•mi::., 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 IN THE TRACK OF R. L. STEVENSON 
 
 AND 
 
 ELSEWHERE IN OLD FRANCE
 
 - Q 
 
 ctt 
 
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 All rights reserved 
 
 In tKe Track of 
 
 R. L. STEVENSON 
 
 ana 
 Elsewhere in Old France 
 
 J. A. HAMMERTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF " STEVENSONIANA " 
 WITH 92 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BRISTOL 
 
 J. W. Arrowsmith, II Quay Street 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SiMPKix, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company Limited
 
 First pnblisfied in 1907
 
 DC 
 
 :2 V 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THROUGH THE CEVENNES . . . . 
 
 ALONG THE ROUTE OF " AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 " THE MOST PICTURESQUE TOWN IN EUROPE 
 THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 
 THE WONDERLAND OF FRANCE 
 THE TOWN OF " TARTARIN " 
 LA FETE DIEU . 
 
 " m'sieu meelin of DUNDAE ' 
 
 ROUND ABOUT A FRENCH FAIR 
 THE PALACE OF THE ANGELS 
 
 Page 
 I 
 
 • 71 
 
 . 121 
 
 • 137 
 
 • 155 
 
 • 173 
 
 . 207 
 . 219 
 . 237 
 
 86CSS:0
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE SCHELDT AT ANTWERP 
 
 LE MONASTIER .... 
 LE MONASTIER .... 
 CHATEAU NEUF, NEAR LE MONASTIER 
 
 GOUDET 
 
 CHATEAU BEAUFORT AT GOUDET 
 SPIRE OF OUR LADY OF PRADELLES 
 THE INN AT GOUDET . 
 OLD BRIDGE AT LANGOGNE . 
 THE LOIRE NEAR GOUDET . 
 VILLAGE AND CASTLE OF LUC 
 
 LA BASTIDE 
 
 ROAD TO OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 
 THE MONASTERY .... 
 OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS . 
 MAIN STREET, LE BLEYMARD 
 RUINS OF THE HOTEL DU LOT 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 Face page 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 13 
 13 
 16 
 20 
 20 
 24 
 24 
 29 
 29 
 
 33 
 36 
 36 
 
 Vll
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ON THE LOZERE 
 
 ON THE LOZERE 
 
 VILLAGE OF COCURES .... 
 BRIDGE OVER THE TARN 
 WATERFALL ON THE LOZERE 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN 
 
 "CLARISSE" 
 
 THE TARN VALLEY AT LA VERNEDE . 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN 
 
 NEAR FLORAC 
 
 FLORAC 
 
 BOOM ON THE RUPEL .... 
 
 VILLEVORDE ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 
 
 THE ALLEE VERTE AT LAEKEN . 
 
 THE SAMBRE AT MAUBEUGE 
 
 THE GRAND CERF, MAUBEUGE 
 
 THE CHURCH AT QUARTES . 
 
 THE SAMBRE FROM THE BRIDGE AT PONT 
 
 ON THE SAMBRE AT QUARTES 
 
 SCENE AT PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 
 
 THE SAMBRE CANAL AT LANDRECIES . 
 
 THE FOREST OF MORMAL FROM THE SAMBRE 
 
 Vlll
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE INN AT MOY 
 
 THE VILLAGE STREET, MOY . 
 
 VEUVE BAZIN 
 
 THE BAZINS' INN AT LA FERE 
 
 THE TOWN HALL NOYON 
 
 HOTEL DU NORD, NOYON 
 
 NOYON CATHEDRAL FROM THE EAST 
 
 NOYON CATHEDRAL : WEST FRONT 
 
 COMPIEGNE TOWN HALL 
 
 THE OISE AT FONTOISE 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF LE PUY . 
 
 LE PUY: CATHEDRAL AND ROCHER DE 
 FROM PLACE DU BREUIL 
 
 LACEMAKERS AT LE PUY 
 
 MARKET DAY AT LE PUY, SHOWING 
 THE AUVERNGATS 
 
 Face page 
 
 ' 97 
 
 • 97 
 
 . 100 
 
 . 100 
 
 . 104 
 
 . 104 
 
 . 109 
 
 . 112 
 
 . 116 
 
 . 120 
 
 . 121 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 TYPES OF 
 
 LE PUY 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL, LE PUY 
 HOUSE OF DU CHAYLA, AT PONT DE MONTVERT 
 TWO VIEWS IN THE VILLAGE OF LA CAVALERIE 
 LA CAVALERIE, WITHIN THE CAMISARD WALL 
 ST. VERNAN, IN THE VALLEY OF THE DOURBIE 
 THE WAY OVER THE LARZAC 
 
 125 
 128 
 
 129 
 132 
 136 
 
 141 
 144 
 
 148 
 
 IX
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MILLAU, WITH VIEW OF THE CAUSSE NOIR , 
 
 ON THE CAUSSE DU LARZAC 
 
 ON THE TARN 
 
 A ROCKY DEFILE ON THE TARN . 
 
 IN THE GORGE OF THE TARN 
 
 THE CHATEAU DE LA CAZE ON THE TARN . 
 
 PEYRELAU, IN THE VALLEY OF THE JONTE 
 
 BEAUCAIRE : SHOWING CASTLE AND BRIDGE ACROSS 
 THE RHONE TO TARASCON 
 
 TARASCON : THE PUBLIC MARKET 
 
 THE TARASQUE 
 
 THE CASTLE OF TARASCON . 
 
 TARASCON : THE MAIRIE 
 
 A WOMAN OF TARASCON 
 
 TARASCON: "THE BIT OF A SQUARE 
 
 TARASCON : THE PROCESSION OF THE TARASQUE 
 
 PROCESSION OF LA FETE DIEU 
 
 A WOMAN OF SAINTE ENIMIE 
 
 THE FAMOUS DRUIDICAL REMAINS AT CARNAC 
 
 THE MERCHANTS' TABLE 
 
 WOMEN OF THE CEVENNES . 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF MONT ST. MICHEL 
 
 MONT ST. MICHEL 
 
 Face page
 
 Note 
 
 The travel-sketches that go to the making of 
 this httle book have appeared, in part only, 
 in certain literary magazines, here and in 
 America ; but the greater part of the work 
 is now printed for the first time. 
 
 Perhaps the author should anticipate a 
 criticism that might arise from the sequence 
 of the first two papers. Had he gone to 
 work on a set plan, he would naturally have 
 undertaken his pilgrimage along the route of 
 An Inland Voyage before visiting the scenes 
 of Travels with a Donkey, as the one book 
 preceded the other in order of publication, 
 An Inland Voyage, which appeared originally 
 in 1878, being properly Stevenson's first book. 
 Travels with a Donkey was published in 1879. 
 But he has preferred to give precedence to 
 "Through the Cevennes," as it was the first 
 of his Stevenson travel-sketches to be written. 
 Moreover, these little journeys were as much, 
 indeed more affairs of personal pleasure than 
 of copy-hunting, and when the author went 
 forth on them he had no intention of making 
 a book about his experiences — at least, not 
 one deriving its chief interest from association 
 with the memory of R. L. S. He has been 
 counselled, however, to bring together these 
 
 xi
 
 Note 
 
 chapters and their accompan3ang photographs 
 in this form, on the plea that the interest in 
 Stevenson's French travels is still so consider* 
 able that any straightforward account of later 
 journeys over the same ground cannot fail 
 to have some attraction for the admirers of 
 that great master of English prose. 
 
 The book is but a very little sheaf from the 
 occasional writings of its author on his way- 
 farings in old France, where in the last ten 
 years he has travelled many thousands of 
 miles b}^ road and rail between Maubeuge and 
 Marseilles, from Belfort to Bordeaux, and 
 always with undiminished interest among a 
 people who are eminently lovable and amid 
 scenes of infinite variety and charm. 
 
 Xll
 
 "In a little place called Le RIonastier, in a pleasant Highland 
 valley about fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent a month of fine days." 
 — R. L. S. 
 
 The TuLdu Well 
 LE MONASTIER
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 I. 
 
 Someone has accounted for the charm of 
 story-telHng by the suggestion that the 
 natural man imagines himself the hero of the 
 tale he is reading, and squares this action or 
 that with what he would suspect himself of 
 doing in similar circumstances. The romancer 
 who can best beguile his reader into this 
 conceit of mind is likely to be the most 
 popular. It seems to me that with books of 
 travel this mental make-believe must also 
 take place if the reader is to derive the full 
 measure of entertainment from the narrative. 
 With myself, at all events, it is so, and 
 Hazlitt may be authority of sufficient weight 
 to justify the thought that my own experience 
 is not likely to be singular. To me the chief 
 charm in reading a book of travel is this 
 fanciful assumption of the role of the 
 traveller ; and so far does it condition my 
 reading, that my readiest appetite is for a
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 story of waj^faring in some quarter of the 
 world where I may hope, not unreasonably, 
 to look upon the scenes that have first 
 engaged my mind's eye. Thus the adven- 
 tures of a Mr. Savage Landor in Thibet, or a 
 Sir Henry Stanley in innermost Africa, have 
 less attraction for me than the narrative of a 
 journey such as Ehhu Burritt undertook in 
 his famous walk from London to John 
 o' Groats, or R. L. Stevenson's Travels with 
 a Donkey in the Cevennes. I wih grant you 
 that the dehcious literary style of Stevenson's 
 book is its potent charm, but I am persuaded 
 that others than myself have had their pleasure 
 in the reading of it sensibly increased by the 
 thought that some day they might witness 
 Nature's originals of the landscapes which 
 the master painter has depicted so deftly. It 
 had long been a dream of mine to track his 
 path through that romantic region of old 
 France ; not in the impudently emulative 
 spirit of the throaty tenor who, hearing Mr. 
 Edward Lloyd sing a new song, hastens to 
 the music-seller's, resolved to practise it for 
 his next " musical evening ; " not, forsooth, 
 to do again badly what had once been done 
 well ; but to travel the ground in the true 
 pilgrim spirit of love for him who 
 
 " Here passed one day, nor came again — 
 A prince among the tribes of men,"
 
 Through the Cevcnnes 
 
 Well did I know that many of the places with 
 which I was familiar romantically through 
 Stevenson's witcher\^ of words were drab and 
 dull enough in reality : enough for me that 
 here in his pilgrim way that " blithe and 
 rare spirit " had rested for a little while. 
 
 II 
 
 The mountainous district of France to 
 which, somewhat loosel}^, Stevenson applies 
 the name Cevennes, lies along the western 
 confines of Provence, and overlaps on several 
 departments, chief of which are Ardlche. 
 Lozere, Gard, and ilerault. In many parts 
 the villages and the people have far less in 
 common with France and the French than 
 Normandy and the Normans have with pro- 
 vincial England. Here in these mountain 
 fastnesses and sheltered valleys the course 
 of life has flowed along almost changeless for 
 centuries, and here, too, we shall find much 
 that is best in the romantic history and 
 natural grandeur of France. Remote from 
 Paris, and happily without the area of the 
 " cheap trip" organisers, it is likely to remain 
 for ever "off the beaten track." 
 
 In order to visit the Cevennes proper, the 
 beautiful town of Mende would be the best 
 starting-place. But since my purpose was to
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 strike the trail of R. L. S., after some wander- 
 ings awheel northward of Clermont Ferrand, 
 I approached the district from Le Puy, a 
 town which so excellent a judge as Mr. Joseph 
 Pennell has voted the most picturesque in 
 Europe. Besides, Stevenson himself had 
 often wandered through its quaint, unusual 
 streets, while preparing for his memorable 
 journey with immortal Modestine. "I de- 
 cided on a sleeping sack," he says ; " and 
 after repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of 
 high living for myself and my advisers, a 
 sleeping sack was designed, constructed, and 
 triumphantly brought home." At that time 
 the wanderer's " home " was in the mountain 
 town of Le Monastier, some fifteen miles 
 south-east of Le Puy, and there in the 
 autumn of 1877 he spent " about a month of 
 line da^^s," variously occupied in completing 
 his New Arabian Nights and Picturesque 
 Notes on Edinburgh, and conducting, with no 
 little personal and general entertainment, the 
 preliminaries of his projected journey through 
 the Cevennes. 
 
 III. 
 
 Together with a friend I had spent some 
 rainy but memorable days at Le Puy in the 
 summer of 1903, waiting for fair weather to 
 advance on this little highland town, which
 
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 Through the Cevennes 
 
 lies secure away from railways and can only 
 be reached by road. A bright morning in 
 June saw us gliding on our wheels along the 
 excellent route nationale that carries us 
 thither on a long, easy gradient. The town 
 seen at a distance is a mere huddle of grey 
 houses stuck on the side of a bleak, treeless 
 upland, and at close quarters it presents few 
 allurements to the traveller. But it is typical 
 of the mountain villages of France, and rich 
 in the rugged, unspoilt character of its in- 
 habitants. Stevenson tells us that it is 
 " notable for the making of lace, for drunken- 
 ness, for freedom of language, and for 
 unparalleled political dissension." As re- 
 gards the last of these features, the claim to 
 distinction may readily be admitted, but for 
 the rest they apply equally to scores of 
 similar villages of the Cevennes. Certainly it 
 is not notable for the variety or comfort of its 
 hostclries, but I shall not regret our brief 
 sojourn at the Hotel de Chabrier. 
 
 Mine host was a worthy who will always 
 have a corner in my memory. Like his 
 establishment, his person was much the worse 
 for wear. Lame of a leg, his feet shod with 
 the tattered fragments of slippers such as 
 the Scots describe with their untrrnslatable 
 " bauchle," a pair of unclean heels peeping out 
 through his stockings, he was the living 
 advertisement of his frowsy inn, the ground
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 floor of which, still bearing the legend Caf^, 
 had been turned into a stable for oxen and 
 lay open to the highway, a doubtful shelter 
 for our bicycles. But withal, turning a shut 
 eye to the kitchen as we passed, the cooking 
 was excellent, and M. Chabrier assured us 
 that he was renowned for game patties, which 
 he sent to " all parts of Europe." The frank 
 satisfaction with himself and his hotel 
 he betrayed at every turn would have re- 
 joiced the heart of so shrewd a student of 
 charoxter as R. L. S., and the chances are 
 considerable that in that month of fine days, 
 six-and-tw^enty years before, Stevenson may 
 have gossiped with my friend of the greasy 
 cap, for M. Chabrier was then, as now, making 
 his guests welcome and baking his inimitable 
 patties. 
 
 Did he know Stevenson ? " Oui, out, oni, 
 M'sieul" Stevenson was a writer of books 
 who had spent some time there years ago. 
 "Oui, oui, parfaitcment, M'sietc Stevenzo7ig." 
 What a memory the man had, and how 
 blithely he recalled the distant past ! 
 
 ** Then, of course, you must have known 
 the noted village character Father Adam, 
 who sold his donkey to this Scottish 
 traveller ? " 
 
 " Pcre Adam — otii, oui, oui — ah, non, non, 
 je ne le connais pas'' thus shuffling when I 
 asked for some further details.
 
 Through the Cevenncs 
 
 Mine host, who read the duty of an inn- 
 keeper to be the humouring of his patrons, 
 could clearly supply me with the most sur- 
 prising details of him whose footsteps I was 
 tracing ; but wishful not to lead him into 
 temptation, I tested his evidence early in our 
 talk by asking how many years had passed 
 since he of whom we spoke had rested at 
 Le Monastier, and whether he had patronised 
 the Hotel de Chabrier. He sagely scratched 
 his head and racked his memory for a 
 moment, with the result that this Scotsman — 
 oh, he was sure he was a Scotsman — had 
 stayed in that very hotel, and occupied 
 bedroom number three, just four years back ! 
 
 Obviously he was mistaken — not to put too 
 fine a point upon it — and his cheerful avowal, 
 in discussing another subject, that he was " a 
 partisan of no rehgion," did not increase niy 
 faith in him. There were few Protestants in 
 Le Monastier, he told me ; but as I happened 
 to know from my good friend the pasteur at 
 Le Puy that the postmaster here, at least, 
 stood by the reformed faith, and by that 
 token might be supposed a man of some 
 reading, I hoped there to find some knowledge 
 of Stevenson, whose works and travels were 
 famihar to the pasteur. Alas, " /' n' sais pas " 
 was the burden of the postmaster's song. 
 
 To wander about the evil-smelling by-ways 
 of Le Monastier, and observe the ancient
 
 hi the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 crones busy at almost every door with their 
 lace-making pillows, the bent and grizzled 
 wood-choppers at work in open spaces, is to 
 understand that, despite the lapse of more than 
 a quarter of a century, there must be still alive 
 hundreds of the village folk among whom 
 Stevenson moved. But to find any who could 
 recall him were the most hopeless of tasks ; 
 to identify the auberge, in the billiard-room 
 of which " at the witching hour of dawn " 
 he concluded the purchase of the donkey 
 and administered brandy to its disconsolate 
 seller, were equally impossible, and it 
 was only left to the pilgrims to visit the 
 market-place where Father Adam and his 
 donkey were first encountered. So with the 
 stink of the church, whose interior seemed 
 to enclose the common sewer of the town, 
 still lingering in our nostrils, we resumed our 
 journey southward across the little river 
 Gazeille, and headed uphill in the direction 
 of St. Martin de Frugeres, noting as we 
 mounted on the other side of the valley the 
 straggling lane down which Modestine, loaded 
 with that wonderful sleeping sack and the 
 paraphernalia of the most original of travel- 
 lers, " tripped along upon her four small hoofs 
 with a sober daintiness of gait " to the ford 
 across the river, giving as yet no hint of the 
 troubles she had in store for " the green 
 donkey driver."
 
 CHATEAU NEUF. NEAR LE MONASTIER 
 A drawing of this castle by Stevenson has been published. 
 
 GOUDET 
 
 " I came down the hill to where Goudet stands in a green end of a 
 valley."— R. L. S.
 
 IV. 
 
 Along our road were several picturesque 
 patches formed of rock and pine, and notably 
 the romantic ruins of Chateau Neuf, with the 
 little village clustered at their roots, which 
 furnished subjects for Stevenson's block and 
 pencil. Among his efforts as a limner there 
 has also been published a sketch of his that 
 gives with striking effect the far-reaching 
 panorama of the volcanic mountain masses 
 ranging westward from Le Monastier, a scene 
 of wild and austere aspect. A little beyond 
 Chateau Neuf we were wheeling on the same 
 road where he urged with sinking heart the 
 unwilling ass, and while still within sight of 
 his starting-place, showing now like a scar on 
 the far hillside, we passed by the filthy village 
 of St. Victor, the neighbourhood where the 
 greenness of the donkey driver was diminished 
 by the advice of a peasant, who advocated 
 thrashing and the use of the magic word 
 " Proof." 
 
 The road grew wilder as we advanced 
 towards St. Martin de Frugeres, to which 
 village the sentimental traveller came upon a 
 Sabbath, and wrote of the " home feeling " 
 the scene at the church brought over 
 him — a sentiment difficult to appreciate as
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 we wandered the filth-sodden streets and 
 inspected the ugly little church, whitewashed 
 within and stuffed with cheap symbols of a 
 religion that is anathema to descendants of 
 the Covenanters. The silvery Loire far below 
 in the valley to our right, we sat at our case 
 astride our wiry steeds and sped cheerfully 
 down the winding road to Goudet, feeling that 
 if our mode of progress was less romantic than 
 Stevenson's, it had compensations, for there 
 was nothing that tempted us to tarry on our 
 way. 
 
 " Goudet stands in a green end of a valley, 
 with Chateau Beaufort opposite upon a rock}/ 
 steep, and the stream, as clear as crystal, lying 
 in a deep pool between them." The scene was 
 indeed one of singular beauty, the fertile fields 
 and shaggy woods being in pleasant contrast 
 to the barren country through which we had 
 been moving. While still a mile away from 
 the place, we foregathered with two peasants 
 trudging uphill to St. Martin. I was glad to 
 talk with them, as I desired to know which of 
 the inns was the oldest. There were three, I 
 was told, and the Cafe Rivet boasted the 
 greatest age, the others being of recent birth, 
 and none were good, my informant added, 
 supposing that we intended to lodge for the 
 night. 
 
 To the inn of M. Rivet we repaired, this 
 being the only auberge that Goudet possessed 
 
 10
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 at the time of Stevenson's visit. We found 
 it one of the usual small plastered buildings, 
 destitute of any quaintness, but cleaner than 
 most, and sporting a large wooden tobacco 
 pipe, crudely fashioned, by way of a sign. 
 The old people who kept it were good Cevennol 
 types, the woman wearing the curious head- 
 gear of the peasant folk, that resembles the 
 tiny burlesque hats worn by musical clowns, 
 and the man in every trait of dress and feature 
 capable of passing for a country Scot. The 
 couple were engagingly ignorant, and had 
 never heard of Scotland, so it was no surprise 
 to learn that they knew nothing of the famous 
 son of that country who had once " hurried 
 over his midday meal " in the dining-room 
 where we were endeavouring to instruct 
 Madame Rivet in the occult art of brewing 
 tea. The Rivets had been four years in 
 possession of the inn at the time of Stevenson's 
 visit, and I should judge that the place had 
 changed in no essential feature, though I 
 missed the portrait of the host's nephew, 
 Regis Senac, " Professor of Fencing and 
 Champion of the Two Americas," that had 
 entertained R. L. S. In return for our hints 
 on tea-making, Madame Rivet charged us 
 somewhat in excess of the usual tariff, and 
 showed herself a veritable grippe-sous be- 
 fore giving change, by carefully reckoning 
 the pieces of fly-blown sugar we had used, a 
 
 II
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 little circumstance the cynic may claim as 
 indicating a knowledge of the spirit if not 
 the letter of Scotland. 
 
 V. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when we con- 
 tinued our journey from Goudet, intent on 
 reaching that evening the lake of Bouchet, 
 which Stevenson had selected as the camping- 
 place for the first night of his travels. The 
 highway to Ussel is one of the most beautiful 
 on the whole route, l3dng through a wide and 
 deep glen, similar to many that exist in the 
 Scottish Highlands, but again unlike all the 
 latter in its numerous terraces, that bear 
 eloquent witness to the industry of the 
 country-folk. Every glen in this region of 
 France is remarkable for this handiwork of 
 the toilers, and the time was, before the advent 
 of the sporting nawbobs, when in some parts 
 of the Scottish Highlands similar rude stone- 
 work was common in the glens. 
 
 To those who have not seen this work of the 
 poor hill-folk it is not easy to convey a proper 
 idea of its effect on the landscape. In these 
 bleak mountain regions the sheltered valleys 
 and ravines are best suited for growing the 
 produce of the field, but as the soil is scant 
 and the ground too often takes the shape of
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 a very attenuated V, it is impossible to culti- 
 vate the slopes of the valley in their natural 
 condition ; so, with infinite labour and the 
 patience of their stolid oxen, the Cevennols 
 begin by building near the banks of the 
 stream a loose stone wall, and filling in the 
 space betvveen that and the upward slope with 
 a level bedding of earth. Thus step by step 
 the hillside is brought into cultivation, and 
 the terraces will be found wherever it is 
 possible to rear a wall and carry up soil ; 
 indeed, they are to be seen in many places 
 where it would have been thought impossible 
 to prepare them, and out of reason to grow 
 crops upon them. Often they are not so large 
 as an ordinary bedroom in area, and such a 
 space one may see under wheat. A hillside 
 so terraced looks like a flight of giant steps, 
 and it is a unique spectacle to children of the 
 plains to descry, perhaps on the twentieth 
 story, so to say, a team of oxen ploughing 
 one of these eerie fields. 
 
 Along this road, where on our right the 
 terraces climbed upward to the naked basalt, 
 and on the other side of the valley, now flooded 
 with a pale yellow sunset that picked out 
 vividly children at play tending a scanty herd 
 of cattle on the hillside, our donkey driver of 
 old had some of his bitterest experiences with 
 that thrawn jade Modestine. We, fortunate 
 in our more docile mounts, made excellent 
 
 13
 
 hi the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 progress to Ussel, after walking a good two 
 miles on foot. The road be3/ond that town 
 was livety with bullock wagons, heavily 
 freighted with timber, and carts, mostly drawn 
 by oxen, filled with women returning from 
 the market at Costaros, a little town on the 
 highway between Le Puy and Pradelles ; 
 bullocks and people — the former to our em- 
 barrassment — being greatly interested in the 
 wheel-travellers of these seldom cycled roads. 
 When we arrived at Costaros, a town that is 
 drab and dismal beyond words, the evening 
 was wearing out under a leaden sky, promising 
 the stragglers from the market good use for 
 their bulky umbrellas, and we had still eight 
 kilometres of rough country roads between us 
 and the lake. Stevenson, in his heart-breaking 
 struggles with the wayward ass, must have 
 crossed the highway in the dark some little 
 distance south of Costaros to have arrived at 
 the village of Bouchet St. Nicolas, two miles 
 beyond the lake ; and as we urged forw^ard in 
 the rain, w^hich now fell pitilessly and turned 
 the darkling mountains into phantom masses 
 smoking with mist, we could appreciate to the 
 full the satisfaction with which he abandoned 
 his quest of the lake and spent his first night 
 snug at the inn of Bouchet. As w^e wheeled 
 through the mud into the large village of 
 Cayres no straggler appeared in the streets, 
 that steamed like the back of a perspiring 
 
 14
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 horse ; but a carpenter at work in a windy shed 
 assured us that the chalet on the shore of the 
 lake had opened for the season, and in our 
 dripping state we pressed thither uphill, 
 feeling that two miles more in the rain could 
 not worsen our condition. It was a weird and 
 moving experience — the ghostly woods on the 
 hillside, the tuneless tinkle of bells on unseen 
 sheep, the hissing noise of our wheels on the 
 moist earth — and our delight was great when 
 we heard the lapse of v/ater on our left. For 
 nearly a mile the latter part of the road lay 
 through a pine forest, where the ground had 
 scarcely suffered from the rain, but the way 
 was dark as in a tunnel, and glimpses of the 
 lake between the trees showed the water almost 
 vivid as steel by contrast. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " I HAD been told," says R. L. S., " that the 
 neighbourhood of the lake was uninhabited 
 except by trout." He travelled in the days 
 before the Syndicat d' Initiative du Velay, 
 which I shall ever bless for its chalet by the 
 Lac du Bouchet, whose lighted windows two 
 weary pilgrims descried that night with joy 
 unspeakable. Our arrival was the cause of 
 no small commotion to the good folk who kept 
 this two-storied wooden hostel. We were 
 
 15
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 their first visitors of the season, and it was 
 clear they hailed us with delight, despite the 
 lateness of our arrival. Candles were soon 
 alight in the dining-room upstairs, a fire of 
 pine logs crackling in the open hearth, the 
 housemaid briskly laying the table, the mis- 
 tress bustling in the kitchen, doors banging 
 cheerily in the dark night as the master went 
 and came between outhouses, fetching food 
 and firing for which our coming had suddenly 
 raised the need. Our bedrooms opened off 
 the dining-room, and were well if plainly 
 furnished, the floors being sanded, and we had 
 soon made shift to change our sodden garments 
 as well as the limited resources of wheelmen's 
 baggage would allow. Above all was the 
 ceaseless noise of the lake, that seemed to 
 lend a keener edge to the chilly air. 
 
 We could scarcely believe it was the middle 
 of June in the sunny south of France as we 
 sat there shivering before the spluttering logs 
 in a room " suitable for bandits or noblemen 
 in disguise." But a deep sense of comfort was 
 supplied by the savoury smells that issued 
 from the lower regions of the house. Our 
 blessings on the head of the landlady and the 
 whole French nation of cooks were sincere, as 
 we regaled ourselves with an excellent meal of 
 perch, omelet, mutton chops, raisins, almonds, 
 cheese, lemonade and coffee. Imagine your- 
 self arriving after nine o'clock at night at a 
 
 i6
 
 THE INN AT GOUDET 
 
 Where Stevenson was entevtuined by the old man and icoman 
 7i'ho still conduct it
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 lonely inn anywhere in the British Isles and 
 faring thus ! Moreover, the tenants of the 
 chalet — the two women especially — were the 
 most welcome of gossips, and the elder had a 
 gift of dry humour that must have served 
 her well in so wet a season. For three weeks 
 it had rained steadily, she said, and she feared 
 it was nothing short of the end of the world. 
 When we told her that we had come from Le 
 Monastier by way of St. Martin and Goudet, 
 she was highly amused, and the younger, a 
 rosy- faced wench, laughed heartily at the 
 thought of anybody visiting such places. The 
 lake of Bouchet — ah, that was another matter ! 
 Lakes were few in France, and this one well 
 worth seeing. There were many lakes in 
 Scotland ! This was news to them, and they 
 wondered why we had come so far to see this 
 of Bouchet, — as we did ourselves when next 
 morning vv^e surveyed a tiny sheet of water 
 almost circular, no more than two miles in 
 circumference and quite featureless. It is 
 simply the crater of an ancient volcano, and 
 receives its water from some underground 
 springs, there being no obvious source of 
 supply. The lake, at an altitude of 4,000 feet, 
 is higher than the surrounding country. 
 
 17
 
 VII. 
 
 When we awoke in the morning and made 
 ready for our departure the room was filled 
 with the smoke of burning faggots, as though 
 a censer had been swung in it by some early- 
 rising acolyte ; and the fire was again a 
 welcome evidence of the landlady's thoughtful- 
 ness, for the outlook was grey and the early 
 morning air bit shrewdly as the tooth of winter. 
 Had the da}^ promised better, we should have 
 struck south from the lake to Bouchet St 
 Nicolas, at whose inn Stevenson uncorked a 
 bottle of Beaujolais, inviting his host to join 
 him in drinking it ; and the innkeeper would 
 take little, sa3'ing, " I am an amateur of such 
 wine, do you see ? — and I am capable of 
 leaving you not enough." But the way 
 thither is no better than a bullock-track, and 
 several miles of similar road lie between 
 Bouchet and the highway ; so with a lowering 
 sky ominous of more rain, and the knowledge 
 that for three weeks the country had been 
 soaking, we determined not to risk the 
 bullock-track, and retraced our path to 
 Costaros, passing on the way numerous ox 
 wagons laden with timber. 
 
 The whole countryside was sweet with the 
 morning incense of the faggot fires burning on
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 many a cottage hearth. We overtook several 
 young people driving cattle out to the pasture 
 lands, and noting that without exception they 
 carried umbrellas, our hopes of a good day 
 were not high. But by the time we had 
 reached the Gendarmerie, that stands at the 
 crest of the hill on the high road out of Costaros, 
 and were chatting with one of the officers 
 whom we found idling at the door, the wind 
 was rising and heaped masses of sombre clouds 
 were being driven before it across the sky, 
 though in their passage they disclosed no 
 cheering hints of the blue behind. The 
 gendarme admitted that the rising wind might 
 be a good sign, but he was not very hopeful, 
 and seemed to be more interested in meeting 
 two travellers from a country he had never 
 heard of than in discussing the weather. 
 There are parts of France, especially Normandy 
 and Brittany, where, to confess oneself a 
 Scotsman is to be assured of a heartier wel- 
 come than would be accorded to one who 
 came from England ; but Stevenson's boast 
 that " the happiest lot on earth is to be born a 
 Scotsman " counts for little in these highlands 
 of the south, where few of the village-folk have 
 ever heard of Scotland. 
 
 The road south of Costaros even on a bright 
 summer day must appear bleak and cheerless, 
 and that morning our chief desire was to move 
 along it as quickly as we could. Yet, as we
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 advanced, the scene was not without elements 
 of beauty, and the mists that veiled the 
 distant mountains gradually lifting, produced 
 a transformation entirely pleasing, while ere 
 long there were great and welcome rifts in the 
 grey above, and patches of blue sky heartened 
 us on our way. By the time we had reached 
 the hamlet of La Sauvetat the sun was peeping 
 out fitfully, and on our right it suddenly fxooded 
 with amber light a meadow, yellow with 
 marigolds, where cows were pasturing, at- 
 tended by a small girl who was playing at 
 skipping-rope. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 We had again joined the track of R. L. S., 
 where, now armed with a goad, he drove his 
 donkey. " The perverse little devil, since she 
 would not be taken with kindness, must even 
 go with pricking." We had but to sit in our 
 saddles, and wheel rapidty down the long and 
 exhilarating descent to Pradelles, a very 
 tumbledown village with a great shabby 
 square lying at an angle of almost forty-five 
 degrees. The town occupies a little corrie on 
 the hillside, and the ground slopes quickly on 
 the west to the river Ahier, beyond which the 
 country rises again in mighty undulations as 
 far as the eye can reach. For all its slantern- 
 ness — perhaps, in some degree, because of 
 
 20
 
 OLD BRIDGE AT LANGOGNE 
 
 " Just at the bridge at Langogne a lassie of some seven or eight 
 addressed me in ihe sacramental phrase, ' D'oh ' est-ce-que voiis 
 venez ? ' " — R. I.. S. 
 
 
 ■'f 
 
 
 BiHi^En3^rrr' _«- "'■^''''''^^^^ 
 
 
 ^^^^^^hhh 
 
 THE LOIRE NEAR GOUDET 
 
 " An amiable stripling oi a river, which it seems absurd to call 
 the Loire." — R. L. S.
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 that — Pradelles is a place of interest, perched 
 here at an altitude of 3,800 feet above sea- 
 level. 
 
 More than any other place we saw in our 
 journey, this old mountain town wears an un- 
 mistakable " foreign " appearance, and one 
 walks its streets with the feeling that one is 
 moving cautiously along the sloping roof of 
 a house. Among its tumbledown buildings it 
 still possesses fragments of considerable his- 
 toric value, such as its ancient hospice, and a 
 gateway from the top of which a village 
 heroine killed some Huguenot heroes by throw- 
 ing a stone at them while they were leading an 
 assault against its walls. In the church of 
 Notre Dame this episode in the history of the 
 town is commicmorated by a mural painting in 
 vivid colours, the stone which the devout 
 Catholic maiden is hurling at the devoted 
 heads of the besiegers being large enough to 
 warrant the assistance of a steam crane. The 
 interior of the church is very quaint and un- 
 usual, and I am sorry that Stevenson did not 
 yield to the urging of the landlady of the inn to 
 visit Our Lady of Pradelles, " who performed 
 many miracles, although she was of wood," 
 for his impressions of the church could not 
 have failed to be peculiarly piquant. The 
 miraculous image of the virgin is a wooden doll, 
 dressed in lace and set on the higli altar. 
 Pilgrims come in large numbers to its shrine 
 
 21
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 every fifteenth of August ; and one of the 
 spirited paintings on the wall depicts the 
 rescue of the idol from a burning of the church 
 which, I should guess, took place about the 
 time of the Revolution. Evidentl}' the res- 
 cuers of Our Lady were not prepared to submit 
 her to the crucial test a sister image at 
 Le Puy survived — " burning for thirty-six 
 hours without being consumed." Many and 
 unfamiliar saints look down at us from the 
 walls, and at the west end there is a loft such 
 as might be seen in some of the very old 
 Scottish churches, occupied at the time of our 
 visit b}^ a group of women, members no doubt 
 of some pious confraternity. 
 
 R. L. S. has some picturesque notes on " The 
 Beast of Gevaudan," whose trail he first 
 struck at Pradelles ; for we were now in the 
 wild and uncultivated country of Gevaudan, 
 " but recently disforested from terror of the 
 wolves," whose grizzly exploits in the way of 
 eating women and children seem to have en- 
 gaged the imagination of our traveller. If 
 the wolves have gone, they have left in their 
 stead a flourishing progeny of wolf-like curs, 
 who infest the highways and bywa3^s in ex- 
 traordinary'' numbers, to the embarrassment of 
 the wheelman. 
 
 22
 
 IX. 
 
 From Pradelles to Langogne is a long and 
 deep descent, and while walking our machines 
 down an unrideable path, a young woman on 
 a terrace near the road came forward to greet 
 us, tripping unexpectedly over the tether of a 
 goat, and landing softly and naturally on the 
 ground, where after her moment's surprise 
 she smilingly asked, " Oh allez votes prome- 
 ner ? " more usually our bucolic greeting 
 than " D'oh 'st-ce-que vous venezP " the latter 
 " sacramental phrase," on which Stevenson 
 remarks, being possibly suggested in his case 
 by the odd appearance of the traveller and 
 his beast of burden. 
 
 The bridge across the Allier at Langogne, 
 where Stevenson met the " lassie of some 
 seven or eight " who demanded whence he 
 came, is now a crazy ruin, and a serviceable 
 modern structure spans the river some little 
 distance to the west of it. Near this place he 
 camped for the night. He furnishes no infor- 
 mation about his stay at Langogne, where, 
 I should judge, he slept at one of the inns. 
 The town must have altered greatly since he 
 rested there, as it is now on the railway line 
 to Villefort, and a considerable trade in coal 
 seems to be carried on. It is also a popular 
 
 23
 
 tn the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 summer resort, though one is at a loss to 
 account for its attractions to hohday m.akers. 
 Its church dates from the tenth century, and 
 contains in a httle chapel on the right, below 
 the level of the nave, the image of Notre 
 Dame de Tout-Pouvoir, which our landlady 
 at the Cheval Blanc assured us was tres 
 VGiieree, and the housemaid who conducted 
 us thither took advantage of the occasion to 
 tell her beads before the statue, keeping a 
 roving e^yo. on us as we wandered about the 
 church. 
 
 X. 
 
 Stevei^son's track now lav somewhat to 
 the west of the course of the AUier, as he made 
 for the little village of Cheylard I'Eveque, on 
 the borders of the Forest of Mercoire, and 
 in this stage of his journey he was more than 
 usually faithful to his ideal of travel : " For 
 my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to 
 go. I travel for travel's sake. The great 
 affair is to move ; to feel the needs and hitches 
 of our life m.ore nearly ; to come down off 
 this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the 
 globe granite underfoot and strewn with 
 cutting flints." There was no need for his 
 quitting the highway, since his further 
 objective lay due south through the pleasant 
 valley of the Allier. But his diversion among 
 
 24
 
 VILLAGE AND CASTLE OF LUC 
 
 "Why anyone should desire to visit Luc is more than my 
 much-inventing spirit can suppose." — R. L. S. 
 
 LA BASTIDK ^^ 
 
 "At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the 
 river."— R.L.S.
 
 Through the Cevennei 
 
 the by-ways was rich in adventure, and 
 furnished him with material for perhaps his 
 best chapter, " A Camp in the Dark." He 
 had the good fortune to lose his way after 
 nightfall, and to be forced to camp in a wood 
 of pines in happy ignorance of his where- 
 abouts. When next morning he did reach 
 Cheylard he was fain to confess that " it 
 seemed little worthy of all this searching." 
 With a less keen appetite for losing ourselves 
 in a maze of muddy buhock-tracks, we pressed 
 forward through the fresh green valley to 
 Luc, and here rejoined the path of our adven- 
 turer once more. We had the road almost 
 to ourselves, and among the few wayfarers I 
 recall was a travelling knife-grinder, whom 
 we passed near Luc engaged in the agreeable 
 task of preparing his dinner, the first course 
 of which, potage an pain, was simmering in a 
 sooty pot over a fire of twigs. A nation of 
 gourmets, verily, when the humblest among 
 them can thus maintain the national art in 
 the hedges. 
 
 " Why anyone should desire to visit either 
 Luc or Cheylard is more than my much 
 inventing spirit can suppose." Thus our 
 vagabond. But journeying at a more genial 
 season of the year, we found the neighbour- 
 hood of Luc not devoid of beauty. The 
 valley of the AlHer is here broken into wide 
 and picturesque gorges, and in many ways 
 
 25
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 the scenery is reminiscent of Glen Coe, where 
 Alan Brock and David Balfour dodged the 
 redcoats. But late in September it would 
 bear a very different aspect, and Stevenson 
 tells us that " a more unsightly prospect at 
 this season of the year it would be hard to 
 fancy. Shelving hills rose round it on all 
 sides, here dabbled with wood and fields, 
 there rising to peaks alternately naked and 
 hairy with pines. The colour throughout 
 was black or ashen, and came to a point in 
 the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked 
 up impudently from below my feet, carrying 
 on a pinnacle a tall white statue of Our 
 Lady." There is now a railway station at 
 Luc, the line running near the road all the 
 way to La Bastide and as we continued 
 southward that sunny June da}^ it was only 
 the shrill noise of the crickets and the unusual 
 quilt work of the diligently husbanded hill- 
 sides that told us we were not looking on a 
 Perthshire landscape. In a sweet corner of 
 the valley lies La Bastide, a drowsy little 
 town despite its long connection with the 
 railway, which existed even at the time of 
 Stevenson's visit. 
 
 Here, he tells us, " I was directed to leave 
 the river, and follow a road that mounted on 
 the left among the hills of Vivarais, the modern 
 Ardeche ; for I was now come within a httle 
 way of my strange destination, the Trappist 
 
 26
 
 Through the Cevenn6$ 
 
 monastery of Our Lady of the Snows." 
 Thither we shall follow his steps, more closely 
 than usual, as the road is too steep to admit 
 of our cycling. For some distance the route 
 lies through a great forest of pines, but when 
 the crest of the hill is gained a far-reaching 
 prospect greets tlie eye. " The sun came out 
 as I left the shelter of a pine wood," writes 
 R. L. S., " and I beheld suddenly a fine wild 
 landscape to the south. High rocky hills, 
 as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and be- 
 tween these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, 
 craggy, the sun glittering in veins of rock, the 
 underwood clambering in the hollows, as rude 
 as God made them at the first. There was 
 not a sign of man's hand in all the prospect ; 
 and, indeed, not a trace of his passage, save 
 where generation after generation had walked 
 in twisted footpaths in and out among the 
 beeches and up and down upon the channelled 
 slopes." Only when the snow comes down 
 and mantles these abundant hills would this 
 description not apply. It is a perfect picture 
 of what we saw. Presently we noted with no 
 small satisfaction the white statue of the Virgin, 
 which, standing by the highway at a point 
 where a side road strikes northward through 
 the pines, " directed the traveller to Our Lady 
 of the Snows." He describes the pine wood 
 as " a young plantation," but in the inter- 
 vening years the trees have grown into a 
 
 27
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 mighty forest, dark and mysterious, and the 
 statue of Our Lady was so overshadowed by 
 branches rich with cones, that it was impossi- 
 ble to get a satisfactory photograph of it. 
 " Here, then," he continues, " I struck left- 
 ward, and pursued my way, driving my 
 secular donkey before me, and creaking in my 
 secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum 
 of silence." On our equally secular cycles we 
 followed the same track, the roadway being 
 dotted on each side with bundles of faggots 
 gathered by the silent monks, probably for 
 the use of the poor. 
 
 XI. 
 
 " I HAVE rarely approached anything with 
 more unaffected terror than the monastery of 
 Our Lady of the Snows. This it is to have had 
 a Protestant education," says Stevenson, as 
 he recalls the feehng produced within him by 
 the clanging of a bell at the monastery while 
 he was not yet in sight of it. No bells clanged 
 as we descended the road which Father 
 Apollinaris was still in the act of making 
 when Stevenson encountered him. We 
 emerged at length from the shelter of the 
 trees into a wide hollow of land, from which 
 on every side the hills rose up, and where 
 on our right were the outer walls of the 
 
 28
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 pH^^Ki * '^^r^ _^,t.^fifSA 
 
 
 ^1 
 
 
 if 
 
 
 
 
 W' -M^ 
 
 vltvi^'^i 
 
 ^P^HB 
 
 
 
 ^H^i^*^^ '^-^^^^^^tifl^m^B^ffifl 
 
 ||aj 
 
 mm 
 
 11^' 
 
 -.^ 
 
 ^^ ^Iw^''^^^™ 
 
 ilOrwtnilr 
 
 
 H|pPP^ 
 
 BP^"" 
 
 ^W 
 
 P^ 
 
 ROAD TO OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 
 Made by Father Apollinaris " with his own two hands in the space of a year. 
 
 THE MONASTERY 29 
 
 " Modestine was led away by a layman to the stables, and I and my 
 pack were received into Our Lady of the Snows." — R. L. S.
 
 Through the Cevenncs 
 
 monastery, plain plastered buildings, with 
 little barred windows on the ground floor 
 and a row without bars on the second story. 
 On our left was a large saw-mill, where steam 
 saws were giving shrill advertisement of their 
 use. Several monks w^re among the workers 
 at the mill, and a brown-coated figure was 
 walking along the road that opened on our 
 left beyond the timber sheds to some large 
 white buildings which, as we afterwards 
 learned, comprised the farm belonging to the 
 monastery. The first impression was not 
 exactly to touch one's feeling for romance. 
 Trappists in the timber trade suggests a head- 
 ing for a " snippet " periodical, and if the 
 monks were silent, here at least were noises 
 that smote unpleasantly on the ear. 
 
 The buildings of Our Lady of the Snows 
 are quite devoid of any architectural beauty. 
 They are set four-square in the hollow, and 
 the hills trend gently upward on every side 
 richly clad with trees, for the monks have re- 
 forested much of the surrounding land, which 
 is the propert}^ of the fraternit3^ The south 
 side is occupied by a long, two - storied 
 building, which contains the main entrance — 
 a plain, whitewashed, barn-like structure — 
 and buildings of a similar type adjoin it east 
 and west, while the north side of the quad- 
 rangle is filled by the more pretentious 
 masonry of the church, the chapter-house, 
 
 29
 
 ■ In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 and other religious offices, though even here 
 the essential note of the architecture is 
 austerity, the clock-tower being devoid of 
 decoration and purely utilitarian. 
 
 When endeavouring to photograph the 
 buildings while the sun shone, an old man 
 with a very red face, a very white beard and 
 a very dirty white blouse came along, leaning 
 feebly on his stick. He was delighted on 
 being asked to become part of the picture, 
 and begged me to wait a moment while he 
 fixed on his left arm his plaque, whereon I 
 read in brazen letters, " Gardien de la 
 Propriete." This aged and infirm defender 
 of the monastic estates was as proud of his 
 plaque as if it had been a medal won in war. 
 There must be few attacks upon the property 
 of the monastery, which he informed me 
 extended as far as we could see in this wind- 
 swept hollow of the hills, if our friend of the 
 snowy beard and ruddy face stood for its 
 defence ! We were cheered to learn from him 
 that there would be no difficulty in visiting 
 the monastery, and if we wished we might be 
 able to pass the night there. This we desired 
 most heartily for various reasons, but chiefly 
 because it was now close on six in the evening, 
 and days are short in these latitudes. 
 
 30
 
 XII. 
 
 We were told to go round to the chief 
 gateway, and there to summon the Brother 
 Porter by ringing the bell. This we did, with 
 something of that " quaking heart " to which 
 Stevenson confesses in the same act, for the 
 clamour of a bell that one rings in a great 
 silent building seems fraught with news of an 
 offence for which one stands to receive the 
 penalty. Nor do your spirits rise when a 
 little shutter in the door is opened, and a 
 grizzly-whiskered face in a brown hood peers 
 through demanding your business. All was 
 well, however. The Brother Porter ad- 
 mitted us to the courtyard, and went to 
 summon one of the novitiates who, as Guest 
 Father, would do us the honours of the 
 monastery. He was, as I should judge, a 
 young man of five-and-twenty, who came to 
 us through a door on the right of the entrance 
 that admitted to the hospice. Wearing 
 the white flannel habit of the monks, with a 
 black scapular hanging loose and bulky below 
 the neck, he was of medium stature, his 
 shaven face pleasant and comely, and his 
 dark eyes of that unusual brilliance which 
 Stevenson noted as " the only morbid sign " 
 he could detect in the appearance of the
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 monks. Our host bowed ceremoniously in 
 shaking hands with us, and immediately 
 escorted us across the trim garden to the 
 monastic buildings at the other side of the 
 quadrangle. 
 
 During their period of novitiate, which 
 lasts for three years, the monks have still the 
 liberty to talk with strangers or with the lay 
 brethren, but when their final vows are taken 
 they are supposed to be inarticulate, except 
 in performing the religious offices of each day. 
 The Guest Father would in two years more 
 be qualified for the silent hfe ; meanwhile, he 
 exercised his power of speech with so much 
 grace that one felt truly sorry so excellent a 
 talker should contemplate with cheerfulness 
 the voluntary and useless atrophy of his 
 divine gift. Very reverently he led us into 
 the church, which is a plain but elegant 
 building with a vaulted roof, the walls being 
 whitewashed, and the woodwork, of which 
 there is not too much, chastely carved. A 
 number of good pictures are hung on the walls, 
 and there is a series of statues of the saints 
 on brackets, executed with some taste, and 
 entirely free from the usual tawdry colouring 
 of similar objects in French Catholic churches. 
 The altar also is in welcome contrast to the 
 common doll-show of the ordinary church, 
 and although the oft-repeated references to 
 the simplicity of the whole with which our
 
 A Peep info the Library 
 OUR LADY OK THE SNOWS
 
 Through the Cevennes ' 
 
 excellent friend pointed out the various 
 features of the place approached almost to 
 affectation, one must bear ready witness to 
 the apparent sincerity of these poor monks 
 in their efforts towards a simpler circumstance 
 of worship than the Roman Catholic Church 
 in general practises. 
 
 The chapter-house is in keeping with the 
 church in point of restraint in decoration, its 
 beautifully panelled walls giving the apart- 
 ment a genial touch of warmth by contrast 
 with the cold white of its groined roof. 
 
 The library, which occupies a spacious room 
 on the upper story of the north wing, is 
 stocked with some twenty thousand volumes, 
 chiefly in Latin and French, but including an 
 excellent collection of works in Greek, religion 
 and history being naturally the chief subjects 
 represented. When we remember that many 
 of the monks are men of no intellectual gifts 
 and of small learning, being drawn largely 
 from the peasant class and the military, we may 
 doubt if the treasures of the library are in 
 great request. The librarian, at least, must 
 be a man of bookish tastes, since the collection 
 is arranged in perfect order. Our guide 
 assured us that the monastery possesses a 
 copy of Travels imth a Donkey, but he did not 
 discover it for us. 
 
 The refectory is a large and bare chamber 
 occupying the lower stor\^ of the east wing 
 
 33
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Long narrow tables of plain wood stand around 
 the room, and on these are laid the simple 
 utensils of the meal. The monks sit on a 
 rude bench, and for the greater part of the 
 year they take but one meal in twenty-four 
 iiours ; but during the summer months, when 
 one might suppose their needs to be less, they, 
 by special indulgence, go so far towards 
 temporising with the flesh as to eat twice in 
 one day. 
 
 R. L. S. v/as moved to a little disquisition 
 on the subject of over-eating when he contem- 
 plated the dietetic restraint of the Trappist 
 brethren. " Their meals are scanty, but even 
 of these they eat sparingly," he writes ; " and 
 though each is allowed a small carafe of wine, 
 many refrain from this indulgence. Without 
 doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat 
 themselves ; our meals serve not only for 
 support, but as a hearty and natural diversion 
 from the labour of life. Yet, though excess 
 may be hurtful, I should have thought this 
 Trappist regimen defective. And I am 
 astonished, as I look back, at the freslmess 
 of face and the cheerfulness of manner of all 
 whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier 
 company I should scarce suppose that I have 
 ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak 
 upland, and with the incessant occupation of 
 the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, 
 and death no infrequent visitor, at Our Lady 
 
 34
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 of the Snows. This, at least, was what was 
 told me. But if they die easily, they must 
 live healthily in the meantime, for they 
 seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour, 
 and the only morbid sign that I could observe 
 — an unusual brilliancy of the eye — was one 
 that rather served to increase the general 
 impression of vivacity and strength." 
 
 On the topmost floor of the east wing we 
 were shown the dormitory, a long and, as I 
 recall it, a somewhat low-roofed room, divided 
 into numerous little cubicles, each enclosed 
 on three sides, and screened from the passage 
 by a curtain of red cloth. The couch consisted 
 of a single mattress laid on boards, with the 
 scantiest supply of bedclothes. Each of these 
 little compartments bore in painted letters 
 the monastic name of its occupant, and here 
 every night, after the toils and vigils of the 
 day, the brethren lay themselves down at 
 eight o'clock in their ordinary habit of dress, 
 being in this respect less fanatical than other 
 fraternities of the same order, who sleep in 
 their coffins, and even in unduly ready 
 graves. *' By two in the morning," says 
 R. L. S., " the clapper goes upon the bell, and 
 so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter 
 by quarter, till eight, the hour of rest ; so 
 infinitesimally is the day divided among 
 different occupations. The man v/ho keeps 
 rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches 
 
 35
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 to the chapel, tlie chapter-room, or the 
 refectory all day long : every hour he has an 
 office to sing, a duty to perform ; from two, 
 when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he 
 returns to receive the comfortable gift of 
 sleep, he is upon his feet, and occupied with 
 manifold and changing business. I know 
 many persons, worth several thousands in the 
 year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal 
 of their lives. Into how many houses would 
 not the note of the monastery bell, dividing 
 the day into manageable portions, bring peace 
 of mind and healthful activity of body. We 
 speak of hardships, but the true hardship is 
 to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage 
 life in our own dull and foolish manner." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 On our way back to the hospice we learned 
 with regret that Father ApoUinaris, " so good 
 and so simple," had been dead five years, and 
 the right of the monastery to the title of Our 
 Lady of the Snows was clearty established 
 by the information that in the winter months 
 it is buried for weeks on end, and our young 
 friend of the shiny eyes shivered as he spoke 
 of the neige enorme, which he is doomed to see 
 every winter that he lives. 
 
 In the hospice the apartments for the use 
 of visitors and retraitants are situated. To 
 
 36
 
 ^ H^ 
 
 ■^'
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 the right of the gateway on the ground level 
 are the kitchens and storerooms, and a door 
 opening at tlie foot of the stair admits one into 
 a small and barely furnished room, where 
 supper had been prepared for us. A small 
 table covered with American cloth, with chairs 
 set about it to accommodate perhaps eight or 
 ten guests, were the chief items of furniture. 
 There were a few prints of a religious character 
 hung upon the walls, and to the right of the 
 fireplace stood a little bookcase, containing, 
 however, no works of interest. The meal 
 served to us was well cooked and savoury, and 
 as an excellent omelet formed its piece de 
 rc^sistance, with soup, potato salad, walnuts, 
 figs and cheese included, it needed none of the 
 profuse apologies for poverty of fare with 
 which it was set before us. 
 
 We were afterwards shown our bedroom on 
 the floor above, a fairly commodious room 
 containing two iron bedsteads, with a more 
 liberal supply of bedclothes than we saw in the 
 dormitory of the monks, a small table and two 
 chairs. A crucifix stood on the mantlepiece, 
 and, as in some hotels, a printed sheet of 
 regulations was fixed on the wall near the door. 
 One may suppose it to have been a copy of 
 that which Stevenson noted, for it wound up 
 with an admonition to occupy one's spare 
 time by examining one's conscience, confessing 
 one's sins, and making good resolutions. " To 
 
 37
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 make good resolutions, indeed ! " comments 
 R. L. S. " You might talk as fruitfully of 
 making the hair grow on your head." So far 
 as we could judge, the south wing at the time of 
 our visit sheltered no other strangers than our- 
 selves ; nor did it appear there were any weary, 
 world-worn laymen living here in retreat. 
 At the time of Stevenson's sojourn among the 
 monks there was quite a little company in the 
 hospice, an English boarder, a parish priest, 
 and an old soldier being some of the acquain- 
 tances he made in the little room where we had 
 supped. But there is a constant and increas- 
 ing number of visitors to the monastery, and 
 immediate^ below our bedroom there was a 
 large and well-stocked apartment that gave 
 evidence of this. Here we found a varied 
 supply of crucifixes and rosaries to suit all 
 purses, samples of the different liqueurs dis- 
 tilled by the monks, and picture post cards in 
 abundance. The Brother Porter, a simple 
 boorish fellow, in vain spread his bottles in the 
 sight of two who were not patrons of the stuff ; 
 but we reduced his stock of post cards and his 
 rosaries. He took the money like a post office 
 girl selling stamps. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 When we took our places in the little gallery 
 that extends across the west side of the 
 
 38
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 chapel to hear the monks chanting the last 
 service of the day, Compline and Salve Regina, 
 we found that there was at least another 
 visitor, in the person of a stout and blue- 
 chinned cure. The white-robed monks were 
 seated in their chairs in the choir, books upon 
 their knees ; while the organist in an elevated 
 position on a level with the gallery played, 
 unseen by us, " those majestic old Gregorian 
 chants that, wherever you may hear them 
 (in Meredith's fine phrase) seem to build up 
 cathedral walls about you." Paraffin lamps 
 shed a dim, uncertain light, and the rich full 
 voices of the singers resounded weirdly through 
 the white- walled chapel, the door opening now 
 and again as some of the lay brothers entered 
 and, crossing themselves, bowed wearily 
 towards the altar, moving to their places below 
 the gallery. After the elevation of the Host, 
 and when the service was almost ended, the 
 organist came down, and we noticed that in 
 making his way out of the chapel he hung back 
 a little in passing the choir screen, that he might 
 not meet on his way to the door any of the 
 brethren who were now slowly leaving. 
 
 Of a similar service Stevenson writes : 
 " There were none of those circumstances 
 which strike the Protestant as childish or as 
 tawdry in the public offices of Rome. A stern 
 simplicity, heightened by the romance of the 
 surroundings, spoke directly to the heart. I 
 
 39
 
 tn the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 recall the whitewashed chapel, the hooded 
 figures in the choir, the lights alternately 
 occluded and revealed the strong manly 
 singing, the silence that ensued, the sight of 
 cowled heads bowed in prayer, and then the 
 clear trenchant beating of the bell, breaking 
 in to show that the last ofhce was over, and the 
 hour of sleep had come ; and when I remem- 
 ber, I am not surprised that I made my escape 
 into the court with somewhat whirling fancies, 
 and stood like a man bewildered in the windy 
 starry night." The effect of it all on the 
 sentimental traveller was summed up in these 
 fervent words : " And I blessed God that I 
 was free to wander, free to hope, and free to 
 love." 
 
 This, indeed, must be the impression all 
 robust and unfettered minds will receive 
 from a visit to Our Lady of the Snows. It is 
 true that in their busy saw-mill which stands 
 to the west of the monastery, and where the 
 timber from the hills is turned to commercial 
 use by the monks and their lay assistants, in 
 their well-managed farm some distance west- 
 ward, in the surrounding fields, in their many 
 workshops — in these they have varied occupa- 
 tions, and of a manly character, but the 
 terrible uselessness of it all is ever present to 
 the mind of one coming from the stress and 
 struggle of the zestful world. Poor men ! in 
 their sullen way they ma}^ believe they have 
 
 40
 
 Malavieille, a niountain sheiling 
 
 Scene of "^ Night among the Pines'' 
 
 " Buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in the pine woods, 
 between four and live thousand feet towards the stars." — R. L. S. 
 
 ON THE LOZfiRE
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 chosen the better part ; but, simple and 
 devout as they may be, they are the real 
 cowards of life, the shirkers of the battle we 
 are meant to fight. 
 
 We slept the sleep of tired men in our room 
 upstairs, and heard none of those hourly 
 bells Stevenson records. Our young friend, 
 whose monastic name I foolishly omitted to 
 ask, called us before eight in the morning, 
 and after providing a capital breakfast, bade 
 us a ceremonious good-bye, watching us from 
 the door until the pine woods enclosed us. 
 
 XV. 
 
 We made a swift descent to La Bastide, and 
 by way of Chasserades, where Stevenson 
 slept in the common bedroom of the inn, 
 reached Le Bleymard late in the afternoon, 
 passing through a country of bare hills and 
 poor villages clustered in gusty hollows or 
 hanging like swallows' nests on craggy slopes. 
 The valley of the Lot, rich and beautiful 
 westward to Mende, possesses no elements 
 of charm in the neighbourhood of Bleymard, 
 and we found that town so mean and feature- 
 less, that we had no wish to pass the evening 
 there. The inn we wanted was, so a crippled 
 girl told us, at La Remise, on the high road, 
 and we must have passed it. We remounted 
 
 41
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 our cycles and retraced our path across the 
 river, a distance of perhaps three furlongs, 
 and lo ! there stood the charred remains of the 
 Hotel du Lot, where we had hoped to rest 
 ourselves. We had passed the place without 
 noticing it, and the view of its gaunt and 
 smoky walls, now that they had acquired so 
 personal an interest, chilled our hearts, for the 
 need to rest and refresh ourselves was pressing. 
 It was after sundown, and there lay between 
 us and Pont de Montvert a mountain higher 
 than Ben Nevis. 
 
 Opposite the unlucky Hotel du Lot stood a 
 small mtberge, kept by one Teissier. Two men 
 were drinking absinth at a table by the door- 
 way. One was a thick-set fellow, wearing 
 eyeglasses, and clothed not unlike a foreman 
 mechanic in England. The other was the 
 famihar dark French type, thin of features, 
 eyes bright as those of a consumptive, his 
 beard ample and of a jet black, against which 
 his ripe red lips showed noticeably. He was 
 dressed like a clerk or commcrgant. They 
 made us welcome at their table, and we fell at 
 once to discussing the situation, from which 
 it was evident we could not hope to cross the 
 Lozere that night. Some tourists had ex- 
 perienced a bad time traversing the mountain 
 the previous Sunday, and as we could not hope 
 to do more than reach the Baraque de Secours 
 by nightfall, it would be madness to attempt 
 
 42
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 the descent into the valley of the Tarn after 
 dark, the road lying in many places along the 
 lip of a prec'pice. Besides, this wayside inn 
 was very well managed, said the absinth 
 drinkers ; they had lived there since being 
 burned out across the way, a statement that 
 cheered us not a little, as every other feature 
 of the place was extremely uninviting. 
 
 The landlady, who had shown no interest 
 in us whatever, I found busy at a large cooking- 
 range in a tiny kitchen, which opened off the 
 common sitting-room, and served also for the 
 living-room of the servants and familiar 
 loungers. She was a woman of austere coun- 
 tenance, displaying like so many middle-aged 
 Frenchwomen a considerable moustache ; but 
 I noticed that her teeth were white. Yes, she 
 would be glad to supply dinner if we were to 
 stay overnight. We were, I confessed with- 
 out enthusiasm ; whereupon she specified 
 glibly the resources of her kitchen. We could 
 have soup, trout, jugged hare, chicken, fillet 
 of beef, potatoes, pastries, cheese, and other 
 things, and by naming one dish and connecting 
 it to the next with et puis, an aldermanic 
 banquet seemed about to be conjured up from 
 the dirty little room and its greasy stove. 
 The common room of the inn had a sanded 
 floor, and was furnished with a plain deal table, 
 round which some country bumpkins were 
 sitting on rush-bottomed chairs drinking beer 
 
 43
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 and spitting freely in the sand. A few cheap 
 oleographs nailed on the dingy walls were the 
 only efforts at decoration. Two drab and 
 unattractive girls gossiping with the customers 
 appeared to be the staff of the hotel. 
 
 I returned to the Frenchmen outside, and 
 found that my companion, anxious not to 
 enter the place until the last moment, was 
 playing at a game resembling bowls with some 
 village urchins, though understanding not one 
 word of their speech. But he came up in a 
 little while to learn the results of my 
 inquiries within, and soon we were all engaged 
 in a very entertaining discussion. It appeared 
 that the Frenchmen were concerned in the 
 zinc mines near Bleymard, him of the oily 
 clothes being chief engineer, the other business 
 manager. I suppose they would be the two 
 best conditioned residents in the district, and 
 here they were lodging at an hotel which, apart 
 from cooking, was below the standard of com- 
 fort to be found in a crimp's den in the region 
 of Ratcliffe Highway. The Frenchman is a 
 VvonderfuUy adaptable creature : give him a 
 table to drink at, a chair to sit upon, and a bed 
 anywhere under a roof, and he can contrive 
 to be happy. 
 
 M. ITngenieur, although he spoke no 
 English, had seen something of the world, and 
 had even been to Klondyke. He could not 
 understand why anyone should have wan- 
 
 44
 
 The Bayaque de Secoiirs 
 
 "The Lozere lies nearly east and west; its highest point, this Pic 
 de Finiels, on which I was then standing, rises upwards of 5 600 feet 
 above the sea."— R. L. S. 
 
 ON THE LOZfiRE
 
 'J^^:iThrough the Cevennes 
 
 dered to such a hole as this — for pleasure ! 
 But he expected that next year's guide-books 
 would describe Bleymard as notable for the 
 ruins of the Hotel du Lot. A wag, obviously. 
 If we wanted to see places worth looking at, 
 there was Nice and Nimes, said his friend 
 M. Barbenoire. Together they extolled, with 
 a rare gush of adjectives, the beauty of these 
 places, and promised to show us picture post- 
 cards that would lure us into visiting them. 
 Tourists did come sometimes to climb the 
 Lozere, from the top of which in clear weather 
 one might see the Alps. The engineer laughed 
 merrily at this, and said the story was as much 
 legend as the exploits of the beast of Gevau- 
 dan. He discussed in a very practical mind 
 the question of miners' wages, and thought 
 that the Bleymard zinc workers were better 
 off with four francs a day than English miners 
 with five or six shillings.. 
 
 Sooner than we had expected dinner was 
 declared ready, and we went inside with no 
 great avidityj; but to our surprise we found 
 the meal laid in a little room at the other end of 
 the drinking den, tolerably clean though dingy 
 and tasteless in its appointments. There we 
 were joined by the wife of M. Barbenoire and 
 two immense dogs of unfamiliar breed. The 
 maid who served us was engaging>^ free from 
 the usual formalities of the table, and between 
 the courses would sit coyly on the knee of the 
 
 45
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 engineer, munching a piece of bread ; but for 
 the rest, ours was no Barmecide feast. The 
 aldermanic banquet appeared in all essentials 
 save the serving, and we fared so well that we 
 began to hope our bedroom would even be 
 comfortable. 
 
 When, later in the evening, we took our 
 courage in both hands and penetrated to the 
 upper story by way of a spiral iron staircase 
 through the kitchen roof and along a dark 
 lobby of loose boards, we were heartened not 
 a little to find in our room two good beds, clean 
 and curtained. Sleep was thus assured, 
 though the smell from the stable through the 
 wall was redolent of rats. It was " a won- 
 derful clear night of stars " when we looked 
 out of our window before retiring, and we went 
 to bed determined upon an early start. The 
 bellowing of the oxen in the stable and the 
 shouts of the hiiveurs below did not come long 
 between us and the drowsy god. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Alas ! at dawn next day we looked forth on 
 a blank wall of mist backing the ruins across 
 the road. Not a hill was visible. We sought 
 our beds again, and by nine o'clock the out- 
 look was only slightly improved, the nearest 
 hills, now resonant with sheep-bells, being in 
 
 46
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 sight. The engineer comfort9d us with the 
 assurance that this was the common weather 
 in June, the best time of the year being from 
 July to October, but he thought the mists 
 might clear before noon. Presently it began 
 to rain, and during the whole day there was 
 not half an hour of clear weather. At times 
 the atmosphere would thin a little, only to 
 show us heavy clouds condensing on the higher 
 hills. Thus prisoned in our room, we con- 
 trived to be comfortable, and I believe that 
 another day would have left us wondering why 
 we had dreaded staying at the inn, so soon 
 does the human mind adapt itself to circum- 
 stances. The rain-sodden streets actually 
 provided entertainment. We watched with 
 interest the coming and going of shepherds 
 and their flocks, the former armed with com- 
 modious umbrellas and their sheep shorn in 
 a way that left a lump of wool upon their backs 
 making them comically like little camels. 
 Many bullock wagons loaded with shale passed 
 by, and we noticed that the slightest touch 
 with the driver's wand served to direct the 
 team, whose heads were, to quote our hero, 
 " fixed to the yoke like those of caryatides 
 below a ponderous cornice." Children played 
 out and in the stables and among the ruins, 
 and an old man, wearing the usual dress of the 
 peasant, with pink socks showing above his 
 sabots, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, 
 
 47
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 and a stick under his arm, wandered aimlessly 
 to and fro in the rain most of the day. The 
 stage-coach from Villefort to Mende rested 
 for a time at the inn, causing a flicker of 
 excitement, and in the evening again the mine 
 officials were there to bear us company. 
 
 The engineer proved himself a thorough- 
 paced sceptic of the modern French sort. His 
 opinion of the country-folk was low — hypo- 
 crites, fools, money-grubbers all ! Holding 
 up a five-franc piece, he averred that for this 
 they would sell mother, daughter, sister ; and 
 then similarly elevating a bundle of paper- 
 money, he exclaimed : " Voild, le Grand 
 Dieur 
 
 " This is a Catholic countryside ?" I said. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " but that makes no 
 difference." 
 
 " There is one Protestant in Bleymard," 
 put in Barbenoire, — " myself ! " 
 
 " x\nd he isn't up to much," added the cynic. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " We shall set out at five in the morning," 
 I said to the landlady before going upstairs, 
 and the engineer signalled to us as we left the 
 room the outstretched fingers of his right hand 
 twice ; wherein he proved something of a 
 prophet, for it was nearer ten o'clock than five 
 
 48
 
 "A cluster ot black roofs, the \illage of Cccures sitting anion;. 
 vineyards." — R. L. S 
 
 Bridge over the Tarn at '■'■Pont de Montvert of bloody memory," 
 and View of the Hotel des Cevennes where Stevenson stayed
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 before we determined to risk the mountain 
 journey, the sky being clear in parts and the 
 rain clouds scudding before a high wind, that 
 promised a comparatively dry day. 
 
 On the bridge across the Lot at Bleymard 
 we were hailed by a man in labouring clothes, 
 who smiled broadly and said, " Me speak 
 Engleesh." As we had not met a single French- 
 man between Orleans and this spot who pre- 
 tended to have any knowledge of our native 
 tongue, we tarried to have speech with this 
 cheery-faced fellow, whose white teeth shone 
 through a reedy black moustache. But his 
 lingual claims did not bear inspection. Beyond 
 saying that he had visited London and Liver- 
 pool, and knew what " shake hands " meant, 
 and that English tobacco was better worth 
 smoking than the French trash — a hint which 
 I accepted by presenting my pouch — he could 
 not go in our island speech ; and so we had 
 to continue our chat in French that was bad 
 on both sides, his accent resembling a York- 
 shireman's English, and mine — let us say an 
 Englishman's French. He was certain we 
 should have no more rain, as the wind was in 
 the north, and if it kept dry to twelve o'clock 
 we could depend on a good day. The weather 
 prophet is the same in all lands, and we had 
 not left him half an hour when we were shelter- 
 ing from a sudden downpour. 
 
 For some miles we had to plod upward on
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 foot in a wild and rocky gorge, with the merest 
 trickle of water below. Yet every corner 
 where a few square feet of clover could be 
 coaxed into life had been cultivated by the 
 dogged peasants, and patches were growing 
 at heights where one would have thought it 
 difficult to climb without the ropes of an 
 Alpinist. Many of these mountain plots were 
 miles away from any dwelling, a fact that 
 conveys some idea of the barren nature of the 
 country. 
 
 The tiny hamlet of Malavieille, about half- 
 way up the mountain side, is the highest point 
 permanently inhabited. It is a mere handful 
 of dark-grey houses, covered on slates and 
 walls with a vivid yellow fungus. Here the 
 upland fields were densely spread with violets, 
 narcissi and hyacinths, and a few dun cows 
 were browsing contentedly on this fragrant 
 fare, while a boy who attended them stood on 
 his head kicking his heels merrily in the sun- 
 shine. He came up as we passed, staring at 
 us stolidly ; and when we asked if the snakes, 
 of which we had just encountered two about 
 three feet long, were dangerous, he answered, 
 " Pas Men,'" and more than that we could not 
 get him to say, though he walked beside us for 
 a time eyeing curiously our bicycles. 
 
 50
 
 XVIII. 
 
 When we had come within sight of the 
 Baraque de Secours, we had reached a sort of 
 table-land reaching east and west for some 
 miles. Eastward lay the pine woods where our 
 vagabond spent one of his most tranquil nights 
 as described in his chapter, " A Night Among 
 the Pines." It was there that, awaking in the 
 morning, he beheld the daybreak along the 
 mountain-tops of Vivarais — " a solemn glee 
 possessed my mind at this gradual and lovely 
 coming in of day." And it was there, too, that 
 out of thankfulness for his night's rest he laid 
 on the turf as he went along pieces of money, 
 " until I had left enough for my night's lodg- 
 ing." Some of it may be there to this day, 
 for there is small human commerce at this 
 altitude, a shepherd or two being the only folk 
 we saw until we arrived at the shelter 
 which we had seen for more than half an hour 
 while we cycled arduously toward it. 
 
 The baraque is a plain two-storied building, 
 with a rough stone wall and porch enclosing a 
 muddy yard. It stands at a height of over five 
 thousand feet, being thus fully five hundred feet 
 higher than Ben Nevis. To the west the Lozere 
 swells upward, a great treeless waste, to its 
 highest point, the Pic d*^ Finiels, 5,600 feet 
 
 51
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 above sea-level ; while a splendid mass of 
 volcanic origin uprears its craggy head some 
 little distance to the south-east. " The view, 
 back upon the northern Gevaudan," says 
 Stevenson, writing of what he saw as he passed 
 near this point, " extended with every step ; 
 scarce a tree, scarce a house, appeared upon 
 the fields of wild hill that ran north, east, and 
 west, all blue and gold in the haze and sun- 
 light of the morning." And then in a little, 
 when he began the descent towards the 
 valley of the Tarn, he says : "A step that 
 seemed no way more decisive than man}^ other 
 steps that had preceded it — and, * like stout 
 Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared on the 
 Pacific,' I took possession, in my own name, of a 
 new quarter of the world. For behold, instead 
 of the gross turf rampart I had been mounting 
 for so long, a view into the hazy air of heaven, 
 and a land of intricate blue hills below my 
 feet." As he makes no mention of the baraque, 
 I venture to suppose that it had not then been 
 built, for one so eager of new experience would 
 not have missed the opportunity of resting on 
 his way at this high-set hostel. A dead sheep 
 — one of several we had seen on the mountain 
 — lay on the road by the gate, and propping 
 our bicycles near it, we picked our way through 
 the mud and knocked at the door. 
 
 A gruff voice bade us enter. We stepped 
 into a smoky room, with an earthern floor,
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 containing a rough wooden table and two rude 
 benches, and in a corner a small round table, 
 a few chairs and a plain wooden dresser. The 
 mouth that had emitted a very gutteral 
 " Ongtray " belonged to a man of small stature 
 but brigandish appearance, who was seated at 
 the smaller table eating industriously. We 
 asked for lemonade and biscuits, but the fellow 
 stared at the words and spoke in a patois 
 that was Greek to me. But when I ex- 
 plained more sententiously that we desired 
 something to eat and drink, he disappeared up 
 a wooden stair, and we knew that a bottle of 
 atrocious red wine, which we would welcome 
 as so much vinegar, would be forthcoming. 
 Meanwhile, the man's wife — a fair-haired 
 little woman with cheeks like red apples, 
 dressed in the universal black of the French 
 country-wife — came in, leading a youngster by 
 the hand. I repeated to her our wants, which 
 she immediately proceeded to meet by break- 
 ing four eggs into a pan, the shells being 
 dropped on the floor, and lo ! an omelet was 
 well on the way by the time her husband in 
 his sabots came clattering down the stairs 
 with the undesired wine, a few drops of which 
 we used to colour the clear cold water we took 
 in our tumblers from a pipe that ran cease- 
 lessly into a basin set in the wall of the room 
 that backed to the rising land. 
 There is one respect in which the Cevennols 
 
 53
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 have progressed since Stevenson went among 
 them. He writes : " In these Hedge-inns the 
 traveller is expected to eat with his own knife ; 
 unless he ask, no other will be supplied : with 
 a glass, a whang of bread, and an iron fork, 
 the table is completely laid." Not so had we 
 found it in any of the inns we visited, all had 
 risen to the dignity of knives and forks ; but 
 here at this house in the wilds our table was 
 laid precisely as Stevenson describes, and the 
 bread being hard, it was a temptation to break 
 it across the knee like a piece of wood. We 
 had almost finished our meal when, after 
 some whisperings between the man and woman, 
 the fellow dived into his pockets and produced 
 a great clasp knife, which he opened and 
 handed to us. 
 
 While we sat and carried on a somewhat 
 faltering conversation— for both man and 
 woman spoke the dialect of Languedoc and 
 were superbly ignorant— two men entered of 
 the same brigandish type as the landlord, and, 
 speaking better French, proffered their ser- 
 vices as guides if we desired to scale the Pic 
 de Finiels. This we had no desire to do, 
 especially when they were frank enough to 
 state that the view from the top was of very 
 little interest. But they urged us to see the 
 magnificent view over the entire range of the 
 Cevennes from the more westerly peak, the 
 Signal des Laubies. This, however, would 
 
 54
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 have taken us some two hours, and we had a 
 long way to travel that day. We were curious 
 to know whether the baraque was tenanted in 
 winter, and one of the guides told us that 
 during the winter the whole of the uplands 
 around us lay deep in snow, the roads being 
 quite impassable. This shelter was only open 
 from the beginning of June to the end of 
 September, when its keepers retired downhill 
 again to Malavieille. R. L. S. crossed the 
 mountain on the second last day in September, 
 so that the snows w^ould soon be lying on his 
 track. When we resumed our journey again 
 we were once or twice beguiled into thinking 
 that we saw some of the snows of yester year 
 lying among the grey and lichened rocks, but 
 a nearer approach turned the drifts into flocks 
 of sheep, which the sombre background 
 rendered snowy white by contrast. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 We went forward into the country of the 
 Camisards along a well-made road which 
 gangs of labourers were leisurely repairing. 
 So good are these mountain roads, and so 
 diligently tended, that one is inclined to think 
 they are used chiefly for the transit of stones 
 to keep them in repair. That on which we 
 travelled has been made since Modestine and 
 
 55
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 her driver footed it through this same valley. 
 In less than a mile from the baraque it begins 
 to sweep swiftly downward. Stevenson thus 
 describes his descent : "A sort of track ap- 
 peared and began to go down a breakneck 
 slope, turning like a corkscrew as it went. It 
 led into a valley through falling hills, stubbly 
 with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and 
 floored farther down with green meadows. I 
 followed the track with precipitation ; the 
 steepness of the slope, the continual agile turn- 
 ing of the line of descent, and the old unwearied 
 hope of finding something new in a new 
 country, all conspired to lend me wings. Yet 
 a little lower and a stream began, collecting 
 itself together out of many fountains, and 
 soon making a glad noise among the hills. 
 Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of 
 waterfall, with a pool, in which Modestine 
 refreshed her feet. The whole descent is like 
 a dream to me, so rapidly was it accomplished. 
 I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley 
 closed round my path, and the sun beat 
 upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland 
 atmosphere." 
 
 If his descent was thus, how much more so 
 ours on our whirling wheels ? We encountered 
 numerous cattle-drovers, whose herds spread 
 themselves across the path and rendered our 
 progress somewhat perilous, as neither hedge 
 nor stone stood between us and the abyss. 
 
 56
 
 XLARISSE 
 
 The Waitress at the Hotel des Cevenncs, from a photograph supplied 
 by the Pasteur at Pont de Montvert 
 
 "The features, although fleshy, were of an original and 
 accurate design ; her mouth had a curl ; her nostril spoke 
 of dainty pride." — R. L. S.
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 There is but little population in the valley, and 
 that centred in two small hamlets, though we 
 observed a number of deserted cabins which 
 Stevenson also notes. The river, too, as it 
 nears the larger Tarn was all his magic pen 
 had pictured ; here it " foamed awhile in 
 desperate rapids, and there lay in pools of the 
 most enchanting sea-green shot with watery 
 browns. As far as I have gone, I have never 
 seen a river of so changeful and delicate a 
 hue : crystal was not more clear, the meadows 
 were not by half so green." 
 
 Our road brought us at length to Pont de 
 Montvert ** of bloody memory," which lies in 
 a green and rocky hollow among the hills. To 
 Stevenson " the place, with its houses, its 
 lanes, its glaring river-bed, w^ore an indescrib- 
 able air of the south." Wh}^ so, he was unable 
 to say ; as he justly observes, it would be 
 difficult to tell in what particulars it differed 
 from Monastier or Langogne or even Bley- 
 mard. One of the first buildings that the 
 traveller encounters is the little Protestant 
 temple perched on the rocky bank of the river, 
 and perhaps it was again the Protestant 
 education of R. L. S. that led him to note a 
 higher degree of intelligence among the in- 
 habitants than he had found in the purely 
 Catholic villages. For my part, with the best 
 will to mark the difference, I found little to 
 choose between the Catholic and Camisard 
 
 57
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 townships, unless it were a more obvious effort 
 after cleanliness in some of the latter. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Pont de Montvert is memorable as the place 
 where the Covenanters of France struck the 
 first blow against their Romish persecutors ; 
 here they *' slew their Archbishop Sharpe." 
 The Protestant pastor, a fresh-faced man about 
 sixty, with a short white beard, and wearing 
 no outward symbol of office, but dressed in an 
 ordinary jacket suit and cloth cap, we found 
 in his home in a building by the river-side near 
 the bridge. Directly across the rock-strewn 
 course was the Hotel des Cevennes, where 
 Stevenson sat at the " roaring table d'hote," 
 and was pleased to find three of the women 
 passably good-looking, that being more than 
 an average for any town in the Highlands of 
 France. Our pastor — his wife and golden- 
 haired daughter also — v/as more interested in 
 discussing Stevenson's travels than the re- 
 ligious condition of his district, a subject on 
 w-hich my companion, a pastor from " the 
 Celtic fringe," was athirst for information. 
 
 To my various questions regarding the 
 position of the Reformed Church I received 
 the barest answers ; there was no glowing 
 enthusiasm chez le pasteur for the Camisards 
 
 58
 
 Throtigh the Cevennes 
 
 who a stone's - throw from where we sat 
 stabbed with many superfluous thrusts the 
 Archpriest Du Chayla, their most brutal 
 persecutor. But Stevenson and his donkey — 
 ah, that was another matter ! He knew all 
 about them to the year, the day, the hour of 
 their quaint and curious visit ; he was himself 
 only two years established in his charge at the 
 time. And Clarisse ! We knew, of course, 
 what Stevenson had said of her ? Would we 
 care tp see her photograph ? She was now 
 married, and settled in another town with a 
 considerable family growing around her. One 
 felt that after a quarter of a century, and with 
 a family thrown in, Stevenson would have 
 resolutely refused to look on the counterfeit 
 presentment of Clarisse. But, less scrupu- 
 lous, we chose to see her portrait, and the 
 pastor was good enough to present me with a 
 copy, as he possessed several which he had 
 procured three years before when ordering one 
 for an Englishman who had gone over the 
 trail of R. L. S. The carte shows the table- 
 maid of the hotel as still possessing some of the 
 featural charms so minutely and faithfully 
 noted by our author. 
 
 " What shall I say of Clarisse ? " he writes. 
 " She waited the table with a heavy placable 
 nonchalance, like a performing cow ; her 
 great grey eyes were steeped in amorous 
 langour ; her features, although fleshy, were 
 
 59
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 of an original and accurate design ; her mouth 
 had a curl ; her nostrils spoke of dainty pride ; 
 her cheek fell into strange and interesting 
 lines. It was a face capable of strong emotion, 
 and with training it offered the promise of 
 delicate sentiment. . . . Before I left I 
 assured Clarisse of my hearty admiration. 
 She took it like milk, without embarrassment 
 or wonder, merely looking at me steadily wdth 
 her great eyes ; and I own the result upon 
 myself was some confusion. If Clarisse could 
 read English, I should not dare to add that 
 her figure was unworthy of her face. Hers 
 was a case for stays ; but that may perhaps 
 grow better as she gets up in years." 
 
 When I look again at the photograph, I fear 
 that even this hope for her who was " left 
 to country admirers and a country way of 
 thought," has not been fulfilled. 
 
 The pastor came with us to point out Du 
 Chayla's house, which stands on the river side 
 westward of his own, the spire of the modern 
 Catholic church showing above the roof. Per- 
 haps it was only natural that he should look 
 upon so familiar an object without any show 
 of emotion, though my fellow-traveller set it 
 down to the cold Christless teaching of the 
 Eglise liberale, to which section of the French 
 Reformed Church Pont de Montvert is at- 
 tached. In that three-storied house, with 
 its underground dungeons and stout-walled 
 
 60
 
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 -a 
 
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 rt 
 
 
 
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 13 
 
 J 
 
 tfl W
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 garden trending down to the river, the Arch- 
 priest carried on " the Propagation of the 
 Faith " by such ungentle methods as plucking 
 out the hairs of the beard, enclosing the hands 
 of his Protestant prisoners upon live coal, " to 
 convince them," as R. L. S. quaintly observes, 
 " that they were deceived in their opinions." 
 On the 24th July, 1702, led by their " prophet" 
 Seguier, a band of some fifty Camisards 
 attacked the house of the Archpriest, to which 
 they at length set fire, and thus forced Du 
 Chayla and his military guard to attempt 
 escape. The Archpriest, in lowering himself 
 from an upper window by means of knotted 
 sheets, fell and broke his leg, and there in the 
 garden, where a woman was to-day hanging 
 out shabby clothes to dry, the Covenanters 
 had their vengeance of stabs. " ' This,' they 
 said, ' is for my father broken on the wheel. 
 This for my brother in the galleys. That for 
 my mother or my sister imprisoned in your 
 cursed convents.' Each gave his blow and his 
 reason ; and then all kneeled and sang psalms 
 around the body till the davv^n." Save for a new 
 roof, the building remains much as it was two 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The road, for close on two miles out of Pont 
 de Montvert, goes uphill past the Cathohc
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 church — the town being now about equally 
 divided in the matter of rehgion — and then it 
 is a long and gentle descent to Florae. In no 
 respect has the road changed since Stevenson 
 wrote of it. nor is there any hkelihood that it 
 will be altered ere the crack of doom. " A 
 smooth sandy ledge, it runs about half-way 
 between the summit of the cliffs and the river 
 in the bottom of the valley ; and I went in 
 and out, as I followed it, from bays of 
 shadow into promontories of afternoon sun. 
 This was a pass like that of Killiecrankie ; a 
 deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn 
 making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, 
 and craggy summits standing in the sunshine 
 far above." 
 
 The slopes of the valley have been terraced 
 almost to the sky-line, not for baby-fields of 
 wheat, but to furnish ground for chestnut trees, 
 that clothe the hills with rich and sombre 
 foliage, and give forth ' ' a faint, sweet perfume, ' ' 
 which tinctures the air with balsamic breath. 
 R. L. S. goes into raptures over these chestnuts ; 
 — " I wish I could convey a notion of the 
 growth of these noble trees ; of how they strike 
 out boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of 
 drooping foliage like the willow ; of how they 
 stand on upright fluted columns like the pillars 
 of a church ; or, like the olive, from the most 
 shattered bole can put out smooth and useful 
 shoots, and begin a new life upon the ruins of 
 
 63
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 the old. . . . And to look down upon a level 
 filled with these knolls of foliage, or to see a 
 clan of old, unconquerable chestnuts clustered 
 ' like herded elephants ' upon the spur of a 
 mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the 
 powers that are in Nature." It was on a 
 terrace and under one of these trees that he 
 camped for the night, having to scramble up 
 some sixty feet above the place he had selected 
 for himself, which was as high as that from the 
 road, before he could find another terrace with 
 space enough for his donkey. He was 
 awakened in the morning by peasants coming 
 to prune the trees, and after going down to the 
 river for his morning toilet — " To wash in one 
 of God's rivers in the open air seems to me a 
 sort of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act 
 of worship " — he went on his way " with a 
 light and peaceful heart, and sang psalms to 
 the spiritual ear as I advanced." 
 
 Some little way from where he had slept he 
 foxCgathered with an old man in a brown night- 
 cap, " clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a faint, 
 excited smile," who said to him after a while, 
 " Connaissez-vous le Seigneur ? " The old 
 fellow was delighted when the donkey-driver 
 answered, *' Yes, I know Him ; He is the 
 best of acquaintances," and together they 
 journeyed on, discussing the spiritual condi- 
 tion of the country-folk. " Thus, talking like 
 Christian and Faithful by the way, he and I 
 
 63
 
 In flie Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 came upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It was but 
 a humble place, called La Vcrnede, with less 
 than a dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel 
 on a knoll. Here he dwelt, and here at the 
 inn I ordered my breakfast. The inn was kept 
 by an agreeable young man, a stonebreaker 
 on the road, and his sister, a pretty and 
 engaging girl." 
 
 We found this little hamlet even smaller 
 than we expected, some half-dozen houses and 
 a tiny place of worship, the whole lying below 
 the level of the main road, so that one could 
 have thrown a stone on their roofs, well-tilled 
 fields and meadows stretching down to the river. 
 A cantonnier who was busy breaking stones by 
 the roadway helped us to identify the place, 
 and was proud to confess himself a Protestant, 
 in common with the little handful of his fellow- 
 villagers. The country grows richer and more 
 fruitful as we approach Florae, passing on our 
 way the old castle of Miral and a picturesque 
 church compounded of an ancient battle- 
 mented monastery and some modern buildings 
 with a tall tower. 
 
 The influence of a country on its people 
 suggested to R. L. S. an interesting comparison 
 as he journej^ed through " this landscape, 
 smiling although wild." " Those who took to 
 the hills for conscience sake in Scotland had all 
 gloomy and bedevilled thoughts," he writes ; 
 " for once that they received God's comfort, 
 
 64
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 they would be twice engaged with Satan ; 
 but the Camisards had only bright and sup- 
 porting visions. . . . With a light conscience, 
 they pursued their life in these rough times and 
 circumstances. The soul of Seguier, let us not 
 forget, was like a garden. They knew they 
 were on God's side, with a knowledge that has 
 no parallel among the Scots ; for the Scots, al- 
 though they might be certain of the cause, could 
 never rest confident of the person." A singu- 
 larly inapposite comparison. It was not in 
 pleasant valleys such as these, or in cosy little 
 towns like Pont de Montvert, that the Camisards 
 fought out their war with " His Most Christian 
 Majesty Louis, King of France and Brittany," 
 but on the bare and rocky plateaus westward 
 of the Cevennes, and on such mountain-tops 
 as the Lozere. Stevenson had never seen the 
 Causse Mejan or the Causse du Larzac, to the 
 southward of the region through which he 
 travelled, or he would have realised that their 
 conditions were even less likely to foster 
 " bright and supporting visions " in the 
 Camisards than those of the mountain-hunted 
 Scots, though much better from a strategic 
 point of view. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Florac is a small town of white houses, 
 cuddled between the eastern front of the Causse 
 
 65
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Mejan and the western foothills ol the 
 Cevennes, with the river Tarnon, joined by 
 the Ivlimente to the south, running northward 
 on its outskirts. There are only two thousand 
 inhabitants, but the number and excellence of 
 Florae's hotels are accounted for by its being 
 an important centre for tourists visiting the 
 gorges of the Tarn, which, totally unknown to 
 the outer world at the time of Stevenson's 
 journey, are now admitted to possess the 
 finest scenery in Europe. Our French guide- 
 book frankly stated that Florae is a place " of 
 few attractions," but R. L. S. makes the most 
 of these in a sentence or two, describing the 
 town as possessing " an old castle, an alley of 
 planes, many quaint street-corners, and a live 
 fountain welling from the hill." The old 
 castle is quite v/ithout interest, and is indeed 
 the local prison, while the alley of planes, 
 called the Esplanade, is a dusty open space, 
 with many cafes lining it, and the grey, feature- 
 less Protestant Temple at its southern end. 
 
 " It is notable, besides," he adds, " for 
 handsome women, and as one of two capitals, 
 Alais being the other, of the country of the 
 Camisards." I do not recall having noticed 
 an unusual number of handsome women, 
 though the wife of the Free Church minister 
 was quite the prettiest French woman we saw 
 in the Cevennes, and the Established Church 
 pastor's wife perhaps the most cultured. 
 
 66
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 R. L. S. found the townsfolk anxious to talk of 
 the part played by Florae in the days of the 
 Camisards, and was delighted to see Catholic 
 and Protestant living together in peace and 
 amity. But it may be that the conspicuous 
 absence of all windows from the lower parts of 
 the Protestant churches is a memorial of times 
 when the adherents of the reformed religion 
 were subjected to the prying eyes and per- 
 chance the more dangerous attentions of the 
 Catholics without. Most of the public officiaU 
 were named to us as Protestants, and the 
 religious differences are as strongly marked 
 between the two sects of the latter as between 
 them and their townsmen of the Roman 
 communion. The larger and State-supported 
 church is Rationalistic, corresponding to our 
 Unitarian, and the smaller a Free Church, with 
 a symbol of the open Bible above its doorway. 
 In what we might call the Free Manse, 
 really an extension of the church for the 
 housing of the minister, a door communicating 
 between the place of worship and the domestic 
 apartments, we found M. Illaire and his wife 
 at play with their children — homely folk, who 
 gave us a cordial welcome, the heartier for the 
 fact that Mme. Illaire had sta3^ed for a year 
 in that '' quaint, grey-castled city, where the 
 bells clash of a Sunday, and the wind squalls, 
 and the salt showers fly and beat " — Steven- 
 son's own romantic birth-town. She could 
 
 67
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 thus speak our native tongue, and my com- 
 panion, for once in a way, needed none of my 
 interpreting. M. Illaire, an essential French- 
 man, swarthy of features, shght of build, 
 voluble and gesticulative, discoursed with 
 shining eyes of Protestantism, but was some- 
 thing of a pessimist, and seemed to think that 
 at best a cold, bloodless Dieism would rule the 
 intellectual France of the future. I gathered 
 that, as in the old days of enmity between the 
 Established and Free kirks of Scotland, there 
 was no traffic between the two Protestant 
 churches in Florae, for Mme. Illaire confessed 
 that she had never seen the inside of the 
 Temple, which we had thoroughly inspected 
 earlier in the afternoon, receiving the key from 
 the pastor's wife, whose husband unfortunately 
 was absent on a visit to Montpellier. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The route of R. L. S. now lay along the 
 valley of the Mimente, which branches east- 
 ward a little south of Florae, and penetrates 
 a country very similar to that traversed 
 between the Lozere and this point. It was 
 only a few miles from Florae that he spent his 
 last night a la belle etoile in the valley of this 
 little river, noting in one of his finest sentences 
 the coming of night : "A grey pearly evening 
 
 68
 
 FLOlvAC 
 
 " On a branch of the Tarn stands Florae. It 
 is notable as one of the two capitals, Alais being 
 the other, of the country of the Camisards." — 
 R. L. S.
 
 Through the Cevennes 
 
 shadow filled the glen ; objects at a little 
 distance grew indistinct and melted bafflingly 
 into each other ; and the darkness was rising 
 steadily like an exhalation." At Cassagnas 
 he was in the very heart of the Camisard 
 country, where there is little to engage one 
 but the historic associations of the district. 
 At St. Germain de Calberte, six miles to the 
 south-west, reached by a rough and difficult 
 road more suitable for the foot than the wheel, 
 he slept at the inn, and the next afternoon 
 (Thursday, 3rd October) he accomplished the 
 eight remaining miles through the waterless 
 valley of the Garden to St. Jean du Gard — 
 *' fifteen miles and a stiff hill in little beyond 
 six hours." 
 
 There came the parting with the companion 
 of his travels, Modestine finding a ready pur- 
 chaser at much below prime cost. " For 
 twelve days we had been fast companions," 
 he writes on his last page : "we had travelled 
 upwards of a hundred and twenty miles, 
 crossed several respectable ridges, and jogged 
 along with our six legs by many a rocky and 
 many a boggy by-road. After the first day, 
 although sometimes I was hurt and distant in 
 manner, I still kept my patience ; and as for 
 her, poor soul ! she had come to regard me 
 as a god. She loved to eat out of my hand. 
 She was patient, elegant in form, the colour 
 of an ideal mouse, and inimitably small. Her 
 
 69
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 faults were those of her race and sex ; her 
 virtues were her own. Farewell ! and if for 
 
 ever Father Adam wept when he sold 
 
 her to me ; after I had sold her in my turn, 
 I was tempted to follow his example ; and 
 being alone with the stage driver and four 
 or five agreeable young men, I did not 
 hesitate to yield to my emotion." 
 
 V\e are to imagine R. L. S. thus tearfulty 
 occupied in the stage-coach bearing him east 
 to Alais, an important industrial town on the 
 main line northward through Le Puy, whither 
 there is no call to follow him. Vv^e have the 
 romantic regions of the Gausses and the Tarn 
 gorges still to explore. Our wa}^ no longer a 
 pilgrim's path, lies westward. 
 
 70
 
 Along tKe Route of '*Aii Inland 
 Voyage 
 
 " Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone 
 upon alone. If you go in company, or even in pairs, it is no 
 longer a walking tour in anything but name. It is something 
 else, and more in the nature of a picnic. A walking tour should 
 be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence ; because 
 you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or 
 that as the freak takes you, and because you must have your 
 own pace, and neither tramp alongside a champion walker, nor 
 mince in time with a girl. And then you must be open to all 
 impressions, and let yourself take colour from what you see. 
 You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon." 
 
 I. 
 
 Thus wrote Stevenson in one of his essays, 
 but I doubt if he ever put into practice 
 this engaging theory of his. He came nearest 
 to being alone when he undertook his famous 
 tour through the Cevennes ; yet a donkey, and 
 one of so much character as his Modestine, is 
 company of a sort. When he made the first of 
 his little journeys with a literary end in view, 
 
 71
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 he had a companion after his own heart in the 
 late Sir Walter Simpson, to whom the first of 
 his books, An Inland Voyage, is dedicated. 
 That was, however, an enterprise of some 
 adventure, and it was well that the author 
 had a companion, for had he fared forth 
 alone in his frail canoe, as did his great ex- 
 emplar John MacGregor, in the Rob Roy, it is 
 doubtful if An Inland Voyage — not to say 
 all that came after it — had ever been written. 
 In a letter sent from Compiegne during the 
 voyage, he gives a very cheerless picture of 
 the business : '* We have had deplorable 
 weather, quite steady ever since the start ; 
 not one day without heavy showers, and 
 generally much wind and cold wind forby. . . 
 Indeed, I do not know if I would have stuck 
 to it as I have done if it had not been for 
 professional purposes." I suspect that no less 
 potent an influence than " professional pur- 
 poses" in raising his courage to the height of 
 the occasion, was the companionship of " My 
 dear Cigarette," as he addresses Sir Walter, 
 whose canoe had been named Cigarette, that 
 of Stevenson sporting the classic title Are- 
 thusa. Fortunately for the reading world, 
 the voyage, despite its discomforts, had 
 happy issue in one of the most charming 
 books that came from the pen of the 
 essayist, and although hints are not lacking 
 of the shadows through which the canoeists 
 
 72
 
 BOOM ON THE KUPEL 
 Boom is not a nice place." — R. L. S. 
 
 VILLEVORDE ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 
 "The rest of the journey to Villevorde, we still spread our 
 canvas to the unfavouring air." — R. L. S.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 passed, the sunshine of a gay and bright 
 spirit is radiant on every page. 
 
 As it had been my pleasant fortune in the 
 summer of 1903, together with a friend, to 
 follow the footsteps of Stevenson in his travels 
 among the Cevennes, and the pilgrimage 
 having proved plentiful of literary interest, it 
 seemed to me that one might find in a journey 
 by road along the route of "An Inland 
 Voyage" as much of interest, and certainly 
 some measure of personal pleasure. More- 
 over, with the disciple's daring, often greater 
 than the master's, I desired to test the plan 
 of going alone. But it was more by happy 
 chance than any planning of mine that I 
 betook myself, with my bicycle, to Antwerp 
 at precisely the same season that, eight-and- 
 twenty years before, Stevenson and his com- 
 panion set out upon their canoe vo^^age by 
 river and canal, from that ancient port to the 
 town of Pontoise, near the junction of the 
 Seine and Oise, and within hail of Paris. 
 
 In the preface to the first edition of An 
 Inland Voyage, its author expresses the fear 
 that he " might not only be the first to read 
 these pages, but the last as well," and that he 
 " might have pioneered this very smiling 
 tract of country all in vain, and found not a 
 soul to follow in my steps." That others have 
 been before me in my late pilgrimage is more 
 than probable, although I have found no 
 
 73
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 trace of them ; but perhaps I have not 
 searched with care, for I would fain flatter 
 myself that here, as in the Cevennes, I found 
 a field of interest where there had been no 
 passing of many feet. 
 
 II. 
 
 Antwerp seems a town so antique that no 
 change of modern handiwork can alter in 
 any vital way its grey old features. Yet in 
 my own acquaintance with it, on its outward 
 quarters at least, it has taken on surprisingly 
 the veneer of modern Brussels, though by the 
 river-side it remains much as it was when, in 
 the later days of August, 1876, the 
 Cigarette and the Arethiisa, with their adven- 
 turous occupants, were launched into the 
 Scheldt to the no small excitement of the 
 loungers about the docks. There must have 
 been some excitement, too, in the breasts of 
 the voyagers, but, like the true Scots they 
 were, we can well believe they gave no show 
 of it. Stevenson had never been in a canoe 
 under sail before, and to tie his sheet in so 
 frail a craft in the middle of a wide and busy 
 river called for no contemptible degree of 
 courage. But he tied his sheet. 
 
 " I own I was a little struck by this circum- 
 stance myself," he writes. " Of course, in 
 
 74
 
 Along the Route of ''An Inland Voyage" 
 
 company with the rest of my fellow-men, I 
 had always tied the sheet in a sailing-boat ; 
 but in so little and crank a concern as a canoe, 
 and with these charging squalls, I was not 
 prepared to find myself follow the same 
 principle, and it inspired me with some 
 contemptuous views of our regard for life. 
 It is certainly easier to smoke with the sheet 
 fastened ; but I had never before weighed a 
 comfortable pipe of tobacco against an obvious 
 risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable 
 pipe. It is a common-place that we cannot 
 answer for ourselves before we have been 
 tried. But it is not so common a reflection, 
 and surely more consoling, that we usually 
 find ourselves a great deal braver and better 
 than we thought." 
 
 There is but Httle of interest up the river, 
 which waters a level, unpicturesque country 
 to Rupelmonde, where the canoeists would 
 bid good-bye to the Scheldt and steer to the 
 south-east up the Rupel, a broad and smooth- 
 flowing stream that joins the greater water 
 at this point. Against the current they 
 would urge their tiny prows until they arrived 
 after a journey of a few miles at the town of 
 Boom, whence the canal extends to Brussels 
 in an almost straight line. 
 
 As I made my way that grey autumn 
 morning through the little villages and along 
 the tree-lined highway, the brown leaves 
 
 75
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 flickering down in the cold wind that stirred 
 among the branches, it pleased me to fancy 
 how Stevenson, had his youth fallen in the 
 days of the bicycle, would have enjoyed the 
 privilege of riding on the Belgian footpath, 
 which to us who live in a land where no 
 cyclist dare mount his machine except on the 
 highway affords a delightful sensation of 
 lawlessness. It is well to observe, however, 
 that but for this right of the footpath there 
 would be no cyclist in all Flanders or Northern 
 France, since highways and by-ways there are 
 made of the most indiscriminate cobbles, and 
 in the remote country places a cart on the 
 lonely road moves with as great a clatter as 
 one on the stony streets of Edinburgh. 
 
 III. 
 
 I WAS no great way from Boom when I saw 
 advancing a high and narrow structure, 
 drawn by a horse, that progressed to the 
 weird and irregular clangor of a heavy bell, 
 reminding me curiously of Stevenson's 
 moving description of the leper bell in The 
 Black Arrow. When I came up with the 
 horse and its burden, I found the latter to 
 consist of a large circular tank, set on four 
 wheels, with a tall box in front for the 
 driver, above whose head a large bell was 
 
 76
 
 THE ALLEE VERTE AT LAEKEN 
 
 The head-quarters of the "Royal Sport Nautique " is hidden amon^ 
 the trees on the left of the picture. 
 
 THE SAMBRE AT MAUBEUGE 
 
 It was at this point, "on the Sambre canalised," that the canoe 
 voyage began in earnest.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 suspended. The word " Petrol," painted on 
 the tank, indicated its contents. Here, surely, 
 was something that made the days of the canoe 
 voyage seem remote indeed ; the peddling 
 vendor of petrol belongs emphatically to the 
 new century. 
 
 " Boom is not a nice place, and is only 
 remarkable for one thing : that the majority 
 of the habitants have a private opinion that 
 they can speak English, which is not justified 
 by fact." I can heartily endorse our canoe- 
 ist's opinion of the town, but this linguistic 
 pride of its inhabitants is surely a vanity of 
 the past. I found none — and I spoke to 
 several — who had any delusions as to their 
 knowledge of English, and, indeed, few of 
 them had more than a smattering of French. 
 A pleasant fellow on a cycle, who had 
 insisted on riding close to me through the 
 outlying districts of the town, which are en- 
 tirely taken up by extensive brickworks, where 
 I noticed the labourers all went bare-footed, 
 I found capable of understanding a few words 
 of broad Scots, and when I said, " Boom, is't 
 richt on ? " or " Watter, richt on ? " he nodded 
 brightly, and replied in Flemish, which was 
 comically like the Scots. 
 
 The Hotel de la Navigation, where the 
 paddlers put up for the night, and of which 
 Stevenson gives so bad an account, I found 
 no trace of, nor did I tarry any length of time 
 
 77
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 in Boom, since its attractions were so meagre. 
 Tlie " great church with a clock, and a wooden 
 bridge over the river," remain the outstanding 
 features of the town, and viewed from the 
 south side of the river, it makes by no means 
 an unpleasing picture. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The canal was simply packed with barges 
 and great ungainly scows in the vicinity of 
 the town, awaiting their turn to slip through 
 the locks into the freer water of the Rupel, 
 and heigh ! for Antwerp, or even the coast- 
 wise towns of Holland. It was good to feel 
 as one proceeded along the tow-path that 
 here, in this world of change, was a stream of 
 life flowing onward through the generations 
 serene and changeless. " Every now and 
 then we met or overtook a long string of boats 
 with great green tillers ; high sterns with a 
 window on either side of the rudder, and 
 perhaps a jug or flowerpot in one of the 
 windows ; a dinghy following behind ; a 
 woman busied about the day's dinner, and a 
 handful of children." Every day since R. L. S. 
 paddled in this same stretch of water 
 the canal has presented the same picture of 
 life, and thirty years hence, it is safe to 
 prophesy, the wayfarer will find no change, 
 
 78
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 as these canals remain the great highways of 
 Belgium and France for the transport of goods 
 that are in no haste ; and when we come to 
 think of it, a great proportion of the commodi- 
 ties of life may be carried from place to place 
 in no gasping hurry for prompt delivery. 
 
 Stevenson has many profitable reflections 
 on the life of the canal-folk, with which in 
 the course of his journey he was to become so 
 familiar. " Of all the creatures of commercial 
 enterprise," he writes, " a canal barge is by 
 far the most delightful to consider. It may 
 spread its sails, and then you see it sailing 
 high above the tree-tops and the windmill, 
 saihng on the aqueduct, sailing through the 
 green corn-lands, the most picturesque of 
 things amphibious. Or the horse plods along 
 at a foot-pace, as if there were no such thing 
 as business in the world ; and the man dream- 
 ing at the tiller sees the same spire on the 
 horizon all day long. . . There should be 
 many contented spirits on board, for such a 
 life is both to travel and to stay at home. . . . 
 I am sure I would rather be a bargee than 
 occupy any position under heaven that re- 
 quired attendance at an office. There are few 
 callings, I should say, where a man gives up 
 less of his liberty in return for regular meals." 
 But our philosopher, when he goes on to 
 enhance his comfortable picture of a bargee's 
 life, is scarcely correct in saying that " he can 
 
 79
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 never be kept beating off a lee shore a whole 
 frosty night when the sheets are as hard as 
 iron." For these great clumsy craft know 
 well the scent of the brine, and there are times 
 when the snug outlook on the towing-path, 
 and the slow business of passing through 
 innumerable locks are changed for floundering 
 in heavy seas and a straining look-out for 
 a safe harbour. Not all their days are smooth 
 and placid, and sometimes, we may imagine, 
 the dainty pots of geraniums, that look so 
 gay against the windows as we pass, must be 
 removed to safer places, while the family 
 washing, drying on deck to-day, has to be 
 stowed elsewhere, and the tow-haired children, 
 now playing around the dog-kennel on the top 
 of the hatches, have to be sent below when 
 salt waves break over the squat prow of the 
 vessel. 
 
 The journey along the canal bank was to 
 me a very pleasant one, and I had hopes of 
 being more fortunate than the canoeists in 
 reaching Brussels with a dry skin. They had 
 to paddle in an almost continual drizzle, and 
 even made shift to lunch in a ditch, with the 
 rain pattering on their waterproofs. But 
 when I got as far as Villevorde, where gangs 
 of men were labouring on the extensive works 
 in connection with the railway and the new 
 water supply, the rain began, and I was wet 
 to the skin long before I had reached the royal 
 
 80
 
 THE GRAND CERF MAUBEUGE 
 
 Where R. L. S. and his companion stayed for some days awaiting 
 the arrival of the canoes by rail from Brussels.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 suburb of Laeken, where, for evidence of 
 Belgium's industrial progress, witness the 
 splendid improvement on the canal at this 
 point, soon to become a system of docks and 
 water-ways resembhng in extent a great 
 railway junction. 
 
 V. 
 
 One of the most amusing episodes in "An 
 Inland Voyage" was the encounter of the 
 canoeists with the young boatmen of the 
 " Royal Sport Nautique," who in their enthu- 
 siasm for rowing gave a warm welcome to 
 the strangers, and by assuming the latter to 
 be mighty men of the paddle, led them into 
 the most unwarranted boasting about the 
 sport. " We are all employed in commerce 
 during the day," said the Belgians, " but in 
 the evening, voyez-vous, nous sommes serieux.'* 
 An admirable opening for a characteristic bit 
 of Stevensonian philosophy : " For will an}^- 
 one dare to tell me that business is more 
 entertaining than fooling among boats ? " 
 
 Whether or not the newer generation of 
 Brussels boatmen are as serious as the youths 
 of thirty years ago I cannot say. The next 
 afternoon, being Sunday, I came out again 
 from Brussels to make enquiries concerning the 
 " Royal Sport Nautique," and found a commo- 
 
 8i
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 dious brick building occupying the site of the 
 boathouse wherein Stevenson had been enter- 
 tained, but no signs of nautical life about it. 
 There was the slip where the Cigarette and 
 the Arethusa were drawn up out of the 
 canal, and on the roadway opposite stood 
 this new boathouse and clubroom, with 
 the dates 1865 — 94 indicating, as the only 
 member whom I found on the premises 
 explained, that the club had been founded 
 in the former year, and the building erected 
 in the latter. But he was a churlish fellow, 
 this coxcomb in his Sunday dress, and barely 
 answered my questions. If I too, had paddled 
 my own canoe, perhaps it might have been 
 otherwise ! The day was fine, and the canal 
 was busy with little excursion steamers that 
 were well patronised by holiday-makers, and 
 were covered almost to the water-line with 
 flaring advertisements of Scotch whiskies 
 and English soaps, only one out of a dozen 
 advertisements being of local origin : a cir- 
 cumstance that would, we may be sure, have 
 drawn from Stevenson some pages of gay 
 philosophy. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Following the example of the original 
 travellers, I took train from Brussels to the 
 French frontier town of Maubeuge, where in 
 
 82
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 real earnest their canoe voyage began. To 
 the traveher who has wandered the highways 
 of France south and west of Paris, such a town 
 as this presents some uncommon features, and 
 I cannot but think that R, L. S. gives a wrong 
 impression of it. " There was nothing to do, 
 nothing to see," he tells us, and his only joy 
 seems to have been that he got excellent meals 
 at the " Grand Cerf," where he encountered the 
 dissatisfied driver of the hotel omnibus, who said 
 to him : " Here I am. I drive to the station. 
 Well ! Then I drive back again to the hotel. 
 And so on every day and all the week round. 
 My God ! is that life ? " And you remember 
 Stevenson's comment : " Better a thousand 
 times that he should be a tramp, and mend 
 pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under 
 the trees, and see the dawn and the sunset 
 every day above a new horizon." Here spoke 
 the lover of romance ; but the facts are quite 
 otherwise. 
 
 Maubeuge I found a bright little town, 
 surrounded by mighty ramparts with spacious 
 gates and bridges over the fosse. It is 
 picturesquely situated on the river Sambre, 
 on whose banks stand large warehouses and 
 manufactories, while the shops bear evidence 
 of prosperity. Even Vart nouveaii has reached 
 out from Paris and affected the business 
 architecture of the town. There is a bustling 
 market-place, a handsome little square with 
 
 83
 
 Ill (he Track oj R. L. Stevenson 
 
 a spirited monument to the sons of tlie 
 country-side who have fallen for France, a 
 grey old church, and a pleasure-ground with 
 a band-stand and elaborate arrangements for 
 illumination on gala nights. Indeed, I can 
 imagine life to be very tolerable in Maubeuge, 
 which is really the residential centre of an 
 immense industrial district resembling more 
 closely than any other part of France our own 
 Black Country. 
 
 Stevenson makes no mention of having 
 visited the church, which is interesting in one 
 respect at least. Beneath the stucco casts of 
 the stations of the cross some curb of an evan- 
 gelical turn of mind has ventured on a series 
 of little homilies unusual in my experience 
 of French churches. Thus, under the repre- 
 sentation of Christ falling while bearing His 
 cross we read : " Who is it that causes Jesus 
 to fall a second time ? You, unhappy person, 
 who are for ever falling in your faults, because 
 you lack resolution. Ask, therefore, of God 
 that you may henceforth become more faithful 
 unto Him." 
 
 Only in the most insignificant way can 
 Maubeuge have changed since Sir Walter 
 Simpson was nearly arrested for drawing the 
 fortifications, " a feat of which he was hope- 
 lessly incapable," so that I suspect something 
 of misplaced sentiment in Stevenson's im- 
 pressions of the place. For my part, I should 
 
 84
 
 yf^T 
 
 •( 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 m^ 
 
 
 m 
 
 6?fl 
 
 Wm 
 
 
 ,1^Km -k.4JM 
 
 
 
 
 THE CHURCH AT QUARTES 
 "A miry lane led us up from Quartes with its church and 
 bickering windmill." — R. L. S. 
 
 THE SAMBRE FROM THE BRIDGE AT PONT 
 Where " the landlady stood upon the bridge, probably lamenting 
 she had charged so little," when the canoeists arrived back by river 
 from Quartes after having been treated like pedlars at Pont.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 find it difficult to mention a town of the same 
 size in England or Scotland to compare with 
 Maubeuge as a place to pass one's days in. 
 That omnibus driver with the soul of a Raleigh 
 may have been in some measure a creature of 
 the romancer's fancy. At all events, it is 
 likely enough that he has travelled far since 
 1876, as I take him to have been a man of 
 middle age then. The hotel omnibus with its 
 two horses still makes its journey to and from 
 the station, but the driver is a stout young 
 fellow of florid face, who, I am sure, is perfectly 
 contented with his lot, and enjoys his meals. 
 " C'est ton jours la meme ici," said Veuve 
 Bonnaire, the landlady of the '* Grand Cerf," 
 when I chatted with her in the bureau after 
 luncheon. Yet not always the same, for 
 where was M. Bonnaire ? And I fear that 
 our canoeists, if they could visit the hostelry 
 again would scarce recognise in this lady of 
 gross body their hostess of thirty 3^ears ago. 
 The building itself is quite unchanged, I was 
 assured, and I ate my food in the same room 
 and in just such company as the voyagers 
 dined — military officers all absurdly alike in 
 sharp features, small moustache and tuft on 
 chin, and ungallant baldness of head ; and 
 three or four commercial travellers, each with 
 a tendency to " a full habit of body." 
 
 85
 
 VII. 
 
 The whole establishment of the " Grand 
 Cerf " accompanied the canoeists to the water's 
 edge when they w^re ready to take their leave. 
 Madame Bonnaire, however, has quite forgot- 
 ten that exciting episode of her middle life ; 
 but there, we have Stevenson's word for it, and 
 the good woman must accept the fame. The 
 day was a dismal one, we are told — wind and 
 rain, and " a stretch of blighted country " to 
 pass through. I heartily wished for a speedy 
 end to that same stretch. For six or seven 
 miles the road is lined with factories and dirty 
 cottages, while dirty electric cars rattle along, 
 well-laden with passengers, for here France is 
 at work and grimy ; here is the France of 
 which the tourist along the beaten tracks has 
 no notion. A stout gentleman with whom I 
 conversed by the wayside was very proud of 
 the varied industries of the district. " Look 
 3^ou ; we have glass works, pottery works, 
 iron foundries, engine works, copper, and 
 many other industries in the neighbourhood." 
 Still, I was glad when, a mile or two beyond 
 Hautmont, I found myself outside this region 
 of smoke and growling factories and ad- 
 vancing into a pleasant pastoral country, the 
 river only a httle way from the road. Steven- 
 
 86
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 son's word picture of the scene is photographic 
 in its accuracy, but his art environs it with 
 that ethereal touch the old engravers could 
 give to a landscape, an art that has been lost 
 to us by the vogue of cheap modern " pro- 
 cesses." 
 
 " After Hautmont," he writes, *' the sun 
 came forth again and the wind went down ; 
 and a little paddling took us beyond the iron- 
 works and through a delectable land. The 
 river wound among low hills, so that some- 
 times the sun was at our backs, and sometimes 
 it stood right ahead, and the river before us 
 was one sheet of intolerable glor}^ On either 
 hand, meadows and orchards bordered, with a 
 margin of sedge and water-flowers, upon the 
 river. The hedges were of a great height, 
 woven about the trunks of hedgerow elms ; 
 and the fields, as they were often small, looked 
 like a series of bowers along the stream. 
 There was never any prospect ; sometimes a 
 hill-top with its trees would look over the 
 nearest hedgerow, just to make a middle 
 distance for the sky ; but that was all. The 
 heaven was bare of clouds. . . . The river 
 doubled among the hillocks, a shining strip of 
 mirror glass ; and the dip of the paddles set the 
 flowers shaking along the brink.". 
 
 In this land of many waters every male 
 creature seems to be a disciple of Sir Isaak 
 Walton. A prodigious number of anglers will 
 
 87
 
 In the Track of k. L. Stevenson 
 
 be encountered ; I must have seen hundreds. 
 Every day and all day they are dotted along 
 the canals and rivers as patient as posts, and 
 apparently as profitably employed. It was 
 a continual wonder to me how they could spare 
 the time ; and a pleasure also, for it is cheering 
 to know that so many fellow-creatures can 
 afford to take life so leisurely, and that the 
 factory may whistle and the surburban train 
 shriek laden to the town without causing them 
 to turn a hair. " They seem stupefied with 
 contentment," says R. L. S. in a fine passage, 
 *' and when we induced them to exchange a 
 few words Vvdth us about the weather, their 
 voices sounded quiet and far away." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 At the little hamlet of Quartes, " with its 
 church and bickering windmill " — the latter 
 gone these many years — the canoeists went in 
 search of a lodging for the night, but had to 
 trudge with their packs to the neighbouring 
 village of Pont sur Sambre for accommodation. 
 They would have fared better at Quartes to- 
 day, as there is now a clean little atiherge hard 
 by the bridge, kept by a jovial fellow, 
 wiio told me that his son had taken up photo- 
 graphy, with deplorable results. " He takes 
 m}^ photograph, I assure you, M'sieu, and 
 
 88
 
 ON THE SAME RE AT QUARTES 
 
 SCENE AT PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 
 
 "Away on the left, a gaunt tower stood in the middle of 
 the street." — R L. S.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage** 
 
 makes me look like a corpse in the Morgue " — 
 and the landlord would laugh and show two 
 rows of dusky teeth beneath his wiry mous- 
 tache — " and when I say I 'm not so awful as 
 that, he will say that now I see myself as I 
 really am, for, look you, the camera must tell 
 the truth." He laughs again, and rising, 
 says : " But come with me here," throwing 
 open the door of a private room. " Now 
 there 's a portrait I had done in Brussels, and 
 I 'm really a decent-looking chap in that. 
 So I say to m}^ son, whenever he makes a new 
 and worse picture of me : ' There 's your papa 
 to the life, done by a real photographer.' " 
 I am sure they are a happy family at the 
 inn at Quartes, and the}^ enjoy life, the score 
 or two of barges and boats that pass their door 
 every day keeping them in touch with the outer 
 world of towns. The landlord informed me 
 that he had several times been as far as Paris 
 by the rivers and canals, and that there are 
 excursions all that distance — nearly 200 miles 
 by water — every summer. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Pont sur Sambre is a long thin village, a mile 
 or so from Quartes, and different from other 
 villages only in the possession of a strange 
 lone tower that stands in the middle of the 
 
 89
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 wide street. Stevenson makes note of it, and 
 says : " What it had been in past ages I know 
 not ; probably a hold in time of war ; but 
 nowadays it bore an illegible dial-plate in its 
 upper parts, and near the bottom an iron 
 letter-box." As I was preparing to take a 
 photograph of this landmark, a buxom woman 
 came up and begged that I might photograph 
 her. I protested my inability to do so with 
 any satisfaction, having no stand for my 
 camera. " But you have a camera ; isn't that 
 enough ? And I am so anxious for a photo- 
 graph." What would 3^ou in such a case ? 
 Especially as she said she could wait a month 
 or more for me to send a print from England. 
 So the widow Cerisier poses in the foreground 
 of my picture of the strange tower at Pont — 
 a tower which, she told me, has weird under- 
 ground passages leading away into regions of 
 mystery. 
 
 It was at a little ale-house within sight of 
 the tower that Stevenson and his friend passed 
 the night, the landlady treating them as 
 pedlars, and they enjoying the experience. 
 Here, too, they fell in with a real pedlar, 
 ]\Ionsieur Hector Gaillard of Maubeuge, who 
 travelled in grand style with a tilt-cart drawn 
 by a donkey, and was accompanied by his 
 wife and his young son. Pedlars' fortunes 
 seem to have improved since those days, as I 
 found a travelling cheap-jack at Pont, with a 
 
 90
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage*' 
 
 very commodious wagon, which must have 
 required two horses to move it about, cun- 
 ningly contrived to open into a veritable 
 bazaar, around which housewives and children 
 clustered like bees. Another packman was 
 showing his wares hard by on a lorry equally 
 commodious, where he displayed to advantage 
 an immense assortment of second-hand clothes 
 and remnants of cloth, while his wife was in- 
 ducing the thrifty women of Pont to buy. 
 
 The Sambre at Pont looks very alluring, 
 especially w^hen the sun shines and projects 
 the green shadows of the waving willows across 
 its sluggish waters. Barges pass under the 
 bridge at a snail's pace, and away among the 
 winding avenue of poplars and willows that 
 marks the river's zigzag course through the 
 rich and restful meadow-land we see the masts 
 of other boats moving with consummate slow- 
 ness. R. L. S. illustrates the erratic course 
 of the river by stating that while they could 
 walk from Quartes to Pont in about ten 
 minutes, the distance by river was six kilo- 
 metres, or close on four miles. The folk at 
 the ale-house were amazed when their guests, 
 after walking to Quartes next morning, arrived 
 by river an hour or so later as the owners of 
 two dainty canoes. " They began to perceive 
 that they had entertained angels unawares. 
 The landlady stood upon the bridge, probably 
 lamenting she had charged so little ; the son 
 
 91
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours 
 to enjoy the sight ; and we paddled away 
 from quite a crowd of wrapt observers. These 
 gentlemen pedlars indeed ! Now you see 
 their quality too late." 
 
 X. 
 
 The country between Pont and Landrecies 
 wears many signs of quiet prosperity ; houses 
 are numerous, orchards well-stocked, the 
 people — and never is the highway utterly 
 deserted — smihng and contented, to all 
 appearance. The river at a point about six 
 miles from Landrecies skirts a part of the 
 forest of Mormal, and our sentimental traveller 
 turns the occasion to profit thus : 
 
 " There is nothing so much alive, and yet 
 so quiet, as a woodland ; and a pair of people, 
 swinging past in canoes, feel very small and 
 bustling by comparison. And surely of all 
 smells in the world, the smell of many trees is 
 the sweetest and most fortifying. The sea 
 has a rude, pistolling sort of odour, that takes 
 you in the nostrils like snuff, and carries with 
 it a fine sentiment of open water and tall ships ; 
 but the smell of a forest, which comes nearest 
 to this in tonic quality, surpasses it by many 
 degrees in the quality of softness. Again, the 
 smell of the sea has httle variety, but the smell 
 
 92.
 
 THE SAMBRE CANAL AT LANDRECIES 
 As it was at the time of " An Inland Voyage." 
 
 THE FOREST OF MORMAL FROM THE SAMBRE 
 
 " We were skirting the Forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a 
 place most gratifying to sight and smell." — R. L. S.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 of a forest is infinitely changeful ; it varies 
 with the hour of the day, not in strength 
 merely, but in character ; and the different 
 sorts of trees, as you go from one zone of the 
 wood to another, seem to live among different 
 kinds of atmosphere. Usually the resin of 
 the fir predominates. But some woods are 
 more coquettish in their habits ; and the 
 breath of the forest of Mormal, as it came 
 aboard upon us that showery afternoon, was 
 perfumed with nothing less delicate than 
 sweetbriar." 
 
 Further on he says : " Alas ! the forest 
 of Mormal is only a little bit of a wood, and it 
 was but for a little way that we skirted by its 
 boundaries." So it may have seemed to the 
 canoeists, who saw onl}^ a scrap of the great 
 forest, that thrusts southward to the river 
 at a place called Hachette. But it was not 
 without some misgiving that I found myself 
 suddenly plunged into the woodland, and 
 discovered that I had six miles of it to pene- 
 trate and roads to ride which a httle bo}^ in a 
 cart described eloquently by stretching his 
 arm to its limit and then sweeping it down to 
 the cart, and up and down half a dozen times ! 
 The forest has indeed, as R. L. S. observes, 
 " a sinister name to the ear," and I felt — if I 
 must speak the truth — a little quickening of 
 the pulse when I had ridden about half an hour 
 through its lonely rough roads, with rabbits 
 
 93
 
 In flic Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 and other wild creatures of the undergrowth 
 making strange rustUngs among the leaves by 
 the wayside. The sun had been going down 
 as I came into the forest, but the air among 
 the trees was chilling and wintry after the 
 warm high-road, not a slanting ray of sunshine 
 penetrating the dense growth of trees. The 
 only pedestrians whom I met were a party of 
 rough sportsmen, who eyed me as a curious 
 bird when, in answer to their questions, I said 
 I had come from London. I had wandered 
 from the direct road through the forest, it 
 appeared, and one of the men, having a map, 
 was able to work out a route for me ; but it 
 was another half-hour — which seemed like 
 half a day — before I caught a welcome glimpse 
 of the clear evening sky among the lower 
 branches, and presently emerged on the main 
 road into Landrecies, at a place suggestively 
 named Bout du Monde. 
 
 XI. 
 
 If there is another town so dead as Lan- 
 drecies in all the department of Le Nord, I 
 have a great wish not to pass a night within 
 its walls. It is changed times there since the 
 passage of R. L. S., although it was triste 
 enough when " Arethusa " and " Cigarette " 
 spent two days at the roomy old Hotel de la 
 
 94
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 Tctc d'Or. " Within the ramparts," he says, 
 " a few blocks of houses, a long row of barracks 
 and a church, figure, with what countenance 
 they may, as the town. There seems to be 
 no trade ; and a shopkeeper, from whom I 
 bought a sixpenny flint-and-steel, was so much 
 affected that he filled my pockets with spare 
 flints into the bargain. The only public 
 buildings that had any interest for us were the 
 hotel and the cafe. But we visited the church. 
 There lies Marshal Clarke ; but as neither of 
 us had heard of that military hero, we bore 
 the associations of the spot with fortitude." 
 
 Marshal Clarke, whose tomb looks as new 
 as though it had been set up yesterday, was 
 one of Napoleon's generals, and, as his epitaph 
 reminds us, sometime minister of war. Had 
 he hailed from Scotland instead of Ireland he 
 mi^ht have been more interesting to R. L. S. 
 
 If Landrecies was so dull thirty years ago, 
 picture it to-day, with its barracks almost 
 empty, its ramparts demohshed, and its less 
 than 4,000 inhabitants in bed by nine o'clock ! 
 " It was just the place to hear the round going 
 by at night in the darkness, with the solid tramp 
 of men marching, and the startling reverbera- 
 tions of the drum. It reminded you, that even 
 this place was a point in the great warfaring 
 system of Europe, and might on some future 
 day be ringed about with cannon smoke and 
 thunder, and make itself a name among strong 
 
 95
 
 /;/ tlie Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 towns." Alas ! the barking of a melancholy 
 dog and the clock of the Hotel de Ville ringing 
 out the lazy hours were the only sounds I 
 heard that night, though just before dusk a 
 wandering camelot selling in the street a sheet 
 of " all the latest Paris songs " made a welcome 
 diversion. I sampled his stock, and found it 
 to consist of doggerel rhymes about the Russo- 
 Japanese Wa,Y, mingled with some amorous 
 ditties, and a piece of a devotional kind ! 
 " C'est tine ville morte," said a dumpy lady 
 with a scorbutic face, who drank her after- 
 dinner coffee in the dining-room with me. 
 *' Think of Paris, and then — this ! " she sighed. 
 I wondered what had brought her there, and 
 doubtless she thought I was some cycling 
 fellow who had lost his way. 
 
 But if the military glory of Landrecies is 
 departed, it makes a brave effort to recall the 
 past with an elegant column near the site of the 
 north gate, whereon are recorded the sieges 
 which Landrecies withstood, the last being in 
 the Franco-German War. Also erected since 
 Stevenson's time is a striking monument to 
 the great Joseph Fran9ois Dupleix, whose 
 gallant effort to found an Indian empire for 
 France was frustrated by Clive, and who, born 
 in Landrecies, spent his substance for his 
 fatherland, only to die in poverty and neglect. 
 
 The landlord of the hotel assured me that he 
 remembered the visit of my heroes, even 
 
 96
 
 THE INN AT MOY 
 Sweet was our rest in the ' Golden Sheep' at Moy." — R. L. S. 
 
 THE VILLAGE STREET, MOY 97 
 
 Moy was a pleasant little village." — R. L S.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 mentioning the hour of their arrival and de- 
 parture. He was a young man then ; but to-day 
 his hair is streaked with grey. The Juge de Paix, 
 who entertained the travellers, is still to the 
 fore : a bachelor then, he is a widower now. 
 
 I noticed an odd feature of the hotel : its 
 meat safe was the roof of the passage to the 
 courtyard. Here, hanging from hooks fixed 
 in the roof, were joints of beef, legs of mutton, 
 hares, rabbits, and so forth — an abundant 
 display ; and when the cook was in need of an 
 item, she came out with a long pole and 
 reached down the piece she wanted. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The canoeists left Landrecies on a rainy 
 morning, the judge under an umbrella seeing 
 them off. My lot was pleasanter, for the 
 morning was fine and the landlord's son, a 
 bright lad, with those babyish socks which 
 French boys wear, escorted me some way out 
 of the town on his bicycle, chatting merrily 
 about the state of the roads, and evincing 
 great surprise when he heard that we would 
 be fined for cycling on the footpath in England. 
 My route lay along the highway to Guise for 
 a time and close to the canal, passing through 
 a gentle undulating country with far views of 
 thickly- wooded fields and little hills. The 
 
 97
 
 In the Tyack of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 hamlets by the way were surrounded by hop 
 fields, the great poles with their fantastic 
 coverings of the vine being the most noticeable 
 feature of the wayside, just as R. L. S. had 
 observed them when the hop-growers of to-day 
 were hien jeunc, as the old gentleman at the 
 play in Paris described Stevenson himself. 
 Etreux, where the canal journey ended, I found 
 a thriving and agreeable little town, the rattle 
 of the loom being heard from many an open 
 door, and the thud, thud of flails in the farm- 
 steadings on the outskirts. At Etreux the 
 canoes were placed on a light country cart one 
 morning, and the travellers walked to Vaden- 
 court b}^ way of Tupign}^ a village where I was 
 served with a make-shift lunch at a little inn, 
 the landlady doing the cooking and la3'ing the 
 table with a baby held in her left arm ! Vaden- 
 court is full of weavers, and here close by the old 
 bridge over the river the Arethusa dind Cigarette 
 were launched in the fast-flowing water of the 
 River Oise. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The canoeists were now in the full swing of 
 perhaps the most enjoyable part of their 
 journey. Let a canal be never so beautiful, it 
 is still a canal, and no adventure need be 
 looked for there ; but a river that runs wild 
 and free is a possible highway to the enchanted 
 
 98
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 kingdom of Romance. We have the avowal 
 of R. L. S. that on this sedgy stream, wrigghng 
 its devious \va3/s by field and woodland, he 
 had some of the happiest moments of his life. 
 " We could have shouted aloud," he says in 
 a glowing passage. "If this lively and beauti- 
 ful river were, indeed, a thing of death's con- 
 trivance, the old ashen rogue had famoush'' 
 outwitted himself with us. I was living three 
 to the minute. I was scoring points against 
 him every stroke of my paddle, every turn of 
 the stream. I have rarely had better profit 
 of my life. For I think we may look upon our 
 little private war with death somewhat in this 
 light. If a man knows he will sooner or later 
 be robbed upon a journey, he will have a bottle 
 of the best in every inn, and look upon all his 
 extravagances as so much gained upon the 
 thieves. And above all, where, instead of 
 simply spending, he makes a profitable invest- 
 ment for some of his money, when it will be out 
 of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, 
 and above all when it is healthful, is just so 
 much gained upon the wholesale filcher, death. 
 We shall have the less in our pockets, the more 
 in our stomach, when he cries, * Stand and 
 deliver.' A swift stream is a favourite artifice 
 of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable 
 thing per annum ; but when he and I come to 
 settle our accounts, I shall whistle in his face 
 for these hours upon the upper Oise." 
 
 99
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Indeed, he came near to settling accounts 
 with old Death more readily than he could 
 have cared ; for not many miles from Vaden- 
 court, in attempting to shoot below the over- 
 hanging trunk of a fallen tree, the lively 
 " Arethusa " w^as caught in its branches, while 
 his canoe went spinning down stream relieved 
 of its paddler. He succeeded in scrambling on 
 to the tree-trunk, though he " seemed, by the 
 weight, to have all the water of the Oise in my 
 trouser-pockets." But through all, he still held 
 to his paddle. " On my tomb, if ever I have 
 one, I mean to get these words inscribed : ' He 
 clung to his paddle.' " Brave heart, this is 
 in truth but a humorous phrasing of the 
 stately requiem on the stone upon Vaea Top. 
 
 It was a dripping " Arethusa " that got into 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite that night, and but 
 for the ready and resourceful " Cigarette " 
 the adventure might have ended less happily. 
 Although Origny is a dusty little village, as 
 dull as any in all Picardy, the canoeists rested 
 there a day, and had good profit of the people 
 they met at the inn, as Stevenson's pages 
 witness. The landlord was a shouting, 
 noisy fellow, a red Republican. " * I 'm a 
 proletarian, j^ou see.' Indeed, we saw it very 
 well. God forbid that I should find him 
 handling a gun in Paris streets ! That will 
 not be a good moment for the general public." 
 
 lOO
 
 VEUVE BAZIN 
 
 Hastily and unnecessarily "tidying herself" while being 
 photographed at her door. 
 
 THE BAZINS' INN AT LA FERE 
 Little did the Bazins know how much they served us." — R. L. S.
 
 XIV. 
 
 An accident to my bicycle in the neighbour- 
 hood of Origny made it necessary for me to 
 go on to Moy by train, on a quaint Uttle railway 
 worked chiefly by women, who act as station- 
 mistresses, ticket-clerks, restaurant-keepers, 
 and guards of the level crossings. The 
 carriages were filled chiefly with anglers, and 
 every little station had a gang of them armed 
 with a prodigious number of rods and lines, 
 and each canying a pail with a brass lid. I 
 gathered that the pails were empty almost 
 without exception, as sport had been ex- 
 tremely bad, though numerous patient 
 creatures with rod and line were still to be seen 
 in the drizzling rain along the river, which is 
 here broken into many backwaters, lying in flat 
 land among scraggy pine woods and good green 
 meadows. One sturdy fellow who, like his 
 companions, bore his ill-fortune with a smiling 
 face, averred that though he 'd fished all day 
 and caught nothing, he had bagged fifteen 
 brocJie the previous day between one o'clock 
 and half-past two, and between three and five 
 he had caught an unbelievable number of trout. 
 Anglers are the same in all lands, I suspect. 
 
 " Moy (pronounced Moy) was a pleasant 
 little village, gathered round a chateau in a 
 
 lOI
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 moat," as our author records. " The air was 
 perfumed with hemp from neighbouring fields. 
 At the ' Golden Sheep ' we found excellent 
 entertainment." I asked for the " Golden 
 Sheep," and was directed to an establishment 
 that was named the Hotel de la Poste. I 
 passed on and asked another villager, but he 
 sent me back, as I found on following his 
 instructions, to the same hotel. The postman 
 put me right at length by explaining that the 
 landlord had rechristened his house three 
 months before in honour of the new post 
 office across the way, a shoddy little building 
 where I bought stamps from a middle-aged 
 woman next morning. The landlad}^ of the 
 hotel, who might pass in every particular, 
 save the m^^opia, for the " stout, plain, short- 
 sighted, motherty body, with something not 
 far short of a genius for cookery," described 
 by R. L. S., agreed with me that her husband 
 had made a sad mistake in dropping the old 
 sign of the " Cohier d'Or," " but he would 
 have his own way, and there you are ! " If I 
 could have got the fellow — a fat, jolly mortal — 
 to understand that to have the name of his 
 hotel in a book by R. L. S. was an honour 
 worth living up to, perhaps the old sign would 
 have been fished out, regilded and placed in 
 its old position. But he had not been the 
 patron thirty years ago, and he did not care a 
 straw^ for anything so remote, though his wife 
 
 I02
 
 Along the Route of "An Inla?id Voyage" 
 
 had a gleam of pleasure when I quoted to her 
 Stevenson's note : " Sweet was our rest in the 
 ' Golden Sheep ' at Moy." 
 
 It is a progressive place, although it seems 
 to go to bed at eight o'clock, for there is a good 
 supply of electric light — furnished by water 
 power, of course — in the hotel and other 
 establishments ; but not a solitary street 
 lamp to pierce the blue-black of an autumn 
 night. I must tell you that I was the only 
 guest at the inn, yet a splendid dinner was 
 prepared for me. Soup, fish with mayonaise, 
 fillet of beef with mushrooms, green haricots 
 au beitrre, cold chicken, and a delicious salad 
 of white herbs with a suspicion of garlic, a 
 sweet omelet, pears, grapes, cheese, bread 
 and butter, and, if I had cared, a whole bottle 
 of red wine. An excellent cafe noir followed, 
 in the estaminet, where my hostess apolo- 
 gised for lighting only one electric lamp " pour 
 reconomie, vous savez." My bedroom was 
 commodious and well-appointed, and I had a 
 good French petit dejeuner next morning. 
 The bill ? Three shillings and ninepence, I 
 declare ! Pour I'economie ! Madame, I sym- 
 pathise, and some day I must return to make 
 a visit more profitable to you. 
 
 103
 
 XV. 
 
 From Mo}^ to La Fere is a very short journey 
 even by the river, but the canoeists had 
 lingered till late afternoon before leaving 
 the former place, which " invited to repose," 
 and it was dark when they got to La Fere in 
 their chronic state of dampness. " It was a 
 fine night to be within doors over dinner, and 
 hear the rain upon the windows." They had 
 heard that the principal inn at the place was 
 a particularly good one, and cheery pictures 
 of their comfortable state there arose in their 
 minds as they stowed their canoes and set 
 forth into the town, which hes chiefly east- 
 ward of the river, and is enclosed by two great 
 hues of fortification. But they reckoned 
 without their hostess ! The lady of the inn 
 mistook them for pedlars, and rushed them 
 back into the dismal night. " Out with you— 
 out of the door ! " she screeched. " Sortez ! 
 Sortez ! Sortez par la forte ! " Stevenson's 
 picture of the incident is full of sly humour, 
 but the feelings of the travellers must indeed 
 have been poignant. " We have been taken 
 for pedlars again," said the baronet, " Good 
 God, w^hat it must be to be a pedlar in reahty !" 
 says his companion of the pen. " Timon was 
 a philanthropist alongside of him. " He 
 
 104
 
 THE TOWN HALL. NOYON 
 
 HOTEL DU NORD, NOYON 
 
 Where the travellers stayed 
 
 "The Hotel du Nord lights its secular tapers within a stone-cast 
 of the church." — R. L. S.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 prayed that he might never be uncivil to a 
 pedlar. But after all, it was for the best. 
 That cosy inn would not have afforded the 
 essayist such interesting matter for reflection 
 as he found at "la Croix de Malte," a little 
 working-class auberge at the other end of the 
 town, where the Porte Notre-Dame gives 
 exit to the straggling suburbs. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 There is no passage in the whole of An 
 Inland Voyage so moving, so simple in its 
 intense humanity, as that wherein its author 
 sets down in his own inimitable way his im- 
 pressions of the humble folk who kept this 
 inn. Scarcely hoping that I might be so 
 fortunate as to find either of the Bazins alive, 
 I asked at one of the numerous cafes opposite 
 the great barracks, whence crashed forth the 
 indescribable noise of a brass band practising 
 for the first time together, if there was an inn 
 in the town kept by one Bazin. To my de- 
 light I was told there was, and you may be 
 sure I made haste to be there. I found the 
 place precisely as Stevenson pictures it, noting 
 by the way a .tiny new Protestant chapel with 
 the legend " Culte Evangelique " over its door, 
 a cheering sight to Protestant eyes in so 
 Catholic a country as the north of France. 
 
 105
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 " Bazin, Restaurateur Loge a pied," — there 
 was the altered sign on the cream-coloured 
 walls of the house. In the common room of 
 the little inn, which was full of noisy re- 
 servists that memorable night when the 
 canoeists sought shelter there, I found two or 
 three rough but honest-looking fellows drink- 
 ing, while a grey-haired woman, pleasant and 
 homely of appearance, sat at lunch with a 
 young woman and a youth, the latter wearing 
 glasses and being in that curious condition of 
 downy beard which we never see in England. 
 I stood on the sandy floor by the little semi- 
 circular bar, with its shining ranks of glasses, 
 waiting the attention of a young woman 
 who was serving the customers with some- 
 thing from an inner room, when the old lady, 
 looking up at me through her spectacles, 
 asked what I wanted. " To speak with the 
 patron;' I replied. " Well ? " she said. 
 " Have I the pleasure of addressing Madame 
 Bazin ? " I asked, and on her answering with 
 a slight show of uneasiness, I proceeded to 
 explain that I had come to see the inn out of 
 interest in a celebrated English author, who 
 had once stayed there and had written so 
 charmingly about Madame and Monsieur 
 Bazin. In an instant the old lady and the 
 younger folk were agitated with pleasure, 
 and, to my surprise, they knew all about the 
 long-ago visit of R. L. S. and his friend. 
 
 1 06
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 " Perhaps he was your papa," Madame sug- 
 gested as the Hkehest reason for my having 
 come so far on a matter so sentimental. And 
 the good soul's eyes brimmed with tears when 
 she told me that her husband had been dead 
 these three years. Stevenson had sent them a 
 copy of his book, and they had got the passage 
 touching the voyagers' stay at the inn 
 translated by a young friend at college, so 
 that worthy old Bazin had not been suffered 
 to pass away without knowing how he and his 
 good wife had ministered to the heart of one 
 of the best beloved writers of his generation. 
 You will remember Stevenson's beautiful 
 reference to these worthy people. But let me 
 quote it, for it may be read many times with 
 increase of profit : 
 
 " Bazin was a tall man, running to fat ; 
 soft spoken, with a delicate, gentle face. We 
 asked him to share our wine ; but he excused 
 himself, having pledged reservists all day long. 
 This was a very different type of the workman- 
 innkeeper from the bawling, disputatious 
 fellow at Origny. He also loved Paris, where 
 he had worked as a decorative painter in his 
 youth. , . He had delighted in the museums 
 in his youth, ' One sees there little miracles of 
 work,' he said ; ' that is what makes a good 
 workman ; it kindles a spark.' We asked him 
 how he managed in La Fere. ' I am married,' 
 he said, ' I have my pretty children. But, 
 
 107
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 frankly, it is no life at all. From morning to 
 night I pledge a pack of good enough fellows 
 who know nothing.' . . . Madame Bazin 
 came out after a while ; she was tired with 
 her day's work, I suppose ; and she nestled up 
 to her husband, and laid her head upon his 
 breast. He had his arm about her, and kept 
 gently patting her on the shoulder. I think 
 Bazin was right, and he was really married. 
 Of how few people can the same be said ! 
 
 " Little did the Bazins know how much 
 they served us. We were charged for candles, 
 for food and drink, and for the beds we 
 slept in. But there was nothing in the bill 
 for the husband's pleasant talk, nor for the 
 pretty spectacle of their married life. And there 
 was yet another item uncharged. For these 
 people's politeness really set us up again in 
 our own esteem. We had a thirst for considera- 
 tion ; the sense of insult was still hot in our 
 spirits, and civil usage seemed to restore us 
 to our position in the world. 
 
 "How little we pay our way in life ! Although 
 we have our purses continually in our hand, 
 the better part of service goes still unrewarded. 
 But I like to fancy that a grateful spirit 
 gives as good as it gets. Perhaps the Bazins 
 knew how much I liked them ? Perhaps 
 they also were healed of some slights by the 
 thanks that I gave them in my manner ? " 
 
 Is that not a lovely monument to have ? 
 
 io8
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage'' 
 
 Many of us who have made a greater clatter 
 in the world than old Bazin will be less fortu- 
 nate than he in this respect. And you see 
 that although he had httle affection for La 
 Fere, he hved five-and-twenty quiet years 
 there after Stevenson came his way. Yet not, 
 in one sense, quiet, as the bugles are for ever 
 braying, and even the street boys whistle 
 barrack calls instead of music-hall ditties. 
 As Madame told me, the town exists solely 
 for the military, and we may be sure that it 
 is none the sweeter on that account. But her 
 Httle inn struck me as a wholesome and 
 entirely innocent establishment. Those 
 " pretty children " are men and women now, 
 and the young man with the nascent whiskers, 
 whom I took to be a clerk in the town, was a 
 grandson of the old folk. Not a feature of 
 the auherge has changed, except that the 
 Maltese Cross, having served its day, has been 
 taken dow^n. Stevenson — who has hghted a 
 httle lamp of fame on this humble shrine — 
 and Sir Walter Simpson and old Bazin have 
 all passed away, while children's children sit 
 in the old seats ; truly the meanest works of 
 man's hands are more enduring than man 
 himself. Madame Bazin, to my regret, made 
 a quick effort to throw aside her apron, and 
 needlessly to tidy her bodice, when I asked 
 her to face the camera. She was caught in 
 the act by the instantaneous plate. Even 
 
 109
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 here, you see, the apron signifies servitude, 
 and must not appear in pictures ; yet it and 
 the cap, which latter I have seldom seen 
 north of Paris, are the only redeeming features 
 of the country Frenchwoman's dress. The 
 women of rural France give one the impres- 
 sion of being in permanent mourning, and 
 consequently, when they do go into real 
 mourning, they have to emphasise the fact 
 with ridiculous yards of flowing crape. 
 Madame Bazin had never heard of Stevenson's 
 death, and I felt curiously guilty of an ill 
 deed in telling her about that grave in far 
 Samoa. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Oise runs through a stretch of pastoral 
 country south of La Fere, known as " the 
 Golden Valley," but a strath rather than a 
 valley in character. It was a grey day on 
 which I journeyed, and little that was golden 
 did I see. But the quaint old town of Noyon, 
 as grey and hoar as any in France, is rich in 
 the gold of history ; "a haunt of ancient 
 peace." It stands on a gentle hill, about a 
 mile away from the river, and is one of the 
 cleanest of the old French towns that I have 
 visited, reminding me somewhat of Lichfield ; 
 in atmosphere, I imagine, rather than in any 
 outward resemblance, since I would be at a 
 
 no
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 loss to point to the likeness if I were asked. 
 R. L. S. had no more agreeable resting-place 
 on all his voyage than at Noyon. The travel- 
 lers put up at a very prosperous-looking 
 hostelry, the Hotel du Nord, which stands 
 withdrawn a little way from the east end of 
 the grand old cathedral — the glory of Noyon, 
 and one of the gems of early French Gothic, 
 though perhaps the least known to English 
 tourists. 
 
 Seldom in France do we find the cathedral 
 so regally free of surrounding buildings. No 
 shabby structures lean unworthy heads 
 against its old grey walls, and where, on the 
 north side, the canons' library, with its 
 crumbling timbers of the fifteenth century, 
 nestles under the wing of the church, the 
 effect is entirely pleasing. At the west front, 
 too, where there is a spacious close, with 
 well-cared- for houses and picturesque gate- 
 ways, one has a feehng of reverence which the 
 surroundings of French cathedrals so often 
 fail to inspire. There is a pleasant touch of 
 humour in Stevenson's description of the 
 exterior of the beautiful apse : 
 
 " I have seldom looked on the east end of 
 a church with more complete sympathy. As 
 it flanges out in three wide terraces, and 
 settles down broadly on the earth, it looks 
 like the poop of some graat old battleship. 
 Hollow-backed buttresses carry vases which 
 
 III
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 figure for the stern lanterns. There is a roll 
 in the ground, and the towers just appear 
 above the pitch of the roof, as though the 
 good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic 
 swell. At any moment it might be a hundred 
 feet away from you, climbing the next billow. 
 At any moment a window might open, and 
 some old admiral thrust forth a cocked hat, 
 and proceed to take an observation. The old 
 admirals sail the sea no longer . . . but this, 
 that was a church before ever they were 
 thought upon, is still a church, and makes as 
 brave an appearance by the Oise. The 
 cathedral and the river are probably the two 
 oldest things for miles around and certainly 
 they have both a grand old age." 
 
 Inside the cathedral he found much to 
 engage his mind, and the somewhat perfunc- 
 tory performances of certain priests jarred 
 with the noble serenity of the building. " I 
 could never fathom how a man dares to lift 
 up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What 
 is he to say that will not be an anti-climax ? " 
 But, on the whole, he " was greatly solemn- 
 ised," and he goes on to say : "In the little 
 pictorial map of our wliole Inland Voyage, 
 which my fancy still preserves and sometimes 
 unrolls for the amusement of odd moments, 
 Noyon Cathedral figures on a most preposter- 
 ous scale, and must be nearly as large as a 
 department. I can still see the faces of the 
 
 112
 
 NOYON CATHEDRAL: WEST FRONT 
 
 " The Sacristan took us to the top of one ot the towers, and 
 showed us the five bells hanging in their loft." — R. L. S.
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 priests as if they were at my elbow, and hear 
 'Ave Maria, or a pro nobis,' sounding through 
 the church. All Noyon is blotted out for me 
 by these superior memories, and I do not care 
 to say more about the place. It was but a 
 stack of brown roofs at the best, where I 
 believe people live very reputably in a quiet 
 way ; but the shadow of the church falls upon 
 it when the sun is low, and the five bells are 
 heard in all quarters tehing that the organ has 
 begun. If ever I join the Church of Rome, I 
 shall stipulate to be Bishop of Noyon on the 
 Oise." 
 
 This pretty fancy of his need lose none of 
 its prettiness when we know that Noyon has 
 not had a bishop since the Revolution, when 
 the cathedral became a dependency of the 
 Bishop of Beauvais, though it had been a 
 bishopric so long ago as the year 531. But I 
 am sorry R. L. S. was evidently not aware that 
 when at Noyon he w^as in the town where 
 John Calvin was born in 1709, his father being 
 procurator-fiscal and secretary of the diocese ; 
 for surely here was an opening for some real 
 Stevensonian obiter scripta r^ The beautiful 
 old Town House, of Gothic and Renaissance 
 architecture, dates back to the end of the 
 fifteenth century, but all the ancient buildings 
 of Noyon fall long centuries short of its history 
 in age, as King Pippin was crowned here in 
 752, and his infant son Carloman was at the 
 
 "3
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 same time created King of Noyon, while in 
 771 the town saw the coronation of Pippin's 
 eldest son, the mighty Charlemagne, no less. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The last wet day of the voyagers was that 
 on which they set out from Noyon. " These 
 gentlemen travel for pleasure ? " asked the 
 landlady of the little inn at Pimprez. " It 
 was too much. The scales fell from our eyes. 
 Another wet day, it was determined, and we 
 put the boats into the train." Happily, 
 " the weather took the hint," and they paddled 
 and sailed the rest of the voyage under clear 
 skies. At Compiegne they " put up at a big, 
 bustling hotel, where nobody observed our 
 presence." My impression of the famous 
 tov/n scarcely justified this, as in the day 
 that I lingered there I seemicd to meet 
 everj^bod};^ a dozen times over, and the 
 company at a little cafe chantant in the even- 
 ing was like a gathering of old friends, so 
 many of the faces were familiar. Yet the 
 town is populous, having some 17,000 inhabi- 
 tants (about 2,000 of whom are English 
 residents), and I was prepared for busier 
 streets than I found. 
 
 There can be few towns in France more 
 agreeable to live in. It is pleasantly situated 
 
 114
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 on the rivTr Oise, here wide and lively with 
 barge-traffic, and spanned by an elegant 
 bridge. The older town lies sonth of the 
 river in a sort of amphitheatre ; its streets 
 are narrow and tortuous, but with bright shops 
 and cafes in the neighbourhood of the Place 
 de r Hotel de Ville, wliile the fashionable 
 suburbs extend, in splendid quiet avenues, 
 eastward and south from the centre of the 
 town, by the historic palace built in Louis 
 XV. 's reign and the Petit Pare, v/hich is 
 really very large. While a great many of the 
 English residents have chosen the town for 
 the same reason that my hostess at Moy put 
 on one electric light — pour I'economie, vous 
 savez — together with its healthy and beautiful 
 surroundings in the great forest of Compiegne, 
 many more are there for the employment 
 afforded by the important felt hat factory of 
 Messrs. Moore, Johnson & Co., whose commo- 
 dious works stand near the station on the north 
 of the river. Despite its shops, its business 
 prosperity, its red-legged soldiers, its visitors, 
 Compiegne is dull enough of an evening, and 
 the brightly hghted but almost empty cafes 
 leave one wondering how the business pays. 
 
 " My great delight in Compiegne," says 
 inland voyager, " was the town-hall. I doted 
 upon^ the town-hall. It is a monument of 
 Gothic insecurity, all turreted and gargoyled, 
 and slashed and bedizened with half a score of 
 
 115
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 architectural fancies. Some of the niches are 
 gilt and painted, and in a great square panel 
 in the centre, in black relief on a gilt ground, 
 Louis XII. rides upon a pacing horse, 
 with hand on hip and head thrown back. 
 There is royal arrogance in every line of him ; 
 the stirruped foot projects insolently from the 
 frame ; the eye is hard and proud ; the very 
 horse seems to be treading with gratification 
 over prostrate serfs, and to have the breath 
 of the trumpet in his nostrils. So rides for 
 ever, on the front of the town-hall, the good 
 king Louis XII., the father of his people. 
 
 " Over the king's head, in the tall centre 
 turret, appears the dial of a clock ; and high 
 above that, three httle mechanical figures, 
 each one with a hammer in his hand, whose 
 business it is to chime out the hours and 
 halves and quarters for the burgesses of 
 Compiegne. The centre figure has a gilt 
 breast-plate ; the two others wear gilt trunk- 
 hose ; and they all three have elegant, flapping 
 hats hke cavahers. As the quarter approaches, 
 they turn their heads and look knowingly 
 one to the other ; and then, kling go the three 
 hammers on the three httle bells below. The 
 hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the 
 interior of the tower ; and the gilded gentlemen 
 rest from their labours with contentment. 
 
 " I had a great deal of healthy pleasure 
 from their manoeuvres, and took care to miss 
 
 u6
 
 jpf- mm A 
 
 COMPIEGNE TOWN HALL 
 " My great delight in Compiegne was the Town Hall." — R. L. S
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 as few performances as possible ; and I found 
 that even the ' Cigarette,' while he pretended 
 to despise my enthusiasm, was more or less 
 a devotee himself. There is something highly 
 absurd in the exposition of such toys to the 
 outrages of winter on a housetop. They 
 would be more in keeping in a glass case 
 before a Niirnberg clock. Above all, at night, 
 when the children are abed, and even grown 
 people are snoring under quilts, does it not 
 seem impertinent to leave these ginger-bread 
 figures winking and tinkling to the stars and 
 the rolling moon ? The gargoyles may, fitly 
 enough, twist their ape-like heads ; fitly enough 
 may the potentate bestride his charger, Hke a 
 centurion in an old German print of the Via 
 Dolorosa ; but the toys should be put away 
 in a box among some cotton, until the sun 
 rises, and the children are abroad again to 
 be amused." 
 
 XIX. 
 
 There is but httle interest in the remaining 
 stages of Stevenson's journe}^ ; not because 
 the towns through which the canoeists now 
 passed are less worthy of note than any 
 already described, but for the ample reason 
 that R. L. S. had, in some measure, lost his 
 earlier delight in the voyage. He pretends 
 that on the broading bosom of the Oise the 
 
 117
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 canoes were now so far away from the life 
 along the riverside, that they had slipped out 
 of touch with rural folk and rural ways. But 
 this is not strictly true, when we know that the 
 river, as far as Pontoise, is seldom greatly wider 
 than the canals on which the Arethusa and 
 the Cigarette had set out with high hopes of 
 adventure a fortnight before. The towns are 
 quaint and sleepy. The voyagers were nearing 
 the end, the river ran smooth, the sky was 
 bright, and a packet of letters at Compiegne 
 had set them dreaming of home. Here was the 
 secret ; the spell was broken ; their appetite 
 for adventure had been slaked ; every mile 
 of easy-flowing water was taking them not 
 away to unknown things, but homeward to 
 familiar ones. 
 
 Pont Sainte Maxence, the end of their first 
 stage below Compiegne, is a featureless little 
 town, the Oise making a brave show through 
 the centre of it, and I do not suspect its 
 church of any stirring history, R. L. S. found 
 its interior " positively arctic to the eye." 
 It was here he noticed the withered old woman 
 making her orisons before all the shrines ; 
 " like a prudent capitalist with a somewhat 
 cynical view of the commercial prospect, she 
 desired to place her supplications in a great 
 variety of heavenly securities." I passed 
 through Creil and Precy in the afternoon, 
 following close to the river, which now skirts 
 
 ii8
 
 Along the Route of "An Inland Voyage" 
 
 a country of gentle hills on the east, but 
 westward fringes a vast level plain, with 
 nothing but groves of poplar to break the line 
 of the distant horizon. 
 
 XX. 
 
 In the gloaming I arrived at Pontoise, 
 where I was told a f^te was in progress ; 
 but the only signs of hilarity were two booths 
 for the sale of pastries and sweet stuffs on the 
 square in front of the station, and one small 
 boy mvesting two sous in a greasy-looking 
 puff. The rues of Pontoise have high-sound- 
 ing names, but they are dull beyond words, 
 though only eighteen miles away the " great 
 sinful streets " of Paris are gleaming with 
 their myriad lights. 
 
 Pontoise in the daylight might have been 
 different ; but seen in the dusk, I decided 
 upon the eight o'clock train to Paris, and so 
 ended my pilgrimage. Nor did I feel any 
 lowering enthusiasm at the end, for Stevenson 
 has nothing to tell us of the place beyond 
 saying, " And so a letter at Pontoise decided 
 us, and we drew up our keels for the last time 
 out of that river of Oise that had faithfully 
 piloted them, through rain and sunshine, for 
 so long." He has not a word for the twelfth- 
 century church of St. Maclou, his " brither 
 
 119
 
 tn the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Scot," or the tomb of St. Gautier at Notre 
 Dame de Pontoise. 
 
 " You may paddle all day long," he 
 concludes ; " but it is when you come back at 
 nightfall, and look in at the familiar room, 
 that you find Love or Death awaiting you 
 beside :^ the stove ; and the most beautiful 
 adventures are not those we go to seek." 
 Yet he was ever an adventurer in search of 
 beauty, and who shall say his quest was vain ? 
 
 120
 
 *' The Most Picturesque Town 
 m Europe 
 
 " After repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high 
 living for myself and my advisers, a sleeping sack was 
 designed, constructed, and triumphantly brought home." — 
 R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 There will, of course, be differences of opinion 
 as to which is the town most worthy of this 
 description ; but there is surely no better 
 judge than Mr. Joseph Pennell, who has seen 
 every place of any historic or natural attrac- 
 tion on the Continent, and whose taste for the 
 picturesque none will call in question. He is 
 the author of the phrase that heads this 
 chapter, as applied to the little-known town of 
 Le Puy, ** chief place " of the Department of 
 Haute Loire in the south of France. It is one 
 of the few towns that have more than justi- 
 fied the mental pictures I had formed of them 
 before seeing the real thing. But Le Puy is 
 
 121
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 not only the most conceivably picturesque of 
 towns ; it is deeply interesting in its character 
 and history, no less than in its appearance. 
 
 With the exception of Mr. Pennell, and 
 among a circle of people who have travelled 
 much in France, I have met none who have 
 ever visited Le Puy. A young English gover- 
 ness to whom I spoke at a little Protestant 
 temple in the town had been staying there 
 for close upon a year, and had not met a 
 single English visitor ; so it would appear one 
 has an opportunity here to write of a place 
 that is still untrampled by the tourist hordes 
 that devastate fair Normandy. 
 
 There are many and excellent reasons why 
 few English or American tourists make their 
 way to this quaint and beautiful town of the 
 French highlands. It Hes 352 miles by rail from 
 Paris, and can only be reached by a fatiguing 
 journey in trains that seem to be playing at 
 railways, and have no serious intention of 
 arriving anywhere. A good idea of the round- 
 about railway service will be gathered from 
 the fact that the actual distance of the town 
 from Paris is nearly 100 miles less than the 
 length of the railway journey. It can be 
 reached by leaving the Mediterranean line at 
 Lyons and continuing for the best part of a 
 day on tiresome local trains ; or via Orleans 
 and Clermont Ferrand, which would surely 
 require the best part of two days. It was by 
 
 122
 
 "The Most Picturesque Town in Europe'* 
 
 the latter route, and in easy stages, that I 
 first arrived there in the early evening of a 
 grey June day four years ago. 
 
 Between Clermont Ferrand and Le Puy the 
 railway traverses some of the most beautiful 
 scenery in Europe, but nothing that one sees 
 on the way prepares one for the sensation of 
 the first glimpse of this wonderful mountain- 
 town. The train has been steadily puffing its 
 slow way by green valleys and pine-clad hills, 
 across gorges as deep as the deepest in Switzer- 
 land, and past little red-roofed hamlets for 
 hours, when suddenly, as it seems, a great peak 
 thrusts itself heavenward, carrying on its back 
 a mass of tin}^ buildings, and on the top of all 
 an immense statue of the Virgin. Then another 
 seems to spring up from the valley, holding a 
 church upon its head, and the whole country 
 now^ as far as eye can reach, is studded with 
 great conical hills thrown up in some far-off 
 and awful boiling of earth. Curiously, the 
 train seems turning tail on this wonderful 
 scene, and one by one the different objects 
 that had suddenly attracted our attention 
 are lost to view, while w^e pursue a circuitous 
 route, which in a quarter of an hour brings 
 them all into view again, and presently we 
 have arrived at the station of Le Puy, by the 
 side of the little river Dolezon, between which 
 and the broader Borne extends the hill 
 whereon the town is built. 
 
 123
 
 II. 
 
 The modern part of the town lies close to 
 the railway in the level of the valley, and as 
 there is a population of more than 20,000 
 people, the life of the streets is brisk enough 
 to suggest a town of five times that size in 
 England. Along the Avenue de la Gare, the 
 Boulevard St. Jean, and the Rue St. Haon 
 we go, wary of the electric trams, to our hotel 
 opposite the spacious Place du Breuil, where 
 spouts a handsome fountain to the memory 
 of a local metal-worker who furnished the 
 town with its beautiful Musee Crozatier, and 
 where the elegant architecture of the Municipal 
 Theatre, the Palais de Justice and the Prefect- 
 ure supply a touch of modern dignity that 
 that contrasts not unpleasantly with the 
 ancient and natural grandeur of the town. 
 
 I have stayed in many a strange hotel, but 
 that of the " Ambassadeurs," whither we 
 repaired, is perhaps the most uncommon in 
 my experience. It was reached from the main 
 street through a long, dark tunnel, opening at 
 the end into a badly-lighted court, whence a 
 flight of stairs gave entrance to the hotel 
 building, which inside was hke an old and 
 partially-furnished barracks, with wide stone 
 stairs and gloomy passages eminently adapted 
 
 X24
 
 "The Most Picturesque Town in Europe" 
 
 for garrotting. But ilie bedroom was com- 
 modious, and its windows gave on another 
 market-place, where had been the original 
 frontage of the hotel. For all its cheerless 
 appearance, the " Ambassadeurs " was by no 
 means uncomfortable, and, needless to say, the 
 cooking was excellent. 
 
 There are some towns that ask of you only 
 to wander their streets, and others that 
 challenge you to closer acquaintance with 
 their sights. Paris or Brussels, for example, 
 pours its bright life through boulevard and 
 park, and you are charmed to walk about with 
 no urgent call to any place in particular ; but 
 who can linger in Princes Street of Edinburgh 
 with the grey old castle inviting him to climb 
 up to it, or the Calton Hill boldly advertising 
 itself with its mock Roman remains ? Le 
 Puy has both the charm of the quaintest kinds 
 of street life and the challenge of its rare and 
 curious monuments. 
 
 One has a restless feeling, a sense of things 
 that " must be done," when one catches a 
 ghmpse of the stately old cathedral standing 
 high on the hill, and the massive Rock of 
 Corneille with the great figure of Notre Dame 
 de France on top, or the church of St. Michel 
 pricking up so confidently on its isolated rock. 
 The natural curiosity of man is such that he 
 cannot be content until he has clambered to 
 these and other high places in and around Le 
 
 125
 
 In the Track oj R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Puy. One makes first for the cathedral, and 
 a bewildering labyrinth of ancient and evil- 
 smeUing lanes has to be wandered through 
 before the building is reached. These little 
 streets are all paved with cobbles of black 
 lava, and many of the houses are built in part 
 of the same material. Their dirtiness is 
 unquahfied, and yet the people seem to live 
 long amid their squalor, for at every other door 
 we note women of old years busy with their 
 needles and pillows making the lace, which is 
 one of the chief industries of the town. 
 
 III. 
 
 The nearer we come to the cathedral the 
 more difficult is it to observe its general pro- 
 portions, and, indeed, it can only be seen to 
 advantage from one or other of the neigh- 
 bouring heights. But it is a building that, 
 in almost an}/ position, would still be remark- 
 able, as it is a striking example of Romanesque 
 architecture. The great porch is reached by a 
 splendid flight of steps, sixty in number, 
 where in the second week of August each year 
 pilgrims come in their thousands to kneel and 
 worship the Black Virgin, the chief glory of 
 the town in the eyes of its inhabitants. The 
 builders of the cathedral have striven to com- 
 bine dignity and austerity, and the impression 
 
 126
 
 " The Most Ptcluresque Town in Europe 
 
 which the outside of the building makes upon 
 the visitor is strangely at variance with the 
 flummery that surrounds the worship of the 
 Black Virgin within. One feels that the men 
 who back in the twelfth century reared these 
 massive walls and built this beautiful cloister 
 had not their lives dominated by a cheap and 
 ugly wooden doll such as their fellows of to-day 
 bow down before. We found the sacristan a 
 young man of most amiable disposition ; so 
 friendly indeed that on one of our subsequent 
 visits, and during the ofhce of High Mass, 
 when he was attending upon the celebrant, 
 he nodded familiarly to us on recognising us 
 among the congregation. If the truth must 
 be told, we were more interested in the con- 
 tents of the sacristy than in the cathedral 
 itself. Here were stored many rare and 
 beautiful examples of ancient wood-carving, 
 picture frames, missals, altar vessels, and, 
 above all, a manuscript Bible of the ninth 
 century. This last-mentioned we were shown 
 only on condition that we would tell no one in the 
 town. Then opening a great oaken cupboard, 
 he produced first a brass monstrance, similar 
 to the usual receptacle for the consecrated 
 wafer of the Eucharist, but containing instead 
 behind the little glass disc a tiny morsel of 
 white feather sewn to a bit of cloth. 
 
 " This," said he, " is a piece of the wing of 
 the angel who visited Joan of Arc." 
 
 127
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 " Indeed," I remarked, with every evidence 
 of surprise, " and who got hold of the feather 
 first ? " 
 
 " The mother of Joan," he replied, as 
 though he were giving the name of his tailor ; 
 and he proceeded to describe with much 
 circumstance and detail the wonderful things 
 that had been done by this bit of feather. " It 
 is, M'sieu, an object of the greatest veneration, 
 and has attracted pilgrims from far parts of 
 France. It has cured the most terrible 
 diseases ; it has brought riches to those who 
 were poor ; it has brought children to barren 
 women," — and many other wonders I have 
 forgotten. 
 
 In a very similar setting he showed us a tiny 
 thorn. ** This, M'sieu, is a thorn from the 
 crown that Jesus wore on the Cross," and 
 while we were still gazing upon the sacred 
 relic he produced a small box sealed with red 
 wax and having a glass lid, behind which was 
 preserved a good six inches of " the true 
 Cross." I thought of a Frenchman whom I 
 had met at an hotel recently — an unbelieving 
 fellow — who said that there was as much wood 
 of '' the true Cross " preserved in the churches 
 of France as would make a veritable ladder 
 into heaven. Most w^onderful of all, the sacris- 
 tan dived his hand into a sort of cotton bag, and 
 produced a Turkish slipper, worn and battered, 
 but probably no more than fifty years old. 
 
 128
 
 "The Most Picturesque Town in Europe" 
 
 The good man handled the thing as if it 
 had been a cheap American shoe he was 
 offering for sale. Then looking us boldly in 
 the face, he said, " Void, le Soulier de la 
 Salute Vierge." The shoe of the holy Virgin ! 
 One did one's best to be overcome with 
 emotion, but I claim no success in that effort. 
 The ecclesiastical showman drew our attention 
 to the pure Oriental character of the work- 
 manship of the sacred slipper, but I declare 
 frankly that it was not until the Protestant 
 pastor of the town mentioned the fact next day 
 that I realised that the shoe was " a No. 9 ! " 
 Among the other contents of the sacristy we 
 noted two maces, one of elaborate design 
 richly ornamented in silver, and the other of 
 plain wood only slightly carved. We were 
 told they were carried in funeral processions, 
 " the ornamental one for people of good family 
 and the plain one for common folk." Oh, 
 land of liberty, equality, fraternity ! 
 
 After exhibiting to us the costly vestments 
 of the bishops, canons, and other dignitaries 
 of the church, the sacristan came with us to 
 point out the far-famed Black Virgin of the 
 cathedral, which a first inspection of the 
 interior had failed to reveal to us. We now 
 found it to be a small and ugly image fixed 
 above the high altar. It was hardly bigger 
 than a child's doll, and was dressed in a little 
 coat of rich brocade. From the middle of the 
 
 129 
 10
 
 In the Trackl^ R. L. Stevenson 
 
 idol a smaller head, presumably that of the 
 Holy Child, projected through the cloth, and 
 this, Hke the head of the larger figure, wore a 
 heavy crown of bright gilt. I do not pretend 
 to remember one tithe of the miracles attri- 
 buted to this most venerated object by our 
 good friend, but I know^at least that he assured 
 me it had burned for thirty-six hours during 
 the Revolution without being consumed, and 
 had thrice been thrown by sacrilegious hands 
 into the river Borne, only to reappear 
 mysteriously in its place over the altar. This 
 story does not run on all fours with the curt 
 description of the image given by M. Paul 
 Joanne in his guide to the Cevennes — " an 
 imitation of the old Madonna destroyed in the 
 Revolution." It is eminently a case in which 
 " you pays your money and you takes your 
 choice." I reckoned the entertainment pro- 
 vided by the sacristan cheap at a franc. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Enough, perhaps, has been indicated to give 
 some idea of the superstitious character of the 
 people of Le Puy. Nowhere in France have 
 I found so many evidences of mediseval super- 
 stition ; the Black Virgin is throned supreme 
 in the minds of the people, and, unhke most 
 French communities — if we except the priest- 
 
 13c
 
 "The Most Pidtiresqu^Town in Europe" 
 
 ridden peasantry of Brittany — the men-folk 
 of Le Puy seem to be as devoted as their women 
 to the church. The black coats of the clergy 
 swarm in street and alley. In the town itself 
 there are many institutions packed with young 
 priests, and some httle way out, on the banks 
 of the Borne, there is a training school as large 
 as a military barracks, with the pale faces of 
 black-gowned youths peeping from many 
 windows. Almost every conceivable type of 
 priest is to be encountered here, from the 
 gaunt, ascetic enthusiast to the fat and 
 ruby-nosed Friar Tuck. The people of the 
 southern highlands, like the old-fashioned folk 
 of Scotland, have had for generations a passion 
 to see at least one of their family in the priest- 
 hood, apart very often from any consideration 
 of fitness, moral or intellectual. Here, as I 
 should judge, is the reason for one's seeing so 
 many coarse and ignorant faces among the 
 priests of Le Puy. 
 
 The gigantic figure of the Virgin crowning 
 the rock of Corneille, behind the cathedral, is 
 reached by a long and toilsome pathway, but 
 the view from the top — for the statue is hollow, 
 and contains a stairway inside with numerous 
 peep-holes — is perhaps unequalled in the whole 
 of France. For mile upon mile the country 
 stretches away in great billowy masses of dark 
 mountain and green plain, and the little white 
 houses with their red roofs are sprinkled 
 
 151
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 everywhere around Le Puy, suggesting a, sweet 
 and wholesome country life that is hard to 
 reconcile with the dark superstition of the 
 town. This monument, however, is of httle 
 interest — a vulgar modern affair cast from 
 213 guns taken at Sebastopol. More to our 
 taste is the quaint httle building called the 
 Baptistry of St. John, which, standing near the 
 cathedral, takes us back to the fourth century, 
 and earlier still, for it is built on the foundation 
 of an ancient Roman temple. You see, Le 
 Puy was a flourishing Roman town when our 
 forefathers in England were living in wattle 
 huts. We have made some progress in 
 England since those far-off days, but here, 
 though changes rude and great have taken 
 place, one may reasonably doubt whether 
 there is much to choose between the present 
 condition of Le Puy and that vanished past. 
 
 V. 
 
 Threading our way downhill among the 
 filthy rnelles, we pass into the wide and modern 
 Boulevard Carnot, where the Sunday market 
 is being held and everything may be bought, 
 from a tin-opener to a donkey, from a rosary 
 to a cow. A spirited statue of the great La 
 Fayette, who was born not far away, at the 
 castle of Chavagnar, stands at the top of this 
 
 132
 
 Image of the Black Virgin in the Cathedral 
 
 Remains of Roman Temple, Le Pny, with a _ fountain to Virgin, 
 a Calvary, and the Mairie 
 
 LE PUY
 
 " Tlic Most Picturesque Town in Europe" 
 
 street, where the new Boulevard Gambetta 
 strikes westward with its clanging electric 
 trams. Down near the river-side, where the 
 market comes to an end, we visit the old 
 church of the Dominicans, dedicated to St. 
 Laurence, and in a dark and musty corner we 
 are shown a tomb with a recumbent figure 
 carved upon it. Here reposes, we are told, 
 the dust of the greatest of the heroes of old 
 France — none other than that mighty warrior 
 Du Guesclin, memories of whom the wanderer 
 in French by-ways meets with as often as the 
 tourist in England comes upon a house that 
 sheltered Charles II. after the battle of Wor- 
 cester. There is every reason for believing 
 that the valorous but ugly Du Guesclin — he 
 was an " object of aversion " to his own 
 parents — was buried at St. Denis, but my 
 excellent M. Joanne assures me that this 
 statue is an authentic likeness of the hero ; 
 and the Encyclopcedia Britannica (which in 
 another place mentions St. Denis as the place 
 of burial) says that the church of St. Laurence 
 ** contains the remains of Du Guesclin." 
 What will you ? 
 
 The electric tram lands us at the suburb of 
 Espaly, and from the high road we could 
 almost throw a stone to the massive rock, 
 with its castle-like walls enclosing on the top 
 a little garden of trees. But it is another 
 matter to pick our way, ankle-deep in mire, 
 
 133
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 to the entrance-gate, through the hovels that 
 surround it. Chistering to the rock we pass 
 are buildings from which priests and " sisters " 
 come and go with a surprising mingling of the 
 sexes, and when we have cHmbed to the top a 
 dark-eyed sister shows us for half a franc a 
 collection of the most extraordinary Romish 
 trash we have ever looked upon. The chapel is 
 free to us, and within its incense-laden interior 
 we find several comfortable priests poring over 
 books or sitting with insensate stare at the 
 candles burning on a particularly tawdry altar. 
 The place is in a way unique, as the chapel is 
 not a building at all, but is hewn out of the 
 volcanic rock, being thus an artificial grotto 
 consecrated to worship. Its rough walls are 
 hung with votive tablets and studded with 
 crude stuccos of many saints, giving it the 
 appearance of a toy bazaar. Only recently 
 the large bronze statue of St. Joseph that 
 crowned the rock of Espaly, above the grotto- 
 chapel, was blown down, and visitors are 
 invited to contribute towards the cost of 
 replacing it. 
 
 A little distance away is the higher and 
 more remarkable volcanic mass known as the 
 Pic d' Aiguille, with a handsome and well- 
 proportioned church upon its summit. One 
 has to climb a long and winding footpath and 
 then close on three hundred steps to reach the 
 building, which we found quite deserted, some 
 
 134
 
 "The Most Picturesque Town in Europe " 
 
 village lads doing the " cake-walk " around 
 an angelic form with a box of donations to St. 
 Michael, the patron saint of the deserted 
 sanctuary. These gamins also seemed to 
 derive much pleasure from ringing the bell 
 still hanging in the ancient tower. It was a 
 matter of speculation why the priests should 
 continue to use the stuffy and unwholesome 
 grotto of St. Joseph, with this airy, noble 
 building lying vacant. We can only suppose 
 that the toil of climbing the higher rock is 
 greater than their zeal. Near by the base of 
 the Pic d' Aiguille one notices a curious con- 
 junction of old paganism and modern mario- 
 latry — an ancient temple of Diana flanked by 
 a massive crucifix on the one hand and a 
 modern Gothic fountain and shrine to the 
 Virgin on the other. 
 
 VI. 
 
 After all, and somewhat unwillingly, I find 
 that I have written rather of the religious side 
 of this interesting town than of its picturesque- 
 ness. But sensational as the first impression of 
 its unique and beautiful outlines undoubtedly 
 is, it is not that, nor yet the quaint and 
 entertaining habits of the people, that comes 
 uppermost in the mind after some da3's' 
 acquaintance with the place. One leaves 
 
 135
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Le Puy convinced, almost at a glance, of its 
 claim to be considered the most picturesque 
 town in Europe, but depressed with the 
 abounding evidence that its people, despite 
 their electric trams and their fine modern 
 buildings, are still largely the thralls of darkest 
 superstition. For the difference between the 
 rehgion that here passes for Roman Catholi- 
 cism and that we know by the same name in 
 England is greater than the difference between 
 the latter and the most Calvanistic Protestant- 
 ism. To me, at least, Le Puy will be ever 
 the city of the Black Virgin. 
 
 136
 
 THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL, LE PUY
 
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 - :2'H
 
 The Country of tke Camisards 
 
 " These are the Cevennes with an emphasis : the 
 Cevennes of the Cevennes." — R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 I. 
 
 The word Camisard in the south of France, 
 like Covenanter in Scotland, recalls 
 
 "Old, unhappy, far-off things, 
 And battles long ago." 
 
 Both describe people who had much in 
 common, for the Camisards were the Coven- 
 anters of France. The origin of the term need 
 not detain us more than a moment. It is 
 variously attributed to the " Children of 
 God " having worn a camise, or linen shirt, 
 as a sort of uniform ; to camisade, which 
 means a night attack, that having been a 
 feature of their warfare ; while some his- 
 torians have derived it from camis, a road 
 
 137
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 runner. Enough that it stands for a race of 
 people whose devotion to the Reformed Faith, 
 whose fearless stand for religious liberty, 
 entitles them to rank among the heroes of 
 Protestantism. 
 
 As one may suppose that the general reader, 
 however well informed, is hkely to be some- 
 what hazy in his knowledge of the Camisards 
 — unless, indeed, he has had the good fortune 
 to read one of the later, as it is one of the 
 best, of Mr. S. R. Crockett's romances, Flower- 
 '-the-Corn, which gives a vivid and moving 
 picture of the Protestant rebellion in the 
 Cevennes — it may be well that I set down at 
 once a brief outUne of the events which, two 
 centuries ago, made these highlands of the 
 South one of the historic regions in storied 
 France. 
 
 The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 
 1685, was a transforming episode in the 
 history of Europe. It represented the trium- 
 phant issue of the sinister poHcy of the 
 Jesuits, who had long been scheming to undo 
 the work of the Huguenot wars, whereby the 
 rights of Protestants to hold public worship 
 and to take part in the government of the 
 country had been recognised as a sort of 
 political compromise. 
 
 The atrocities inflicted by the Roman 
 Catholics on their fellow-citizens of the Protes- 
 tant faith during the reign of terror, which 
 
 138
 
 The Country of the Camisards 
 
 began in October of 1685, need not be recalled ; 
 they are among the blackest pages in the 
 annals of Romish tyranny. But we must 
 know that in the mountainous regions of the 
 south of France, where the work of the Refor- 
 mation had been fruitful, and blessed in 
 inverse ratio to the poverty of the people and 
 the barrenness of their country, these hardy 
 hill folk were too poor to quit their villages, 
 and too devoted to their religious faith to 
 submit meekly to the new order. Like all 
 peoples whose lot it is to scrape a scanty 
 living from a grudging soil, the inhabitants 
 of the Cevennes resemble in many ways the 
 Highlanders of Scotland and Wales. We find 
 in them the same qualities of sturdy independ- 
 ence, patience, endurance ; the same strain of 
 gravity, associated with a deep fervour for 
 the things that are eternal. Thus isolated in 
 their mountain fastnesses, hemmed in by the 
 ravening hordes of Catholicism and constitu- 
 ted authority, they determined to fight for 
 the faith they valued more than life. In this 
 hour of awful trial it was not surprising that, 
 out of the frenzy of despair, strange things 
 were born, and an era of religious hysteria 
 began, simple women, poor ignorant men, 
 children even, in great numbers, being thought 
 to come under the direct inspiration of God, 
 arising as '' prophets " to urge the rude 
 mountaineers into a holy war with " His Most 
 
 139
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Christian Majesty, Louis, King of France and 
 Brittany." 
 
 But although there had been many encoun- 
 ters of an irregular kind between the Camisards 
 and the leagued officials of Pope and King 
 in the closing years of the seventeenth 
 century, it was not until that weird figure, 
 Spirit Seguier, who has been called the 
 " Danton of the Cevennes," planned the mur- 
 der of the Archpriest du Chayla at the little 
 town of Pont de Montvert, on the 23rd of 
 July, 1702, that the first blow in the Protestant 
 rebellion may be said to have been struck. 
 Of this tragic event R. L. Stevenson writes : 
 
 " A persecution, unsurpassed in violence, 
 had lasted near a score of years, and this was 
 the result upon the persecuted : hanging, 
 burning, breaking on the wheel, had been in 
 vain ; the dragoons had left their hoof-marks 
 over all the country side ; there were men 
 rowing in the galleys, and women pining in 
 the prisons of the Church ; and not a thought 
 was changed in the heart of any upright 
 Protestant." 
 
 On the 1 2th of August, nineteen days after 
 the murder of the Archpriest, the right hand 
 of Seguier was stricken from his body, and he 
 was burned alive at the spot where he had 
 driven home the first knife into the oppressor 
 of his people. 
 
 140
 
 II. 
 
 So began the war of the Camisards, for the 
 faggots that burned the prophet only added 
 to the fire he hghted when he struck at Du 
 Chayla. Presently his place, as leader of the 
 revolt, was taken by an old soldier named 
 Laporte, who gave the rising a touch of 
 military discipline, and soon the Camisards 
 had many captains, all men who believed 
 themselves endowed with the gift of 
 prophecy. 
 
 The Protestants of the Cevennes, thorough 
 in every habit of life, took up their arms and 
 set about the making of entrenchments and 
 works of defence with the determination of 
 men prepared to fight to a finish. It is easy 
 for us in these peaceful days to deprecate 
 their vengeful deeds, but let us remember, in 
 charity, that if they met blood-thirstiness 
 with the same, they were maddened by a 
 system of oppression so brutal as to be almost 
 beyond our belief. Their leader, Roland, 
 issued a dispatch which for callous sugges- 
 tion has seldom been equalled in the annals 
 of war : " We, Count and Lord Roland, 
 Generalissimo of the Protestants of France, 
 we decree that you have to make awa}^ with, 
 in three daj^s, all the priests and missionaries 
 
 141
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 who are among you, under pain of being 
 burned alive, yourselves as well as they." 
 
 But the most picturesque figure among the 
 Camisards was introduced when Jean Cava- 
 lier, a baker's apprentice at Geneva, returned 
 to his native mountains, and by sheer force 
 of a military genius to which history offers 
 few parallels became the chief leader of the 
 Camisards while still in his teens. The story 
 of his life is romantic beyond the invention 
 of any novelist. Not only did he succeed 
 over a period of three years in defending 
 many important parts of the Cevennes from 
 organised attacks, but in the course of that 
 time he met and defeated successively Count 
 de Broglie and three Marshals of France — 
 Montrevel, Berwick, and Villars — although at 
 one time there was a force of 60,000 soldiers 
 in the field against him. At Nages, a little 
 village in the southern Cevennes, he encoun- 
 tered Montrevel, and, outnumbered by five 
 to one, he succeeded, after a desperate conflict, 
 in effecting a successful retreat with more 
 than two thirds of his thousand men. Not 
 even the blessings of the Pope on the royalist 
 troops, and on the " holy militia," raised 
 among the Catholic population, brought the 
 submission of the Camisards one day nearer. 
 Commander after commander retired baffled, 
 and Montrevel's policy of extermination — 
 during which four hundred and sixty-six 
 
 142
 
 The Country of the Camisards 
 
 villages in the Upper Cevennes were burned, 
 and most of the population put to the sword 
 — left Cavalier, still a mere lad, master of the 
 southward mountains, threatening even to 
 attack the great city of Nimes. 
 
 Marshal Villars, a renowned soldier, recog- 
 nised the hopelessness of continuing the 
 methods of barbarism pursued by his pre- 
 decessors, and succeeded in concluding an 
 honourable peace with Cavalier in the summer 
 of 1704, whereby the Camisards were granted 
 certain important rights affecting the liberty 
 of conscience and of person. But Roland 
 and the more fanatical section of the Protes- 
 tant army held out until January of 1705, 
 their battle-cry being, " No peace until we 
 have our churches," Cavalier's treaty having 
 recognised the right to assemble outside 
 walled towns, but not in churches. 
 
 It is this extraordinary baker's apprentice — 
 who at twenty-four had concluded a long and 
 desperate war, in which he played a part 
 entitling him to be remembered with national 
 heroes such as Wilham Tell and Sir William 
 Wallace — that Mr. S. R. Crockett has made 
 the chief figure in his brilliant romance of 
 the Cevennes, Flower-o '-the-Corn. 
 
 143
 
 III. 
 
 The little-known region of the Gausses is 
 " the Cevennes of the Cevennes," but Steven- 
 son in his travels did not visit the innermost 
 Cevennes, and was during most of his journey 
 only on the outskirts of the real country of 
 the Camisards. The chief of these great 
 plateaux is the Causse de Sauveterre, which 
 extends south-west from the town of Mende 
 for upwards of forty miles, and is in parts 
 at least twenty miles wide. It is divided 
 from the Causse M(^jan on the south by the 
 splendid gorges of the river Tarn, and due 
 south of the Mejan, with the beautiful valley 
 of the Jonte between, lies the Causse Noir, 
 some twenty miles east and west, and ten 
 from the Jonte on its north to the no less 
 beautiful glen on its south, where flows the 
 river Dourbie. Still southward, and with 
 only this waterway dividing, extends the 
 splendid mass of the Causse du Larzac, some 
 thirty miles in length, from the neighbourhood 
 of Millau to the ancient Roman town of 
 Lodeve, which boasted a continuous bishopric 
 from the year 323 to the Revolution, and is 
 now a bright and populous industrial centre. 
 These are the more notable of the Causses, 
 and all, no doubt, formed one mighty plateau 
 
 144
 
 The Country of the Camisards 
 
 in prehistoric times ; but numerous swift 
 flowing rivers have through the ages worn 
 them asunder, producing a series of magnificent 
 ravines that contain some of the finest 
 scenery in France, and on whose sides we can 
 trace the slow and steady work of the streams 
 wearing down to their present courses through 
 the hmestone, the local name for which is 
 cau, whence causse. 
 
 To describe the character of the Camisard 
 country, and to convey some idea of it to 
 English readers, is no easy matter, since 
 there is nothing in the British Islands, and 
 little elsewhere in Europe, to which it may 
 be readily compared. Yet the effort must be 
 made, since the peculiar nature of the country 
 is of first importance to the understanding of 
 its people and their historic resistance of all 
 the might of France two centuries ago. 
 
 Conceive, then, a vast expanse of rugged 
 and rock-strewn land, covering it may be an 
 area of two or three hundred square miles, 
 and terminating abruptly on every side in 
 mighty ravines, or ending in precipitous cliffs, 
 that look down on wide and fertile valleys, 
 frown on smiling plains. This is what the 
 word Causse stands for, and the wonder is 
 that folk should be content to live in dreary 
 little villages high up on these stony fields, 
 when a thousand feet and more in the plains 
 and valleys below rich and fruitful soil invites 
 
 H5 
 11
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stev&nson 
 
 the husbandman. But so it is, and in this 
 region of France we have the strange circum- 
 stance of two peoples, differing in many 
 essentials of character, living within a day's 
 walk of each other, and mingling but little in 
 the intercourse of life. As you thread your 
 way through the valleys of the Tarn, the 
 Dourbie, or any of the other streams that 
 follow the rifts between the Gausses, you 
 realise that up there among the clouds live 
 people who have small commerce with their 
 fellows in the valleys, and in such a town as 
 Millau, whose inhabitants must look each day 
 of their lives at the giant walls of the Causse 
 Noir and the Larzac, upreared to the imme- 
 diate east of their own paved streets, there are 
 thousands who have never scaled these heights. 
 
 Mr. Crockett gives us this graphic word- 
 picture of the Larzac : 
 
 " The surface of the Causse — once Yvette 
 had attained to the higher levels — spread out 
 before her, plain as the palm of a hand, save 
 for those curiously characteristic rocks, 
 which, apparently without connection with 
 the underlying limestone, stand out like 
 icebergs out of the sea, irregular, pinnacled, 
 the debris of temples destroyed or ever foot 
 of man trod there — spires, gargoyles, hideous 
 monsters, all dejected in some unutterable 
 catastrophe, and become more horrible in the 
 moonlight, or, on the other hand, modified to 
 
 146
 
 The Country of' the Camisards 
 
 the divine calm of the Bhudda himself, by 
 some effect of illumination or trick of cloud 
 umbration. . . . 
 
 " A wonderful land, this of the Gausses, 
 where the rain never comes to stay. Indeed, 
 it might as well rain on a vast dry sponge, 
 thirty miles across and four or five thousand 
 feet in height. The sheep up there never 
 drink. They only eat the sparse tender grass 
 when the dew is upon it. Yet from their 
 milk the curious cheese called Roquefort is 
 made, which, being kept long in cool lime- 
 stone cellars — the cehules of the stony sponge 
 — puts on something of the flavour of the 
 rock plants — thyme, juniper, dwarf birch, 
 honeysweet heath — from which it was dis- 
 tilled." 
 
 IV. 
 
 A COUNTRY better adapted to the exigencies 
 of defence against an attacking army from 
 the plains could not be imagined, for, as the 
 novelist says in another passage, " It seemed 
 impossible for any living thing to descend 
 those frowning precipices. Even in broad 
 daylight the task appeared more suited to 
 goats than to men." The roads which now 
 connect these great uplands with the lower 
 country are marvels of engineering, and you 
 can count as many as twenty or thirty
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 " elbows " in the track, from the point at 
 which it leaves the valley until it disappears 
 over the edge of the table-land, the entire 
 length of it being in view at one stroke of the 
 eye. The task of ascending is laborious in 
 the extreme, and much sitting at cafes, 
 which is the habit of the townsfolk, does not 
 equip them for the undertaking. Few way- 
 farers are encountered, and when the summit 
 of the Causse is gained the signs of life are 
 still meagre. The roads, now flat and dusty, 
 he like bright ribbons on a dull and melan- 
 choly stretch of earth. Here and there a 
 lonely shepherd is seen tending a flock of 
 shabby-looking sheep, that crop the sparse 
 herbage in fields where stones are more 
 plentiful than grass. 
 
 Miss M. Betham-Edwards is one of the few 
 writers who have visited this little-known 
 corner of France, and in the following passage 
 she refers to what is perhaps its most curious 
 feature : 
 
 " Another striking feature of the arid, 
 waterless upper region is the aven, or yawning 
 chasm, subject of superstitious awe and 
 terror among the country people. Wherever 
 you go you find the aven ; in the midst of a 
 field — for parts of this sterile soil have been 
 laid under cultivation — on the side of a 
 vertical cliff, of divers shapes and sizes : 
 these mysterious openings are locally known 
 
 148
 
 THE WAY OVER THE LARZAC 
 {From a Photograph by Mr. S. R. Crockett)
 
 The Country of the Camisards 
 
 as ' Trous d'enfer ' (mouths of hell). Alike, 
 fact and legend have increased the popular 
 dread. It was known that many an unfortu- 
 nate sheep or goat had fallen into some abyss, 
 never, of course, to be heard of after. It was 
 said that a jealous seigneur of these regions 
 had been seen thus to get rid of his young 
 wife — one tradition out of many. According 
 to the country-folk of Padirac, the devil, 
 hurrying away with a captured soul, was 
 overtaken by St. Martin on horseback. A 
 struggle, amid savage scenery, ensued for 
 possession of the soul. ' Accursed saint,' 
 cried Satan, ' thou wilt hardly leap my 
 ditch ' — with a tap of his heel opening the 
 rock before them, splitting it in two — the 
 enormous chasm, as he thought, making 
 pursuit impossible. But St. Martin's steed 
 leaped it at a bound, the soul was rescued, 
 and the prince of darkness, instead of the 
 saint, sent below." 
 
 Many of the avens have been explored by 
 M. E. A. Martel, and his adventures in these 
 underground tunnels and caves have rarely 
 been equalled in modern exploration. 
 
 V. 
 
 The scene of Flower-o '-the-Corn, so far as it 
 is laid in the Cevennes, occupies but a small 
 
 149
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 part of that splendid chain of mountains, 
 but it is perhaps the most picturesque part. 
 Much of the action is centred in the Uttle 
 Camisard town of La Cavalerie, situate at an 
 altitude of nearly 2,500 feet on the lonely 
 plateau of the Larzac, some ten miles along 
 the main road from Millau, a beautiful and 
 important cathedral town in the valley of 
 the Tarn. To-day, as in the past, the 
 innkeeper is usually the man of most 
 importance in these mountain towns, but I 
 have visited no auberge that would com- 
 pare, in romantic situation, with that so 
 graphically described by Mr. Crockett under 
 the style of " le Bon Chretien " at La 
 Cavalerie : 
 
 " To those unacquainted with the plan of 
 such southern houses, it might have been 
 remarkable how quickly the remembrance of 
 the strange entrance-hall beneath was blotted 
 out. At the first turn of the staircase the 
 amm.oniacal stable smell was suddenly left 
 behind. At the second, there, in front of 
 the ascending guest, was a fringed mat lying 
 on the httle landing. At the third Maurice 
 found himself in a wide hall, lighted from the 
 front, with an outlook upon an inner court- 
 yard in which was a Judas-tree in full leaf, 
 with seats of wicker and rustic branches set 
 out. Here and there in the shade stood small 
 round tables, pleasantly retired, all evidencing 
 
 150
 
 The Country of the Camisards 
 
 a degree of refinement to which Maurice had 
 been a stranger ever since he left those inns 
 upon the post-roads of England, which were 
 justly held to be the wonder of the world." 
 
 One fears that the " good old times " have 
 disappeared from the Gausses, as most of the 
 inns, built, like many of the houses, in sunk 
 positions by the roadside, so that one enters 
 on the top flat, sometimes by way of a crazy 
 wooden bridge, are sad advertisements of 
 poverty. The houses are often like that in 
 which Mr. Crockett's heroine lodged in the 
 little Camisard town of St. Vernan, in the 
 valley of the Dourbie, " built out like a 
 swallow's nest over the abyss." For it is 
 noteworthy that most of these highland 
 villages cluster along the river courses, as 
 though the hill-folk were fain to have the sound 
 of the glad waters in their ears. In the valley 
 of the Jonte I marvelled often at these 
 " swallows' nests." Many of the cottages 
 have a scrap of garden, surrounded by a wall 
 not higher than three feet, from the base of 
 which the cliff sweeps down at an acute angle 
 to the river bed, six hundred feet below. 
 Children play in these tiny eeries with as little 
 concern as youngsters in a city court. 
 
 Not all the surface of these great table-lands 
 lies flat and stone-strewn ; one will often come 
 on dark forests of pines, and sometimes the 
 woodman has a better return for his labour 
 
 151
 
 in the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 than the shepherd. But on every hand the 
 conditions of hfe are primitive beyond any- 
 thing in our own land. Here, more frequently 
 than in his native Normandy, may we find 
 the sullen clod depicted by Millet in the " Man 
 with the Hoe." " Stolid and stunned, a brother 
 to the ox," as Markham has described him in 
 his powerful poem. It is, indeed, difficult to 
 realise that among these crumbling villages 
 and beggarly fields we are in the heart of 
 fair France. 
 
 VI. 
 
 There is little to choose between the 
 Catholic and Protestant villages ; all are 
 more or less in a state of dilapidation, all 
 have poverty written on their walls ; but to 
 mingle with the people and discuss affairs 
 with them, quite apart from all questions of 
 religion, is a sure and ready way to discover 
 how great is the difference between the two 
 classes. The one is usually a sullen and 
 unintelligent mortal, tied neck and crop to 
 the stony soil on which he has been born ; 
 the other bright, receptive of ideas, quick 
 with life and hope, and, if he be old, happy in 
 the knowledge that his sons have gone forth 
 from this bare land equipped by the liberal 
 training of the Protestant schools to take 
 dignified part in the great life of the Republic. 
 
 152
 
 MILLAU, WITH VIEW OF THE CAUSSE NOIR 
 
 ■-• .'^ 
 
 
 J,. 
 
 ON THE CAUSSE DU LARZAC 
 
 152
 
 The Country of the Camisards 
 
 For you will find that even in the veritable 
 strongholds of a debased and superstitious 
 Catholicism all the important officials are 
 Protestants. 
 
 The Protestants of to-day are no unworthy 
 descendants of the men whom Cavalier led 
 against the forces of civil and religious 
 tyrann}^ and though these lonely mountains 
 shelter also many who are still willing slaves 
 of the yoke which the sturdy " Sons of God " 
 endeavoured to shake off for ever, the 
 Camisards of two centuries ago did not fight 
 and die in vain ; their children's children are 
 to-day the little leaven that may yet " leaven 
 the whole lump." 
 
 153
 
 The Wonderland of France 
 
 I. 
 
 *' Whatever you do, you must not miss the 
 valley of the Tarn — the finest scenery in 
 Europe," Thus wrote a celebrated novelist 
 and traveller to me when sending some hints 
 on my projected tour in the Cevennes, a 
 district which to Mr. S. R. Crockett is almost 
 as familiar as his own romantic Galloway. I 
 have good reason to be grateful for his advice, 
 as the river Tarn is the waterway through 
 what I shall venture to call the Wonderland 
 of France. A clever writer has observed that 
 '' there are landscapes which are insane," and 
 truly in this little-known corner of southern 
 France nature has performed some of her 
 maddest, most fantastic freaks. Here she is 
 seen in a mood more sensational than the 
 weird imaginings of a Gustave Dore ; there 
 is no scenery that I have looked upon or read 
 about in any other part of Europe comparable 
 with this of the Tarn. In the old world at 
 
 55
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 least it is unique, and we have to go for 
 comparison to the renowned canons of the 
 Colorado. 
 
 Not the least curious feature of the story of 
 the Tarn, its awesome gorges and wondrous 
 caverns, is the fact that less than thirty 
 years ago the region was " discovered " to 
 France by M. E. A. Martel, the celebrated 
 grottologist, with as much eclat as it had been 
 an island in an unknown sea. Of course, the 
 whole district, like every other part of France, 
 had long ago taken its place in history and 
 romance ; but although many a generation 
 of peasant folk and monkish fraternities had 
 lived out their lives in these southern fast- 
 nesses, the Tarn country-side had not before 
 been explored by one in search of the pic- 
 turesque or the wonders of Nature. Thus, in 
 every sense of the word, M. Martel is to be 
 reckoned a discoverer, and the surprise is that, 
 despite a somewhat tiresome journey, there 
 are so few English tourists who find their way 
 to this enchanted land. The journey is no 
 more fatiguing than that to Geneva or Lucerne, 
 which in the summer months swarm with 
 English visitors, and, for all their beauties, 
 possess nothing to equal the natural glories 
 of the Tarn. 
 
 There are several ways of reaching this 
 little-known corner of France, but the best is 
 undoubtedly by way of Mende, a fine town 
 
 156
 
 The Wonderland of France 
 
 434 miles south of Paris, " chief place " of the 
 Department of the Lozere. Mende, although 
 one of the cleanest and brightest of the French 
 towns, with a population of less than 10,000, 
 and pleasantly situated in a wide green valley, 
 with low and sparsely-timbered hills billowing 
 on every side under a sky so blue and in at- 
 mosphere so clear that the eye seems to 
 acquire an unusual power of vision, would 
 scarcely be worth the journey for itself alone. 
 But it is the real starting-place for the descent 
 of the Tarn gorges, and it possesses many 
 excellent hotels and an ample service of 
 coaches for the journey across the great 
 plateau of the Causse de Sauveterre to Ste. 
 Enimie, a distance of about eighteen miles. 
 This would be the most convenient route for 
 the traveller who depended upon the train 
 and coach for his locomotion, but those who, 
 like the writer, make use of the bicycle, would 
 be well advised to make Florae their starting- 
 point, as not the least beautiful part of the 
 river scenery lies between that pretty little 
 town and Ste. Enimie. 
 
 II. 
 
 It fitted well with my plans one summer to 
 explore a much longer reach of the Tarn than 
 most visitors are in the habit of following, and 
 
 157
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 I should have been sorry indeed to have missed 
 any part of the journey. In company with 
 another friend of the wheel, I struck eastward 
 from Mende along the lovety valley of the Lot, 
 and crossing the great mountain range that 
 gives its name to the Department of the Lozere 
 we first came upon the Tarn at Pont de Mont- 
 vert, some fourteen miles north-east of Florae, 
 at which point R. L. Stevenson began his 
 acquaintance with the river. From this 
 sleepy old town the river runs through a 
 deep and narrow valley, the slopes thick 
 with mighty chestnut trees, and the sce- 
 nery in parts somewhat reminiscent of 
 our Scottish Highlands, and totally unlike 
 those reaches which, in its south-westerly 
 course, render it unique among the rivers of 
 Europe. For a few miles beyond Florae the 
 aspect of the country is somewhat similar in 
 kind, but on a more massive scale, the valley 
 wider and more pastoral ; but when one has 
 reached the little town of Ispagnac, which sits 
 snugly amid its fruitful orchards, the real 
 character of the Tarn begins to reveal itself. 
 It was after sunset when we had come thus 
 far on our journey to Ste. Enimie, a distance 
 of about seven miles from Florae, and never 
 am I likely to forget the weird and thrilling 
 impression of our passage from Ispagnac to 
 Ste. Enimie, a matter of fifteen miles. The 
 night comes quickly in that latitude, and as
 
 The Wonderland of France 
 
 we advanced along the well-made road that 
 follows the sinuous course of the river, at first 
 mounting steadily until the noise of the water 
 is heard but faintly far below, and then for 
 mile upon mile gradually tending downward, 
 the gloaming deepened into dark, and the gorge 
 of the river, at all times awe-inspiring, took on 
 in many a strange and mysterious shadow of 
 the night a moving touch of Dantesque 
 grandeur. We had left behind us all the tree- 
 bearing slopes, and the river now ran in a 
 great chasm of volcanic cliffs, shooting their 
 fantastic pinnacles a thousand feet into the 
 darkling sky, and presenting many an outline 
 that might have been mistaken for the towers 
 and bastions of some eerie stronghold. Not a 
 soul was passed on all the miles of road, no 
 sound was heard but the varying noise of the 
 water, nothing moved in our path except an 
 occasional bat, that zigzagged its noiseless 
 flight across the road. One sat on the saddle 
 with a tight hold on the handle bars, and kept 
 as close as possible to the uprising rock, for 
 towards the river was a sheer drop of some 
 500 feet, and only a low coping stood between 
 us and disaster. So tortuous was the road, 
 that, being at one time some little distance in 
 advance of my companion, I awaited his 
 approach, and could see the light of his lamp 
 shoot out like a will-o'-the-wisp into the middle 
 of an abyss, and then disappear in a hollow of 
 
 159
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 the rocks, only to emerge again and flash upon 
 an uncanny bridge across some gaping gully. 
 For a considerable time we gazed enraptured 
 on Venus, which is here seen with a radiance 
 seldom witnessed in England, and seemed to 
 lie like a glittering gem on the very brow of a 
 mighty cliff. Presently summer hghtning 
 began to play along the riven lips of the valley, 
 and continued at thrilling intervals to add a 
 touch of dramatic intensity to a scene already 
 sensational enough. 
 
 The only place of habitation through which 
 we passed was the little viUage of Prades, 
 where the lighted window of a cafe with noise 
 of merriment within, and the solemn gruntling 
 of oxen in an open stable, gave one a little 
 human encouragement though the street lay 
 void and black. As you may suppose, it was 
 with no small satisfaction that we at length 
 wheeled into Ste. Enimie at half-past nine 
 o'clock, and found mine host of the Hotel de 
 Paris delighted to welcome two belated 
 voyagers. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ste. Enimie, which has a population of 
 1,000, is the chief town of its canton, and is 
 cosily tucked away close by the river side in a 
 great amphitheatre of hills and cliffs, the 
 meeting-place of three important highways : 
 
 1 60
 
 A ROCKY DEFILE ON THE TARN 
 Showing the viass of the Causse Mejan rising on the left
 
 IN THE GORGE OF THE TARN 
 
 " The river roars between precipices, that rise sheer and stupendous 
 from its brink."
 
 The Wonderland of France. 
 
 that by which we had come, and the road 
 across the Sauveterre from La Canourgue, 
 and that across the other mighty plateau, the 
 Causse Mejan. The town is of great antiquity, 
 and is said to owe its origin to a certain prin- 
 cess named Enimie, daughter of Clotaire 11. , 
 who, being tainted with leprosy, was cured by 
 some waters at this place, and founded a 
 monastery here at the close of the sixth 
 century. This religious house became one of 
 the richest in all Gevaudan, but was sup- 
 pressed, like so many of its kind, at the time 
 of the great Revolution. The remains of the 
 building are still an interesting feature of the 
 place, and high on the cliff above is the 
 hermitage of the saint, a little chapel built 
 about the cave in which she is supposed to 
 have slept. The river is here crossed by a 
 splendid bridge, which the builders were busy 
 improving at the time of our visit. 
 
 While the mistress of the hotel was preparing 
 what we later pronounced a most excellent 
 meal, mine host was telling me surprising 
 things in the dining-room, to which one gained 
 access through a fine old-fashioned kitchen. 
 With one of Taride's large scale maps before 
 me, whereon was shown a " national road " 
 right through the gorges of the Tarn to Millau, 
 I asked for some particulars of the route, and 
 was smilingly informed that it did not yet 
 exist. 
 
 i6i 
 
 12
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 " But it is here, shown by a thick red hne, 
 on this map." 
 
 " Quite so, m'sieu ; many cydists come here 
 with a map hke that and think they can cycle 
 all the way. But there is no road as yet, 
 though in five years or six there will be one. 
 The only way to descend the Tarn from here 
 to Le Rozier is in a barque." 
 
 Now, experience has made me doubtful of 
 anything a hotel-keeper in a tourist resort will 
 tell you about boats and coaches, for you never 
 know to what extent he is financially interested 
 in the matter, and he of the Hotel de Paris was 
 avowedly the agent of the company to whom 
 belong the boats used for the descent of the 
 river. Although his hotel had a modern and 
 well-appointed annexe — token of the growing 
 popularity of the place where hotels are 
 rapidly increasing — in person he resembled a 
 brigand grown stout with easeful days, and 
 one naturally grew more suspicious when he 
 protested that it would not make the difference 
 of a sou to him whether we went by boat or 
 toiled ourselves to death across the mountains. 
 A good friend at Florae — none other than the 
 Free Church minister — had also assured us 
 there was no road beyond Ste. Enimie, but 
 that the boat charges were not dear. *' Nor 
 are they," said the hotel-keeper ; " it is only 
 thirty-six francs (thirty shillings) all the way, 
 which is very cheap." We were unable to 
 
 162
 
 The Wonderland of France. 
 
 see eye to eye with him then, but subsequently 
 came round to his opinion when we knew how 
 much labour and skill could be purchased for 
 this modest outlay. 
 
 IV. 
 
 You must know that the Tarn and its ways 
 are not to be measured by the ordinary ex- 
 periences of holiday travel. At seven o'clock 
 in the morning you wake and breakfast with- 
 out loss of time, in order to set out without 
 delay and reach Le Rozier, thirty miles to the 
 south, in time for six o'clock dinner. On the 
 beach, close by the hotel, lie a number of flat- 
 bottomed barques, rudely constructed affairs, 
 exactly similar to fishing-punts used in shallow 
 English waters. A plank of wood with a back 
 to it, and covered with a loose cushion, is laid 
 athwart the primitive craft, and here you take 
 your seat. It is possible, I believe, for six 
 passengers to be carried, but personally I 
 should be loath to trust myself in such a boat 
 with more than four, for two boatmen are 
 necessary to each punt. The charge is for 
 the boat irrespective of numbers, so that we 
 might have had two more in ours without 
 adding to the cost, but our bicycles helped us 
 to square matters. Our boatmen were rough, 
 half-shaven fellows, and he who took his place 
 at the stern seemed to have been drinking 
 
 163
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 imnecessarih^ early in the morning. But both 
 knew their ^ business thoroughly, and were 
 ahve to every current and whirlpool in the 
 river. 
 
 Their system of navigation is at once simple 
 and effective, the only possible method of 
 using the water-way. Armed with a strong 
 pole, they stand, the one in front and the other 
 behind, and aUow the barque to glide down 
 the swift current of the river, which runs, as I 
 should judge, at six or eight miles an hour. 
 Its course is broken up by innumerable gravel 
 beds and rocky snags, and while we seem to be 
 on the very instant of dashing into a seething 
 whirlpool one of the boatmen will, with ad- 
 mirable precision, jab his pole into a hidden 
 gravel bank and thrust the boat once more 
 into the main current. Beautiful was it to 
 watch how skilfully the men made use of this 
 current, and that, guiding the frail craft 
 straight into what seemed a perilous swirl of 
 breakers, only that they might avail them- 
 selves of a different current resulting there- 
 from, and pilot us into a quiet pool by the 
 beach on the very lip of a thundering weir. 
 
 It is indeed difficult to convey any adequate 
 idea of the sensation of such a journey, where 
 the water itself is at once the element and the 
 cause of the progress. One sits as in a cockle 
 shell on the enchanted sea, gliding along 
 magically amid scenes of unequalled splendour; 
 
 164
 
 The Wonderland of France. 
 
 but, alas ! the bronzed youth at the prow and 
 the hairy wine-bibber at the stern are no 
 creatures of fairyland, but the very serviceable 
 mortals without whose aid the wonders of the 
 Tarn would have remained to this day as 
 distant as the realms of faery. 
 
 The panorama, which seems to pass us 
 slowly on both sides of the river — for the 
 absence of mechanical propulsion gives one 
 the illusion of sitting still while the cliffs on 
 each hand move past the boat — is of ceaseless 
 change. For a time the hills reach up, green 
 and carefully cultivated, to the higher basaltic 
 cliffs, that rise perpendicular to the edge of 
 the plateau, a thousand feet or more above our 
 level, and then as they suddenly narrow, with 
 never a foothold for the tiniest of creatures, 
 the river roars between precipices that soar 
 sheer and stupendous from its water, or in 
 some cases lean forward so that at a little 
 distance both sides seem to meet and form an 
 arch across the stream. And the whole is rich 
 in colour, the prevailing grey of the rocks being 
 varied by great masses in which warm reds and 
 browns occur, while every crevice is picked out 
 with greenery, and wherever the foot of 
 venturesome man can scramble there have 
 been those bold enough to terrace patches of 
 the slopes where vines and even tiny crops of 
 wheat contrive to grow. One of the most 
 beautiful and romantic pictures is supplied by 
 
 165
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 the ancient castle of La Caze, which occupies 
 a sheltered corner in a bend of the river, where 
 above it the cliffs uprear with great hollows 
 and rotundities, illustrating how in the un- 
 known ages the water has eaten its way down 
 from the upper level to its present bed. 
 
 The Chateau de La Caze is set about by 
 many tall and leafy trees, and one could 
 imagine no holiday more enjoyable than a few 
 days passed here, for — Oh, ye romantic and 
 practical Frenchmen ! — the castle has been 
 transformed into an hotel, where all the 
 appointments and even the costumes of the 
 servants recall the Middle Ages in which it was 
 built. As we approached, one of our boatmen 
 took up a large conch and, blowing into it, set 
 the gorge echoing as from a foghorn ; but we 
 had decided not to visit the chateau, as it was 
 our purpose to lunch farther down at La 
 Malene, and the sounding of the conch was 
 meant only to attract the attention of some 
 of the servants, to whom our boatmen shouted 
 that we had thrown on the river-bank about a 
 quarter of a mile above the castle a sack of 
 loaves for its inmates. 
 
 V. 
 
 Between Ste. Enimie and La Malene there 
 are four or five points at which we have to 
 
 166
 
 The Wonderland of France 
 
 change our barque, where the river leaps over 
 dangerous weirs, and several changes are 
 necessary on the lower beach. It is due to 
 this manoeuvring and to a wait of nearly two 
 hours at La Malene, while the bateliers lunch 
 and gossip boisterously at one of the hotels — 
 the voyageurs also being not unmindful of 
 refreshment — that Le Rozier is not reached 
 until six o'clock, despite the rapid course of 
 the river. 
 
 La Malene is one of the three places south 
 of Ste. Enimie, and still in the real canon of 
 the Tarn, where the river is crossed by bridges ; 
 all splendid structures, designed to withstand 
 the spring floods when the current carries with 
 it many a mighty block of ice and all sorts of 
 debris from the hills. The first and newest of 
 the bridges is passed at St. Chely, a small and 
 dirty, but extremely picturesque, hamlet half- 
 way between Ste. Enimie and La Malene, 
 where we explored a wonderful series of 
 ancient cave dwellings, and where, by the way, 
 an enterprising photographer has joined the 
 modern to the prehistoric by painting an 
 advertisement of his wares on the face of the 
 cliff overlooking the former haunts of the 
 Troglodites. 
 
 La Malene is, to my thinking, one of the 
 most beautiful points on the route. The little 
 town sits in the mouth of a great ravine that 
 reaches far into the Causse de Sauveterre, 
 
 167
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 and on the opposite side the majestic mass of 
 the Causse Mejan chmbs to weU-nigh i,8oo 
 feet above the river, the mountain road 
 wriggHng upward from the bridge in a series 
 of wonderful twists and turns, " exactly like 
 an apple paring thrown over the shoulder of 
 the engineer," as Mr. Crockett has said of 
 another highway in the farther south. It 
 takes a man, walking at his best, more than an 
 hour to chmb that same road, as I can testify, 
 and never for a moment during the ascent is 
 the httle town at the foot out of view. This 
 will convey some idea of the barrenness of the 
 mountain-side, where cattle and sheep crop 
 a scanty herbage on fields that slope like the 
 roof of a house and are thickly strewn with 
 stones and boulders. At La Malene also 
 there is a mediseval castle, which, like La Caze, 
 is the property of that great tourist agency, 
 "La France Pittoresque," and now serves as a 
 hotel ; but we were more interested in the old 
 church of Romanesque design, where we saw 
 the common grave of the thirty-nine villagers 
 who were slain by the Repubhcan troops during 
 the Terror, and are remembered throughout 
 the Cevennes as " the Martyrs of La Malene." 
 It is striking proof of the terrible thoroughness 
 of that bloody regime that even to this remote 
 and sequestered nook the gory hand of the 
 Terror stretched out. 
 
 The French are the best of all road-makers ; 
 
 168
 
 The Wonderland of France. 
 
 more than any of the Latin peoples they have 
 retained and fostered this gift of their Roman 
 forebears. The highway they are now con- 
 structing along the Tarn was almost com- 
 pleted between St. Enimie and La Malene, 
 at the time of our passing, and a splendid 
 road it promised to be, here running like 
 a gallery along the face of a cliff and there 
 tunnelhng some mighty bluff that juts out 
 into the cafion. But the river will always 
 remain the real highway, as the scenery can 
 only be viewed to full advantage from a seat 
 in a barque, and the bateliers need not fear the 
 competition of the road that is in the making. 
 
 VL 
 
 If one were innocent enough to believe the 
 boatmen who live by the tourist traffic, it 
 would be difficult to know which part of the 
 Tarn is the most beautiful. At St. Enimie 
 you would be assured, in the event of your 
 being undecided as to the whole trip, that the 
 stretch between that town and La Malene was 
 by far the best ; while at La Malene you would 
 find the local boatmen emphatic as to the 
 unrivalled beauty of the cafion between that 
 point and Les Vignes, where the third bridge 
 stands ; and as surely when you arrived there 
 you would be told the Tarn was only beginning 
 
 169
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 to be worth seeing from there to Le Rozier ! 
 Naturally, it is impossible for two boatmen to 
 take you a voyage which, occupying twelve 
 hours, requires more than double that time 
 and many times more energy, to bring the 
 empty boats back to the starting-places. 
 Thus the bateliers are prejudiced in favour of 
 their own particular part of the journey, and 
 the only way is to make the entire trip ; but 
 indeed that is for all who do not cycle impera- 
 tive, as the expense of reaching a railway 
 station from any of the places mentioned 
 before Le Rozier would be prohibitive, and 
 one must continue the journey from the last- 
 named place to Millau by coach and train, for 
 which only a small charge is made. 
 
 My own impression, if one can distinguish 
 among scenes so differently beautiful, is 
 that the cafion between La Malene and Les 
 Vignes presents its most surprising aspect. 
 At Les Detroits the giant walls lean forward 
 in a bold and menacing way, and further on, 
 at the Cirque des Baumes and Les Baumes 
 Basses, we see some of Nature's most pic- 
 turesque effects, while the Pas de Soucy is a 
 wild and thrilhng part of the journey, where 
 the great basaltic masses are scattered about 
 as if an awful earthquake had but recently 
 shaken them into their fantastic positions. 
 
 But really there seems to be no end to the 
 beauty of the Tarn, and when one has arrived 
 
 170
 
 The Wonderland of France. 
 
 at Le Rozier fresh wonders await the eye, and 
 scenes rivalhng anything we have witnessed 
 are still to behold, if we will make a short 
 detour into the valley of the Jonte, where the 
 ancient town of Peyreleau sits like a queen 
 enthroned among enfolding hills. If one can 
 go a little farther along this tributary of the 
 Tarn and visit the famous grotto of Dargilan, 
 discovered by M. IMartel in 1884, a strange and 
 beautiful underworld, before which the most 
 extravagant fantasies of the Arabian Nights 
 pale into insignificance, will be revealed. 
 There, by the light of torches, we can wander 
 through gigantic caverns of stalactite greater 
 and more awe-inspiring than any cathedral, 
 and journey by canoe on underground rivers, 
 in what — those practical Frenchmen once 
 again ! — is " the property of the Society ' La 
 France Pittoresque.' " 
 
 Even that part of the Tarn between Le 
 Rozier and Millau, no longer a gorge, but 
 broadening into a smiling and fruitful valley, 
 with the great impregnable wall of the Causse 
 Noir frowning along its eastern length, is full 
 of beautiful vistas ; but the wild and rugged 
 grandeur of the caiion has given place to scenes 
 of pleasant pastoral life, and we cycle along 
 a highway fringed with cherry trees in fruit, 
 passing many a populous little town before we 
 enter the leafy boulevards of the historic and 
 prosperous city of Millau. 
 
 171
 
 The Town of ''Tartarin" 
 
 I. 
 
 The custom observed by English authors of 
 giving fictitious names to places described in 
 works of romance — as for example, Mr. Hardy's 
 " Casterbridge " (Dorchester) and Mr. Barrie's 
 " Thrums " (Kirriemuir) — has so brought 
 their readers to accept the most faithful 
 realism for romance, that when they take up 
 a French novel they are apt to think the places 
 mentioned therein are treated in the same 
 way. But those who have any acquaintance 
 with French fiction will know that the novelists 
 across the Channel follow a method entirely 
 opposed to ours. An English reader who 
 may have enjoyed to the full the famous 
 trilogy of " Tartarin " books may well be 
 excused if he supposes that the town of 
 Tarascon is largely a creation of their author, 
 Alphonse Daudet. It is true that if he has 
 ever travelled from Paris to Marseilles by way 
 of Lyons and Avignon he will have passed 
 
 173
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 through Tarascon, with its wide and open 
 station perched high on a viaduct, and the 
 porter bawhng in his rich, southern tongue, 
 " Tarascon, stop five minutes. Change for 
 Nimes, Montpellier, Cette." And if he has — 
 as he cannot fail to have — dehghtful memories 
 of the incomparable Tartarin, his feet will itch 
 to be out and wander the dusty streets in the 
 hope of looking upon the scenes of the hero's 
 happy days ; to peep perchance at his tiny 
 white-washed villa on the Avignon Road with 
 its green Venetian shutters, where the little 
 bootblacks used to play about the door and 
 hail the great man as his portly figure stepped 
 forth, bound for the Alpine Club " down 
 town." There would certainly be small other 
 reasons for tarrying at this ancient town of 
 France ; it owes such interest as it possesses 
 chiefly to the genius of Daudet, whose inimit- 
 able humour has vivified and touched it with 
 immortality. 
 
 I had been wandering a-wheel over many a 
 league of these fair southern roads one summer 
 before I found m\^self at the ancient Roman 
 city of Nimes, the rarest treasure of France, 
 and it was a visit to Daudet's birthplace there 
 that suggested the idea of going on to Tarascon 
 a desire intensified by the ardour of a gentle- 
 man from that town whom I met at a hotel, 
 and who perspired with indignation as he 
 denounced " that Daudet " for libelling the 
 
 174
 
 The Town of " Tartarin" 
 
 good folk of Tarascon. " Tartarin ! The 
 whole thing 's a farce. There never was such 
 a man ! " But he asserted that the town was 
 well worth seeing, if I could only forget 
 Daudet's ribald nonsense. 
 
 It went well with my plans for reaching the 
 main route back to Paris to make a little 
 journey through the fragrant olive groves 
 along the high road to Remoulins in order to 
 visit the world-famous Roman aqueduct 
 known as the Pont du Gard, near to which a 
 gipsy told Tartarin he would one day be a 
 king, and thence by the banks of the river 
 Garden to Beaucaire and Tarascon. Not 
 often have I made a literar}^ pilgrimage of so 
 pleasant or profitable a nature. 
 
 II. 
 
 You must know, of course, what a rare 
 fellow this Tartarin was — Coquin de hon sort ! 
 I am not sure that I should speak of him in the 
 past tense ; although his creator eventually 
 gathered him to his fathers, Tartarin was built 
 for immortality, and at most his passing was 
 a translation ; he is for all time the archetype 
 of southern character, and Tarascon is alive 
 with him to-day. Of medium height, stout 
 of ^body, scant of hair on his head, but bushy- 
 whiskered and jovial-faced, 3'^ou will see his 
 
 175
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 like sipping absinth at any cafe on the 
 promenade of the sleepy old town, or playing 
 a game of bilHards with the grand manner of 
 a Napoleon figuring out a campaign. 
 
 Tartarin, blessed with all the imagination 
 of the generous south, was indeed an in- 
 effectual Bonaparte, in the body of a good- 
 natured provincial. " We are both of the 
 south," he observed to his devoted admirer 
 Pascalon, when that faithful henchman, at a 
 crisis in his hero's career, pointed out the 
 similarity between him of Corsica and him of 
 Tarascon. Daudet makes him, in a bright 
 flash of self-knowledge, describe himself as 
 " Don Quixote in the skin of Sancho Panza," 
 and Mr. Henry James has in this wise elabora- 
 ted the point with his usual deftness : 
 
 " There are two men in Tartarin, and there 
 are two men in all of us ; only, of course, to 
 make a fine case, M. Daudet has zigzagged 
 the line of their respective oddities. As he 
 says so amusingly in Tartarin of Tarascon, in 
 his comparison of the very different prompt- 
 ings of these inner voices, when the Don 
 Quixote sounds the appeal, ' Cover yourself 
 with glory ! ' the Sancho Panza murmurs the 
 qualification, ' Cover yourself with flannel ! ' 
 The glory is ever3^thing the imagination 
 regales itself with as a luxury of reputation 
 — the regardelle so prettily described in the 
 last pages of Port Tarascon ; the flannel is 
 
 176
 
 TARASCON : THE PUBLIC MARKET
 
 THE TARASQUE 
 
 THE CASTLE OF TARASCON
 
 The Town of " Tartarin" 
 
 everything that hfe demands as a tribute to 
 reahty — a gage of self-preservation. The 
 glory reduced to a tangible texture too 
 often turns out to be mere prudent under- 
 clothing." 
 
 It is true that a good deal of the humour that 
 attaches to Tartarin is of the unconscious sort. 
 He and his brethren of Provence stand in 
 relation to their fellow-countrymen much as 
 the Irish to the English in the matter of 
 humour, but in that only. They are often 
 the butt of northern witticisms, and are said 
 to be experts in drawing the long bow. Taras- 
 con in this respect no more than man}^ a score 
 of little towns in the Midi ; but it suited the 
 author's purpose admirably to locate the home 
 of his hero there, as the place possesses many 
 quaint little peculiarities of its own which 
 fitted in admirably with the scheme of 
 Tartarin' s remarkable career. 
 
 III. 
 
 Since I visited the town the Tarasconians 
 have proved worthy of their reputation, as a 
 picture post card has been put in circulation 
 bearing a photograph of "L« Maison de Tar- 
 tarin.'' It shows a square and comfortable 
 white house, flat-roofed, with a series of loop- 
 hole windows that give it a murderous look. 
 
 177 
 
 13
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 In front is a large garden, where an old baobab 
 stretclies forth its branches and innumerable 
 exotics mingle their strange leaves in the 
 beautiful disorder of the primeval forest. So, 
 at least, I gather from a French journal. Yet, 
 while pointing out the mendacity of the picture 
 post card, the journal in question pubhshes 
 with every evidence of sincerity an equally 
 apocryphal account of the real Tartarin, who 
 we are told, was a person named originally 
 Jean Pittalouga, a native of the south of 
 Sardinia, not a Frenchman at all. He was 
 bought out of slavery by the Brotherhood of 
 the Trinit}^ and came to Tarascon to manage 
 the property of the fraternity in that town. 
 As Sidi-Moule3^-Abdallah was the superior of 
 Morocco and that countr}^ was part of Barbary, 
 Pittalouga became known in Tarascon, because 
 of his romantic experience among the Moors, 
 first as Sidi-Barhari, and then as Barbarin. 
 The time came when the Trinity fraternity 
 had to clear out, and with them Barbarin, 
 who now rented a neighbouring farm on the 
 outskirts of the town — the veritable " Maison 
 de Tartarin " of the post card. But he did not 
 die there. He went away with the Trinity 
 fathers into Africa, and is believed to have 
 been devoured entirely by some terrible wild 
 beast, with whom he had disputed the 
 sovereignty of the desert. To all of which, 
 as Daudet remarks of the member of the 
 
 178
 
 The Town of " Tartarin" 
 
 Jockey Club travelling avec sa niece, " Hum ! 
 hum ! " 
 
 One may note here that the author did first 
 write of his comic hero as Barbarin ; but as 
 the French law affords the fullest measure of 
 protection to living people whose names may 
 be introduced in works of fiction, and as there 
 lived in Tarascon a certain M. Barbarin, who 
 wrote to Daudet a letter worthy of his hero, 
 wherein he threatened the utmost rigour of 
 the law unless the novelist ceased to make 
 sport of " what was dearer to him than life 
 itself, the unspotted name of his ancestors," 
 Daudet altered the name to Tartarin, and was 
 inclined to think in after years, when the fame 
 of his creation had travelled around the globe, 
 that his hero would never have been so popular 
 under his original name. It may have been 
 a case of " apt alliteration's artful aid " ; but 
 one may suppose that Tartarin would have 
 been equally popular by any other name. 
 He embodies the extravagant, and not the 
 least lovable, side of French character, as 
 truly as Uriah Heep and Mr. Pecksniff repre- 
 sent English humbug and hypocrisy ; he has 
 many points of similarity v/ith J\Ir. Pickwdck, 
 but the last-mentioned can hardly be com- 
 pared with him as reality seen through the 
 eve of kindlv caricature. 
 
 179
 
 IV. 
 
 Tartarin was, in a word, an epitomy of 
 innocent vanities ; large-hearted, generous, 
 he had the C^sarian ambition to be the first 
 man in his town ; he was imbued with the 
 national hunger for " la Gloire," and many 
 were the amusing ways in which he sought to 
 demonstrate his prowess. To impress his 
 townsmen, the dear old humbug surrounded 
 himself with all sorts of foreign curiosities. 
 His garden was stuffed with exotics from every 
 clime, most notable of all the wonderful 
 baobab, which he grew in a flower-pot, 
 although that is the unmatched giant of 
 the tree kingdom ! His study was decked 
 with the weapons of many strange and savage 
 people, and, Hke a miniature museum, his 
 possessions were ticketed thus : " Poisoned 
 arrows ! Do not touch ! " " Weapons 
 loaded ! Have a care ! " 
 
 His earliest exploits were as chief of the 
 " cap-hunters," for, you see, in those days the 
 good folk of Tarascon were great sports, and 
 the whole country-side having been denuded 
 of game, they were reduced to the device of 
 going forth in hunting-parties, and after a 
 jolly picnic they would throw up their caps 
 in the air and 'shoot at them as they fell! 
 
 1 80
 
 TARASCON; THE MAIRIE
 
 The Town of "Tartarin" 
 
 " The man whose hat bears the greatest 
 number of shot marks is hailed as champion 
 of the chase, and in the evening, with his 
 riddled cap stuck on the end of his rifle, he 
 makes a triumphal entry into Tarascon, midst 
 the barking of dogs and fanfares of trumpets." 
 Tartarin, however, determined to cover 
 himself with glory — as well as flannel — by 
 making an expedition into Algeria and 
 JMorocco, there to try his prowess on the lions 
 of the Atlas. His ludicrous adventures on 
 this great enterprise — how he shot a donkey 
 and a blind lion, and returned to Tarascon 
 pursued by liis devoted camel — form the theme 
 of the first of Daudet's three charming stories. 
 The years pass with Tartarin lording it at 
 Baobab House, and at the club every evening 
 spinning his untruthful yarns, beginning : 
 " Picture to yourself a certain evening in the 
 open Sahara." Then comes the further 
 adventures of " Tartarin in the Alps," and I 
 confess that when, a good many years ago, I 
 first clambered up a portion of Mont Blanc it 
 was of Tartarin' s famous ascent I thought 
 rather than of Jacques Balmat's ; the fiction 
 was more vivid in my mind than the fact ; 
 and again at the Castle of Chillon — I say it 
 fairly — the comic figure of Tartarin imprisoned 
 there was more engaging to the imagination 
 than that of Bonnivard ; and, by the bye, in 
 the famous dungeon one can see scratched on 
 
 i8i-
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 the wall the signatures of both Lord Byron 
 and Alphonse Daudet. 
 
 The last, and in some respects the best, of 
 all the Tartarin books — like Miilvane}^ the 
 mighty Tarasconian has his fame " dishpersed 
 most notoriously in sev'ril volumes " — is Port 
 Tarascon, wherein are detailed the mirthful 
 misadventures of the great man, and many of 
 his townsmen who, under his direction, set 
 sail to found a colony in Polynesia, an under- 
 taking that proved fatal to his fame, and ended 
 eventuall}/ in his self-exile across the river to 
 Beaucaire, where he died soon after ; of sheer 
 melancholy we may suppose. 
 
 V. 
 
 It was into the busy little town of Beau- 
 caire, which lies around its ancient castle of 
 Bellicardo, on the west bank of the broad 
 Rhone, glaring across at Tarascon, that I 
 wheeled one bright day in June. Beaucaire, 
 for all its canal, wharves, and signs of pros- 
 perous industry, is as tidy a town as I have 
 seen, and the fine old castle, ruined by Riche- 
 lieu, where in the golden age of Languedoc's 
 poesy the troubadors sang their ballads at the 
 Court of Love, is beautifully situated on a 
 little hill by the river-side, quite near to the 
 magnificent suspension bridge which figures 
 
 ib2
 
 The Town of " Tartann'* 
 
 so humorously in Port Tarascon. The 
 rivalry between the two towns, their mutual 
 jealousies, furnished Daudet with many an 
 opportunity to poke fun at them. " Separa- 
 ted by the whole breadth of the Rhone, the 
 two cities regard each other across the river 
 as irreconcilable enemies. The bridge that 
 has been thrown between them has not brought 
 them any nearer. This bridge is never crossed 
 — in the first place, because it 's very dan- 
 gerous. The people of Beaucaire no more go 
 to Tarascon than those of Tarascon go to 
 Beaucaire." As the gentleman I met at Nimes 
 would have said, " Zut ! It is not true." 
 But that is neither here nor there. 
 
 Tartarin, up to his forty-ninth year, had 
 never spent a night away from his own home. 
 " The very limit of his travels was Beaucaire, 
 and yet Beaucaire is not far from Tarascon, as 
 there is only the bridge to cross. Unhappily 
 that beastly bridge had been so often swept 
 away by the storms ; it is so long, so rickety, 
 and the Rhone so broad there that — zounds, 
 you understand ! . . . Tartarin preferred to 
 have a firm grip of the ground." But this 
 must have referred to the old bridge that made 
 way for the present magnificent structure, 
 which crosses the river in four spans and is 
 1,456 feet in length. However, it was this 
 suspension bridge, and no other, across which 
 the hero's cronie Bompard came with such 
 
 183
 
 In fhe Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 bravery to witness for his friend, when Tar- 
 tarin, fallen from his high estate, was on trial 
 at the court of Tarascon for having been party 
 to a gigantic swindle in the great colonising 
 fraud of Port Tarascon, a charge from which, 
 as we know, he was rightly acquitted. Bom- 
 pard at the time of the trial was in hiding at 
 Beaucaire, where he had become conservator 
 of the Castle and warden of the Fair Grounds 
 — Beaucaire' s annual fair is famed all over 
 France — " but when I saw that Tartarin was 
 really dragged into the dock between the 
 myrmidons of the law, then I could hold out 
 no longer ; I let myself go — I crossed the 
 bridge ! I crossed it this morning in a terrible 
 tempest. I was obliged to go down on all 
 fours the same way as when I went up Mont 
 Blanc. . . . When I tell you that the bridge 
 was swinging like a pendulum, you '11 believe 
 I had to be brave. I was, in fact, heroic." 
 
 VI. 
 
 The view from the bridge as one crosses to 
 Tarascon is as pleasant a picture as may be 
 seen in any part of old France. The noble 
 stream, broken by sedgy inlands, sweeps on 
 between its low banks, and rising sheer from 
 the water's edge on a firm rock-base, almost 
 opposite the picturesque mass of Belhcardo, 
 
 184
 
 A WOMAN OF TARASCON 
 (Summer cost i. me J
 
 The Town of " Tartarin ' 
 
 are the massive walls of the ancient castle of 
 Tarascon, founded by Count Louis II. in the 
 fourteenth century and finished by King Rene 
 of Anjou in the fifteenth, and at one time 
 tenanted by Pope Urbain II., but now, Hke 
 many another palace of kings, fallen to the 
 condition of a common prison. Within these 
 grim walls Tartarin passed some of his in- 
 glorious days, but days not lacking romance, 
 for was not Bompard from the opposite height 
 signalling o' nights to him by means of 
 mysterious lights ? 
 
 If one has never seen photographs of 
 Tarascon it will be a surprise, as it is surely a 
 pleasure, to note how faithfully the artists 
 who illustrated Daudet's books have repro- 
 duced in their charming little vignettes the 
 chief features of the actual town. There to 
 the south of the bridge is the tiny quay from 
 which we are to suppose the Tootoopumpum 
 sailed away with the flower of Tarascon' s 
 aristocracy on that ill-starred expedition to 
 the South Seas. Daudet is careful to preserve 
 some slight respect for the truth by explaining 
 that the vessel was of shallow draft ; but, even 
 so, the Rhone is here not navigable to ocean- 
 going steamers. 
 
 Proceeding straight into the town, we arrive 
 in a minute or so at the Promenade, with its 
 long rows of plane trees, as in most French 
 towns, only in Tarascon the trees seem to 
 
 185
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 grow higher and leafier than anywhere else. 
 It opens out a short distance from the riverside, 
 and although it cannot be strictly called the 
 " Walk Round " for the reason which the 
 author gives — that it encircles the town — it 
 certainly traverses a goodly portion of Taras- 
 con, and takes in en route that " bit of a square" 
 to which he makes so many sly allusions. 
 
 Almost the first thing one notices after cross- 
 ing the bridge is the *' Hotel of the Emperors," 
 close by the Hospice at the opening of the 
 Promenade. This title is worthy of Daudet 
 himself ! Along the south side of the 
 Promenade stand the chief cafes and shops ; 
 as one sits by a table at a door watching the 
 passers-by, the scene is entirely agreeable. 
 Everybody seems to have walked out of 
 Daudet's page. The men are of two types 
 chiefly — those of the stout and bearded figure, 
 such as Tartarin himself possessed, and the 
 thin and sharp-featured fellows of Italian 
 caste, like Bezuquet and Costecalde, with 
 their bright, black eyes and fierce moustachios. 
 Most of them, this sunny day, are abroad in 
 their shirt sleeves, and almost to a man they 
 wear the soft black felt hats such as our 
 English curates affect. 
 
 186
 
 VII. 
 
 There is a musical jingle of spurs, as some 
 baggy-trousered soldiers pass on their way to 
 the fine cavalry barracks which the town 
 possesses. There go a pair of comfortable- 
 looking priests in their long black gowns, 
 their good fat fingers twined behind them ; 
 but nowhere do we see the white habit of the 
 friars, whose monastery of Pamperigouste the 
 gallant Tartarin and his crusaders defended 
 from the Government troops so long ago ! 
 The women-folk whom one sees about are nearly 
 all hatless, but they wear a dainty substitute 
 in the shape of a little cap of white muslin and 
 lace, and a pelerine of the same material over 
 their shoulders and breast. Small, plump, 
 swarthy, they are true daughters of the south, 
 and by that token better to look upon than 
 their sisters of the north. Here and there one 
 may see a woman touched with something of 
 the Paris fashion, members of that local 
 aristocracy to which belonged the charming 
 Clorinda of Pascalon's hopeless passion. 
 
 There is a constant toot-toot or tinkle of 
 bells as cyclists go by, for the wheel has come 
 into great popularity here as elsewhere since 
 Tartarin made his tragic exit across the bridge. 
 Perhaps the most unmistakable evidences of 
 
 187
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 provincialism are supplied by the antiquated 
 types of vehicles with their fat-faced drivers 
 and their unshorn horses, many of the latter 
 being harnessed with the most extravagant 
 kinds of collars and saddles that project a 
 couple of feet or m.ore above the level of the 
 animals' backs. 
 
 The whole scene is one of peaceful and happy 
 life, and it is good to look upon people who are 
 in no hurry to do business and seem to take 
 things easily. Across the wav. there, the 
 chemist is standing at his door, with those 
 great glasses of coloured water, that seem to 
 have gone out of fashion in England, shining 
 in his window, while he rolls a cigarette for 
 the white-legged postman who has stopped to 
 give him a letter, and chats with him in the 
 passing. He might be Bezuquet himself, did 
 we not know of the misfortune that befell 
 the latter, when he was tatooed out of recog- 
 nition by the South Sea Islanders, and had to 
 wear a mask when he came home ! 
 
 Going clown a street that leads northward 
 from the Promenade, we pass the Mairie, a 
 quaint old building from whose balcony floats, 
 not the Tarasque, but the tricolor, and by 
 whose doorway are posted notices of coming 
 bull-fights, for Tarascon is still keen on its 
 ancient sport despite the restrictive legislation. 
 Near by is the public market, and the whole 
 district swarms with dogs of every breed. We 
 
 i8d
 
 The Town of " Tartarm" 
 
 peep into the church of St. Martha, which is 
 no bad example of the Pointed Gothic and 
 occupies the site of an old Roman Temple. 
 One of the kings of Provence is buried here, 
 but more interesting is the tomb of the saint 
 to whom the church is dedicated. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 St. Martha and the Tarasque are the peculiar 
 glories of the Tarasconians, who, you must 
 know, would almost strike you if you breathed 
 the word " Tartarin " to them, and have never 
 forgotten Daudet for his satires on the town. 
 We cannot do better than go to Daudet for 
 the legend of St. Martha and the beast. 
 
 " This Tarasque, in very ancient days, was 
 nothing less than a terrible monster, a most 
 alarming dragon, which laid waste the country 
 at the mouth of the Rhone. St. Martha, who 
 had come into Provence after the death of our 
 Lord, went forth and caught the beast in the 
 deep marshes, and binding its neck with a sky- 
 blue ribbon, brought it into the city captive, 
 tamed by the innocence and piety of the saint. 
 Ever since then, in remembrance of the service 
 rendered by the holy Martha, the Tarasconians 
 have kept a holiday, which they celebrate 
 every ten years by a procession through the 
 city. This procession forms the escort of a 
 
 189
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 sort of ferocious, bloody monster, made of 
 wood and painted pastboard, who is a cross 
 between the serpent and the crocodile, and 
 represents, in gross and ridiculous efhgy, the 
 dragon of ancient daj^s. The thing is not a 
 mere masquerade, for the Tarasque is really 
 held in veneration ; she is a regular idol, 
 inspiring a sort of superstitious, affectionate 
 fear. She is called in the country the Old 
 Grannie. The creature has herself stalled in 
 a shed especially hired for her by the town 
 council." 
 
 Daudet's light sketch of the Tarasque ma}/ 
 be supplemented by a more circumstantial 
 account of the strange ceremony from a writer 
 on old customs (William S. Walsh), who in- 
 forms us that " the famous Miracle Play of 
 * Sainte Marthe et la Tarasque,' instituted, it 
 was said, by King Rene in 1400, was one of 
 the last Provencal coronlas to disappear, as in 
 its day it was one of the most popular. Even 
 after the Mystery Play was itself abandoned, 
 a remnant of it lingered on until the middle of 
 the nineteenth century in the annual processon 
 of La Tarasque, celebrated on July 29th, not 
 only at Tarascon, but also at Beaucaire. The 
 main feature was the huge figure of a dragon, 
 made of wood and canvas, eight feet long, 
 three feet high, and four feet broad in the 
 middle. The head was small, there was no 
 neck, the body, which was covered with scales, 
 
 190
 
 The Town of " Tartarin" 
 
 was shaped like an enormous egg, and at the 
 nether extremity was a heavy beam of wood 
 for a taiL Sixteen mummers, gaily capari- 
 soned and known as the Knights of la Tarasque 
 were among its attendants. Eight of the 
 knights concealed themselves within the body 
 to represent those who had been devoured, and 
 furnished the motive power, besides lashing 
 the tail to right and left, at imminent risk to 
 the legs of the spectators. The other eight 
 formed the escort, and were followed by 
 drummers and fifers and a long procession of 
 clergy and laity. The dragon was conducted 
 by a girl in white and blue, the leading string 
 being her girdle of blue silk. When the dragon 
 was especially unruly and frolicsome she 
 dashed holy water over it. A continuous 
 rattle of torpedoes and musketry was kept up 
 by those who followed in the dragon's train." 
 The celebration of the Tarasque has taken 
 place several times, I believe, since the pro- 
 hibition, while the procession of St. Martha is 
 held annually ; but as m}^ visit did not s}^- 
 chronise with either, I had to be content with 
 securing photographs from a local photo- 
 grapher, who was more inclined to discuss the 
 weather and smoke his cigarette than sell his 
 wares, and left his wife — at the time of my 
 call, in a state of partial undress between 
 changing her visiting costume for an indoor 
 dress — to do the business of hunting up prints 
 
 191
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 for me. It will be remembered b}^ those who 
 have read Port Tarascon that Tartarin foresaw 
 his own downfall from the day on which, under 
 the impression that he was shooting at a whale, 
 he planted a bullet in the gross carcase of the 
 Tarasque, which had been taken with the 
 emigrants to the South Seas and was swept 
 overboard to become a waif of the waves. 
 
 IX. 
 
 One of the peculiarities of Tarascon is its 
 railway station on the outskirts of the town. 
 It is situated some thirty feet above the level 
 of the street, and you gain the platform by 
 climbing several long flights of stairs, up which 
 it is no light task to carry a heavily-burdened 
 bicycle. During most of the day there is httle 
 evidence of life in or around the station, and a 
 clerk will cheerfully devote a quarter of an 
 hour to explain to you the absurdities of the 
 railway time table ; but five or six times a day 
 the place wakes up on the arrival of a train 
 from or to the capital, for all the trains in 
 France seem to have a connection, however 
 tardy and remote, with the octopus of Paris. 
 Then there is much ringing of bells and blowing 
 of trumpets, and you almost expect to see the 
 quaint and portly form of Tartarin himself 
 returning from his great adventure in the 
 
 192
 
 The Town of "Tartarin" 
 
 Sahara or his ascent of Mont Blanc. But you 
 reflect that these and many other of his doings 
 were much too good to be true, and take your 
 place in the corner of the carriage, making 
 yourself comfortable for the long and dreary 
 journey to Paris. 
 
 The last thing you see as the train steams 
 away is the white stretch of the Avignon Road 
 lying between the railway and the river, its 
 little white houses and modern villas close- 
 shuttered and growing indistinct in the soft 
 southern twilight. 
 
 193 
 
 14
 
 *' La Fete Dieu 
 
 For centuries the 19th of June has been to 
 the people of France a day of high festival. 
 No one who has happened to be travelling in 
 Normandy or Brittany — or indeed in almost 
 any of the French provinces — about this time 
 of the year can have failed to notice the 
 celebration of the Fete Dieu, and many may 
 have wondered what it was all about. It 
 has existed so long as one of the national 
 customs, varying in its observance in different 
 parts of the country, and having passed 
 through many periods of change, that a few 
 years ago he would have been accounted a 
 rash and uninspired prophet who would have 
 foretold that the Republican Government 
 might have the temerity to lay its embargo 
 on this sacred institution. But, behold the 
 day when the secular hand of M. Combes 
 had stretched out into the remotest parts 
 of fair France, and following hard upon 
 
 195
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 the upsetting of monastic peace, came the 
 prohibition of rehgious processions in pubHc. 
 The effect of this order was to hmit the 
 fete in many places to a mere perambulation 
 of the exterior of the church, and in others 
 the procession was confined entirely to the 
 interior, though here and there, it would seem, 
 the function took place just as it did genera- 
 tions before M. Combes and the anti-clericals 
 arose into power. 
 
 The festival is clearly of pagan origin, hke 
 so many of the ceremonies of the Christian 
 church ; it corresponds with the Corpus Feast 
 in Spain, the exhibition of the holy sacrament 
 having been grafted on to the heathenish 
 rights ver}^ early in the Christian era. There 
 seems to be evidences of the ceremony having 
 been observed in some form or other centuries 
 before 673, as in that year an ecclesiastical 
 council, held at Braga in Spain, spoke of 
 " the ancient and traditional custom of 
 solemnly carrying the Host on the shoulders." 
 It was^ Pope Urbain IV., who vainly en- 
 deavoured to stir up a new crusade on behalf 
 of his former diocese of Jerusalem, that 
 officially recognised and instituted as regular 
 offices of the church in 1264 the ceremonies 
 connected with the Fete Dieu. But, despite 
 this papal ordinance, the festival did not 
 become one of general observance until, some 
 generations later, there had grown around the 
 
 196
 
 PROCESSION OF LA FETE DIEU 
 Photographed at Morlaix, in Brittany
 
 La Fete Dieu 
 
 purely religious part of it a mass of painfully 
 secular tomfoolery, which turned the fete into 
 a great saturnalia. In the days of that merry 
 monarch, King Rene, it had assumed such 
 proportions that an entire week was devoted 
 to the celebration, " courts of love," tourna- 
 ments, jousts, mystery plays, and many other 
 amusements being associated with the solemn 
 procession of the sacred sacrament. Flourish- 
 ing more or less, the fete continued annually, 
 without interruption until the great Revolu- 
 tion, which gave short shrift to the old taste 
 for processions ; but under Louis XVIII. it 
 was re-established, and the State even fur- 
 nished troops as escorts for those taking part 
 in the processions. Times are changed indeed 
 when we find Le Pelerin, an illustrated weekly 
 newspaper devoted entirely to the interests 
 of pilgrimages, publishing cartoons which 
 show the police dispersing the pious partici- 
 pants in the procession of the Fete Dieu, 
 while rowd}/ socialists are permitted to wave 
 their red rags in the highway. 
 
 II. 
 
 The festival, which has thus fallen upon 
 evil times, might possibly have gone more 
 steadily downhill to the limbo of old customs 
 if the Government had left it alone, as of 
 
 197
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 recent years it has not been gaining in popu- 
 larit}^ and, practically speaking, only wcmen 
 and children have shown active interest in it 
 under the direction of the priests and lay 
 officials. Throughout Normandy it was a 
 rare thing to see men taking part ; but in 
 Brittany, and especially at the quaint old 
 town of Morlaix, which is famed for its high 
 railway bridge and its Fete Dieu, and holds 
 an extremely jolly kermesse, with dancing 
 and the selling of cheap rubbish, immediately 
 after the holy sacrament has been carried 
 through the streets, a larger proportion of 
 men were to be seen engaging in the ceremony ; 
 while in the far south, am.ong the peasants of 
 Provence and Aveyron, the men have long 
 been as attached to this and similar fetes of 
 the church as the women, taking part with a 
 comic gravity of demeanour absurdly out of 
 keeping with their usually gay and careless 
 behaviour. Generally speaking, the Fete 
 Dieu, as celebrated during modern years, has 
 been a picturesque, but brief and inoffensive 
 ceremonial, that did not greatly disturb 
 an^^body, and seemed to please the women 
 anc children. J^ In the course of time it might 
 have died out as a public institution, though 
 it must always survive, in some manner, as a 
 rehgious festival ; but the Government, in its 
 crusade against the enem.ies of the Republic — 
 for such undoubtedly are the Catholic priests 
 
 198
 
 La Fete Dieu 
 
 — may find that it has, by its very prohibi- 
 tion, reawakened interest in this ancient and 
 decrepid institution of the church. 
 
 As for the famihar procession of the Fete 
 Dieu, there is not very much to describe : a 
 brief notice of one may be taken as typical of 
 all. The first indication that the visitor would 
 have of something unusual toward was the 
 strewing of the principal streets with rushes. 
 Almost every shopkeeper would be seen with 
 an armful of the green blades, laying them 
 down to fullest advantage in the middle of 
 the road. This done, the next thing was to 
 bring out long sheets of white linen, which were 
 tacked a little way below the windows of the 
 first story, and hung downward to within a 
 foot or so of tthe ground, the entire route 
 being thus lined with a continuous stretch of 
 white, whereon busy hands had pinned roses 
 and other flowers, sometimes attempting 
 designs such as a heart or a cross, or the 
 monogram " I H S." Each shopkeeper seemed 
 to vie with his or her neighbour to produce a 
 more elaborate evidence of pious interest in 
 the coming procession ; but I have noticed 
 frequently that many performed their part in 
 the most perfunctory manner, only rushing 
 up their white linen and sticking on a flower 
 or two when the head of the procession was 
 actually in sight, and whipping off the sheets 
 as soon as it had passed by. 
 
 199
 
 III. 
 
 In many parts of the town, often in the 
 front garden of a private house, in some 
 outside corner of a church or in a market- 
 place, elaborate shrines, made of wood, 
 covered with cloth, and decorated with rushes 
 and flowers, would be erected. In one 
 small town I have counted upwards of a 
 dozen such erections, enclosing gaudy statues 
 of the saints, especially well disposed towards 
 those who supplied the money for the shrines. 
 But here again I have noticed the proverbial 
 economy of the French nation asserting 
 itself, the attendant at such a gorgeous shrine 
 lighting the numerous candles only on the 
 approach of the procession, and blowing them 
 out the instant it had passed, when also the 
 dismantling of the shrine would begin ! I 
 recall a particularly gorgeous shrine which I 
 saw many years ago in the town of Falaise. At 
 a considerable distance the numerous candles 
 seemed to be burning so brilliantly, that I was 
 not altogether surprised on going up and 
 examining them to find the supposed 
 candles were actually incandescent electric 
 lamps. Thus the preliminary arrangements 
 of the populace for the coming of the 
 procession. 
 
 200
 
 La Fete Dieu 
 
 The route was, as a rule, one that had been 
 followed for years, but the erection of a 
 particularly elaborate shrine by some person 
 blessed with pelf and piety, in a street not 
 within the usual itinerary, would be regarded 
 as sufficient to justify a detour. 
 
 I have never witnessed the procession with- 
 out being refreshed by its suggestion of old- 
 world ease. " Build your houses as if you 
 meant them to last for ever," was Ruskin's 
 advice. " Proceed as if your procession had 
 started at the Flood and was going on till 
 Doomsday, "would seem to be the motto that 
 inspires the demonstrators in the Fete Dieu. 
 
 In the distance the sound of music is heard, 
 and after a time at the far end of the road 
 the head of the procession is seen moving 
 towards us at a pace as much slower than a 
 funeral as that is slower than a horse 
 race. First comes the beadle, or church 
 officer attached to the cathedral, whose blue 
 or red uniform, with cocked hat, knee breeches, 
 white hose and buckled shoes, remind one of 
 the dress of our soldiers in the seventeenth 
 century, a get-up very similar to that of the 
 Swiss Guard at the Vatican, these beadles 
 being, indeed, generally known as the 
 " Swiss," though they are loutish and ignorant 
 fellows, with as much regard for religion as the 
 chucker-out at a roaring London tavern. 
 But for all that, the Swiss makes a mighty 
 
 20I
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 picturesque figure at the head of the proces- 
 sion, his sword hanging at his hip, and a long 
 mace carried in his hand as he steps out 
 slowly and endeavours to combine dignity 
 with scowls at the children who follow him, 
 the little girls in their white muslin dresses, 
 made for their first communion, and the 
 little boys in the sort of midshipman's suit 
 universally worn by French lads at the time 
 of their confirmation, a white armlet being 
 donned on this occasion and a rosary tied 
 around it. Following the children, who carry 
 banners with various religious devices, come 
 bands of music and different groups of men 
 and women, who also march under certain 
 banners that indicate their membership of 
 some brotherhood or sisterhood. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There are brotherhoods of the Holy Sacra- 
 ment in many parts of France whose creden- 
 tials date back to the Middle Ages, and who 
 seem to exist solely for the purpose of being 
 privileged to walk in religious processions, 
 with a ludicrous gown lavishly trimmed, and 
 having on the front, after the manner of a 
 herald's tabard, a picture of Christ. The 
 brethren of the various " charities," which 
 in France correspond in some degree to our 
 
 202
 
 La File Dieu 
 
 friendly societies, also wear uniforms, and, 
 in some parts of the country assist in the 
 procession. In the past many unseemly dis- 
 turbances arose out of the rivalry of these 
 brotherhoods as to their respective privileges 
 in the Ftte Dieu, and the sacred function was 
 often marred by the most disgraceful scenes of 
 rowdyism as the rivals fought for precedence, 
 and especially for the right of bearing the 
 canopy under which the Holy Sacrament is 
 carried through the streets. 
 
 The approach of the Host is heralded by 
 the acolytes in their scarlet gowns with lace 
 tunicles, who come singing, and precede the 
 white-robed members of the choir, lay breth- 
 ren and priests, who are either diligently 
 reading from books, or mumbling unintelli- 
 gently the orisons provided for the occasion. 
 Succeeding these come more acolj^tes, swinging 
 censers, and others who, walking backwards, 
 bear large baskets of rose leaves, and scatter 
 their fragrant burdens in handfuls on the road 
 in front of the bishop. The latter, arra3'ed in 
 his most gorgeous vestments, advances slowl}^, 
 holding aloft, with well-assumed solemnity, 
 to impress beholders with the awful sacredness 
 of his charge, the elaborate brass monstrance 
 or cabinet which encloses the consecrated 
 wafer. The bishop, who thus displays before 
 the just and the unjust the Holy Sacrament, 
 walks under a canopy of richly embroidered 
 
 203
 
 In the Track of R. L. Steven on 
 
 cloth, carried on four posts by specially 
 chosen members of some of the brotherhoods, 
 or perhaps by some unusuaUy devout laymen, 
 whose purses have not been altogether closed 
 when the clerical hat has gone round. 
 
 Previously to the approach of the dais 
 covering the bishop and his holy burden, the 
 spectators in the street have been laughing 
 and joking with and about the demonstrators, 
 and some of the children in the procession 
 have shown lamentable forgetfulness of the 
 solemn nature of the function by putting out 
 their tongues at us, and turning back to say 
 derisively, " les Anglais ! "—for this was before 
 the days of the Entente. But the moment 
 the bishop and the Host come up, down flop 
 the spectators on their knees, crossing them- 
 selves, the men removing their hats, though 
 I confess with pleasure that many a time I 
 have seen groups of men showing as much 
 reverence to the sacred wafer as Cockney 
 crowds do to the Lord Mayor's coachman on 
 show day. 
 
 The procession is now at an end so far as 
 our particular standpoint is concerned, and 
 already the white sheets are disappearing all 
 along the road, shopkeepers turning their 
 attention to business again. But it is winding 
 its way through other streets, pausing to 
 make special obeisance before the temporary 
 shrines, and to rehearse prayers cunningly 
 
 204
 
 A WOMAN OF SAINTE ENIMIE
 
 La Fete Dieii 
 
 adapted to the peculiar requirements of the 
 saints to whom the shrines are dedicated. 
 And so after, it may be, two or three hours 
 perambulation, the demonstrators return to 
 the cathedral, where High Mass is celebrated ; 
 this over, they are free to make merry to 
 their heart's desire. And they do. 
 
 205
 
 '' M'sieu Meelm of Dundae 
 
 1 1 
 
 Please do not consider it an affectation of 
 superior knowledge if I begin by saying it is 
 improbable that one out of a hundred of my 
 readers has ever heard of Morbihan and the 
 wonderful druidical remains in the Commune 
 of Carnac. To be quite frank, I had never 
 heard of them myself until one dusty summer 
 da}^ when I cycled into the little village of 
 Carnac away on the south coast of Brittany, 
 and within sight of the historic bay of Quiberon. 
 The village of Carnac, whose population 
 numbers only some six hundred souls, is one 
 of the most interesting in Brittany, where 
 almost every hamlet has some historic touch 
 to engage the attention of the visitor. It 
 consists practically of a little square of houses 
 surrounding the ancient parish church, dedi- 
 cated to Saint Corneille. This saint is the 
 patron of cattle, and in September the town 
 is the centre of a series of most picturesque 
 
 207
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 celebrations, the peasants journeying hither 
 from all parts of the surrounding country, 
 accompanied by their cattle, horses, and even 
 their pigs, for the pig is as notable a feature of 
 rural life in Brittany as it is in Ireland. Saint 
 Corneille, for a reason which will be explained 
 further on, is supposed to take a very personal 
 interest in the welfare of the Breton's cattle, 
 and to see the simple peasants on their pil- 
 grimage to his shrine, and later in the cere- 
 monies of parading their beasts around the 
 church and kneeling before his statue on the 
 west front of the tower, kneeling again and 
 sometimes even fighting for a dip in the water 
 from his fountain, is to realise how sincere is 
 their belief in his powers. But this is only by 
 the way ; my present intention is not to spend 
 any more time in describing the quaint 
 ceremonies that have long made Carnac a 
 centre of pilgrimage, and have been the theme 
 of many a story and poem by French writers. 
 Leaving the little square and striking east- 
 ward along the main road, I noticed a small, 
 plain building, almost the last of the few 
 straggling houses in that direction, bearing in 
 bold letters the legend " Musee Miln." The 
 name had a pleasant suggestion of my ain 
 countree, and in a trice I was knocking at 
 the door, curious to know what lay behind. A 
 tall, well-knit, clean-shaven Breton of about 
 forty years of age opened and bade me welcome. 
 
 208
 
 THE FAMOUS DRUIDICAL REMAINS AT C ARXAC 
 (The second view is a cjiitinuation of the first)
 
 " M 'sieu Meelin of Dundae " 
 
 He was carelessly dressed like any village shop- 
 keeper in his shirt sleeves, and wearing a pair 
 of carpet shppers ; certainly presenting no 
 aspect of the antiquary or the scholar, although 
 it was not long before I found that he was a 
 man of remarkable attainments in archaeology. 
 As far as I remember, the charge for admission 
 v/as one franc, and although at first it seemed 
 a large price to pay for looking at a roomful 
 of things in glass cases, I left with the con- 
 viction that I had made an excellent bargain. 
 The museum I found to consist of an ex- 
 tremely valuable assortment of relics of the 
 Stone and Bronze Ages. Admirably arranged 
 and catalogued were hundreds of flint arrow- 
 heads and axes, some of the latter being of 
 that earhest type before man had the sense to 
 pierce the axe-head for the handle, but stuck 
 the wedge-hke head of the axe through a hole 
 in the shaft. There were also many examples 
 of rude instruments belonging to the Bronze 
 Age, some Roman swords and a skeleton in a 
 prehistoric stone coflin. The interest of these 
 curiosities lay not only in their intrinsic value 
 to the antiquary, but in the fact that they had 
 all been dug up from^ the tumuli in the Com- 
 mune of Carnac. But to me they assumed at 
 once a far more vivid interest, when the custo- 
 dian explained that the antiquary who had 
 discovered most of them, and whose money 
 had founded the museum, was " M'sieu Meelin 
 
 209
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 of Dundae." When I explained that I was a 
 countryman of this Mr. Miln, the curator 
 launched into a warm description of that 
 worthy's abounding good qualities, and re- 
 called with the fervour of the French his own 
 personal association with Mr. Miln in the work 
 of excavation. He pointed with pride to a 
 very ordinary oil painting of his old friend and 
 master, which disclosed him as a fresh-com- 
 plexioned, white-haired gentleman of unmis- 
 takable Scottish type, and assured me that he 
 was " un homme trcs intevessant et tres aimahle," 
 I could readily beHeve the eulogy, as it was a 
 kindly old Scotch face that looked out of the 
 canvas at me. 
 
 II. 
 
 I WONDER if the memory of Mr. Miln is 
 treasured in Dundee. The chances are that 
 what I have to tell of him may be news to his 
 fellow-townsmen of to-day. A reference to 
 that excellent work, Chambers's Biographical 
 Dictionary, discloses the fact that he is 
 remembered there to the extent of exactly 
 two lines : 
 
 " Miln, James (1819-81), a Scotch antiquary 
 made excavations at Carnac in Brittany, 1872- 
 80." 
 
 That is all, but behind these two lines lie 
 the long story of a romantic life in a foreign 
 
 210
 
 " M 'sieu Meelin of Dundae " 
 
 land and a little measure of fame among an 
 alien people. In this respect the life of James 
 Miln resembles curiously the lives of so many 
 of his fellow-countrymen, who have wandered 
 to the ends of the earth in the pursuit of their 
 avocations, and left traces of their work every- 
 where except in the place of their birth. 
 
 My knowledge of the life of this notable 
 Scotsman and his work is gleaned from the 
 scholarly little brochure written by M. Zacharie 
 le Rouzic, the slippered custodian of the 
 " Musee Miln." It appears that James Miln 
 was born at WoodhiU in 1819, and while still 
 young travelled in India, China, and spent 
 some 3^ears in other parts of the far east. On 
 his return to Scotland he threw himself with 
 enthusiasm into antiquarian research and 
 scientific studies. He succeeded to the estate 
 of Murie in Perthshire on the death of his 
 father, James Yeanan Miln, of Murie and 
 Woodhill, and later to that of Woodhill in 
 Forfarshire at the death of his brother, to 
 whom that property had descended. His 
 particular line of study for nearly forty years 
 of his life would seem to have been the origin 
 and development of portable firearms, and for 
 a man of such peaceful pursuits it is strange 
 to be told that he was especially ardent in 
 encouraging every experiment for the per- 
 fection of rifles. Another of his hobbies was 
 concerned with the improvement of the 
 
 211
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 telescope ; but all kinds of scientific instru- 
 ments seem to have been objects, of his stud}^ 
 and inventive genius. In the experimental 
 days of photography he speedily achieved 
 success with the camera, and made a large 
 collection of photographs of ancient sculptures 
 in the east of Scotland. An accomplished 
 linguist and something of an artist, he illus- 
 trated with his own pencil all his works on 
 archaeology, which M. Le Rouzic assures us 
 was always his favourite study. 
 
 It was during the summer of 1873 that Miln 
 first visited Carnac, where he encountered his 
 friend, Admirai Tremlett, of Tunbridge Wells, 
 who was interested in the wonderful neolithic 
 remains in the neighbourhood, and became his 
 guide in a series of explorations. Miln's 
 enthusiasm was immediately aflame when he 
 contemplated this rich and sparselj^-explored 
 field of research awaiting the excavator. His 
 first idea was to purchase the ground on which 
 some of the most interesting remains were 
 standing, but finding this impossible, he 
 approached the farmers on whose land the 
 unbroken mounds, which represented burial- 
 places of prehistoric people, were situated, and 
 obtained leave from them to commence the 
 work of excavation, to which he immediately 
 resolved to devote himself during 1875 and 
 1876. The result was a series of important 
 discoveries. Perhaps the most important of 
 
 212
 
 ^ 'O 
 
 t£
 
 " M 'sieu Meelin of Dundae " 
 
 the remains unearthed were those of a Roman 
 villa, consisting of eleven chambers, and sur- 
 rounded by several other buildings, among 
 which were baths and a small temple, that 
 were beUeved to date back to the first half of 
 the fourth century. Numerous examples of 
 Roman pottery, glass, jewellery, money, a 
 bronze statue of a bull, and many other 
 curiosities were dug up. Within sight of the 
 museum, and only a few minutes' walk away, 
 is a tumulus surmounted by a little chapel to 
 Saint Michael, and here in 1876 Miln made 
 many notable discoveries, including the re- 
 mains of an eleventh-century monastery. 
 
 III. 
 
 The results of these excavations were des- 
 cribed in a large work written and illustrated 
 by himself, and issued in Edinburgh and Paris. 
 By Januar}^ of 1877 he was busily prosecuting 
 his explorations at Kermaric, a gunshot 
 distant from Carnac, and the work went 
 steadily on with the most fruitful results in 
 many other parts of the district until the end 
 of 1880, when Miln returned to Edinburgh in 
 order to produce another book describing his 
 researches. Unhappily, in the midst of his 
 literary labour, he was seized with a brief 
 illness,^ which at the end of six days resulted 
 
 213
 
 hi the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 in his death on Friday, 28th January, 1881, 
 at twelve minutes to eleven, as the faithful 
 M. le Rouzic records. 
 
 James Miln was a member of the Scottish 
 Society of Antiquaries, la Societe royale des 
 Antiquaries du Nord, the Academy of Copen- 
 hagen, and several learned societies in England 
 and the Continent. " Cest avec une doulou- 
 reuse emotion que I'on apprit, a Carnac, la 
 nouvelle de sa mort," to quote again his faithful 
 henchman. The museum with its precious 
 contents was secured to Carnac through the 
 efforts of Mr. Robert Miln, the son of the 
 antiquary, and his friend Admiral Tremlett, 
 and was opened on the 22nd May, 1882, since 
 when it has remained a centre of great interest 
 and importance to all antiquarian students, 
 and an enduring monument to *' M'sieu Meelin 
 of Dondae." 
 
 This is a brief outline of the life of a little- 
 known Scotsman, which is worth recalling as 
 an example of the quiet, unostentatious way 
 in which the Scot will carry on any enterprise 
 that lies near to his heart, with no eye to 
 personal advertisement, but out of sheer 
 pleasure in the work his hand has found to do. 
 Thus it is that one meets with traces of our 
 countrymen in the remote and unfrequented 
 corners of earth, and at the ring of an old 
 name the mind of the wanderer is carried 
 back across " the waste of seas " to the land 
 
 214
 
 " M 'sieu Meelin of D undue " 
 
 whose sons, by some strange irony of fate, are 
 prone to find their hfe-work far from home. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But my story must not end here, although 
 we take our leave of James Miln and his 
 museum. It is almost impossible to describe 
 in any adequate way the historic value of this 
 part of Brittany. Stonehenge, in England, is 
 a national monument which we zealously 
 treasure, yet its value, compared with the 
 neolithic remains of Morbihan, is as a drop in 
 a bucket of water. In the region to the east 
 and north of Carnac druidical remains are as 
 plentiful as blackberries in an autumn hedge. 
 The sight of what are known as " les aligiie- 
 ments de Carnac " is one never to be forgotten. 
 Standing on the little mound by the chapel of 
 Saint ]\Iichael already mentioned, and looking 
 northward across the plain, we see an enor- 
 mous range of menhirs or druidical stones 
 standing like an army at attention. There 
 are no fewer than 2,813 of these massive stones 
 to be seen from this point, and the imagination 
 is busy at once striving to picture the strange 
 rites practised here by unknown people before 
 the dawn of history. Dotted all over the vast 
 plains are dolmens and cromlechs of varying 
 size. 
 
 215
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 One of the largest dolmens that I visited is 
 known as the Merchants' Table. It stands 
 near Locmariaquer, and consists of an enor- 
 mous stone laid flat on the top of a series of 
 smaller stones. Originally the supporting 
 stones would be only slightly imbedded in the 
 earth, but in the ages that have passed the 
 soil has accumulated until they are now sunk 
 six or eight feet deep, but still project above 
 the ground to the height of four or five feet. 
 The roof-stone must weigh some hundred tons, 
 and one of the mysteries is how a people, whose 
 instruments were of the most primitive kind, 
 could place such a mammoth block in so 
 elevated a position. The dolmens, of which 
 the Merchants' Table is one of the finest ex- 
 amples, were probably places of burial, and 
 are always approached by a smaller chamber of 
 the same rude construction. The interior of 
 the one in question bears many strange carv- 
 ings, that remain an enigma even to the most 
 erudite. 
 
 Some authorities believe these structures 
 may have been used as houses ; others suppose 
 them to have been altars, so that it will be 
 seen their purpose has not yet been decided 
 upon by their most learned students. The 
 cromlechs, which are a series of stones standing 
 in a circle, were most probably sanctuaries, 
 and there is reason to beheve that it was here 
 the Druid priests practised their unknown 
 
 216
 
 "M'sieu Meelin of Dundae'^ 
 
 rites. They are generally to be found at the 
 end of an " ahgnment," and are oriented, so 
 that the hkehhood is the worshippers stood 
 within the long rows of stones, which would 
 correspond to the choir of a cathedral, and the 
 priests were in the cromlech looking toward 
 the rising of the sun. 
 
 To return for the last time to the great army 
 of menhirs, or single stones, seen from St. 
 Michael's chapel near Carnac, the legend 
 popular in the district is that when St. 
 Corneille, a Pope of Rome, was being pursued 
 by an army of pagan soldiers, he had with 
 him two oxen, which carried his belongings 
 and sometimes himself when he was fatigued. 
 One evening, when he had arrived near a 
 village where he would have rested the night, 
 he determined to press on beyond it because 
 he had heard a young girl insult her mother ! 
 He saw soon afterwards that the soldiers, who 
 had been following him, were arranged in line 
 of battle, and he was between them and the 
 sea. So he stopped, and transformed the 
 entire army into stones. This is at least a 
 picturesque way for accounting for those 
 marvellous remains that have baffled the 
 minds of men to explain. 
 
 »,7
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 The rambler in old France can seldom under- 
 take a little journey during the summer with- 
 out coming upon some town where a fair is in 
 progress. At least, that has been my own ex- 
 perience, and in the course of wide wanderings 
 through the highways and by-ways of the 
 most delightful land in Europe I have wit- 
 nessed many fairs in towns so far apart as 
 Morlaix and Montlugon, Orleans and Beau- 
 caire, Rennes and Lisieux. Nowhere does 
 the distinctive character of a people show 
 itself more strongly than in its pubHc fairs and 
 rejoicings. Thus, if one desired to get at a glance 
 a ghmpse into the different natures of the 
 Briton and the Gaul, a visit to Glasgow Fair 
 or Nottingham's famous Goose Fair, followed 
 by a look round the great fair of Rennes or 
 Orleans, would do more for one's education in 
 this regard than a great deal of book learning. 
 An extensive and pecuhar knowledge of 
 
 219
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 Scottish and English hoUday-making, which 
 the vagrant hfe of journahsm has enabled me 
 to acquire, goes far to justify in my mind, 
 when I think of the Frenchman and his merry- 
 making, the charge directed against us by our 
 friends across the Channel — that we take our 
 pleasures sadly. There is very little to choose 
 between an English and Scottish festival of 
 the common people, though that little of 
 brightness and genuine high spirits is in favour 
 of the former. A more vulgar, tasteless, 
 saddening spectacle than a Scottish saturnalia 
 it is difficult to conceive. For ill manners, 
 foul speech, stupid and low diversions, I have 
 seen nothing so lacking in all the elements of 
 joy as an Ayrshire country fair ; it has made 
 me blush for my countrymen. But when such 
 a melancholy festival has awakened memory's 
 contrasts of sights seen in merry France, I have 
 been glad to believe that, speaking generally, 
 while a fair in Scotland or in England stirs up 
 the less worthy elements in the people's 
 character, such an occasion in France, on the 
 contrary, calls forth some of the better traits 
 of the people. 
 
 In our own time, and due in some measure 
 to the growth of refinement arising out of our 
 improved education, the institution of the 
 public fair in this country has been steadily 
 declining in popularity ; but in France it still 
 flourishes. There are other reasons for this, 
 
 220
 
 Round About a French Fail' 
 
 though the chief is — again accepting a French 
 criticism — that we arc essentially a nation of 
 shopkeepers. The origin of the fair was, of 
 course, the bringing together of people with 
 goods to sell or barter, and a touch of pleasure 
 was given to the business by the association of 
 amusements therewith. Time was when 
 Nottingham Goose Fair was an event of the 
 highest importance in the commercial hfe of 
 the district, and continued over a period of a 
 month ; but with the rise of the shopkeeper, 
 who has ever a jealous e^^e on the huckster, 
 this, like many another of our fairs, has been 
 gradually curtailed, on the plea of its inter- 
 fering with regular business, until it is now 
 limited to a week, and is threatened with 
 reduction to three days. In France, however, 
 many of the fairs still last for a month, al- 
 though the most celebrated of all, that of 
 Beaucaire, which is almost continental in its 
 importance and is less a festival than a com- 
 mercial institution, is held for one week only. 
 At Orleans one of the finest fairs in France 
 takes place annually in June, and continues 
 for a whole month. It may be taken as typical 
 of these provincial carnivals, and in endeavour- 
 ing to give my readers some idea of its leading 
 features, I shall be describing to them the 
 character of French fairs in general. 
 
 221
 
 II. 
 
 Most of the towns in France are peculiarly 
 adapted for the holding of festivals, with their 
 wide main street and " bit of a square " ; but 
 Orleans is especially fortunate in this respect. 
 Although it is a town of not more than seventy 
 thousand inhabitants, it possesses a series of 
 spacious boulevards and public squares which 
 would be thought remarkable in an English 
 city of three or four times that population. 
 The chief part of Orleans lies on the north bank 
 of the wide and swiftly-flowing Loire, and the 
 boulevards, following roughly the outline of 
 an arc, compass the town with the river for 
 base. The great width of these highwa3^s — at 
 a moderate estimate six times that of the 
 Strand — makes it possible for an immense 
 number of booths and stalls to be ranged along 
 them without in any degree obstructing the 
 regular road trafhc. Thus, if you arrive at the 
 railway station during the fair month, you will 
 find the entire stretch of the northern 
 thoroughfares — close on a mile and a half as I 
 should estimate — occupied by the show people, 
 who have created a boulevard within a boule- 
 vard, as the fair-ground is one long avenue of 
 booths, with a wide promenade between and 
 roadways as roomy as an Englifih turnpike 
 
 222
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 still remaining free to ordinary traffic on the 
 outer edges. 
 
 If it were the first afiair of its kind you had 
 seen in France, you would be immediately 
 impressed by the remarkable cleanliness of 
 the shows and of the attendants at the 
 numerous stalls, where every variety of goods 
 are on sale. What may be described as the 
 business part of the fair is distinct from that 
 devoted to amusements, and the high-class 
 character of the stalls and their keepers is 
 explained when we know that the tradesmen 
 of the town have become hucksters for the 
 nonce, most of these temporary structures 
 being fitted up and conducted by local shop- 
 keepers. The appointments of some of them 
 are elaborate to a surprising degree, but never 
 defaced by such crude and tasteless displays 
 as we find at English fairs. 
 
 III. 
 
 To mention the varieties of business repre- 
 sented by these stahs would be to enumerate 
 every trade in the town, and a few more. 
 Bakers and pastrycooks are there in abundance ; 
 the stalls at which a bewildering choice of 
 sweetmeats is displayed are marvels of neatness, 
 and their name is legion. As many as five or 
 six smartly-dressed young women with white 
 
 223
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 oversleeves will be busy at one counter supply- 
 ing the customers, who are endeavouring to 
 increase the purchasing value of their coppers 
 by speculating at the roulette table kept by 
 the proprietor, for at such time the Frenchman 
 introduces the gambling element into every 
 transaction where it can be applied. At the 
 miscellaneous stalls, where all sorts of fancy 
 goods are on sale, the " wheel of fortune " is 
 practically the only method of exchange. 
 Man}/ of the places are run on the principle of 
 " all one price," and thrifty housewives may 
 be seen deliberating on the respective merits 
 of knives and forks, cruet-stands, butter- 
 dishes, and scores of minor household utensils, 
 each to be had at the price of half a franc 
 (fivepence). It is clear that the women-folk 
 regard the occasion as an opportunity for 
 getting unusual value for their money. 
 Peasants may purchase an entire suit of 
 clothes at some of the stalls, and if they 
 are wishful of a crucifix or an image of the 
 sacred heart, here they are in abundarxe, with 
 rosaries, bambinoes, and all the brightly- 
 coloured s^^mbols of Catholic worship. 
 
 But the real interest of the fair, and, of 
 course, its most picturesque part, lies in the 
 great Boulevard Alexandre Martin, which 
 stretches eastward from the railway station. 
 Here are congregated most of the places 
 of entertainment. These, no less than the 
 
 224
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 temporary shops of the tradesmen, present a 
 striking contrast to anything one may see at 
 an Enghsh fair. The Frenchman's instinctive 
 feeling for art is everywhere noticeable, and 
 the exterior decoration of the shows exhibits 
 a lightness and daintiness of touch quite un- 
 known in the same connection in England. 
 The gilded horror of the ghost-show exterior, 
 so familiar a feature of our own fairs, has no 
 counterpart in France, but the booths wherein 
 are exhibited " freaks of Nature " are curiously 
 similar in both countries, the crude pictures 
 on the canvas fronts being preposterous 
 exaggerations of the objects to be seen within. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What strikes one particularly in wandering 
 through the fair-ground at Orleans is that 
 while all is different from an Enghsh festival, 
 the difference is one of degree and not of kind. 
 Here, for example, are several circuses, where 
 performances very similar to those given by 
 any travelling circus in our own land are 
 " about to commence." On the outside plat- 
 form tw^o clowns are shouting to the crowd to 
 walk up ; the gorgeous ring-master with his 
 whip joins in the general advertisement; a girl 
 and a boy are dancing to the music of a small 
 but noisy orchestra There is this difference, 
 
 225 
 
 16
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 however, between a French circus and an 
 EngHsh one : the whole enterprise wears a 
 more noticeable appearance of success, is better 
 housed, the place being brilliantly lighted by 
 electricity generated by an excellent portable 
 plant, the performers better dressed. But 
 curiously enough, the finest travelling circus I 
 have ever seen in any land was Anderson's 
 " Cirque Feerique," which I came upon during 
 a flying visit to the industrial town of Vierzon, 
 some hundred and twenty-five miles south of 
 Paris. The proprietor was a Scotsman ! 
 "Mother Goose" was the chief item of the 
 performance, and the coloured posters of the 
 old lady and her goose had been printed in 
 England ! 
 
 Pitched close to such a circus stands a large 
 wooden opera-house, capable of holding from 
 six to eight hundred people, the seats being 
 arranged on an inclined plane, the higher 
 priced ones as substantial and comfortable as 
 the stalls of one of our provincial theatres. 
 The stage is commodious, and the performers 
 as accomplished as any touring company 
 that visits the second-class English towns. 
 Indeed, their performance of " Les Cloches de 
 Corneville " was given with a verve and a finish 
 not seldom lacking in more ambitious opera 
 companies one has seen at home. Instead 
 of an orchestra, a very clever and good- 
 looking young lad^ pianist played the 
 
 226
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 accompaniments throughout the entire per- 
 formance. 
 
 The travelHng theatres, too, force com- 
 parison with the regular playhouses in the 
 smaller English towns, rather than with the 
 wretched "tuppenny" shows that represent the 
 drama at an English fair. Like the opera- 
 house just described, they are fitted up sub- 
 tantially, and in good taste, the charges for 
 admission ranging from half a franc to three 
 or four francs. Many notable French actors 
 have graduated from these portable theatres, 
 and, indeed, those who perform in them are of 
 a class considerably above the mummers who 
 exhibit in our " fit-ups " ; they are the best 
 type of " strolling-pla^^ers." 
 
 One of the most detestable features of an 
 English fair is the appalling noise created by 
 mechanical organs. This is happily absent 
 from the French fete, and of the few contri- 
 vances of the kind which I remember at 
 Orleans there was only one designed solely 
 for the sake of noise. Perhaps the most 
 remarkable of these orchestrions was a real 
 triumph of musical machinery, around which, 
 and contained within an immense and bril- 
 liantly lighted wooden building, whirled an 
 endless chain of fairy coaches, hobby horses, 
 swan boats, and other fantastic vehicles, 
 eminently contrived for the purpose of pro- 
 ducing giddiness. This was truly the piece 
 
 227
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 de resistance of the Orleans Fair, and it would 
 be impossible to conceive a more striking 
 contrast than that between this really mag- 
 nificent construction and the familiar Enghsh 
 merry-go-round. Externally the building 
 would have borne favourable comparison with 
 a " Palace of Electricity " at some of our 
 international exhibitions. The fa9ade was of 
 Byzantine style, and myriads of beautifully- 
 coloured electric lamps picked out the design, 
 two huge peacocks with outspread tails, also 
 composed of coloured lights, being introduced 
 with most artistic effect on each side of the 
 ghttering archway. Inside, the decorations 
 were gorgeous "to the nth degree," as Mr.W. 
 E. Henley might have said, but the scheme 
 of colours was in perfect harmony, the whole 
 making up a veritable feast of light that 
 must dazzle and fascinate the simple country- 
 folk wherever this wonderful merry-go-round 
 is set up. At a moderate estimate, I should 
 name £10,000 as the cost of this single show, 
 and perhaps that will indicate the lavish way 
 in which the French are catered for by their 
 travelling showmen. 
 
 Cinematographs there were in profusion, 
 most of them exhibiting scenes of a kind which 
 would speedily be suppressed on this side the 
 Channel ; shooting galleries galore, exactly 
 like our own ; peep-shows, marionette 
 theatres, panoramas ; a booth with a two- 
 
 228
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 headed bull and other monsters, a Breton 
 bagpiper playing his instrument outside being 
 worthy of inclusion in the list ; but one saw 
 no " fat women "—possibly because they are 
 such common objects of French hfe ! A large 
 switchback railway seemed to be very popular, 
 and, like all the"^ rival attractions, its pro- 
 prietors claimed for it the distinction of having 
 come " direct from the Paris Exhibition," 
 where it had been awarded first prize. The 
 smallest side-shows, consisting of perhaps a 
 few distorting mirrors, had aU been " exhibited 
 at Paris," and the two-headed bull was 
 advertised by a huge painting showing all the 
 crowned heads of Europe and President Loubet 
 examining the beast, which, on inspection, 
 turned out to be only a httle removed from the 
 normal by having a head shghtly broader than 
 usual, with the incipient formation of a third 
 eye in its forehead, and a muzzle remotely 
 suggestive of two joined together. 
 
 V. 
 
 A PERFORMANCE which I enjoyed not a little 
 was given by a quack doctor. An enormous 
 carriage, resembling in outhne an old stage- 
 coach, but decorated with much carved 
 moulding and thickly covered with gilt and 
 crimson, which produced a most bizarre effect, 
 
 22g
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 stood ill an open space. Seated on the roof 
 was a boy, who turned a machine v/hicli 
 emitted the only hideous noise to be heard at 
 the fair. In the open fore-part, richly 
 cushioned, a man stood dressed in a dazzling 
 suit of brass armour, his glittering helmet 
 lying in front of him, and in his hand a small 
 bottle of clear liquid. He was of the southern 
 type, swarthy, wonderfully fluent of speech. 
 He assured a gaping crowd that his medicine 
 could cure any disease from toothache to 
 tetanus, and he invited any sufferer to step up. 
 Immediately one did so, the boy ground out 
 the hideous din above, and the doctor sat for 
 a few noisy seconds while his patient told him 
 his trouble ! Then the racket was stopped 
 with a wave of the quack's hand, and he 
 explained for five minutes, in vivid words, the 
 terrible nature of the patient's disease, and 
 invited the poor wretch to pick any bottle 
 from the stock in front of him. This done, he 
 had to open his waistcoat and shirt — for it was 
 a severe pain in the left side from which he 
 suffered — and the quack in armour struck the 
 bottom of the bottle on his knee, thus causing 
 the cork to pop out. He now shook the bottle 
 vigorously with his forefinger on the neck, and 
 the fluid changed into green, brown, and 
 finally black, whereat the simpletons around 
 marvelled, as they were meant to do. The 
 comic practitioner next thrust the bottle into 
 
 230
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 the open shirt-front of his patient, and shook 
 the contents of it against the victim's skin, 
 pressing his hand for a few moments on the 
 part. Then he asked the fellow to step down 
 as cured, and go among the crowd " telling 
 his experience." A dozen cases were treated 
 in less than half an hour — people with neural- 
 gia, sprained wrists and ankles — and always 
 the same formula as to consultation, explana- 
 tion, application ! A handful of liquid applied 
 to a man's cheek evaporated mysteriously and 
 worked wonders. Intending patients were 
 told that the doctor could be consulted at the 
 hotel near by during certain hours each day, 
 and man}^ must have gone to him there, for 
 the fluent humbug had every appearance of 
 driving a prosperous practice. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But the feature of this fair which, more than 
 any other, distinguished it sharply from any- 
 thing to be seen in our country, was " The 
 Grand Theatre of the Walkyries and of the 
 Passion of N. S. J. C." The mysterious 
 initials stand for the French of " Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." A gentleman with a shaggy 
 head of hair, dressed in a well-fitting frock- 
 coat, and possessed of an excellent voice, stood 
 on the platform outside, surrounded by oil 
 
 231
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 paintings of sacred pictures and a dozen or 
 more performers in the costumes of Roman 
 soldiers, apostles and other Biblical characters. 
 Judas was readily distinguished by his red 
 hair, Mary by her nunlike garb. The show- 
 man announced that the performance was 
 ** about to commence," and urged us to walk 
 up and witness the most pleasing spectacle of 
 the fair. A hand-bill distributed among the 
 crowd described the entertainment as a 
 " mimodrame biblique " of the Passion, played, 
 sung, enterpreted and mimicked by forty 
 persons ! " This spectacle, unique in France, 
 will leave in the minds of the inhabitants of 
 this town an unforgettable memory. It is 
 not to be confounded with anything else you 
 may have seen ; it is no mere series of living 
 pictures. At each performance M. Chaumont, 
 the originator, will present twenty-one 
 tableaux, three hundred costumes will be 
 used, and three apotheoses will be shown. 
 The estabhshment is comfortable, lighted by 
 electricity from a plant of thirty-horse power. 
 It is a spectacle of the best taste, pleasing to 
 everyone, and families may come here with 
 the fullest confidence. Balloons will be dis- 
 tributed to the children every Thursday." 
 So ran the circular, which also contained the 
 information (mendacious, I doubt not) that 
 the entertainment was the propert}' of a 
 limited company with a capital of ^20,000. 
 
 232
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 When the signal to begin was given the 
 place was not more than half filled, and the 
 audience seemed in no reverential mood. A 
 pianist began to play on a very metallic piano, 
 and outside the voice of the manager was 
 still heard urging the crowd to " walk up " 
 and "be in time." The drop-curtain was 
 rolled up, and the manager stepped inside 
 the building as a number of characters in the 
 sacred drama filed on to the stage. He 
 explained, in a rapid torrent of words, what 
 they were supposed to be doing, but Judas 
 jingled the filthy lucre so lustfully that the 
 pantomime was very obvious in its purport. 
 The curtain fell again, and the manager 
 stepped outside to harangue the crowd while 
 the second tableau was being prepared ; but 
 the ringing of a bell brought him in again, 
 and so on through the whole series. 
 
 It must be confessed that the performance 
 was carried out with no small dramatic ability, 
 and M. Chaumont gave a wonderfully realistic 
 interpretation of the role of Chirst, some 
 of the tableaux being strikingly conceived, 
 as, for examples, the kiss of Judas and Christ 
 before Pilate, the latter character being ad- 
 mirably represented by a performer who 
 looked a veritable Roman proconsul, and 
 washed his hands with traditional dignity. 
 The Crucifixion, too, was represented with 
 vivid reality ; but the audience was disposed 
 
 233
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 to laugh at the writhing of the malefactors 
 on their crosses, and did indeed giggle when 
 the soldier held up the sponge of vinegar to 
 the dying Saviour. It was obvious that the 
 whole performance, although really dis- 
 charged by the actors with remarkable fidelity 
 to tradition, and a commendable assumption 
 of reverence, was more amusing than im- 
 pressive to the spectators, who, though moved 
 to laughter when St. Veronica pressed her 
 handkerchief to the face of Christ and, 
 turning to the audience, displayed the miracu- 
 lous impression of His features, applauded 
 the more dramatic scenes liberally. What 
 interested me personally was M. Chaumont's 
 idea of a miracle. Save that of St. Veronica, 
 I have forgotten the others enacted ; they 
 were quite unfamiHar to me, but in the instant 
 of each miracle a Hmehght was flashed for 
 two or three seconds from " the flies," and 
 this was supposed to betoken the super- 
 natural character of the affair. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Of course, such a spectacle as I have 
 described would be quite impossible in our 
 country to-day, although time was in our 
 history, when miracle plays were a recognised 
 feature of the church in England. It was 
 
 234
 
 Round About a French Fair 
 
 in no sense comparable with any of the 
 passion plays still performed periodically in 
 some continental towns, and while the 
 incongruous surroundings of " The Grand 
 Theatre of the Passion of N.S.J.C." were 
 not calculated to induce a spirit of reverence 
 in the spectators, it was a saddening spectacle 
 to find an audience of Catholic people taking 
 so lightly the representation of scenes which, 
 however wrong in the light of history, should 
 have been to them sacred subjects of faith. 
 
 It was characteristically French that im- ■" 
 mediately opposite the theatre wherein this 
 Biblical pantomime was presented stood a 
 large exhibition containing an enormous 
 collection of pathological models and curiosi- 
 ties. This was, without doubt, the foulest 
 display of unspeakable horrors to be seen in 
 any civilised country in our time, for under 
 the hypocritical plea of illustrating, by wax 
 models and otherwise, the obstetrics of human 
 life and the diseases of the body, its pro- 
 prietor — a woman, if you will believe me — 
 had gathered together a collection of incredi- 
 ble horrors which men and women, and even 
 young people, were allowed to inspect on the 
 payment of one franc. The same exhibition, 
 which is probably not over-valued at £20,000, 
 was actually brought to London some few 
 years ago, but the police speedily cleared it 
 out of our country. 
 
 235
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 These blots, however, are the only blemishes 
 on the Orleans Fair, and for brightness, 
 gaiety, and general good taste, I must con- 
 clude as I began, by saying that a French 
 carnival is in every sense a more pleasing 
 spectacle than any of our English or Scottisli 
 lairs present. 
 
 236
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 I. 
 
 It was in Evreiix, while cycling through 
 Normandy one summer, that m}" wife and I 
 met three " new women," who were also 
 touring the country a-wheel. Their route was 
 for the most part the reverse of ours, but not 
 so extended, and in discussing the country 
 with them I asked how long they had spent at 
 Mont St. Michel. " Oh, we have not gone 
 there," was the reply ; " we were told it 
 wasn't interesting, and so we have kept away 
 from it." We were saddened to find that 
 three English women, especially of the 
 "advanced type," could know so little of the 
 monuments of France as to accept the irre- 
 sponsible opinion of some one-eyed tourist, 
 who in his or her idle babble had said Mont 
 St. Michel was not worth visiting. 
 
 Not interesting, indeed ! There is not in 
 the whole of Normand}^, in all France, in 
 historic England even, an example of so much 
 
 237
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 interest concentrated in so small a space. An 
 enthusiastic Frenchman has described it as 
 the eighth wonder of the world. Victor Hugo 
 has said that Mont St. Michel is to France 
 what the Pyramids are to Egypt. Large and 
 deeply interesting volumes have been written 
 about it. It will form a theme for writers for 
 generations to come, and artists will employ 
 their pencils here so long as a vestige of the 
 wonderful buildings remains. 
 
 There is a strong temptation in writing of 
 Mont St. Michel to fall into the style of the 
 junior reporter, who will blandly tell you that 
 a thing is indescribable, and immediately 
 proceed to describe it. One is persuaded that 
 this marvellous monument of the Middle Ages 
 cannot be adequately described in plain prose, 
 however apt the pen, j^et one is equally desirous 
 of making the attempt. But I shall promise my 
 readers on this occasion to make no effort at 
 an elaborate description, which, indeed, the 
 space of a single chapter renders impossible, 
 and to attempt no more than a general sketch 
 of the most noteworthy features of the Mount. 
 
 II. 
 
 To begin with, I take it for granted that the 
 reader, if he or she has not already visited 
 Mont St. Michel, is at least aware that it is 
 
 238
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 situated in the bay of the same name, near the 
 point where the coasts of Normandy and 
 Brittany merge, and thus some forty-three 
 miles south-east of Jersey. The story of 
 Mont St. Michel, even had the hand of man 
 never reared upon the rock one of the most 
 remarkable structures the human mind has 
 conceived, could scarcely have failed to be 
 interesting. During the Roman occupation of 
 France, or Gaul as it was then called, the great 
 stretch of sea that lies to-day between the 
 Mount and Jersey was then a vast forest, 
 through which some fourteen miles of Roman 
 military road were constructed. But in the 
 third century the invasion of the sea com- 
 pelled the Romans to alter the course of 
 their road, and in the next century both the 
 Mount and the small island of Tombelaine, 
 which lies scarcely two miles away, were 
 isolated at high tide. So on from century 
 to century the sea has gradually eaten away 
 this part of Normandy, until now some hun- 
 dred and ninety square miles of land are 
 entirely submerged at high tide. This alone 
 is sufficient to invest the Mount with a peculiar 
 interest, for one can stand upon it to-day and, 
 gazing far away to sea, contemplate the 
 absolute mastery of Neptune, whose ravages 
 have left of all the great forest of Scissy nothing 
 more than a handful of trees growing sturdily 
 among the rocks on the north side of the Mount. 
 
 239
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 But it is the human interest attaching to 
 Mont St. Michel that outweighs everything 
 else. The rock is steeped in religious lore, and 
 in the annals of war there is no place in France 
 more historic. Originally a monastery, it 
 became in time an impregnable fortress as 
 well ; the rough warrior lived side by side 
 upon it with the studious monk, and there the 
 clash of battle was as regular an occurrence 
 for years on end as the mass and vespers. In 
 its old age it became a prison, one of the most 
 dreaded in a land of terrible prisons, and just 
 as it had been absolutely impregnable to 
 attack (the English without success besieging 
 it for eleven years in the fifteenth century), so 
 was it an inviolable prison, only one man ever 
 having been able to effect his escape, and even 
 in his case escape would have been impossible 
 but for the facilities unconsciously placed in 
 his hands by his gaolers. 
 
 III. 
 
 The first thought that comes to the visitor 
 as he views the Mount from the shore is, 
 What could have induced an3'0ne to choose 
 so difficult a site for the foundation of a monas- 
 tery ? But here legend conveniently steps 
 in and explains all. In the eighth century 
 Aubert, the Bishop of Avranches, one of the 
 
 240
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 most pious in an age of piety, was in the habit 
 of retiring to the Mount for rest and meditation, 
 and during one of his visits there the Arch- 
 angel Saint Michael, the Prince of the Armies 
 of the Lord, appeared to him and told him to 
 build on the top of the Mount a sanctuary in 
 his honour. From which it will be seen that 
 even angels in those days were not above self- 
 advertisement. But Aubert, though a bishop, 
 was " even as you and I," and when he awoke 
 in the morning he had some doubt as to 
 whether he had been dreaming or had really 
 entertained the Archangel ; so he prolonged 
 his stay in the hope of receiving another visit ; 
 nor was he disappointed. A few days later 
 Saint Michael appeared to him once more, and 
 rather sharply repeated his command. But 
 even now Aubert was not convinced, and he 
 determined to give Saint Michael a third 
 chance, which the Saint was nothing loath to 
 accept, repeating his instructions in a most 
 peremptory manner. He also touched the 
 bishop's head, leaving a hole in the skull " for 
 a sign." \Ye have heard of a surgical opera- 
 tion to introduce a joke, but this is the only 
 case on record where a saint has found it 
 necessary to perform a surgical operation for 
 the introduction of a command into the head 
 of a bishop, and Aubert, hke a sensible man, 
 concluding that one hole in his skull was 
 sufficient, immediately set about the building 
 
 241 
 17
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stcvoison 
 
 of " the Palace of the Angels." Aubert's 
 skull is still preserved in the Church of Saint 
 Gervais at A\Tanches, and the startling effect 
 of Saint Michael's touch mav be seen to this 
 day : 
 
 This is onlv one of the innumerable legends 
 relatins: to the oris^in of the Abbev. 
 Another is worthy of mention, illustrating, as 
 it does, the advantages of co-operation with an 
 angel when one is performing so difficult a 
 task as Aubert took up. On the top of the 
 Mount were two large rocks which interfered 
 seriously \\-ith building, and could be moved 
 by no human efforts. Saint Michael, therefore, 
 appeared to a devout peasant who hved on 
 the coast and bore the famihar name of Bain, 
 telling him to take his sons to the Mount and 
 move the rocks. Despite the Caledonian 
 flavour of his name. Bain did not wait to have 
 his skull perforated by the Archangel, but 
 went forth\\ith together \\ith eleven of his 
 children and tried to move the rocks. They 
 could not stir them one hair's-breadth, how- 
 ever ; whereupon Aubert asked Bain if he 
 had brought all his children, and the good man 
 explained that they were all there except the 
 babv, which was \\-ith its mother. The Bishop 
 then instructed him to go at once and fetch 
 the infant, " for God often chooses the weak 
 to confound the strong." The child was 
 brought, and at a touch of his Httle foot the 
 
 242
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 rocks went tumbling dcvrn the Mount, in proof 
 of which one of them may be seen to this day 
 with a httle chapel to Saint Aubert built on 
 the top of it. 
 
 One more of the many miracles associated 
 with the beginning of the great work should 
 not be left unmentioned. Saint Aubert was 
 naturallv much exercised as to where he should 
 rear his sanctuary, the pinnacle of a lonely 
 rock being an unusual place to build on even 
 in those unusual days, but here again the 
 Archangel, who had manifested so much 
 personal interest in the work, came to his 
 rescue, and caused a hea^y dew to fall on the 
 Mount, leaving a dry space on the top. Upon 
 this dry space was the church to be built. 
 
 In 709 Saint Aubert had practically com- 
 pleted the structure, and the church was 
 dedicated to Saint Michael after two precious 
 rehcs (namely, a piece of a scarlet veil, which 
 the Archangel had left on the occasion of his 
 famous appearance at Monte Gargano in 
 Naples, together with a piece of the marble on 
 which he had stood) ^had been placed in a casket 
 on the altar. Xot a vestige of the orator\- built 
 bv Saint Aubert, nor of the church erected in 
 963 by Richard, remains. The oldest part of 
 the buUdings now existing represents a church 
 founded in 1020 by Richard, second Duke 
 of Normandy, and constructed under the 
 direction of the Abbot Hildebert II. The 
 
 243
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 transepts, the greater part of the nave, and 
 the crypts date back to this period. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The whole scheme of the wonderful memorial 
 that fascinates the eye of the latter-day tourist 
 owed its conception to this eleventh-century 
 abbot, and surely no heaven-born architect 
 ever conceived a more audacious plan. His 
 project was not merely to occupy the limited 
 space on the summit of the Mount with his 
 religious buildings, but to start far down the 
 sides of the rock, and, by utihsing the Mount 
 just as the sculptor makes use of a skeleton 
 frame whereon to plaster the clay in which he 
 models his statue, so to rear upward gigantic 
 walls and buttresses which at the top would 
 carry a huge platform to hold the super- 
 structures, creating thus a collection of vast 
 buildings with the live rock thrust up in the 
 centre for foundation. It is to the glory of 
 Saint Michael that for no less than five cen- 
 turies this colossal scheme of Hildebert's was 
 carried out with absolute unity of purpose by 
 his successors, an achievement only possible 
 among rehgious workers. The result was that 
 this lonely Mount gradually became clothed 
 with a series of most beautiful buildings, 
 which to the eye of the beholder seem to have 
 
 244
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 grown by some natural process out of the rock 
 itself. 
 
 To the student of architecture it would be 
 impossible to mention any monument more 
 worth}^ of study than this. Not only do we 
 find within its innumerable cloisters, crypts, 
 and halls, specimens of the purest Gothic that 
 exists, but at every turn we are presented 
 with structures that conform to the very 
 highest ideals of art, in being at once useful 
 and beautiful. There is not a single buttress, 
 not a window, not an arch, not a pillar, that 
 does not discharge some dut}^ and the removal 
 of which would not weaken in some degree 
 a part of the scheme. 
 
 V. 
 
 The best way to secure an intelligible notion 
 of the work of these monkish builders is to 
 walk around the ]\Iount at low tide and study 
 the buildings from the outside. The feature 
 that will most impress one in following this 
 course is the wonderful north side of the 
 Mount, known as the Merveille, which rears 
 its massive walls sheer from the- rock face, 
 supported along its entire length by enormous 
 buttresses, that spring with a fine suggestion 
 of strength and permanenc}' from their rocky 
 base. The principal buildings, apart from 
 
 245
 
 In the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 the church, are contained within these massive 
 walls. To the west we have, in three stories, 
 the Cellar, the Salle des Chevaliers, and 
 above the latter the open Cloister, the most 
 perfect example of its kind in the world. 
 The eastern part begins wdth the Almonry, 
 above which is the Salle des Hotes, and on 
 the top of that the Refectory. 
 
 The whole effect of the Merveille is superb, 
 yet what is it more than a great wall, held up 
 by mighty buttresses, pierced in different ways 
 to light the chambers within and to make each 
 suitable for its particular office ? The most 
 perfect economy has been observed through- 
 out, the buttresses are terminated the moment 
 their services are not required, and the 
 Refectory, which carries a light wooden roof, 
 is lighted by means of long narrow lancets 
 which give to the wall far more strength than 
 would have been possible had it been pierced 
 by wide windows ; still, the lighting within is 
 perfect. In brief, the Merveille, apart from the 
 numerous other buildings that went to form the 
 monastic and military establishment, is enough 
 to send an architect into raptures, and might, 
 if he knew not the dangers of the incoming 
 tide, which has to cover nine miles of land at 
 the rate of a race-horse, induce him to tarry 
 over long in feasting his eyes on this marvel- 
 lous achievement. It is beautiful beyond 
 description, and yet we may be certain that 
 
 246
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 its builders never thought of mere beauty in 
 its construction, but built purely to meet the 
 exigencies of the situation, and to provide the 
 best possible accommodation for the inhabi- 
 tants of the monastery and their dependants. 
 As one writer has put it, " the beauty just 
 happened." It is only when we find builders 
 striving after effect that we are face to face 
 with decadent art. 
 
 Continuing our walk round the rock on 
 those sands that have been the scene of many 
 a bitter battle, we pass under the ramparts, 
 beginning with the Tour du Nord at the eas- 
 tern end of the Mervcille. Here, again, the 
 beautiful union of art and Nature is observed, 
 this magnificent towei seeming to be but the 
 natural growth of the shelving rocks at its base. 
 It is no surprise to know that through the ages 
 which knew not the Maxim or the loo-ton gun, 
 the splendid fortifications successfully resisted 
 every attack of the envious English, the 
 Bretons, and the Huguenots. The modern 
 town is huddled picturesquely between the 
 ramparts and the Abbey to the east and 
 south. 
 
 247
 
 VI. 
 
 Having completed the tour around the 
 Mount, the visitor should proceed along the 
 ramparts, and reach the entrance to the Abbey 
 by the staircase known as the Grand Degre, 
 which leads into the Barbican, and through 
 the massive and beautiful Chatelet into the 
 more ancient entrance of the Abbey, known 
 as Belle-Chaise, w^here are situated the Guard 
 Room and the Government Room. Here the 
 guide will take us in hand, and march us from 
 point to point of interest in the interior. 
 But it is impossible, in the space of a short 
 chapter, to attempt a description of this, that 
 would follow in any detail the stipulated 
 round of the apartments at present shown to 
 the public. 
 
 Suffice it to say that you will first be taken 
 to the Church, which is now, and likely to be 
 for many years, in the hands of the restorers. 
 Only four bays of the seven that went to 
 the making of the great Norman nave remain, 
 and these have had to be much restored ; 
 but here it is a pleasure to record that the 
 restoration has been carried out with perfect 
 taste, so that the latter-day visitor has an 
 excellent idea of the appearance of the 
 Abbey and its dependent buildings as these 
 
 248
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 were in the heyday of Mont St. Michel's 
 prosperity. 
 
 From the Church we shall enter the 
 Cloister, already mentioned as being the 
 topmost of the three western stories of the 
 Merveihe. Here was the recreation ground 
 of the monks, and nothing could be more 
 exquisite than the elegant proportions of the 
 slender pillars that support the vaulted roofs 
 of the double arcade. From the Cloister 
 we visit the Refectory, where many a strange 
 gathering of monks has taken place in days 
 of old, for it is one of the interesting things in 
 the history of Mont St. Michel that, while in 
 its earlier ages it was a centre of learning and 
 genuine religion, it became corrupt and 
 scandalous under the commendatory abbots, 
 who were men neither of morals nor religion, 
 and who allowed all sorts of abuses within 
 these sacred walls. At one time, indeed, the 
 Abbot of Mont St. Michel was the five-year- 
 ' old son of Louis the Just. In the south-west 
 corner of the Refectory is the pit that 
 formerly contained a lift whereby provisions 
 could be hauled up from the bottom story, 
 and the leavings of the monks sent down to 
 the Almonry for distribution among the poor. 
 
 The Salle des Chevaliers, which will next 
 be visited, is described by a learned writer as 
 " perhaps the finest Gothic chamber in the 
 world," and is believed to have been built as 
 
 249
 
 hi the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 a great workroom for the monks, but received 
 its present name either from the fact that the 
 first investitures of the Order of St. Michael 
 were made herein, or that it was the lodging 
 of the 190 knights who came to the Mount to 
 defend it against the English. In this beau- 
 tiful apartment, lighted and ventilated in a 
 way that is a model to present-day builders, 
 the monks wrote and illuminated the manu- 
 scripts which earned for the abbey the title of 
 " The City of Books." Reached from this 
 room is the Salle des Hotes, wherein the grand 
 visitors were entertained by the abbot in a 
 style befitting their rank, as under the rule 
 of St. Benedict it was forbidden for laymen to 
 enter the apartments reserved for the monks. 
 Like all the other buildings, however, it has 
 served many another purpose than that for 
 which it was originally designed, and at one 
 time was actually used as a Plomberie where 
 the lead was worked for roofing and other 
 purposes connected with the Abbey. 
 
 The Cellar is, in its way, as beautiful as any 
 of the other apartments, although nothing 
 was attempted by its builders but to provide 
 a capacious storeroom for the inhabitants of 
 the Mount, and to secure, in its strong pillars, 
 strength to support the buildings rising above 
 it. The provisions were hauled up from the 
 sands by means of a great wheel and a rope, 
 the latter being carried out on a little draw- 
 
 250
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 bridge to enable it to drop clear of the rocks. 
 This arrangement, by the way, is associated 
 with one of the most audacious attempts to 
 secure the Abbey during the wars of the 
 Huguenots. A traitor within arranged with 
 two Huguenot leaders that on the day of 
 St. Michael, in September, at eight o'clock in 
 the evening, in the year 1591, he would haul 
 up their men by means of this rope, and intro- 
 duce them to the Cellar, while the monks were 
 engaged in devotions, so placing the Mount 
 at their merc}^ But he proved a double 
 traitor, for after seventy-eight men had been 
 so hauled up, and, with one exception, 
 quietly killed by the soldiers of the garrison 
 as they arrived, the leaders below became 
 suspicious of a trap, and asked that a monk 
 should be thrown down as evidence that the 
 plot was successful. The Governor immedi- 
 ately had one of the murdered Huguenots 
 dressed in the gown of a monk and thrown 
 down, but the Sieur Montgomery was not 
 satisfied with this, and he called up that one 
 of his men should come out on the drawbridge 
 and assure them below that all was well. So 
 the Governor sent the one man he had spared 
 and instructed him to answer down that the 
 Huguenots were masters of the Abbey. He 
 was faithful to death, however, and called 
 down that they were betrayed. Instead of 
 being immediately killed, the Governor was 
 
 2S1
 
 In the Track of k. L. Stevenson 
 
 so impressed with his courage, that he spared 
 him, and the Huguenots hastily rode away. 
 
 The Almonry is the last of the great apart- 
 ments which are contained in the Merveille, 
 and it is from this that visitors make their 
 exit into the courtyard of the Abbey ; but 
 many other interesting chambers are shown, 
 such as the Crypte de I'Aquilon, the Charnier, 
 the Promenoir or ancient cloister, and the 
 famous Crypte des Gros-Piliers, which is also 
 known as I'Eglise Basse, its pillars, of enormous 
 girth, being designed to support the heavy 
 masonry of the Abbey above. The Cachots, 
 or prisons, are also an important feature of 
 the sights described by the guide, and many 
 harrowing tales are told of famous prisoners 
 who went mad during their incarceration in 
 these dread dungeons. But it is a pity that 
 this part is shown at all, as the recollection of 
 these hideous holes is likely to confuse many 
 visitors' impressions of the place. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Here, then, is a very brief and a sadly- 
 imperfect sketch of this rare legacy which the 
 Middle Ages have left to lucky France. It 
 need only be added that not one visit, nor 
 two, is sufficient to an adequate appreciation 
 of the beauties of Mont St. Michel ; several 
 
 252
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 days, instead of several hours, as is too often 
 the custom of the breathless tourist, should 
 be spent on the Mount. There is accommoda- 
 tion in plenty, for the three hotels, all kept 
 by members of the same family (and each at 
 daggers drawn with the others), give splendid 
 entertainment at moderate rates ; and practi- 
 cally all the houses are annexes to one or 
 other of these establishments, so that except 
 during August and September accommoda- 
 tion is never difficult to obtain. Nor are the 
 buildings of the Abbey and the Merveille the 
 only things of interest on the Mount to-day, 
 for though it is a strangely-different scene from 
 that in the olden days of pilgrimage, it is, 
 perhaps, as interesting if we choose to regard 
 as pilgrims the countless tourists who swarm 
 here from all the ends of the earth, and we 
 shall find among them even more material 
 for study than was afforded to the monks in 
 ages past. Then if rain should keep us 
 prisoner for an hour or two at times, we need 
 not weary sitting at our window, watching 
 the carriages and bicycles arriving at the 
 entrance to the Cour de I'Avancee, where 
 they are immediately besieged by representa- 
 tives of each of the hotels, and probably a 
 simple Briton, innocent of French or the ways 
 of this curious community, will find himself 
 divided into three, his luggage being captured 
 by the representative of Poulard aine, his 
 
 253
 
 hi the Track of R. L. Stevenson 
 
 bicycle being taken by the tout for Poulard 
 jeiine, and he himself led captive by the 
 buxom female who canvasses for veuve 
 Poulard. 
 
 We remember one occasion when, at a 
 high tide, which necessitated the use of a boat 
 for debarking visitors, a solitary English fe- 
 male, of the type so properly satirised by 
 French caricaturists, arrived by the diligence, 
 and was rowed in lonely state through the 
 entrance to the outer court. As the boat 
 grounded she stood up, an angular vision in 
 drab, with dark blue spectacles and a straw 
 hat. In answer to the inquiring shouts of 
 the hotel representatives, she innocently re- 
 plied in the one word she knew, " Poulard," 
 and there was a rush for her, in which the 
 elder Poulard, thanks to exceptional height 
 and strength, was able to dispose of his rivals, 
 and lift this representative of British woman- 
 hood bodily into the kitchen of his hotel. 
 She would probably be as much surprised as 
 most of us are on visiting the place for the 
 first time, to discover that after leaving this 
 kitchen and ascending two stairs in the hope 
 of arriving immediately at our bedroom, the 
 maid calmly opens a door, and we find our- 
 selves in another street, that rises step after step 
 for one hundred yards or so, and brings us 
 to one of the dependencies of the hotel, where 
 probably we may have two or three stories 
 
 254
 
 The Palace of the Angels 
 
 to climb. You have a feeling all the time 
 you are on the Mount that, somehow, 3^ou 
 are living on the top of slates, as the houses 
 look down upon each other, and in many 
 cases you can walk from the top flat out on 
 to a street at the back. 
 
 In a word, Mont St. Michel is unique. A 
 stay here is an experience unlike any to be 
 had elsewhere in Europe. " Not worth visit- 
 ing " forsooth ! 
 
 THE END 
 
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