The bell of an unseen church a long way off 
 sounded the mid-clay angelus, and told that we had 
 not drifted so far as it appeared from the peopled 
 world. Leaving the reeds, we passed again into the 
 shade of alders that stretched their gnarled, fantastic 
 roots far over the babbling or dreaming water, and 
 thence again amongst the sunny reeds. And so the 
 hours went by, and there were no villages, or even 
 houses, to be seen, but the little rough mills beside 
 the slowly toiling wheel, which in most cases seemed 
 to be the only living thing there. Once, however, 
 there was a naked child, very brown, and as round 
 as a spider between the hips and the waist, playing 
 upon a flowery bank above the mother, who wore a 
 brilliant-coloured kerchief on her head, and who 
 knelt beside the water as she rinsed the little elfs 
 shirt. I thought the picture pretty enough to make 
 a note of it. This caused some contemptuous 
 surprise to my companion in the back of the boat — 
 not yet alive to the innocent cunning of the artist 
 and writer, for he asked me, in the descriptive 
 language of the British schoolboy : 
 
 1 Are you going to stick down that ?' 
 
 On we went, turning and turning, gliding into 
 
 19 
 
29 o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 nooks that seemed each more charming than the 
 other, and having a constant succession of delightful 
 surprises, interrupted only by the mill-dams, which 
 were distressingly frequent. 
 
 The hot hours stole away or passed into the 
 mellowness of evening, and the marsh-mallows that 
 fringed the stream were looking coolly white when 
 we drew near to Riberac. The water widened and 
 deepened, and we met a pleasure-boat, vast and 
 gaudy, recalling some picture of Queen Elizabeth's 
 barge on the Thames. Under an awning sat a bevy 
 of ladies in bright raiment, pleasant to look at, and 
 in front of them were several young men valiantly 
 rowing, or, rather, digging their short sculls into the 
 water, as if they were trying to knock the brains out 
 of some fluvial monsters endeavouring to capture 
 the youth and loveliness under the awning. 
 
 Having reached that part of the river which was 
 nearest Riberac, I had to find a place where the 
 boat could be left, and where it would be safe from 
 the enterprise of boys — a bad invention in all 
 countries. It is just, however, to the French 
 boy to say that he is not quite so fiendish out of 
 doors as the English one ; but he makes things even 
 by his conduct at home, where he conscientiously 
 devotes his animal spirits to the destruction of his 
 too-indulgent parents. 
 
 My difficulty was solved by a kind butcher, whose 
 garden ran down to the water. He let me chain the 
 boat to one of his trees, and he took our fowl, which 
 
A MEAL IN A MEADOW 
 
 29T 
 
 was intended for lunch next day, and put it into his 
 meat-safe — an excellent service, for the drainage of 
 his slaughter-house, emptying into the river by the 
 side of the boat, was enough to make even a live 
 fowl lose its freshness in a single night. We were 
 soon settled in a comfortable inn that prided itself, 
 not without reason, upon its cuisine. Here we had 
 a friture, of gudgeons from the Dronne, which is 
 famous throughout a wide region for the quality of 
 these and other fish. 
 
 The next morning I bought a saucepan, a melon, 
 and grapes — which were already ripe, although the 
 date was the 9th August. Thus laden, we returned 
 to the boat and to the kindly butcher, who gave us 
 our fowl wrapped up, not in a newspaper as we had 
 left it, but in a sheet of spotless white paper. Having 
 refilled our bottles, some with water, others with 
 wine, we parted from our hospitable acquaintance 
 with pleasant words, and were afloat again before 
 the hour of eight. We had a serious wetting at the 
 first weir, but were dry again before we stopped to 
 lunch. This time we landed, and chose our spot in 
 a beautiful little meadow, where an alder cast its 
 shade upon the bank. It was far from all habita- 
 tions, but had the case been otherwise, there would 
 have been no danger of our being disturbed by 
 a voice from behind saying : ' You have no right 
 to land here,' or, ' You are trespassing in this 
 field.' 
 
 Now, this little meadow was, except where the 
 
292 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 river ran by it, enclosed by a high hedge, just as one 
 in England might be, and although it was some four 
 hundred miles south of Paris, and the season had been 
 exceptionally dry, the grass was brightly green. Just 
 below us was the clear river, fringed with sedges, 
 sprinkled all over with yellow lilies ; beyond this 
 were other meadows, and then rose towards the 
 cloudless sky the line of wooded hills. There was a 
 great quietude that nothing broke, save the splash 
 of a rising fish and the chorus of grasshoppers in the 
 sunny herbage. Here we stayed a good hour and 
 warmed our coffee tranquilly in the new saucepan, 
 which afterwards proved very useful for baling 
 purposes. Then I smoked the pipe of peace, and 
 felt tempted to tarry in this pleasant place ; but 
 Hugh roused me to action by talking of fishing. 
 
 A few minutes later we were again on our voyage. 
 Not far below was another mill-dam of sticks and 
 stones, and when this was passed the river widened 
 so that it flowed round a little island covered with 
 alders and purple loosestrife, and girt by a broad 
 belt of white water-lilies. At the next weir, which 
 was troublesome, we were helped by the miller and 
 his brother, while a pretty young woman of about 
 twenty, who stood with bare feet, short skirt, un- 
 covered stays, open chemise, and a linen sun-bonnet 
 of the pattern known in England, looked on with a 
 fat baby in her arms. These helpful people refilled 
 our water-bottles, and watched us with interest until 
 we were out of sierht. 
 
RAPIDS 293 
 
 Reeds again — innumerable reeds — through which 
 we had to drag the canoe, for we had somehow lost 
 the current. Arrow-head and prickly bur-reed, great 
 rushes and sedges — a joy to the marsh botanist by 
 the variety of their species — stood against us in 
 serried phalanxes, saying: 'Union is strength; we 
 are weak when alone, but altogether we will give you 
 some work that you will remember.' And they did 
 so before we left them behind. Now, above the 
 lily-spotted water, deep and clear, showed a little 
 cluster of houses on a low cliff, and below these, close 
 to the river, an old pigeon-house with pointed roof. 
 
 To finish the picture, a narrow wooden bridge 
 supported by poles stretching downward at all angles, 
 like the legs of an ungainly insect, had been thrown 
 across the stream. And here a great flock of geese, 
 horrified at so unwonted an apparition as the pale 
 green boat and the paddles in fantastic movement, 
 were holding a hasty council of war, which we broke 
 up before they came to a decision. 
 
 The Mow of water in the river had been percepti- 
 bly increased by tributaries, and now, after each mill, 
 the current was strong enough to take us down for a 
 mile or two at a quick rate. The little boat danced 
 gaily in the rapids. The great heat of the day had 
 irone, and the lioht was waning, when we mistook an 
 arm of the river for the main stream, and found our- 
 selves at length in a little gully, very dim with over- 
 arching foliage, and where the sound of rushing 
 water grew momentarily louder. 
 
294 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 It was all one to Hugh whether he got turned 
 out or not, but I had lived long enough not to like 
 the vision of a roll in the stream at the end of the 
 day, with baggage swamped, if not lost. Therefore 
 I chained up the boat, and went to examine the 
 rapids. I found the stream in great turmoil, where 
 it rushed over hidden rocks, and in the centre was a 
 wave about three feet high, that rose like a curve of 
 clear green glass, but turned white with anger, and 
 broke into furious foam, as it fell into the basin below. 
 Having ascertained that the rock was sufficiently 
 under water, I decided that we would take our chance 
 in the current after turning out the baggage. 
 
 We kept right in the centre. It was an exciting- 
 moment as we touched the wave. The canoe made 
 a bound upwards, then plunged into the boiling- 
 torrent below. A moment more and we were out of 
 all risk. So swift was the passage that scarcely a 
 gallon of water was taken in. Having put the 
 baggage back, we continued our voyage towards the 
 unknown, for I knew not whither this stream was 
 going to take us. About a mile or two farther down, 
 however, it joined the river, which here seemed very 
 wide. It was marvellous to find that the brook of 
 yesterday had grown to this ; a circumstance to be 
 explained, however, by the number of springs that 
 rise in its bed. 
 
 The scene was beyond all description beautiful. 
 The wooded banks, the calm water, the islands of 
 reeds and sedges, the pure white lilies that scented 
 
WATER AT SUNSET 295 
 
 the air and murmured softly as the boat brushed 
 their snowy petals, were all stained with the blood of 
 the dying sun. For a moment I saw the upper rim 
 of the red disc between the trunks of two trees far 
 away that seemed to grow taller and more sombre ; 
 then came the twilight with its purple tones. 
 
 The colours faded, darkness crept over the valley, 
 and the water, losing its transparency, looked un- 
 fathomably deep, and mirrored with tenfold power 
 all the fantastic gloom of the leaning alders, and the 
 weird forms of the hoary willows. And there was 
 no light or sound from any town or village, nor even 
 from a lonely cottage. I had expected to reach at 
 sundown the little town of Aubeterre, in the depart- 
 ment of the Charente, but all ideas of distance based 
 upon a map are absurdly within the mark when one 
 follows the course of a winding river, and the infor- 
 mation of the inhabitants is equally misleading, for 
 they always calculate distances by the road. 
 
 When we reached the next weir there was very 
 little light left, so, without attempting to pass it, we 
 paddled down to the mill. It was kept by three 
 brothers, who treated us with much kindness and 
 attention. I learnt that we were not far from the 
 village of Nabinaud in the Charente, where there 
 was a small inn at which it would be possible to pass 
 the night. 
 
 Aubeterre was still some miles off by water, and 
 there were weirs to overcome. Tired out, with legs 
 and feet scraped and scratched by stones and stumps, 
 
296 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 and smarting still more from sun-scorch, we were 
 glad enough to find a sufficient reason for getting 
 out of the boat here. 
 
 One of the brothers carried politeness so far — I 
 saw T from the importance of the mill that remunera- 
 tion was not to be thought of— as to walk about a 
 mile uphill in order to show the inn and to see us 
 settled in it. Then he left, for I could not prevail 
 upon him to sit down and chink glasses. It was 
 but a cottage-inn on the open hillside, and I doubt if 
 the simple-minded people who kept it would have 
 accepted us for the night but for the introduction. 
 Husband and wife gave up their room to us, and where 
 they went themselves I could not guess, unless it 
 was to the loft or fowl-house. They were surprised, 
 almost overcome, by the invasion, the like of which 
 had never happened to them before ; but they 
 showed plenty of goodwill. 
 
 All that could be produced in the way of dinner 
 was an omelet, some fried ham, very fat and salt, 
 and some grillons— a name given to the residue that 
 is left by pork-fat when it has been slowly boiled 
 down to make lard. The people of Guyenne think 
 much of their grillons or fritons. I remember a 
 jovial - faced innkeeper of the South telling me 
 that he and several members of his family went 
 to Paris in a party to see the Exhibition of 1889, 
 and that they took with them grillons enough to 
 keep them going for a week, with the help of bread 
 and wine, which they were compelled to buy of the 
 
A NIGHT IN A COTTAGE INN 297 
 
 Parisians. Had they done all that their provincial 
 ideas of prudence dictated, they would have taken 
 with them everything that was necessary to the 
 sustenance of the body during their absence from 
 home. 
 
 The best part of our meal must not be forgotten ; 
 it was salad, fresh-plucked from the little garden 
 enclosed by a paling, well mixed with nut-oil, wine- 
 vineQ-ar, and salt. Then for dessert there was 
 abundance of grapes and peaches. 
 
 The little room in which we slept, or, to speak 
 more correctly, where I tried to sleep, had no orna- 
 ment except the Sunday clothes of the innkeeper 
 and his wife hanging against the walls. Next to it 
 was the pigsty, as the inmates took care to let me 
 know by their grunting. Had I wished to escape 
 in the night without paying the bill, nothing would 
 have been easier, for the window looked upon a 
 field that was about two feet below the sill. 
 
 I opened this window wide to feel the cool air, 
 and long after Hugh went to sleep, with the willing- 
 ness of his sixteen years, I sat listening to the 
 crickets and watching the quiet fields and sky, which 
 were lit up every few seconds by the lightning flash 
 of an approaching storm — still too far away, however, 
 to blur even with a cloudy line the tranquil brilliancy 
 of the stars. 
 
 Leaving the window open, I lay down upon the 
 outer edge of the bed, but to no purpose. In the 
 first place, I am never happy on the edge of a 
 
298 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 narrow bed, and then sleep and I were on bad terms 
 that night. The lightning, growing stronger, showed 
 my host's best trousers hanging against the white- 
 washed wall, and from the pigsty came indignant 
 snorts in answer to the deepening moan of the 
 thunder ; but the crickets of the house sang after their 
 fashion of the hearth and home, and those outside 
 of the great joy of idleness in the summer fields. 
 From a bit of hedge or old wall came now and then 
 the clear note of a fairy-bell rung by a goblin toad. 
 
 I lit the candle again, and elfish moths, with 
 specks of burning charcoal for eyes, dashed at me 
 or whirled and spun about the flame. One was a 
 most delicately-beautiful small creature, with long 
 white wings stained with pink. Thus I spent the 
 night, looking at the sights and listening to the 
 sounds of nature ; which is better than to lie with 
 closed eyes quarrelling with one's own brain. 
 
 We left with a boy carrying a basket of grapes 
 and peaches, also wine to refill the empty bottles in 
 the boat. On my way down the hill, I stopped at 
 the ruin of a mediaeval castle that belonged to 
 Poltrot de Mere, the assassin of the Due de Guise. 
 All this country of the Angoumois, even more than 
 Perigord, is full of the history of the religious wars 
 of the sixteenth century. The whole of the south- 
 western region of France might be termed the 
 classic ground of atrocities committed in the name 
 of religion. Simon de Montfort's Crusaders and the 
 Albigenses, after them the Huguenots and the 
 
AN ASSASSIN'S STRONGHOLD 299 
 
 Leaguers, have so thickly sown this land with the 
 seed of blood, to bear witness through all time to 
 their merciless savagery, that the unprejudiced mind, 
 looking here for traces of a grand struggle of ideals, 
 will find little or nothing but the records of revolting 
 brutality. 
 
 There is nothing left of Poltrot de Mere's strong- 
 hold but a few fragments of wall much overgrown 
 with ivy and brambles. In order to get a close 
 view of these I had to ask permission of the owner 
 of the land — an elderly man, who looked at me with 
 a troubled eye, and while he wished to be polite, 
 considered it his duty to question me concerning my 
 1 quality ' and motives. I knew what was in his 
 mind : a foreigner, a spy perchance, was going about 
 the country, taking notes of fortified places. 
 
 It was true that this fortress, nearly hidden by 
 vegetation, was no longer in a state to withstand 
 a long siege, but who could tell what importance 
 it might have in the eyes of a foreign Power 
 traditionally credited with a large appetite for other 
 people's property ? However, he was not an ill- 
 natured man, and when I had talked to him a bit, 
 he moved his hand towards the ruin with quite a 
 noble gesture, and told me that I was free to do 
 there anything I liked. Had I been a snake-catcher, 
 I might have done a good deal there. 
 
 We were afloat again before the sun had begun 
 to warm an apple's ruddy cheek ; but already the 
 white lips of the water-lilies were wide-parted, as 
 
3oo TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the boat slid past or through their colonies upon the 
 reedy river. We glided under brambled banks, 
 overtrailed with the wild vine ; then the current 
 took us round and about many an islet of reeds and 
 rushes where the common phragmites stood ten or 
 twelve feet high ; and now by other banks all 
 tangled with willow-herb, marsh-mallow, and loose- 
 strife. Over the clear water, and the wildernesses 
 of reeds and flowers, lay the mild splendour of the 
 morning sunshine. But the blissful minutes passed 
 too quickly ; all the tones brightened to brilliancy, 
 and by ten o'clock the rays were striking down 
 again with torrid ardour. 
 
 We had lunched amongst the reeds under a 
 clump of alders, and were paddling on again, when 
 the massive walls and tower of a vast fortress of old 
 time appeared upon the top of a steep hill, rising 
 above all other hills that were visible, and at the 
 foot of the castle rock were many red roofs of houses 
 that seemed to be nestled pleasantly in a spacious 
 grove of trees. Above all was the dazzling blue of 
 the sky. A truly southern picture, flaming with 
 shadeless colour, and glittering with intense white- 
 ness. We were reaching Aubeterre. 
 
 We beached the canoe beside a meadow, opposite 
 a spot where about twenty women were washing 
 clothes, their noses very near the water. They were 
 mightily surprised to see us suddenly arrive in our 
 swift boat. All the heads came up together, and 
 the rest went down. 
 
AUBETERRE 301 
 
 We walked into a riverside inn, and there I made 
 friends with the innkeeper over one or two bottles 
 of beer — there was an innocent liquor so called on 
 sale at xA.ubeterre. The aubergiste was rather down 
 on his luck, for some mill at which he had been 
 employed had gone wrong financially, and the 
 wheels thought it no longer worth while to turn 
 round. He therefore undertook to show us the 
 way to everything that ought to be seen at Aube- 
 terre. 
 
 He led us up a steep winding road where the sun 
 smote furiously, where there was no shade, and 
 where the dust was so hot that it might have 
 roasted an egg, if the person waiting for it was in 
 no great hurry. We had gone a very little way, 
 when Hugh proposed to return and mount guard 
 over the boat, for whose safety he had become un- 
 reasonably anxious. On reaching the steep little 
 town there was more shade, because the streets were 
 narrow, but the rough pitching of cobble-stones was 
 very bad for feet so sore as ours, and so swollen that 
 the boots into which we managed to force them 
 before leaving the river were now several sizes too 
 small. 
 
 We stopped at the parish church, but not so long 
 as I should have, had I been a lonely wayfarer 
 without anybody to guide me. It is a delightful 
 example of a Romanesque style that is found much 
 repeated in Perigord, Angoumois, and the Bordelais. 
 The great interest lies in the facade, which dates 
 
3Q2 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 from the eleventh century. Here we have a large 
 central portal, and on each side of it, what the 
 architectural design supposes to be a smaller one, 
 but which in reality is only a sham doorway. The 
 slender columns of the jambs, and the archivolts 
 filled in with little figures, sacred, fantastic, and 
 grotesque, are there, as in connection with the 
 central arch ; but all this has only an ornamental 
 purpose. The spectator who is at all interested in 
 ecclesiastical architecture will examine with much 
 delight the elaborate mouldings and the strangely- 
 suggestive forms of men, beasts, birds, shapes 
 fantastic and chimerical, which ornament these 
 Romanesque doorways. 
 
 But this church has not the interest of singularity 
 which belongs to another at Aubeterre — that of 
 St. John. It is, or was, truly a church, and yet it 
 is not an edifice. Like one at St. Emilion, it is 
 monolithic in the sense that those who made it 
 worked upon the solid rock with pick, hammer, and 
 chisel ; in which way they quarried out a great nave 
 with a rough apse terminating in the very bowels of 
 the hill. On one side of the nave, enough has been 
 left of the rock to form four immense polygonal piers, 
 whose upper part is lost to sight in the gloom, until 
 the eye grows somewhat reconciled to the glimmer 
 of day, which, stealing in through openings in the 
 cliff, is drowned in darkness before it reaches the 
 hollow of the apse. On the opposite side is a high 
 gallery cut in the rock in imitation of the triforium 
 
A CEMETERY IN THE ROCK 303 
 
 gallery. The row of piers separates the church 
 proper from what was for centuries the cemetery 
 of Aubeterre : a vast burrow made by the living 
 for the reception of the dead, where they were 
 plunged out of the sunlight teeming with earthly 
 illusion and phantasy, to await the breaking of the 
 great dawn. 
 
 Not a spring violet nor a gaudy flower of summer 
 gave to the air the perfume, or to the earth the 
 colour of sweet life, to soothe and lighten the 
 dreariness of the dead : such thoughts in the Middle 
 Ages would have been almost pagan. Then the 
 darkness of death was like the darkness of night 
 here in this necropolis hewn in the side of the 
 ancient rock, whose very substance is made up 
 chiefly of other and older forms of life. Moreover, 
 the hope that was then so firmly fixed beyond the 
 grave was the hope of rest— everlasting repose- 
 after so much tossing and battling upon the sea of 
 life. The palmer dying of weariness by the way- 
 side, and the Crusader of his wounds upon the 
 blood-soaked sand, could imagine no more blessed 
 reward from the ' dols sire Jhcsu ' for all their sacrifice 
 of sleep, and other pain endured for their souls' 
 sake, than a 'bed in paradise.' To me it seemed 
 that had I lived seven centuries ago, I should, when 
 dying, have been so weak as to beg my friends not 
 to lay my body in the awful gloom of this sepulchral 
 cavern, there to remain until the end of time. But 
 the mediaeval mind, having better faith, appeared 
 
3 04 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 to be moved by no such solicitude for the lifeless 
 body. 
 
 If there are ghostly people who haunt the earth, 
 and have their meeting-places for unholy revel, what 
 a playground this must be for them at the witching 
 hour! It is enough to make one's hair stand on end 
 to think of what may go on there when the sinking 
 moon looks haggard, and the owls hoot from the 
 abandoned halls open to the sky of the great ruin 
 above. The burying went on within the rock until 
 thirty years ago, and the skulls that grin there in the 
 light of the visitor's candle, and all the other bones 
 that have been dug up and thrown in heaps, would 
 fill several waggons. It was with no regret that I 
 went out into the hot and brilliant air, and left for 
 ever these gloomy vaults, with their dismal human 
 relics and that penetrating odour of the earth that 
 once moved and spoke, which dwells in every ancient 
 charnel-house. 
 
 Now we climbed to the top of the calcareous and 
 chalky hill and made the round of the castle wall. 
 We could not enter, because by ill-luck the owner 
 had gone away, and had not left the keys with any- 
 body. This was especially disappointing to me, 
 because my imagination had been worked upon by 
 the stories I had heard of the subterranean passages 
 leading from this fifteenth-century stronghold far 
 under the hill, and which had not been thoroughly 
 explored since the castle was abandoned. The inn- 
 keeper assured me that during an exploration that 
 
MILL-DAMS 305 
 
 was being made in one of them the candles went out, 
 and that nobody had attempted again to reach the 
 end of the mysterious gallery. 
 
 I may observe here that people in this part of 
 France have such a strong horror of passages 
 underground, which they commonly believe to be 
 inhabited by snakes and toads — an abomination to 
 them — that it is just possible the candles of which 
 the aubergiste spoke may have been put out by the 
 superior brilliancy of the meridional imagination. 
 
 The time spent in this interesting little town that 
 lies quite off all beaten tracks made the prospect of 
 arriving that night at St. Aulaye, the next place by 
 the river, look rather doubtful. We re-started, how- 
 ever, with the knowledge that we had still several 
 hours of daylight before us. The voyage now 
 became more exciting, and likewise more fatiguing. 
 Mills were numerous, and the weirs changed com- 
 pletely in character. The simple dam of sticks and 
 stones, with a drop of only two or three feet on the 
 lower side, disappeared, and in its place we had a 
 high well-built weir, with a fall of eight or ten feet. 
 Fortunately, there was generally enough water running 
 over to help us, and not enough to threaten shipwreck. 
 The manoeuvre, however, had to be quite altered. 
 The boat had to be thrust or drawn forward until it 
 hung several feet over the edge of the weir, then a 
 quick push sent it down stern first into the water, 
 while I held the chain, which was fastened to the 
 other end. Then Hugh, saucepan in hand, let him- 
 
 20 
 
3 o6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 self down by the chain, sometimes in a cascade, and 
 baled out the water taken in. Finally, when all the 
 traps had been collected from the dry places where 
 they had been laid and were handed down, I had to 
 get into the boat and bring the chain with me. It 
 was a movement that had to be learnt before it could 
 be done gracefully and surely, and at the second weir 
 of this kind, where there was a considerable rush of 
 water, in stepping on board I lost my balance, and 
 rolled into the river. It was, however, not the first 
 bath that I had received in my clothes since starting 
 upon this expedition, and the inconvenience of being 
 wet to the skin was now one that troubled neither 
 of us much. We were dry again in two hours, 
 if no similar misadventure happened in the mean- 
 time. 
 
 It was an afternoon full of misfortune. We lost 
 the spirit-lamp and the best dinner knife, and, what 
 was far more precious to me, the most companion- 
 able of sticks — one that had walked with me 
 hundreds of miles. It was once a young oak 
 growing upon the stony cattsse. A friendly baker 
 hardened it over the embers of his oven, and a 
 cunning blacksmith put a beautiful spike at one end 
 of it, which became the terror of dogs throughout 
 Guyenne. 
 
 Evening stole quietly upon us with a stormy yellow 
 .o-low : then little clouds turned crimson overhead. 
 Onward went the boat through the reeds in the rosy 
 light, onward over the purpling water. It was 
 
DARKNESS AND DOUBT 307 
 
 nearly night when we caught sight of the houses 
 of St. Aulaye upon a hill. 
 
 Presently the wailing of water was heard, by 
 
 .which we knew that another weir was near. 
 
 Instead of trying to pass it, we went on down the 
 
 mill-stream, my intention being to leave the canoe 
 
 with the miller and walk to the town. 
 
 Now the gentle miller, after accepting the custody 
 of the boat, held a rapid consultation with his wife 
 on the threshold of his dwelling, and as we were 
 .moving off to look for a hostelry, he limped up to 
 me — he had a leg that seemed as stiff as a post — 
 and said : 
 
 ' If ces messieurs would like to stop here to-night, 
 we will do our best for them. We have little to 
 offer, for we do not keep an inn, and are only simple 
 people ; but ces messieurs are tired perhaps, and 
 would rather stay near their boat.' 
 
 Although it was dark, I quite realized what a 
 disreputable figure I made, with my bare red feet, 
 muddy flannels, and my straw hat, which, after 
 taking many baths and being dried as often by the 
 sun, had come to have the shape of almost every- 
 thing but a hat. I had, therefore, grave doubts of 
 my ability to inspire any respectable innkeeper with 
 confidence, and I resolved at once to accept the 
 offer that had been so unexpectedly made. 
 
 The spot where we were to pass the night was 
 decidedly sombre, for there were trees around that 
 cast a dark shadow, and there was the incessant cry 
 
3 o8 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 of unseen, troubled water ; but from the open door 
 of the low house that adjoined the mill there flashed 
 a warm light, and, as we entered, there was the 
 sight, which is ever grateful to the tired wanderer, 
 of freshly-piled sticks blazing upon the hearth. The 
 room was large, and the flickering oil-lamp would 
 have left it mostly in shadow had it not been helped 
 by the flame of the fire. The walls were dark 
 from smoke and long usage, for this was a very old 
 mill. There was no sign of plenty, save the chunks 
 of fat bacon which hung from the grimy rafters. 
 There were several children, and one of them, almost 
 a young woman, went out with a basket to buy us 
 some meat. We had not a very choice meal, but 
 it was a solid one. It commenced with a big tureen 
 of country soup, made of all things, but chiefly of 
 bread, and which Hugh, with his ideas newly-shaped 
 in English moulds, described as ' stodgey.' Then 
 came an omelet, a piece of veal, and a dish of 
 gudgeons. I am sorry to add that these most 
 amusing little bearded fish were dropped all alive 
 into the boiling nut-oil. 
 
 Although our bedroom was immediately overhead, 
 we had to pass through the mill to reach it, and the 
 journey was a roundabout one. The lame miller 
 was our guide, and on our way we learnt the cause 
 of his lameness. About a year before he had been 
 caught up by some of his machinery and mangled 
 in a frightful manner. We came to a brick wall 
 plastered over, and a little below a shaft that ran 
 
ST. AULAYE 3°9 
 
 through it was a ragged hole nearly three feet in 
 diameter. 
 
 Said the miller : ' You see that hole ?' 
 
 < Yes.' 
 
 1 You wouldn't think a man's body could make 
 that? Mine did : and all those dark splashes on the 
 plaster are the marks of my blood !' 
 
 The poor fellow had been brought within a hair's- 
 breadth of death, and the long months during which 
 he could do nothing but lie down or sit in a heap 
 after his accident had, he said, nearly ruined him. 
 
 This night, although we had but one room, we 
 had two beds. I lingered at the open window, and 
 watched the swiftly-running mill-stream a few feet 
 below. It had an evil sound. Then I felt the bad 
 power that lies in water ; above all, its treachery. 
 Had not this small stream, by lending its strength 
 to a wheel that turned other wheels, taken up a man 
 as if he were a feather, and dashed him through 
 a wall ? When the morning light and sunshine 
 returned, the chant of the running water was as 
 soothing as the song of birds. 
 
 We contrived, after infinite torture, to put on our 
 boots again, and then walked up the hill to the 
 village-like town. Besides the church of mixed 
 Romanesque and Gothic, there was nothing worth 
 seeing there, unless the spectacle of a woman hold- 
 ing up a rabbit by the hind-legs, while her daughter, 
 a tender-hearted damsel of about sixteen, whacked 
 it behind the ears with a fire-shovel, may be thought 
 
310 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 improving to the mind. At a shop where we bought 
 some things, Hugh was deeply offended by a woman 
 who insisted that some rather small bathing-drawers 
 were large enough for him, and especially for speak- 
 ing of him as the petit gargon. He talked about 
 her 'cheek' all the way back to the boat. It was 
 on returning that I noticed the picturesque charm 
 of our mill, with the old Gothic bridge adjoining it, 
 a weather-beaten, time-worn stone cross rising from 
 the parapet. Fresh provisions having been put on 
 board the boat, we wished our friends of the mill 
 good-bye. They and their children, with about a 
 dozen neighbours and their children, assembled 
 upon the bank to see us off. A long line of dancing 
 rapids lay in front of us, so that we were really able 
 to astonish the people by the speed at which we went 
 away where any boat of the Dronne would have 
 quickly gone aground. In a few minutes the strong 
 current had carried us a mile, and then, looking back, 
 we saw the little crowd still gazing at us. A turn of 
 the stream, and they had lost sight of us for ever. 
 
 Under the next mill-dam was some deep water 
 free from reeds and weeds. On the banks were 
 tall trees ; behind us was the rocky weir, over which 
 the stream fell in a thousand little rivulets and 
 runnels, and less than a hundred yards in front rose 
 the seemingly impenetrable reedy forest. The spot 
 so enclosed had a quiet beauty that would have been 
 holy in days gone by when the mind of man peopled 
 such solitudes with fluvial deities. Here the desire 
 
A MEADOW-CORNER 3" 
 
 to swim became irresistible. What a swim it was 1 
 The water was only cold enough to be refreshing, 
 while its transparency was such that even where it 
 was eight or ten feet deep every detail could be 
 seen along the gravelly bottom, where the gudgeons 
 gambolled. After the bath we paddled until we saw 
 a very shady meadow-corner close to the water. 
 Here we spread out upon the grass eggs that had 
 been boiled for us at the mill, bread, cheese, grapes, 
 and pears, and what other provisions we had. Now 
 and ao-ain the wind carried to us the sound of water 
 turning some hidden, lazy wheel. Those who would 
 prefer a well-served lunch in a comfortable room to 
 our simple meal in the meadow-corner under the 
 rustling leaves should never go on a voyage down 
 the Dronne. 
 
 Some time in the afternoon we came to a broad 
 weir that was rather difficult to pass, for there was 
 no water running over, and a dense vegetation had 
 sprung up during the summer between the rough 
 stones. The miller saw us from the other end of 
 his dam, which was a rather long way off, for these 
 weirs do not cross at right angles with the banks, 
 but start at a very obtuse one at a point far above 
 the mill. After a little hesitation, inspired by doubt- 
 fulness as to what manner of beings we were, he 
 came towards us over the stones and through the 
 water-plants with a bog-trotting movement which 
 we, who had scraped most of the skin off our own 
 bare ankles, quite understood. 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 He was a rough but good fellow, and he lent us 
 a helping hand, which was needed, for every time 
 we lifted the boat now it seemed heavier than it 
 was before. The hard work was telling upon us. 
 The sound of voices caused another head to appear 
 on the scene. It came up from the other side of 
 the weir, and it was a cunning old head, with sharp 
 little eyes under bushy gray brows, overhanging 
 like penthouses. Presently the body followed the 
 head, and the old man began to talk to the miller 
 in patois, but failing, apparently, to make any im- 
 pression upon him, he addressed me in very bad 
 French. 
 
 'Why give yourselves the devil's trouble,' said 
 he, ' in pulling the boat over here, when there is a 
 beautiful place at the other end of the barrage, 
 where you can go down with the current ? The 
 water is a bit jumpy, but there is nothing to fear.' 
 
 For a moment I hesitated, but I saw the miller 
 shake his head ; and this decided me to cross at the 
 spot where we were. The old man looked on with 
 an expression that was not benevolent, and when 
 the boat was ready to be dropped on the other side, 
 the motive of his anxiety to send us down a water- 
 fall came out. He had spread a long net here in 
 amongst the reeds, and he did not wish us to spoil 
 his fishing. 
 
 When we got below the mill we saw the water 
 that was not wanted for the wheel, tumbling in fury 
 down a steep, narrow channel, in which were set 
 
GOING WITH THE CURRENT 3*3 
 
 various poles and cross-beams. And it was down 
 this villainous diversoir that the old rascal would 
 have sent us, knowing that we should have come to 
 grief there. The boat would almost certainly have 
 struck some obstacle and been overturned by the 
 current. 
 
 Sometimes people rushed from the fields where 
 they were working to the banks to watch us. Dark 
 men, with bare chests, and as hairy as monkeys ; 
 women, likewise a good deal bare, with heads 
 covered by great sun -bonnets, and children burnt 
 by the sun to the colour of young Arabs, stood and 
 gazed speechless with astonishment. Who were we 
 in this strange-looking boat that went so fast, and 
 whence had we come ? They knew that we must 
 have come a long, long way ; but, how did we do 
 it? How did we get over the barrages? These 
 were the thoughts that puzzled them. No boat 
 had ever been known to treat the obstacles of the 
 Dronne in this jaunty fashion before. 
 
 Several more weirs were passed ; one with great 
 difficulty, for the canoe had to be dragged and 
 jolted thirty or forty yards through the corner of a 
 wood. Then the evening fell again when we were 
 following the windings of a swift current that ran 
 now to the right and now to the left of what 
 seemed to be a broad marsh covered with reeds 
 and sedges. Sometimes the current carried us into 
 banks gloomy with drooping alders, or densely 
 fringed with brambles. When I heard squeals 
 
314 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 behind, I knew that Hugh was diving through a 
 blackberry-bush, or a hanging garden of briars. 
 
 I was sorry for him ; but my business was to keep 
 the canoe's head in the centre of the current, and 
 leave the stern to follow as it might. At every 
 sudden turning Hugh became exceedingly watchful ; 
 but in spite of his steering the stern w T ould often 
 swing round into the bank, and then there was 
 nothing for him to do but to duck his head as low 
 as he could, and try to leave as little as possible of 
 his ears upon the brambles. Before the end of this 
 day he gave signs of restlessness and discontent. 
 
 Our stopping-place to-night was to be La Roche 
 Chalais, a rather important village, just within the 
 department of the Dordogne. We still seemed to 
 be far from it, notwithstanding all the haste we had 
 made. While the air and water were glowing with 
 the last flush of twilight, myriads of swallows, 
 already on their passage from the north, spotted the 
 clear sky, and settled down upon the alders to pass 
 the night. At our approach they rose again, and 
 filled the solitude with the whirr of their wings. 
 We likewise disturbed from the alders great multi- 
 tudes of sparrows that had become gregarious. 
 They stayed in the trees until the boat was about 
 twenty yards from them, and then rose with the 
 noise of a storm-wind beating the leaves. One of 
 the charms of this waterfaring is, that you never 
 know what surprise the angle of a river may bring. 
 Very tired, and rather down at heart, we turned a 
 
TREATED AS VAGABONDS 315 
 
 bend and saw in front of us a clear placid reach, on 
 which the reds and purples were serenely dying, and 
 at a distance of about half a mile, a fine bridge with 
 the large central arch forming with its reflection in 
 the water a perfect ellipse. 
 
 On the left of the bridge was a wooded cliff, the 
 edges of the trees vaguely passing into one another 
 and the purple mist, and above them all, against the 
 warmly-fading sky was the spire of a church. That, 
 said I, can be no other than the church of La Roche 
 Chalais ; and so it turned out. 
 
 There was a large mill below the bridge, where 
 we met with much politeness, and where our boat 
 was taken charge of. Here we were told there 
 was a orood hotel at La Roche, and we set off to 
 find it. But how did we set off? With bare feet, 
 carrying our boots in our hands, and looking the 
 veriest scarecrows after our four days of amphibious 
 life. We had tried to put on our boots, but vainly, 
 for they had been flooded. Now, this was the chief 
 cause of the unpleasantness that soon befell us, for 
 no pilgrims ever had more disgraceful-looking feet 
 than ours. Fortunately it was nearly dark, and the 
 people whom we met did not examine us very 
 attentively. Moreover, they saw bare feet on the 
 road and in the street every day of their lives during 
 the summer. 
 
 At the inn, however, our appearance made an 
 instantaneously bad impression. It was the most 
 important hotel in a considerable district. It lay in 
 
3i6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the beat of many commercial travellers — men who 
 never go about with bare feet, or in dirty flannel and 
 battered straw hats, but are always dressed beauti- 
 fully. We walked straight into the house, with that 
 perfect composure which the French say is distinctly 
 British, and sudden consternation fell upon the 
 people there. Two elderly ladies, sister hotel- 
 keepers — one of whom had a rather strongly-marked 
 moustache, for which, of course, poor woman, she 
 was not responsible — came out of the kitchen, and 
 stood in the passage fronting us. It was not to 
 welcome us to their hostelry, but to prevent us 
 penetrating any farther, that they took up this 
 position. 
 
 ' Mesdames,' said I, 'we want rooms, if you 
 please, to-night, and also dinner.' 
 
 ' Monsieur,' replied the lady with the moustache, 
 ' I am sorry, but — but — all our rooms are occupied.' 
 
 ' You are afraid of us, madame ?' 
 
 1 Yes, monsieur, I am.' 
 
 This I thought very frank indeed ; and I was 
 turning over in my mind what I had better say next, 
 when she continued : 
 
 ' We never take travellers without baggage.' 
 
 ' But,' said I, holding out my knapsack in one 
 hand, and my boots in the other, ' I have baggage.' 
 
 Perceiving that the expression did not change, I 
 added : 
 
 ' I have also a boat.' 
 
 1 A boat !' 
 
FORCING ONE'S WAY 317 
 
 ' Yes, a boat.' 
 
 ' Where is it ?' 
 
 ' On the river. I have left it at the mill just 
 below here. We have come from St. Apre.' 
 
 ' St. Apre ! And where are you going ?' 
 
 ' To Coutras, I hope.' 
 
 By this time several persons who had collected in 
 the passage and the kitchen were grinning from 
 ear to ear. I felt that all eyes were fixed upon my 
 red feet, and not liking the situation, I resolved to 
 end it. 
 
 ' As you are afraid, I will give you my card.' So 
 saying, I pushed my way into the salle a manger, and 
 pulled out a card, which, marvellous to say, I had 
 managed to keep dry. Now, the card itself con- 
 veyed nothing of importance to anybody. It was 
 the manner of saying, ' I will give you my card,' 
 together with the movement that meant, ' I am here, 
 and I intend to stop,' that broke down the resolution 
 of the two women to turn us from their door. 
 
 Their confidence gradually came, and they gave 
 us a very good dinner, notwithstanding the lateness 
 of the hour. We had comfortable beds, too, and 
 the next morning we got our feet into our boots. 
 We bought our provisions for the day at the inn, 
 and to avoid the curiosity of the natives, we escaped 
 by a back way, and hobbled down to the boat 
 through a rocky field. 
 
 The stream was strong for a few miles below the 
 mill at La Roche. The canoe went down by itself 
 
318 TirO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 fast enough, but the water had to be watched care- 
 fully, for the bed was strewn with rocks. Some- 
 times we shot over blocks of limestone that were 
 only three or four inches below the surface. We 
 could not be sure from one minute to another that 
 our rapid flight would not meet with a sudden 
 check. In this excitement of uncertainty there was 
 true pleasure. We chose our first spot for bathing 
 where the current was strong, and had our second 
 swim in a wide and beautiful pool, where the table- 
 like rocks, smooth and polished, could be seen ten or 
 twelve feet below the surface. Then having spread 
 out our provisions once more on the river bank in a 
 nook that seemed to be far from village, or even 
 homestead, we had an unpleasant surprise. About 
 a dozen boys, on their way home from some hidden 
 school, suddenly appeared round a wooded corner, 
 and after being brought to a momentary standstill by 
 their own astonishment, made straight towards us. 
 Having examined the canoe with much curiosity, 
 they sat down in a half-circle just behind us, with 
 minds evidently made up to wait and see us off. 
 They watched us through our meal with much 
 interest, and made jokes in patois at our expense. 
 They were not, however, so boldly bad as many 
 boys, and there was no sufficient reason to drive 
 them away. Moreover, they may have had a better 
 right to be there than we. The field may have 
 belonged to the father of one of them. I suggested 
 to them that their mothers might be anxious, if not 
 
SCORCHING HOURS 319 
 
 angry, on account of their loitering ; but they were 
 not to be moved by any such reminders. They had 
 made up their minds to see us off, and this they did, 
 to their great delight and entertainment. 
 
 The river was charming, with its myriads of white 
 water-lilies and forests of reeds. Once it spread out 
 into a lake, in which was a little island covered with 
 tall bulrushes and purple loosestrife. But although 
 there was so much pleasure for the eye, the after- 
 noon was one of suffering. We were blistering 
 from the heat of the sun, and our bottles being 
 emptied, we were tormented with thirst. It was 
 true that there was plenty of water always within 
 reach ; but it had already run past a good many 
 villages and small towns, and, moreover, it was tepid. 
 After leaving La Roche Chalais the river had on its 
 left bank the department of the Dordogne, and on 
 its right the Charente Inferieure. Rather late in 
 the afternoon we entered the Gironde, and soon 
 afterwards heard the familiar sound of women beat- 
 ing linen with their battoii's by the side of the water. 
 We came upon a crowd of them, and learnt from 
 them that the village of Les Eoflisottes was close 
 by. Having obtained here both water and white 
 wine, we were able to continue the voyage in 
 better spirits. 
 
 This fifth and last day on the Dronne was the 
 most trying of all. The distance may not have 
 been more than twenty-five miles, but we were very 
 jaded. There were few weirs, but some of them 
 
32o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 were not easy to pass. Then the boat from time to 
 time had to be dragged a long way through reeds, 
 where there was not enough water to float it. For 
 eight or nine hours the sun raged above us ; but the 
 cool evening came at length — about the time that 
 w r e passed the last mill. The river was broad and 
 deep, and I thought that w T e could not be far from 
 Coutras ; but long reaches succeeded one another, 
 and the great forests of the Double on the left 
 seemed as if they would never end. 
 
 The river is now running — or, rather, creeping, 
 for it has lost its current — under densely-wooded 
 hills, and the water is deeply dyed with interflowing 
 tints of green and gold. These fade, and in the 
 gathering darkness without a moon the silent 
 Dronne grows very sombre. The boat must have 
 received an exceptionally hard knock at the last 
 weir, for we feel the water rising about our feet. 
 The wonder is that our frail craft has taken its five 
 days' bumping over stumps and stones so well. It 
 would be very annoying if it were to sink with us 
 now that we are so near the end of our voyage. 
 But is the end so near ? We scan the distance in 
 front of us in search of twinkling lights, but the 
 only twinkle comes from a brightening star. We 
 see the long wan line of water, marked with awful 
 shadows near the banks, from which, too, half- 
 submerged trees, long since dead, lift strange arms 
 or stretch out long necks and goblin heads that seem 
 to mock and jibe at us in this fashion : ' Ha ! ha ! 
 
COUTRAS Mi 
 
 you are going down ! We'll drag you under !' And 
 the interminable black forest stretches away, away, 
 always in front, until it is lost in the dusky sky. 
 
 Ah, there is a sound at length to break the 
 monotonous dip, dip of the paddles, and it is a 
 sweet sound too. It is the angelus ; there is no 
 mistaking it. It is very faint, but it puts fresh 
 strength into our arms, and revives the hope that 
 this river will lead us somewhere. 
 
 It led us to Coutras. There at about nine o'clock 
 we beached the half water-logged canoe not far 
 above the spot to which the tide rises from the 
 broad Atlantic. We felt that we had had quite 
 enough waterfaring to satisfy us for the present. 
 We had voyaged about eighty miles, and passed 
 about forty weirs. 
 
 21 
 
[322] 
 
 BY THE LOWER DORDOGNE, 
 
 The nooks and corners where great 
 men of the past spent their lives 
 quietly and thoughtfully often lie 
 far enough from the beaten ways 
 to provide the romantic tramp with 
 a motive that he may need to 
 excuse his singularity in faring on 
 foot over a tract of country which 
 lacks the kind of picturesqueness 
 that would mark it out as a territory 
 to be annexed by the tourist sooner 
 or later. Having found myself, 
 almost unexpectedly, in the district 
 of Michel de Montaigne, after cross- 
 ing the Double, I reckoned that less 
 than a day's quiet walking would 
 bring me to the village of St. Michel- 
 Bonnefare — better known in the 
 region as St. Michel- Montaigne 
 (pronounced there Montagne, as the name was 
 originally spelt), close to the castle or manor-house 
 where the contemplative Perigourdin gentleman was 
 
 A STREET AT 
 ST. EMI LION. 
 
TRAMPING 323 
 
 born, and where he wrote his ' Essays ' in a tower, of 
 which he has left a detailed description. Then there 
 was another lure : the battle-field of Castillon, a few 
 miles farther south, where the heroic Talbot was 
 slain, and where the cannon that fired the fatal 
 stone announced the end of the feudal ages. We 
 may travel over the whole world of literature with- 
 out going beyond our house and garden. Even the 
 blind may read, and thus bring back to themselves 
 the life of the past ; but how the indolent mind is 
 helped when spurred by the eye's impressions ! 
 The eye awakens ideas that might otherwise sleep 
 on for ever, by looking at scenes filled with the 
 living interest of a Montaigne or a Talbot. 
 
 I might have got to within four miles or there- 
 abouts of the Castle of Montaigne, by using the 
 railroad that runs up the valley of the Lower 
 Dordogne, but I preferred to start on foot from 
 Montpont. This manner of travelling- is very old- 
 tashioned, but it will always possess a certain charm 
 for two classes of people : habitual vagabonds who 
 beg and are freely accused of stealing, and the 
 literary, artistic, antiquarian, or scientific vagabonds 
 who take to tramping by fits and starts. The latter 
 class, being quite incomprehensible to the rustic mind 
 in Guyenne, are regarded by it with almost as much 
 suspicion as the other. 
 
 I started at the hour of seven in the morning, 
 which the French — earlier risers than the English — 
 think a late one for beginning the work of a summer 
 
324 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 day in the provinces. I will not say that the plain 
 on which I now tramped for some miles was unin- 
 teresting, because all nature is interesting if we are 
 only in the right mood to observe and be instructed ; 
 but to me it was dull, for I had been spoilt by much 
 rambling in up and down country full of strong 
 contrasts. Here I saw on each side of me wide 
 expanses of field, with scarcely a hedge or tree, all 
 dotted with grazing cattle. Not a few of the animals 
 were in the charge of muscular, aggressive dogs, 
 that interpreted their duty too largely, and made 
 themselves a nuisance. At intervals were patches 
 of maize or pumpkins, or a bit of vineyard with a 
 house hard by facing the road — a low ground-floor 
 house solidly built, but its plainness unrelieved by 
 the grace of a vine-trellis or a climbing flower. By- 
 and-by the land became somewhat hilly, and the 
 pasturage changed gradually to open wood and 
 heath, where the gorse was already gilding its 
 summer green, and the bracken stood palm-like in 
 purple deserts of heather. Then the ideas began 
 to warm in the sunny silence, and I fear that I 
 rejoiced in the sterility of the soil which had pre- 
 served the charm of free and untormented nature. 
 
 When I reached the village-like town of Ville- 
 franche, I perceived a movement of men and women 
 like that of bees around a hive. I chanced to arrive 
 on the day of the local fair, when everybody expects 
 to make some money, from the peasant proprietor 
 or the mdtayer who brings in his corn or cattle, to 
 
 
FAIR-DAY 3^5 
 
 the small shopkeeper who lives upon the agriculturist. 
 I felt disposed to lunch at the grandest hotel in 
 Villefranche, and a good woman whom I consulted 
 on the subject led me through throngs of bartering 
 peasants and cattle-dealers, forests of horns, and by 
 the upturned jaws of braying asses, until she stopped 
 before an inn. There all was bustle and commo- 
 tion. A swarm of women had been called in to 
 help in anticipation of the crush, and they got in 
 one another's way, walked upon the cats' tails, and 
 raised the tumult of a boxing-booth with the rattle 
 of their tongues. All this was in the kitchen ; but 
 there was a side-room in which a long table had 
 been laid for the guests. I took a place at this 
 rustic table-d? hote, and I had on each side of me and 
 in front of me men in blouses who talked in patois 
 or in French, as the mood suited them. I had 
 already perceived that, as I drew nearer to Bordeaux, 
 the Southern dialect became more and more a jargon, 
 in which there were not only many French words, 
 but French phrases. These men in blouses were 
 rough sons of the soil, but I soon gathered that 
 some of them were very well off. In provincial 
 France dress counts for very little as a sign of 
 fortune's favour. There were men at the table 
 whose burly forms and full-coloured faces were just 
 what one would expect to see at a market dinner 
 in an English country town ; but their epicurean 
 style of dealing lightly with each dish, so that the 
 charm of variety might not be spoilt by a too hasty 
 
326 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 satisfaction of hunger, and the unanimity with which 
 they asked for coffee at the close, marked a strong- 
 difference in habits and manners. Their politeness 
 to me was almost excessive. As soon as the most 
 jovial member of the company — who had undertaken 
 the carving — had cut up a piece of meat or a fowl, 
 the dish was invariably passed from his end of the 
 table to mine, where I sat alone. 
 
 Before leaving Villefranche, a low, square tower 
 enticed me to the parish church. The building was 
 originally Romanesque, but the pointed style must 
 have been grafted upon the other so long ago as 
 the English period. Outside the walls, some steps 
 led me into a little chapel half underground. It 
 was a barrel-vaulted crypt, sternly simple, and lighted 
 only by one very narrow Romanesque window in 
 the apse, just above a rough stone altar of ancient 
 pattern, with a statue of the dead Christ on the 
 ground beneath the slab. In the semi-darkness, the 
 flame of a solitary candle shone without smoke or 
 motion, as if it had been there for centuries, and 
 like all the rest had grown very old. 
 
 I had climbed to the ruined Castle of Gur^ons, 
 where sloes and blackberries were waiting for the 
 birds in the feudal court strewn with stones. I had 
 left the village of Montpeyroux, with the sound of 
 flails weakening on the wind, and late in the after- 
 noon was drawing near to the Castle of Montaigne, 
 when a small wayside auberge tempted me from the 
 hot road. The woman who waited upon me had a 
 
AN INQUISITIVE WOMAN 327 
 
 fat body and a hard, firmly inquisitive face — a com- 
 bination to be distrusted. Having settled down 
 again to her knitting, she inquired of me where I 
 was going, and when I told her that I was on my 
 way to the Chateau de Montaigne, she asked me 
 if I had any work to do there. I evaded this 
 question, not knowing, or not wishing to know, 
 exactly what she meant. She reflected a few 
 minutes, then, looking at me over her knitting- 
 needles, she said : 
 
 4 Are you a tiler or a plasterer ?' 
 
 Now, this was a question that I was quite unpre- 
 pared for. I had often been set down as a pedlar. 
 I had been suspected of being a travelling musician, 
 and also a colporteur for the Salvation Army ; in 
 fact, of being almost everything but a tiler or plas- 
 terer. But this shrewd woman had evidently come 
 to the conclusion that, if I did not work upon the 
 housetops, I must perforce be an artist of the trowel. 
 I assured her that I was as incapable of fixing a tile 
 as of making a ceiling ; whereupon she said : 
 
 ' I beg your pardon. I thought you were a 
 workman.' 
 
 As I left, I saw by the vivacity with which she 
 scratched the back of her head with a knitting- 
 needle that she was writhing mentally with the 
 torture of unsatisfied curiosity ; and I took a 
 malignant pleasure in her suffering. The white 
 flannel that I was wearing was the most agreeable 
 reason I could think of for being associated with 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 plaster, but my resemblance to a tiler continued to 
 perplex me as I trudged along the road. 
 
 I now left the broad highway, and took a narrower 
 road that went for some distance through woods up 
 the side of a long hill. The shadows were gather- 
 ing under the trees, and I was beginning to fear that 
 I should reach the castle too late to carry out my 
 pilgrimage that night, when I saw above me, upon 
 a knoll resting upon rocky buttresses, a modern 
 mansion against a background of trees. This was 
 the very pleasant country residence built by 
 M. Magne, Minister of Finance under the Second 
 Empire, upon the site of the castle of Montaigne, 
 which the author of the ' Essays,' with a better 
 sense of certain distinctions than that which is 
 observed nowadays, preferred to speak of as his 
 manoir. This manor - house still preserved its 
 fifteenth and sixteenth century character, when 
 a fire breaking out destroyed everything but the 
 walls, and gave M. Magne a plausible excuse for 
 the demolition. A part that was spared by the fire, 
 and was therefore suffered to remain intact, was the 
 almost isolated tower, to which Montaigne withdrew 
 for the sake of quiet and meditation, and which is so 
 well known to all readers of his ' Essays.' Had 
 this also disappeared, I should have had no motive 
 for wandering down the long avenue at nearly the 
 end of the day. 
 
 I met with a courteous reception at the mansion, 
 and obtained immediate permission to visit the 
 
THE CASTLE OF MONTAIGNE 
 
 329 
 
 retreat of the sixteenth-century moralist who looked 
 with such clear eyes upon human life. 
 
 The tower and its gateway belong to the period 
 when feudalism had lost its vitality, and life was 
 troubled by the vague perception of new motives 
 and principles. Montaigne tells us that his family 
 
 THE CHATEAU DE MONTAIGNE AFTER THE FIRE. 
 
 had occupied the manor a hundred years when he 
 entered into possession, and the style of the frag- 
 ment that is left bears out this statement : it appears 
 to belong to the middle part of the fifteenth century. 
 Already manorial houses, crenated and often 
 moated, but, like this one at Montaigne, defensive 
 rather for show than the reality, were scattered over 
 France. Speaking generally, they belonged to the 
 small nobility who fell under the category of the 
 
33o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 arriere-ban in time of war. In this tower Montaigne 
 had his chapel, his bedroom — to which he retired 
 when the yearning for solitude was strong — and his 
 library. The chapel is on the ground-floor, and is 
 very much what it was in Montaigne's time. It is 
 small, but there was room enough to accommodate 
 his household, which was never a large one. Its 
 little cupola connects it w T ith the local style of archi- 
 tecture, to which the high-swelling name of Byzan- 
 tino-Perigourdin has been given. A small stone 
 altar occupies the apsidal end, and here, as in two or 
 three other places, the arms of Montaigne will be 
 noted with interest by those who have read in the 
 essays : k Je porte d'azur semd de trefles d'or, a une 
 patte de lyon de vie sine amide de gueules, mise en 
 face! 
 
 A man is often a sceptic on the surface and a 
 believer underneath. Pascal has called Montaigne 
 ' un pnr pyrrhonien '; but Pascal himself has been 
 accused of scepticism. Living in an age when the 
 crimes daily committed in the name of religion 
 might so easily have inspired a hater of violence 
 like Montaigne with a horror of creeds, he was no 
 philosopher of the God-denying sort. Moreover, 
 notwithstanding his doubting moods and his fond- 
 ness of the words ' Que sais-je ? ' he upheld the 
 practice of religion in his own home, and died a 
 Christian. 
 
 He shared, however, the eccentricity of Louis XI. 
 in keeping himself out of sight when he attended 
 
MONTAIGNE'S TOWER 331 
 
 the religious services in his chapel. In the vaulting 
 near the entrance is a small opening communicating 
 with a narrow passage, by means of which Mon- 
 taigne could leave his bedroom and hear mass 
 without showing himself; but in order to do so he 
 had to grope along his rabbit's burrow almost on 
 hands and knees. To reach his bedroom from the 
 ground, he climbed up the spiral staircase as the 
 visitor does to-day. The steps are much worn in 
 places, and the boots of the essayist must have had 
 something to do with this, for he probably used the 
 tower more than any other man. The room, nearly 
 circular in shape, with brick floor and small windows, 
 looks to modern eyes more like a prison than a bed- 
 chamber befitting a nobleman. But independently 
 of the great difference in the ideas of home com- 
 fort which prevailed in the upper ranks of sixteenth- 
 century society, compared to those of the same class 
 to-day, Montaigne, like all men with large minds, 
 loved simplicity. His father, who rode the hobby- 
 horse of frugal and severe training to an extent that 
 might have proved disastrous to his son Michel, had 
 not the boy been singularly well endowed by nature 
 to correspond to his parent's wishes, had nurtured 
 him in the scorn of luxury by methods which would 
 be considered very crotchety nowadays. But this 
 could not have been ' my chamber ' in which King 
 Henry of Navarre slept, in 1584, when he paid a 
 visit to Montaigne at his fortified house. There 
 was a better one in that part of the building which 
 
332 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 has disappeared. Montaigne tells, with his quaint 
 humour, that he was in the habit of retiring to his 
 bedroom in the tower so that he might rule there un- 
 disturbed, and have a corner apart from what he 
 curiously terms the ' conjugal, filial, and civil com- 
 munity.' And he expresses pity for the man who is 
 not able to 'hide himself in the same way when 
 the humour leads him to do so. 
 
 It was in the room above, however, where he 
 enjoyed to the full the pleasures of contemplation 
 and quietude. Here, he tells us, he had installed 
 his library, in what had previously been regarded as 
 the most useless part of his mansion. The position 
 had certain advantages. ' I can see beneath me my 
 garden and my poultry-yard, and can look into the 
 principal parts of my house.' It appears from this 
 that he was so much ' in the clouds,' that he did not 
 occasionally find satisfaction from peeping through 
 windows to see what others were doing. It is in 
 this way that the old writers reveal themselves, and 
 they keep themselves in sympathy with mankind by 
 not affecting to be above the little weaknesses 
 common to humanity. Here Montaigne spent the 
 greater part of his time, except in winter, when he 
 often found the library too draughty to be comfort- 
 able. It was in this room that he wrote his essays, 
 and chiefly thought them out while pacing up and 
 down the floor, which even then was so uneven that 
 the only flat bit was where he had placed his table 
 and chair. In common with some other celebrated 
 
MONTAIGNE'S CHILDHOOD 333 
 
 writers, he found that his thoughts went to sleep 
 when he sat down. 4 My mind does not work 
 unless the legs make it move. Those who study 
 without a book are all in the same state.' 
 
 Montaigne was no despiser of books ; on the 
 
 contrary, he was a great reader, and one of the 
 
 most scholarly men of his age ; but he had his fits 
 
 of reading like other people, and the intervals 
 
 between them were sometimes long. Without a 
 
 doubt, these intervals were the most productive 
 
 periods. The educational system to which he was 
 
 subjected as a child was enough to disgust him with 
 
 books, and to separate him for ever from them as 
 
 soon as he had obtained his freedom. He was 
 
 crammed with Latin, as a goose that has to be 
 
 fattened is crammed with maize in his own Perigord. 
 
 He was not allowed to speak even to his mother in 
 
 French or in Perigourdin. Such was the will of his 
 
 father, who must have been a rather difficult man to 
 
 live with, and one whom a woman of spirit in this 
 
 century would kill or cure with curtain lectures if his 
 
 interference with her in the nursery should outrage 
 
 the instincts of maternity. The very small boy was 
 
 handed over to tutors, whose instructions were to 
 
 make Latin his first language, and even his mother 
 
 and servants were compelled to pick up enough 
 
 Latin words to carry on some sort of conversation 
 
 with him. 
 
 In the printers' preface to one of the earliest 
 editions of the ' Essays,' it is said : ' Somme, Us se 
 
334 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 latiniserent tant quit en regorgea j usque a leurs 
 villages tout autour, oil out pris pied par usage 
 plusieurs appellations latines d 'artisans et d'outils.' 
 It is just possible that some of these Latin terms 
 may have lingered in the district to the present day ; 
 but it would need a great deal of patience to find 
 them, and to distinguish them from the patois of the 
 people. Montaigne was more than six years old 
 before he was allowed to say a word in French or 
 in the dialect of Perigord — that of Arnaud and 
 Bertrand de Born. He finished his austere educa- 
 tion at the then celebrated College of Guyenne, 
 at Bordeaux, where, according to local authorities, 
 he had among his teachers the Scotch poet, George 
 Buchanan. 
 
 'When young,' writes Montaigne, 'I studied for 
 show ; afterwards to grow wiser ; now I study for 
 diversion.' He liked to have his books around 
 him even when he did not read them. Numerous 
 reading-desks were distributed over the brick floor 
 of this circular room, and upon them he placed his 
 favourite volumes. He therefore read standing, 
 according to the very general custom of his time, 
 which was doubtless better than our own, of making 
 our backs crooked by sitting and bending over our 
 books. According to his own admission, he had a 
 bad memory, therefore he must have been in 
 frequent need of referring to his tomes for the 
 quotations from ancient authors, which he was so 
 fond of bringing into his text, and which make a 
 
MONTAIGNE'S LIBRARY 335 
 
 writer at this end of the nineteenth century smile at 
 the thought of how all the quills would rise upon 
 that fretful and pampered porcupine, the reading 
 public of to-day, if Latin and Greek were ladled 
 out to it after Montaigne's fashion. 
 
 The room is bare, with the exception of the 
 wreck of an armchair of uncertain history ; but upon 
 the forty-seven beams crossing the ceiling are fifty- 
 four inscriptions in Latin and Greek, written, or 
 rather painted, with a brush by Montaigne. Their 
 interest has suffered a little from the restoration 
 which some of them have undergone ; but there 
 they are, the crystals of thought picked up by the 
 hermit of the tower in his wanderings along the 
 highways and byways of ancient literature, and 
 which he fastened, as it were, to the beams over 
 his head, just where the peasants to-day hang their 
 dry sausages, their bacon, and strings of garlic. 
 Many persons copy sentences out of their favourite 
 books, with the intention of tasting their savour 
 again and again ; but if they do not lose them, they 
 are generally too busy or too indolent afterwards 
 to look for them. Montaigne, however, had his 
 favourite texts always before his eyes. 
 
 The curious visitor intent upon a discovery will 
 be sure to find in these the philosophical scaffolding 
 of the ' Essays ;' but I, who examine such things 
 somewhat superficially, would rather believe that 
 Montaigne inscribed them upon the rough wood 
 because they expressed in a few words much that 
 
33 6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 he had already thought or felt. By the extracts 
 that a man makes for his private satisfaction from 
 the authors who please him, the bent of his intellect 
 and cast of character can be very accurately judged. 
 If other testimony were wanting, these sentences 
 would prove the gravely philosophical temper of 
 Montaigne's mind, notwithstanding the flippant con- 
 fessions of frailty which he mingles sometimes so 
 incongruously with the reflections of a sage. Most 
 of the extracts are from Latin and Greek authors, 
 but not a few are from the Books of Ecclesiastes 
 and EcclesidSticus and the Epistles of St. Paul. 
 Here one sees written by the hand of the sixteenth 
 century thinker the noble words of Terence : 
 
 1 Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto.' 
 
 Then one catches sight of this line by the sagacious 
 Horace : 
 
 ' Quid aeternis minorem consiliis animum fatigas? ; 
 
 Looking at another piece of timber, one slowly spells 
 out the words : 
 
 ' O miseras hominum mentes ! O pectora caeca !' 
 
 And so one follows the track of Montaigne's mind 
 from rafter to rafter. 
 
 Had I been left alone here while the evening 
 shadows gathered in the tower, I might soon have 
 seen the figure of a man in trunk-hose, doublet, and 
 ruff, with pointed beard and pensive eyes, moving 
 noiselessly between rows of spectral desks covered 
 
MONTAIGNE'S BOOKS 337 
 
 by spectral books ; but, as it was, even in the 
 most shadowy corner I could not detect the 
 faintest outline of a ghost. Nobody knows what 
 has become of all the volumes which were here, 
 and which were said to have numbered a thousand. 
 They were given by Montaigne's only surviving 
 child, his daughter Leonore, to the Abbe de 
 Roquefort, but what became of them afterwards 
 is a mystery. There is a small room adjoining the 
 library, the one that Montaigne mentions as having 
 a fireplace. The hearth where he sat and warmed 
 himself has scarcely changed. Here on the walls 
 may be seen traces of paintings. They are sup- 
 posed to be the work of a travelling artist, to whom 
 Montaigne gave food and shelter in exchange for 
 his labour. It would appear from this that he was 
 careful not to ruin himself by the encouragement 
 of art. Montaigne, however, had a good nature, 
 although he may not have cared to spend money 
 on bad pictures. He has told us of his efforts to 
 reclaim little beggars, and to make them respectable 
 members of society. Before the present chateau 
 was built, the old kitchen could be seen where he 
 warmed and fed the young mendicants, who, having 
 been refreshed and comforted, returned to their old 
 ways, 4 les gueux ayant leurs magnificences et leurs 
 voluptds comme les riches' 
 
 The village of St. Michel is close to the chateau, 
 but is of much more ancient origin, as its church 
 plainly shows. The venerable Romanesque door- 
 
 22 
 
338 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 way was to me more beautiful because of the purple 
 spots of snapdragon, that shone in the clear dimness 
 of the twilight like little coloured lamps about the 
 crevices of the old stones. It is uncertain whether 
 Montaigne was christened here or in the family 
 chapel. It was a strange christening wherever it 
 took place, for we are told that he was l held over 
 the font ' by persons of most humble condition, his 
 father's motive in this matter being, according to the 
 printers of the early edition of the ' Essays ' already 
 referred to, ' to attach him to those who might have 
 need of him rather than to those of whom he might 
 have need.' It was Papessu, another village in the 
 neighbourhood, to which he was sent as a nurseling, 
 and where, in obedience to the injunctions of his 
 Spartan father, he was treated like one of the 
 peasant family with whom he was placed. He 
 was reared from his cradle in frugality and 
 philosophy, and, considering what an unpleasant 
 childhood he must have passed, it is truly wonder- 
 ful that he fulfilled parental expectations, and 
 did not turn out a hard drinker and a brawling 
 cavalier. 
 
 There is a tradition in Perigord which some local 
 writers have accepted as fact, that the Montaigne 
 family was of English origin. It is not easy to 
 ascertain the ground on which it rests. The 
 patronymic was Eyquem, and the chevalier-seignettr, 
 who settled in Perigord and took the territorial title 
 of Montagne or Montaigne, came from the Bordelais. 
 
SUSPICIOUS VILLAGERS 339 
 
 That is about all that is really known of the family. 
 If the Eyquem had borne a prominent part against 
 the French kings in the long wars which had not 
 ended a hundred years before the birth of the 
 moralist, this would have been sufficient to account 
 for their being described as English. 
 
 Speaking of the peasants of his district, Montaigne 
 tells us that their dress was ' more distant from ours 
 than that of a man who is only clothed with his 
 skin.' From this we have a right to suppose that 
 their appearance was original, if not picturesque. 
 To-day it is neither one nor the other. With the 
 exception of the kerchief tied round the back of the 
 head, after the fashion of the Perigourdine or the 
 Bordelaise, by some of the women, these peasants 
 wear nothing to distinguish them from those who 
 have entirely abandoned a local costume. 
 
 I was in no way pleased with the villagers ot 
 St. Michel-Montaigne, nor did they seem to be 
 agreeably impressed by me. Those to whom I 
 spoke did not conceal their surprise that I had been 
 allowed to see over the castle. I think they must 
 have set me down for something less respectable 
 than a plasterer, and I began to think quite seriously 
 that I was neglecting my appearance. Then I 
 thought of the knapsack, which was really getting 
 to look, from long usage, as if the time had come for 
 placing it in the way of a deserving chiffonnier, but 
 I could not make up my mind to buy another. I 
 was anxious to pass the night in the village, for 
 
34o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 I hoped that the inhabitants had preserved some 
 traditions of Montaigne ; but there was only a small 
 and very dirty-looking auberge that had any preten- 
 sion to lodge man and beast, and here the hostess 
 rejected my overtures with vivacity. Consequently, 
 I was compelled to trudge on, and as I left the 
 place I shook the dust from off my feet at the 
 inhabitants. There was plenty of it, but I am afraid 
 it did them little harm. 
 
 The road, now descending towards the Dordogne, 
 passed through great vineyards, and there was 
 enough light for the clustered bunches of grapes 
 to be seen on every vine. Under the calm sky, 
 still full of the heat of the summer day, and glowing 
 duskily, the wide, sloping land offered up all its 
 myriads of broad, motionless leaves and its wealth 
 of fruit to the god of wine. O gentle peace of the 
 summer night that has still the bloom of the sun 
 upon its dusky cheek — peace untroubled by any 
 sound save the joyous shrilling of the cricket that 
 has climbed upon the darkening leaf — why do I 
 hurry onward upon the dusty road, instead of 
 sitting upon a bank amid the fragrant thyme and 
 agrimony, and letting the mind lay in great store of 
 your sweetness against the cold and dismal nights 
 to come ? 
 
 I reached the village of La Mothe by the Dor- 
 dogne, and while I was casting about for an inn 
 that looked comfortable, and also hospitable, I met 
 a pretty little brunette with a rich southern colour 
 
A LITTLE BRUNETTE 341 
 
 in her cheeks, charmingly coifed a la bordelaise, and 
 tripping jauntily along with a coffee-pot in her hand. 
 It was pleasant to look at a nice face again after all 
 the ill-favoured visages that had risen up against 
 me during the second half of the day, and so I 
 stopped this pretty girl and asked her to tell me 
 which was the best hotel in the place. She would 
 not answer the question, but she mentioned a hotel 
 which she said w T as as good as any. Thither I 
 went, and found a comfortable little inn, where I 
 was well received. I had not been there long when 
 the little brunette entered. She was the 4 daughter 
 of the house.' I now understood that her hesitation 
 was conscientious. 
 
 The hostess was a small, sprightly woman with a 
 smiling face, which, together with her bright-coloured 
 coif gracefully hanging to her black hair, made up 
 such a head as puts one in a good temper for a 
 whole evening. She was so highly civilized that 
 she actually asked me if I would like to wash my 
 hands. I expected that she was going to lead me 
 to one of those little cisterns — ' fountains ' in French 
 — attached to the wall, that one sees throughout 
 Guyenne, and which have come down almost un- 
 changed in form, as well as the roller-towels that 
 often go with them, from the feudal castles of the 
 twelfth century ; but I was wrong. She led me to 
 a bucket. Filling a large ladle with water, she 
 fixed it lengthwise, and the handle being a tube, 
 the water ran slowly out from the end. I quite 
 
342 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 understood that I had to wash my hands with the 
 trickling water, for I had often done it before. 
 These ladles with hollow handles are also used for 
 sprinkling the floors, which are never washed in 
 Southern France. The sprinkling lays the dust, 
 cools the air, and depresses the fleas for at least a 
 quarter of an hour. 
 
 After I had dealt with a well-cooked little dinner, 
 plentifully bedewed with a pleasant but not insidious 
 w r ine grown upon the sunny slopes above the Dor- 
 dogne, I made the discovery that the best room in 
 the house was occupied by the dark-eyed damsel, 
 except when a guest came along who managed to 
 ingratiate himself with her mother, and then the 
 daughter had to turn out. The room was not 
 
 o 
 
 exactly luxurious, for it contained little besides the 
 bed, a table, and a chair, but it was bright and 
 clean ; and when I had confided myself to the 
 strong hempen sheets that had still half a century 
 of wear in them, and had passed the first quarter 
 of an hour, which is always critical, without being 
 made aware by scouts and skirmishers of the advance 
 of a hostile force, I was very thankful that I w r as 
 not received with open arms in the village of St. 
 Michel- Montaigne. 
 
 The next morning I met the Dordogne again 
 after a long separation. It was now a great river 
 flowing quietly through a vine-covered plain. The 
 rapids had all been left far away, but it had begun 
 to feel the tide, and this to a river is like the first 
 
THE DORDOGNE AGAIN 343 
 
 shock of death. It struggles for awhile with 
 destiny, and a sadder sound than the cry which it 
 made when it came forth from the rock or the little 
 lake is heard in the quiet evening or the more 
 solemn night. Although it is flowing back to its 
 true source, the river shrinks from the vast and 
 mysterious ocean as we shrink ourselves from the 
 immense unknown. 
 
 But at this hour of eiorht in the mornino-, with a 
 sun so bright and a sky so blue, only the broad and 
 serene beauty of the water makes itself felt. As 
 the river goes curving over the vine-covered land, 
 its stillness is almost that of a lake, and it mirrors 
 nothing but the sky, save the trees and flowers of its 
 banks. The moments are precious, for the tender 
 loveliness of the landscape will wane as the light 
 gains strength. 
 
 On each side of the Dordogne, between the 
 water and the vineyards, which stretch away with 
 scarcely a break across the plain and up the sides of 
 the distant hills, is a strip of rough field. The 
 sunshine of four months, with hardly a shower to 
 moisten the earth, has made flowers scarce, but on 
 this long curving bend of coarse meadow the grass 
 has kept something of its greenness, and the season 
 of blossoming stays by the beautiful stream. There 
 is a wanton tangling and mingling of the waste- 
 loving flowers, such as the yellow toad-flax, the 
 bristling viper's bugloss, the thorny ononis that 
 spreads a hue of pink as it creeps along the ground, 
 
344 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 sky-blue chicory on wiry steins, large milk-white 
 blooms of datura, and purple heads of centaur ea 
 calcitrapa, whose spines are avoided like those of a 
 hedgehog by people who walk with bare feet. Upon 
 the banks, the high hemp-agrimony and purple 
 loosestrife, with here and there an evening prim- 
 rose, flaunt their masses of colour over the water 
 or the pebbly shore. 
 
 From a distant church tower that rises above the 
 wilderness of vines a clear-voiced bell calls through 
 the morning air, Sanctus ! sanctus ! sane tics ! by 
 which all know who care to think of it that the 
 priest standing at the altar there has come to the 
 most solemn part of his mass. 
 
 Wandering on, indifferent to the flight of time, 
 upon these pleasant banks, which, but for a bullock- 
 cart that came jolting and creaking along by the 
 edge of the vines, I might have thought quite 
 abandoned by all other humanity, I saw afar off a 
 little cluster of white houses that seemed to be 
 floating on the blue water. I knew that this could 
 be nothing else but Castillon, and that the effect of 
 floating houses was an illusion caused by a bend of 
 the river. And so I was nearing at length that 
 place where the destinies of France and England, so 
 long interwoven, became again distinct, and where 
 the English nationality, which five-and-twenty years 
 before was in imminent danger of absorption as the 
 fruit of victory, was decisively saved from this fate 
 by a defeat for which all England then in her blind- 
 
CASTILLON 345 
 
 ness mourned. The loss of Guyenne made an alien 
 dynasty national, and by stopping the outflow of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race upon the Continent, preserved 
 its energies for the fulfilment of a very different 
 destiny from that which had almost begun when a 
 peasant-girl dropped her distaff and took up the 
 sword. 
 
 On reaching Castillon I had one of those dis- 
 appointments to which a traveller should always be 
 prepared after being taught so often by experience 
 that distance idealizes a scene. How much less 
 romantic the town looked now than when I saw it 
 floating, as it seemed, upon the sky-blue water in a 
 haze of gold-dust fired by the slanting rays ! It was 
 then like the Castillon of some troubadour's song ; 
 now it was a mean-looking little sun-baked town 
 modernized to downright plainness, with no remnant 
 of its ramparts remaining save a sombre old Gothic 
 gateway near the river, and no ecclesiastical archi- 
 tecture deserving notice. Its site, however, is the 
 same as that which it occupied in the Middle Ages, 
 namely, close to the Dordogne, upon a ridge of 
 rising land running up towards the hills which close 
 the valley on the north. On the eastern side this 
 ridge for some distance is so steep as to be almost 
 escarped, but it is covered with grass or vines ; on 
 the opposite side it is now only a little above the 
 plain. The battle was fought, not under the walls 
 of the town, but somewhat to the north-east of it in 
 the open country. 
 
346 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Talbot's mistake lay in the confidence with which 
 he attacked an entrenched army much stronger than 
 his own, and especially in his contempt for Messire 
 Jean Bureau's guns. The old leader now belonged 
 to a dying epoch, and his great faith in British and 
 Gascon archers may well have led him to under- 
 value the power of artillery, notwithstanding that 
 it was used with terrible effect by Edward III. 
 at Crecy more than a hundred years before. 
 The French had profited by that lesson, and at 
 Castillon they turned the tables on their tenacious 
 adversaries. 
 
 It may be well to briefly recall the circumstances 
 under which this momentous battle was fought. 
 One after another the English had been com- 
 pelled to surrender to the victorious armies of 
 Charles VII. their fortresses in Poitou, Angoumois, 
 Guyenne and Gascony ; so that of their immense 
 province of Aquitaine, which at one time stretched 
 from the Loire to the Pyrenees, they possessed 
 nothing. Even Bordeaux, after remaining faithful 
 to England for 200 years, was a French city at the 
 middle of the fifteenth century. It would probably 
 have remained so without any fresh appeal to arms 
 if Charles VII. had treated the inhabitants with the 
 same justice, and accorded them the same liberties 
 which they enjoyed while they were the subjects of 
 the English kings. It is a truly remarkable fact 
 that, although these kings were so intimately con- 
 nected with France by blood and ambition, they 
 
ENGLISH RULE IN A QUIT AWE 347 
 
 had borrowed enough of the genius of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race for establishing foreign possessions 
 upon the solid basis of reciprocal interest to make 
 their administrative policy in Aquitaine incom- 
 parably better by its equity, the facilities which it 
 afforded for local government, the assertion of 
 individual rights, and the growth of communal 
 prosperity, than that of the French kings and the 
 great nobles who, while owing homage to the crown, 
 were virtually sovereigns. 
 
 At no time was there much dissatisfaction with 
 the rule of the English sovereigns and their 
 seneschals in Western Aquitaine. It was only in 
 the wilder parts of the country, such as the Ouercy 
 and the Rouergue, where Celtic blood was, and still 
 is, almost pure, and where the people were very 
 difficult to govern — Caesar had found that out before 
 Henry Plantagenet, Becket, and John Chandos — 
 that there were frequent revolts, entailing as a 
 fatal consequence in those feudal ages "barbaric 
 repression. Throughout the flourishing Bordelais 
 the people became firmly and thoroughly attached to 
 the English cause, not less than the Alsatians and 
 Lorrainers became attached to that of France in 
 later times — although there is no historical 
 parallel between the origin of the two connections. 
 Bordeaux was like another London when the Black 
 Prince held his splendid but profligate court there. 
 Commercial interest had doubtless something to do 
 with this fidelity of the Bordelais, for the wealthy 
 
348 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 English soon learnt to appreciate the delicate flavour 
 of the wines grown upon the chalky hillsides by the 
 Garonne and the Dordogne, and 500 years ago 
 ships came from London and Bristol to Bordeaux 
 and returned laden with pipes and hogsheads ; but 
 a sagacious and — the times being considered — a 
 large-minded and generous system of government 
 gave to the people that feeling of security which was 
 then so rare, and which was the beginning of all 
 patriotic sentiment. French writers who have 
 studied this subject frankly admit that we have here 
 the true explanation of the strong attachment of the 
 Bordelais and the Gascons to the English cause. 
 As an illustration, it may not be amiss to trans- 
 late the following passages from ' Les Anglais en 
 Guyenne,' by M. D. Brissaud : 
 
 ' The Aquitanians had reason to thank the 
 English Government for not having treated them as 
 foreigners, like the inhabitants of a conquered pro- 
 vince, as the people of Ireland, for example, had 
 been treated, and for having confined its action to 
 the development of judicial institutions, of which the 
 germ was found in the feudal system of France. 
 . . . The kings of England not only refrained from 
 setting themselves in opposition to the local justice 
 of the arrie re -fiefs ; we have seen them, and we 
 shall see them again in the history of the communal 
 movement, favour the extension of trial by peers, 
 while accommodating- at the same time their ad- 
 ministrative system to the spontaneous manifesta- 
 
THE LAST ENGLISH RISING 349 
 
 tions of opinion in a continental country. They 
 even took care in the composition of the courts that 
 the Aquitanians should not feel the supremacy of the 
 foreigner. With rare exceptions, the personnel of 
 the courts of justice was recruited from among the 
 inhabitants of the province — a precious advantage at 
 a time when the predominance of provincial feeling 
 caused those magistrates who were sent from the 
 North of France into the South by the Capetian 
 royalty to be regarded as foreigners and enemies. 
 The consequence of this choice by England of 
 Aquitanians in preference to English in the com- 
 position of the courts was that under Philippe le 
 Bel or Philippe de Valois Guyenne had a right to 
 consider itself in possession of a milder and more 
 impartial system of justice than other provinces 
 of the South already attached like Languedoc to the 
 crown of France.' 
 
 When, therefore, the Bordelais fell under French 
 rule, the exactions of Charles and the cynicism with 
 which he broke faith, together with the stagnation 
 in the wine trade, caused the people to wish very 
 heartily that the English would return and try their 
 luck again with the sword. A revolt was secretly 
 planned, in which many of the powerful barons of 
 Aquitaine leagued themselves with the burghers 
 of Bordeaux, for the nobles were as dissatisfied 
 with the new state of things as the commoners. 
 The Earl of Shrewsbury, notwithstanding his great 
 age, came over from England with a very small 
 
350 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 following, and placed himself at the head of the 
 insurrection. The name of Talbot was sufficient to 
 fire the Bordelais and the Gascons with enthusiasm 
 and confidence. As the news of his landing in the 
 Medoc spread, men rushed to arms and raised the 
 old battle-cries of the English in Aquitaine. Bor- 
 deaux opened its gates immediately to the veteran 
 leader, and the example was quickly followed by 
 Libourne, Castillon, St. Emilion, and other strong 
 places in the district. This was in the month of 
 October, 1452. It was not until May of the follow- 
 ing year that Charles VII. decided to risk the 
 fortunes of war with the two armies which he had 
 mustered — one on the Garonne, and the other 
 on the Charente. By that time the whole of 
 Western Guyenne was again English. The plan of 
 campaign followed was the one laid out by the long- 
 headed Jean Bureau, a man of figures and calcula- 
 tions — a small Moltke of the fifteenth century. He 
 had been the King's treasurer, his argentier ; then 
 the Bastard of Orleans made him Mayor of Bor- 
 deaux, and now, because he had a taste for guns, he 
 was Grand Master of the Artillery. He advised 
 Charles that the best course to adopt in order to 
 spoil the English scheme would be to take possession 
 of the roads leading to Bordeaux, and thus cut off 
 communication with the interior. Now, Castillon 
 was an important strategical point, commanding one 
 of the principal gates of the Bordelais, and it was 
 resolved to make a vigorous effort to snatch this 
 
THE BATTLE OF CASTILLON 351 
 
 fortress, which was but weakly garrisoned, from the 
 hands of the English. The army, which was under 
 the nominal command of the Comte de Penthievre, 
 but whose ruling spirit was Jean Bureau, accordingly 
 marched on Castillon, and the Kings army moved 
 in the same direction. Talbot, having tidings of 
 the enemy's plans, hurried eastward with all the 
 forces he could muster to the relief of the garrison. 
 His main object, however, was probably to prevent 
 a junction of the two armies. He was confident 
 of being able to defeat both if he could engage 
 them separately. 
 
 The French army came down the valley of the 
 Dordogne, and drew near to Castillon when Talbot 
 was still far away. The plan of the leaders was 
 not to attack the town until their camp had 
 been well fortified with earthworks and palisades, 
 for it was felt that they could not be too cautious 
 when an adversary like Talbot was in the country, 
 and possibly near at hand. The entrenched camp 
 was laid out and ordered with a military science in 
 advance of the age. The position, moreover, was 
 very judiciously chosen, considering the impossibility 
 in which the French were placed of selecting high 
 ground. The camp was in a fork formed by the 
 Dordogne and its small tributary, the Lidoire, which 
 flows in a south-westerly direction, and falls into the 
 broad river a mile or two above Castillon. Bureau 
 was given ample time to raise his ramparts, dig his 
 moats, fix his palisades, and set up his park of 
 
TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 artillery, on which he laid so much store. Then 
 were detached 800 archers — Angevins and Ber- 
 richons — who took up their quarters at an abbey 
 that then existed a little to the north of the town, 
 at the foot of a wooded hill. The fortress was 
 therefore threatened on two sides. 
 
 On July 16 Talbot arrived on the scene, and at 
 the first brush obtained a signal advantage by taking 
 the French completely by surprise. On the march 
 from Libourne he did not trust himself to the broad 
 valley, which, being highly cultivated then as it is 
 now, offered no cover, but followed the line of hills 
 to the north of it, on which much of the ancient 
 forest still clung. Thus he managed to conceal his 
 advance until his men broke suddenly upon the 
 unsuspecting archers of Anjou and Berry, and 
 slaughtered them with that thoroughness which was 
 characteristic of mediaeval warfare. Talbot belonged 
 to an age that gave no quarter and expected none. 
 A man down was a man lost, unless he had extra- 
 ordinary luck. The massacre of these archers put the 
 English army- — which, after the drafts made on various 
 garrisons, was now said to be about 6,000 strong — 
 in good spirits. Not many of the fugitives reached 
 the camp. Talbot did not follow up this advantage 
 by attempting an immediate attack upon the fortified 
 position in the plain. He gave his men a rest after 
 their toilsome march over rough ground, and put off 
 the decisive battle until the morrow. In the mean- 
 time, he placed himself in communication with the 
 
TALBOT AT CASTILLON 353 
 
 garrison of Castillon, and arranged that a sortie in 
 force should take place on the signal being given for 
 the great tug-of-war. He made the abbey his head- 
 quarters, and it has been recorded that the casks of 
 wine found in the cellars of the dispossessed monks 
 were speedily drained. 
 
 The momentous day of July 17 broke, and 
 Talbot was waiting to hear mass before risking 
 upon the die of a battle the English cause in 
 Aquitaine, so wonderfully and bloodlessly redeemed 
 in a few months. One of the last of the mediaeval 
 knights, the ardour of his loyalty was tinged with 
 mysticism, and any cause that he had espoused 
 would have become holy in his eyes. He therefore 
 raised those aged eyes now to the God of battles 
 as he knelt in the quiet sanctuary, impatient though 
 he was to see the vineyards and the meadows redden 
 again with the blood that he had been shedding 
 with the zeal of a Crusader for more than half a 
 century. His chaplain was laying the altar, when 
 a sudden movement of armed men disturbed the 
 kneeling octogenarian from his devotions. Tidings 
 were brought that the French camp was breaking 
 up in disorder, and that the enemy was about to 
 escape. At this news the blood of the old warrior 
 began to rush through his veins, and without wait- 
 ing for the mass, he had his armour brought to 
 him. Clad in iron and mounted upon his white 
 horse, accompanied by his son, the Lord Lisle — 
 Shakespeare's John Talbot — he rode down into the 
 
 2 3 
 
354 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 plain. The enemy was not in disorder, but was 
 waiting behind the entrenchments for the expected 
 onslaught. 
 
 Talbot gave the order for the attack, and his 
 thousand knights and esquires charged down upon 
 the camp. When they were well within range of 
 Bureau's artillery, the ' three hundred cast-iron pieces 
 mounted on wheels, which they called bombardesl* 
 broke into a roar, and the stone balls worked terrible 
 havoc upon horses and riders. The ground was 
 quickly strewn with heavily armoured men, who 
 lay there as helpless as turned turtles, and who were 
 ridden over by those in the rear. The mediaeval 
 cavalry was shattered or thrown into hopeless con- 
 fusion by the new artillery. The infantry met with 
 no better success in moving to the assault of the 
 hastily raised ramparts bristling with guns. The 
 English army was demoralized by this unexpected 
 reception. In vain did Talbot ride again and again 
 into the thickest of the fray — the besieged had now 
 assumed the offensive. Even his grand old figure 
 and his rallying cry failed to turn back the tide of 
 disaster. It has been written that in his wrath he 
 struck those of his own party who endeavoured to 
 draw him out of the danger to which he was con- 
 stantly exposing himself. He felt that at his age 
 it was not worth while to survive defeat, in order 
 that he might die in his bed with a mind tortured 
 by gnawing regret a few months or years later. 
 
 * Chroniques de Jean Tarde. 
 
THE 'YOUNG TALBOT' 355 
 
 But although he resolved not to save himself, he 
 urged his son to flee. On this point there is too 
 much agreement between English and French 
 chroniclers for it to be possible to doubt that 
 Shakespeare's well-known scene between the old 
 and the young Talbot, in the first part of ' King 
 Henry VI.,' was founded on fact. Moreover, what 
 was more natural than that the father, when he saw 
 the evil turn that things were taking, should have 
 said to his son : 
 
 ' Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse, 
 And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape 
 By sudden flight. Come, dally not ; be gone' ? 
 
 What more natural, too, than that the son of such 
 a father should have replied in words which, although 
 less rythmical, would have been in substance these ? — 
 
 ' Is my name Talbot ? and am I your son ? 
 And shall I fly? .... 
 
 The world will say he is not Talbot's blood, 
 That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.' 
 
 To the fact that the battle of Castillon was fought 
 in Perigord, although the town is in the Bordelais, 
 we doubtless owe the interesting description that 
 Jean Tarde has left us of the memorable struggle. 
 His narrative, so far as it relates to the incident 
 between Talbot and his son, is in the main the 
 same as Shakespeare's ; but being told in the plain 
 prose of a simple annalist, it lacks the rhetorical 
 and romantic embellishments which the British poet 
 
356 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 thought fit to add. In the following translation of 
 the most interesting part of Tarde's description of 
 the battle, an effort has been made to preserve the 
 style of the writer : 
 
 ' The English troops entered courageously by the 
 passage where the artillery awaited them, which 
 (passage) alone could give them access to the French 
 army. He who commanded the artillery took his 
 time, and at the first discharge laid low three or 
 four hundred. This massacre, coming unexpectedly, 
 troubled the whole English army, and threw it into 
 disorder, which pained Talbot to see ; and fearing 
 the defeat of his men, he told the Sieur de l'lsle, 
 his son, to withdraw and reserve himself for a more 
 fortunate occasion ; who replied that he could not 
 retire from the combat in which he saw his father 
 running the risk of his life. To this Talbot rejoined, 
 " I have in my life given so many proofs of my 
 valour and military virtue, that I cannot die to-day 
 without honour, and I cannot flee without making a 
 breach in the reputation I have acquired by so much 
 labour ; but to you, my son, who are bearing here 
 your first arms, flight cannot bring any infamy nor 
 death much glory."* But without giving heed to 
 this counsel, the young lord, full of generous courage, 
 
 * 'J'ay pendant ma vie donne tant de tesmoignages de ma valeur 
 et vertu militaire que je ne puys meshuy mourir sans honneur et ne 
 puys fuir sans fere breche a la reputation que j'ay acquise par tant de 
 travaux ; mais vous mon filz qui portes icy vos premieres armes, la 
 fuitte ne vous peut apporter aucune infamie, ny la mort beaucoup de 
 gloire.' 
 
THE DEATH OF TALBOT 357 
 
 reassured his men, made them fall again into rank, 
 and having ranged them with their bucklers fixed 
 in tortoise fashion, sped on to the attack of his 
 enemies in their camp ; for they had not dared to 
 leave their trenches. The French, seeing them- 
 selves pressed in this way, entered into the battle. 
 Great was the melee. The artillery of the French 
 continued all the while to fire upon the English 
 troops, and so well that a stone striking Talbot 
 broke his thigh. The English seeing their chief on 
 the ground, believing him dead, and recognising 
 that the French were the stronger in artillery 
 and in the number of men, lost courage, fell into 
 disorder, and only thought of saving themselves. 
 The French, on the contrary, took heart and fought 
 with fury. The battle was bloody. Talbot, his 
 son the Sieur de l'lsle, another bastard son, and a 
 son-in-law, were killed with the greater part of the 
 English nobility, and the whole army was cut to 
 pieces. Talbot's body was buried on the spot where 
 it was found, and upon his grave was built a small 
 chapel that still exists, but open to the sky and half 
 ruined.' 
 
 Jean Tarde concludes his narrative of the battle 
 with these remarks : 
 
 ' The English army being thus defeated, Castillon 
 surrendered, and the King in person besieged 
 Bordeaux, which surrendered on October 18. Fol- 
 lowing its example, all the other towns of Guyenne 
 again submitted to him. Thus ended the domina- 
 
358 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 tion of the English in Guyenne, of which (province) 
 they were completely dispossessed, and which at 
 once returned to the sceptre and crown of France, 
 after remaining for three hundred years in the claws 
 of the English leopards.' 
 
 There are some patent inaccuracies in Tarde's 
 account — the statement, to wit, that Talbot was 
 buried on the spot where he fell, whereas his body 
 was carried from the field and taken to England. 
 The ecclesiastical chronicler must have accepted the 
 story in circulation among the common people, 
 which is repeated to this day by the peasants around 
 Castillon, who even point out a mound which they 
 call 'Talbot's grave.' Shakespeare does not fall 
 into this error, although he brings Jeanne d'Arc 
 upon the battlefield, notwithstanding that she was 
 burnt twenty - two years before the death of 
 Talbot. 
 
 According to the version accepted by French 
 historians, Talbot was overthrown by a cannon-shot, 
 and was afterwards despatched on the ground by a 
 soldier who ran his sword through the hero's throat. 
 His body was carried into the French camp, where 
 it remained all night, and it was so disfigured that 
 his herald could hardly recognise it. Many of the 
 fugitives were drowned or were killed by the archers 
 while attempting to swim across the Dordogne. 
 Four thousand English, or English partisans, were 
 said to have been slain on this fatal day, and only a 
 small remnant of the army managed to retreat within 
 
MONUMENT OF THE BATTLE OF CASTILLON 359 
 
 the walls of Castillon. The French then besieged 
 the town, and the bombardment was so furious that 
 the garrison was soon willing to surrender on the 
 
 o o 
 
 best terms that could be obtained. Bordeaux was 
 not besieged until St. Emilion, Libourne, Fronsac, 
 Bazas, Cadillac, and other strongholds of the Borde- 
 lais had capitulated. 
 
 After this rather long journey into the past, I 
 must return to my wayfaring upon the battlefield of 
 Castillon, over which more than four centuries have 
 crept since the events occurred which gave it so 
 dramatic a celebrity. 
 
 Scorched by the now blazing sun, I took the 
 shadeless road leading out of the town towards the 
 north-east, and after walking about a mile between 
 vineyards, I came to the commemorative monu- 
 ment of the battle raised in 1888 by the Union 
 Patriotique de France. It is a low obelisk, with 
 no ornament save a mediaeval sword carved upon it, 
 with point turned upwards. Facing the road is the 
 following inscription : 
 
 'Dans cette plaine le 17 Juillet, 1453, ftit reni- 
 portd la victoire qui ddlivra du joiig de V Angle t err e 
 les provinces meridionals de la France et termina la 
 guerre de cent ans. J 
 
 The abbey where the French archers were sur- 
 prised and slain must have been near this spot, but 
 it was down in the valley by the Lidoire where 
 Talbot fell. There is no trace of a chapel such as 
 that of which Tarde speaks, nor any other mark to 
 
360 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 show the place. But the little stream is there as of 
 old, and the beautiful Dordogne that drank the 
 mingled blood of the two armies which its tributary 
 poured into it flows serenely and blue as it did then 
 under the same summer sky. 
 
 An Englishman who now wanders over the battle- 
 field of Castillon can hardly realize how his country 
 grieved at the defeat of Talbot far away here 
 amidst the southern vines. To-day it seems so 
 absurd, so contrary to the policy of common-sense, 
 that England, then so thinly populated, should have 
 striven so hard and so long in order to be a Conti- 
 nental power ; when now, with her dense population, 
 half subsisting upon foreign supplies, she blesses that 
 accident of nature which caused the bridge of rocks 
 that connected her with the mainland to disappear 
 beneath the sea. Surely if history teaches any- 
 thing, it teaches the vanity of politics. 
 
 From Castillon I bent my course to St. Emilion 
 on the road to Libourne; the Dordogne, which here 
 twists like a snake in agony, being left somewhat to 
 the south. The whole country, hill and plain, was 
 clad with vineyards, but I soon grew weary of 
 looking at the numberless short vines fastened to 
 stakes in one broad blaze of unchanging sunshine. 
 Even the hanging clusters of grapes weaned the 
 eye by endless repetition. 
 
 By-and-by, out of all this sameness rose a hill in 
 that abrupt manner which strikes a peculiar character 
 into this southern landscape, and upon the hill were 
 
ST. EMI LION 361 
 
 jutting rocks and a broken mass of strangely -jumbled 
 masonry — roofs rising out of roofs, gables crushing 
 gables, feudal towers, great walls, and one tall 
 heaven - pointing spire. This was St. Emilion, 
 respected in the Middle Ages as a strong fortress 
 of the Bordelais, and now so famous for its wine 
 that the locality has long ceased to produce more 
 than an insignificant part of that which is put into 
 bottles bearing the name of a saint who drank 
 nothing stronger than water. Only the wine that 
 is grown upon the sides of the hill is really St. 
 Emilion ; it changes as soon as the vineyards reach 
 the plain. It is then a vin de plaine, and is no more 
 like the other than if it had been grown fifty miles 
 away. 
 
 Celtic remains point to the conclusion that, long 
 before the foundation of the first monastery, which 
 was the beginning of the mediaeval town, the Gauls 
 had an oppidum on this hill. St. Emilion became 
 a fortified town in the reign of King John, who 
 signed a charter here, and it may be said to have 
 been thoroughly gained over to the English cause 
 by Edward I., who granted numerous privileges to 
 the burghers. For a short time the place fell into 
 the power of Philippe IV 7 ., but it was in its collegial 
 church in May, 1303, that the duchy of Aquitaine 
 was ceremoniously restored by the Seneschal of 
 Gascony to the King of England, represented on 
 this occasion by the Earl of Lincoln. To reward 
 the inhabitants for their fidelity, and to compensate 
 
362 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 them in some sort for the trials which they had 
 endured in consequence, St. Emilion was made a 
 royal English borough, and enjoyed the special 
 favour and protection of the sovereign. 
 
 It was in this fourteenth century that it rose to 
 the height of its importance and prosperity. We 
 can gather to-day from the ruins of its religious 
 buildings and fortifications what that importance 
 must have been. Besides the monastery dating 
 from the age of Charlemagne, whose monks early in 
 the twelfth century were placed under the rule of 
 St. Augustin, two great religious establishments 
 were those of the Minor Friars or Cordeliers, and 
 the Preaching Friars or Dominicans. Of the vast 
 convent of these last nothing remains but a very 
 stately and noble fragment of the church wall, 
 standing isolated on the top of the hill. 
 
 During the Hundred Years' War St. Emilion 
 was besieged and taken by Du Guesclin ; but 
 although the burghers were often compelled to 
 dissemble in order to save their throats, they were 
 always ready to welcome an English army. They 
 were among the first to follow the example of the 
 men of Bordeaux, who raised the English flag for 
 the last time in 1452. 
 
 During the religious wars of the sixteenth century 
 St. Emilion suffered grievously from the fury and 
 bestiality of the vile ruffians of both camps. The 
 excesses of the Norman barbarians when they 
 burnt and pillaged the town in the ninth century 
 
ST. EMILION 363 
 
 were mild in comparison with those of the sixteenth- 
 century Christians. 
 
 There are few spots more fascinating to the artist 
 and archaeologist than this ruinous old stronghold of 
 the English kings. One might ramble a long time 
 over the cobble stones of its steep narrow streets, 
 and about the ruined ramparts draped with green 
 pellitory and the spurred valerian's purple flowers, 
 with a mind held in continual tension by the pic- 
 turesque. At every angle there is a fresh surprise. 
 The monolithic church, made by excavating the 
 calcareous rock, which crops out and forms a kind 
 of table near the top of the crescent-shaped hill, is 
 said to have been mainly the work of monks in the 
 ninth century. There is no other resembling it, 
 with the exception of the one at Aubeterre, the idea 
 of which was probably borrowed here. Steps lead 
 down into the nave, where there is an odour of 
 ancient death, and where the light darting through 
 windows pierced in the face of the cliff reveals on 
 each side a row of huge rectangular piers support- 
 ing round-headed arches, all forming part of the 
 rock. These separate the nave from the aisles, of 
 which there are three, the one farthest from the 
 centre having been used chiefly for burial. All 
 about are numerous tomb recesses. The piers and 
 their arches are covered with green or black lichen, 
 which adds not a little to the eloom and dismalness 
 
 o 
 
 of this subterranean church. 
 
 Ornamental details of the exterior, such as the 
 
$64 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 doorway with its bas-relief of the Last Judgment, 
 are of a much later period than the rude excavations 
 of the interior. From the platform of rock immedi- 
 
 ■W-I 
 
 MONOLITHIC CHURCH AND DETACHED TOWER AT ST. EMILION. 
 
 ately above the vast crypt rise a Gothic tower and 
 spire dating from the twelfth century. This struc- 
 ture, which lends so much character to St. Emilion, 
 appears to belong to the church beneath ; but such 
 
A HERMIT'S CAVE 365 
 
 is not the case. Although separated, it is a part of 
 the collegial, now parish, church, which is higher up 
 the hill, just within the line of the ramparts. It is 
 said to have been built by the English, but the 
 Romanesque lateral doorway would be strong 
 evidence of the contrary if there were no other. 
 English influence, however, may have played some 
 part in the extensive rebuilding which w T as carried 
 out in the fourteenth century. The east end, 
 scarcely forming an apse, and pierced in the 
 centre with a hi^h broad window with a narrower 
 window on each side, suggests this, as do also the 
 very massive columns of the choir. 
 
 Close to the monolithic church is the cavern 
 where the hermit Emilion is supposed to have dwelt. 
 In order to see it, I had to find a little girl who kept 
 the key, and who led the way down the steps with a 
 lighted candle. St. Emilion might have looked far 
 before finding a more unpleasant place to live in 
 than this cavern. It might be safely guaranteed to 
 kill in a very short time any man with a modern 
 constitution, unless he were miraculously preserved 
 from rheumatism and other evils of the flesh. The 
 damp oozes perpetually from the slimy rock, and 
 the air is like that of a well. Indeed, there is a 
 little well here called St. Emilion's Fountain. The 
 spring is intermittent ; every two or three minutes 
 the water is seen to rise with one or more bubbles. 
 It never fails, no matter how prolonged the drought 
 may be. 
 
366 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 The little girl pointed out to me a great number 
 of pins lying upon the sandy bottom of the basin. 
 I asked her how they came there, and she said that 
 they were dropped into the water by people — chiefly 
 young girls — who wished to know when they would 
 be married. If two pins that had been dropped in 
 together crossed one another upon the bottom, it was 
 a sign that the person who let them fall would be 
 married within a year. As I could distinguish none 
 that were crossed, I concluded that all who had made 
 the experiment here were condemned to celibacy. 
 This form of superstition — doubtless of Celtic origin 
 wherever met with — is much more frequent in 
 Brittany than in Guyenne. 
 
 Close to the 'grotto' is an old charnel-house 
 quarried in the rock with a dome-shaped roof, at the 
 top of which is a round hole that lets the light of 
 heaven into the awful pit. This opening formerly 
 served another purpose. There was a cemetery 
 above, and as the bones were turned up from the 
 shallow soil to make room for others still clothed 
 with their flesh, they were thrown down the orifice. 
 For those who did not wish to be disturbed after 
 death, the charnel-house was the securer place of 
 burial. Here, as in the underground church, one 
 sees numerous recesses in the wall which were made 
 for tombs. Those who feel the need of sombre 
 ideas will be as likely to find the incentive to them 
 here as anywhere. Oh, what ghostly places are 
 these old southern towns, with their heaps of ruins, 
 
A RUINED CONVENT 
 
 367 
 
 their churches as dim as sepulchres, their crypts and 
 charnel-houses filled with bones ! 
 
 Fellow -wanderer, come and see with me the 
 convent of the Cordeliers. There are no monks 
 
 CONVENT OF THE CORDELIERS : THE CLOISTERS. 
 
 here now. Since the Revolution their habitation 
 has been open to all the winds of heaven, and the 
 shadow of the wild fig-tree falls where that of their 
 own forms once fell as they stood in the stalls of 
 their chapel choir. In the cloisters, the ivy and the 
 
368 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 pellitory and the little cranesbill have crept with the 
 moss and the lichen from stone to stone, and in the 
 centre of the quadrangle stands a great walnut-tree 
 that spreads its branches and long leaves over all 
 the grassy ground. Birds that cannot be seen sing 
 aloft under the flaming sky; but here in the shadow 
 of the arcades and the dark foliage nothing moves 
 except the snail and the lazy toad at evening amidst 
 the damp weeds. The stones that we see here in 
 this ruined convent bear testimony to the eternal 
 restlessness of man's desire to give some fresh 
 artistic form to his religious aspiration. Some were 
 carved in the Romanesque period, others in the 
 Gothic, others in the Renaissance. Witnesses of 
 the human mind in different ages, all are crumbling 
 and growing green together, sharing a common 
 fate. 
 
 Among the many holes and corners full of curious 
 interest at St. Emilion, but which have to be 
 searched for by the visitor, is the cave where during 
 the Reign of Terror seven of the Girondins sought 
 refuge, and where they remained hidden from their 
 persecutors several months, notwithstanding the 
 unflagging efforts made to discover their retreat. 
 Their enemies were convinced that they were some- 
 where in the town, or, rather, underneath the town, 
 for the rock on which it rests is honeycombed with 
 quarries. These Girondins were Guadet, Salles, 
 Barbaroux, Petion, Buzot, Louvet, and Valady. 
 Guadet was a native of St. Emilion, and he had a 
 
THE GIRONDINS' CAVE 369 
 
 relative there named Madame Bouquey. She and 
 her husband were a brave and noble-minded couple 
 at a time when the craven-hearted — always the 
 accomplices of tyrants — were in the ascendancy 
 everywhere. They sheltered Guadet and his com- 
 panions in a cave under their garden. The fugitives 
 had first thought of hiding in the old quarries, but 
 they realized that they would be much safer in the 
 cave. 
 
 Hearing that the ' Grotte des Girondins ' was in 
 the garden of the school, now kept by Christian 
 Brothers, thither I went. A little boy in a long 
 black blouse, with a leather belt round his waist, 
 having obtained the permission, pulled open a trap- 
 door in the garden, and, candle in hand, led the way 
 down a flight of steps into a cavern, about the same 
 size as St. Emilion's, but much dryer and more 
 comfortable. On one side of it was an opening, 
 which was made perceptible by a very faint glimmer 
 of daylight. I found that this opening was in the side 
 of a well. The water was still far below, and the 
 surface of the earth was about fifteen feet above. 
 The trap-door entrance — so the Brothers assured 
 me — did not exist in the last century, and the only 
 entrance to the cave was by the well. It was, there- 
 fore, an admirable hiding-place, for the lateral open- 
 ing was not distinguishable from above, and anybody 
 looking down and seeing the water at the bottom 
 would have thought it quite unnecessary to search 
 any further there. The Girondins were let down by 
 
 24 
 
370 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the rope, or they let themselves down. As time went 
 on, the position of Monsieur and Madame Bouquey, 
 on whom strong suspicion rested, became more and 
 more difficult ; and when the fugitives were informed 
 that commissioners were on their w T ay to St. Emilion, 
 they resolved that, rather than expose their bene- 
 factors to further peril, they would make an attempt 
 to escape in different directions. Louvet got to 
 Paris, and was the only one of the seven who did 
 not come by a violent death. Guadet and Salles 
 were captured at St. Emilion, and were executed, as 
 a matter of course. Barbaroux was also taken, after 
 making an unsuccessful attempt to blow out his 
 brains, and he, too, was guillotined at Bordeaux. 
 Buzot and Petion stabbed themselves in a field 
 between St. Emilion and Castillon, where their 
 bodies were found half eaten by wolves. The 
 seventh, Valady, was brought to the scaffold at 
 Perigueux. Monsieur and Madame Bouquey met 
 the same fate. And it is with this page of modern 
 history that the quiet little garden of the Brothers' 
 school, its well and hidden cavern, are so tragically 
 associated. 
 
 Near a ruinous donjon, called the Chateau du Roi, 
 and attributed to Louis VIII., now much over- 
 grown with herbs and shrubs, I stood on a bastion 
 of the town wall, overlooking the crescent-shaped 
 hollow, covered with houses, bits of fortification 
 older than the outer wall, ruined convents — a chaos 
 of lichen-tinted stones and tiles gilded by the warm 
 
l BAST IDES' 371 
 
 yet tenderly softened sunshine of early evening. 
 And as I gazed, I longed the more to be able to 
 carry away a picture of that scene, with all its tones 
 and tints, that would last in the memory, as I also 
 wished to draw out of it all the meaning of what 
 I felt. I left with a sense of failure, of weakness, of 
 confused impressions, which was to me like a gnawing 
 weevil of the mind, on the road to Libourne. 
 
 Vines, vines, nothing but vines, gradually shading 
 down to the darkness of the night that covers 
 them. Then, when the dusky gauze of the cloud- 
 less night is drawn all over it, the broad leafy land 
 sleeps under the sparkling stars. 
 
 Here at Libourne I am in a town of whose 
 English origin there can be no doubt. It was 
 one of the thirteenth-century bastides founded in 
 Guyenne by Edward I. These bastides were at the 
 outset intended as places of refuge for serfs and 
 other non-belligerents of the rural districts in time of 
 war. Their character was that of free or open 
 towns, and most of the burgs that still bear the 
 name of Villefranche in the South of France were 
 originally bastides. Not a few of them keep the 
 name of La bastide, in combination with some 
 other to this day. They are to be found all over 
 Guyenne and a great part of Languedoc. They 
 were often fortified with a wall, a palisade, and a 
 moat. Their strong peculiarity, however, the one 
 that has been preserved in spite of all the changes 
 
372 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 that centuries have brought, was the rectilinear and 
 geometrical manner in which they were laid out. 
 In contrast to the typical mediaeval town that grew 
 up slowly around some abbey, or at the foot of some 
 strong castle that protected it, and in the building of 
 which, if any method was observed, it was that of 
 making the streets as crooked as possible, to assist 
 the defenders in stopping the inward rush of an 
 enemy, the streets of the bastide were all drawn at 
 right angles to each other. Consequently, however 
 old the houses may be, such towns have somewhat 
 of a modern air. For the same reason, one of the 
 chief attributes of the picturesque — an accidental 
 meeting of various motives — is absent. To the 
 inhabitants of these free towns a certain quantity 
 of land was apportioned in equal parts, for which a 
 fixed rent was paid to the king or other feudal lord. 
 I have said that the bastides were not picturesque. 
 In their early days they must have been quite 
 hideous ; but time, that plays havoc with human 
 beings, lends to such of their works as may offer to 
 it the resistance of a long, hard struggle an interest 
 which becomes at length a beauty. There is usually 
 to be found in these towns the thirteenth-century 
 place, or square, which formed, as it were, the heart 
 of the commune. Along each of the four sides is a 
 Gothic arcade, on which the first and all the higher 
 storeys of the houses rest. Thus, there is a broad 
 pavement completely vaulted over on each side of 
 the quadrilateral, where people can walk, sheltered 
 
LI BOURNE 373 
 
 from the sun or rain. These old squares, wherever 
 they are found, are now always picturesque. 
 
 Libourne, from being a small bastide, grew to 
 such importance, on account of its position on the 
 right bank of the Dordogne and the wine trade that 
 it was able to carry on by water, that it rivalled 
 Bordeaux before the close of the English domina- 
 tion, and the question of making it the capital and 
 the seat of the Prince of Wales and Aquitaine 
 was seriously pondered. To-day it preserves all the 
 plainness of its line-and-rule origin ; but it has a few 
 redeeming features, such as one side of its ancient 
 square, with broad pavement under Gothic arches, a 
 picturesque town-hall of the sixteenth century, and a 
 curious mediaeval tower, with machicolated embattle- 
 ments, now capped with a very tall and pointed 
 roof, and known as the Tour de l'Horloge. It is a 
 remnant of the fourteenth-century ramparts. 
 
 The people of Libourne were steadfast partisans 
 of the English to the last, and after 1453 they did 
 not seek to distinguish themselves by their resigna- 
 tion to the rule of the French kings. When in 
 1542 the insurrection against the salt-tax, com- 
 mencing at La Rochelle, spread over Saintonge 
 and the whole of Western Guyenne, the Libournais 
 threw themselves heartily into the movement. 
 When the time of repression came they were made 
 to smart sorely for their turbulent spirit. The 
 Place de 1' Hotel de Ville, of which one side remains 
 very much as it was then, bristled with gibbets, and 
 
374 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 1 50 persons were hanged in a single day. The man 
 who had rung the tocsin that called together the 
 insurgents was suspended by the neck to the 
 
 TOUR DE L'HORLOGE AT LI BOURNE. 
 
 hammer of the bell, as a warning to others not to 
 ring it again unless they had a better motive. 
 
 Standing by the broad river, a little above the 
 
F RONS AC 37 S 
 
 point where the Isle is falling into it, carrying down 
 all manner of craft with the tide, I see at a distance 
 of a couple of miles or so towards the west the hill 
 that is known in history as Le Tertre de Fronsac. 
 There Charlemagne built a castle, of which nothing 
 now remains. The hill owes its modern celebrity 
 entirely to its wine. It is not everybody who knows 
 the virtue of the genuine Fronsac, especially that 
 which was yielded by the old vines before the 
 phylloxera destroyed them, but most people are 
 familiar with the brand. But for this, the tertre 
 would long since have ceased to be famous, notwith- 
 standing Charlemagne. 
 
 The hill has a strange appearance, for it rises 
 abruptly from the river bank in the midst of the 
 plain. It did not tempt me to walk to it in the 
 scorching heat, but as a steamboat was going there, 
 I paid two sous and went on board. I had never 
 been in such a cockle-shell of a steamer before. It 
 rocked and tumbled like a coracle, and spat and 
 fumed and snorted like a veritable devil composed 
 of an engine, a couple of paddle-wheels, and a few 
 boards. Helped by the tide that was pouring out, 
 it went down stream at a rate that was almost ex- 
 citing, and in a few minutes I was landed at the 
 bottom of the famous hill. I made a conscientious 
 attempt to reach the top, but was stopped just where 
 it began to grow interesting by a notice-board that 
 warned me, if I ventured any farther, I should be 
 prosecuted and heavily fined. Such things are not 
 
376 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 often seen in France. Vineyards are generally 
 open, but here they were fiercely protected with 
 walls and fences and notice-boards. The land was 
 evidently very precious. I had wandered into truly 
 civilized country, where land and manners were too 
 highly cultivated to please me, and I again regretted 
 the rocky wastefulness that I had left behind me. 
 
 THE HILL OF FRONSAC. 
 
 I turned back, and wandering about the village, 
 which is a straggling one, looked for the church, 
 hoping that this at least would show something of 
 interest. Not being able to find it, I asked a man 
 to tell me the way to it, and he, stopping, said : 
 
 ' L? tglise poici' alter prier dedans 7 
 
 What does he mean by asking me that ? I 
 thought. Could there be a church at Fronsac that 
 was not used for praying ? 
 
 ' Yes, that is the kind of church I am looking for.' 
 
A CHURCH 'FOR PRAYING' 377 
 
 1 Very good,' rejoined the man. 4 Now I know 
 what you want I can inform you. I put that 
 question to you because there are some people here 
 called Leglise.' 
 
 It was to the church pour prier dedans that I 
 went, not to Mr. Church. Originally Romanesque, 
 it has been pulled about and changed almost as 
 much as the Tertre de Fronsac, which I am sure I 
 shall never wish to climb ag-ain. 
 
BY THE GARONNE. 
 
 I have reached — I need not say how — the south- 
 eastern corner of the Bordelais, and am now at 
 Bazas in very hot September weather. I am not 
 only as warm as a lizard of the dusty roadside likes 
 to be, but am hungry and thirsty. I therefore cast 
 about for an inn that looks both cool and capable of 
 giving a fair meal to a tired wanderer. My choice 
 rests with one that swings the sign of the White 
 Horse ; for, to tell the truth, I have somewhat of a 
 superstitious belief in the luck that this emblem 
 brings to the traveller. I place it immediately after 
 the Golden Lion, my favourite beast on a signboard, 
 although it deceived me once. The deception, how- 
 ever, befell in the Bordelais, where the inhabitants 
 are far from being the most pleasant to be found 
 in France ; therefore I judged this Lion dOr 
 
 [ 373 ] 
 
A DARK ACQUAINTANCE 379 
 
 charitably, and took account of all that might have 
 frustrated its good intentions. 
 
 Having made up my mind to trust myself to the 
 White Horse, I entered a large salle-a-manger, 
 which, after the glare of the mid-day sunshine, 
 seemed as dark as a cellar that is lighted by a small 
 air-hole. The shutters had been closed against the 
 heat and the flies, but the rays that broke through 
 had the ardour and brilliancy cast by molten metal 
 in a smelting-house, and the sight very quickly 
 accepted with relief the lessened light of the room. 
 There was one other person present, and, although 
 the table was long enough to accommodate fifty, my 
 plate was set immediately opposite his. He was a 
 young negro gentleman, with such a shining ebony 
 skin that he was almost refreshing to eyes that had 
 just left the dazzling whiteness of the outer world. 
 He gave me the impression of being a rather con- 
 ceited African, but this may have been because 
 my dress compared so unfavourably with his. He 
 was the son of a merchant at St. Louis in Senegal, 
 and was just like a Frenchman in all but his colour. 
 I asked him if he found the weather we were having 
 sufficiently warm, and he replied : 
 
 ' Regardez comme je sue f 
 
 True enough, the beads of perspiration glistened 
 upon his forehead like black pearls. What is the 
 use, I thought, of being an African if one cannot 
 keep dry in a temperature of 95° Fahrenheit ? 
 
 I soon left my dark acquaintance, and went forth 
 
380 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 to roam about Bazas, which, like so many little old 
 towns of Southern France, is in the early hours of 
 a summer afternoon as quiet and deserted as a 
 cemetery. The stones are so heated that a cat 
 that begins to cross the road lazily, stopping to 
 stretch or examine something in the gutter, will 
 suddenly start off at a rush as if a devil had been 
 cast into it. 
 
 The interest of Bazas to the traveller lies mainly 
 in its church, which was formerly a cathedral. Its 
 broad and imposing facade, encrusted with ornament, 
 chiefly in the florid Gothic of the fifteenth century, 
 but disfigured by a hideous eighteenth -century 
 fronton that crowns the gable, stands at the top of 
 a broad and rather steep place, of which some of the 
 houses are of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 The tower built against the northern end of the 
 front carries a lofty and graceful crocketed spire. 
 Until the Revolution, this west front, ornamented as 
 it was with nearly three hundred statues, was con- 
 sidered the most elaborately decorated in the South 
 of France. Even now, although so many of the 
 niches are vacant, it is exceedingly rich in sculpture. 
 The central doorway is so lofty that it occupies 
 more than half the height of the original facade, and 
 the doorway on each side of it is only a little lower. 
 The central tympanum is divided into five com- 
 partments filled with figures in relief. The upper- 
 most panel represents the Last Judgment. The 
 interior admirably combines grandeur and light- 
 
BAZAS 
 
 381 
 
 ness. The nave (without transept) is very long 
 and lofty, and, together with its clerestory, is 
 
 beautifully proportioned. Finally, the effect of a 
 delightful vista is obtained by the wide sanctuary,. 
 
382 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 with its lofty and airy arcade separating it from the 
 pour/our. 
 
 All the old part of the town is built upon a rocky 
 hill, and it is still almost surrounded by ruinous 
 ramparts. The church is just within the wall on 
 the side where the rock is precipitous. Looking 
 upward from the bottom of the narrow valley, the 
 view of the ramparts high overhead, tapestried with 
 ivy and other plants, and above these the tabernacle 
 work, the crocheted pinnacles and spire, and the 
 fantastic far-stretching gargoyles of the venerable 
 cathedral, makes one feel that joy of the eye and 
 the spirit which is the wanderer's reward for all the 
 sun-scorch and other petty tribulations he may have 
 to endure in searching for the picturesque. 
 
 From Bazas I made my way to Villandraut, a 
 neighbouring town of about 1,000 inhabitants. I 
 had left the vines, and was now in the landcs of the 
 Gironde. I was surrounded by pines, gorse, and 
 bracken, which last was as brown as if it had been 
 baked in an oven. Ten summers had nearly passed 
 since I undertook my long walk through the great 
 pine forests of the Landes. I had wandered on and 
 on, and was again drawing near to them. Already 
 the country wore much the same appearance as that 
 farther south, although less wild and desolate. I 
 expected to have a return of the old feelings 
 when I found myself again in the midst of the 
 pines that said so much to me years ago ; but 
 somehow the old spirit would not come back, and 
 
BORDELAISES 383 
 
 I felt little besides the heat and the weariness of 
 the way. 
 
 Villandraut, ordinarily a very dull place, was 
 exceedingly animated when I walked into it. A 
 fair was being held there, and a fair in a village or 
 rural town is always a reason for being gay, and 
 often an excuse for worse. There was some local 
 colour here. All the young girls wore the Borde- 
 laise coiffure, the handkerchief being generally of 
 white, yellow, green, or crimson silk. Just clinging 
 to the back of a young head, no coif is more graceful 
 or picturesque than this. There was much dancing. 
 Cheeks flushed and dark eyes flashed as the brilliant 
 coifs and light-coloured dresses whirled round and 
 round. I found more feminine beauty in this south- 
 eastern corner of the Bordelais than I had seen for 
 a very long time among the French peasants. The 
 young women here are well and delicately formed, 
 and have an erect and graceful carriage. They are 
 coquettes from their childhood. They have fine 
 eyes and luxuriant tresses, and the face often shows 
 richness of colour. A few blondes are seen among 
 the brums; but whether fair or dark they have all 
 the same exuberance of nature. The teeth are 
 rarely good after early youth. The cause of this 
 blemish is said to be the water, which, passing 
 through a sandy soil, contains little or no 
 lime. 
 
 My motive in coming to this place was to see the 
 ruined castle of Villandraut, the gloomy stronghold 
 
384 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 built at the commencement of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury by Bertrand de Goth (or Got), Archbishop of 
 Bordeaux, who afterwards as Pope Clement V. took 
 the momentous step of transferring the Papal See 
 from Rome to Avignon. I found it a little outside 
 the burg, but near enough to be used by many of 
 the peasants who had come into the fair as a con- 
 venient place for putting up their carts and stabling 
 their animals. Each of the towers had been turned 
 into a stable for horses and oxen, and scattered over 
 the weedy space within the walls were vehicles of 
 all sorts and sizes. 
 
 The plan of the castle is a vast oblong, with a 
 high cylindrical tower at each angle, and two addi- 
 tional towers on the side of the town. The deep 
 and wide moat that still surrounds it, except where 
 it has been filled up in front of the gateway from 
 which the drawbridge was once raised and lowered, 
 is like a ravine that is choked with brambles and 
 shrubs. The exterior view is very striking. It is 
 impossible to approach this ruin without being im- 
 pressed by its mournful grandeur. From all these 
 piled-up stones which the wild plants strive to cover, 
 there comes the sentiment of pride in death. A very 
 slow but a certain death it is. One after another 
 the stones will continue to fall as they have been 
 falling for centuries, and will be put to fresh uses. 
 How many houses and pigsties at Villandraut have 
 been built with materials taken from the castle ? 
 Nobody knows exactly, but everybody in the place 
 
THE CASTLE OF VILLANDRAUT 
 
 385 
 
 has a shrewd suspicion on the subject. I climbed 
 up the dilapidated spiral staircase of one of the 
 
 towers, and after passing through two guard-rooms 
 with Gothic vaulting, where the wind, now blowing 
 
 25 
 
3 86 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 up for storm, moaned through the loopholes, I came 
 out upon the chemin de ronde, quite overgrown with 
 shrubs and ivy. All around stretched the pine forest, 
 with tints of violet and the purple rose deepening in 
 the misty distance. 
 
 This bastille on the edge of the sandy desert was 
 a queer sort of fold for a shepherd to build. To 
 judge the past, however, by the present is one of 
 the most mischievous of errors. Nothing is easier 
 than to criticise the actions of men in a bygone age, 
 and nothing is more difficult than to do justice to 
 their motives. The militant bishop is intolerable 
 now even, when he is nothing more formidable than 
 a controversialist. It may have been necessary j 
 however, in the Middle Ages for him to make him- 
 self dreaded as well as respected, like the judges of 
 Israel. This Clement V., at any rate, must have 
 believed in the need of the Church to be able to 
 defend itself behind strong walls. 
 
 From Villandraut I turned towards the Garonne. 
 A furious storm was now raging southward, and 
 after nightfall the lightning flashes kept the whole 
 forest seemingly ablaze. The hour was late when 
 I reached the town of Langon by the river, and at 
 the inn where I put up I met with a cold dinner as 
 well as a cold reception. 
 
 When the sun came again I took the road to 
 St. Macaire, and this soon crossed the Garonne. The 
 broad blue river was very beautiful in the early 
 morning sunshine, and a mild lustre lay over the 
 

TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 vine-clad plain beyond. The vintagers were get- 
 ting busy. Bullock-waggons were waiting with the 
 barrels, now empty, that were to bear the grapes to 
 the wine-press, and here and there amidst the green 
 of the motionless leaves was the gleam of a white, 
 yellow, or crimson coif that moved with the head of 
 the woman or girl who wore it. 
 
 The morning had not lost its freshness when I 
 reached St. Macaire. This is one of those ruinous 
 old towns of the Bordelais where the traveller, if he 
 were an artist, would find a thrilling subject for his 
 pencil at every street corner, and at the angle of 
 every bastion of crumbling rampart, where the 
 bramble, the ivy, and the wild fig-tree strike their 
 roots between the gaping stones. Proud and strong 
 in the centuries that have been left far behind, St. 
 Macaire is now a little spot of slow life in the midst 
 of a wilderness of ruins. Three walls encircled it, 
 and although these did long service as the quarries 
 wherefrom the inhabitants drew such building stone 
 as they needed, yet have they not been demolished, 
 but tell their whole story still, in spite of wide gaps 
 and breaks— ay, and with a far more soul-moving 
 voice than when they could show to the enemy 
 their crenated parapets without a flaw, when not a 
 stone was wanting to any tower or gateway, and 
 when the twang of the cross-bow might have been 
 heard from every loophole. There are heaps of 
 stones where the lizard runs, where the coiled snake 
 basks untroubled, where the dwarfed fig-tree sprouts 
 
ST. MAC A IRE 389 
 
 when the spring has come, and where the wild 
 cucumber pushes forward its yellow flowers that fear 
 not the flame of summer. The fig-tree may also 
 be seen hanging from high walls, and the vine 
 rambles among blooming or embrowned wall- 
 flowers on the top of ruinous gateways, through 
 which the people still enter and leave the town as 
 they did centuries ago. 
 
 The spirit of originality that animated the 
 mediaeval architects in this part of France, and 
 which has given to so many churches a distinct 
 character, an individual expression, that keeps the 
 interest of the traveller constantly alive, is strongly 
 marked upon the church of St. Macaire. Com- 
 menced at the beginning of the twelfth century, its 
 earliest portions show the Pointed style in its 
 infancy, fearful as yet of committing what seemed so 
 like heresy — a departure from the Roman arch ; but 
 in the same building a much bolder Gothic asserts 
 itself in the parts that were added in the thirteenth 
 century. The west front and doorway have not the 
 majesty of the style as it was developed chiefly in the 
 North, but they have that venerable air which is not 
 always to be found in the stately and majestic. The 
 low tympanum is crowded with figures belonging to 
 the period when the statuary's art was still swathed 
 in the swaddling clothes of its new infancy, and 
 what with their own uncouthness, and the wear and 
 tear of time, it is no easy matter now to trace in 
 them all the purpose and meaning of the sculptor. 
 
39o TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 And yet in their blurred and battered state they tell 
 us much more than they would if they had been 
 restored with the best skill and learning of our own 
 time. The age is gone when these bas-reliefs were 
 the religious books of the people. To imitate them 
 is mere sestheticism, and to restore them is often 
 destruction. 
 
 A few words must be said of the old market-place 
 of St. Macaire. Thanks to the poverty or the 
 apathy of the commune, three sides have retained 
 all their mediaeval character, the interest of which 
 has been refined and deepened by the artistic touch of 
 time, the sentimental ravisher, the slow and gentle 
 destroyer. A Gothic arcade encloses a wide pave- 
 ment, and each bay, with its vaulting, forms, as it 
 were, the portico of the house, whose first and 
 higher storeys rest upon it. Here those who are 
 interested in civic architecture can see thirteenth 
 and fourteenth century houses still retaining their 
 wide Gothic doorways. 
 
 I rested awhile in a cafe, and chance led me to 
 one that was kept by an Englishman. He recog- 
 nised my nationality, while I supposed him to be a 
 Frenchman, and he seemed as glad to see me as if 
 I had been an old friend. He told me that when 
 he was a boy his father brought his family from 
 England to Les Eyzies, where he was employed at 
 the iron works. (The smelting furnace has been 
 cold for many a year.) The man who spoke was 
 middle-aged, and although he expressed himself 
 
PILGRIMS TO VERDE LA IS 39 1 
 
 with difficulty in English, and turned his phrases 
 out of French moulds of thought, he had kept 
 a strong accent of the Midland counties. The 
 tenacity with which an accent adheres to the tongue, 
 even when the language to which it belongs has been 
 half lost, is very remarkable. I remember meeting 
 in my roamings an Englishwoman who had married 
 a French cobbler, and who had been buried alive 
 with him in the Haut-Ouercy for forty years. She 
 had learnt to speak patois like a native, but it had 
 become a sore trial to her to put her thoughts into 
 English words ; nevertheless, when she did bring 
 out those words that had been so long put away in 
 the mind's lumber-room, the accent was as pure 
 Cockney as if she had but lately drifted away from 
 her own Middlesex. 
 
 The freshness of the morning was gone, and even 
 in the shade of the cafe I felt the hot breath of the 
 day. When I was again upon the powdered road 
 between interminable rows of vines, the glare was 
 dazzling ; but I was not alone. Groups of people 
 were trudging under the same fiery sky, and upon 
 the same dusty road, and all were moving in the 
 same direction. When I learnt that they were 
 pilgrims on their way to Verdelais, I thought that 
 I might do worse than be a pilgrim, too. I there- 
 fore went with the stream, which soon turned up 
 the flanks of the vine-clad hills. 
 
 Thus I found myself about noon in a small 
 village, seemingly composed of one wide street 
 
392 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 lined on both sides with cafes and restaurants. 
 There was also a very conspicuous modern church 
 in a fantastic and debased, but showy, style of archi- 
 tecture. It was densely crowded, and the shine of 
 innumerable candles was seen through the open 
 doors. The whole street was likewise crowded 
 with people, who had come from various parts of 
 the Bordelais, and who seemed determined to spend 
 a happy day in a sense no less material than 
 spiritual. There was a great rush to the restaurants, 
 and there was flagrant overcharging on the part of 
 those who kept them — all speculators on piety. 
 
 Perhaps the grandeur of the solitude of Roc- 
 Amadour, the antiquity of the buildings, and the 
 simplicity of the pilgrims had made me a wrong- 
 headed judge of the newer places of pilgrimage. 
 However this may be, after the first glance at Ver- 
 delais I wished I had not come. There was no quiet 
 corner here where a wayfarer could sit and refresh 
 himself ; in this hurly-burly of eager hunger, and with 
 this infernal clatter of tongues, repose was impossible. 
 
 After lunching in the midst of a noisy and vulgar 
 throng, I regained the open country, with the con- 
 viction that, should I ever decide to start off upon 
 a serious pilgrimage, the road to Verdelais would 
 not be the one that I would take. 
 
 I now turned down towards the valley through 
 the vines, the inevitable vines, and was soon on the 
 banks of the Garonne. Almost facing me upon the 
 opposite hillsides were the famous vineyards of 
 
THE VINTAGE AT SAUTE RNE 393 
 
 Sauterne, and I knew that the vintagers were busy 
 there, every woman — women are chiefly employed 
 — with her pair of scissors snipping off the grapes 
 one by one from the gathered bunches, and reject- 
 ing all that were not sound. It is a costly method, 
 but the wine pays for it. 
 
 A steamer comes panting down the river, and 
 stops near the grove of willows where I have been 
 trying to hide myself from the all-searching, all- 
 burninof sun. I eo on board and take a delicious 
 rest under an awning for two or three hours, while 
 the vine-covered hills on either side glide backward 
 with their many steeples and towers. 
 
 I left the steamer at a place called Castres, some 
 fifteen miles below Bordeaux. My motive for 
 stopping here was to see the castle where Montes- 
 quieu was born, and where he spent the greater 
 part of his life. The map told me that it lay some 
 five or six miles from Castres in the direction of the 
 landes, and as the day was already far spent, I 
 reckoned upon passing the night at the small town 
 of La Brede, which is very near the castle. The 
 sun's rays were as yet but little calmed as I turned 
 from the broad, blue river. 
 
 I had to follow the highway, on which the white 
 dust lay thick. This road was carried up the hills. 
 In the vineyards were crowds of men and women, 
 many of w T hom had been drawn out of the slums of 
 Bordeaux. Some of them were forlorn - looking 
 beings, whose faces told that they were glad to seize 
 
394 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 this opportunity of earning for a few days a sure 
 wage. Those who wish to feel the poetic charm of 
 the vintage should not go into the district of Bor- 
 deaux to seek it. Here only the legend remains. 
 It is not that the vines are wanting. The Bordelais, 
 except in the sandy and pine-covered region of the 
 landes, has again become one immense vineyard ; but 
 whether it be from the struggle to live, or the lust 
 of prosperity, the people fail to impress the traveller 
 with that communicative openness and joyousness 
 of soul which he would like to find in them, if only 
 that he might not have the vexation of convicting 
 himself of laying up for his own fancy another dis- 
 illusion. 
 
 Although the hills were not steep, the long ascent 
 was wearisome in the sultry air that no breath of 
 wind freshened. At length the sun went down in a 
 golden haze, where the vine-leaves spread to the 
 horizon like the sea. Then I descended the other 
 side of the range of hills that follows the line of the 
 river. The vineyards gradually fell away, and 
 scattered pines gave a touch of sadness to the 
 darkening land. By these signs I knew that I was 
 on the outskirts of the landes of the Gironde. 
 But the sand was still some miles away, and the 
 country here was well cultivated. A church spire 
 that looked very high in the clear obscure, as I 
 saw it through an opening of trees, led me to 
 La Brede. 
 
 Here I thought I should have no difficulty in 
 
TRIALS AT LA BREDE 395 
 
 finding night quarters, for there was at least one good 
 inn, which in its own estimation was a hotel But 
 the way in which I was scrutinized when I wearily set 
 down my knapsack on an outside table and took a 
 seat under the plane-trees told me that I was not 
 welcome. Since I had been in the Bordelais I had 
 become rather too familiar with such signs. The 
 hotel-keepers here have but very slight faith in the 
 respectability of travellers who do not come in the 
 usual way — that is to say, by train or omnibus, or 
 something with wheels, though it be but a bicycle. 
 To them the walking traveller, whether he carries a 
 bundle over his shoulder on a stick, or a knapsack 
 on his back (the latter is very rarely seen), is merely 
 a tramp. If he speaks with a foreign accent, he is 
 doubly deserving of suspicion. These people of the 
 Gironde are, perhaps, all the more doubtful of the 
 morality of others because of the little confidence 
 that they are able to place in their own. 
 
 My request for a room at this inn was not refused 
 immediately. There was a consultation indoors, 
 the result of which was that I was presently told 
 that every room was already engaged. There was 
 nothing for it but to walk on to the next inn, and 
 hope for better luck there. It would seem as if they 
 had been prepared here for my coming, and had 
 already made up their minds how to act. Two 
 women stood in the doorway, and did not move an 
 inch to make way for me. I had hardly asked the 
 question about the room, when the answer came 
 
39 6 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 emphatically ' No.' At the next house to which I 
 went I met with the same answer ; but in spite of 
 the unpleasantness of my position, I was almost 
 thankful for it, such a villainous-looking place it 
 was. There now remained but one small auberge 
 at La Brede. If I was denied shelter there, I should 
 have to go to Bordeaux that night, and I was five 
 miles from the nearest railway-station. The pros- 
 pect had become sombre, and I began to regret 
 that I had allowed the Chateau de Montesquieu 
 to entice me among these too civilized savages. 
 
 The last inn was a little outside the town. A 
 dark man, whose face, even in the feeble light, I 
 could see was deadly pale, was seated outside the 
 door, breathing the freshness that now began to be 
 felt in the evening air. As my previous negotiations 
 had been with women, I was glad to perceive now 
 an innkeeper of the other sex. My experience of 
 the French provinces had taught me that, wherever 
 people are suspicious of strangers whose appearance 
 is not such as they are familiar with, and where the 
 measure of prosperity has been sufficient to produce 
 a cautious disinclination to move out of the daily 
 trodden track, it is far better to deal with men than 
 with womqn. 
 
 The pale-faced man, after looking at me fixedly 
 for a few seconds, said : 
 
 ' Yes, I have one spare room, and it is at your 
 service.' 
 
 I crossed the threshold, and took a seat in the 
 
HANGED FOR HEALTH'S SAKE 397 
 
 kitchen and general room. The surroundings were 
 not very cheerful ; but no other people would have 
 anything to do with me, and therefore my choice of 
 accommodation had to be what is termed Hobson's. 
 After all, it would not be the first time that I had 
 passed the night in a little roadside inn. 
 
 The pale man's wife did not look in a very sweet 
 temper at her husband for having put extra work 
 upon her without consulting her, and there was an 
 exceedingly obnoxious boy of about fourteen who 
 sat upon the corner of a table and, with the assur- 
 ance of a mounted gendarme, put all sorts of ques- 
 tions to me in a voice that would change suddenly 
 from a bark to a bleat. I was seized with such a 
 longing to knock him off his perch that I presently 
 kept my eyes fixed upon the frying-pan so that I 
 might not be tempted beyond my strength. The 
 father was evidently too weak to contend with his 
 horrible offspring. My interest in the man was at 
 once awakened. He told me that he was from the 
 Lot-et-Garonne, where he owned land, and had 
 been a tobacco-planter, until a disease of the spinal 
 marrow compelled him to seek an occupation that 
 required less exertion. Thus he came to be an 
 innkeeper. He had spent much money upon doctors, 
 who had done him little or no good. The only treat- 
 ment that had given him any relief was la pendaison. 
 1 Hanging !' 
 
 ' Yes, hanging. I have passed hours hung up by 
 the neck.' 
 
39§ TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Then he explained the apparatus that is used for 
 stretching the spinal marrow in this manner, and 
 how it differs from the method of hanging that is 
 best known in England. When I learnt what he 
 had undergone in order to get cured, I could under- 
 stand why he looked so pale and sad. A melan- 
 choly Jacques was he, indeed, in appearance, and 
 he was certainly not the most cheerful of hosts 
 whom one might hope to find at the end of a weary 
 day ; but I knew that I was in the house of an 
 honest man, who was also brave and patient, while 
 he looked out upon the world through darkening 
 windows. 
 
 Before going to bed I had some talk with my 
 host about my adventures at La Brede before I 
 applied to him for a night's lodging. There was 
 actually a sparkle of mirth in his melancholy dark 
 eyes, and his sunken cheeks were puckered up with 
 a sort of smile. 
 
 ' If you had been dressed in a black coat,' said 
 he, ' like a commis voyageur, they would have all 
 found room for you.' 
 
 This was my opinion, too. The Bordelais believe 
 in the respectability of no travelling motives under 
 heaven that are not commercial. 
 
 My bedroom that night had much the character 
 of an outhouse or fowlhouse. It was on the ground- 
 floor, and the rafters overhead sloped rapidly 
 towards the exterior wall. A small low window 
 opened upon the garden. The walls were white- 
 
THE CASTLE OF MONTESQUIEU 399 
 
 washed, but the floors were very black, as all these 
 southern floors are. Upon the single table a heap 
 of raw wool waiting to be spun had been pushed 
 back a little to make room for the doll's washing- 
 
 o 
 
 basin and towel that had been placed there for me. 
 Besides the bed that had been prepared for me, 
 there was another, which happily was to remain un- 
 occupied that night. The traveller should always 
 be thankful when he has a room, however poor 
 and plain, that for the few hours which he needs 
 for rest he can call his own. If he snores himself, 
 he will sleep through the noise, and have, per- 
 haps, pleasant dreams ; but if anybody else snores 
 in the same room, he may lie awake with clenched 
 fists, and be tortured by the foolish desire to throw 
 something. 
 
 The next morning I believe I was the earliest 
 visitor who in modern times has troubled the 
 serenity of the Chateau de la Brede. A mist— one 
 of the first of the falling year — lay white and dense 
 upon the land. It was a fine-weather mist, such as 
 in the opinion of the wine-grower helps to ripen the 
 grapes. 
 
 I had entered the park about half a mile beyond 
 the town, and then between two rolling banks of 
 vapour I saw the high walls and higher towers 
 of the castle looming through the grayness. A 
 little later I distinguished the dull water of the 
 very wide moat, and the three connected bridges, 
 which were formerly blank spaces between low 
 
THE CASTLE OF MONTESQUIEU 4°r 
 
 towers, unless the drawbridges happened to be let 
 down. 
 
 Over these the visitor must now pass in order to 
 reach the castle. As I was so early, I killed time 
 to my own good by trying to fix some impressions 
 of the vast pile of masonry that stood here in the 
 middle of a little lake. It is an extraordinary block 
 of architectural patchwork, quite without symmetry, 
 and yet the mass is imposing. The ground-plan 
 approaches the circle more than any other geome- 
 trical figure, but it is a circle with slices cut off, and 
 composed of angles so irregular as almost to imply 
 a fantastic motive. But the motive was purely 
 utilitarian. The feudal fortress which was built 
 here in the thirteenth century underwent in subse- 
 quent ages so many modifications and additions 
 with a view more to the comfort of the dwellers 
 therein than to their protection from enemies, that 
 in course of time little of the mediaeval buildings 
 remained besides the great hall, the basement, and 
 the keep. These became jumbled up with late 
 Gothic and Renaissance work. 
 
 Jean de Secondat, who purchased the old fortified 
 manor-house out of his savings as maitre d hotel to 
 Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne d'Albret, was pro- 
 bably responsible for most of the sixteenth-century 
 work that one now sees. When his descendant, 
 Charles de Secondat de Montesquieu, took pos- 
 session, the building was almost identical with that 
 which exists to-day. It has been exceptionally 
 
 26 
 
4 o2 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 favoured, for it has remained in the family, and for 
 at least two hundred years it has undergone none 
 of those alterations which in previous times had so 
 changed its appearance. The eye may not be 
 delighted with its symmetry, but the mind has the 
 satisfaction of knowing that this was verily the 
 birthplace and home of him who more than any 
 other man made political science popular. 
 
 The present owner of the castle, recognising the 
 duty that the descendant of a great man owes to 
 society, receives with the most liberal courtesy all 
 those who make a pilgrimage to this spot. 
 
 The relics of Montesquieu are numerous, and 
 they have been preserved with admirable solicitude. 
 The room where he slept and wrote is almost the 
 same as when he finally left it; with this difference, 
 that time has made everything look dingier. Even 
 the white linen curtains which hung at the window 
 hang there still, and they are by no means so yellow 
 as one might expect them to be. On the plain little 
 table at which he washed himself stand his basin and 
 ewer. The basin would be called to-day a dish, for 
 it is not more than two inches deep. It held quite 
 enough water, however, to serve for the ablutions 
 of a baron a century and a half ago. Much the 
 same notion of what is fit and proper in a washing- 
 basin remains to this day among the French 
 peasantry, and even among the middle class in the 
 provinces the growth of the toilet crockery has been 
 far from rapid since the time of Montesquieu. 
 
MONTESQUIEU'S BEDROOM 403 
 
 The bed in which the political philosopher slept is 
 a broad four-poster, not with slender and finely 
 carved posts, like Fenelon's, but severely simple. 
 Indeed, in none of the furniture of this room is there 
 any indication of the love of the ornamental. On 
 the contrary, everything tells of a mind that set no 
 value upon aught but the strictly needful. Montes- 
 quieu's small writing-case, divided into compart- 
 ments, the borders of the leather covering em- 
 bellished with dingy, half-obliterated gold ornament, 
 was perhaps the finest bit of property he had before 
 his eyes as he sat and worked there. He always 
 carried it about with him when he travelled. No 
 doubt it went with him to England, and he probably 
 wrote letters to his friend Lord Chesterfield upon it. 
 And here is his travelling trunk. It still looks fit to 
 bear many years' rough usage ; and yet, if railway 
 porters had to pull it about, they would not know 
 whether to laugh at its strange appearance or to 
 swear at its weight. It was built for wear, like 
 Noah's ark, and it is entirely covered with leather, 
 elaborately decorated with patterns, composed of 
 the round heads of small nails. The high stone 
 chimney-piece, plain and solid like the character of 
 the man who did so much lasting work in this room, 
 remains, together with the fire-dogs, as it was in his 
 time. 
 
 Montesquieu formed the habit when thinking 
 alone of leaning back in his chair before the hearth 
 and resting his feet against one of the jambs of 
 
4 04 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 the chimney-piece. The stone was much worn 
 away by his feet ; but the marks would pass un- 
 observed if the knowledge of their cause had not 
 been preserved in the family. A bust of Montes- 
 quieu made in his life-time shows him with closely- 
 cropped hair, and without a wig. It is a remarkably 
 Caesar-like head, every feature indicating the decision 
 and positivism of the Roman character — such a 
 one, indeed, as ideally became the author of the 
 ' Considerations.' But how the face is altered when 
 we look at it in another portrait — a painted one, 
 representing the writer in a great wig as President 
 of the Parliament of Guyenne ! A head becomes 
 another head if the coiffure be but changed. 
 
 A little room adjoining this one was where 
 Montesquieu's secretary worked. He was the 
 drudge of a literary man, who was probably not 
 exempt from the constitutional irritability of those 
 who carry a whirling grindstone within their brains 
 for the sharpening and polishing of thought. The 
 unremembered scribe may have done good service 
 to literature while undergoing his purgatory in this 
 world. 
 
 Distributed throughout this suite of apartments 
 on the ground-floor is much furniture of the six- 
 teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, most 
 of which was here when Montesquieu was chdtelain. 
 
 A spiral staircase leads to the great hall of the 
 old castle. It has been very carefully preserved, 
 and although the walls are now lined with book- 
 
BORDEAUX 405 
 
 shelves, it keeps the air of baronial grandeur and 
 simplicity. Montesquieu made it his library, and 
 had reading-desks set up all down the middle. His 
 books remain, as well as some of his manuscripts, 
 including that of ' Les Lettres Persanes.' This long 
 hall is covered by a plain barrel-vault, and at the far 
 end is an immense chimney-place, the chimney built 
 out at the base several feet from the line of the wall, 
 and sloping back towards the ceiling. On the plain 
 (not conical) surface of this mediaeval chimney are 
 painted figures, said to be of the thirteenth century, 
 but probably later. One can distinguish a king, a 
 cardinal, and a page on horseback. The mediaeval 
 fireplates are still in their old place at the back of 
 the vast hearth. 
 
 I have little more to add to this story of my 
 wanderings. From La Brede I went to Bordeaux, 
 where I found much to admire that I had not 
 noticed before. The architecture of this city is in- 
 comparably richer than that of Paris by the diversity 
 of style and the good fortune that has protected so 
 many of the buildings from the destructive influences 
 of war, fanaticism, and the presumption of those 
 who in all ages would abolish the past if they could, 
 and refashion the world according to their own 
 ideas. The Roman period is only represented by a 
 fragment of the amphitheatre, now called the Palais 
 Gallien. But what a picturesque fragment this is, 
 and how well it introduces the visitor to the 
 study of the Romanesque, the Gothic, and the 
 
406 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Renaissance buildings, of which he will find such 
 characteristic examples here ! The interest of the 
 Englishman will be increased by the knowledge that 
 some of the most notable of the Gothic edifices were 
 raised when to his countrymen Bordeaux was a 
 continental London, and a well-known tendency 
 of his will probably lead him to attribute much of 
 
 THE GARONNE AT BORDEAUX. 
 
 their grave stateliness to the influence of the Anglo- 
 Saxon character. 
 
 The people of Bordeaux are supposed to have 
 derived not a little of their keen commercial spirit 
 from the English. If this be so, they may take 
 credit for having in some respects surpassed their 
 teachers. By the gift of persuasiveness and the 
 
THE PALAIS GALLIEN AT BORDEAUX. 
 
4 o8 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 abundance of words, by aplomb, combined with 
 astuteness, they are fitted by nature to be the most 
 successful traffickers on earth. But in return for a 
 little work they expect a great deal of enjoyment, 
 and more than most industrious cities is Bordeaux 
 given up to the worship of pleasure. 
 
 From Bordeaux I continued down the river until 
 I saw the Dordogne join the Garonne, where 
 both are lost in the Gironde. Here the two 
 beautiful and noble streams, one flowing from 
 the Auvergne mountains, and the other from the 
 Pyrenees, no sooner embrace than they die on the 
 breast of the salt wave. They and their tributaries 
 caused one of the sternest, and yet one of the most 
 smiling, of regions — a country where Nature seems to 
 have the passion of contrast, and where she brings 
 forth all the best fruits of the earth— to be named by 
 the Celts the Land of Waters, and by the Romans 
 Aquitania. A little reflection explains why the 
 English of the Middle Ages, having once possessed 
 it, should have clung to it with such tenacity. Less 
 easy is it to understand why so few of their descend- 
 ants of to-day feel the peculiar spell that almost 
 every rood of this broad land should cast upon them, 
 apart from the charm of old story and of the pic- 
 turesque that appeals to all. 
 

 A^S^'Il^ 
 
 J s 
 
 N 
 
 13 
 
 D 
 
 O 
 
 Cheshire 5c. 
 
[ 409 ] 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Agriculture in the Correze, 52 
 in Perigord, 102, 196, 201 
 
 Albigenses, The, 298 
 
 Ales, 145 
 
 Angelus, The, 56, 321 
 
 Angling, 31, 123, 211 
 
 Architecture : 
 
 Byzantine, 213, 227, 235 
 Gothic, 65, 84, 94, 142, 364, 
 
 380, 389, 406 
 Renaissance, 127, 142, 213, 
 
 219, 406 
 Roman, 213, 405 
 Romanesque, 16,47, 1 4 I , l 75, 
 245, 249, 301, 326, 337, 405 
 
 Argentat, 59 
 
 Arnaud (Arnaud Daniel, trouba- 
 dour), 244 
 
 Anaud, The (River), 36 
 
 Aspic, The, 6, 30 
 
 Aubeterre, 300 
 
 Aulaye, St., 309 
 
 Auvergnats, Descent of the, 147 
 
 Barthelemy, St., 275 
 
 Bastides, 145, 371 
 
 Bazas, 378, 380 
 
 Bazile, St., 57 
 
 Beauheu, 64 
 
 Beiine, Valley of the, 155 
 
 Beynac, 109 
 
 Boetie, Etienne de la, 127 
 
 Boleti, 42 
 
 Bordeaux, 405 
 
 Bordelaises, 383 
 
 Born, Bertrand de, 178 
 
 Bort, 25 
 
 Bourdeilles, 225 
 Brantome, 219 
 
 Abbey of, 221 
 
 Pierre de Bourdeilles, 220 
 Brede (La), 394 
 Buckwheat, 23 
 Buisson (Le), 139 
 Bureau, Jean, 350 
 
 Cacolets, 204 
 
 Cadouin, Abbey of, 142 
 
 Cadurci, The, 7^ 
 
 Caesar at Uxehodunum, J^> 
 
 Carthusians of Vauclair, 278 
 
 Castillon, 344 
 
 Battle of, 353 
 Castres (Gironde), 393 
 Cazoules, 91 
 Cemeteries, Rural, 238 
 Cdou, The (River), 123 
 Cepes, 42 
 Chandos, 128 
 Chateau d'Aubeterre, 304 
 
 de Beynac, 1 16 
 
 de Biron, 145 
 
 de Bourdeilles, 225 
 
 des Eyzies, 153 
 
 de Fages, 133 
 
 de Fe'nelon, 94 
 
 de Grignols (Talleyrand), 208 
 
 de Gurcons, 326 
 
 de Hautefort, 179 
 
 de Marouette, 233 
 
 de Montaigne, 328 
 
 de Montesquieu, 399 
 
 de Nabinaud, 298 
 
 de Villandraut, 383 
 
4io 
 
 TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE 
 
 Chavannon, Gorge of the, 18 
 Christy, Mr., 158 
 Clement V., Pope, 384 
 Coiffure at Mont-Dore, 2 
 
 in the Bordelais, 383 
 
 in the Correze, 16 
 
 in Pdrigord, 119 
 Coligny, 221 
 Conde, Madame de, 73 
 Court-Mantel, Henry, 80, 178 
 Coutras, 321 
 Coux, 137 
 Crayfish, 121 
 Cyprien, St., 132 
 
 Denis, St., 78 
 
 Domme, 103 
 
 Dordogne, Valley of the, 18, 20 
 
 31, 60-65, 88-149, 340-377 
 Double, The, 246-280 
 Dovecots, 205 
 Droit Seigneurial, 205 
 Dronne, Valley of the, 218-234, 
 243-245, 281-321 
 
 Echourgnac, 250 
 Eglisottes, Les, 319 
 Eleanor of Aquitaine, 80 
 Emilion, St., 361-371 
 English, The, at Bordeaux, 347 
 
 at Castillon, 344 
 
 at Domme, 105 
 
 at Les Eyzies, 177 
 
 at Libourne, 371, 2>7'S 
 
 at Martel, 80-82, 84, 86 
 
 at Montpont, 280 
 
 at St. Emilion, 361 
 
 at St. Cyprien, 133 
 
 at Sarlat, 127 
 
 at Tayac, 165 
 Eyquem. See Montaigne 
 Eyzies, Les, 151 
 
 Fage, La, 48 
 
 Fenelon, 95 
 
 Frogs, 188 
 
 Fronsac, 375 
 
 Front, St., Cathedral of, 212 
 
 Funeral Customs, 13, 14, 160 
 
 Gallien, Le Palais, 405 
 Garonne, Valley of the, 386-408 
 Gipsies, 165 
 
 Gironde, The (River), 408 
 
 Girondins, The, 368 
 
 Gorge of Hell, The, 164 
 
 Goth, Bertrand de, 384 
 
 Grand-Brassac, 235 
 
 Grolejac, 98 
 
 Guyenne, English rule in, 346-349 
 
 Hautefort, 179 
 
 Huguenots, 65, 208, 220, 229, 
 
 Ilex, The, 95, 159 
 Implements, Flint, 158 
 Isle, Valley of the, 180-217 
 
 Jongleur, The modern, 92 
 
 Knolles, Robert, 106 
 
 Landes (of the Gironde), 382, 
 
 394 
 Langon, 3S6 
 Laplau, 47 
 
 Leaguers, The, 229, 299 
 Leopard, The English (Heraldic), 
 
 81 
 Libourne, 273 
 Limeuil, 149 
 Lisle, 229 
 
 The Lord, 353, 355 
 Luxege, The (River), 46 
 
 Macaire, St., 388 
 
 Madeleine, La, 168 
 
 Malaria, 249, 269 
 
 Man, Prehistoric, 155, 158, 173 
 
 Marcillac, 53 
 
 Martel, 79 
 
 Charles, 79 
 Master and servant, 207 
 Mere, Poltrot de, 298 
 Messeix, to 
 Metayage, 201 
 Michel-Bonnefare, St., ^37 
 Miremont, Cavern of, 156 
 Modieres, 145 
 Mondane, St., 94 
 Montaigne, Michel, 322, 328-339 
 Montesquieu, 401 
 Montpont, 280 
 Mothe-Montravel, La, 340 
 Moustier, Le, 173 
 
INDEX 
 
 411 
 
 Nabinaud, 295 
 
 Neuvic, 40 
 
 Normans, The, in Perigord, 215 
 
 Orgues de Bort, 25 
 Oriel, The golden, 190 
 Owls, 103 
 
 Pantaleon, St.. 44 
 
 Peasant-proprietor, The, 102, 196 
 
 Perigord Noir, 97 
 
 Perigueux, 212 
 
 Plantagenet, Henry, 80 
 
 Plateau, Great Central, of France, 
 
 11 
 Plough, Ancient form of, 53 
 Poaching, 50 
 Politics, Local, 206 
 Port-Dieu, 20 
 Puy d'Issolu, 71 
 
 Raymond II., Viscount of Tu- 
 
 renne, 64 
 Religious Customs, 16, 241 
 Riberac, 244, 290 
 Roche Canillac, La, 54 
 
 Chalais, La, 315 
 Romance Language, The, 83 
 Roque-Gageac, La, 107 
 Rue, The (River), 27 
 
 de. 
 
 See 
 
 Salignac, Francoi 
 
 Fenelon 
 Sarlat, 127 
 
 Saut de la Saule, Le, 27 
 Sauterne, The vintage at, 393 
 Sauve, St., 4 
 Savennes, 17 
 Sebastien, Dom, 273 
 Secondat, Charles de. See Mon 
 
 tesquieu 
 
 Servieres, 58 
 Shroud, The Holy, 143 
 Siorac, 136 
 Snail-eaters, 166 
 Songs of Perigord, 199 
 Souillac, 88 
 Spinning-wheels, 51 
 Superstition, 211, 366 
 
 Taillefer, 215 
 Talbot, 323, 346, 350-360 
 Tarde, Jean, 105, 129, 143, 355 
 Tayac, La Roque de, 164 
 
 Church of, 175 
 Tocane St. Apre, 284 
 Tocsin, The, 241 
 Tour de Mareuil, 93 
 
 de Vesone, 214 
 Trappists, 246, 248, 250-275 
 Troglodytes, 155 
 Truffles, 93, 156 
 Turenne, 73 
 Tursac, 168 
 
 j Uxellodunum, 71 
 
 Vauclaire, La Chartreuse de, 278, 
 
 Vayrac, 70 [279 
 
 Verdelais, 391 
 
 Vdzere, Valley of the, 1 51-179 
 
 Victor, St., 240 
 
 Villandraut, 382 
 
 Villefranche de Longchapt, 324 
 
 Villeinage, 79 
 
 Vin de plaine, 361 
 
 Vins du pays, 171 
 
 Vintage, The, in the Bordelais, 393 
 
 Viper, The Red, 6, 30 
 
 Wages, 46, 57, 203 
 Wolves, 97 
 
 THE END. 
 
 KILLING AND SONS, 
 
 PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 
 
 /. D. & Co. 
 
LD 21-100m-2,'55 
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