/ FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/francefromseatosOOriggricln c8 c O c > o c C a ^ ^ c > CO V fc CS a (U i-i E 3 o o c O FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA By ARTHUR STANLEY RIGGS F. R. G. S. Author of ** Vistas in Sicily " NEW YORK McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 1913 Copyright, 1913, by McBRIDE, NAST & CO. Published May, 1913 TO THOSE WHO, LOVERS OF NATURAL BEAUTY AND FRIENDS OF THEIR FELLOW MEN, SEE THE SUNBEAM RATHER THAN THE MOTE FLOATING UPON IT, AND LIVE THE PROVERB Honi soit qui mal y pense. Some of the material that follows has appeared as arti- cles in Travel, to whose editor the thanks of the author are due for permission to reprint such matter. A. S. R. "Onoatok," Thorndale, Pa.; March 1, 1913. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introduction. I. Impressions ...... 1 II. Golden Sands of Picardy 13 III. Abbeville and Nearby 25 IV. Stone Bibles 36 V. Champagne and Churches 50 VI. The Golden Side . 61 VII. Among the Domes .... 75 VIII. The City of Many Bridges . 86 IX. Grenoble, the Grande Chartreuse and Chambery .... 98 X. Going to Grasse .... 113 XI. Grasse and the Riviera . 123 XII. Old Provence 134 XIII. "A Dream of Fair Women" . 145 XIV. The Home of the Seven Popes 158 XV. The Living and the Dead 170 XVI. Through Languedoc 179 CHAPTER PAGH XVII. Perigueux, Limoges and Poitiers . 191 XVIII. The Playground of the Kings . 206 XIX. In Bourges and Angers . . ,. 223 XX. In Old Brittany .... 234 XXI. The Norman Country . ^., . 249 XXII. Rouen . . . . ... . 261 XXIII. Historic Paris ...,.,. 278 XXIV. The Siren of the Seine . . 292 Bibliography . . . . . 305 Index .....:. 307 THE ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Grenoble .... Frontispiece The Street of 108 Steps A Charming Vista on the River Somme The Reims Cathedral A Perfume Factory in Grasse . The Viaducts near Grenoble A Daughter of Arles The Monastery Castle of St. Honorat The Amphitheater of Arles The Palace of the Popes at Avignon View of Perigueux .... The Chateau de Chenonceaux . A Wedding Dance at Vannes A Section of the Famous Bayeux Tapestry 256 The Roman Baths at Nimes Aigues-Mortes 4) 22 52 78 100 116 130 150 166 194 214 236 274 296 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA INTRODUCTION HOW the French have stirred up the world from time to time, be it with admiration or with horror! And how they have led the world, now here, now there, but ever with bound- less enthusiasm, is an interesting study to us Ameri- cans of the United States, for we are also an enthusi- astic folk, though perhaps we flatter ourselves that we are so in a saner way. The French are nothing if not individual, and the spirit within them, that stirs them, and stirs all the world to love or to hate them — whence did it come? Primitive men there were in France, dwellers in caves, and builders of megalithic monuments ; but the three bases of the French nation are Celts, Ro- mans and Franks. To be sure, in the south there were Iberians, Ligurians, Phoenicians and Greeks, all before the Romans came in ; and afterward, Visigoths and Saracens ; in the north, Celts from Britain and the later Northmen ; in the east, Burgundians. But it is more reasonable to suppose that the thing that makes for the strong distinctiveness of the French character, the genie nationale, derives from one of the three fundamental races, or from a combination of them. INTRODUCTION When the authenticated story of France began, the country was inhabited by various strong tribes of Celts, whose blood made the solid foundation upon which the nation was erected. In 154 b.c. a pros- perous Greek colony at Massilia, now Marseilles, hard pressed by its barbarous neighbors, invited the victorious Romans to their aid, and they, of course, came into Gaul to stay. To the Romans originally everything north of the Tiber was Gaul; but later the name narrowed down to what is now France. The Romans gave the semi-savages they conquered peace and its arts, a cultured speech, a marvelous code of legal procedure, and the land a place in world-history. In that wild and stormy fifth century, when the world seemed moving about as it had never moved before, various Germanic tribes pressed into Gaul, and took what they would of the unhappy land worn out by Roman excesses. By the year 413 one tribe, the Burgundians, had established themselves in a large eastern district with a very flexible boundary. A little later another tribe, the Visigoths, settled in the south. Then, in 443, came the Franks, to whom the country owes not only some of its blood and laws and institutions, but its very name. By 481 the first Frankish dynasty, the Merovingian, was definitely established. What a record of intrigue and bloodshed they have left us, with the vanity, venge- fulness and ambition of woman often as the moving spring. Weakened by their excesses, they were thrust from the throne by their own mayors of the palace INTRODUCTION — who founded the Carlovingian line that gave Charlemagne to the world — all German, and consid- ering France as merely part of a great and holy empire. The Carlovingians lasted even a shorter period than their predecessors, and toward the end; of their regime we have the instructive spectacle of the King of the Franks perched on the hilltop at Laon, on the eastern extremity of the lie de France, in daily fear that the powerful Duke of Normandy, or the Count of Paris — who was also the Due de France — would pounce upon his mighty hill fortress, and wrest from him even the nominal sovereignty he possessed. Indeed, it was the pusillanimity of the Carlovingians during the early raids of the North- men, when they left the defense of the capital to the courageous Counts of Paris, that eventu- ally cost them the throne, and gave the latter their chance, bringing them into power as the House of Capet. For eight hundred years this line gave the ever-growing kingdom an uninterrupted suc- cession of rulers who made their land great and independent. How those Capetians worked, with an eye single to the one object — the building up of their king- dom ! And what a variety of work there was— always according to the type of king — now strategy, now force, now gaining, now losing a little, but al- ways with eye and mind fixed, struggling steadily ahead undaunted. Their task was herculean. Be- fore their accession the feudal system had developed INTRODUCTION throughout the land to such an extent that the king himself was often only a strong lord among his stronger vassals. Then, too, strange as it now appears, the kings of England, in the thirteenth century — through inheritance and marriage — ^held greater possessions in France than the French kings themselves — a mighty enemy on the very hearthstone. And after both these obstacles had been surmounted the country still remained to be knitted together into a real and living nation. What a variety of kings that line produced ! Now a Philippe Auguste, well named, for he was a Caesar in his plans and their working out ; now a saint — for St. Louis was a real saint; now a Charles the Wise; now a Charles the Well-Served, who betrayed those who served him well; now a human hyena and genius in Louis XI; now a Grand Monarque; and those others who, through their folly and wickedness, let go all their ancestors had gathered together. Even before the coming of the Franks there was a power in the land that grew on into a formidable force, keeping step from the beginning, and fre- quently testing its strength with the kings, quite as often as not besting them — the Church. Often its pretensions were unrighteous ; again, it was honey- combed with deceit and corruption, and reproaches were heaped upon it for temporal aggrandizement that comported ill with the doctrine it preached. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that the Church, and it alone, preserved for us during the INTRODUCTION Dark Ages that followed the collapse of the Roman civilization whatever was worth while in the world. Tirelessly it preserved the torch of learning ablaze, disseminated at least something of truth, and, above all, kept before the world a spirit of reverence and worship for something higher and finer than the mere things of life. And all this time what of the great, silent, earth- born masses.'' What were they doing? Sometimes bearing their burdens cheerfully enough, but as often as not struggling, writhing like a sleeping giant, gathering strength; or perhaps still more like the sullen molten mass that writhes and struggles in the bowels of tjie earth until ready to belch forth irresistibly and sweep the earth bare in its loose fury. In their writhing how often they turned upon their brethren and joyously slew them, seeming not to care whose blood was shed so it was shed. Surely in no other civilized land were ever such gory ex- cesses. Then, when the cataclysm could no longer be denied — the Terror! No matter what we may think of the horrors of that dreadful period, the fact remains that it marked a tremendous stride in the progress of humanity. Because of it, it was admitted, however reluctantly, that the people as a mass have rights. In token of those rights France made her national motto and the key-note of her modern exist- ence, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality ; and even if the dreams those words inspired could not be entirely realized, through human fallibility, there has been v INTRODUCTION a steady advance toward embodying them in the constitution of all modern society. As for France herself, to-day, after many experi- ments with republics as well as with emperors and kings, the stability of her national life seems as- sured. Once more opportunity for greatness and leadership seems to be knocking at her door. What will she do? Yl France from Sea to Sea IMPRESSIONS TO many places one must go in the spring to see the country at its best; not so La Belle France. Surely no other name of affection for a land was ever better deserved than this. From the golden sands of Picardy to the blue shore of the Mediterranean, every province is lovely, and every one has its own special form of loveliness, its definite characteristics : golden sands, apple orchards and bil- lowing fields of grain; black rocks, gray weather, the Miserere of the sea for the music of life — and death ; brilliant rivers that wind in sinuous coils, and dark, sullen streams that force their way to the sea with savage impetuosity ; placid canals and milky highroads bordered by slender trees ; endless vine- yards, where bursting grapes drink deep of the golden sun ; the sky-piercing fence of the Alps, sawteeth full of snow, and bristling with pine and fir ; vast, solemn gorges, suggestive of the Canon of the Colo- rado ; barren deserts of gray or tan, and wide marshes [I] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA with blue lagoons ; air full of shimmering heat waves, of myriad colors and the subtle perfume of rose and olive and oleander, linden and jasmine and whispering palm. Blue the sky and blue the shore — but why go on forever? Pity those misguided souls who either rush by all this to frivol away their time in Paris, among the cafes and shops and hotels, with a lot of other stuffy spenders, or who wait to see the country until their jaded senses refuse to absorb the beauty and charm of Nature. These are they who know naught of the joys of loitering across sylvan scenes in stertorous little trains of matchboxes on wheels, that have to stop every few kilometres to let the sniffling little engine get its breath — ^there is opportunity for pic- tures; who miss entirely the delights of the people, of that friendly welcome into the httle compartment where a peasant cheerily .lifts a chicken out of the way to let you sit down, or pushes aside a huge basket of vegetables to let you pass ; who never experience the delights of quiet, unpretentious little hotels, bliss- fully ignorant of Paris ways and Paris prices, where the proprietor, also the chef de cuisine, comes, smiling and bowing, out of his immaculate kitchen, wiping his soft, pink hands on his immaculate apron, to wish you hon voyage with a heart-warming handshake. Some of these hostelries are more than three hun- dred years old. The stairs play about like the streams of a fountain, dividing, twisting, shooting off at crazy angles, like wind-blown water. It takes [2] IMPRESSIONS a strong bump of location to find the path to your own chamber. One inn is entered through a fragrant kitchen, another through a littered dining-room or a public bar. Once we found a narrow, circular stair, without any kind of rail, winding up from the kitchen ; and in the floor, before the first step, was a villainous trapdoor. Was it oubliette, or only wine cellar.? We never knew, but only the guidebook's recommendation took us across that wicked-looking door. There are so many excellent ways of reaching France that a list is quite unnecessary. Enter France as you will, you need have no fear of the French customs. Only don't carry matches. A friend of mine once paid a hundred francs — a franc apiece — for carelessly having a box in his trunk, and for- getting it was there, in plain sight. To carry either perfume or tobacco is equally foolish ; one does not take coals to Newcastle, and the government-owned tobacco shops now sell the best grades of foreign mixtures ; while as for perfumes — go to Grasse ! Before you go anywhere, always be sure to consult the local Syndicat d'Initiative. It is exactly what it claims to be^ — a syndicate to give you initiative. Frenchmen of position and intelligence all over the country have formed a central association, with in- numerable branches, often in the most out-of-the-way places, for the express purpose of helping you to understand France and to see it conveniently, cheaply and in comfort. Ask for the little free guide in [3l FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA each place ; learn all about the special trips and excursions the Syndicat arranges ; have its valuable assistance in everything. In a word, use it, and you help it accomplish its purpose — all without cost to yourself. Never were there more or easier means of trans- portation than in France. The whole country is lit- erally gridironed with railroads ; perhaps I should say cobwebbed with them, for their crossings and ramifications in every direction are as numerous as the spinnings of an industrious spider. Scarcely a town of any importance but is served by at least one line, sometimes more; and when you hunt up some little out-of-the-way spot you have unbounded ad- miration for the geniuses who construct these Chinese puzzles they call time-tables. Imagine every railway line, with every station on it, in the Atlantic coast States, for example, in a single fat little time-table, and you have some notion of the comprehensiveness^ of the French publications. They are for sale new every month at the station newsstands — the railways never give anything away but themselves. While the cost of travel per mile on these railways — not all of them are State hues, as in Italy — is high, and there is no such money-saving device as the Sicilian tessere, there are so many kinds of tickets that the leanest pocket can be suited and the most exacting demands as to itinerary satisfied. Baggage is costly, for the French rules allow only sixty-six pounds free for checking; but you may carry with [4] ^y^y .'^■■'^ » ' 5 ' » The Street of io8 Steps in the Fisher- men's quarter of Boulogne-sur-Mer IMPRESSIONS you into the compartment all you can manage, to the discomfiture of others equally loaded down. Com- partments occupied by army officers and priests seem to be shunned by the French themselves ; so when you want room, look for gold lace or shovel hat. Their wearers are invariably excellent traveling companions. It is the fashion to ridicule our fellow country- men who wander through Europe sipping such honey as they may from weed and flower alike; and, to be frank, the ridicule is often richly deserved. But it seems to me that nowadays we encounter fewer of the cock-sure, strident brand of American, and, in- stead, many more of those who know the difference between gem and brummagem. Sometimes, too, the American affords a pleasing contrast with the for- eigner. One day we entered a compartment in a train, vacant save for an insignificant, kid-gloved little German "gentleman" who occupied one window- seat and kept his opened grip on the one opposite. When he changed seats to avoid sun or cinders, he lifted the bag over to the place he vacated. Pope must have had some such experience — "How instinct varies in the grov'ling swine." On the little local trains the office of conductor has been so far reduced to simplicity you rarely, if ever, know he is aboard. Tickets are punched before you step out upon the platform to take the train, and collected at the exit from the station where you leave the line. Between times, if so minded, you [5] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA alight, check your baggage in the economical corir signe — two cents a day for any piece — tell the good- natured gatekeeper that you wish to see the town a little while before going on, if he doesn't mind, show your ticket, and off you go. The courtesy and willingness of the employes is very distinguished, as a rule. The "flowing roads" are the delight of automo- bilist, bicyclist and footfarer alike, magnificent tree- bordered highways, the well-kept children of a gen- erous and paternal government, whose foresight and ample pocket have made them what they are, the standard by which all other roads are judged — and generally found wanting. On every route little can- tonniers^ huts contain the tools with which the labor- ers repair the damage done by fast automobiles, and the brooms with which they keep the way clean. It is an enlightening sight to see one of these rough- looking fellows, broom in hand, miles away from the nearest town, calmly sweeping a fifty-two-foot high- way already immaculate. Notwithstanding the number and size of the French rivers, there is little opportunity for travel by boat. But when such a chance does come, by all means take it. And then there are the canals, three thou- sand miles of them, with their huge iron boats bril- liantly painted and spotlessly clean, tempting you to idle away the halcyon days gliding noiselessly and slow over their burnished mirror, between long rows of noble trees, an enormous natural picket fence. [6] IMPRESSIONS What a trip one could make from the Mediterranean to Toulouse by the Canal du Midi, with its hundred locks, its rise of 425 feet to its culminating point, and its fall of two hundred to the Garonne, or rather to the Canal Lateral, which goes on toward the Atlantic. The two things that have impressed me most about the Frenchman out of doors are his bicycle riding and his fishing. Every stream and canal is lined with men and boys, frequently with women and girls, too, line in hand. Considering the mercu- rial French temperament, I wondered how they stayed in one place so long, until I watched their method. Then I wondered how they ever caught anything. The line is never still a minute, but up and down, back and forth, goes the pole, in a ceaseless flicking of the water. This must be the safety-valve for their temperament. Another thing that astonished me is the size of the fish that satisfies them. Many a fish have I seen caught, in many a different stream, but never one more than three or four inches in length ! As everybody fishes, so everybody rides a bicycle. But while the fishermen are amusing, the riders are both annoying and dangerous. They seem to drop down from the clear sky and spring up from the solid earth, without the formality of either bell or horn, and are really more trying to watch for than the automobiles. Not one in sight, you start across the street — and jump for your life before you get [7] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA there! Let one knock you and himself down, and instead of apology you are much more hkely to re- ceive anathema — for not looking where the rider was going. Everybody remembers Mark Twain's genial fool- ing, no doubt: "France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks, it is a fine country." It is. And, as a matter of fact, it has every sort of climate under the sun, but most of the varieties are in the south, with its snow- capped mountains and semi-tropical shores. In the north the climate and temperature are very equable, soft and moist. It must be acknowledged that this moistness quite often takes the form of decided pre- cipitation — rain. And the evenness of temperature makes an overcoat in August not so out of place as it sounds. These conditions, however, account for the riot of verdure and the greenness of the country. The greens are a revelation, and give one a wholly new sense of values in landscapes. Cultivation is a vital factor in these so-apparent values, whether in farming or the market gardening in which the French excel. A large family not only can live well, but save money, on one hectare, about two and a half acres, in the vicinity of almost any of the large cities. The most notable thing in one of these gardens is the glass cloche or bell, about eighteen inches high, and perhaps a foot in diameter, used as a sort of individual forcing frame. The queer-looking objects give one the uncanny sensation of watching some [8] IMPRESSIONS process of black art worked by the earth trolls in their ugly, grayish retorts. The women do their full share of the farming and gardening, but don't expect to find them all in picturesque array. Of costumes there are compara- *1 tively few left; the quaint and ancient dress of the Bretonnes is an exception, and on workdays this is sober enough. But on fete days ! All the riches of rainbow and sunset seem to have been lavished on the women ; and the men, if not butterflies, are at least moths of some pretension. I have also seen*^ some handsome costumes in Dauphine and Savoie, while the dress of the women of Aries, though fairly ascetic in its severity, is often considered the most charming of all. But there are myriad caps — the j distinguishing mark of the French peasant woman — ranging from tiny bits of cambric no bigger than the palm of one's hand to great, full-sailed, embroid- ered affairs with enormous bows and long, flying streamers. Read them aright, and you know at once the wearer's to^\^l and province. And of one thing you may always be sure: the cap, of what- ever location, is invariably as fresh and inviting as though it had just come from the iron of an expert laundress. In France, the public fountain plays no such im- portant part in the life of the people as in Spain and Italy ; instead, the cafe is the center of news, amusement and gossip for all classes, ages and sexes. There you may sit Hstening to the gossip for hours, [9] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA as one at a show, while the harlequin, Life, performs all about and before you. What you hear and see depends upon the grade of cafe you patronize ; but always it is full of color, full of spirit, essentially and typically French. Now a mother, busy with her fledg- lings, shocks you by giving her three-year-old sips of her aperitif, while the older children drink their beer like veterans ; or some one behind you tells a piquant story, and everybody laughs ; again, a statesman sits down next to a dirty salesman, and each has his pale green poison ; newsboys, toy peddlers, match- girls and beggars thread in and out among the tables, and the buzz of friendly conversation is rudely punc- tuated by their cries and the staccato of the hurrying waiters, whose prodigies of liquid prestidigitation make you shudder for your safety. The street pro- cession is endless : goats following clouted pipers with shrill, miniature calliopes ; ladies hobbled in fashion- able attire, gay hussars, elephantine dragons in glit- tering helmets and horsetail plumes, leather-legged artillerymen, pretty girls with bandboxes they could hide in, magnificent tandems of huge Percherons hauling great carts ; placid, cream-colored oxen plod- ding on with loads of wine or stone, and right across their path a vegetable cart, pulled by a panting dog, a stolid woman, or by both. Cheap as ox-power is in France, dog-power is cheaper yet, and woman- power cheapest of all. Not only are the cafes on the street, but often at even the simplest little hotel or restaurant you dine on the sidewalk, behind a [10] IMPRESSIONS low hedge of box trees in tubs, with the pleasant street life spicing the meal agreeably. The people of each province are quite as charac- teristic as its physical features, and by rights every one should have its individual biographer and vol- ume. True, the old boundaries are gone, and France is divided into some eighty departemenis, which have no significance beyond convenience in governing them. But we still love to think of Old Provence, Old Tou- raine. Old Brittany, Old Normandy, and so on ; and the salient fact remains that whether a man be of Reims or of Caen, of Aix or of Poitiers, and no mat- ter how patriotic he may be, he is even yet under his mask of Frenchness a Champenois or a Norman, a Proven9al or a Poitevin, proud of the ancient prov- ince whose child he is. Even more engaging than the folk of to-day are the historic figures of other centur.ies, whose names are on every tongue, who give rich suggestion to La Belle France. She is the very heart and center of gracious legend and fable, of moving song and music. Troubadour ballads lilt from crag to crag among the mountain castles of Provence; ghosts of dead lords and ladies haunt the chateaux of Touraine, whose blood-stained walls harbor many a wild and eerie tale; Abelard and Bluebeard, Ste. Genevieve and Joan of Arc, historic figures all, but enmeshed in a mass of fable, stir the imagination to-day as they did of old; kings and commoners, saints and sinners, fiends and fatiries, weave about all France [II] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA a language of mystery and the supernatural so rich, so varied and inexhaustible that no Frenchman even has fathomed its depths. There is something for every oile in France — sci- entist, holidfay-maker, student, whatever or whoever he may be. Megalithic monuments mark the graves of a vanished people ; great arenas, crumbling arches, aqueducts and walls breathe the spirit of Imperial Rome.; architecture, the natural outgrowth of Nature and man's needs, dots every province with princely palaces and princely temples to the faith; cities and villages almost impossibly lovely relieve the charm of the landscape with sculptured abruptness and effi- cacy. Throughout this country, so fertile in sugges- tion, so boundlessly rich in history that wakes the coolest blood to riot, the thoughtful traveler stands in speechless admiration, or murmurs, as did the Latin of eld: ^'Siste, viator, circumspice,^* [12] II 'the golden sands of picardy" BY all means the happiest way I know to enter France is by that picturesque old fortress- seaport, Boulogne-sur-Mer, with its sur- roundings an English playground, stretching back from the "golden -sands" and emerald sea up the c^ialk cliffs of ancient Picardy. If, on the other hand, you enter France through Cherbourg and Nor- mandy, practically all your fellow passengers, and other continual arrivals, are in a tremendous hurry for a sight of the grands boulevards of Paris, and the unrest of their haste poisons your enjoyment. But at Boulogne you find so many genial idlers, all happily busy playing, or doing nothing, that it im- mediately knocks the insidious little speed devil off your shoulder, and helps you to loiter gracefully yourself. Indeed, a whole summer could be spent in and about Boulogne without a single dull or wasted day, so full of beauty and interest are the city and its lovely environs. Either from the sea or from the cliffs above, the town and its harbor are most strik- ing ; seen from the steamer, Boulogne is the most at- [13] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA tractive port in northern France. The cliffs that rise mistily in the distance at first sight slowly brighten into distinct shapes as you approach the enormous harbor works, with their basins for commerce and docking, their breakwaters and lighthouses. To the left rises the great white shape of the Casino ; nearby, fashionable hostelries, with pretentious names and elaborate arrangements for comfort ; and a trim little waterside park, whose flowers make a pleasing con- trast with* the green of the sea and the gold of the sands. Beyond, and inward, stretches the town, on the east bank of the river Liane; on the west bank more town, with the great railroad stations and freight yards, hotels, warehouses, all the usual and famihar sights of a waterfront. Ambitious trolley- cars bustle hither and yon, so many ants full of industry and endeavor. Up the hills climbs the older city, until the square and massive Boulogne of old times is seen, or rather imagined, nestling secure within the thirteenth century walls no vandal has yet torn down in the name of Progress. Above them rise the dome of the Cathedral, the belfry, the roofs of the chateau ; and, away off to one side, Napoleon's crowning piece of egotism, the towering column to mark his "invasion" of England. But it is the port and the waterfront that claim our attention first: a tangle of masts and rigging along the quays ; steamers coming and going, paint- ing the soft gray of the northern sky a sooty black ; pilot-boa-ts, with ochered sails and huge, painted [i4l GOLDEN SANDS OF PICARDY numbers, breezing in or out; a great liner like our own idling at anchor in the farther bay; on the shore, swart fishermen and quaintly bonneted fisher- women working about the boats ; the pleasant aroma of tar and pitch and fresh fish, of the vivifying ozone of the sea. English and German, and even Spanish, mingle with the harsh Picard patois and with French in your ears. The port is a hive, busy and buzzing, thoroughly cosmopolitan and alive. It is, in fact, the fourth in importance among the seaports of all France, and is almost pre-eminent as a focus of both passenger and commercial intercourse with the white cliffs of Albion. Since the peace of 1815 the enemies of centuries have become fast friends, and so many Englishmen have made their permanent residence in Boulogne that one citizen in every fifty is a Briton ; and on the beach, in summer, it looks as though the proportions were reversed. Just back of the quays is the fishmarket, and in the early morning, when the fishing boats land their scaly cargoes, it is well worth a visit for any one who does not mind the absence of violets and the presence of dripping floors and baskets. Public auctioneers quickly dispose of the fish in wholesale lots. Then some of these large lots are divided up among the retailers, many of them women, who sell by the piece or the pound. The market is bedlam while the large lots are being sold. Auctioneers "bark," buyers shout back, rushing factors plunge to and fra with huge, dripping baskets. You must [ 15 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA keep your wits about jou, lest you meet disaster at hasty hands which forget that perhaps your clothes are not improved by being fishy. The Boulonnais fishermen form a community wholly apart from the rest of the people. They live in their own quarter, La Beurriere, dress — in part, at least — in their ancient costumes, talk mostly the Picard patois, flavored with special words, and have their own distinct customs and habits. Some of the streets leading up through their quarter remind one of Lord Byron's famous anathema on Malta : "Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs, How every one who mounts ye swears!" But as in Malta, foreigners need not walk up ; they can drive comfortably around behind. French thrift and French industry have no finer exponents than these fisherfolk. There are no idlers here. The grandmothers do their part, as well as the strong and hearty, mending nets beside the doors. There is neither bitterness nor tragedy in their with- ered old faces, no trace of the heritage of all that follow the fortunes of the "toilers of the sea." There is humor, kindliness, placid old age. Bravely they have weathered all their storms, and come so close to port that they have ceased to feel the mortal pang that wounds younger hearts. Some of the girls of the people are very pretty, and the quaint Boulonnaise cap adds a coquettish halo to the comely faces. But study the faces a little, and you can [i6] **GOLDEN SANDS OF PICARDY'* read in every line the tragedy of the sea, despite the smiling eyes and curving lips. It speaks well for the character of the sturdy Picard fisherfolk that instead of being dour and sad, they live with spirit, and enjoy a smile while they may. High on the cliff above the jetties stands a memo- rial chapel of lost fishermen, with a great crucifix beside the door in its walled yard. The men's last reverential glance as they go out rises to this image in which they have such simple, childlike faith; their first greeting to the shore on their safe return salutes it. The grim gray walls burn warm with the love and devotion of the whole fishing population. The chapel interior is covered with sad little memorial tablets. "Lost at sea," father and sons ; grandsire and stripling as well as hearty manhood. Often a whole family gone at one blow in the black cold and storm. And the trembling women come here to pray and to weep and to remember — "For men must work and women must weep, And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep. And goodbye to the bar and its moaning." Directly below is the other side of life, the lavishly splendid Casino, which includes the usual brilliant gaming-rooms, grand salon, theater seating over a thousand, gorgeous plate-glass restaurant in the Moorish style, great concert hall, and every con- venience and luxury. On the water side a beautiful semi-circular esplanade commands an entrancing I17] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA prospect of the town and harbor, while on clear nights the lights of the dreaded South Foreland Shoals, across the Channel, wink on the horizon. Extensive gardens not only surround the Casino, but run along the Boulevard Ste. Beuve, making this whole sec- tion a huge floral promenade. And the sands them- selves — the sands all along the coast of Picardy, in fact — are really golden, fine and clean and shining, not the messy gray mixture of mud and sand and gravel that composes so many beaches. Bathing is the first sport at Boulogne, and during the morning the whole beach is a gay kaleidoscope of life and color ; when the w^ater is too rough for swimming the great plunge baths or swimming-pools are available. The Basse Ville, or Low Town, is neither all waterr front nor all Casino. It is an ordinary French com- mercial city, with some good stores and innumerable others, and a general air of being too much occupied to take very good care of its appearance. The Place Dalton is the marketing center, an oblong square flanked by stores and houses on one side, by the church of St. Nicholas on the other, with the market stalls right under the windows of the sacred edifice. The early morning scene is almost as lively as in the fishmarket. Standing here one day, gazing about in some perplexity, we were accosted in familiar speech: "Was you lookin' for anythink.?" asked the voice. It belonged to a ruddy, buxom old woman, in a bonnet and shawl as clearly British as she seemed [i81 *'GOLDEN SANDS OF PICARDY" to be, and as friendly a soul as one could meet. " 'Cause if you was," she went on, smiling, "I c'd prob'ly tell j^ou." She was a beneficent if a garrulous old fairy, and gave the drab street a life and color we had been too blind to see until she took us in tow and escorted us to the shop we sought. To repay her friendliness I asked: "Have you been here long, madam?" That was the opportunity she had waited for. Down went the flood-gates with a crash, and out poured a vivid story of her colorless hfe, her friends, relatives, husbands and children, past and present — everything! But, alas! for not taking notes right there ! All that stuck fast in memory is her opening phrase: "Been here long! Why, I'm French!" On up the Grande Rue from the Place Dalton we come to the High Town, the ancient walled city, approximately a square with four round-tower gate- ways, and in one corner the fortified chateau, the later residence of the Counts of Boulogne, where, in 1840, Louis Napoleon's fiasco ended with his im- prisonment. Around the walls runs a pleasant, garden-like boulevard, and on one side ample play- grounds and tennis courts. The thirteenth century walls themselves, once they became useless as fortifi- cations, were laid out as a promenade, with two rows of splendid elms, and are now as picturesque a walk under arching limbs as one could wish. Many a distinguished character has strolled along here, above the old brown town and the gray sea — Dickens and [i9l FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Thackeray, the poets Rossetti and Campbell, and many another to whom the scene meant much. No such illustrious company did I find when I strolled along under the elms, taking pictures in a chilly driz- zle ; for there are chilly drizzles here, despite the records, which say Boulogne has fifty-five more sunny days a year than Brittany. My promenaders were two young beggar girls, who thrust in front of the camera when they could, and made caustic remarks about foreigners when they couldn't. Within the ramparts, narrow old streets breathe an atmosphere of shut-inness and medievalism quite compatible with the solid walls and useless fortified gates. The Hotel de Ville and belfry occupy part of the site of the ancient palace of the Counts, in which Godef roy de Bouillon, the crusader, and later King of Jerusalem, was born, in 1066. It was the Countess Ida de Bouillon, mother of Godefroy, who built the first Cathedral here. The present structure, the most prominent feature of the old walled city, was built since the Revolution, by the herculean exertions of one man, the pious Abbe Haffrein- gue, who was his own architect and superintendent of works. That the good Abbe's devotion and courage exceeded his artistic judgment is plainly evident. Outside the Calais Gate, to the northeast, is a commonplace district with the picturesque title of the Dernier Sou, its name the relic of an almost forgotten story. Every one I asked about it said [20] "GOLDEN SANDS OF PICARDY" immediately: "Mcds oui. Monsieur; certainement. Er — ah " And that is the true story of the Last Penny, as Boulogne tells it to-day. It is a pleasant drive on out to that monument to Napoleon's egotism, the 150-foot Colonne Napo- ^ leone, on the lofty ground back from the shore, and - a mile and a half from the city. From its geo- graphical position, Picardy was naturally the favor- ite rendezvous of the French for intended expeditions against their traditional enemy, England. The last of these invasions, that never eventuated, was planned by Napoleon. From 1801 to 1804 he gathered a great army of nearly 200,000 men along the Picard coast. Nor did his assurance end there. He had coins struck to pay off his soldiers when the British capital had fallen — every one bore the inscription: Coined in London! While he waited for ships, Trafalgar was lost, and he could complete neither expedition nor monument. The shaft was continued by Louis XVIII as a memorial to the Bourbon Res- toration, but completed finally as it had been begun, in honor of the first Emperor. Napoleon had a keen valuation of the claptrap \ 1 that catches the mob. When he made the first dis- tribution of the decorations of his new Order of the Legion d'Honneur he had priceless treasures brought from Paris for the ceremony — the chair of the great Merovingian King Dagobert he used as a throne; the helmet of the thirteenth century Constable Ber- trand du Guesclin and the shield of that sixteenth [21] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA century chevalier sans peur et sans reprochef Bayard, as trays for the medals. Out in the same direction is one of the most pleas- ant of the innumerable excursions from Boulogne to near-by resorts, the run by trolley or carriage, or even on foot, to the delightful little town of Wimereux, only a short three miles distant, catching vista after vista of the shimmering sands, silver sickles in the emerald field of water, as you go. In- deed, it is the beach that has made Wimereux, even more than Boulogne, a paradise playground, the homiest of summering places in France, where chil- dren of all ages disport themselves upon one of the widest and cleanest beaches I ever saw. The young- sters who fly their kites, build sand castles and paddle about in the beach pools, are most of them as British as the staid matrons reading in the tiny striped tents that give a dash of brilliant color to the scene. Naturally, with so many true Britons in town, Wimereux is full of tea rooms — ^big and little, fine and shabby, suited to every sort of pocket. One afternoon we spent a pleasant hour in a great, square, glass-fronted room facing on two streets, with win- dows full of the most appetizing plum cakes and candy, English preserves and fancy fruits. Three hungry little tatterdemalions, shivering in the stiff breeze, flattened their noses against the glass as we came out. Their very ears worked as they sniffed and wished. I meant to give them some pennies, but preferred to photograph them while they were [22] "GOLDEN SANDS OF PICARDY" unconscious of observation. Just as I swung the camera into position, hqwever, a charming young Englishman, as unconscious as the boys themselves, stepped outside, both hands full of cakes, and came to them, completing the picture. About the same distance from Boulogne, in the opposite direction, is the fishing town of Le Portel, a quaint jumble of houses crowded together upon narrow streets between high crags, and preserving an exceedingly ancient aspect. The broad, flat beach runs to the foot of the cliffs, where, on a wide, cobble-stoned, careening place, the fishing boats are hauled up, the bathing tents placed, and the news of the day. peddled by kindly gossips. Portel is the resort of the middle-class Parisian, w^ho welcomes its informality and low prices. But after mass of a Sunday morning, in the great square before the simple Romanesque church, you lose sight entirely of Parisian or foreigner, of fashionable dress or head covering, for the Porteloise, gowned in sober black, and capped with white haloes, blind you to everything else. They are very proud of this big churchr of theirs, for they say the s.turdy women themselves carried the stones and s>and up from the beach to build it. One morning we watched half a dozen w^omen — ^bareheaded, in the rain — pass up and down, again and again, carrying loads of sand so heavy they had tO' have help to hoist the baskets upon their capable backs. I don't know what they were building this time. Of all the human beasts [23] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of burden we saw in Portel, only one was a man, and he was delivering groceries. Close as Portel is to Boulogne, with its cosmo- politan crowds — only three and a half miles distant — many of the ceremonies of old still endure, one the annual Blessing of the Sea. What a procession ! — virgin priestesses of the arch-siren who draws men to her capacious bosom ; priests conscious of their mission, filled with the simple, mystic faith of their fellows ; the following crowd, silent, reverent ; the onlookers — kin and stranger from every land the ocean sweeps. And no mere words of mine can paint the pathetic devotion of these children of Nature and of God, the outpouring of their ecstatic temperament. A little farther south, reached only afoot or by carriage, is a still quainter place, the little fishing hamlet of Equihen, a favorite resort of artists in search of genre subjects. There, among the sand dunes, bristling with spiky salt grass, are the most astonishing houses imaginable. Fishing-boats, turned upside down, are reared on plank walls, and each one contains a good-sized family. And this is only a glimpse ; both north and south runs the picturesque procession of these resorts, jew- eled beads in the sandy chain, brilliant spots where the work-a-day world is forgotten, and all the world plays with the abandon of happy children upon an endless holiday. [24l Ill ABBEVILLE AND NEAR BY INLAND, by both the railroad and every high- road, are spots the traveler ought not to miss. But if, perchance, you cannot visit all, or some, or even any of them, and take the main line of the railroad, you must stop v.hen you come to Abbeville — Abvi, the French pronounce it. On our first stroll through its- streets we were struck almost dumb by something in the show window of a rather mean and dirty little shop. Could it he? we asked one another, scarce able to credit our eyes. After some hesitation I went in and bought one. It was — it really was — apple pie ! Not "like mother used to make," to be sure, but still real apple pie, for all the Frenchwoman insisted that it was only a "tart-to-the-apples." And as Abbeville was the only place in all France where we ever found an apple pie, all honor to the ingenious town ! The prodigious number of pastry shops in France makes you wonder if there is any other land where the people eat so much patisserie. And what about the fabled economy of the French in food.^^ It is very hard to reconcile the stories with their constant [25] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA patronage of these shops, where the prices rival those of New York. They are full of men, women and children, sometimes carrying things home, quite as often eating as they prowl about, teaspoon and plate in hand, under the hawkeye of the proprietress. Per- haps the explanation is simple: the heavy, cloying sweets may ruin appetites for wholesome meats and vegetables. The innumerable pasty-faced children in France would indicate this, though we did find many a lovely, healthy youngster throughout Picardy and in some other provinces. One other morning here in Abbe- ville we passed little Mademoiselle Bignon, sitting smiling, in the door of her father's shop. She had a tiny broom in her hand, so I asked if she were clean- ing the street, something often done by the women and children. Looking up at me with amusement in her big blue eyes, the little thing answered gravely: "Non, Monsieur, I am not obliged to. My papa can pay for that !" From the looks of the street, we judged papa's pocketbook had suffered no very severe inroads. The late flamboyant Gothic style, well called by Dr. Luebke "a gorgeously rich aftergrowth of the Gothic," has a striking manifestation in the great L/ church of St. Wulfran, whose square towers rise high above the roofs of the town. Yet, for all its richness and fancy, its playful, flamelike superficial decora- tion, the general eff'ect is lifeless. The sculptured figures on the fa9ade, for the most part, are like- [26] ABBEVILLE AND NEARBY nesses of the patrons of various industrial guilds of the old days when there were no such things as labor- ing hours ; when the burghers were awakened by the nasal chanting of apprentice and journeyman alike, singing their way through the dawn to their tasks. Usually, the choirs of these old-time churches were built first — was it not meet that the sacred precinct be raised to house the Divine Presence before wor- shiping mankind be sheltered? But here the oppo- site course was taken, and the splendid nave begun toward the end of the fifteenth century. In the seventeenth the choir was finished on a distinctly smaller and inferior scale — the Deity has been stead- ily losing importance with the French nation for many long anfd trying years — making a combination even queerer and more apparent inside than out. Yet there is plenty of real beauty to St. Wulfran, if you look for it with a discerning eye. Another attractive church is St. Gilles, contempo- rary with the greater one; but the most interesting by far, historically, is little St. Sepulcre, which com- memorates the gathering here, in August, 1096, of the First Crusade. A Picard devotee, Peter the Hermit of Amiens, preached it, stirring all Christian Europe to the point of rescuing the Holy Sepulcher from the Mohammedans, who had polluted it. Many a valiant Picard of high and low degree was in that mighty concourse, and Count Guy de Ponthieu, too ill to go himself, built the original St. Sepulcre on [27] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the foundations of the barracks the crusaders used. To-day you see a reconstruction of that edifice. For all she is only a great textile center to-day, Abbeville has always been a fighting town. "Our ancestors were not merely fat and timid bourgeois," says Ledieu, the local historian. "They lived cease- lessly in their war harness. . . ." As a matter of fact, the Abbeville militia, composed of shopkeepers and other townsfolk, rivaled the knights in sheer bravery on many a bloody field. A spirited bronze bas-relief on the walls of the Hotel de Ville, or Town Hall, recalls the heroism of a rich and influential bourgeois named Ringois, who preferred death — he was manacled, and hurled from the parapet of Dover Castle into the sea — to recognizing Edward III of England and urging submission upon his fellow townsmen. The great belfry standing beside the Hotel de Ville is one of many which make a prominent feature of Picardy. Their bells, in many cases, are both famous and melodious, and a monkish writer of the seventeenth century tells us each bell was accorded a soul, personified by baptism. They used to sound the wild alarms that sent the medieval bourgeois scurrying out from behind his counter into his shell of leathern j erkin or steel j acket. And to-day ? To- day the old bells mark the time, and sometimes warn idle youth from the streets at a seemly hour. Certainly if the bells were accorded souls, the streets must have them, to judge from their names, [28] ABBEVILLE AND NEARBY their narrow picturesqueness, and the curious houses that fill them: the Street-of-the-Savage, the Street- of-the-Saintes-Maries, the Street-to-the-He-lVIules, and so on. Most of the houses date from the six- teenth century, and one of them, the "House of Francis I," is so named because that merry monarch is fabled to have lodged there one night. At No. 7, in the Street-of-the-Bridge-for-the-Wheelbarrows, is an excellent specimen of this sixteenth century con- struction, delicately carved, with corbels and mold- ings that vie with the projecting heads and figures which give the house its distinction. In those days some distinction was necessary — houses were not num- bered. Instead, each one had some peculiarly carved or painted device that any passerby could easily rec- ognize and remember. For example, there were the Three-Moors, which recalled the Crusades ; the Green- Bellows, the Cat-that-Plays-Ball, and others equally strange. On the way from the station to the center of the town is one, overhanging the river, which would un- doubtedly have been called L'Homme~Qui-Peche, The- Man-That-Fishes, from the persistence with which the proprietor — or perhaps it may have been the chef de cuisine — of the restaurant fished from the dining-room window. Was fish the main item on his menu.'^ we wondered; but somehow we never ven- tured in to find out. There is no counting on markets in France. Quite often they end about the time you finish breakfast, [29] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA and sometimes they begin about the time you are ready to begin luncheon. Here in Abbeville we saun- tered over to the market square about eight o'clock one morning, expecting to find things in full swing. It was nine, however, before the first comers began languidly to put up their booths and tents. As we had arranged for the drive out of town, up Mont Caubert, we did not stay to see the market folk assemble; but we did meet many of them coming down the steep hill road. The more pretentious families ride in covered carts a good deal like minia- ture prairie schooners on two wheels, and scarcely less capacious. Behind and under the passengers the load of produce stowed away is little short of amazing. The drivers usually lead their horses down the hill, and one ancient dame in particular disproved to us the Osier theories. She must have been at least seventy, yet she led old Dobbin on foot while her daughter and granddaughter, in elegant attire, rode in state, and instead of being wrathy, seemed very much pleased to have their collective picture taken. Two dogs and a man were managing another heavy cart on the steep grade. In many places in France the dog is still used as a draft animal, though the government is taking steps to have this stopped. I have seen the poor beasts helping, or unassisted hauling some very heavy loads, but it must be con- fessed that I have never seen one actually abused. The thing that struck me as particularly sad is that they are totally unresponsive to friendliness or [30] ABBEVILLE AND NEARBY commiseration from strangers. They do not recog- nize the universal language of sympathy between humans and animals, but remain perfectly stolid. It was on the broad, high plateau of Mont Caubert that Caesar established an immense camp for fourteen i^ legions in 57 B.C. All that recalls it to-day is part of the agger, or mound, of its intrenchments, yet the drive is well worth taking, not only for the views on the road up, but also for the inspiring panorama from the height itself over the broad, flat plain below, with the shining coils of the River Somme winding through the trees for miles until it vanishes on the misty horizons to right and left. And coming back, along the river and the banks of the Transit Canal, is many a beautiful scene. Although Abbeville is about fourteen miles from the coast, in the sixteenth century it was an important seaport, and built so many ships that the forests were all being cut down for timbers. Wood became so scarce that there was not enough to repair the houses, many of which fell into ruins. This so alarmed the local magistrates that they forbade the construction of boats bigger than thirty-six tons, though craft of from seventy to a hundred had been building. Nowadays, however, the long docks beside the river are silent and de- serted. Instead, the road to the railroad station is deep-rutted with the merchandise of many inventions. About fifteen miles from Abbeville, the battlefield of Crecy is as easy to reach as it seems hard. In the first place, the ticket you buy does not bear the [31] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA name the guidebooks give, and that is sufficiently dis- quieting. You think you want to go to Crecy-en- Ponthieu, and your ticket reads clearly enough Crecy- le-Foret. That the grimy brakeman tells you it is all right is small satisfaction at the moment. The train is unusual, too — cars that look like horse- carrying cars, with one small, square window to each compartment, and platforms and steps at the ends like those of a freight caboose over here; and each compartment big enough for about four people only. After a little we discovered that not only did we not know where we were going, but that the French- man who was our only fellow passenger in the same box-stall didn't know where he was going, either! The dour brakeman looked as though he were the guard of some lunatics bound for an asylum. Doubt- less the volleys of questions shot at him had some- thing to do with that. But at last Crecy-le-F6ret and our Crecy proved to be one and the same, and we clambered swiftly down from our cushionless car, to be left perplexed upon the station platform. A kindly old farmer, looking on from his cart, suddenly called out: "You wish to see the battle- field.'^ You will find carriages at the Hotel of the Golden Cannon," and he pointed to the town, a long quarter of a mile away. It proved a pleasant walk, mostly uphill. Boldly I thrust my head into the mouth of the Golden Cannon, a pleasant place, truly, where a tantalizing aroma of baking "tarts-to-the-apples" [32] ABBEVILLE AND NEARBY assailed mj olfactories. Perched upon a very high stool, m£idame nodded with the weight of her eighty winters over knitting that drooped upon the bar. A handsome cat and her twin kittens lazily washed themselves and basked in the crackling warmth of an open fire, whose jets of flame danced impishly upon the rows of dark bottles at madame's broad back. Clean, white sand, freshly strewn, dusted the floor, and, at a table, Boniface himself, white and crabbed and old, played cards with a youthful guest. Be- tween them glasses and a decanter of eau-de-vie — ^ their fiery "water of life," which we call plain brandy ' — bespoke still further the cheery air of hospitality the room displayed in every line. At my query, "You have carriages?" he started, and counted his cards slowly before answering. Evi- dently the pleasure of the game meant more to him than a few paltry francs, for he scratched his gray head, and answered gruffly: "No, I have nothing to send out to-day. It is only a mile and a half. You can walk." We were more fortunate farther along, at the Cafe of the Veterans, and secured a decrepit old miniature stage for the trip to the now peaceful scene of that dreadful fight, one of the earliest, and, to the French, most disastrous, battles in that terrible conflict known as the Hundred Years War. Generalship, not numbers, won the action. The haughty French, despising the handful of 25,000 Englishmen, all dismounted, thought tliey had only [2Z] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA to strike one blow to wipe them out of existence. Besides, they took the English troops for serfs and mercenaries, like their own infantry, poor creatures who would strike and bolt, to be lanced in flight like so many wild boars by the mounted nobles. This was a costly mistake. The Britons were freemen and landowners, who could be depended upon to acquit themselves like men. Furthermore, the English were posted at the crest of a long, gentle slope, with the sun at their backs, and had the deadliest weapon of that day, the longbow, almost as fatal an arm as the old-fashioned musket. The loosely organized, undisciplined French, 100,- 000 strong, were mired at the foot of the slope, in a slough so sticky that when the order came to charge, the mercenary crossbowmen and the poor chargers, weighted down by their armored masters, could hardly lift a foot. At last they moved, and with that heart-stirring disregard of danger that has always been characteristic of French fighting, lum- bered into a flight of arrows so terrible it seemed a blinding snowstorm. Horses and men went down, and others piled over upon them in a helpless, kicking, mangling, shouting mass. Again and again, with splendid heroism, the French tried to still that deadly storm. Never was national character better shown ; never was the folly of individualism and the lack of discipline better exemplified than that bloody after- noon of Crecy. The russet fields turned crimson, the slain made a carpet for the rushing, struggling [34] ABBEVILLE AND NEARBY fighters ; and when the sun went down upon the car- nage, thirty thousand French dead cumbered the field of the worst defeat they had ever experienced — more French dead than there had been Enghsh sol- diers when the fight began — and among them the flower of chivalry: twelve hundred knights, eight knights-banneret, eleven princes. Of them all, blind King Jean of Bohemia made the most heroic and typical figure. Strapped to his charger, the valiant blind man said to his knights: *'I ask you very especially that you place me so far in advance that I may strike one good blow of the sword." And on one side of the little monument, raised where the English pikes laid him low, is in- scribed the passage from Froissart: "Jean struck one blow, behold three, behold even four, and fought most valiantly." On another side are the words: *'The valiant chevaliers of France found it sweeter to die than to be reproached for villain flight." Legend has it that King Edward directed the bat- tle from an old stone windmill which stood on the highest knoll commanding the field. The mill was not torn down until 1886, 540 years after the fight, when its peasant owTier, in a sudden fury of mis- guided patriotism, razed it on the occasion of some ill-feeling between France and England. To-day the small boys of the neighborhood find the spot useful for kite-flying experiments, and the healing grass has overgrown even the bare scar the age-old founda- tions left in the soil of this tragic knoll. [35] IV STONE BIBLBS AWAY back in 481, Clovis, then only fifteen years old, came to the Frankish throne at Amiens, and promptly began the hammer- and-tongs sort of diplomacy that enabled him to build up a great and powerful kingdom. First, at Soissons, he annihilated Roman sovereignty, and gathered confidence. Then came Tolbiac, where he hurled back more savage Germans who also wanted a share of this fair, new land ; and lastly, at Poitiers, he wrecked the rival Visigothic power in the south. All this was not easy, but Clovis was as great a politician as he was a warrior. Until he saw himself being defeated at Tolbiac, he had stuck to his pagan gods; but then, in the crucial instant, he swerved to the God of his Christian wife, Clotilde — and won. That settled the weaker gods, and Clovis became a Christian himself. Who knows — the whole history of France may have hinged upon that savage peti- tion, and afterward upon his fierce allegiance to his new and mighty god of battles. Some modem historians have handled Clovis rather roughly be- cause he did not immediately manifest what we of [36] STONE BIBLES to-day consider the Christian virtues. As a matter of fact, his new belief only added strength to his arm. And as for "conversion" converting the leop- ard's spots — what have the Christian nations been doing since the very beginning? Long before Clovis' time — as early as 301, in fact — converts were being made in Amiens. In that memorable year a stranger came preaching to the astonished Amienois, who were still kneeling to the Roman gods, and turned so many to the new faith that the priests of Jupiter and Mercury complained to the governor. The result was inevitable, and the stranger, Firmin by name, became the first martyr and saint of the city. Its two other great religious figures, however, are much more celebrated: the Ro- man soldier, St. Martin — everybody knows the story of his cloak and the beggar — and Peter the Hermit, who preached the first crusade. Yet Amiens, loyal to St. Firmin martyr, dedicated its magnificent thir- teenth century Cathedral to him. And such a Cathedral — the very flower and type of the Gothic ! Indeed, M. Viollet-le-Duc, the most fa- mous of modern French architects, has called it "the Parthenon of French architecture." Not that it is the most beautiful in France — its towers, never finished off with the tall spires they need, are mere squatting dwarfs, guarding a giant; and its slender jieche, or arrow-spire, derided by Ruskin, has become world famous as "the pretty caprice of a village car- penter." Its perfection lies in its general purity [37] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of style, untinctured by Romanesque or any other discordant note. What a deal we can learn from it! Not merely of glorious engineering and architecture, but of the faith of men in that wonderful thirteenth century, when worship was man's highest function and reason for being. To the simple burghers the cathedral was literally the House of God, where the Divine Presence constantly dwelt within the enclosed choir. This House of God is literally built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, with Christ as the chief corner-stone. On the central pillar of the great main portal stands a tender and appealing figure^ — the Beautiful God of Amiens. It is without realism, a pure attempt to express Divinity. On either hand are the apostles and the major prophets who foretold Him. These figures are Picard portraits, likenesses of the burghers of the day, and bear what M. Anatole le Braz calls the "race impress and innocent realism" of the models, and are correspondingly true and lifelike. Every detail about Him has either spiritual or esthetic meaning. He tramples the lion and the dragon of human sin under foot ; directly below flows the running tracery of a grapevine; upon the sides of His pedestal climb a wondrous lily and a bloom- ing rose ; in front stands a small carven figure of one who, with crown and scepter and scroll, is clearly prophet, priest and king. What does it all mean.^^ Who can the king be but David himself.'^ "I am the [38] STONE BIBLES root and the offspring of David," runs the Messianic saying. Now we begin to grasp the significance of the "lily of the valley," the "rose of Sharon," "the true vine." All this, and more, on the fa9ade; amazing riches of sculptured figures, great and small ; exquisite four- foil medallions, each a charming and delicate picture by itself, showing now the months, their labors and symbols, now the works or attributes of holy men ; gargoyles, arabesques, fretwork, and a great rose window. In one door reigns the benign St. Firmin, in another the Virgin Mother-Queen, calm and radi- ant, in wonderful contrast to that later Virgin of the fourteenth century, who illuminates a side door with her coquettish halo and "gay soubrette's smile." Truly, French ideals had changed since the Mother- Queen was carved, with adoration in every chip of the chisel. On studying the exterior of a Gothic cathedral, it must not be forgotten that, except for the fa9ade5 it is the wrong side of the fabric you see — simply a vast expanse of vertical engineering in stone, with interposed glass screens or windows. The seams, the knots, the reverse of the real design are all apparent. But inside the true pattern, the master weaver's de- sign, appears in the full majesty of both its thought and execution. In their striving for sublimity the Amienois raised the groined ceiling to the almost inconceivable height of a hundred and forty feet above the floor. It seems to float lightly upon the 1 39] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA needle-like shafts that rocket upward to the spring of the vaulting. But the real supports, the great but- tress piers and the flying buttresses, that carry the thrust and weight, are all on the wrong side — the outside. Amid all the wonders of the interior, do not miss the two great bronze tombs in mid-nave of Bishops Everard and GeofFroy, who by faith and persever- ance raised the great fane. Their monuments are all the more impressive since they are the only ones of that age in all France which did not fall victims to the revolutionary madness, and emerge from the furnace of politics metamorphosed into cannon, gun- powder and absinthe. In the choir is the wonder of wonders, in whittled oak, splendid work of the sixteenth century, rich, fully developed flamboyant, but full of power and spirit. Truly the carvers who made these seats and canopies worked for love — three cents a day, or thirty-two cents a figure, was all the world paid for their skill and knowledge. Under their knives the tough and seasoned wood leaped like fire forty feet into delicate pinnacles, or writhed into a labyrinth, or plodded along in amazing Bible stories true to the last detail. Who were these cunning workers.'' — where the tablet solemnly recording their names.'* Look on the eighty-fifth and the ninety-second stalls. On the one, fat, jovial Jhan Trupin carved his own head and his name; on the other his name, and the brief prayer, "God take care of thee." That is all. [40] STONE BIBLES No other apparently thought it worth while to leave any record of himself beside his work. The most precious relic the Cathedral possesses is what is said to be a part of the skull of John the Baptist. His tragic story, told vividly on the north side of the choir screen, in high rehef, runs from the time when he appeared in his camel's-hair robe before Herod to the moment when Salome has the tardy decency to swoon as Herodias stabs vic- iously at the head with her dagger. On the opposite side is the life of St. Firmin, the scenes ending with his martyrdom by some very Gallic-looking Roman soldiers. One of the main reasons for the elaborate sculp- tures^bf the old cathedrals was the illiteracy of the masses. Reading was the gift of the few; books and papers there were none. Consequently Biblical history and tradition, as well as secular lore, could be made real to the people only by practical illus- tration with carven statues. This was as true of the grotesques as of the sacred subjects. The artists had no comic weeklies then to print their caricatures, so we find them, instead, everywhere in juxtaposition with the most sacred subjects. No irreverence was either meant or understood. And woe to the rich philistine who offended ! Caricatures in stone and seasoned oak last longer than in printer's ink on flimsy paper. The esthetic and poetic side of the Cathedral can- not be reduced to either the written or the spoken [41] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA word. You must behold it with the spiritual as well as with the mental vision before you can com- prehend its force, beauty and meaning. Go in the afternoon, when the westering sun is pouring into the vast cavern of the nave a flood of ethereal color through the glorious roses and lancets. Steep your- self in color. Silently rest among the pillars that turn sapphire and gold, emerald and crimson, under the necromancy of man and his Maker alike; and come away uplifted, awed, singing at heart with the reverence of other days, when life was not wholly sordid, and men had souls to open to the light. All the color and peace of Amiens does not by any means reside in the Cathedral. Near by, the little Park Rene Goblet is a joy and refreshment, with its unimaginably beautiful begonias. The Street-of-the-Three-Pebbles runs straight from the park to the Place Gambetta, one of the busiest squares in the whole city, and the focus of its entire trolley system. Seven of the town's main arteries open into this vortex, and five lines of tramcars make it a huge loom, animated by the darting shuttles full of humanity. In some respects this focusing of the trolley system has a distinct advantage; but as the lines radiate like the sticks of a fan, you find it very inconvenient if you are out on the edge of town and wish to go on along the edge, to have to come back to the square and go out again on another line. Above the city the "soft-glittering" River Somme divides into numerous swift little streams, making [42] STONE BIBLES the old part of the town a veritable French Venice, though the water is transparent, not blue, and the buildings are far from palatial — modest homes of the toilers, dingy, aged and ramshackle enough, but mightily picturesque with their pots of bright-colored flowers on little balconies overhanging the smooth- flowing stream below. There is a very attractive walk out along the hal- lage road, beside the river, to the irrigated market gardens called the Hortillonages. First there are numerous little mills and dyeworks, where the stream is often crimson, or blue, or black, for like Abbeville, Amiens is a great textile center, thorny with an abatis of tall chimneys, over which Mr. Ruskin raged. Then come private dwellings, their picturesque back yards running down to the water, alive with blossoming flow- ers and the tender green of vines. At the very edge the family gondola waits, long and shallow and black, with up-tilted prow and stern, giving more than a suggestion of Italian Venice. As mother leads the van in Abbeville, so here she paddles the boat, while daughter, after the accepted manner the world over, sits in elegant leisure in the bow. The Hortillonages are a veritable archipelago, the islets divided by little irrigating canals, most of them wide enough to let the boats nose through. Here an ancient colony of amphibious gardeners, about two thousand strong, delves in the rich soil to furnish Amiens with vegetables. With true peasant tenacity they stick to the laborious methods of their ances- [43] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA tors, and remain as they have been for centuries, a curious medieval survival. Still farther along are pretty little villas, each one a moated grange, its only communication with the river road over iron bridges with locked gates. Turn back, and all the long way in to town the river is a panorama to stir the most callous or careless. The soft Picard sky overhead, a grayish, delicate blue almost too beautiful to be real, floats heavenly argosies of white clouds. Far away in the city, rising massive and dominant, is the Cathedral, its delicate fleche piercing the sky and trembling down along the water, a living indicator of the house of peace. We wonder if the gardeners, as they float down to market, note the changing beauty of the scene; if they have any of the feeling for their beautiful Cathedral that inspired the people at the time of its erection. What a picture that unique provision flotilla under way would make! But it comes down about three or four o'clock in the morning — enough to discour- age the most ardent camera — so it was nearly eight before mine reached the humming Place Parmentier. It is the greenest market I ever saw, boats and quays alike covered with cabbage, cauliflower and melons, which appear to be the staples, with great splashes of warm color from the carrots. The air is redolent of fresh earth and the tang of newly pulled vegetables ; it clatters with the harsh babel of the Picard dialect, the nasals of the French, the occasional speech of a foreigner. Everybody is hustling. Money clinks [44] STONE BIBLES in passing from pouch to pouch. Shrill housewives argue and bargain. Cheese merchants, butter deal- ers, egg sellers, butchers, and a host of others, add their clamor to the general din. The s^pirit of this market, unlike those of either Spain or Italy, is good- natured haste — must not all self-respecting folk be done with their buying or selling by ten o'clock, and be off? The street below the Place is given over to what is usually called a rag fair, and at the most con- spicuous angle of street and bridge we found a demonstrator of the very latest Parisian fashions in hair dressing. Her little mannequin, with its blond wig, looked very queer in the open street. The broad- backed women from the market were as much inter- ested in mademoiselle and her wares as their finely dressed sisters are in the windows of the best shops along the Street-of-the-Three-Pebbles. Many a woman with her basket full of fresh vegetables fell a victim to the glib persuasiveness of mademoiselle. I can hear her yet, exclaiming: "OA, madamey il.est tres chic! Mon Dieu, mais c^est tres chic! Voila!" Mademoiselle was shy of the camera, so I spent quite a while focusing about to disarm suspicion. Con- vinced at last that I was a mild lunatic, interested only in "cabbages and kings," she fell to work, and I caught a perfectly unconscious pose. To the southeast of Amiens is Soissons, noted for beans and sieges. Indeed, soissons is beans, in French. It was here that Clovis gave the death blow [451 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA to Roman power, and all through the centuries con- queror after conqueror has laid it waste, the last time the thundering German, in 1870. So ancient Soissons is to-day a modern town*, with fine, tree- lined avenues, big, open squares, and a pleasant visage laved by the River Aisne. When we emerged from the railroad station a comfortable-looking steam tram was apparently ready to start from a fenced enclosure near by, and as the to\^Ti looked a good three-quarters of a mile away we hurried over. Nobody was in sight. Across the street stood a frowsy old caravansary, in whose door appeared a desolate-looking waiter, balder and frowsier, if anything, than his master's hostelry. "When does the tram start, monsieur?" I asked, rely- ing upon French courtesy for information. He shrugged coldly and went inside. I tried again, this time a boy. Like the waiter, he shrugged. " W sais pas!" was all I could coax out of him. A railroad employe was more definite. He also shrugged, but replied": "Umm, in about an hour or so, I think." With reckless extravagance, we engaged one of the two ancient carriages leisurely decaying in the station yard. Traffic has apparently passed "Beans" by in these latter days, though there are the remains of several interesting abbeys in and near the town. Indeed, by far the loveliest things in Soissons are the magnificent facade and towers of the ruined abbey church of St. Jean-des-Vignes. Rising ghostly and desolate among the trees, they speak in no uncertain [46] STONE BIBLES accent of the insanity of the revolutionists. The Cathedral of Notre Dame is a fine and imposing structure, a singular blend of the older Romanesque with the newer Gothic. Its interior proportions are so admirable that long after the mere details are forgotten the harmony and dignity of this one struc- ture make Soissons a pleasant memory. As we rolled north and eastward toward Laon, across the fertile plain, off in the distance, through the poplars, the morning sun glittered upon bur- nished rifles and swords, and the long, low-lying cloud of dust made a golden halo above a column of march- ing infantry. We thrilled at the thought of a siege, but our first view of Laon effaced the thought and left us breathless. Leaning from the car window, our straining eyes played tag with this perfect type of hill town through mo-st exasperating clumps of trees and houses, until we climbed out on the sta- tion platform with a confused sense of a big lump of a hill crowTied by towers we knew belonged to the Cathedral, though at that distance they looked like some medieval chateau. The hill is a great "limestone island," with a spur that curves around an extraordinary formation, a daep, square valley like a burnt-out crater, heavily wooded with pines and fruit trees and garnished with gardens. It makes Laon a natural fortress, and as you look at it from the plain below you do not wonder the timid Carlovingians clung to it for safety. When the roundabout tram brings you to [47] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the top, or you have climbed the 263 steps and their intermediate inclined planes, you feel that if the city and its encircling champaign were as beau- tiful of old as they are now you understand in a way why the Carlovingian kings dallied here, where the views extend wide over the tree-tops into the bottom- lands, the aromatic winds sing among the lofty branches in a strain no lowland city ever knew, and the air is clean and pure. We wandered through the picturesque town, enjoy- ing the stern ,old mansions with their martial round towers and the queer, crooked little alleys that go rambling off to the sides and lose themselves near the walls ; we peered into black private courtyards, through fortified gatewa^'^s eloquent of former war- fare, down into the vast cuve or valley of St. Vincent, among the thick pines and friendl}^ fruit trees, when, hark! Drums ruffled smartly and bugles shrilled a lively strain. Peasants ran. We joined the crowd, and the dust-crusted red and blue infantry toiled up through the main square. How different this from the old days, when these peasants' ancestors scurried into their burrows like frightened rabbits at these same sights and sounds. The beautiful parish church of Notre Dame, with its notable group of bold and graceful towers, is one of the very earliest of Gothic structures, and shows a striking family resemblance to Notre Dame de Paris, even though its facade is graver, and in some respects presents, as M. Louis Hourticq puts it, [48] STONE BIBLES a "violent and uneasy physlogomy." How are the mighty fallen, indeed ! In the old days it was a cathedral, and the Bishop of Laon a functionary hardly less important than the Archbishop of Reims himself. The interior, with its great, flat, English- type eastern end instead of the usual apse, its noble proportions, its strong, round columns, with elabo- rately carved capitals, all different, is fully as strik- ing as the outside. It Is fresh from the restorers' hands ; indeed, the clink of the chisel still echoes down the long nave, that looks so white and cold and new. According to tradition, the stones that built the one-time cathedral were laboriously hauled up the steep slope by animals, who often came voluntarily and offered their services. However that may be, nowhere else has the medieval Christian idea of com- memorating the workers found a more poetic realiza- tion than in the great oxen, that look out like gigantic gargoyles from the towers. ty^' [49] CHAMPAGNE AND CHUK.CHES '*To crown a fine dessert, There's nothing like champagne," runs the old French chanson. Be this as it may, it has been used for less than two hundred and fifty years, though wines have been used since the dawn of time, apparently — remember Noah. Champagne was accidentally discovered by the monk Dom Perig- non, who had charge of the wine cellars of the Abbey of Hautvillers, near Epernay, about 1670, and since that time elaborate establishments for its manufac- ture have sprung up, the most important at Epernay and Reims. ''Chateaux de commerce^* the French call them, a very queer-sounding combination to Ameri- can ears. One of the show places of Reims is such a chateau, in a beautiful and spacious park, well worth a visit. A taciturn employe herds visitors ahead of him, in groups of a dozen or more, down the stairs into the damp chill of the "caves," explaining mechani- cally, as he goes, to the lucky two or three close enough to him to hear. It is interesting to learn that champagne of the finest quality is made, not [50] CHAMPAGNE AND CHURCHES from white grapes, as one would suppose, but almost exclusively from black. Therefore, the picking, sorting and pressing are done as rapidly as possible, to prevent the juices from absorbing any of the coloring matter of the skins. After the pressing the juice is allowed to settle for a few hours, when it is drawn off into barrels to ferment. In December the wine is put into bottles, laid carefully on their sides, in these "caves." What caves they are! Wine cellars with a ven- geance, seventy-five feet or more underground ; white- washed, immaculate galleries literally by the mile, hewn out of the rock. Each long, dim corridor has its own name — Gambetta, New York, Lisbon, St. Petersburg, Strasbourg. The summer after the bot- tles are placed here they are stood on their heads, not upright, but slanted in racks. Three million of them make a very queer dumb show, with here and there a deft, gnome-like worker with a light, who twists and shakes them delicately every day to work the sediment of fermentation into their necks. When this fermentation is complete the wires are cut, and the force of the gas blows out cork and sediment together. The bottles are then refilled with a mixture of brandy, candied sugar and fine wine — "dosing" the French call this process — after which the bottles are recorked and rewired. The most interesting of all are these "dosing"-rooms, noisy with the popping of the degorging process, as men work like machines to turn mere wine into the costly golden elixir. [ 51 1 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Corks were Dom Perignon's discovery, also. Be- fore his time, wads of hemp or cloth, soaked in oil, were the only stoppers known. In all probability, the old monk's chance use of corks to stopper the bottles led to the discovery of the gas in the wine, since it could not escape when tightly corked. And while it may seem strange to speak of manufactur- ing champagne, the term is correctly employed, for without the "dosage" it would be a mere gaseous wine. But the story of Reims is by no means the mere story of champagne. The two points that stand out most clearly are the baptism of Clovis and the ful- filment of the mission of Joan of Arc, in the crowning of that sluggard, Charles VII. Like Amiens, the city to-day is thorny with detestable chimneys that veil it with smoke, and indicate its thriving manu- factures. But it is a pleasant enough place, with its broad boulevards enclosing beautiful parks, mod- estly called only public promenades. At the upper end of these promenades is the oldest monument of past ages in Reims, the Roman Porte de Mars, a triple triumphal arch, named after a temple of Mars that once stood near by. Fluted Corinthian columns flank the archways, with their mutilated carvings — and Roman flutings exercised considerable influence upon subsequent architecture in France. Among the shrubbery and flowers is something that carries us back in thought still fur- ther than Rome — a bed of papyrus plants from [52] CHAMPAGNE AND CHURCHES the sun-steeped banks of Father Nile. How came they here, in an alien land, and under somber skies? Who knows? Mayhap their feather-dustery pro- genitors brushed the cheek of Rameses himself, or nodded beside the barge where Antony and Cleopatra dreamed and let an empire slip. Reims is a city of wide-open spaces. The streets, except for some of those in the very oldest quarter, are as broad as our own, and on every hand there is ample evidence of intelligent effort to make the city both beautiful and sanitary. The one that leads from the railroad station into the heart of the town is broad and tree-lined, and the houses project over the sidewalks on wide, sweeping arcades, a great convenience in the morning to travelers in such a drippy country as France. In the afternoon the cafetiers fill the whole arcade with tables and chairs. Then you are glad of the walk outside, between the trees and pillars, at least twenty feet wide, probably nearer thirty. This custom of mon- opolizing the shelter of the arcades or awnings is very pleasant if you have the time to sit with the natives and sip an aperitif. But it is not so pleasant when you haven't, and there is no outer sidewalk, as here at Reims. Many a scowl we encountered when, during the usual rains, we stuck to the sidewalks in different cities, and wormed our difficult way among the crowded chairs and tables, instead of sloshing through the mud and water out in the road, where the courteous and unhurried French walked, [53] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Not the least element of charm to the streets is found in their many picturesque old houses. The most unusual, if not the most beautiful, is the House of the Musicians, in Tambourine Street. Across the fa9ade stretches a band of musicians, stark figures altogether too big for both house and street. In fact, they dwarf the house completely. Their only importance is that they show the sort of musical instruments in use at that epoch, and the manner in which they were used. Christianity came to Reims about the end of the third century, and some two hundred years later St. Remi, one of the early bishops, by his success in converting Clovis and his Franks, made the city a great religious center. From that time onward it was increasingly influential, the scene of many an exceedingly important religious council, and after the Capetian dynasty came into power most of the kings of France were crowned there. St. Remi was commemorated by the Abbaye St. Remi, founded in the sixth century. The present church that bears his name, however, on the same site, belongs to the transition period, when all manner of experiments were being tried, while still many of the details of the pure Romanesque were adhered to. One feature not included in the architects' plans is a long hollow w^orn in each stone balustrade beside the stone steps. \ Water, it is said, wall wear away the hardest rock, but it remained for the youngsters of Reims to prove that skin and bone wdll do just as well. We [54] CHAMPAGNE AND CHURCHES found three tiny girls, very scantily clothed, con- tinuing the polishing. For our benefit they gave an especially vigorous exhibition, and the bright young mongrel puppy with them considered it as much a duty as a pleasure to follow his leaders. Every time the children reached the bottom he sprang to the top, and, squatting on his haunches, barked blithely as he slid down, too. Though St. Remi has often been restored and changed, it still retains its personality as a vast and noble basilica, where one feels lost amid a forest of piers and columns with beautifully carved capi- tals. There is no denying the simplicity, the dignity, the substantiality of the Romanesque. On the wall of the south transept is a quaint seventeenth cen- tury conception, in high relief, of the baptisms of Clovis, Constantine and Christ. In the center, John baptizes Jesus in the flowing Jordan, while the Dove descends in an aura of clouds and flaming rays. On the right, Constantine, immersed in a Roman font, curiously enough receives the same spiritual visi- tation. The sculptor denied it to Clovis, who, on that far-away Christmas Day, in 496, was sternly admonished by St. Remi to worship what he had burned and to burn what he had worshiped. The basilica in which the interesting ceremony took place did not stand on this spot, but occupied the site of the present Cathedral. And of all the cathe- drals built in that fabulously active period, the thir- teenth century, this one of Reims, commenced in [55 1 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA 1212, is perhaps the most magnificent, while its facade offers the most splendid example in the world of the unfolding of the Gothic idea, with its deeply recessed portals, its rose window the width of the nave, its beautiful gallery and graceful towers. These great portals are the development of the nar- thex or ante-church, which we find in Burgundy and farther south. Directly over the rose window is a striking tableau in two scenes : on the left, David killing Goliath ; on the right, trying to provoke the giant to combat. How careful the sculptor was to grow oak and olive and fig trees under which the lambs of David's flock could rest while their master and his faithful hound — he looks like a modern crop- eared bull terrier — went after big game. In this western front there is no such connected story as at Amiens, but the work is far finer and more delicate. The nave is at once bold and free and light, and both aisles are hung with valuable tapestries. About the capitals of the massive oc- tagonal pillars are wreaths of foliage, among which the caprice of the sculptor has mixed human and chimerical figures. The lower windows, with their plain glass, are the only jarring note; and even that is not so bad as it might be, since the thirteenth century clerestory windows and the magnificent west- em rose still exist in all their glory of rich color. One day, as we came into the Cathedral, the fif- teenth century organ was thundering softly high above in the majestic canon of the roof. Before [56] CHAMPAGNE AND CHURCHES the choir stood a great catafalque, Its candles flick- ering like fireflies against the somber funeral pall draped over the altar. The little knot of black-robed mourners, the very size and grandeur of the empty edifice, seemed somehaw a personification of grief, a materialization of human sorrow that not even the strong, comforting voices of the priests in the choir, chanting Gregorian music, could allay. How diff'er- ent from the brilliant coronation scenes the Cathedral has witnessed so many times ! In all those ceremonies a precious vessel, called the Sainte Ampoule, was used. According to tradi- tion, this ampulla, filled with inexhaustible holy oil, was brought from heaven by a dove for the corona- tion of Clovis. The Revolution shattered the miracu- lous receptacle, but somehow some one managed to preserve a fragment from which the oil had not entirely vanished. This was carefully enclosed in a new jeweled reliquary, and Charles X was anointed from it at his coronation in 1825. Freeman summed up its importance very well by pointing out that its use seemed a sort of patent of royalty, since the divine right of no king anointed from it was ever disputed, or even challenged. The treasury is unusually rich for a French ca- thedral, when we remember the frantic pillaging of revolutionary days, the wanton destruction not only of precious relics of no intrinsic value, but even of immovable furniture and decorations. Reims, accord- ingly, has considerable jewelry and goldsmiths' work [57] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of great value, among other pieces the so-called chalice of St. Remi, solid gold twelfth century work, richly encrusted with jewels and enamels. In the tympanum of the north transept door is an exceedingly engaging exposition of the belief that St. Remi drove from the city a band of devils who had set it on fire. The faces well repay scrutiny. The fiend on the left takes the expulsion as a joke; his work is done, and he can go, laughing. The sec- ond is merely impertinent. The third, evidently the leader, and his attendant imp, are truly devilish in their snarling resentment. St. Remi, sad, but firm and unmoved, displays calm confidence and spiritual strength more than equal to the emergency, while two monks behind him are scarcely even interested. Since they were accustomed to dealing with devils and exorcisms, it seemed to the sculptor that they would take such a thing as a matter of course. The whole group is a remarkable imaginative conception. Beside the north transept door another, long since walled up, is consecrated to the Final Judgment. The tympanum shows the Judge of all the earth, stern and awful, upon His throne, with the resur- rection of the dead below, in a double panel. What a presentation of the resurrection ! How naif and natural are the figures crawling out of their tombs ! One soul in the upper row gazes devoutly upward even while he struggles with the heavy lid of his penthouse. In the lowermost, angels bear the souls of the saved to the bosom of Abraham, and devils [58] CHAMPAGNE AND CHURCHES drag the damned to a great pot over a fire. The life- sized souls become mere dolls for devil's broth or patriarchal bosom ; a notable transformation, whose reason is obvious. Among the lost are a king, a bishop and a monk, "undoubtedly," a French writer declares, "for moral reasons." The sculptors here at Reims who worked on the Cathedral attained a mastery of style that recalls the noblest works of antiquity, with the addition of an individuality the ancient works lacked. Indeed, "the last half of the century reached a climax which has been likened, not without justice, to the Golden Age of Pericles ; in fact, the whole Middle Ages can offer nothing, in point of classical purity and eleva- tion, to compare with the finest among these works."* All the beauty of the Cathedral cannot by any means be viewed from the ground. High above run three galleries, one under the flying buttresses outside, two within the fine arcade at the edge of the leaden roof. Here is a world of sculpture all by itself: finials, crockets, medallions, cariatides, lit- tle spires and turrets and dormers. And everywhere lean gargoyles thrust far out to carry the rain away from the walls — ^w^eird, half-imaginative, half-real monsters overflowing with expression and spirit. Even more moving than the gargoyles are the grotesque chimeras that sit upon the topmost balus- trade of the apse, peering out over the city. They seem a sort of elfin tribe of watchdogs, guardians *Luebke: History of Art. [59] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of the sacred fane, who smile and smile from their lofty perches so long as you behave, but who would rend you in pieces did you so much as lay a finger upon their precious charge. Yet my fancy must be wrong, or they would have rent the restorers. Per- haps, after all, they are only watching for the joyous bringing in of the grapes, for wine has always been very close to the Gallic heart, and they are as Gallic as anything in all the length and breadth of France. [60] VI THE GOLDEN SIDE ON to the south of Champagne is that other vinous district, Burgundy, where the wine is as heavy and rich and red as the cham- pagne is light and golden and sparkling. It was here that both of the great monastic houses that influenced the growth of the Romanesque so pro- foundly, flourished — Cluny and Citeaux. And during the twelfth century the Burgundian school of archi- tecture was far in advance of all others, not only in the size and magnificence of its buildings, but in progress in design, the sculptors turning from the conventional and stereotyped patterns of classic art to Nature for their models. The Burgundians, having invaded Gaul some fifty years earlier than the Franks, were already Christians when the latter came down to Amiens, and furnished Clovis with a Christian princess — Clotilde — to be his queen and guiding star. One good turn deserves another, and the savage Frank repaid his queen's province by promptly reducing it to the position of a subject kingdom. The only difficulty was that Burgundy refused to stay put. Now a province, again a king- [6i] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA dom by itself, it was always puissant and active, always a thorn in the Prankish side; and in that tempestuous period when the feudal system was in its death throes, w^e find the ambitious Dukes of Burgundy ready to sacrifice not only the French crown, but the very French nation itself, to gain their personal ends. Though they had no national feeling, these dukes did care mightily for their duchy, which they were trying to develop into a kingdom. It was always a land of prosperity and plenty ; it is to-day, to such an extent that the departement cut right out of / ^ the heart of old Burgundy is called the Cote d'Or, y the Golden Side, rich in grain and wine. The city of Dijon is picturesquely situated at the foot of the hills of the Golden Side, in a splendidly watered plain, on two rivers and a canal which might well, in time of stress, help out the eight great forts surrounding it in defending the citizens. It became the capital of the duchy early in the eleventh century, but was not prominent until the latter part of the fourteenth, under its ambitious Dukes Philip the Bold, John the Fearless, Philip the Good and Charles the Boldv And what is this "City of Glori- ous Dukes" most famous for now.? Mustard and gingerbread ! The mustard is not even grown there, but only mixed. As to the gingerbread — every one to his taste! There is the usual contrast of wide, new streets and old, narrow ones jammed with quaint and unusual [62] THE GOLDEN SIDE houses of another era and other requirements. Many of them are quite short; the others extraordinarily crooked, with a superabundance of names. It is highly disconcerting to find half a dozen names for one street ; even more so to find it wabbling in almost as many directions, twisting and turning like the trail of some hunted animal. Perhaps, indeed, that is what many of these old streets are. In the center of the city is the Palais des Etats — House of Parliament — built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries around the scanty remains of the ducal palace — a tower or two, the kitchen, and a few other rooms. The building, or rather buildings, are now used as the Hotel de Ville, Post Office and Museum, which contains one of the finest provincial collections in the country. The gems of the collec- tion are the tombs, carefully restored since the Revo- lution, of two of the great dukes, Phihp the Bold and his son, John the Fearless, which stand in the Salle des Gardes. The older one, dating from 1414, is the finer of the two ; both are built of black marble and alabaster, relieved by colors and gilding. In the niches of the fine Gothic arcades about them are statuettes of mourning ecclesiastics, exquisitely sculp- tured and disposed. From the Palais des Etats the Place d'Arraes spreads away in a huge, walled semicircle that gives one the sense of being in the bastion of some gigantic fort, though the walls all around are pierced by the doors and windows of the shops that abut upon it, [63] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA and bj two streets which run through it near the palace. The illusion is heightened by the roofs of the other houses behind, showing above the wall, and two other streets driven through in narrow archways. I have never seen anything else like it. Dijon is rich in old houses dating from the Renais- sance, with charming f a9ades, wooden fronts for arti- sans and stone for rich bourgeois. The work, how- ever, is heavy and elaborate, for the Burgundians, in all periods, have been noted for their love of super- abundant decoration for exteriors. The most com- plete of the f a9ades of the French Renaissance is that of the church of St. Michel. The present Cathedral of St. Benigne dates from the latter part of the thirteenth century. It is a weird-looking structure, gray and forbidding of walls, kaleidoscopic of roofs, the covering ranging from stone and slate to bright, multi-colored tiles. In style, St. Benigne is Gothic, but its plan is very like that of the later Romano-Byzantine churches. Here we find the narthex, or vestibule, an ante-church sometimes provided for the catechumens — ^believers not yet baptized. The most remarkable church, however, is Notre Dame, which M. Viollet-le-Duc called "the master- piece of the Burgundian school of the thirteenth cen- tury." Nothing you may have read quite prepares you for the extraordinary ecclesiastical zoo that stares down at you from the fa9ade. Immense gar- goyles that are more than gargoyles, chimeras and [64] THE GOLDEN SIDE other unholy dream-beasts glare and grin, and lean far out with craning necks, in rows of seventeen, from rich and splendid friezes on each of the two arcaded stories above the fine triple porch. Every one of these monsters is different, and every one so overflowing with life and expression that you forget everything else in Dijon to stand, staring and won- dering, below them. Apparently the architects ex- pended their energies fully upon this fa9ade, for the interior presents Httle of interest beyond its tech- nical excellences. But you forget that, and turn again for one last, cheering, regretful glance at these swarming ecclesiastical hobgoblins as you go away. They and the mustard make up. your happiest memo- ries of the Burgundian capital. South from Dijon we pass through the heart of the Cote d'Or, where we find the historic names we recognize on every side are those famihar to us only on wine cards. It is as though the whole long list had developed from bottles into townis, and sprung into life here. Within the past twenty years or so the phylloxera has necessitated the practical replant- ing of all the Burgundian vineyards. As in Spain, American vines were chosen, many of them from California. So it is the soil and the climate, not the vine, that makes the wine. The center of this fertile wine district is Beaune. It is particularly satisfying in any country to go exploring the obscure, unimportant little cities of which you know almost nothing but the names. In [65] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the more important places, if you choose, you can usually take a book, written in your own language, and easily follow up every scrap of historic, scenic or architectural interest that amounts to anything. But in the byways, where you have to puzzle it all out bit by bit as you go along with the aid of the natives you meet, most often in the humblest walks of life, you have almost the joy of the true discoverer. The medieval aspect of Beaune — houses with quaint turrets and stair-towers, images and curious balconies — lends the old town a peculiar charm. Long ago, with the exception of a few scattered frag- ments, its walls gave way to pleasant, tree-hned boulevards. The moat, however, has not been filled up, and mighty-muscled laundresses use it as a wash- tub, with very picturesque effect. You wonder if they are not the ones who battered down the walls. The old church of Notre Dame has a remarkable fourteenth century porch, or vast exterior narthex, like another smaller but unwalled church, surmounted by a handsome gallery, the finest of its type, and very like that of St. Germain I'Auxerrois in Paris. Beaune's greatest hostage to fame, however, is no church, but the ancient Hostel Dieu, or Hospital of St. Esprit, which Dom Nicolas Rolin, the Chancellor of Burgundy, founded in 1443. The street exterior, of grayish-brown masonry, with small, square, barred windows, a high-pitched slate roof, and a series of elegant and graceful pinnacles and little flag-vanes of gilded lead, suggests an ancient chateau. Over [66] THE GOLDEN SIDE the door, a small, high-pitched canopy, blue-ceiled and gold-starred, with fine leaden finials and pendentives, testifies perfectly to the ideal of beauty as well as usefulness that moved men- in the fifteenth century ; and the iron knocker — the original one — is a little Gothic frame, up which a lizard, the knocker proper, is pursuing a fly. The simple exterior gives no hint of the beauty of thje interior courtyard, in Flemish-Gothic, with elaborate wooden pigTions -and covered galleries. In one corner of the court is a. deep well with a beau- tiful old Flemish iron frame, from which dangles the ancient iron bucket. It is more like a king's lodge than a charity hospital. ^I. Nicolas, as Philip the Good's chancellor, had large ideas regarding money, and his aim- was that each patient should enjoy, while in the Hostel, everything an income of a thousand Urres each could provide. In the old days only the daughters of noble or wealthy families were sisters here; but that is not the case with the devoted band of nuns who give their lives to the service of the poor to-day. They have, however, retained their fifteenth century cos- tumes — white in summer and blue in winter. They flit across the court, and up and down the galleries, silent, grave, story-book princesses full of good works and practical tenderness. Their quaint, full skirts and coifs strike a pleasant note of harmony against the satisfying background of this splendid old court, where the mere presence of the modern visitors and [67] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA doctors and workmen is a harsh anachronism. One carpenter especially roused my ire by clambering astride a pignon he was repairing, to roll a cigarette. Zounds — tobacco in the fifteenth century ! The main ward is a vast vaulted hall, the beds separated by curtains — to keep out the drafts, a nurse said. But they can be drawn back to let the patients hear some good father read the mass, or preach consolingly from the mellow old pulpit under the magnificent stained-glass window at the lower end of the room. Everything in the great kitchen is as spotless as on a man-of-war, and most appetizing odors waft out from the range, some twenty feet long. The roast- ing is still done in the cavernous chimney-place, on steel spits heavy enough to support a whole sheep or half a beef. The spits are turned by Tourne- broche, a captivating little spit-boy. He turns and turns and turns, without ever a backache or a glance, beyond watching his roasts, for Tourne-broche is a clockwork boy, wound up with a key. The sister who showed me about said that Messer Nicolas would never tolerate real spit-boys, and that the little mannikin dates from the very foundation of the institution. "You may think of the hospice as you like," one writer says, "as asylum or hospital or business propo- sition." That is not fair. The two elements of religion and charitable healing are its- main features, and both require money to accomplish anything. After all the centuries of its useful existence the [68] THE GOLDEN SIDE Hostel's chief source of income is the sale of its vintages, and why should not this be done in a busi- nesslike way ? The Hostel is one of the largest own- ers of vines in Burgundy, and this sale of its wines in November is of considerably more than local im- portance, its influence extending even to America. The actual bidding, I was told, is done in the council hall, but the quotation board is posted in the court, so that the vast crowd can note the prices, which fix the market values of all the principal Burgundies for the succeeding year. From Beaune a jerky little steam tram runs out through the hilly heart of the wine section, where the vineyards stretch away in vast fields as big as com fields here, acres upon acres of soft and tender green, striped with the thin brown lines of the four- foot poles to which the vines are tied. Even the liouse yards are full of them; not a flower, a blade of grass or a weed is to be seen. Again you see the high stone walls, massive and frowning, great clos to be entered only through the padlocked iron gate in the wall, or thick, thorny hedges, suffi- cient to keep everything that walks or creeps at a safe distance from the precious crops within. I walked two very dusty miles of road between Pommard and Beaune to see how the vines are taken care of in July. In one place a two-hundred-pound Maud MuUer, when she saw me about to photograph the vineyard, asked me to wait until she could go home and dress. Her employer, a very friendly agri- [69] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA culturist and vine expert, told me his troubles with the g-ovemment, which, he said, bestowed its decora- tion of the Order of Agricultural Merit on know- nothings who wrote for the papers, and let good men who did the actual work go undecorated. When I jokingly suggested that he buy the decoration, he sighed and answered: "I might, but it costs a lot to bribe the right people." West of Beaune is the Morvan, a country of roll- ing plains and lofty hills, where the people, like their own granite rocks — Morvan means Black Rock — have kept apart from the rest of the world for centuries. To this day the marriage of a Morvan- deau with any one of a different section is a rarity, and consequently the original physique, physiognomy and curious moral code of the district have been preserved almost intact. One of my objects in going through the Morvan was to see some of the typical Morvandeaux, said to have round, hairless faces, and queer, flat noses. Somehow or other, the only round, hairless face I could find was that of a tiny girl. Baby Jeanne, though I tramped Chateau-Chinon, the geographical center of the district, from end to end, visited the church twice, and went far out along the country roads. The supposition is that these people are descended from some of Attila's Huns, who re- mained in this district after their leader's defeat. As a matter of fact, the men I saw were all very hairy, and rather American-looking. The women [70] THE GOLDEN SIDE were even better proportioned than their husbands. So well known in the last century was the robustness of these Morvan women that kings and emperors sent here for wet-nurses. Napoleon's little son, the King of Rome, was nursed by a young Morvan foster- mother. As Chateau-Chinon is the geographical center of the Morvan, so Autun, the Augustodunum of Csesar, is its commercial focus, a city of some fifteen thou- sand, with quite a trade in cereals and other agri- cultural products. To-day, Autun is little more than the shrunken mummy of the city the Romans built here in the plain to take the place of Bibracte, the capital of the strong Celtic tribe of the ^duii, which occupied the crest of Mt. Beuvray, eleven miles dis- tant. The former greatness of the Roman metropolis is amply attested by many remains of architectural importance, among them two fine, half-ruined gate- ways, the Portes St. Andre and d'Arroux. On the latter appear the pilasters whose flutings exercised such a considerable influence upon later architecture. We find it clearly manifested in the fine triforium of the Cathedral of St. Lazare. The capitals of the fluted pilasters are just as unmistakably Byzantine. Indeed, the whole Cathedral is a curious but elegant melange of Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic and Re- naissance, though the main part was only fifty-eight years in building. To visit Autun without going to Bibracte is to miss the sense of its true relation to the prehistoric [71] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA past. It was there that representatives from all over Gaul convened a great assembly to find means for making one last desperate struggle against Rome, sinking their tribal jealousies, and choosing Vercin- getorix, chief of the Arverni, as their leader in this forlorn hope. Legend and fable cluster about Mt. Beuvray as thickly as the mists and rain that made its ascent impossible for me. Neyers has not the same historic prominence as Autun and others of its neighbors, but is worth a visit, if only that its main thoroughfare, leading up from the railroad station, pleasantly reminds you of a New England village street — sunshine streaming down through the orderly rows of fine old trees to dapple the pavement of very rough stones, cut like bricks; houses -set back from the narrow sidewalk a little ; flowers here and there ; shades down, or shut- ters drawn in the windows. The town takes a firm hold of you at once, and the people are pleasant- spoken and witty. What matter if the feudal castle has put on a new face and turned into a "Palais de Justice"? It still presents its grim, original back to you, and to the town that snuggles up behind in its shelter ; and the broad, open square in front rolls away to an exquisite series of terraces, below which the lovely valley of the Loire curves away on either hand into infinity. The scene is unf orgetable : the lazy, shim- mering serpent coquetting among myriad sandbanks ; the railroad bridge of gold crossing it, a veritable [72] THE GOLDEN SIDE Roman aqueduct for immortality and beauty ; a thou- sand tints of foliage and flower gleaming on the terraces and the wooded slopes on the distant bank. The most unusual building in town is the Cathedral of St. Cyr, one of the two double-apsed cathedrals in France. Tradition explains prettily why it is dedi- cated to St. Cyrus, and why the saint is sculptured as a naked child riding a pig. King Charles, it seems, had a dream in which a naked little boy ap- peared to him while he was out hunting, and promised that if his majesty would clothe him he would save him from a terrible wild boar. The king promised, and the child, none other than the saint himself, mounted the ferocious animal's back, and, guiding him by the tusks, drove him straight upon the king's lance. And the Bishop of Nevers guilelessly explained that when the little saint asked for "clothes" he meant the rebuilding of the church. From an architectural standpoint, the eleventh century church of St. Etienne is more worth while, a splendid example of the Romanesque style of Au- vergne, which worked its way up into the Nivernais. However, the most fascinating object in town is the ancient Porte du Croux, a great, square tower, with all the loopholes and traces of medieval defense so picturesque and so useless now. Dripping with delicate vines, and scarred with the wounds of time, it suggests in every graceful but sturdy line the fourteenth century, of which it is so beautiful a rep- resentative. The street leading through it winds out- [73] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA ward between stout walls to a noble barbican, or outer defense; and to see Nevers at its best, go through them both, and a little beyond, of a June afternoon, just before sunset. There, in the slowly fading glory of the scented afternoon, lies the town, its roofs and pinnacles, chateau and Cathedral, gate- ways and spires, all a blaze of liquid gold, conjuring the ghosts of another day to people anew each storied house and tower. [74] VII AMONG TH£ DOMES AS the train rolls over the viaduct, westward, the view of Nevers, proudly cresting its hill in the background, is very fine; and onward toward Bourges, purple delphinium, golden butter- cups and yellow mustard, flaming scarlet poppies and brilliant white daisies spangle the fields with color, the most colorful landscape in France. Great white cattle graze, un startled by the iron horse, in nearby pastures ; and trees of a dozen species checker the landscape with their lofty hedges: tilleuls (lindens), maples, spindling poplars, lofty acacias, thick-bodied horse-chestnuts ; gray, stuccoed houses, with soft, warm, reddish-brown roofs, peep out from among the trees, often with pleasant vines spraying over doors and windows. But it is better to see Bourges in connection with Touraine, and to go on southward through Auvergne from Nevers. Here all the world seems going to be "cured" at the baths of Riom, Vichy, Royat. The trains are full of would-be sick folk, who dearly love to tell just where and how they imagine themselves afflicted. An unusually stout young Frenchwoman 175} FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA tried to keep us out of two compartments — why, we could not understand. She had her father in one, and held a seat for herself in each, buzzing back and forth, to the annoyance of every one in both, as well as the people standing in the corridor for the view — the country along this line is beautiful. She was continually eating, with offensively dirty hands, and then going to the door of the next compartment to feed her father, who evidently was really ill. Our other companions were two very healthy and cheerful Austrian gentlemen from South America, but bound for Riom. Auvergne is one of the most interesting districts in France, a region of burnt-out volcanoes and Ro- manesque churches. There is probably no other section anywhere in the world where prehistoric vol- canic action can be so easily studied, or where it has presented in a comparatively small space such amazing results, in the form of great chains of domes, so perfectly rounded, and so regular in sequence, they seem artificial. There are three of these groups, and Clermont-Ferrand, formerly the capital of Au- vergne, stands directly before — on the east — the cen- ter of the group, called the Monts Dome. The whole city, even the cathedral, is built solidly of almost black lava from the dead volcanoes near by. Yet it is anything but somber. The great open square, the Place Jaude, which occupies low ground at one side of the city, is a delight to the eye, and not only from it do you have a splendid view of [76] AMONG THE DOMES the domes, but Interest never flags for lack of graphic scenes among the people. The very first morning of our stay in Clermont a thin, reedy piping awoke us bright and early. Could we be in Sicily again ? Surely that was a shep- herd's pipe! Right under our w^indows stalked the piper, most musical; behind, solemn and dignified, a herd of beautifully shiny and well-kept goats, keeping very good step to the fluting. Afterward we found the goat-charmer no magician at all ; his whis- tle not for the goats, but for customers. Leading hotels and cafes surround the square, some of them five or six stories high. In the afternoon all the cafes fill the sidewalk with chairs and tables ; but one goes still farther, enclosing It with awnings, and having an excellent string band and vocalists. It is a deHghtf ul spot after a hard day's sightseeing : the tea is good, the square a rapidly turning kaleido- scope, and the goatherd usually somewhere in evi- dence with his sleek pets. One afternoon, as he came piping past, the proprietress came to the side door of the hotel next our cafe, and called. Imme- diately the herder's dog singled out a handsome black-and-white goat with huge horns and drove her up to the door. Bit by bit Madame fed her a great piece of bread, while the man squatted behind and milked, and the dog saw that none of the other goats wandered. A day or so later another and somewhat distress- ing cross-section of life passed under our windows [77] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA into the church of St. Pierre-des-Minlmes, at the corner of the Place. An acolyte and three priests headed the little procession : a rusty old hearse, deco- rated with two or three dreadful glass-bead wreaths, inscribed "Souvenir" ; a few bareheaded men and a handful of very bored-looking women — surely there were no relatives in that indifferent cortege. Upon the casket lay four big bunches of flowers wrapped in coarse paper. The master of ceremonies, waiting importantly at the church in a cocked hat, tossed them carelessly to either side of the door, jerked the pall back into a messy heap, and motioned the bearers to take the coffin in. It was a poor thing, pathetically cheap in the revealing sunshine, and the men handled it like so much brick. On one side a blind beggar, whose bald crown was sunburned a deep tan, held out his hat to it ; on the other, a paralytic, steadied by his daughter, also begged for alms from ears forever deaf. How short a shrift is given the poor, in either life or death. The sad little crowd filed blinking out almost before we thought the service well begun. Backing his horse up to the curb like a coalman, the driver stood at his head while the casket bumped noisily in, and the priests, evidently in a hurry, led the way off at a smart pace, while Life in the Place flowed on, unheeding and unceasing, totally indiffer- ent to its twin brother. Death. After the color of the city, its most striking feature is the way in which some of its streets mount [78] AMONG THE DOMES the hill upon incHned embankments. Cresting the highest point is the stern, somber Cathedral, a fine Gothic building, begun in the middle of the thirteenth century and never finished, though in the nineteenth the eminent architect, M. Viollet-le-Duc, completed the western fa9ade with its two towers. The high altar, bishop's throne and choir railings were also designed by him, and testify not only to his skill, but also to the fact that good work could be done in the nineteenth century. But it is the Auvergnat church we care most to see here, a development of the Romanesque. An important and typical example of this native archi- tecture is the church of Notre Dame du Port. To reach it we pass through the Place Poterne, a pleas- ant, shady square on the brow of the hill, whence fine views of the Monts Dome spread away for miles. There is no rush or bustle of life here, as in the busy Place Jaude; the Poterne is rather a quiet, homely sitting-room for all the people of the neigh- borhood — nurses with their young charges, children, old folks who would sit to gossip a bit on the stone benches. One afternoon I caught two of them — dear old souls — in caps and shawls and neat black dresses, knitting and chatting, and making a charming genre picture if ever there was one.' Before I could photo- graph them they saw the camera, and though they tried to look perfectly unconscious, one straightened her cap coquettishly, and her companion visibly stiffened. [791 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Down one of the long inclines, and through a nar- row street or two, we come at last to the old church. It is quite small, and the choir is its most prominent feature, with four fine little chapels and as many buttresses alternately radiating from it. The tran- septs are also flanked by small apses, which give them a very original appearance. Vercingetorix, the hero of that last great conflict in 52 B.C., in which Caesar battered the truculent Gallic tribes into submission, is commemorated in this, his native province, by the broad, tree-bordered Ave- nue Vercingetorix, out near the attractive public gardens, and in the Place Jaude by a bronze eques- trian statue which is full of vigor and spirit, if not exactly the highest form of art. From Clermont up to the summit of the Puy de Dome is an eight-mile trip, negotiated by carriage, or preferably by the crazy little steam tram, that gives you such an excellent opportunity to study the people when they go a- junketing. We left Clermont in sunshine and arrived in a driving rain, gale, and fog as impenetrable as a rubber blanket. After a few moments of tooting out through the suburbs the tram emerges into a marvelous rolling country, the foothills of the dead volcanoes that sweep about Clermont in lofty semicircles. Behind and below appears the city on the hill, the cathedral very prominent on its height, but dead black against the green of hill and swale. The track winds in- terminably, now in cuts, now along scarped ways [80] AMONG THE DOMES where the vivid yellow gorse (genet) spatters the rock in great thickets, in striking contrast with richly colored, black-striped violets as big as pansies, and innumerable poppies. As we go higher, the panorama of the valley expands into great squares of plowed and cultivated land, patches of gorse Hke the Yorkshire moorlands, and the domes themselves, huge, greenish-black sugar-loaves, an endless series of smooth arcs, fading here and there into the loftier curves of the distant ranges. At La Baraque we changed cars, for no apparent reason, and had a pleasant little illustration of the charming manners of the true French touriste. A large, powerful young woman, built on ideal lines for a New York subway crush, drove her way through the more leisurely passengers and reserved about a third of the new car. Shrieking at the top of her voice for ''PapaT' ^'Mamanr "LouiseT how she glared at those who tried to pass that outstretched arm or seemed inclined to hurdle it ! Above Baraque, the view of the domes against the violet-black and gray of an approaching storm was the most majestic vista of the kind it has ever been my good fortune to behold : those gre'at, round, green heads, so many titanic beehives, streaked with black, with red earth, with strips of grain, and the furious downpour misting one after another out of sight. The air grew chilly, the wind howled amjong the peaks ; the storm was upon us. There are two little restaurants on the bleak sum- [8i] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA mit of the Puy, and we made for one, with the wind at our backs. Holding our hats tightly, staggering over the rough lava, blown almost inside out, we struggled across to its comforting warmth and dry- ness. And what a crowd it was that stamped in, all French but ourselves, laughing, flapping useless um- brellas, and all talking at top speed and pitch while shaking the rain from their coats. The one waiter, an insignificant little specimen, with red hair and blue eyes, and no nose, backed up against the wall and tried to smile, but only looked scared instead. The hulking female Stentor added to the confusion by making the windows rattle with her demands for dejeuner. A genial little old man, who made a harm- less jest of everything, and kept everybody in a gale of laughter, twisted his fierce, white moustachios and seconded her, and "Charly," a young man with him, beat upon a plate with a spoon. The Stentor, finding that there were Americans present, shouted, "I spik Angleesh ! I spik Angleesh !" and proceeded to give an unprintable illustration. Those of the French who understood her seemed to consider it a royal joke. Luncheon over — it was not so bad — notwithstand- ing the continued gale, rain and fog, we all clambered over the top of the Puy, dutifully looked out through the windows»of the observatory — from which, in clear weather, the view is magnificent — explored the ruins of the Temple of Mercury, deciding that the guide- book descriptions of it are quite inadequate, and [82I AMONG THE DOMES finally came down the circuitous route in the tram, bitterly disappointed at missing the view. The expe- rience, however, was very well worth while. Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand's most celebrated son, had more patience than we, for he stayed long enough on the Puy to make those memorable experiments in weighing the atmosphere. We did not go up the Puy again. Though there was plenty of sunshine after that in Clermont, a single glance was always enough to show the useless- ness of piercing the rolling cloud of vapor that continued to play fast and loose with the Dome. So we confined our wanderings to those odd corners of the city still unexplored and to the little neigh- boring town of Royat. The huge bath establish- ment at the end of the trolley line we passed by — a single stroll through its too formal and florid gar- dens was enough to "cure" us. Instead we toiled on up the steep hill, into an atmosphere wholly different from the air of the newer low town. Old Royat's chief attraction is a curious battle- mented church, the successor of the seventh century fortified church established there by a company of Benedictine nuns. Here the stout sisterhood, should an enemy approach, could give an excellent account of themselves until male help arrived. There are no high roofs or apses or other means by which the church could be easily stormed ; but thick stone battlements all around the top, machicolations — or, as Freeman calls them, "murdering-holes" — through [831 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA which you can easily imagine the brave sisters pour- ing boiling water down upon the attacker, or smash- ing him with heavy rocks. The conventual life in those early days meant greater freedom than at home, it is true, yet it must also have required genuine consecration on the part of those devoted women to build away up here in the mountains, in the midst of such alarms that their church as well as their conventual enclosure must be turned into a strong fortress. Old houses, not a line of which appears either strictly horizontal or perpendicular, crowd up close to the church now on two sides ; on the other two a dirt square, flanked by more queer houses, with a dilapidated fountain in the middle. On the corner nearest the church the house has become a debit des tins — in plain English, a groggery of the lowest type. Like the other houses, it is built of dark- gray lava and the rough stone of the locahty, and all look as though they might be dens of the deepest iniquity. But the people all about seemed the per- sonification of the harmless and the commonplace: women with market baskets and babies, a man carry- ing fresh bread in a latticework scaffold on his back and head, an old crone washing lettuce in a rat-trap- like cage in the fountain, children and dogs and starveling cats. Up a black side street we ran into a little group of old women. One, whose face was a perfect palimpsest whereon the fading lines of spirit and [84] AMONG THE DOMES beauty still shone through the superscription of age and privation, was selling strawberries. "How much, madame?" I asked her. ^'Whatever you like, sir," she mumbled toothlessly. "Hold your hat, and I will give you good measure." Back in another part of town is the mill where the lovely semi-precious stones displayed in so many of the shops of Clermont are cut into shape — ame- thysts, exquisite pink and yellow quartzes, and won- derfully colored agates. All these stones are mined nearby, among the domes, and ground into every imaginable sort of bead, ring, pin, talisman, paper- weight, and so on, by big grindstones and buff -wheels worked by water-power. The results are beautiful, but not cheap. The road which forms the steep ascent from the lower town runs above the burbling stream that turns the wheels of a big laundry glued to the side of the gorge, that rises, along part of the way at least, fully one hundred feet higher than the water. Below, the black cliffs are pitted with dark grottoes, where peasant women splash at their soapy washing, in defi- ance of the modern mangles above. And all the way, up or down, you hear the susurrant music of the stream, singing softly to the roses and clematis nodding in garden and hedge above its rocky bed. [85] VIII THE CITY OF MANY BRIDGES THE day we made the trip to Lyon the hills were all veiled in mist, that occasionally lifted enough to let us see the more distant moun- tains, so blue they were almost black, against a dull violet sky. The rolling plain is full of farms ; the hills, cultivated all the way to the top, rippling with seas of waving grain, through which the poppies dance their fiery fandango. The houses are usually of rough brown stone, often, with their barns and partly roofed-over enclosing walls for sheds and storerooms, forming a compound, much as in Spain. It is worthy of note that here in France the walls and houses spout greenery, instead of flowers as in Sicily. While of course this robs the country of a great deal of color and liveliness, the green is, nevertheless, restful to the jaded eye. Soon the Allier appears, its shallow stream filled with broad sandbanks, little islands, full of low trees and scrub, whose leaves are blown by the friendly gale until their under sides show as gray as gray can be ; poplars along the banks, beheaded willows — nothing but stumps about ten feet high — spraying foliage [86] CITY OF MANY BRIDGES out in a verdant shower from each mutilated trunk; stone farmhouses with mossy roofs of red tile turned almost black in places. Cherry-trees that bloom in June like a flower- garden border the tracks near Lyon ; here, too, gar- dens come to within a few feet of the rails, full of potatoes in blossom, with poppies mixed in between, and all sorts of other garden-truck. Now we strike the Rhone, a splendid, cold, gray river, that really merits the name of river, flowing between lofty banks dotted with villas and farms, and bordered with poplars and other trees ; and then, suddenly, Lyon appears in the distance, the church of Notre Dame de Fourviere standing on a hill that commands the whole town, giving it the air of a truly medieval stronghold. It is an imposing city, the third in France, the second in commercial importance, lying between two great navigable rivers, and spanning them with twenty- two bridges, nine over the sullen Rhone, thir- teen over the dashing Saone. A university town, headquarters of an army corps, center of half the entire supply of manufactured silk in the world, and one of the handsomest cities of the present day, Lyon is a perfect whirl of activity, its own stream of life flowing as swiftly as the rivers that lave it with many waters. Its women are among the handsomest and best dressed in France; its men are tall and strong and prepossessing; its children numerous and beautiful. In a word, the city takes a mighty hold [871 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA upon you, and you thrill to its charm, full of enthusi- asm for its beauty and activity. And it was great in the old days. Marcus Aurelius, Caracalla, Claudius, Geta — emperors all — ^were born here; so were Saints Irenaeus and Ambrose. In mod- ern times it continued to give hostages to fame — Delorme, the architect; Ampere, the electrician and physicist ; Flandrin, Meissonier and Puvis de Cha- vannes, the painters — a galaxy of stars of the first magnitude. The city kept its balance during the revolutionary madness, and the Convention con- demned it to demolition. Powder and cannon-balls were to blow it out of existence; but, fortunately, before the work could be completed Robespierre met his richly deserved fate, and, under Napoleon, Lyon crept, phoenix-like, up from her ashes into an epoch of unexampled prosperity and civic beauty. The great Place Bellecoeur, the fashionable prom- enade of the town, is a delight to the eye, a happy combination of Central Park and the Plaza Cataluna. It is a vast, dirt-floored square, with a wide strip of flowering park along one side, containing two ponds, on one of which idle two black swans, on the other two white ones. All around the edges chairs are set, and rented at two cents apiece to whomso- ever will ; and scattered about in convenient locations are rest-houses, a restaurant — the Maison Doree — a cafe, bandstand, and so on. By all means come here in the afternoon to take tea in the shadow of the restaurant, while the band plays, and watch the [88] CITY OF MANY BRIDGES thousands who every day sit or walk about here, some sewing", some reading, some watching the chil- dren play, which they do very prettily, at all sorts of games, even bare-legged digging in the dirt, as at the beach. One very popular feature is the man with the tiniest and sleekest of donkeys and carts, who takes the children for rides, calling out like the train hands, *'En voiture! En voiture, s' vous plait r^ until his cart is full of the dainty passengers, and the wise little donkey looks them over with gentle eyes before he starts sedately around the busy enclosure. The night-life in Lyon reminded me very much of night in Madrid. Every shop is closed, every cafe at full blast, and all the sidewalks are jammed. The majority of the people seemed eminently respect- able folk, taking their ease after toil in the chilly June evening by eating ices and drinking iced bever- ages, reading newspapers on the cold stone benches under lamp-posts, or listening gravely to the band music, which lasts until half-past ten in the Place Bellecoeur. The principal streets are almost as brilliant as Broadway, illuminated by private enter- prise — cafes, shops, and so on. Many of the cafes, after the popular Paris style, have singing or dancing as attractions. At one I noticed a German with a pocket dictionary strike up a flirtation with a Frenchwoman, who vastly enjoyed his clumsy efforts at conversation by thumbing his diction- ary and pointing out the words. In a minute the [89] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA street was enjoying it, too, and the waiters had to bring out extra chairs and tables to accommodate the crowd. In the Place a group of young men became inter- ested in a girl who had stopped to fasten up her garter, and though she had a man and another girl with her, they circled about, and refused to beheve it had come down until she reluctantly showed it around her ankle. Then they all wanted to help her replace it. When the fun had gone far enough they voluntarily ran off. About fifty feet away they looked back, but the girl had it fixed safely by that time, and, swishing up her skirts like a flash, cried, *^Voila, messieurs T' and turned back to her laughing companions, the man — he looked as if he were her brother — evidently approving her chic. This episode was very French. From the Bellcoeur you see the church of Notre Dame de Fourviere, high above the Saone. Keep a watch on it day by day, and the first time the fickle weather is perfectly clear go right up, no matter what you may have planned for that day, for the view is the finest anywhere about, and Lyon is a city of many moods. The quickest and best way is to take the funicular, which lahds you before the great church, a most astonishing hodge-podge in the modernized Byzantine style. The interior is gor- geous with mosaics, painting and gilding. But the view is the thing. Around the outside of the apse a broad, semicircular gallery or terrace commands [90] CITY OF MANY BRIDGES a prospect almost as extended as from the lofty tower above, a hundred-mile panorama, in the center of which lies the city, at the bottom of the vast surrounding bowl — the snow-capped Alps. Before you, ninety-six miles as the crow flies, towers Mt. Blanc ; to the right more mountains ; and on the left the valleys of Rhone and Saone, the rivers glinting like burnished platinum in the crisp sunlight. After the view, down the hillside again, through the shady garths of the little bosket of the Sacre Coeur, along inclined walks that zigzag from one picturesque flight of dirt steps to another. Birds fill the trees with song ; a fountain tinkles pleasantly ; the sunlight, streaming through the branches, makes a brilliant patchwork of the warm, moist earth, and the air is redolent with woodsy fragrance. Small terra-cotta monuments of the Dolorous and Joyous Mysteries, and granite Stations of the Cross, dot the path all the way through the miniature wood. Beyond, you go down the Montee des Chazeaux, a street-stairway S42 steps long. Up this toilsome way streams a steady procession of men, boys and young women, carrying "breads" in great wheels, through which they thrust their arms, or in great circles difficult to clasp and carry. Truly, some noted baker must have his shop at the bottom of this high flight. The way is precipitous, but care- fully paved, with a gutter down the center, the drainage stream making a thin pencil of water that glistens against the dull stone background. And at [91I FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the foot behold the bakery, its windows full of vastly tempting pastry and the great loaves. And also at the foot of the hill is the Cathedral of St. Jean, showing a remarkable mixture of the styles of this particular part of the country. The west front, with its vigorous carving, and the nave, are Northern Gothic of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ; but in the Romanesque choir the flat ar- cades, with their fluted pilasters, are characteristic- ally Burgundian, deriving clearly from the Roman V^gateways of Autun. To the right of the fa9ade is the long low, battered eleventh century fa9ade of the Manecanterie, the chapel where choristers used to greet the dawn ; hence its name, mane cantare — to sing at sunrise. No such service dignifies the ancient chapel now. But we did see the school of the Petits Clercs de Lyon coming out, pasty-faced little fellows in black smocks. These dreadful "overalls" always give me a shock. Why dress one's child as if going to a funeral, or in filial mourning, especially when there are other dark colors that show dirt and dam- age less? It takes a deal of insight to find charm under such a repellent exterior as a black smock. The banks of the Saone, lined with public wash- boats, are always lively and picturesque. One morn- ing I found there the biggest market and rag-fair I had ever seen, mostly a sale of necessities and eatables, where thrifty housewives came to get their household supplies and squabble fiercely over the last sou's worth of bread, cheese, garhc, meats, fish, [92] CITY OF MANY BRIDGES flowers, fancy delicacies in game and legumes, new dresses, stockings, shoes, hats, ribbons, garters, bolts of cloth or of silk, underwear, notions, children's garments, and so on, ad libitum. Here was a poor, flea-bitten little yellow spaniel, made to wear spec- tacles and a hat, while his prosperous Gargantua of a master and very dirty mistress "barked," demon- strated and sold a truly "magic cleaner." Would that they had demonstrated it on themselves ! Yon- der, a cripple squatted beside an opened umbrella full of colored elastic bands; farther on, a patriarch bellowed of his maps, a blindfolded woman posed as a mind-reader, answering questions and giving mystic numbers, and so on. The jam was terrific, the weather warm, and the people inclined to behave very independently, with the result that there was a good deal of unnecessary and unusual butting and shoving. The meat-stalls were too horrible for description ; they turned the long quay into a stinking shambles, a literal Via Putrida. Hunting for a restaurant, rather than go back to the hotel for luncheon and have to start all over again afterward, we found the shabby, humble little Cafe de la Grotte, whose tablecloths were w^ine- spotted and whose patrons were not exactly chic. But the food was good, the cooking excellent, and the crazy stucco grotto in the middle of the sanded floor spouted water as clear as any fountain in a costly hotel. Most surprising was the fact that here, where we least expected it, we could order [93l FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA a la carte, and need pay only for what was served. In most French restaurants the meals are intermi- nable table d'hote affairs, with the same soup, fish, omelette, meats, salad and dessert. If you insist on being a savage, and ordering from the list, you pay for the whole meal just the same. A la carte apparently means nothing to the average French restaurateur. As for the soup^ there is an amiable legend to the effect that a Frenchwoman will make soup of what her American sister throws away. After you have dined a few times outside the finest hostelries you are sorry the Frenchwoman didn't throw it away, too. For weeks at a time we saw no soup but sublimated dishwater, full of bits of sour bread. Both ends of the meals left us longing. While the Frenchmen around us devoured platefuls of moist white cheese swathed in sugar, that turns an American stomach to see, how we hungered for a good old-fashioned wedge of pie, or even the "poor- man's" rice pudding! Who would recognize in the deep, sullen, gray Rhone, on the other side of the city, the sparkling, sapphire stream that fairly leaps out from the Lake of Geneva and later dashes, in clear emerald, down through the Alpine foothills.'^ Here it is spanned by many a busy bridge, and its broad quays, below the level of the street, are lined with bowling-grounds, where men and boys are always playing, while an interested audience hangs over the street-wall above. Across the river, on the eastern bank, is the impos- [94] CITY OF MANY BRIDGES ing group of the University buildings ; farther along, the Prefecture, a handsome nineteenth century Re- naissance structure, in which the assassinated Presi- dent Carnot breathed his last ; and still farther along, northward, the fashionable modern residence quarter of Les Brotteaux, adjoined by a fine park and lake. Lyon is full of splendid streets, broad highways of which any city might well be proud. The central town, between the two rivers, is full of interest, and though there is little of real architectural value, there are large and dignified public buildings, great monu- ments, statues and fountains in the squares, and any number of churches. The most distinctive is the Romanesque St. Martin d'Ainay, nine hundred years old, its facade incrusted with colored stones, which give it a bizarre effect, like that of the Au- vergnat churches. The west fa9ade is divided by a single square tower with three rows of narrow little windows above the door and four acroteria at the base of the squat pj^ramid that crowns it. Four large antique granite columns support the low, square tower over the crossing, and a priest told us that they were from a temple of Augustus, and anciently believed to have "fallen from heaven." Next in importance to the Place Bellecoeur is the Place des Terreaux, so called from the terreaux, or heaps of earth, that had to be removed to allow for its construction. At one end is a monumental fountain by Bartholdi — we owe him the Goddess of the Bay in New York Harbor — representing the [95] \ FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA chariot of the springs and rivers on its way to Ocean. The basin is semicircular, with a low, surrounding seat, where you gladly pause to watch the steady ebb and flow of the crowds through the busy square, or to feed the pigeons that bathe and flutter about fearlessly. Suddenly all the springs and rivers seem to be coming your way — on the wings of a playful gust of wind. Here, in 1794, the guillotine, working its fastest, proved so slow for the number of citizens selected to die that the blood-stained revolutionists took to powder and grape as a lot quicker. Facing the square are the seventeenth century Hotel de Ville and the eighteenth century Palais des Arts. The latter formerly belonged to the Dames Benedictines — their refectory can still be seen — and the courtyard inside is now a tiny public park. The building itself con- tains an important and admirably arranged museum. Not far distant, in the Palais de Bourse, or Stock Exchange, a striking Renaissance edifice, on the beau- tiful rue de la Repubhque, is another valuable col- lection, the Musee Historique des Tissus. It is a vivid exposition of the art of weaving, painting and embroidering silk, velvet and other stuff's, from its infancy to the present, all over the world. The display is dazzling, and the Lyonnais products easily hold their own among the best works of China, India, Persia, Japan, and other countries famous for their weavers and craftsmen. Tissue-working began in Lyon under Louis Quatorze, we were told, and a long [96] CITY OF MANY BRIDGES series of specimens, of both the work and the ma- chines that wove and weave it, make the exhibit very graphic. Just back of the Bourse, in front of the church of St. Bonaventure, I leveled my camera one after- noon at an old candlewoman by the door, an espe- cially kindly and pleasing type. But she was too quick for me, and springing up with astonishing agility, turned her back. When I went over and asked her coaxingly if she would sit down again in the same position, she answered angrily: "You can't talk to me as if I were an ass ! If you want a picture, come back to-morrow morning, and photo- graph the mister who sells the flowers I" [97] IX GRENOBLE, THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE AND CHAMBERY WE intended to go down the Rhone by boat from Lyon, but to our disappointment found that the boat service had been dis- continued. As we had been down by rail before, we cut across country to Grenoble, instead. And glad we were, for it is a child's picture-book country, with little towns on slight swales, rolling fields of grain dotted with poppies, and full of trees that look from the train as though Kate Greenaway had made them. Then comes a lovely little lake, so long and narrow, so rippled and winding, that it seems a river instead. In the distance the gray crags of Dauphine look like misty snow-peaks, vague and uncertain, though they are only bare and scraggy limestone. Olives begin to appear along the way; and almost every station along the line has a quaint stone-curbed well, usually with an old oaken bucket beside it. A poet could find plenty of both material and inspiration here. We passed a tiny hamlet about milking-time, and across the lush fields the spotted kine plodded home- ward at the hest of a barefoot boy, who whistled [98I GRENOBLE with shrill cheeriness as he switched at the flowers. The westering sun splashed dull wall and gleaming field with gold; long shadows barred the road with purple; the houses lay still and peaceful in their emerald frames, with here and there a man smoking contentedly in a doorway, while from the chimney a blue spiral of smoke eddied up, as gaunt and unreal as the slim poplars by the hedge. Now there are deep cuts and enclosing scarps, stone-protected, or, in lieu of masonry, guarded from washouts by wick- ets of brush woven through stakes. Then for some time the country suggests Switzerland — the confor- mation of mountain and foothill, the color of the landscape, the tiny streams dripping down the moun- tainside — but the cottages not at all. And then Grand Lemps, with mud walls along the track en- closing the village, and houses of either mud or rubble, giving a very Spanish effect. Again farm scenes, men and women haying, goats nibbling off the top of a hedge, vines on low trellises. The mountains increase in grandeur, with a won- derful play of sunset on the snow in the distance, while the nearer peaks are blue-hazed, like a Puvis de Chavannes vision. One must see mountains and landscapes under exactly these conditions to appreci- ate his color effects ; and then it is to marvel at his ability to overlay colors, or at least to give that im- pression — a sunset blue over a sort of old rose pink. Our Lady of Vouise, a huge copper figure, silhouetted against the brilliant sky at Voiron, made us suddenly [99] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA aware of the mountain on whose top she stands. Almost at her feet we dropped three carloads of picture-book laborers we had brought up the line, and they filled the platform with corduroy and color and chatter. If so far we have passed through a picture-book countr}", now we enter fairyland. Not even Granada itself can compare with the marvels about Grenoble, coming in of a summer evening. Surely it is the loveliest picture France affords — the ancient town, whose walls bristle with bastions and tourelles; the thick gray stream of the Isere plunging madly past ; the endless series of superimposed snow mountains. Think not of hotel or dinner. Take an open carriage and get right over to the river. At first, the moun- tains swim in a glorious hehotrope haze, and the town is ghostly and cold and gray in the midst of their splendor. The sun drops behind a sheltering peak ; the heliotrope sky flames, quivers, fades ; the very air turns green, a curious, eery green ; the dis- tant mountains emerge icy black, the nearer and lower ones change into huge, translucent lumps of jade, and the river to ink; vast, dull-green shadows creep slowly down to grip the city with chill fingers that choke out of it the last waning spark of day. The marvel is over.'' Not quite. Somewhere, faintly, a silvery bell begins to sing, wee lights gem the edges of the flood and twinkle out along bridge and avenue ; it is night in Grenoble. Still in a dream, you turn away, wishing for the tongue of a poet [lOO] * > • • ■ ' * 3* > « • • » » «>a» (a t ,* GRENOBLE to phrase the glory you have seen as all its majesty and weirdness deserve. Not even the smells and lights and champings of the hotel dining-room can quite rob you of the ecstasy you have inspired from the miracle. Eventually you have to come down to earth again. Yet even then Grenobk does nothing to shat- ter your hopes. Genius itself must have chosen the site, and not all "man's vile arts" could spoil it. Grenoble is a city of nearly seventy thousand popu- lation, and formerly the capital of Dauphine. When that province was added to the crown possessions, in 1349, the heir to the throne of France took his title of Dauphin from it, while the lands of the province became his princely appanage. Where the Dauphin's palace used to stand is the handsome fifteenth century Palace of Justice, facing the Place St. Andre, with the old chapel, now the church of St. Andre, diagonally opposite. It is a disgrace to Grenoble that the church should be dis- figured outside by having big posters advertising various nostrums pla&tered over its wall to one side of the door, and small shops tucked up on the other. The effect is very bizarre. Before the door we found a crowd of idlers, mostly lower-class women and girls, waiting for a wedding party which was in the adja- cent Hotel de Ville for the civil ceremony. With great dignity, during the interim, the verger came out, gorgeous in black and purple robes, with a scarlet-tufted black biretta, holding a stray cat by the scruff of its neck, stalked down the street, peering [lOl] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA into shops until he came to an empty one, threw her in, slammed the door, and stalked solemnly back. The wedding party had literally to fight its way through the elbowing, crowding mob, which followed into the church. The only seats left were at the very door, where we could see nothing of the cere- mony for the backs of the people who stood on the chairs in front. The interior of St. Andre seems to have suffered as much in modern times as the exterior. Surely no thirteenth century chapel ever had such tawdry tinsel and glass, such dreadful paint- ings. The most interesting thing in the church is the monument to the memory of the Chevalier Bay- ard, the knight without fear and without reproach, who was born at Le-Cheylas-la-Buissiere, twenty miles away. The Hotel de Ville, with its handsonje towers, occu- pies part of the former mansion of the Due de Lesdiguieres, one of the Calvinist governors under whom the religious wars raged fiercely at Grenoble. The duke's ambition was to be Grand Constable of France, and he did not hesitate to change faiths and fight his former friends when he thought it would benefit him. His garden is now the Jardin de Ville, beautiful if rather precise, and a popular as well as a fashionable promenade. The city is full of flowering squares, and as if that were not enough, one morning gardeners climbed to the top of the little white trolley station in the Place, right under our windows, and filled it with potted [ 102 ] GRENOBLE plants, brilliant geraniums and the like, changing a very commonplace necessity into a thing of beauty. The most spacious park of all skirts the walls, and is named, picturesquely, the Promenade of the Green Island. Right across the river the rugged town walls zigzag up the craggy hill to the Bastille at the top, for Grenoble is a first-class military post, pro- tected by a belt of up-to-date fortresses. At the foot of the hill is the old Porte St. Laurent, and, just within, the eleventh century church of the same name, whose crypt was originally a sixth cen- tury cruciform chapel. Almost opposite, in a spot- less little two-room apartment giving upon the street, lives a very dainty old lady w^ho makes gloves. The Grenoble district employs no less than 29,000 glove- ^ makers, and the importance of the industry may be judged from the fact that every year almost I seven million dollars' worth of gloves come from this section alone. All day long, in good weather, Madame David sits outside her door, with a little saw-toothed vise between her knees gripping the kid, which she sews with machine-like perfection and speed. Sometimes she makes as many as a dozen pairs a day. Married in St. Laurent, across the street, she has lived forty-five years in the one house, "always happy," as she put it, with a smile. When I asked her if I might photograph her, she replied very gently: ^'Non — I cannot pay for it." Assured that it was only for a ^'p'tit souvenir,''^ she looked stern. [103] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA "Are you a merchant? I do not wish my picture upon the postal-cards." When she finally understood, her fine, clear skin flushed like a child's at her innocent mistake, and she thanked me very prettily. And a duchess might have written every word of her note of thanks for the pictures I sent her. Bonheur a cJiere Madame David! As you come back along the river, its swift current impresses you, not as water, but as very liquid clay, and you do not wonder that the piers of the bridges turn knife-like edges to meet the torrent and are square and solid behind. As you walk along the bank, the lowermost bridge seems suddenly to have sprouted full-sized trees in an orderly line from end to end. You stop to consider this phenomenon, then hurry forward to observe it closely ; and as your viewpoint changes, the trees move back to their rightful position along the river bank, which curves just below the bridge in such a way as to present a perfect illusion when seen from upstream. The Cathedral of Notre Dame is a heavy Roman- esque building of little distinction ; but, as has been said already, it is the site, and not the sights, of Grenoble that make the city a joy to the traveler. In every direction you may take long and short excursions among the beautiful environs, by tram, on foot, along the different railroad lines, or by automobile. Perhaps the most interesting is to the Grande Chartreuse. This trip can be made by [104] GRENOBLE changing from the railroad to a steam tram and then to an omnibus ; but the ideal way is by one of the P. L. M. automobiles, that run all summer from Grenoble to Aix-les-Bains, by way of the Chartreuse and Chambery. The machines are big trucks, with comfortable, four-seated bodies, that hold eighteen people besides the chauffeur. The cautious driving is a surprise to Americans. At times the machine makes twenty miles an hour, but the average for the whole trip, going and coming, can hardly be more than about twelve at the outside. In fact, this slowness becomes so pronounced occasionally that the machine jerks itself along rather than runs, which results in giving the passengers a tremendous "vibration cure." The route over the higher part of the hills, espe- cially the Col du Porte, is of use only during June, July and August. The one means of communica- tion the foresters and peasants have with the outside world during the winter is on muleback, and seldom then, avalanches on the Col making even such travel very risky. So each little hamlet is practically self- contained and self-supporting in the fullest sense. A little pink time-table and guide issued by the local Syndicat d'Initiative says : "Dauphine ! Savoie ! These magic names evoke in the eye of the tourist avidity of emotions, a succession of uninterrupted marvels: somber, boiHng gorges, abrupt rocks, toothed peaks whose savage horror contrasts strange- ly with the sweet luminosity of the pasture lands that [105] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA cover with a carpet of velvet the flanks of the loftier mountains." It is all true, and much more. But a detailed description of that scenery, as we saw it from the huge car, that slowed down or stopped entirely now and then, to let me make a picture, would be wearisome. The Chartreuse, where the unctuous liqueur was made until a few years ago, stands in the midst of a circus of mountains covered with pine forests, at the foot of the escarpments of the Grand Son, and some four kilometers from the entrance to the valley called the Desert, once the property of the monks. The monastery was founded by St. Bruno in the eleventh century, but what we see to-day is a tremendous walled enclosure filled with ugly seven- teenth century Renaissance buildings which belong to the State. They are exhibited at fixed hours to the curious by a functionary with a very lackadaisical manner, who announces the various names and func- tions of the different rooms and halls with no more expression or feeling than a slot machine, and appar- ently with not the slightest interest even in tips. The convent itself is now in rather badly kept condition: dust all over everything, and the names of tourists scribbled in it, on tables and walls; the floors thick with dirt. From the great chapter hall the portraits of the former generals of the order have been taken to Tarragona, in Spain, whither the monks removed on being exiled from France a few years ago, and only the names and titles above [io6] GRENOBLE their places, with the painted escutcheon of each, remain on the plaster. Every single thing of the slightest value has been stripped away, and the effect is that of looking over the bones of a desic- cated skeleton. On toward Aix-les-Bains it is a comparatively short run to St. Pierre d'Entremont. Here the Fete du Bon Dieu was in progress, the houses neatly trimmed with branches, and over the middle of the main street an arch of green, from the center of which hung a cotton Dove of the Holy Spirit, with red sealing-wax feet and white fluted-paper wings and tail, bearing a pink paper rose in its beak. A Frenchman in our car sprang up in his seat as we ran under it, and, with a shout of *'Voila le Bon Dieu! — Behold the Good God!" tore it off. It was so quickly done that the villagers had only time to gasp as we shot by, but we could hear an angry tumult be- hind us. No better example could be desired of the savagery of the automoblllst, who relies on his speed and power to commit indecencies of this sort ; but I doubt that any one but a Frenchman would have thought of quite such a sacrilege as this. At the culminating point of the route, with woods about you, and nothing especial to see, you turn a sharp corner, and there is the snow-topped fence of the world. It smites you. Words are too paltry to contain a tithe of that infinite splendor whose peak is Mt. Blanc itself. Now the road begins to go down, winding through a dense forest, and then, [ 107] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA through a tunnel, we see a lovely blue pastoral, framed in gray by the vault. As we came through. Lake B our get was half veiled by a driving rain- storm, while above it floated a tremendous black cloud, ready to burst and let down oceans. Mean- time the sun was shining brightly all around us, and the cloud cast a huge purple shadow over field and foothill. We could not see the Chateau of Cha- tillon on the near hill, projecting into the lake, be- cause of the haze ; nor any of the other ancient castles around its banks, nor yet Aix-les-Bains, for the same reason. But the color scheme was marvel- ous : every mountain blue, each a different shade or tint ; the fields ranging up their sides all different greens, some clean-shaven and smooth as skin, others rippling with waving young grain that yielded to the stormy breeze blowing in from the lake, some tinted with the yellow of mustard or buttercups, and everywhere the redeeming touch of scarlet pop- pies. Chambery, right below, seemed a "play-toy" of low spires and chimneys, of dull red tiles and slate-roofed houses and forts and barracks. The road down into the town is a series of sweeping curves, and from the tunnel into the nearly level stretches there is a horseshoe where we travel five or six miles at least to make a scant one of approach. Chambery is full of "atmosphere" — houses over- hanging the river; the river vanishing under the town gardens; little balconies full of potted plants with red blooms, and of chairs and tables, as if [io8] GRENOBLE arranged for taking tea; boulevards lined with low sycamores that meet twenty feet overhead ; a freakish elephant fountain; red, white and blue striped poles for flags at the street crossings ; splendid arcades on the rue de Boigne, equal to those of the rue de Rivoli in Paris. But the real atmosphere of the town comes out best in the unique way the central part is built. You can go almost its whole length and breadth without ever using the streets, except to cross them, for the houses are built mainly around hollow squares, with queer, black little passages underneath, leading from one block right through to another, making one think of the innumerable labyrinths of a rabbit warren. They spell intrigue, robbery, midnight assassination, all the picturesque hfe of medieval times, when the commons had to be able to make instantaneous disappearances, and only the nobility and gentry, in their steel clothes, dared walk openly in the streets. From winding stone stair or sable doorway you look out into the lofty courts, whose iron-barred windows, rising four or five stories above, are so prison-like it takes all the magic of the pot of geraniums that some one is nursing high in air to make you feel that here could be home for any one. In old times, Chambery was the capital of the Duchy of Savoie, just as it is the capital now of the French departement that bears the Savoyard name. Its chief feature is, of course, the ancient chateau, a tremendous affair, about a thousand feet [109J FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA long, on a little hillock at the end of the rue de Boigne. It was originally built in the thirteenth century, as the castle of the powerful and independ- ent Dues de Savoie, and many a brilliant and stirring scene have its grim old walls witnessed. But the dukes were destined for higher things than ruling a mere duchy, and when they became kings of Sar- dinia — en route to the throne of Italy — ^their castle gradually slipped down the easy descent, until to-day it is a police station. Few indeed are the chateaux that give a better idea of those ancient feudal lords than this, though a large part of the structure has been restored. Its scarps and walls, titanically thick and high; its massive, lonely tower; the wonderful ramp by which you venture into the interior court- yard; the exquisite Portail at the lower side; the beautiful apse of the chapel, a good-sized church in itself — all spell military power, boundless resources, and a soaring imagination that are wonderfully im- pressive. Not even the ugly commonplace that has built up all around the noble old structure has much power to take from its effect and charm. It is rather dusty and gusty in Chambery in sum- mer, but the quaint little Cafe P. Barlet has pro- vided against that by a glass enclosure outside, where you can sit, and have your aperitif or your tea com- .fortably, and still see all that goes on or goes by. It will not be more than two or three minutes after you sit down before things begin to happen. It may be only a miniature covered "schooner," full [no] GRENOBLE of birds for sale, drawn by a medium-sized donkey and two big yellow dogs in front, and pushed from behind by a third panting, trotting, yellow mongrel, who surges forward into his collar-harness with tongue hanging far out. Or it may be an enormous peasant woman, in a handsome costume of black and royal purple, sauntering by with her family, husband and son together not equaling her for bulk. Per- haps a big touring car, full of prosperous bourgeois, stops at the door for a gasoline aperitif. The women have good clothes and big diamonds, but, oh, such feet! Their shoes look like the old ones you give a tramp, who puts them on because he needs them, in spite of the fact that they are down at the heel and much too large and too long. At night, one-half of Chambery seems to spend its time at the big moving picture park, and the other half at the one cafe-chantant the town boasts, the barnlike Brasserie Moderne. Here a good part of the audience is composed of officers and men from the garrison, "Dragons" and Alpine Chasseurs-a- Pied, picturesque fellows all. The good folk of Chambery are very proud of their Chasseurs, and boast that any one of the artillerymen attached to this type of regiment can carry, or at least hold for a moment, the mountain gun it takes two mules to carry up the dizzy trails. Fortunately, they did not exhibit their Samsonian qualities while I was in the cafe, and the scene was one of discretion, as the French would say, though the performance [in] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of the singers and dancers was as mecha/nt as their appearance and their voices were attractive. By all means go back to Grenoble by automobile, as you came. The return trip inevitably clarifies and strengthens the delightful impressions received on the way up, impressions that not even a visit to Aix-les-Bains, with its tepid sulphur baths, its gam- bling casino, and its magnificent location, can spoil. Coming back, we noticed not only the familiar cruci- fixes for human beings by the roadside, but tiny little crosses made of cleanly whittled twigs, standing about two feet high, in fields of mustard, grain and small vegetables — crosses for the birds of heaven to worship at. At least, that is what the chauffeur said, crossing himself and lifting his cap, as he no- ticed one. Another Frenchman, smiling at his naivete, remarked gravely that perhaps that was the reason they were there ; but, anyway, it was good to have one's crops dedicated to religion, and the birds might worship if they chose. The grave old crow I noticed sitting on one, nevertheless, did not look worshipful; he was tilting the little symbol of faith far to one side, so that it looked rakish rather than religious. As we rolled along we passed several small cattle fairs in the mountain villages, and in one place, as the chauffeur said, "one market of women, one of cattle." The only women we noticed being sold in the market, however, were those who were buying at the carts. [ 112 1 GOING TO GBASSB AS we go on southward, every window in the^ ^-^ackground. About twenty miles fromA Strain frames a picture, with a peak as aJ<\ Grenoble we suddenly swing out on a viaduct that^ sweeps up the mountainside in two spiraling curves that fairly take away the breath. The view is in- spiring! I lost my head over it completely, making picture after picture, to the interest of a Frenchman and his wife, who very pleasantly gave me window rights on both sides of the compartment, and so missed part of the scene themselves. It is over all too quickly, with a rush through a cindery tunnel, and then again we see it, and go still higher. Below, the plain and the foothills unroll like a flag thrown to the winds, and the panorama, in the sunshine of mid-June, is beyond words of praise or description. After changing cars at Veynes we soon pass two remarkable mountain formations. In the first, a rock crest runs up in a curve just over the tip, exactly like the brazen crests on ancient helmets. To one side this ridge looks a splendid piece of fortifica- tion, that might flame at any moment with gunfire. [113] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA The second is a series of low foothills approaching a mountain shaped and formed hke a walled city, with regularly built defenses and bastions all along. All through the mountainous regions of southern France there are these peculiar formations. Now the scenery changes rapidly — barren, rugged moun- tains rising from orchards of almonds and olives, clear indication of the sunny south. And then you cry out in surprise at the sight of a village of feudal days, topped by an old fort on the crest of its hill, with the vale and river winding away toward Provence in blue waves, upon which the setting sun casts a romantic splendor wholly at variance with the facts. Traveling by day, to miss none of the scenery, we saw most of our stopping-places for the first time in the ruddy glamour of the sunset. As a matter of plain statement, Sisteron is an unwholesome place, full of vermin, stenches, filthy streets, houses without ventilation or sanitation, dirty people, talking a patois which is a mess of French, Proven9al and argot. Yet the people are very good to look at, the children lovely and well-mannered, and the whole situation so unusual and attractive that one is apt to forget everything but the beauty of Nature in both still and animated life. You avoid all the drawbacks by stopping near the station, at a Touring Club hotel, with a terrace full of potted daisies, little marble-topped tables and a tinkling fountain. A long, dusty, sycamore avenue leads to the town, where tlie twelfth century church of Notre [114] GOING TO GRASSE Dame and the ruined towers of the ancient ramparts are mightily attractive. We were standing before the miniature "Palace of Justice," when a gentleman, clearly of the haut monde^ came out of a small, very ordinary house directly opposite. In answer to my questions, he said he knew very little of the place, as he was a stranger himself; but he did direct us to the best viewpoint. I concluded he must be the judge, as afterward proved to be the case. Following his advice, we climbed up through a winding lane to the crest of the hill and the fort, a wonderful struc- ture, partly designed by Vauban, so situated as to utilize the natural rock wherever possible for parts of its walls and scarps. Ruined outworks, testifying mutely to its original strength, make a melancholy belt about its lower side. But we did not go in. The French authorities are inclined to view cameras with jaundiced eyes, and I had no desire to prove the hospitality of a border fortress inhabited only by a handful of artillerymen, who posted no sentries, and gave small evidence of contact with the world. A little to one side, however, on a slightly higher spur of the hill, we found a stirring panorama: the silver lines of the railroad metals along which we had come paralleled by the blue mountain stream that cuts into the bigger, muddier river just above the town ; the almost flat plain through which they run ; the mountains fencing it in on every side and throwing out low lines of foothills that venture [115] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA only a little way into the open. Two great defiles, or passes, through one of which the railroad van- ishes, form a natural entrance into central France, and the forts which mount the commanding hills all through this district are designed to prevent invasion from the Italian frontier, not far distant. After dinner we sat out on the terrace^ listening to the bird-songs and the tinkle of the water, and watching the egg in the fountain turning somer- saults. By-and-by the judge came along and sat down for his coffee, and a drummer for a liqueur house argued vigorously with Madame that his gen- tian cordial was infinitely superior to any other liqueur tonique. When we retired at last, in the moonlight, the gentle murmur of flowing water was still in our ears, and the perfume of the garden, wafted in on the crisp mountain air, fresh in our nostrils. The town, though filthy, makes an effort to be as clean as possible. Its street-cleaning department consists of a horse and cart, a girl of ten, with fuzzy, faded yellow hair, a foreman who does little, and a vigorous woman of forty, who does most of the work. Broom and shovel in hand, she gathers into big heaps the little piles of refuse the girl collects, shovels them into the cart, and then climbs in on top to stamp the load down. Along the main street in the early morning there is plenty to see: sturdy old farmer-women, with pitchforks over their shoulders and wide-brimmed, floppy straw hats, on [ii6] One of the "sweet and stately, the fair and captivating daughters of Aries" GOING TO GRASSE their way out to the fields ; young girls roasting and grinding coif ee on the sidewalk ; women dam- ming the rushing gutters to get enough water for a vigorous broom-scrubbing of whole shop-fronts ; women and girls carrying water from the fountains, or doing laundry work there. One fat laundress at a little square fountain basin was very up-to-date — she washed sitting in a chair, with an umbrella over her to keep off the sun, which was really hot. Everywhere through southern France you find the (j^\ gipsy. In the square facing the "Cathedral" two of these vagabond families were encamped. The most surprising thing about them was that the men were doing the culinary work, while the women and girls were lounging and reading the papers. There is a compulsory education law in France, but how do the authorities hold the gipsies anywhere long enough to teach them anything .^^ One man washed dishes, and then some lettuce, which he shook in a dirty jute bag to dry for dinner. Another peeled vegetables for a stew, and put them to simmer in a black kettle over an open wood fire. All the gipsies looked fairly clean and comfortable, at least as much so as the townsfolk. Some of the young girls were as pretty as they were wild-looking. On the way back to the hotel we saw two playing like fawns, leaping over a mountain rivulet and running about. The elder, about twelve, was the picture of a grand- opera gipsy — black eyes, thick black hair, tawny skin with high color. She wore a vivid red kerchief [117] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA over her hair and a dress full of startling color contrasts. All about the hills are charming walks, and the stony height across the river, which gives a splendid view of town and fortress, is a veritable paradise of every imaginable kind, size and color of wild flower, the air saturated with their rich fragrance. On from Sisteron the scenery is striking and varied. Near Annot, the rock formations are especially novel. Big, isolated boulders perch insecurely in all sorts of impossible places on the hillsides. In a number of places walls have been built, making a house of the niche or cavern under the rock. Once more we left the train in the late afternoon, at the little town of Entrevaux. It is condensed picturesqueness itself, crowding together on a rocky head of land deeply moated on three sides by a tor- rential mountain stream. Black, steep, narrow alleys, too tiny to be called real streets, wander fractiously up and down among the lofty houses, paved with flat, round stones, set on edge, and calculated to give corns to anybody but wearers of wooden sabots. Around it all the walls run up the forbidding hill- side to a wonderfully situated citadel, once a strong fort, now a military prison. The statement that no cabs are allowed to enter the town is rather ridiculous. There are no cabs, in the first place ; no demand for them, in the second ; and in the third, they could not get around in the town if they were there. Entering through the [ii8] GOING TO GRASSE double gate and over the drawbridge, we followed a twisty little street to the main Place, where the only hotel occupies an ancient building. It is the sort of hostelry one learns to expect in such a place, but clean and fairly comfortable. A winding stair, with distracting branches, leads from the basement on up to the bedroom floors ; the dining-room, about half-way between the entrance hall and the first bedroom floor, on a little off'shoot. A rather elab- orate dinner was served by the pleasant proprietress and her young daughter, though the only guests besides ourselves were three cheery young Jesuit fathers and a disgruntled artillery colonel. Next morning we found the village farrier shoeing horses, mules and donkeys right before the hotel door. If ever there was anything that spoke of medieval days, it was this. I could imagine knights and roistering blades, looking for trouble in the good old novelistic fashion, leaping down from their steeds at the door, and going inside for refreshment while the swart peasant smith took a turn at their horses' feet. The facade of the hotel itself suggests poi- gnards and swords and hose, though I cannot tell why, since it is merely old and grimy, and featureless save for a big vine climbing over it. But the atmos- phere is there, nevertheless. The steeds to-day are used to carry in produce from the fields and gardens outside — there are none whatever in town, since space is precious on the bare rock — and you have to flatten yourself in a doorway to let the panniered beasts go [ii9l FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA by. Here and there a horse tolls at the end of a long rope, hoisting bales of hay or fodder into the upper stories of dwellings, the people preferring to live in what we consider the least desirable part of the house, black, damp, cellar-like rooms at or below the street-level. The people, while they lack the attractiveness of their town, are very pleasant and gracious — perhaps the tourist-in-a-hurry has never been in Entrevaux to spoil them — and most of the children are both pretty and charmingly shy. Two little witches, Illaudie and Helene, stole our hearts as they washed their well-darned little stockings at a fountain basin in the dappled shadow of a great chestnut; and we longed for the power of a Sorolla to bewitch them, in turn, into forever smiling figures upon a sun- splashed canvas. They followed us around, livening dark alleys and black doorways ; they brought up their little friends to pose for us, and even the bonne maman of one — though she had so hideous a mustache I could scarcely believe her willing. Un- fortunately, she is only one of many thousands of such women in provincial France, many not only mustached but bearded. As there are no manufactures in the town, prac- tically the entire able-bodied population emigrates every morning to the fields and gardens and vine- yards outside. Some of the gardens are unbeliev- ably narrow, mere strips of terrace a few feet wide, hanging above the rushing stream. [ 120 ] GOING TO GRASSE Leaving Entrevaux behind, the train soon passes through some of the glorious mountain gorges that give this whole southern region an unforgetable char- acter. One town, Touet-de-Beuil, is distinctly origi- nal, the houses on the rocky hillside climbing in some places to what appears from the train eleven full stories. Of course, this is mere illusion. It is simply that two or more rows are visible, one above and be- hind the other. Later, the valley narrows to a mere defile, with the road and railroad on a narrow shelf. Farther on, town after town comes into view, each on its hilltop, making an effect better imagined or seen than described, especially at the spot where from the low valley you look up to the eternal peaks and see no less than five, each with its man-made coronet. The train goes on to Nice, but we left it at the junction station of Colomars for the narrow-gauge line to Grasse. This Sud Railroad runs through beautiful, if sometimes terrifying, landscapes, over long viaducts, through tunnels, and among flower plantations all the way. For a little the train, more like matchboxes than ever, parallels the boiling Var, darts across it on a rattling, double-decked bridge, and plunges into exquisite scenery — a ruined Tem- plars' castle on a hill, a black etching against the flaming sky of approaching sunset ; the town of St. Jeannet-la-Gaude, nestling under the Gibraltar- like crag of Baou; a deep little gorge, merely the earnest of what is coming in the twilight. [121] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Vence and Tourettes, beautiful towns both, drop behind, and our speed accelerates until the match- boxes hop about alarmingly on the rails. These narrow-gauge lines are all very well on straight met- als, at slow speed, and on a level, but when they go careering around the sides of mountains, with sheer drops of several hundred feet on one side and jagged walls towering sheer above on the other, or nothing at all on either side but the narrow edge of a viaduct spanning a ravine so deep and crooked the trestle has to curvet to get across, it makes your head swim and turns your stomach. That is what you feel going over the Gorge du Loup, and any blase person craving a new sensation has only to try it, about dusk, to gratify his wish. Gorge of the Wolf indeed it is ; a bottomless gorge, apparently, from the car window, full of unearthly lupine rock shapes and of ghostly waterfalls, at which the affrighted little engine shrieks madly and runs away. You can hear the wheel-flanges smack against the rails as the speed and the curves throw you from side to . side. The safety of the road and the speed is best proven by the fact that there has never been an accident on it; but any one with imagination can conjure up some very lively horrors at twilight, notwithstanding. The last gorge is the worst. All we could see of it was a yawning black void, with here and there a faint light far below us, distant and twinkling as a tiny star. [ 122] XI GRASSB AND THE RIVIEBA GRASSE lies about twelve miles inland, and a thousand feet above sea-level, delightfully set on a hillside, where its houses and fac- tories, chimneys and spires, sweep in a great amphi- theater about the cathedral, and mount the slope tier upon tier. Somehow we expected to find the city all a bower, full of perfume, with splendid villas and magnificent hotels right in the heart of things. In reality, the fine estates, flower-gardens and hotels which attract such a tremendous patronage from every country under the sun in winter, are all out- side the town proper. As for the perfume, it is there — in spots. Aside from them, Grasse smells very much like any other old town in France. Belted about with high walls that rise to the level of the third-story windows, it is a damp labyrinth > of crooked, narrow, vilely paved ramps that fre- \ quently end in tricky stairs or split into twins, one going on at its old level, the other descending or rising, and perhaps ending in a passageway running through the heart of some prominent building. Here and there a fountain, overhung by sycamores or a r 123] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA single big willow, makes a bright spot in the street, and gathers the color and gaiety of the mercurial people about it, while everywhere, now almost swal- lowed up by tawdry conventionality, now surquidant and alone, rise fragments of the splendid past, bits of sober doorways, stately arches, a battered palace fa9ade, or a melodramatic square donjon tower, all eloquent of Italy. The most important building is the church of Notre Dame De Podio, the ancient Cathedral, with a tall, simple, square campanile, both essentially Italian in type. These Italian influences in archi- tecture are undoubtedly the result of the commer- cial relations and political treaties between the old Republics of Grasse, Pisa and Genoa. Unfortunately, the French town became embroiled in the bitter fac- tional quarrels of her allies, and her own people split into hostile parties themselves, with the result that the Count of Provence, Raymond Beranger, was able, in 1226, to take possession of it. The people may have been valiant fighters in those ancient days, but they do not look the part now — slight of stature, and insignificant of feature, with especially small noses. Indeed, over in the little neighboring town of Le Bar this latter peculiarity is so pronounced that it seemed to us a positive disfigurement. Grasse is renowned the world over for its per- fumes. In the vicinity of the town, on hill and in valley, more than twelve thousand acres are devoted to the cultivation of roses, tuberoses, jasmine, violets, [ 124] GRASSE AND THE RIVIERA pinks, orange-blossoms, and innumerable other flow- ers, whose petals yield the precious essence. The region seems to have been sprinkled in the old days with convents and monasteries, and it is in them that many of the larger distilleries are housed. This does not seem quite so bad as stables or wine-shops in dismantled religious edifices ; yet as we stand in the door of some beautiful old chapel, and look in at the sweating crowd of workers, it seems a dese- cration, even though they are piling up great heaps of rose-leaves and the air is surcharged with a fra- grance no incense could ever give. Visitors are welcome in the factories, and a woman cicerone guides you through from the room where the flowers are pulled to pieces and the petals heaped in great baskets, to the packing-room, where the finished bottles of perfume are prepared for shipment to every civilized land. The stripped petals are thrown into huge vats of boiling fat, and after vari- ous interesting processes — all carefully explained, if j'^ou "wish to hear about them — the essence is con- densed, and the precipitated fat turned into fine scented soaps, so that the only waste in the whole pro- ceeding is the petals themselves, from which every semblance of shape and odor has been expressed. This hot process is employed for all the flowers except jas- mine and tuberoses. Their perfume is first extracted by cold grease, on glass plates, after which the process is the same. A French authority declares that every season [125 1 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA 642,400 tons of different flowers are destroyed at Grasse for the manufacture of the costly essence. No less than twelve and a half tons of the petals are required for the manufacture of a single liter of rose essence, which sells for anywhere from four hun- dred to five hundred dollars there at the factory. Little did Catherine de' Medici dream of this when she sent her famous doctor, the Sieur Tombarelli, to Grasse to found a laboratory for perfume distilla- tion in the sixteenth century. " From Grasse it is only a dozen miles or so through a perfumed Eden to Cannes, on the Cote d'Azur, the Blue Shore, as the French half of the Riviera is called. It is hard to believe that only about eighty years ago Cannes, now the millionaire's paradise, was nothing but a little fishing village, huddling about the ancient church and castle, on a rocky eminence thrusting out into the middle of the bay. At that time the English statesman. Lord Brougham, fleeing from the fog and damp of an English winter to the sunshine and flowers of southern Italy, could not go on to his destination because of a quarantine, and stopped at Cannes. He found in its climate and location exactly what he desired. His villa built, other Enghshmen came, talked of this Blue Shore, and the Riviera was launched upon a swelling tide of prosperity. The most interesting feature of old Cannes is the Chevalier's Tower, part of the eleventh century fortress-residence of the mainland representative, or [126] GRASSE AND THE RIVIERA Chevalier, of the Abbot of the nearby lies de Lerins, who was feudal as well as religious lord of all this territory. The tower is square and massive, built of great cut stones with rough faces. It is typical of the south, as the round tower is of the north, and is found everywhere — as an isolated defense, a part of the walls of protected cities, and in forts. The stormy times in which it and many similar towers throughout this region were built show clearly in the entrance — a square door in the second story, reached only by a ladder, that could be instantly drawn in on the approach of an enemy. The step or ledge where its top rested is still there, making a narrow sill. There is a stairway now for visitors. For all the light admitted by the narrow loopholes is very meager, and the climb toilsome, it is well worth while to make the ascent for the magnificent, brilliant panorama from the top. On either hand stretches away a flashing crescent of blue water, pearly sand and white-walled, red- roofed houses. Away on the west the Esterel Moun- tains creep out seaward in a rich blue fringe of thorny peaks. To the east, the curving shore dim- ples and coquettes with the sea in an apparently endless series of glistening bays and hilly little capes. Right at our feet is the old town, and off shore the islands of St. Honorat and Ste. Marguerite make a mass of blue and green on the horizon. It is as lovely as anything ever imagined, the broad water- front boulevard lined with truly magnificent hotels [127] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA and gardens, villas of the rich and noble, palms, flow- ers, statuary, fountains, everything man could desire. After seeing the villas of the fashionables it is easy to understand why the hotel dweller does not get into society. They are palaces — their gardens are marvels ! Though the Riviera was a part of Old Provence, neither name, by any stretch of imagination, ever suggests the other ; and yet, in a measure, each has the same suggestion: Provence, good wine, fair women, and the splintering crash of spears ; the Riviera, good wine, fair women, and the seductive clink of gold. Of course, everybody who is anybody goes to the Riviera during the few weeks that Fashion has decreed as the season ; and all such envied ones declare positively that this flashing coast is quite impossibly hot in summer, and nobody who is anybody would think of it then — ^a suffit! As for us, we have tried it in the height of the season, and during the summer, and declare unequivocally for the latter. Is there any satisfaction in being one jot among a million tittles, crowded for room, robbed on every hand, and half-frozen except when you have taken off* your foolish summery clothes and gone to bed.'* Anyway, what's the use of going "where every pros- pect pleases" when the view is sure to be blocked by the Prince and Princess of Tarara ; where, when you do snatch a chance to level the camera, some one jostles you ; or where, no matter how modest your appearance, some Count Noaccount tries to scrape [128] GRASSE AND THE RIVIERA acquaintance — ^because tous les Americavns sont riches? On the other hand, this picture: A park bench all to yourself and your paraphernalia ; over you a whispering palm, making exquisite shadow-lace on the sand, whence impish httle heat ripples dance up- ward; before you one of the loveliest panoramas ever created, stretching for miles on every hand; a knot of colorful fishermen off to one side, working at their nets ; a native child skipping gaily along the beach; a dozen lusty women at the mouth of a rivulet, ruining perfectly good linen ; and a lone sail in the offing, wheeling about like a great white moth in the blue. The few hotels that are open are all yours, and you can have any sort of boat almost for the asking. There are resorts all along this captivating shore for all conditions of men and pockets, each with some peculiar charm and loveliness of its own. Nice is more of a city than any of the rest, and while it has all the "attractions" that mar the other places, it also has more comforts for those in moderate circumstances, while I have been told the villa colony is at least approachable. And Monte Carlo — where in all the wide creation is there such another minia- ture paradise as this Mediterranean hill, where the\ green tables inside keep the outside gardens green, and the whole world lays its tribute under the wheels of Juggernaut? The flower-scented air is sick with the vitiation of mingled blood and gold — ^you cannot [129] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA escape its baleful pervasiveness. Three days were all I could stand of that atmosphere. Along the whole shining length of the Riviera I know of nothing more delightful than the sail across from Cannes to the lovely lies de Lerins, said to have been named for the Greek pirate Lero. In the season a little steamer runs from Croisette Point; but in season or out take a little sailing lugger, and your own time, and go as you please. St. Honorat, for all it is a tiny island, possesses by far the most important medieval buildings to be found anywhere on the Riviera. They contain some of the features at least of every period and style of both civic and religious Proven9al art. In the fifth century, St. Honorat founded a monastery here, which for a very considerable period was the chief source and focus of all the learning and culture in southern Gaul. Missionaries went out from its sheltering haven to carry the light of Christianity and civiliza- tion into all the world, not the least famous of them that Patrick who gave faith and fame alike to the Emerald Isle. As the monastery grew in riches, the murderous raids of the Mediterranean corsairs became more fre- quent, until finally the monks built them a strong castle, rising out of the water on the southern side of the island. But even that did not always save them; once, indeed, the pirates held the castle for a whole year, and were driven out only by the con- certed action of all the nobility of Provence. Its [130 J u Si 2 u C o ^>. §^ m o 4J H GRASSE AND THE RIVIERA object, of course, was first of all to provide a safe retreat, and its appearance outside is consequently military: moated, battlemented, loopholed and port- cullised; inside, religious and monastic from top to bottom, with cells, refectory, domestic offices, chapel, and an exquisitely double-arched cloister which be- lies the stern visage on the other side of walls mel- lowed by time to a rich golden hue that harmonizes brilliantly with the dark green of the pines and the blue of the southern sea and sky. In the latter part of the eighteenth century the abbey was suppressed. Nearly a century later it was reconstituted, and occupied by Cistercians, who still have an orphanage on the island. A highly perfumed monk showed me through the new building. The contrast between a monkish refectory in use, with the bottles and other things on tables cov- ered with shiny broTVTi oilcloth, and the deserted ones usually seen, is very striking, and wakes a sensation in you of being part of the past. The old cloister, in its simple Cistercian style, with its round-headed little windows instead of the usual large arcades giving upon the garden, and its tunnel vault- ing strengthened by transverse ribs, is also in strong contrast with the new structure. Of the seven an- cient chapels which once dotted the island only two remain. That of St. Trinite, at the eastern end of the island, is a peculiar domed edifice with three apses, and without doubt one of the very oldest buildings in Provence. [131I FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA One of the principal charms of the place is that you can visit the castle and roam about the entire island at will, unmolested by any guide. In a field we saw the brothers a-haying, their black robes tucked up, their heads half hidden by huge straw hats, looking like so many old farmer-women. Every- where aromatic pines have made a springy carpet of their needles for your feet. In rows and groups and columns they stand, an unforgetable and charm- ing population. They lean over the water to caress its shining mirror, and their slim, graceful bodies stripe the horizon like the bars of a cage, through which you look across to the lie Ste. Marguerite. There is nothing to attract one on Ste. Marguerite now, unless he cares to visit the fortress-prison where the famous Man in the Iron Mask was so long con- fined. Richelieu built the fortress, which was later used as a state prison, and now is guarded only by a caretaker, who shows you around. Originally, tradition says, there was but a single island there, inhabited on one side by St. Honorat and his monks, on the other by Ste. Marguerite, his sister, and her nuns. Being very fond of her austere brother, Ste. Marguerite used to visit him at the monastery every month. But the good abbot, fearing that even so pure a thing as sisterly affection might deflect his thoughts from higher and holier things, and imperil his immortal welfare, finally com- manded her to come no more. In his cloister he spent the night in prayer, and behold, at dawn the sea had [132] GRASSE AND THE RIVIERA made two islands of the one ! Then St. Honorat sent his sister word that he would cross the gulf to see her each year when the cherry-trees blossomed. She, too, then spent a fervent night at prayer, the pretty legend runs, and when the ruddy morning dawned, lo ! the cherry-trees were all in blossom, and ever after that, while the good saints lived, the trees blossomed every month, and St. Honorat, seeing that Heaven willed him not to forget his sister, kept his pledge, and saw her as before. [133] XII OLD PROVENCE MORE than twenty-five centuries ago swarthy Phoenician merchants dotted the halcyon coasts of Provence with httle posts for trading with the LIgurlan Inhabitants. Then came the colonizing Greeks, whose civilization molded its life until the Roman conquest. Under Its new mas- ters, Provence became rich and favored — The Prov- ince, Provlncia, Provence — filled with the monuments of their success, elaborate architecture of the high tide of the Empire's greatness. And after this the deluge ! But Provence, far removed from the source of these new, uncouth Influences, preserved at least relics of its Latin civilization during the Dark Ages, and with the dawn immediately showed life in music, art and literature. From this feeble beginning there gradually devel- oped all that wonderful and romantic life of the period of chivalry, with Its Courts of Love, Its trou- badours, its devotion as much to making verses and singing them as to the sterner virtues necessitated by the roughness of the greater world beyond the Proven9al borders. Luxury and perfume were in the [1341 OLD PROVENCE native air of Provence : the sunny, enervating climate predisposed men to voluptuousness rather than valor, and as the resisting power of the province waned by degrees her national pulse beat slower and slower, until finally, her promise unfulfilled, she slept upon the broad bosom of La Mere France. Westward along the ragged coast from Cannes unrolls a resplendent series of clean-cut panoramas of red, white, green, blue. Here and there, as at Theoule, the railway runs along the very edge of red 4?liiFs that slope abruptly down to the sea, which sweeps into the distance, where the Lerins float the castle of St. Honorat, clear as a drop of golden honey, in the sapphire background. So vivid, so lovely are these views that no one who has not seen them can gather from the written word a true idea of the color, beauty and placidity of the picture. Fr^jus, the Forum Julil of the Romans, is a big, rambling, prosperous town, whose Latin remains are rich and important, and whose medieval structures are scarcely less engaging. Forcqualqueiret-Gareoult — imagine anybody giving two towns on opposite sides of a railroad names like that and expecting the trains to stop ! — ^boasts chateaux, old and crum- bling; so does Tourves, where a Virgin, on a spire of rock right alongside the track, looks down upon her town with an expression of melancholy. Here you see a church with the typical Proven9al bell-tower above its spire, a bird-cage of Iron rods and wires ; there a villa whose bulging fafade is glaring with [135] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA faience plaque monstrosities, stuck on without rea- son, or regard for architectural propriety, and add- ing a gleam of savage color to the scene. In fact, it is the strongly contrasting colors both in nature and in "art," all along this line, that give the scenery its greatest charm and distinction. St. Maximin — and again late afternoon. Picture a railway station on a lonely swale of green, sur- rounded by oceans of powdery white dust that puffs up in an impalpable mist at every step of the horse that pulls the rheumatic old omnibus away toward the curve in the road where the town, squatting in its dusty basin among the low hills, begins to appear, a straggling collection of sunbaked houses around a church whose spire is both too slender and too short. The dust is stifling and hot ; the afternoon sun pours down with an almost tropic fierceness ; grass and weeds by the winding roadside are white instead of green, and when at last we step from the omnibus, at the hotel, we are white, too — more like millers than travelers. Our room quickly selected, we threw open the shut- ters, and were astonished to see our coachman, evi- dently a "lightning-change artist," arrayed in a chef's full regalia, sitting across the street, talking to a woman shopkeeper. As he stayed outside until dinner was served, some two hours later, he must have cooked it before he went to meet the train. But for all that the dinner was better than we had in [136] OLD PROVENCE many a would-be Parisian hostelry elsewhere in the provinces, where we never saw the chef. Rambling leisurely through the streets in the gloaming you stumble over an impossible number of children and pets : tame goats, puppies, kids, mag- pies that exclaim "Oh!" and flap heavily off a few feet when you come too close. The people are coming in from their toil in the fields, on foot, in donkey carts, riding big plow-horses, whose chains clank against their fat sides. Now you see a wiry farmer and his buxom spouse crammed into a child's-size cart, pulled by a little ass no bigger than a dog; now two simply mountainous old women on the skele- ton of a hay wagon, clucking to their little horse ; again, a female huckster crouching in her market wagon, drawn by panting Fido, who makes heavy weather of it, but trots along briskly. A woman appears in a door with a milk-can full of water — woe betide you if you get in her splashsome way ! The town is settling down for the night, washing its dusty face and getting its dinner. Two hours later the sudden cry of a wakeful magpie in a garden is loud and startling. You can hear a pin drop in St. Maximin by nine o'clock. Here we come upon one of the strangest of all the religious legends of France, a story that accounts with great circumstance for the introduction of the new religion so speedily to supplant paganism. After the final scene on Calvary the little band of relatives and disciples scattered before the determined perse- [ 137 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA cutions of the malignant Jews, and several — Lazarus, Martha, Mary Magdalen, Mary JacobI, sister of the Virgin, Mary Salome, the mother of James, Tro- phime, Maximin, and others — miraculously escaped to southern France, where they are severally com- memorated in shrines and churches, often of great beauty. The big church here is the most perfect specimen of the Gothic in Provence, strikingly out of conso- nance with its surroundings. It might, indeed, have been transported bodily from the lie de France. Its lofty, simple, pointed vaulting and arches are light and airy, and the effect must have been very beau- tiful when the long, slim windows, which reduce the masonry to its smallest limits, were filled with stained glass. The contrast with the usually dark and gloomy southern churches must also have been great. Yet it may have been glaring, too, in the brilliant light of the south. We can only guess at it, for the stained glass is mostly gone, and the aisle win- dows are closed by added side chapels. The wood sculptures throughout the interior are excellent, the choir stalls carved with scenes from the lives and martyrdoms of old-time Dominican monks. If these wooden pictures are historically accurate, the Dominican brethren must have had an amusing time dying. One, for example, is shown half hanged, recumbent, with a pleasant-faced soldier hacking out a large section of him with a dull sword. It is highly instructive — swords ought to be sharper ! OLD PROVENCE The chief treasure of the church, however, is not carving, but the highly venerated object which pur- ports to be the skull of St. Mary Magdalen. Above the eye-sockets are two dark spots, which the sacris- tan declared are the finger-prints of the Christ, who touched her on His way to Calvary. The legend says that the Magdalen lived as a hermit for a long time, and died in the cave at Ste. Baume, nine and a half miles away. One of the many excellent pic- tures in the church at St. Maximin shows her re- nouncing the world by throwing her pearl collar to the floor of the dripping cave, which is covered with unset gems. It is a very pleasant little pilgrimage to the hermitage-shrine of Ste. Baume, if you can spare the time, and the beauty and wildness of the location repay you for the exertion. Eight miles further on, toward Aix, the little town of Pourrleres marks one of the bloodiest fields the world has ever seen in any age, the Campi Putridi, literally, "Stinking Fields," where Marius the Ro- man, with a skill matched only by his ruthless fe- rocity, practically wiped out of existence the vast barbarian horde which had swarmed down, with women and children and chattels, from the bleak shores of the Baltic to the sunny lands of southern Europe. More than 100,000 fell, and 300,000 more Marius sold into slavery all along the southern shore they had risked so much to reach. Then, as so many of the Israelitlsh captains of BibHcal history had been commanded to do before him, the Roman reared [139] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA a huge pyre on the scene of his triumph, and the bodies, and all the plunder he could not carry away, roared up to the heavens on wings of fire, whose traces were easily uncovered centuries after Rome herself had ceased to be an empire. With the shadow of the Campi Putridi still hang- ing over us, we come to Aix, the charming, sleepy, modern-medieval city that grew up from the ruins of Aquae Sextise, the first Roman settlement in Gaul. The barbarians who smote the Roman city did their work thoroughly. Only a bit of wall here, a pillar there, and a few fragments in the museum, tell the story of the early days. But memory in Aix is not of the beginning; it is of the end, for here dwelt good King Rene, here were the Courts of Love, the troubadours, the good wine and fair women, and song and laughter, that gave Provence its fame — and its fate. All the sunny charm and glamour of Old Provence opens before you in the leafy, square-trimmed tunnel of V^es up the Cours Mirabeau, that parts the mod- ern Aix from the old. It is a long, narrow, dirt- floored promenade between the sycamores, with a cob- bled road, and a scanty sidewalk on either hand, and a series of fountains, mossy and dripping and green, up the center. And at its head, looking down as though to greet you in the favorite city of his smiling kingdom, stands the effigy of Rene himself. Count of Provence, Due d'Anjou, de Bar and de Lorraine, King of the Two Sicilies and of Jerusalem. The [ 140] OLD PROVENCE tide of life flows lazily by in the brilliant sunshine at right and left, the fountains plash, and the breeze that elsewhere makes the dusty streets unbearable here whispers a suggestive requiem for the all but forgotten past. After rambling through a labyrinthine tangle of streets and barren squares in the older part of town you find him again, gazing out from one of the panels of a fine tryptich in the Cathedral. A young king on the Cours Mirabeau — how he would have wept over such a name and its associations ! — he is old and gray in the great church, yet still the poet- king, still the well-beloved of his people. Rene him- self painted it, they of Aix would have us believe. But no — artist and poet and musician though he may have been, Rene did not paint himself and his second queen, Jeanne de Laval, in these panels of the Burning Bush. The artist, whose identity is dis- puted, was evidently a Fleming, since the work is a fine specimen of the Flemish style. The Cathedral is a curious composite. The ancient church of St. Sauveur, believed to have been built on a part of the cellar of a temple to Apollo, dating from 1103, now forms the southern aisle of the fif- teenth century Cathedral. Still more unusual is the tiny octagonal baptistery, said to date from the sixth century. Its eight antique granite columns, from the old Temple of Apollo, support a dome whose modern stucco finish spoils the character of the whole structure. I believe that there are only [141 J FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA two other baptisteries like this in the whole of France. The beautiful Romanesque cloister of St. Sauveur is distinguished by the boundless resource and variety of its white marble sculpture, columns that range from plain cylinders to fretted octagons, from straight to bent and twisted and even knotted shafts, surmounted by elaborately carved capitals. The dull, faded red of the brick pavement makes a pleasing background for their pallid beauty. The central doors of the western fa9ade, with their prophets and sibyls, are richly carved early sixteenth century work. They are jealously guarded from the equally destructive hands of time and vandal by stout oaken false doors, that swing open only to the silver key you drop into the willing verger's palm. Westward, from Aix to Rognac, you pass under a prodigy of modern architecture, the towering, three-storied aqueduct of Roquefavour, that carries the water of the Durance fifty-seven miles to Mar- seilles. It runs among the little hills, a gleaming ribbon, a thing of beaten gold, arch rising above arch, striding easily across the green little vale through wliich the engine shrieks. At Rognac we changed to the main line for Aries. We had been on slow, small trains, going away from Paris, so long that when a big, fast train came in, marked "Paris," we did not recognize it as ours. Calmly we leaned back and watched passengers aHght and embark, the guards bang the doors shut, the [142] OLD PROVENCE *^ exchange of those touching little courtesies between trainmen and station employes which are a part of every train departure. Suddenly we looked at one another and asked, "Aren't we going toward Paris?" And then what a scramble! Not a porter, not a railroad employe of any stripe was visible, and the luggage was heavy and plentiful. But the lone French lady in the compartment we stormed gallantly dragged in bags and cameras, quite as excited as we, and infinitely more expressive, and finished by hauling us in afterward. Everything was neatly ar- ranged in the baggage racks, we had our breaths, made our apologies decently, and rested a while before the train started leisurely on its northward journey. The long Etang de Berre, a big salt lake, runs for miles beside the track, blue and ruffled, its farther shore black and misty in the distance. The region is wild and hilly, covered with olive plantations that alternate with scrubby patches of gorse and heather. On the right rises a mountain covered with peculiar formations so like a huge castle that, with a little imagination, you can see sentries patrolling its walls, and the pinnacles and bastions that have all the seeming of ruined outworks and watch-towers. And then that wonderful, shining, absolutely barren desert of the Crau^ a slightly rolling plain covered still with the stones Jupiter showered down upon the sons of Neptune to save his favorite, Hercules. Trees and a little vegetation there are beside and near the track; but beyond, only a vast yellow prairie [143] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of stones. The very sheep that turn over the larger rocks for a scanty nibble of the whitish grass un- derneath, seem big stones themselves, and the meager fringe of trees in the distance is sere and gaunt. The lake turns green near shore, blue farther out, and streaked everywhere with black ripples, the fiery horses of the North Wind, that toss their little white manes pettishly. Comes then a low, marshy point, jeweled with shining pools, and the lake vanishes behind. Then a few miles more, and, through a mar- velously fertile and marshy district, with a rush and a roar the train draws into the City of Lovely Women. [144I XIII "a dream of fair wome n" B ' ' 1 ^ EHOLD a marvel under the sun." No mat- ter what it is in Aries that draws you thither, the glory of supreme Roman arch- itecture, the reminiscences of Greek days, or the su- perficial interests of modern travel ;no matter whether one or all of these things most interest you while there, no sooner are you away than the city becomes the soft, blurry background of a dream, through which move the sweet and stately, the fair and cap- tivating daughters of Aries. From the importance of the position of Aries, at the head of the Rhone delta, and in the older days upon vast navigable lagoons that communicated with the sea, all the different peoples of this southern lit- toral must have had a part in the city's early life. Of them all, Rome alone has left us imperishable his- tory and monuments. No tangible evidence remains of the earlier Greek days, though we find Hellenic in- fluence pervasive in architecture ; and nowhere in the world — not even in Greece itself, according to one au- thority — are there more perfect examples of the old Greek type, physically, than in the women of Aries. [145], FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA T^ere are only t^o hotels in town, both of them in the Place du Forum, which has remained in the center of the city from Roman times. It has been written that, no matter which hotel you choose, you win wish you had gone to the other. I can vouch for only half of the statement. Startin g " o ut from the Place, the thing that most impresses you at first is not the Arlesiennes, but the curious bits of architecture thrusting out at every comer: old houses, whose walls bear only a carved window-Untel, a comer second-story Mrgin. a part of some old Roman carving, a bit of Renaissance superficial friexe or decoration. Then, near the crossing of the mes de la Bastille and des Arenes, you see the Amphithea- ter. The effect is stunning. And with the Arlesi- ennes sitting on their doorsteps on either side the picture is complete in the narrow street, scarce eight feet wide, but very clean, with whitewashed houses and raised doorsteps undercut for a gutter passage. This Amphitheater of Aries, the largest in France, is in the familiar elliptical form and two stories high, sixty arches in each, built of great blocks of stone so accurately fitted together that no cement is necessary; and even to-day, after centuries of neglect and decay, many of its elaborate moldings and other carved decorations are to be seen. The imperial entrance, at the southern end of the ellipse, which measures about Gve hundred feet in length by some three hundred and fifty in width, is open, and you go in to the noise of a wild beast — the Im6] "A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN** custodian's barking terrier, who welcomes anything to break the monotony of the blood-stained silence. But neither dog nor man follows : you stand alone where twenty-six thousand spectators at once used to enjoy the hideous spectacles of the arena at the expense of the Emperor in the palmy days of Roman Gaul. During the Middle Ages the Amphitheater was transformed into a fortress, €uid four towers built upon it ; three of them still remain. After its use had passed as a strong defense it became the noisome labyrinth where the human dregs of Aries festered in disease and crime. Many a reminder of those days and people you find as 3'ou walk among the silent arcades — here a soot-blackened ceiling, there parts of a shattered stair, yonder rude attempts to fresco the wall. An indescribable atmosphere clings about it all, and I felt, even more than in the Coliseum itself, a something I could neither define nor analyze, yet which sprang from this great house of death, consecrated by blood and tears, and standing yet a monument to Roman pride and degradation. A pleasanter side of Roman life is indicated by the twin columns, the bits of Corinthian molding and the shattered marble ornaments of the great theater, where the higher culture of the Greeks is writ so large. The seats have recently been restored, so that we have an excellent idea of the magnitude of the building, which seated no less than sixteen thou- sand persons. Apparentlv ten thousand less cared 1 147 1 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA for the play than for the real tragedies of the arena. Among the ruins in 1^51 was discovered an exquisite work of Greek art, the Venus d'Arles, now in the Louvre. Many other impressive relics have been gathered into the Lapidary Museum in the ancient church of Ste. Anne. The collection is, I believe, unique in France; certainly I have never seen another in which the percentage of fine specimens to trash is so large, "the Grecian descent and culture of the country," as Mr. McGibbon remarks, "being distinctly observ- able in these monuments." Among the treasures are several inspiring figures, full of the joy of life and sport: Greek dancers, of swaying, yielding lines, brimming over with plastic grace despite cruel mu- tilations ; a bust of the Empress Livia, Junoesque and frigid ; and an altar to the Bona Dea, the Good Goddess of dim eastern lineage. Upon the face of this great Earth-Mother, man might not gaze and live, so on the marble block is carved a delicate oaken wreath, within which the semblance of an ear is embayed at either side. Thus, if man might not see his dread divinity, he might, at least, be sure his petitions would reach her ready ear. Among the sarcophagi which form the principal part of the collection, are splendid pagan* and Chris- tian tombs, a progressive series, as it were, clearly indicating the transitional styles from the Greek to the fully developed Roman, and from that on into Christian times. Most of them came from Alyscamps, [148] "A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN" as the Arlesiens call the old Roman cemetery of the Elysii Campi, the Elysian Fields. When the pagan gods had passed, St. Trophime, Bishop of Aries, consecrated the spot for Christian sepulture, and himself was laid to rest there. Ariosto and Dante sang its fame to all the world, princes of Church and State chose it for their long sleep, and at one time no less than nineteen churches and mortuary chapels stood about its verdant close. Bodies were even sent down the Rhone in barrels, with money for decent burial, and it is said that the kindly river always swung the grisly cargo in beside the plot where all would lie. But when, in the middle of the twelfth century, St. Trophime's body was taken from it to repose in his Cathedral, the prestige of Alys- camps departed, and it rapidly fell into disuse and decay. Its classic monuments and sarcophagi were ruthlessly plundered. Many were sent broadcast throughout France, and even to Rome, as models of classic art, and the few that remained a benighted generation turned into watering-troughs for cattle and bridges over ditches in the fields. The latter have been rescued from their oblivion, fortunately, and ranged in a solemn row at either side of the long avenue of tall, slender trees, through which the pitying wind whispers, and the sunlight filters to dapple tomb and roadway alike with gold and gray. Out near the Rhone, almost entirely shut in by mean modern buildings, are the scanty remains of [ 149 1 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA what is said to have been the palace Constantine built in the fourth century, when Aries was approach- ing the zenith of her glory. The city of the lagoons was a favorite with the Emperor, who made it a splendid seat of government, worthy its reputation of being a smaller Rome ; and the people of Aries under the imperial rule lived as became the citizens of a capital, among scenes of beauty, richness and profligate enjoyment such as Gaul had never before witnessed. The Romanesque Cathedral, dedicated to St. Tro- phime, is dignified by one of the fairest, most ma- jestic porches southern French architecture has ever produced — a massive twelfth century archway, which enthrones a Christ, surrounded by the emblems of the four evangelists ; a lintel where the Twelve sit in benign meditation, and friezes of the redeemed and the damned on either hand. Its effect is enhanced by the almost plain front wall of the church, and by the steps that raise it from actual contact with the busy market square. The snow-white, simple and very impressive nave, with its pointed barrel vault- ing, is an excellent example — typical of the revulsion against earlier and richer forms — of the rigidly aus- tere Cistercian style found In the second period of Proven9al architecture. But the most beautiful part of the structure is the twelfth century cloisters ad- joining, rich beyond anything save a catalogue in their Proven9al fiorldity of details. Sunny, pleasant cloisters they are, where every prospect pleases — but [150] V ji ■*-' J3 y ^ ^ TJ C 3 O u ^ ■M V nJ u V v 'VJZ <-t-i O M O (U 6 w •M 3 nl O j:: V -M 3 n rt (U ^ Ui bfl CA rt V ^ TJ M c V < c CO <-i-i o u dJ 4-> rt 0) x: +-> iH a 6 < a> J3 H "A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN" the sexton. That worthy pirate ought to be immo- lated upon a pyre of the signs he has posted all about the sacred close: "Remember the Concierge!" Remember him? Can any. one who has been herded about those lovely precincts, cornered at last, made to pay, and then thrust out into an unsympathetic world, fail to remember him? And yet all thought of him is wiped away clean of a Sunday morning, when you stand in the dazzling sunshine beside the obelisk in the middle of the Place de la Republique, the cathedral shimmering in the heat-waves before you, the azure sky overhead and all about the pretty Arlesiennes of the cameo profiles coming from mass. And yet — is "pretty" exactly the word? No. Often they are not pretty at all, as we use the word. What are they? you ask. Cer- tainly not Frenchwomen. Is it the fetching coif and fichu that give them their air? Are they Greek? Are they Roman? Are they Saracen? Surely all three, and more. Wealth and station in life have nothing to do with their superb appearance. One ancient Arlesienne I remember, clearly a woman of the people, seventy, stalwart, hawk-eyed, visaged like a Cassar, and walking with a staflf*. She lived in a house facing the Amphitheater, and the first time I saw her she was proceeding majestically down the street, greeting her neighbors with dignity — and I simply did not have the effrontery to take her pic- ture. Another day I came back, and deliberately stalked her. Though by neither look nor word did [151] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA she acknowledge my presence, she knew why I had returned. Yet, in spite of plenty of opportunity, I could not trespass upon her grand air. The picture is still untaken. Another, a woman of thirty-five, perhaps, stood upon the stoop of a house in a tiny side street — a Saracen beauty, dark and slender, with black eyes that belied her calm dignity. I approached with elaborate carelessness. Not by the flicker of an eyelid did she deign to notice me, and I fatuously thought she was deliberately posing — the daughters of Provence have always been charged with being coquettes. As I raised my camera she looked calmly through me, turned without haste and vanished into the house. Fortunately, though, she left a record of herself elsewhere. Prowling through a local pho- tographer's shop one day, I found, and he basely sold, the picture. And if she whose features forever made the bit of paper radiant should ever see this, may she forgive the trespass and approve the motive. Follow the after-church parade down to the Lice, where the rich sunlight spatters through the leaves upon an endless procession. Colors there are, of course, but the most beautiful costume is the long black gown, gathered and full and sweeping, the soft, sheer, white fichu crossed modestly upon the breast; the hair parted, and brought down softly over the ears, then gathered up in a crowning knot, covered with white — a bit of lace, perhaps, or a tiny piece of flimsy cambric — and bound around by a [152] "A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN" broad band of black ribbon or velvet, with one free end behind. It must be admitted, however, that now- adays there are too many in the Sunday parade who affect the Parisian styles with their banalities — Frenchwomen they must be. One day in the hotel dining-room an old Proven- 9al, who looked half Don Quixote and half Frederic Mistral, was talking poetry, art and letters with his companions. A big Englishman came in, and glared about for a seat fiercely, but quite without animosity. For some reason he stepped back into the hall, and the Proven9al, who had frowned, and stopped talk- ing, at his entrance, threw up both hands over his head wildly and barked: ''Woof! Woof! Woof! These English ! Huge animals they are ! Woof! I can no longer talk of poetry in the presence of so huge a creature!" The Englishman, coming back just then, evidently heard, and striding over near him said in excellent French that all could hear: "Waiter, give me a good seat, but don't put me too near that old Burgundy snail. I might eat him by mistake !" Dear old jouglar, with his little rages and his fierce, yard-long mustaches ! He is only a soft blur in the distance now. Blurred, too, are the Roman ruins, the fine Cathedral, the gray river — mere deli- cate bits of light and shade in the background of the dream of Aries, through which always stately, always appealing, weave the clear figures of those fair women, neither Greek, nor Saracen, nor Homan, nay, [ 153 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA nor even Proven9ale, but wholly Arlesiennes and stirring. Desert ! and then the sea. A formless, straggling town about a fortified church some goldsmith might have carved from a block of old gold, a few bare streets, a handful of untidy people and shambling white houses, some peasants playing boules on the salt-meadow square between town and sea, gaudy fishing-boats on the gentle beach, and a great black cross for the fishermen upon the dunes — this is Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and who cannot be rev- erent in the little town had best not come. From Aries, the route to The Saints — as the natives say — lies through the wild and desolate Camargue, the Rhone delta. It is a vast flat, three hundred square miles in area, only a few feet above the sea, and the occasional farm or ranch serves only to emphasize its general emptiness. The train rattled over the atrocious roadbed with doors and windows wide open, to give smoke and cinders from the loco- motive good circulation. Our companions, simple folk of the Camargue, shouted back and forth among themselves, and tiring of this, drew both engineer and fireman into their conversation. Those worthies, turning their backs upon their tasks, leaned over the after-rail and chatted pleasantly while the engine bumped along unwatched and uncontrolled. So we hung out of the windows and kept watch ourselves. When the three Marys and their companion saints [ 154 ] "A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN" landed in safety after their miraculous voyage the younger members of the party scattered, to fulfill their vow of consecration as missionaries ; but Mary Jacobi and Mary Salome, already advanced in years, stayed by the sea, teaching, preaching, and healing the folk of the Camargue, while their faithful black maid Sarah scoured the district for food for them all. Eventually she became the patroness of the gip- sies, and they come by scores and hundreds every year, a swarthy, sweating, disorderly crew, to ven- erate the relics of the black saint they consider peculiarly their own, and to pray for her aid and the aid of her mistresses in healing. Through the thin, nervous lips of the little curate, who held me, like some Ancient Mariner, with the glint of his fanatic eye, I saw it all. Was he watching me for signs of doubt or wavering dnterest.'^ Whatever the reason, he was apparently satisfied, and gave the whole graphic story of the annual May madness. Immediately the religious ceremonies are over, the gipsies hitch up their crazy, shabby wagons, and trail out once more into the Camargue. But the townspeople and the visitors turn to the social func- tions of horse-racing and bull-baiting. Our little curate seemed to see nothing incongruous in this, but cheerily explained the bull-fight — not a fight at all, really, but a game, in which a man tries to snatch a cockade from between a bull's horns — and often the "bull" is a cow! The church and the vicarage actually form part of the arena, the rest being made [ 155 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA up of a collapsible five-bar fence, the massive rails of which lie around in piles when not in use. The loungers about the little place were very ready to supplement the curate's story of the bulls, but they shied off when the Saintes Maries were mentioned. Have they, like so many other Frenchmen, lost their ancient faith, or did they fear a disbelieving listener? The church itself, a remarkable twelfth century structure, built on the site of an earlier one de- stroyed by Saracen pirates, is typical of the fortified religious edifices to be found throughout southern France. Its exposed position on the shore, where these murderous raiders were always a danger, ac- counts for its high and massive walls, surmounted all around by battlements, and protected at the east- ern end by what in a secular building would be the keep or donjon. Here it is a three-storied chapel tower. In the lower story, or crypt, are the relics of Sarah ; the second forms the choir of the church ; and above is the reliquary-chapel of the Maries. It all took on a special color and significance in our eyes after the curate's turgid narrative, and in lieu of the bare stone walls, the tawdry fixtures, and the pathetic ex-votos, we could see only the eager throng, the smoking candles, hear the shouts of Vive les S amies! and the full-throated singing that so eloquently bespeaks the blind faith which in itself has wrought many miracles. As we came away, the picture still vivid before us, the sunlight picked out the figures of a line of 1 1561 "A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN" women washing clothes in an irrigating ditch, all greatly interested in the camera. Coquettishly the younger ones posed, while their elders smiled and went stolidly on with their work. Emboldened by their chic, I asked the nearest one her name. With perfect gravity she replied: "I am Sainte Marie of Aries, monsieur." Her neighbor giggled self- consciously: "And I, Sainte Marie of the Saintes Maries." The engine shrieked, and I fled before the Mag- dalen had time to declare herself. [1571! XIV THE HOME OF THE SEVEN POPES PRACTICALLY all that was left of the Roman Avenio or Avignon, after Barbarian, Saracen and Frenchman finished with it, were small articles that have been gathered into a museum. So ; interest to-day centers around the time, from 1308 to 1377, when Avignon was the residence of the Popes — seven of them Frenchmen, and legitimately elected two anti-popes. Their palace, a most extraordinary mixture of fortress, prison and convent, deserves its reputation as one of the show places of France. It climbs up the side of a great rock which falls sheer on the south and east, cut off completely from the town, that sweeps around it in a great ellipse which the Rhone completes on the north. On the west, the palace walls rise in another precipice, pierced by a narrow gate. There is no attempt at evenness in the height of the walls. The different buildings that make up the palace were simply set where they were wanted, without regard to the level of the ' ground, and this gives an irregularity and a charm that is very pleasing. [158] THE HOME OF THE SEVEN POPES The most impressive feature of the exterior is the machicolation of the parapet, carried on tall Gothic arches, like the vaulting arches of a church. The walls themselves rise perhaps a hundred feet high by some seventeen feet thick, and the six towers that still stand — there used to be seven altogether — are fifty feet higher. On the west, the principal entrance was originally guarded by outworks, portcullises, folding gates, and several baillies or courts. For the successors of St. Peter, as spiritual world-kings, the Popes here were certainly well protected. You enter their ancient domicile through the Court of Honor to-day, and find it far from inspiring. Ma- sons, sculptors, carpenters, guides and tourists min- gle on ground cumbered now with all the impedimenta of restoration. The chip, chip, chip of the stone- cutter's chisel fills the air ; powdery gray dust carpets the enclosure ; and for the courtly speech of the days when the palace was in its prime, you hear American slang, English monosyllables, German and Proven9al and French. From revolutionary times until some six or seven years ago, the spiritual power was replaced by arms — the seat ofi the Popes was a barrack. In the small section open to inspection the mark of the beast is writ large upon frescoed wall and ceiling, in win- dows stripped of their stained glass, in all the traces a conscript soldiery leaves behind. Whitewash half an inch thick Is being carefully removed from the walls of council hall and bedchamber, and paintings [159] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA full of spirit and beauty are peeping out. In the Pope's bedroom, for instance, instead of the conven- tional religious compositions, the artist left a charm- ing little fishing scene, with a jester on the bank ridi- culing the fishermen and brandishing a landing-net for the minnow about to be caught. Apparently fishing in the France of those early days was as popular, and as amusing, as it is to-day. We see the low, vaulted hall where the College of Cardinals met to elect one of their own number to the keys of heaven and hell when the old Pope died; the vast kitchen, with its lofty ceiling, and chimney in which a whole ox might easily roast ; staircases and rooms and corridors seemingly innumerable. He who is fortunate sees it all under the cheery guidance of ancient G. Vassel, jouglar, felibre of the old Proven9al school, and the friend of Mistral. Tall, smiling, white-bearded, the venerable poet-guide winks at you when his quick ear catches some foolish or ignorant sally by a visitor, and jokes with you genially in the kitchen — "Ah, those Popes! How they loved good cliicken and mutton, roasted to a turn! And their wines. . . . They drank enough, enough!" And he launches, chuckling infectiously, into an enthusiastic description and catalogue of the papal cellars. Perhaps, too, if you please him, when you go away he will give you a picture of himself upon a postcard, ask for your fountain-pen, and scribble a couplet beneath his likeness, per remem- brango. He is typically of the South, of Provence, [i6o] THE HOME OF THE SEVEN POPES a sunny, care-free child of Nature, who has "grown enough, but not grown up"; always ready to sing, in the weak, musical dialect of his region, as he did when King George, then Prince of Wales, visited the palace under his care not long since — Coiiro revendres mai dins la C&uta Papalo, Bello Autesso Reiauto, reveire lis ami? Vous faran soun salut li galoio cif/alo, E cantaran per vous souH refrin favouri. The literary life of Provence centers here in the city of the Popes to-day. It is the meeting-place of the Felibres, or Lovers of Beauty. Here they gathered, to attempt the resurrection of their charm- ing speech as a written language of literature, not many years ago. Of old, Proven9al was the speech of the troubadours, whose amorous songs were the natural expression of the idealism which, from its birth as an outgrowth of the crusades and the ado- ration of the Virgin, rapidly developed into a prime feature of civilization. Out of the glamour that sur- rounded the deified Mary gradually came the worship of all women, and as a consequence knights and nobles, commoners and kings, sang the one song. As many as could took their lutes and wandered about seeking what lady they might charm, some- times with fatal, oftener with ludicrous results. Kings themselves played at being troubadours — wit- ness the adventures of the Lion Heart — and it was only with the Albigensian crusades and the Inquisi- tion's ban that Proven9al died as a polite speech. [i6i] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Its revival some years since by the poets Rou- manille, Mistral, and their followers, met with instant approval throughout the province, and the move- ment can be traced entirely to an old woman's tears. The poet Jouse Roumanille one day recited some of his French verses to his aged mother, who had heard that he was "making paper talk." The old lady shook her head in sorrowful ignorance. "I do not under- stand," she said. So Roumanille, suddenly fired with the idea of writing in the only speech she knew, touched her heart with some new verses in Proven9al, and she wept and kissed him. Could a poet wish a fairer omen of success, or a movement start more auspiciously ? The church of Notre Dame des Doms, a heavy unattractive Romanesque structure, stands still higher than the palace on the Rocher, and is an important example of Proven9al architecture. The distinguishing features of its porch are so very clas- sic that for a long time it was thought to have belonged to an edifice of the Roman days. But there is now no doubt that its fluted Corinthian columns at either side, its triangular pediment, its cornices with the familiar egg-and-leaf ornamenta- tion, were only copied carefully from Roman mod- els, as was so often the case at the beginning of the revival after the Dark Ages. The interior has been restored out of all sem- blance of the original, but the lantern supporting th^ dome at the eastern end is raised in a remarkable [162 J THE HOME OF THE SEVEN POPES manner on a series of overlapping arches well worth notice. The only monument of any consequence in the church is the elaborate fourteenth century Gothic tomb of Pope John XXII, now stripped bare of its beautiful statuettes, six of which ornament the pulpit of the Gothic church of St. Pierre in the town behind the palace. The whole crown of the Rocher, or Rock, is cov- ered with the fine gardens called the Promenade du Rocher des Doms, reaching to its very edge, a preci- pice full three hundred feet above the swirling Rhone. The gardens are full of flower-beds and statues, school-children and nurses with babies, old folks sun- ning themselves, and travelers came for the view or to rest. And here, too, we saw many of the priests of whom all Avignon seemed full — beautiful, sweet, noble-faced men, all old, all ripe with hohness and the genuine piety and sympathy that come only to him who helps his fellow-man. Visitors undoubt- edly they were, the flower of priesthood from the ends of the earth, and they made us wonder if the memories of the papal capital draw only such of the clergy on vacations as are altogether lovely and lovable and good. Below the parapet, down on the river's edge, the people look hke ants, and the vehicles seem toys. Across the Rhone tower the massive walls and battle- ments of Fort St. Andre; nearer, the strong tower of Philippe le Bel, which guarded the farther end of the long bridge of St. Benezet, built in the latter [163] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA part of the twelfth century. Three of the project- ing, boat-shaped piers and four arches of this bridge still stand, and on one of them is the picturesque chapel of St. Nicholas. According to legend, the bridge was built through the instrumentality of a lit- tle shepherd lad, Benezet, called from his flocks in the distant mountains by a mysterious voice, which led liim straight to Avignon. The mob jeered at his mission and pretensions, but the good Bishop, almost convinced by his calm enthusiasm, tested his celestial authority by asking that he carry a huge block of stone, heavy enough to weary thirty men, to the spot where the bridge was to be built. Simply the child took the great stone in his little arms, as if he were carrying one of his own lambs, followed by the crowd, which turned its jeering into wild acclaim. And so, without delay, the bridge was built; and Benezet, though he died before he was twenty, became, in the course of time, a saint. Another bridge now leads over to Villeneuve-Ies- Avignon, which through the centuries has declined from the prosperous suburb of papal days, and the later frontier fortress, to a mere straggling, sleepy country town. From the Place de I'Hotel de Ville, tramcars weave throughout Avignon, and omnibus lines still more ubiquitous take you anywhere you will. Wonderful vehicles these; long, creaking, rickety aff^airs, like small, open trolley-cars, with frightful seats and c£lnvas tops — and pretty girl conductors ! I am not quite sure but that it was the [164] THE HOME OF THE SEVEN POPES conductors that made us feel Villeneuve must be worth seeing. Before we started I played hide-and- seek with an especially pretty one, under the trees in the Place, while her 'bus slowly filled up. Dodging gravely about, she never admitted my presence, but by quick steppings into the shadows, and by swift leaps into the 'bus, in pretended assistance of old women and children, the fair conductor — and she was fair — managed to escape and leave me with only a picture of an elbow flying around the comer of the tailboard. It is a long drive over that interminable bridge, which crosses a good-sized island, covered with scrub and small trees and what seemed to be well-cared- for meadow. The passengers doze or read news- papers, the glare of the southern afternoon falls warmly through the lowered curtains of the exposed side of the car, and the white dust turns to lather on the sweating horses' flanks. At the end of the bridge the 'bus swings off* to the right, along the river bank, and the breeze comes fresh from King Phihp's tower, a golden honeycomb against the ceru- lean sky and gray rock, where the end of little Benezet's bridge used to touch the shore. The road ascends, in a long curve, past the silent tower, then sinuously descends to Villeneuve, shapeless, vaguely romantic, and sunbaked. The 'bus stops beside the ancient southern Gothic church, with its massive for- tified tower, but you walk on up through narrow, ill-paved streets, past low houses whose doors open [165] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA flush with the gutter and let out sleepy dogs who blink curiously at your heels. And then, at the crest of the hill where the town ends, you see the object of your journey, the grim Fortress St. Andre, visible proof of the jealous fear with which the kings of France watched the ever-growing power of the Popes across the river. St. Andre is medievalism crystallized, with its one narrow entrance, a mere arrow-slit between two tow- ers once toothed with a portcullis. The decrepit caretaker dozes all day long in his chair outside the titanic towers, round and northern, where one natu- rally expects them to be square and southern, while artists paint impressionistic daubs of his heroic domicile. The fortress covers the whole top of the hill; it might be a little walled city, so large is it. Indeed, there are houses within these grim, yellow walls ; many of them mere stone hovels, crumbling into dust. Grass almost hides the cobbles of the streets ; the fighting-platforms inside the parapet sprout weeds and wild flowers ; and the air of the entire ruin is ineffably sad. In countless little evil holes in the black damp and chill of the towers, holes you are told are dungeons, where the kings, notably Louis XIV, used to place forgotten men, the sadness takes visible form in the crude carvings upon floor and wall. Human moles, working with nothing sharper than? their spoons, the prisoners toiled to make here a crucifix, there a SL George and dragon, a rude sketch of a Gothic church ; and in one place [i66] THE HOME OF THE SEVEN POPES the pregnant couplet: *W entreprenez Hen sans envisager le -fin. P. P. P. P." — Undertake nothing whose end you have not seen. Have patience, poor prisoners. But come outside and shake off the sadness in the liquid gold of a perfect afternoon. Sit for a while under the olive-trees, gazing over at the city, fair as a dream picture, built all of gold and gems. From an emerald setting it rises beyond the golden stream. The cloudless southern sky pours upon it all the glory of the Proven9al sunshine ; and as you contem- plate it dreamily the city dwindles smaller and smaller, and the palace on the Rock waxes until its huge bulk dwarfs all else, becomes Avignon itself, domineering and extensive. Though Avignon has no Roman remains to show, you will find them not far away, at the quiet, charm- ing little town of Orange, in the magnificent trium- phal arch and the great theater, which give us an instructive picture of the days of the Empire; and also at St. Remy, in Caesar's arch to commemorate his triumph over Vercingetorix, and in the towering pile to Marius, whose memory would have been safe without it. Who could forget the Campi Putridi.'' And^at St. Remy, besides monuments, you find beauty and spirit — women who rival the fair daughters of Aries. Avignon is fragrant with memories of Petrarch and Laura, and they should be followed on out into the smiling country, through L'lle-sur-Sorgue, full [167] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of the purring music of water-wheels, and on to Vaucluse, where* the Closed Vale of the Romans ends in a towering cliff. Petj-arch's garden w-as here by the stream that gushes forth- from the stone, and here he first saw Laura the lo.vely, f dir whom he sighed all his hfe. His love gave, us imperishable sonnets : they give us the picture of a weakling, instead of a man able to override all obstacles in his path and win the one woman, whatever the cost or consequences. At Tarascon, hapless King Rene made him a fairy castle on the bank, above the gleaming Rhone. Alas ! it is a prison now, and none enter save those who do not return to any hotel in time for luncheon. But from the guard-walls outside you may look across to the heights on the other bank, where the romance of Aucassin and Nicolette has made the ruined castle of Beaucaire forever famous. No one who has loved has any excuse for not knowing Aucassin, who, un- like the timid Petrarch, swore that he preferred hell with his sweet Nicolette and all the goodly lords and ladies of his father's train, to heaven with the aged monks and priests and poor, who knew naught of honest worldly joys. But neither Rene nor Aucassin drew us to Tarascon. We went to hunt a tarasque, and to call upon Mister Tartarin. Long and hard we hunted through the uninteresting little town, and at last ran our monster to earth in a stable — a black canvas brute, with a bristly wig on his nodding head, and great [i68] THE HOME OF THE SEVEN POPES goggle eyes, and too many sharp teeth. Red and white and green stripes bar him like a tiger, and he has the shape of a mouse — ten feet long. It is not hard to understand why the bold man-eater kept Tarascon in terror of its life until gentle Ste. Marthe, coming up from Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la- Mer, hunted and put a quietus on him forever with the sign of the cross. We failed to see Mister Tartarin. Though I made diligent inquiries, no one seemed to know him, and it was not until a few minutes before our train left that a gentleman told me the mighty hunter's villa was about a mile outside of town. Then, alas! it was too late. [169] XV THE LIVING AND THE DEAD AS you step from the railroad station upon the broad, clean Avenue Feucheres, Nimes turns brightly toward you a sun-kissed southern visage of ancient splendor and present pros- perity : wide streets full of trees ; formal gardens with sweet-smelling shrubs ; promenades of the most lavish sort; bits of Roman architecture as precious and beautiful as rare scarabaei ; wooded heights spangled with flowers and bristling with odoriferous firs. The city is so perfumed, with a subtle, elusive, fragrant freshness, you open your nostrils to it in sheer eagerness of life. You breathe in the essence of the German poet's line, ^'Weisst du das Land wo die Citronen bluehn?^' Very different it is from the heavy, cloying sweetness of tuberose and jasmine, and perfumes in the making, as at Grasse. What a race of Titans they must have been, those Romans, who built in defiance of time and man alike ! The Amphitheater here is not so large as that at Aries, but its exterior is in better condition, and presents a very imposing appearance. Here, for once, the Roman genius went wrong in designing the [170] THE LIVING AND THE DEAD great corridor whose square-headed arches support the second story. Cracked like glass and crumbling like putty under the tremendous weight imposed upon them, the massive stone lintels of the arches have had to be reinforced by iron bars thrust through and up and down, until the great fabric looks as though sewed roughly together with these stout metal bastings. The arrangement of the seats is interest- ing: the lowest series for dignitaries, the next for the knights, the third for plain citizens, and the upper rows for the slaves, quarrelsome creatures, whose seats had to be marked off by a deep groove chiseled in the stone on either hand. The podium, or barrier between the lowest seats and the arena, is so low that it has given rise to a good deal of speculation about the sort of fights given. Surely no wild-animal combats could have been safe unless a metal netting was stretched above the podium. It seems more Hkely that most of the sports must have been naval battles, gladiatorial contests, chariot races, and other amusements not likely to injure the onlookers. Those stirring scenes of old are commemorated to-day by presentations of spectacular dramas, the annual branding of the lively little bulls of the nearby Camargue, and by bull-fights, which for sheer brutality might well make the ghosts of the emperors rattle their bones in envy. Were the Ro- mans, who built this house that they might sit in it and watch Life and Death play tag, prophets .f^ [171] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Could they, nearly a score of centuries ago, have foreseen the sordid, flashing pageantry of the pres- ent-day courses aux taureaux? Scarcely ; yet over the imperial entrance two great bulls' heads, gazing out over the city with mild eyes, bespeak the character of the arena to-day. Why were they put there — to flatter Divus Augustus, born in a house that had bulls sculptured upon it? None knows, yet they link the present with the past as graphically as though the ancients had known what the moderns would be. Nimes is rich indeed in these monuments of an- I tiquity; more so, perhaps, than any other spot in France. Of them all, the most distinguished and lovely, indeed the most beautiful and perfect speci- men of Roman architecture north of Italy, is the Maison Carree. Yes, the French language, which we are told is so exquisitely refined in its denomina- tion of anything and everything, can find nothing better to call this little gem of a temple, dedicated to the "Princes of Youth," than the Maison Carree, the Square House! More a splendid chapel than a temple, the little edifice is an oblong, measuring about forty by eighty feet, of the pseudo-peripteral type, with ten slim Corinthian columns enclosing the deep porch, and twenty others engaged in the side and rear walls. The gabled roof surmounts an en- tablature and a pediment so profusely decorated that the effect is, if anything, too rich; yet the details of style, to be sure indelibly stamped with Greek genius, are remarkably pure. It is hard not to wax [ 172 ] THE LIVING AND THE DEAD over enthusiastic about it, especially when you see or think of the vast ugliness of the modern theater right across the Place. Compared with this gloomy coun- terfeit of Greek dignity, the "Square House" fairly scintillates. In Roman days, rows of columns ex- tended to right and left from the temple — this was evidently the end of the Forum — enclosing shops and public places of business or resort. On the facade is a series of holes for the bolts with which the original inscription, in bronze letters, was held fast. Many ingenious attempts have been made to decipher the inscription by reading the holes, but the authori- ties differ so widely that you may puzzle out a new one for yourself and be quite as nearly right, per- haps, as the savants. The reading most generally approved is that which dedicates the structure to the Princes Cassius and Lucius, the two fortunate boys adopted by Emperor Augustus as his heirs. The history of the temple is quite as full of ro- mance as the building itself is of beauty: we find it a temple, a church, a stable — then the flutings of the central columns of the porch were shaven away to give entrance to carts and other vehicles — an Augustinian mausoleum. When the Revolution waved its red flag at all religious institutions, the dread tribunal of blood met in it. Its picturesque career closed with its adoption by the State as a moniimient historique, and a museum for relics of the past. On either side of the door is a great amphora, one of the pair bearing an inscription informing the curi- [173 J FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA ous that this particular vase was found in 1823, on the estate of a M. Laurent, at Saussine, and that it was just this sort of a "tub" that Diogenes lived in, in the happy days of old. Two of the Roman city's gateways still remain, one of them the Gate of Augustus, built in 16 B.C., as a double main arch for vehicles, flanked by a little postern on either hand for pedestrians. A tiny tower at each side contains the stairs leading to the gallery at the top of the arch, and served as a lookout and signal station. To-day, fenced in an angle between the blank walls of modern tenements, the noble gateway makes a curious impression of detachment and aloofness from both its ancient and present surroundings. One of the loveliest walks in any French city to-day is in Nimes, along the Quai de la Fontaine, with its little canal to Fountain Park. Ten or fif- teen feet below the level of the quai runs the clear green stream, mirroring back long, quivering, silky vistas of the proud old trees that line the banks above, arching their necks and whispering to the scented breeze that the heavy, inartistic houses flank- ing them are modern excrescences, not without some dignity, but certainly creatures of no character. Crossing streets make the eff'ect of the stream that of a series of very long and deep but narrow tanks or basins, full of glorious reflections. The elaborate Garden of the Fountain is laid out in the Louis XV style, with broad lawns, prim borders [1741 THE LIVING AND THE DEAD of glossy oranges full of green and gold, and bright- eyed flower-beds. Nurses idle on the shaded benches while their small charges disport themselves on the clean gravel paths or the inviting lawns.. And at the back edge of the park, close to the steep Mont Cavalier, a splendid spring gushes forth, to fill the ancient Roman baths, rich in urns and cupids, stucco balustrades and quaint bridges, and all that florid eighteenth century taste could suggest to add to the already lovely scene. By all means accept the serv- ices of one of the old custodians always hovering about, and let him tell in his own droll way the story of the baths of eld and of King Louis XV's gay court ladies and their amusements here. You will learn history as It was never told In any schoolbook on either side of the water, but it will be none the less fascinating for all Its novelty. To one side is a tiny ruined Temple of Diana, built by the Romans on the site of a temple of the Celts to their fountain god Nemausus. Behind the baths, balsamy alleys wind up the slope among the trees, where everything Is as natural and In- formal as the gardens below are precise. Rising alone from the trees on the crest is the Tour de Magne — Splendid Tower — a huge, hollow monument about a hundred feet high. It Is the oldest building! In Nimes, erected by the citizens to the glory of\ Augustus. The view from the top is worth the climb — the whole city spread on the uneven plain, with broad avenues shooting straight out like the [175] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA spokes of a wheel, the plain itself a moving sea of color, and away on the horizon faint fringes of moun- tain peaks. The Nimois seem to have been content to rest upon the glory of their Roman remains, for here is no such Christian architecture as at Aries. A few miles away, across the valley of the Gardon, strides one of the Romans' grandest works, a mighty aqueduct, a hundred and sixty feet high, as perfect pictorially as it is scientifically. It gives you a com- plete sense of the undeviating force and skill of the engineers who could produce at one stroke something so beautiful by making it so supremely perfect as a thing for use: hewn stones, uncemented, but cling- ing together, arch upon arch, three tiers high, the topmost row hollowed out for the passage of the water. The City of Dead- Waters — ^what a name ! Southward from Nimes, among the dead waters of the sickly lagoons that gave it its name of Aigues- Mortes, rises one of the most wonderful pieces of military architecture in the world. The town was founded by St. Louis at a time when he was fired with holy zeal; and thence he set out upon his un- fortunate crusades of 1248 and 1270. But why should a king make a city because he wished to sail away.*^ and why should he choose so mean a spot if he must build? Because at that time almost the whole of the southern coast was controlled by the powerful Counts of Provence and Beziers, and one [1/6] THE LIVING AND THE DEAD who was only King of France had to take what he could get. So flat is the country as Aigues-Mortes is ap- proached that there is no thrill to it until, leaving the station, you walk in the blinding light of the salty, sandy plain, among the straggling white houses and little vineyards, to the town. A stone bridge humps its back to leap across the Beaucaire Canal, and from its arch you look down upon the slow- flowing waters to and past the spot whence St. Louis embarked upon his crusades. The walls, built by his son, Philip III, rise from twenty-five to more than thirty feet in height, and make the town a rectan- gular fortress, some six hundred yards one way by a hundred and fifty the other. They are guarded by no less than twenty towers, some of them square, some round, and ten great gates, named after their various uses or from events that transpired in or about them. Of them all, the Tower of Constance is the most effective, because it stands clear away from the walls, simply a smooth, round shell of masonry, pierced by unusually long arrow-slits, and crowned at one side with a slender little shaft, upon which is still the iron cage within which, in St. Louis' time, a beacon- fire used to guide ships entering or leaving the port. The priceless little French-English guidebook I afterward acquired, in its English half declares that the city was built "as a stronghold in the periods of scufling with the Saracens pirats landing from Spain or the Mediterranean border." [i77l FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA According to many writers, past and present, the miasma of fever stalks in by door and window as soon as the sun is down. Very hkely — ^but people still are born and married and happy in the little city by the etangs; and so far as I could see they looked very like any other people, neither sicklier nor healthier. From the flatness of the surrounding country, Aigues-Mortes could never have had the glorious effect of Carcassonne, and the filling up of the moat has robbed the grim walls of what maj esty they once had in the days when they rose, alive and strong, from the dead waters. But looked down upon from the Tower of Constance, or from any one of the corner turrets of the walls themselves, only the presence of men in coats of mail, and surtouts with white crosses, is needed to make the picture true to the thirteenth century. The ancient houses are, some of them, still there; others of the same type have been built; the streets and squares all show the military-minded architect; and the long walk about the haughty bat- tlements is a revelation of the very difficulties the crusading Saint himself had to face in the Holy Land, where he died. [178] XVI THROUGH LANGUEDOC WESTWARD from Nimes we have an unin- terrupted series of exquisite vistas from the time we cross the blue waters of the Etang d'Ingril and come to Cette — the Mediter- ranean on one side, another blue lagoon on the other, great, snowy piles of salt dotting the shore like the tents of an invading army. The harbor, and the end of the Canal du Midi, connecting Mediterranean and Atlantic, flutter with the flags of the world. Comes a long, shining beach between sea and lake, and then Agde, its somber, frowning cathedral hav- ing all the seeming of a feudal castle. A few miles more, and the locomotive drags us into JJeziers, rumbling over the echoing railway via- duct, pa^tTlie ancient, unequally arched bridge that humps its back as it leaps across the river Orb. It is a town full of color, from the brown, fortified pile of St. Nazaire's Cathedral, reared on strong- arched terraces at the edge of the almost perpen- dicular rocks, up which climb sure-footed houses, to the bright gardens and umbrageous promenade, named for Paul Riquet, who was born in Beziers. [179] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA At his own expense, this far-sighted and public- i spirited citizen built the three-million-dollar Canal du Midi to link Atlantic and Mediterranean, and benefit not merely his native city, but the whole Midi region of France. Do not miss reading Martin's* graphic descrip- tion of the massacre of the Protestants of Beziers, July 22, 1209, during the Albigensian wars. It is very easy French. A line or two will give you an idea: "In a few moments the city was inundated by thousands of furious enemies. Then there fol- lowed the greatest massacre the world has ever seen ; they spared neither age nor youth, not even the suckling babe. Before the massacre began the con- querors had asked the Abbe of Citeaux how they should distinguish between the faithful and the here- tic. *Kill them all!' replied Arnaud Amauri. 'Kill them all ! God will know His own !' Arnaud Amauri avowed that twenty thousand (had been killed) in the account he rendered to the Pope of his victory. Such was the debut of the champions of the faith." At Narbonne is another fortified cathedral and bishop's palace — but Carcassonne waits just down the line. As you come puffing along through lovely rolling country, Carcassonne suddenly jumps at you around the corner of a low green hill, with the sun gleaming torridly upon its slate roofs and shining on the cool stretch of greensward between its inner and outer walls. It looks as much the fairy city *Histoire de France, par Henri Martin, vol. IV : P. 32, [i8o] THROUGH LANGUEDOC of your dreams as a fact can ever resemble a fancy. For twenty years I had dreamed of this mystical city of the south, this spired, turreted, bastioned fortress, whose every aspect, in pictures and descrip- tion alike, fired my imagination with everything chivalry and medievalism suggest. And now, with the goal of years under my foot, it so transpired that to sit down in Carcassonne as I wished and study it at leisure for weeks, to come to know its people and the very stones of its frowning walls, was impossible. A few days at most for the realiza- tion of old desire.^ No! The train stopped half an hour ; so would I ; and the plan of years could wait for decent fulfilment. I hope I shall not be like Nadaud's old peasant, who, at sixty, started to realize his lifelong dream of the castle walls "as grand as those of Babylon." "But (Heaven forgive him) half way on, The old man died upon the road; He never gazed on Carcassonne." Even before the advent of the Romans, Toulouse was a city of importance, and it continued to be so under succeeding nations. In the latter part of the eighth century, indeed, its hereditary counts be- came so powerful that they almost succeeded in making themselves independent of their titular sov- ereign, the King of France. Under the rule of these counts, Languedoc enjoyed great prosperity and a remarkable degree of freedom in life and Ian-* [i8i] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA guage. This very enlightenment drew do^\Ti upon them the wrath of the Church, and a new "crusade" was gaily entered upon by the Catholic North to exterminate these rebellious southern heretics. Be- sides having the charm of novelty, the Albigensian war promised plenty of loot close at hand, and under the leadership of Count Simon de Montfort, a dia- bolical butcher in the disguise of humanity, the "crusaders" turned the fair land of Languedoc into desolation, and called it Peace. Toulouse to-day is the epitome of what a very large commercial community, unhindered by restric- tions of space, can do in making its domicile at- tractive and easy to get about in. It covers an enormous area on both sides of the Garonne, full of broad, fine streets — the rue Alsace-Lorraine would do credit to Paris, of which it i-s typical — avenues lined with trees, big and little parks, open squares, ugly houses of the modern French school, and a few ancient civic and religious edifices of both im- portance and interest. The people are of an ordinary commercial type, the women plump, the girls very pretty and well dressed, and all highly perfumed. The Capitole, or Hotel de Ville, stands in the cen- ter of the city, a huge, hideous, pretentious affair, of little architectural merit, facing the barren vast- ness of the Place de Capitole, w^here the market is held. There is, however, an immediate antidote to this dreary commonplace in the lovely little park laid out right behind. It isn't very much bigger [182] THROUGH LANGUEDOC than the palm of your hand, but is crowded with trees, and flower-beds full of color, and is the pictur- esque setting for a delightful fifteenth century square donjon keep, restored, to be sure, by the omnipresent Viollet-le-Duc, but so striking and beautiful, with its dull-red brick walls and slate roofs, that glisten as though they had been newly treated with stove polish, that 3'ou think of the illustrations of the fairy tales you read long before you were old enough to visit Toulouse. Down the dark and narrow Street-of-the-Bull we come to the dull-red church of the Saint-Bull, a curious fourteenth century edifice, with triangular arches in its facade, and a belfry not only typically Tolosan, but which exercised a powerful influence in molding the style of belfries on churches throughout the province. The church stands, according to leg- end, on the spot where the bull to which the Romans tied St. Sernin, after he had refused to sacrifice the beast to Jupiter, stopped in his wild career. That incident is commemorated inside by a series of strik- ing modern frescoes that look like mosaics and give the story with a wealth of color and detail. At the end of the same street, in a vast open square, the saint is better memorialized by the magnificent church bearing his name, St. Sernin, at oncie the pride of Toulouse and one of the most splendid Romanesque churches an^^where in the world. It is built, as was fitting, of the "material of the dis- trict," plain red brick, as are most other great Tolo- [183] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA san structures of any age; for the city, lying in a dusty plain, had no convenient quarries, and so, tak- ing the clay near at hand, wrought with it in perfect and beautiful works, fully as enduring as those fash- ioned of the less harshly toned stone or marble of other cities. It is very seldom that one sees an effect so entirely pleasing and unlabored as that produced by the group of the five round-topped chapels of the eastern end, which fairly flow upward toward the spire over the crossing. Five seems to be the significant number of St. Semin — five aisles inside, five chapels at their ends, five stories to the spire, gradually decreasing in dimensions as they mount. The two little chapels attached to the east side of each transept, so far from spoiling the symmetry of the design, rather Increase It, and the whole group Is curiously Oriental In appearance. The opposite, or western, end, a huge, rough, unfinished pile, with lofty buttresses and a twin portal and rose window, serves merely to bring Into stronger relief the rest of the edifice. Before the door on the south side of the nave rises a beauti- ful and elaborate Renaissance arch. Wholly at variance with the style of the church as this arch Is, it was so skilfully conceived as to do no violence to the harmonious whole. Inside, St. Sernin Is a true Latin cross, unusually large for a Romanesque church — 330 feet long by 104 feet wide, with the transepts 210 feet from end to end. The columns are crowned by capitals won^ [184] THROUGH LANGUEDOC derfully varied and rich, foliage and figures ming- ling in harmonious and lifelike profusion. Behind the chancel, on the walls, strange carven reliefs, some pagan, some Christian, form a curious fringe of gray. The feature that most interests the greater number of visitors is not here, however, but on a seat among the choir-stalls. Turn up the miserere, and look closely, in the flicker of the taper the verger holds toward the ancient oak. Out of the shadows slowly emerges the form of a — pig, leaning from a pulpit! And lest none but the elect see the point of the satire, he is labeled plainly : Calvin el pore. One of the pleasantest memories you take away from St. Sernin is that of its bells. Every hour they play through the tuneful "Ave Maria de Lourdes" ; and every fifteen minutes parts of the same air drift out over the city in a silvery, soothing recurrence from their melodious throats. Of all the cathedrals of France, ancient or mod- ern, I did not find one equal to St. Etienne de Tou- louse for hizarrerie. It is really two short, wide churches telescoped into one another, but not quite on the same axis. Flat-roofed behind, half -gabled in front, with a fortress-like tower shooting up beside the fa9ade, the Cathedral makes you rub your eyes and wonder if you are awake. The fine rose window was left in its piace during the fifteenth century re- construction, but a new door was cut, neither in the middle nor clear to the side, but just enough out of center to give a queer twist to the whole. Inside, 1 185] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA you see the same effect. At the end of a short, wide nave, an immensely thick, tall pillar, to the right of which is a narrow aisle, and to the left the really handsome choir, which projects on that side like a transept. It has to be seen to be appreciated. It seems that a new choir was commenced, on a different axis, with the intention of tearing down the old nave and building a new one on the new axis. But it was never done, and, in all probability, never will be now. It would be a shame to destroy such a unique monument as this! Toulouse has its share of other churches, one of which, the ruined conventual church of the Jaco- bins, has a fine octagonal tower of red brick. The church itself has been used as a military barrack. Happier far the fate of that old Augustinian con- vent behind whose high walls is the Fine Arts Museum, a provincial collection really worth a careful inspec- tion. When we first tried to enter, one gloomy morning, we found an old peasant woman sitting on the steps, unmindful of the mist that was fast turn- ing to rain. ^'Pardon, Madame" I said, "is the Musee open to-day .f^" "Sir," she answered dejectedly, "I do not know. I am not of Toulouse, thank God!" And with a glance at the lowering sky, she huddled together again, the picture of dumb woe, marooned in an unfriendly city. The two cloisters of the former convent, of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, are the acme of [i86] THROUGH LANGUEDOC cloistral perfection. And the gargoyles — Mon Dieu! Taken from their old lofty perches, they stand erect, a long, grinning row, down the middle of one of the cloister arcades, gaping, laughing, sneering, snarling at you! All you can do is to goggle back in sheer amazement if you are an American, or say fervently, "Mon Dieur' if you are French. Toulouse has plenty of fine mansions of the days when a man's house was his pride as well as his castle. But its greatest charms are the swirling Garonne, with its bridges, its wing dam and pictur- esque old mills — one of them dates clear back to the ninth century — and the three splendid canals, which focus in one grand basin called the Embouchure. Lines of trees bar their placid waters with long, quiv- ering reflections ; canal-boats surge heavily along at two miles an hour, towed by splendid horses, who do their work like machines ; fishermen, women and boys line bank and bridges with a patience that is farcical, or pitiful ; and trolley-cars empty crowds of gay amusement-seekers under the trees at the great stone basin where the boats tie up. It is here that the Canal du Midi starts on its long journey to the Mediterranean. After it was built, in the seventeenth century, it was found that the upper part of the Garonne was very unsatisfactory as a means of regu- lar transportation, so in the nineteenth century the Canal Lateral was constructed to carry the traffic a hundred and twenty miles nearer the Atlantic, where it joins the river near St. Pierre-d'Aurillac. [187] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Albj :: — and the Cathedral. It stirs you like the Pyramids with its awful simplicity and tremendous mass ; it crushes you, dominates you. Is it merely a fortified church? Is it a sanctified fortress.'' What is it? And out of the dim, vague past that produced it comes the answer: I am the mighty rock to cast a shadow in a weary land, and the strong fortress that cannot fall. I am the Church. "The circumstances which compelled the fortifica- tion of practically all the churches of the Midi," says a French publication dealing with the Cathedral, "explain the character of Ste. Cecile and its origin." Then it goes on to declare that, though the Albigen- sian heresy had almost vanished, the bishop was so zealous in his prosecution of heretics that there were determined reprisals against him, which led him to make his church a material symbol of power; and for three hundred years the faithful, the bishop and the clergy were often glad to put themselves under the protection of the mighty walls of the Cathedral. Flanked by the archiepiscopal palace-fortress, it rises on the crest of an abrupt hill overlooking the river Tarn. A huge hall, about 446 feet long by 120 feet wide, it terminates at the western end in a square tower like a donjon keep, that rises 152 feet above the walls, which themselves soar up 157 feet. Bald as the figures are, they give a faint idea of the sky-piercing character of the edifice. Then consider that every corner is a round military tower, thicken- ing into a massive glacis at the base; that the but- [ i88 ] THROUGH LANGUEDOC tresses are also towers mighty in defense; that not a window, loophole, or arrow-slit, even, comes any- where near the ground, and you have some notion of the noble conception. All the old outworks which once fenced off its approaches have vanished, and so have the machicolations of the gigantic main tower, yet the effect is still overwhelming. Against the south side of this red brick fortress has been thrown all the delicate witchery and magic of the Gothic, in a gleaming, white stone entrance vestibule of four arches. But why — what business has a bit of lacework on the cuirass of a knight, however beau- tiful it may be in itself.'^ Within, the promise of the vast walls is fulfilled, and more. Before you, on either hand, the tremen- dous single nave stretches away, unbroken by pillar or column. It is, as Gautier said of Toledo Cathe- dral, "a mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy- turvy." Ninety feet or more above the floor, the painted ceiling is a veritable Bible in color ; the open gallery that runs all around the nave affords an excellent vantage ground for studying this open book. But the chef d'ceuvre is the flamboyant marble screen of lacework, canopied figures and pinnacles, that encloses the choir completely, and gives the efi^ect of a small and elegant church within a vast one. Lace in stone it is, some of it so sheer it seems impossible that cold steel could have wrung it, chip by chip, from the inflexible heart of the block. So amazed was Richelieu, when first he saw the screen, [189] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA that he demanded a ladder and a knife, and climbing up to one of the fairylike spires, scraped it carefully, to assure himself that the chiseling was actually stone, and not plaster. There are in Albi other things well worth while. But Albi is, always will be, The Church, the great, unconquerable fortress-sanctuary upon a hill that cannot be hid. [190] xvn PERIGUEUX, LIMOGES AND POITIERS / CAHUZAC, Donnazac, Vindrac, Najac, Capde- nac, Figeac — why does every other station ■ between Albi and Perigueux end in that » harsh palatal ac? At first amusing, then monot- onous, as town after town terminates, like its fel- lows, in the un-Gallic consonant, it becomes, at last, positively irritating. But though the nomenclature may annoy, the scenery does not. It is a long and vivid panorama through the valleys of the Vere, the Aveyron, the Lot and the Dordogne. Viaducts stretch their lean bodies across gorge and glen. Tunnels bore smokily through iron hills — half the scenery is dripping black walls and clouds of cinders. But often you emerge into a sunny vale, full of soft- colored fields, of bold little hills rising from the plain as abruptly as beehives in a farmyard, capped with wonderful old castles, flushed a ruddy gold in the afternoon sunshine. Najac is such, and when the Revolution separated the chatelain of its chateau from his breath by Dr. Guillotine's most approved and painless method, his castle was knocked down to some patriot, who pulled a good bit of it to pieces [191] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA for building material. Let us hope he got out of it more than the two dollars and twenty-one cents he paid for the splendid old pile ! But Najac and its woes are quickly forgotten as you roll along over bad tracks through as lovely a forest-gorge as can be imagined, nine bridges and as many tunnels, now on one side of the Aveyron, now on the other, serving to hold the attention of the most supercilious traveler in spite of himself. But the greatest spectacle does not appear until, coming down into the valley of the Dordogne, the tracks are overhung by sheer, beetling crags that soar upward six hundred feet. The Circus of Mont- yalent slowly unfolds to you in all the grandeur of a huge, rocky theater of fantastic contour. Again the picture changes, and the valley becomes luxuri- antly fertile, the grass and foliage and crops of the richest, silkiest green, with the bald top of a hill crowned by the imposing twin towers of Turenne, all that remain of the famous Marshal Turenne's chateau. Coming into Perigueux, you seem suddenly to have entered the East, the spire and beehive domes of the Cathedral of St. Front gleaming above the river as white and impressive as some mosque. How this came to be makes an interesting story. Along in the tenth and eleventh centuries a brisk trade was car- ried on between the Levant and the west of France and Britain. The corsairs about the Straits of Gibraltar were so active that the merchandise was [ 192] PERIGUEUX, LIMOGES AND POITIERS discharged at Marseilles or Narbonne, and carried overland to La Rochelle or Nantes, whence it was reshipped northward. This trade was mostly in the hands of Venetian merchants, who, having their head- quarters in Perigueux, built them a church in the form of a Greek cross with five domes, inspired by their home Cathedral of San Marco in the city by the Adriatic, with this difference, that the domes are polygonal and the arches slightly pointed, as in the Proven9al style, instead of being spherical, as in the East. At the western end is a huge square tower, crowned by a domed lantern whose roof, mounted upon a beautiful colonnade, is in the fish-scale style. A yard short of two hundred feet in height, it is the only tower in France in the Byzantine style. But alas ! the ancient structure, which better than any other in France showed what the pure Byzantine could produce, was almost lost in the nineteenth cen- tury reconstruction. The result is offensively new and glaring to him who loves the soft tones of weath- ered stone. It leaves the beholder cold — unless his wrath for the "restorer" warms him to the mutilated cathedral. The interior is impressive only by reason of its grand dimensions throughout, the mathematical re- currence of the soaring domes, and the general effect of mass given by them and by the great pillars at the crossing. Apart from the newness, the effect of this noble simplicity is ruined by the "ecclesiastical [193] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA furniture," as the French call it : atrocious gilt chan- deliers in crude castle-and-turret design, glaring chromos on the white limestone walls, and tinsel of the tawdriest sort. The Cathedral, which was only an abbey church until the latter part of the seventeenth century, lies on high ground in the newer town, overlooking the river Isle; but down in the old city is the original cathedral, the queer little church of St. Etienne, one of the earliest in the province to be roofed with domes. Behind the high altar is a most unusual reredos, thirty feet high by thirty-six wide — an Assumption carved out of tough but pliant oak with such skill that the figures seem sympathetic and nat- ural, despite the generally baroque character of the work. • My camera was carefully poised on the backs of two chairs, when a priest entered hastily and allowed the door to slam behind him with a crash that shook the whole church. He hesitated a moment, then strode over to my chairs. I expected the phrase I had come to dislike so cordially : "Def ense-of-to-pho- tograph here !" But he only said graciously : "I'm very sorry I slammed that door. I hope it didn't spoil your picture. . . ." He was very young, or he would not have apolo- gized. It seems part of religion in France to an- nounce one's entrance into the sanctuary with a hollow boom, be the entrant priest or layman. Nearby we find the ruins of a Roman amphithea- [ 194 ] Coming into Perigueux, you see the spire and domes of the Cathedral of St. Front gleaming above the river as impressive as some mosque PERIGUEUX, LIMOGES AND POITIERS ter, but no such imposing fabric as at Aries or Nimes. The few ragged arches of crumbling ma- sonry are almost hidden by a luxuriant screen of clinging vines and bright flowers that spring from the carefully tended little park that fills the site of the former arena. A block or two away, in a fine garden, above the railroad tracks, is the ghost of what in its prime was the delightful Chateau Bar- riere, built on part of the old Roman walls, and burned by the Protestants toward the close of the sixteenth century. Perhaps in its heyday Chateau Barriere took an active part in the gay southern life of which we hear so much. You find here memorial tablets to a "troubadour of Perigueux," and to another sweet singer. Across the tracks a little way farther along the brick Tower of Vesone, round and massive and rough, has furnished the archaeologists with many a discussion, some claiming it to be pure Roman, others equally certain that it antedated the Romans and was sacred to the pagan gods of Vesuna, a sort of central pantheon, to which every street in the old Gaulish city led. As long ago as 1770 a French traveler wrote of Limoges : "The subtilty of its air may contribute to render its inhabitants grand eaters." Perhaps this Limogeois fondness for good cheer accounts for our entertainment in a hotel such as we found nowhere else in France, at even double the price. The head waiter understood what ordering a la carte meant, [r95] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the food and cooking were perfection, and we dined on a vine-covered veranda bordered by flowers, with the beautiful Place Jourdain, the finest park square in the city, before us. Porcelain made Limoges famous, and the china upon your dining-table probably came from one of the factories you may visit freely. Its manufacture is interesting to watch in its multifarious processes and dry to read about. But the less understood en- amel work is interesting in every way. For Limoges paints with fire in liquid glass, and its four or five ateliers turn out veritable gems of color and com- position. The process is almost primitive in its simplicity. Its success depends wholly upon the artistic feeling and ability and the good craftsmanship of the maitre who builds up each of these pictures upon metal, for enamel-making is an art rather than a mere commercial industry. The prices alone testify to that. Copper is the basis of all the enamels. Smoothly covered with a transparent coat of silica, it is ready for the next step. The artist sketches his design upon this coating — a house in the woods, a pastoral, a portrait, anything. Then bits or strips of gold, silver or platinum foil are glued upon every spot where the ruddy copper background is not wanted, and again the piece is transparently coated with silica. The enamels themselves are different-colored sili- cas that look in the rough like bits of broken glass [196] PERIGUEUX, LIMOGES AND POITIERS of many hues. The artist grinds them to powder, mixes them with plain cold water, and then stipples them on very slowly and carefully with the tip of a knife-blade, to make sure that each color covers its part of the design, to burst all air bubbles, and to secure a perfectly even thickness throughout. One color is usually fired at a time, at a temperature of something like 1,800 degrees Centigrade, though two wholly different shades can be baked at once without running into one another. Many of the complicated enamels are fired as many as fifty or sixty times, the simple ones often thirty; and as three or four pieces out of every dozen made are spoiled before the process is complete, the successes have to pay for the failures. The art is very old; we find it in a flourishing condition, with Limoges as its center, as far back as the twelfth century. During the sixteenth, enam- eling reached the height of its technical excellence and popularity, and some of the works of that period are treasured still in the Cathedral of St. Etienne. Precious and beautiful they are, splendid in compo- sition and coloring, full of value as contemporary likenesses. And yet, though the colors of old are perhaps a little softer, the master seems not to have solved the problem that confronts every artist, the opacity of color, while the enamels of the present are transparently clear, and even the deepest shadows have a luminosity and depth the older ones lack. The Cathedral is pure Gothic in style, and very [197] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA beautiful. Though its building lasted from the latter part of the thirteenth century on through to mod- ern times, the architects of the different periods had the good sense to carry on the work in perfect har- mony with what had gone before. The most striking thing to be seen inside is the superb sixteenth century rood screen, which has been moved from its original position to the west end of the nave. Its elegant sculptured decorations include a strange subject for a Christian church — the Labors of Hercules. The great tower or belfry, which stands awkwardly in front of the f a9ade, and a little to one side, is a relic of an earlier Romanesque church. Limoges is a very busy place, and right outside the cathedral we found two old women, one carding wool and the other making mattresses with it. The wool was beautifully clean and soft, the old women immaculate, and they had a clean canvas on the ground under their work. "How much for mat- tresses to-day?" I asked. The old wool-carder looked up cheerily. "Deux- cinquante. Monsieur^ les mdlleurs — Two francs and a half, sir, the very best" — she said. "Fifty cents ! And how many do you make a day, madame ?" This time the mattress-maker stopped thrusting a twelve-inch needle through the ticking — she was sew- ing the tufts on — and regarded me with distinct dis- approval. "Two — perhaps three, when we are not disturbed," was her tart observation. [198]. PERIGUEUX, LIMOGES AND POITIERS The busiest place I found was the Street-of-the- Butchers, literally a long lane of blood and smells. One whifF is enough to send almost any one flying in distress and disgust; but I was determined to see it through. The narrow gutters are full of entrails, blood, bits of pelt and wool. Meat all about hangs in the air to spoil. The most disagreeable features are small animals skinned whole, and showing up like villainous anatomical charts in realistic colors. The stench is pretty bad, but the people all seem strong and hearty, even when bloody up to their eyes, as many of them are. They are very much alive, sharp and shrewd, talking well, and not encouraging any familiarity in the way of jokes on their street or their amiable customs. I inquired of several if their an- cient guild still endures, and was told it is still composed of the "best people in the city," and is the most important of the numerous labor societies. The church of St. Michel is remarkable for its equality of dimensions in aisles and nave, and the number and size of its beautiful stained-glass win- dows, which give the effect of walls built of colored glass instead of stone. Indeed, the architect did reduce the walls to the level of frames for the win- dows, rather than of solid masses pierced for illumi- nation. The spectacle in the afternoon, when the sunlight falls through the richly colored glass in floods of glory, that splash cold stone floor and wall and pillar with jewels, when entering worshipers swing a great bar of white sunshine across the [199] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA church every time they open the wide door, when the burning candles about the high altar and in the sconces before shrines gem the dim interior with flecks of gold, is unforgetable. Not even the mere- tricious showiness of ex-votos and poor modern images can spoil the satisfying effect of warmth and breadth and glorious color. Although Poitou, one of the most colorful prov- inces in France, lies along the main hne of the railway from Paris to Bordeaux, it is terra incognita to the great majority of travelers. But why rail at the travelers, when the natives themselves know noth- ing of things in their immediate vicinity? Asking the head waiter in our hotel in Poitiers to tell us how to find the Pierre Levee, we were overwhelmed when he answered sheepishly : "I can't tell you, sir. / have never been across the river T^ The history of Poitou is no less rich in contrast and color than the province itself, for great lords and gallant ruled it, by no means the least important the "endless Williams," some of whom were colorful enough to satisfy any one. Indeed, Count William IX was the first troubadour, and a '^ grand trompeur dcs dames — a great deceiver of ladies." His grand- daughter Eleanor was the first of the troubadours' queens of chivalry ; and she it was who, divorced from the King of France, carried her domains with her, to the sorrow of France, when, in 1152, she married Henry II of England. The name of the capital [ 200 1 PERIGUZVX. LIMOGE3 AND P0ITIZR5 city, P " c v-..^- -- , J^ famous by tKree battles, none c : -. — the first, when Clovis cmsli-: " - ; " ■ J " : . -arKeii Charles Mar- tel : _ - " : •* , it" is said, had CrecT. Two ri"vers, the Chiin and the Boivre. have hewn 1 --ti a great mo-i': accu" i.ie ::■:■: ot me r:, , on wnicr. d*A It Qt Ch of S; It U, everv stV. ranee la FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA either side, than anything else. The roof is built of courses of stone, which give the effect of a series of huge inverted saucers of graduated sizes piled one upon another. This ancient.fane is used to-day as a museum of antiquities, principally very early Christian tombs, mortuary tablets, fragments of old capitals, and decorative sculpture. It was built dur- ing the rule of Poiters' great bishop, St. Hilary, and down near the neck of the pear the remarkable and indescribable Romanesque church of St. Hilaire, with a nave, six aisles and six cupolas, commemorates him in suitable fashion. They were days of both terror and romance, those primitive centuries. Often both mingled in some such moving tale as that of the Lady Radegonde, the young Thuringian princess taken prisoner by Clo- thaire I, son of Clovis, and forced to become his unhappy child bride. Unable to endure her vicious and cruel husband — among other things, he murdered her little brother — she soon ran away from the palace at Soissons. Fortunately for Radegonde, the Church protected her, and, coming to Poitiers, she founded a quiet nunnery above the river, and spent her days in holiness and charity. Her church as it stands to-day makes a striking impression with its great flat buttresses, its many-sided apse and chapels, its massive western tower, and its tall, exceedingly slen- der fliche. The interior, wide and aisleless, is clearly Angevin — very simple, but effective. The crypt, dark and musty as a tomb chamber should be — ^in [ 202 ] PERIGUEUX, LIMOGES AND POITIERS imagination — is illuminated by the flicker of the can- dles of perpetual remembrance burning before the fine marble figure representing the saint, for which Anne of Austria was the royal model. One receives a wholly new impression down there of what the Church meant to high and low alike, in those troubled days, when to have was to hold, without counting the cost, unless the Church thrust its mighty arm between owner and chattel or liege and vassal. No Hindu temple looks stranger than the aston- ishing and overvalued church of Notre Dame la Grande — enough to make the city's reputation by itself. It rises from a dusty square crowded with the tents and benches of peasant market-folk, its conical tourelles and tower roofed in the fish-scale pattern, its western fa9ade an amazing medley in which bizarre, sculptured grotesques, animals and chimeras, throw the dignified figures of the Christ, the apostles, and others into strange relief. The columns about the door are even wilder, made of writhing, twisting serpents and apelike forms that have a horrid fascination. It is not art, yet some- how I found it hard not to study every repulsive part by itself. Long afterward I found justification for my unconscious attitude in the naif confession of a great German critic, who declared that it takes considerable will-power to see beyond these details to the architecture itself. The exterior of the Cathedral of St. Pierre, neither beautiful nor ugly nor even yet commonplace, hardly [203] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA prepares you for the imposing dimensions and plan of the interior. The device of narrowing and lower- ing the nave and aisles as they run from doors to apse, in order to convey the impression of greater size and give a finer perspective, is so well done that it is in perfect harmony with the rest of the interior. No one but the student will notice it, except after study, and even then it takes nothing from the general effect. One afternoon a little girl in mourning dress came in with two mere babies, both in the same griev- ous color. No black smocks these, but the weeds of grief. The number of children throughout France who proclaim the loss of a parent in this cruel fash- ion is astonishing; and the worst of it is that their little minds are so filled with the panoply of Death that they take a flaunting pleasure in their funereal garb. Leading the children to font and altar, the little mother helped them through their devotions with what seemed to the uninitiate profane celerity. Then, almost knocking the littlest and most obstrep- erous baby down to compel her obedience, she liter- ally dragged them back to the font again and made them cross themselves. They seemed not to mind it in the least, but grinned at us cheerily as they were thrust at the holy water and immediately shooed from the edifice, as predatory chickens are driven from a flower-bed. It was very pathetic, and petite mere showed clearly how deep the ritual had sunk into her poor little groping child-soul. The chil- [204] PERIGUEUX, LIMOGES AND POITIERS dren of Poitou seem more devoted to their faith than any others we saw in France. We found them in every church in the city, httle suppliants who looked pitifully small and helpless, and in need of the help they came so religiously to seek. Churches seem to be the only things of artistic value that Poitiers keeps out in the open. An aston- ishing number of beautiful scraps is hidden away, however, behind or among the most dreary common- places, one of them the guardroom of the fourteenth century palace of the Counts, a vast hall fifty-six feet wide and one hundred and sixty long, with a triple Gothic chimneypiece at one end so large half a regiment could toast its shins about the fires. In front is a Greek temple Palace of Justice, a favo^-ite form of architecture for such buildings. What rela- tion is there in the modern mind between a Greek temple and the punishment of crime.'' Nearby, as I photographed a very fat man driving a great black dog who was hauling a cart full of vegetables, the peasant called out cheerily: "Did you take me, too.? I don't mind. It's only the dog that cares." 1 205 1 XVIII THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS FROM the thirteenth century, when that con- structive monarch, Philippe- Auguste, finally gathered the province of Touraine in from the English, it became the favorite playground of the French kings. And what could be more dehght- ful for a royal pleasaunce than this broad, smiling district, full of wide sunny spaces, with a great, lustrous river winding through as it gathers in its gleaming tributaries? Here king and noble alike reared his proud, defensible residence, a medieval castle-fortress, more often than not crowning a height from which he could command the sunny plain. As time went on, however, the castle developed into an edifice more for residence and pleasure than for defense, more often than not nestling in the lowlands beside one of the shimmering streams. Tours was the capital and converging point of this district, and though the kings are gone. Tours and its surroundings are a playground yet. The dust of countless automobiles flies in the streets by day and night ; its hotels are among the largest and best in France; it is a popular starting point for [206] THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS excursions in every direction, and the first thing that strikes the stranger is the large number of Enghsh and Americans who seem perfectly at home in street and hotel, cafe and store. The city lies on the left bank of the Loire, an a flat tongue of land between it and the little river Cher, just above their junction; but the Loire is a very uncertain quantity, its uncertainty preventing navigation such as one expects to find on a great waterway. In its pleasant moods it is given over to amusements : children wade fearlessly in its tepid current; men and women alike fish — by the year, ap- parently — from banks and bridges and boats ; and canoes and small craft play up and down the shal- lows. It also takes by no means an insignificant part, with its regattas and swimming races, in the merrymaking of the July 14th celebration, the anni- versary of the fall of the Bastille. We were in Tours on the great occasion, and found it the same sort of festival that our own Independence Day will be when we succeed in expurgating it of murder and holocaust — if we ever do. The crowds were full of soldiers : black dragoons with their horse-tail plumes and helmets, armored blue cuirassiers, leather-legged red-and-blue artillery- men, lavender hussars, and even magenta Zouaves and white Turcos, all behaving themselves Hke gen- tlemen. These brilliant bits of military color give a character to crowds in foreign cities that is wholly lacking here. [207] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA There is always color in the crowds in Tours. On the busy rue Nationale one day we met the queerest combination vehicle imaginable, a hand-organ baby carriage, the very height of utility. Mother ground out the music while baby howled an obbligato, and two older tots pirouetted, smirked, and gathered in the pennies. These were no such dancers, however, as the gipsy children of Granada. Neither do these dancers live in caves, though a little way outside Tours is an odd cave-town in the chalky cliffs. It almost makes you jump to see a glazed window star- ing at you from the blank, apparently solid rock; or a queer, slender chimney, with smoke curling from it, sticking up like some freakish pinnacle of the hill. A Tours stationer told me he rented one of these cave-dwellings for the summer. He said it had a number of rooms, and was sanitary in every way. I don't know. . . . But there are many fine old houses in Tours, among them one said to be that of Tristan the Hermit, Louis XI's hangman. It was probably built much later than Tristan's time, and its decoration of a twisted cord upon the f a9ade may be the only reason for its somewhat unenviable notoriety. But it is an attractive mansion, whoever its owner may have been long ago, and it has a tall stair-tower in its court- yard. A subterranean passage is said to have con- nected the real house of Tristan with the chateau at Plessis-les-Tours — ^now a heap of ruins — Louis' fa- yorite residence, where he died. Whether true or [208] THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS not, the story fits in perfectly with all we know of the somber monarch, who liked to have his grim persuader handy. The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Gatien, who brought Christianity to the city and became the first bishop of the diocese, was commenced early in the twelfth century, but its construction dragged along until Renaissance cupolas were added in the sixteenth. Yet it really looks better than that sounds, with its fanciful extravagance of flamboyant orna- ment charmingly executed. Other churches there are, both new and old, and fragments of abbeys ; memories of St. Clotilde, the vigorous but godly wife of Clovis, who ended her days here in a convent ; of the soldier-saint, IVIartin, who was truly a soldier of the cross ; of Gregory of Tours, the famous historian. But why spend time on saints and churches, with all Touraine about us.f^ Here, for once, I would advise an automobile, though there is danger always of hastening away from some historic spot too soon because of the ease in doing so. Nevertheless, the automobile is best, because you can have a dozen points of view from your car to one from a train. One of the love- liest views I ever had, in Touraine or elsewhere, was a glimpse of fields and farmhouses by a little river, seen through trees on which great birds' nests of mistletoe were outlined against the sky. I never should have noticed it from a train. In the eleventh century the fierce counts of the [209] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA neighboring province of Anjou were constantly struggling for the possession of the fair land of Touralne, and not a town but has Its legend of Black Fulk of Anjou. At Loches we find him perched high above the Indre — a branch of the Loire — swooping out, like the falcon he was, right and left against his enemies, and with but one thought in liis mind — the expansion of Anjou. In his day, the castle was a stronghold, pure and simple ; but in the fifteenth century Charles VII built a pleasant hunting lodge inside it. The town of Loches, grouped about the castle hill, with its donjon, its church, its chateau, and its fortifications, presents a most picturesque ensemble. The moat has long since been filled up, but the walls, about a mile and a quarter around, are still mostly standing, and there are few more impressive entrances anywhere in Europe than the ugly, massive, frowning gateway, with the narrow, vertical slots in the curtain wall, through which the drawbridge chains used to work. The church of St. Ours is a most remarkable Ro- manesque structure, with a roof of four pyramids, one in front, one almost over the apse, and two forming the roof of the nave. The entrance is through a porch or narthex full of grotesque sculp- tures, beyond which stretches the cool, dim vista of the nave, with its weird upside-down-cornucopias ceil- ing. Everything in\ates detailed inspection. But the girl who takes you around demands that you listen to her parrot speech — English, committed to [210] THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS memory, and recited without the shghtest sense of its meaning, and with the horrible enunciation of a mute who has been taught to talk. She will not even answer questions in French intelligently, and, if you ask too many, begins her performance all over again. Her family seems to have a monopoly of the grounds, and, no matter which way you turn, one of them jumps at you, loaded to the muzzle. To the left of the church is the Chateau Royal, strong and simple, its plain walls relieved by fine moldings and carved corbels under the roof. The building is now the Sub-Prefecture of Police, and little of it is shown. In one tower is the tomb of Agnes Sorel, originally in the church. She left a large sum of money to the monks ; but they, alleging scruples as to her life, asked Louis XI to let them remove the body. The king agreed, if they .would also give up her money. They kept the tomb ! Later it was placed in the chateau. Above the entrance to another stair-tower is a bas-relief, now badly weath- ered, but still quite clear, showing Charles- and Agnes in a bower in the woods. A nobler figure haunts the chateau, Anne of Brit- tany, queen successively to Charles VIII and Louis XII, who found inspiration and solace in a tiny oratory high above the ground, and so small it is a mere cell. At one end beside the door is the altar, decorated with her device of ermines' tails and the knotted cordon of the Franciscans, But Anne is not the dominant figure here. [211] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Louis XI seems almost incarnate in the donjon, a huge square keep with massive buttresses, tower- ing up 130 feet into the air, now roofless and floorless in each of its four stories, redolent of cruelty and blood. The keep in which he perpetrated his most diabolical cruelties is the smaller one he built along- side, especially for the reception of former favorites ; and in a corridor you may read, if your eyes are good, and the custodian lights a match, the ironical invitation scrawled by some hapless prisoner: "Entres messieurs chez le roy nostre mestre — Enter, gentle- men, to the king, our master." The cells are horrors : up in the air and down under the ground, some lighted by slits in the walls, many not lighted at all. In several of these dens the cruel monarch placed his own peculiar instruments of torture, cages four feet square inside. One of his most noted prisoners was the Cardinal de la Balue, a rare old scoundrel, not unlike himself. In a sloping passageway giving upon his cell, Louis used to squat and mumble pray- ers to the leaden images of the Virgin stuck in the greasy band of his shabby old hat, gloating all the while over his victim, who could neither stand up nor lie down. Now and then the king would stop his patter of prayers to order the handy Tristan : "Further agitate his Eminence, my Tristan !" And the cage would swing to and fro. No such sinister memories come to mind at Chinon, though counts and kings were there a-plenty — it was the Plantagenet Henry II's favorite continental [212] THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS residence. In this great triple fortress-castle that towers above the placid Vienne a royal crown of ruined grandeur, all other history pales before that of Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid. It was in 1429 that the lazy, weak Charles VII, sneeringly called the "King of Bourges," while enjoying himself in the great white riverside fortress with a gay court, finally agreed to receive Joan. Among the scornful train in brilliant attire who thronged the great hall — now so desolate that the very birds do not roost in it — the figure of Joan must have been a striking appa- rition — "With none of the glory of his court in her attire, but with all the glory of God in her face," as Mr. Shoemaker has it. Of the three chateaux that made up Chinon, the Chateau St. Georges has been entirely razed. All that remains of the Grand Logis, or royal apart- ments in the Chateau du Milieu, are bare walls with here and there an elegant chimneypiece hanging to them. Across a moat that looks a hundred feet wide and is spanned by a bridge as enduring as time, you come to the third part, the Chateau of Courdray, with the tower in which the Maid resided during her stay at Chinon. In the grass beside it are still visible the foundations of the Chapel of St. Martin, where she spent much of her time in prayer. As we stand on one of the towers, looking out at the glory of river and plain under the sunset, we wonder how many times Jeanne stood there, and what were her dreams in those sunset hours, when the [213I \9-(V> >\^ FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA castle lay a golden house among the purple lilacs of the spring. Had she any omen of success — and death? Had the subtle prison of the royal atmos- phere that afterward was her undoing already be- gun to work in her veins? Or was she rather not still the perfect, innocent child, waiting only the royal word to speed to the rehef of the beleaguered city of Orleans? If Orleans was as deadly dull and monotonous in those days as it is now, we cannot wonder that Jeanne had hard work in persuading pleasure-loving Charles that it was worthy of rescue. The only redeeming features we could find there were the beautiful sixteenth century Hotel de Ville and the tiny little park back of it. The blood-stained castle of Amboise, with its lofty walls and ramparts defended by three massive tow- ers, stands magnificently high above river and town. Its effectiveness is greatly enhanced by the lofty ground it stands on, and by the masonry of its outer walls being carried all the way up from low ground. Some sort of castle occupied this plateau from Gaul- ish times, and we come upon the trail of Black Fulk of Anjou here, and the specter of cruel Louis XI also. But of all its checkered story the great scene is the last, a grim, melodramatic vengeance before the assembled court — the dour Due de Guise; Catherine de' Medici, holding to the scene by her iron will her weak son, Francis II, and his trembling bride, Mary Stuart. When the hideous butchery was done, the chateau was decorated with Huguenot heads, the [214] THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS river ran red, and the forest was stumbling-full of bodies. The frivolous court fled the loathsome sights and smells — the day of Amboise was over ; the kings never came back. Though the beautiful river f a9ade, built by Charles VIII, after his useless and foolish campaign, shows Italian influence, it is usually Francis I who receives the credit for having habituated the Italian arts in France. Among the masters of the Renaissance who put their genius in Gallic harness at his call was Leonardo da Vinci, who died at Amboise. In the terraced garden there is a small bust of the master. I was photographing it, when a Frenchman and his wife, apparently of some position, came up with a guide. Evidently Madame did not understand that worthy's mouthings, and turned to her husband. "Henri, who was this man, da Vinci?" Henri was fully equal to the occasion: "Oh, just some fellow that died here." The entrance to the chateau is by a long ramp that leads up past the old fortified wall and a little ,^em of the Gothic, the chapel of St. Hubert, built by Charles VIII, and elaborately decorated with carv- ings within and without. In the tympanum above the door is a good modern carving showing Charles on the left and his Queen, Anne of Brittany, on the right of the Virgin and Child enthroned. Poor Anne ! She has fared ill at the hands of some biog- raphers, who seem to have small appreciation for a virtuous woman in France. But a kinder historian, [215] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Mr. Theodore A. Cook, says of her and her ladies: "Like another Vesta, or another Diana, she held all her nymphs in strict discipline, and yet remained full of sweetness and courtesy." The town of Amboise, as a whole, is one of the most medieval-looking, mysterious old places along the Loire, full of dark, winding alleys, and houses whose barred windows and heavily protected doors are elo- quent of stormy times. After the slaughter at Amboise the tragedy moved on to Blois, where the Due de Guise met his just deserts at the orders of the cowardly Henry III, brother of Francis II. Treacherously stabbed in a dark passageway. Guise staggered into the king's private chamber, where he fell dying at the foot of the royal bed, calling for the king, who meantime was in hiding behind a curtain in a passageway. Next day the duke's cardinal-brother was killed like a trapped rat in a prison cell below. A few days later, wicked old Catherine de' Medici died, raving, in her rooms nearby, and within the year Henry himself was murdered. Then the royalty of France gave up the chateau forever. The northwest wing of Blois, erected by Francis I, is wonderful as you approach it, a huge mass rising on a mighty, fortress-like base, whose walls are a castle in themselves. The high Gothic roof is still maintained, but everywhere the Gotliic ornamental details have been displaced by the Renaissance. Double Spanish arcades, which give light and shadow [216] THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS exactly where needed, add an attractive feature sel- dom seen in France. Across the fa9ade is a wonder- ful row of gargoyles, and to stand in the corner turret and look along at these unchanging monsters racing forward, as it were, is to set the clock back four hundred years, and to feel, somehow, part of the Middle Ages yourself. On the court side of this wing is the gem of the whole chateau, the escalier a jour, that stands boldly forth from the pillared wall without destroying its symmetry, and which in itself is perfect and radiant. The carving is as delicate as goldsmith's work, even in the mere grotesques. It was probably done by Italian artists, but the large figures in the niches are ascribed to Jean Goujon, as everything of un- known origin at this period generally is. The facade of the earlier wing, built by Louis XII, presents a very striking appearance, with red and white brick and a great, flamboyant portal. Of the later work of Gaston d'Orleans the less said the better. He planned a total reconstruction of the chateau, with the aid of Mansart, but, as a French mentor quaintly puts it, "fortunately, he died before being able to realize his schemes." On entering the chateau, unless you bribe the guide, he drags you into a museum on the ground floor that is a weariness. The rooms were the private apartments of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany, and the most noticeable things about them are their smallness and simplicity and their amazing chimney- [217] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA pieces. Throughout the chateau the color-schemes, of course all restorations, are fairly barbaric, the colors rich beyond description, but piled on one an- other without regard for either harmony or contrast. I>own a little sloping side street, near the Cathe- dral, stands the house of the old sonneur, or bell- ringer. Quaint, wasp-waisted figures of men who seem to be either steeple- jacks or acrobats, crawl up the pilasters of the upper stories, and on the central pilaster of the third story three of them are tangled together in a most realistic aerial snarl. Blois is rich in old houses, queer, twisting, mysterious streets, and an atmosphere ample in suggestion. There is something immensely gratifying about it all, a sense of being in a measure a proper part of the old times yourself. This sense came to me in no other city in northern France. The chateau of Chambord stands in the middle of a vast park, surrounded by a wall twenty-one miles in circumference, the whole in a flat, uninteresting country. It was built for Francis I by Pierre Nep- veu, but it seems certain that the King had a hand in the conception of the work, which was to make him, according to his own notion, one of the greatest builders of the universe. To be sure, the stupendous chateau, 512 by 385 feet, with its four great towers in the fa9ade, probably looked very different when rising out of the waters of its moat. It must be taken for what it is, an attempt to unite the fortified [218 J THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS castle of the Middle Ages and the pleasure palace of the sixteenth century — an absurd proposition. The roofs are a perfect forest of little pinnacles, carven chimneys, turrets and sculptured ornament, with dormer windows everywhere, and above all, the big double lantern of the main stair-tower. This gimcrackery justifies Chateaubriand's description : "The brilliant butterfly of the Renaissance striving to burst through its still visible chrysalis of Gothic traditions, the laced and ruffled head of the cavalier appearing above the strong joints of his armor, the beauty that was sought for, and so nearly won, showing clearer than the failure which at first oppresses us." Which, being interpreted, means that it really isn't as bad as it looks. Neither count nor king began the building of the t beautiful chateau of Chenonceaux, but plain Thomas de Bohier, Receiver-General of Finances for Nor- mandy, and his wife Catherine. Unfortunately for the Bohier s, neither of them lived to enjoy their work, and later Chenonceaux became a royal chateau, unique in that the taint of murder never darkened it.' It is built on the piles and massive masonry foun- dations of an old mill, and makes no pretense at being a fortified dwelling. One tower, evidently preserved for ornamental purposes, is all that is left of the days when a fortified castle occupied what is now an open court. In the kingly days the chateau was the favorite residence of Catherine de' Medici, who built the long gallery over the river Cher, a most [219] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA unhappy addition architecturally, though it possibly adds to the picturesqueness of the building. It is a great and lofty pile with graceful lines, miniature turrets where the towers would have been two centuries earlier, and gables and pinnacles and dormers at unusual and unexpected angles that give it both character and charm ; and its location on the little river Cher is one of the most exquisite natural settings in the world for a palatial mansion. Wherever you stray about the grounds, something beautiful appears, like the magnificent old well with its elaborate, wrought-iron superstructure, which the corrosion of time has merely softened in outline; or a splendid old tree, wonderfully duplicated in Nature's watery mirror of the moat. Chenonceaux is a private residence again now, but as it is seldom occupied, chateau and gardens are more a brilliant show-place than anything else. And now we come to one of the purest creations of the early French Renaissance, the chateau of Azay-le-Rideau. About this palace in miniature softly flow the clear waters of the Httle Indre, span- gled with great yellow and white lilies, and moistening the roots of countless brilliant flowers beside the walls. Here the old idea of a fortress-dwelling is entirely discarded, and only such of its forms as make for beauty have been kept — the high-pitched roof, the turrets and the buttressed windows, all banded about with sculptured frames, like delicate embroid- ery. What diff'erence does it make if' the style was [220] THE PLAYGROUND OF THE KINGS borrowed? The French changed and improved upon their model, revitalizing it and making it distinctly a national system of which they can well be proud. The dim and silent rooms are partly filled now with such art objects from the State Museums in Paris as belong properly in old chateaux, among them some fine tapestries. I particularly wanted a picture of a seventeenth century Gobelin, representing the appearance of the Cross to the Emperor Constan- tine. Came a knocking at the door. "You go down- stairs and see who it is wants to come in," I told the caretaker. "Don't come back for five minutes." The very absence of history only adds to the charm of the place: pleasant walks that wind hither and yon, the plash of falling water, the songs of birds, the perfume of the flowers. The only thing that hin- ders our enjoyment of Azay-le-Rideau is the thought that it is a museum when it ought to be a home — with all its radiant daintiness, its joyous freedom, its delicate sense of rhythm and proportion. But these are only a handful. Chateaux are scat- tered in every direction throughout this smiling val- ley. They spell the growth and development of the nobility, just as the Romanesque churches spell that of the Church, and the Gothic cathedrals that of the people. And when the aristocracy was checked in wealth, growth and aspirations by the Revolution, the great chateaux ceased to be homes, and became museums. The people cut off their own religious growth in the Terror, and now that atheistic philoso- [321] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA phy and socialistic cant have taken the place of religion, new great churches in France are as impos- sible as new great chateaux of the noble or feudal type. [ 222] XIX IN BOURGES AND ANGEES KING OF BOURGES ! Not such a bad title, we think, as we look out over the courtly old gray city, which must appear to-day very much as it did in Charles VII's time, with its great and beautiful cathedral towering over it, a beneficent white guardian. Perhaps the sluggard Charles thought so, too, as he idled here in the seat of his southern government and in Touraine. Better than a struggle for Paris, anyway, where the wolfish people of his kingdom were starving, fighting, dying ; the city itself in the hands of the English and their Burgundian allies. Strange that such a man as Charles should command such service as to gain him the title of the "Well-Served." One who served him well was the merchant prince of Bourges, Jacques Coeur, whom Charles betrayed and robbed as cheerfully as he deserted Jeanne d'Arc. The Rothschild of the fifteenth century, Coeur pos- sessed the most colossal fortune ever amassed by a private Frenchman up to that time. His house at Bourges was exceptionally magnificent, and remains to this day one of the finest monuments of the Mid- [223] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA die Ages. The rear view is the most commanding, the two big Roman towers melting into the octagonal towers and main walls of the structure as naturally as if the architect had designed them, instead of taking them ready to hand and making the house fit them. The round-cornered chimneys, with ele- gant fretted tops, the little turrets and finials, the gargoyles, the odd windows, all leave an ineradicable impression of taste and boundless expenditure. In front, the house is long, low, and far-flung, covered with stucco where it is not of cut stone ; and in places, as around the doorway, elaborately carved. Above the entrance, from two false windows, carven servants lean out, watching for their returning mas- ter. The great oaken door, dark with age, has a delicate iron handle, in the form of a canopied choir- stall; and everywhere the boltheads are hearts — coeur means heart in French. In the place before the house is a queer, womanish-looking statue of Jacques himself, in a sort of Turkish costume, prob- ably because after bis disgrace and exile he led the navy of Pope Calixtus III against the Turk. The courtyard rivals the exterior of the house for richness and beauty, especially in its gracefully carved octagonal stair-towers, and the quaint figures and medallions carved upon pillar and wall. Jacques' coat-of-arms — hearts and scallop-shells — is every- where, and the character of the man himself is empha- sized by his punning motto : "To brave hearts nothing is impossible." Especially effective is the entrance to. [224] IN BOURGES AND ANGERS the chapel stair from the court, with three sets of carved portrait panels. In the main relief, Madame Jacques Coeur goes to mass, a page pointing the way. Behind comes her dame d'honneur, in the quaint fifteenth century costume ; and last of all a maid. In the Place Berry, behind the palace of Jacques Coeur, is a very realistic statue of Louis XI, the un- |\ natural son who climbed to the throne over the dead body of his father, Charles VII. If Dauphin Louis did not actually poison him, as Charles and others at the time believed, at least he frightened him into starvation. The face is indelibly stamped with craft. The heavy-lidded eyes peer at you with the false amiability of a cat's when it plays with \ a mouse; the hand partly hides the cruel, sensual mouth. The half-squatting posture takes you back to the donjon at Loches, and again you see him pray and smile, and tell Tristan, "Agitate his Eminence further." Louis first saw the light — while his father was "King of Bourges" — in another pleasing old man- sion, the Hotel Lallement, built by another great merchant of Bourges. The last king of the old feu- dal regime, Louis was also still more truly the*' first king of the new era, in which pohtical tact took the place of brute force. His personal idea of diplomacy was expressed in his own phrase, "He who has success, has honor." How far has the world progressed in four centuries .f' The Cathedral, dating from the end of the twelfth [ 225 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA to the beginning of the fourteenth century, though the most southern of all the great Gothic churches of France, is still pure Gothic. It has no transepts, and the thrust of the heavy vaulting of the long flank of nave and choir is carried by a perfect forest of flying buttresses. They slant downward at a very sharp angle, and are so slender they look like spars. No fleche makes the cathedral ludicrous. Probably this is more good luck than judgment. The first impression the cathedral makes upon you, on entering, is one of astonishment at its size. The immensely lofty main columns, without break or interruption, form a stately avenue leading straight into the gleaming semi-circle of the apse, glorious with some of the finest stained glass in all France. The eff^ect without transepts is so complete and satisfying that you wonder it has not been more gen- erally imitated. In France architecture is not confined to cathe- drals alone; everywhere the trees are shaped. In Bourges they seem to make a specialty of a peculiar screen pattern, so dense and regular it might well be the work of a master carpenter. The public gardens alongside the cathedral are bordered by such trees, and are beautifully laid out in shady walks, edged with roses and charming old-fashioned flowers. The rose-beds are most appealing, espe- cially the slim little trees, full of exquisite blooms, delicate in both color and perfume. But fair and delicate as the roses are, they were no fairer nor [ 226 ] IN BOURGES AND ANGERS sweeter than a bevy of little girls in, their confir- mation dresses of virginal white, who made an un- forgetable picture as they streamed out from the gray old minster portals into the dazzling sunshine, after "assisting" at the solemn festival of the Corpus Christi, with all its ecclesiastical pomp of robes and lights and grand music. To the west of Touraine lies the province of Anjou, whose fierce Counts were always striving to win and to keep the fair playground. Fulks they were, and Geoff'roys, all labeled— Fulk the Red, Fulk the Black, Fulk the Cross-Looking; and FuDc the Good and Fulk, King of Jerusalem, to offset in a measure the others. One Geoffroy gave England a long line of kings, her Plantagenet family. Of these Counts, some were good, some were bad ; but there never was a fool, or a coward, or a do-nothing among them, according to Freeman. Their capital. Angers, stands on both sides of the river Maine, a tributary of the Loire, but the grim castle high above holds no memories of the Fulks, since it dates only from the thirteenth century. It is built in the form of a huge pentagon, upon a solid rock foundation, and though many of its seventeen towers have been razed, and its great moat filled up on one side to make a fine new boulevard, it is still one of the most imposing feudal strongholds in exist- ence. Its most absorbing memories are of that clever and ambitious woman, Yolande of Aragon, Duchess [ 2.2^ ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of Anjou, who strove so valiantly for the rights and preferment of her son Rene, Due d' Anjou and Comte de Provence — besides a good many other things. Opposite the southern angle of the chateau is the great bronze statue of Rene by Jean-Pierre David, better known as David d' Angers, since this was his native town. The unfortunate prince is portrayed in tilting armor, and crowned with a wreath of flowers. The whole effect is weak, but that may be David's realism, which he sometimes allowed to run away with him. Rene was more efficient in the peace- ful pursuits of an artistic and literary nature, so characteristic of his best-loved province of Provence, than in the warlike ones necessary for success in his age, and he died stripped of most of his pos- sessions. The statuettes around the pedestal are much more vigorous, and no doubt faithfully portray the char- acter of each person, all men — fierce Fulks and oth- ers — except three, Isabelle de Lorraine, Jeanne de Laval, Rene's wives, and his courageous daughter Margaret, the unhappy Queen of England. How much the lioness at bay David made her : shielding her little son, Prince Edward, with a motherly arm, and ready with naked sword for traitor or open foe. Splendidly indeed those counts of the Middle Ages defended themselves, with sheer, plaio walls and towers and moats. The entrance is partly by cause- way above the fosse — filled, in time of need, by the [228] IN BOURGES AND ANGERS waters of the Maine — and partly by drawbridge and portcullis in the massive wall. In recent times — up to 1856 — the castle was used as a prison, and now is a depot for arms and powder. The only objects of any importance left are the fifteenth century chapel, built by Rene's mother,, and the httle chateau, where it was said he was born. The latter has re- cently been entirely reconstructed, and both are inaccessible. Black Angers the city was called in the old times ; whether from the deeds of black tyrants, or dark and narrow streets, or the great slate quarries in the vicinity, who knows? But there is nothing black about the city now, save the castle. Angers is one of the brightest, cleanest, most attractive cities north of the Loire, since the walls were swept away in the nineteenth century. It has some of the finest old timbered houses we found anywhere In France, be- sides rich and elaborate mansions of the later Renais- sance days. The Archbishop's Palace, which stands where, ages ago, the Fulks had their mighty castle, has been done over by the indefatigable Viollet-le- Duc, who made It a splendid example of a great medieval mansion. But one thing he forgot to do : he couldn't, or at least he didn't, take the gloss off — it looks distressingly new. The city's museums, how- ever, are housed in ancient buildings that are true works of art in themselves, and so make the collec- tions all the more effective. Most appealing of all is that lonely tower of the former ramparts, the [229] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Haute Chaine Tour — High Chain Tower — above the bridge of the same name. It is practically the last surviving remnant of the old fortifications. The noble Tour St. Aubin is a relic of a splendid abbey of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a perfect example of the transitional, with its slightly pointed arches and peculiar turrets. Across the street, in the courtyard of the Prefecture, are the remains of the twelfth century cloisters of the abbe}'^, a treasure long hidden in a later wall, and discovered only in 1836. There are several bays of Romanesque arches which move you strangely by their grotesqueness of capitals and moldings full of glaring or contorted dragons, lions, toads, and other creatures the med- ieval sculptor made pets of in stone. Best of all is a rare fragment of twelfth century fresco, now carefully covered by glass, representing David's victory over Goliath. Even more fascinating is the arch uncovered in the very modern council-room. The sculpture is an allegory depicting the defeat of Vice by Virtue. It is a wonderful thing; but more wonderful it is that any man or set of men would cover up such a work of art. Seventeenth century builders buried it behind a solid wall. Another beautiful fragment is the ruin of the ancient abbey church of Toussaint. As the Romanesque ^tyle spread over Gaul each district molded it to the requirement of its own tastes — quite often the materials had a good deal to do with this evolution — and in Anjou we find a distinct [230] IN BOURGES AND ANGERS character, not so perfect nor so beautiful as that of Auvergne, however. The fa9ade of the Cathedral of St. Maurice, in Angers, is a mixture of Roman- esque and sixteenth century Gothic, without especial /) character. But inside we find the typically wide Angevin nave without aisles, which has a certain bare effect — we miss the decorative force and intent of pillars or piers. Heroic caryatids support the fan- cifully carved organ loft, and the church is full of what the French, for want of a term that would express the idea more vaguely, call objets d'art. One of them is the little green font or basin, said to have been a gift of Rene. It looks amazingly like a huge cake of green soap hollowed out on top. The most important features, however, are the gor- geous and ancient stained-glass windows and some handsome tapestries. Across the river, the old church of Trinite affords still further illustration of the Angevin style, and of what a concierge ought to be: a demure, smiling little old woman, silently knitting, and allowing the visitor to study the church at leisure. Dog-power is much in evidence in Angers ; woman- power, too. Yet the women of Anjou are exceedingly attractive, and the hard work they do seems not to affect either their good looks, their tempers or their fine physiques. Not far from Angers stand the gaunt ruins of; Bluebeard's blood-stained castle. But the gentle- 1 man killed no inquisitive wives. I don't know how [231] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the story was twisted. History holds no wilder tale than that of this monster, Gilles de Laval by name, a gallant and noble gentleman, who turned devil- worshiper, sacrificing hundreds of little children upon his altars to Satan. When he was finally appre- hended, and confessed, the courtyards of his castles were full of the half -burned bones of his youthful victims. Straight on west, across the Breton hjorder, is the busy city of Nantes, the largest in Brittany, with over one hundred thousand inhabitants. It is one of the most delightful provincial capitals in France, and its many bridges — the Loire splits into six streams here, and they are not the only rivers in Nantes, either — and the forests of masts and chimneys along the river, only make its color and contrast stronger. Somehow Nantes to-day makes no Breton appeal whatever. We think of it only as French. But it is not its present quality that attracts us so much as its memories of the final struggle of the Bretons to maintain their indepen- dence, under Duke Francis II and under his little daughter, the Duchess Anne. These memories cluster thickest about the chateau, the tenth century fortress largely rebuilt by these two. Poor little twelve-year-old orphan and ruler, harassed and tormented on every hand! Eager for her people's welfare, and wise beyond her years, at fifteen she consented to marry Charles VIII of France, and, later, Louis XII, his successor, arrang- I [ 232 ] IN BOURGES AND ANGERS ing that the independence of her beloved Brittany was to continue. But the end was inevitable, and Brittany was united to the crown in the succeeding reign of Francis I of France, who married Louis and Anne's daughter, Claude. The castle at Nantes, in which you may still see the beautiful logisy be- came a state prison, and to-day is an artillery head- quarters. What a pity that a structure so full of suggestion had to be turned over to the tender mercies of an unwashed horde of conscripts ! [^33] XX IN OLD BRITTANY ALTHOUGH Brittany has no lack of either^ y^ne makes the same appeal as in other/ ^^-good architecture or fine scenery, neitheii/ provinces, because of the attraction of the people. Their homes, their customs, their costumes, their astonishing speech, their sea-soaked religion, their dark and somber legends, have amazing power to draw and to hold the sympathies of the visitor. The Bretons are descendants of Celts who came over from Great Britain, driven thence by Angles and Saxons about the same time the Germanic tribes were pour- ing into France in the northeast. As a French writer of to-day quaintly puts it, "They imposed their tongue and their name upon the district. It became Brittany." Before that time, even before the coming of the Romans, the most powerful tribe along the Atlantic coast was the Venetii, who inhabited the district now called the Morbihan, with Vannes as their chief town. It is the capital of the Departement of the Morbihan to-day, and its people are still seafarers. Their har- bor is unusual, simply a mile of the river Vannes, [234] IN OLD BRITTANY with little steamers and sailing craft ceaselessly com- ing and going. Behind, the town mounts up the hill, with pointed roofs of red and moss-grown tiles, to the cathedral crowning the gentle height, and the old walls still girdle it with their towers and bastions. Four drizzly, dreary days we spent in Vannes be- fore it was possible to do much with a camera. We had seen only the most ordinary, everyday costumes, the most stolid-looking people. Then, unexpectedly, on a Tuesday morning, idly looking from our win- dow, we saw a colorful little procession descending briskly from the Hotel de Ville and going in the direction of the Cathedral. We remembered — Tues- day is one of the famous marriage days ; we would got to the Cathedral. On the way, we passed a homey little market-in-a-wheelbarrow, attended by two women, one knitting, the other nursing her baby. Throughout the province you see many women with wheelbarrows ; more than anywhere else in France. A Breton song expresses woman's position perfectly in telling how the peasant loves his wife — and would rather see her die than one of his "beefs." Hard philosophy, perhaps ; but a wife is easily had in Brittany, and cattle cost money. The thirteenth century Gothic Cathedral is another of those countless French rehgious edifices that have passed through the hands of the restorer and emerged hybrids. Two weddings were there ahead of us, and I hastened back into the street to take an advan- [ 235 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA tageous position. At last, "Here comes the bride!" The strains of Lohengrin did not usher her forth from the sacred precincts, but the gorgeous verger, in frogs and braid and red whiskers, did. This was a wedding of the more prosperous folk, the groom not in native costume. The bride, however, made a very pretty sight in her peasant garb, with a hymeneal string of orange-blossoms about her cap and shoulders and falling to her feet. The second wedding party was so long coming out that, to take advantage of the weak sunlight, I hurried down a side street to capture Vannes and his wife — ^busts of some old burgher and his fat spouse, quaint grotesques upon humanity, who for centuries have leaned out from the corner of a house above the narrow sidewalk to gaze down upon the passers-by. Suddenly we heard the queerest music. Could it be possible that in France somebody was skirling the pipes.'' A few moments later we reached the Cathedral again, breathless, and there in the open street the second wedding party was having a dance to the music of the hinious, native pipes. All the women were in costume, the bride in a soft green, brocaded silk, her orange-blossom strings fly- ing; the others in somber black broadcloth banded with velvet, but relieved by aprons of richly embroid- ered silks. The gaunt pipers wore rusty shovel hats with huge buckles, and "homeward-bound" velvet strings flopping behind, loose jumpers and dark breeches that did not conceal the bare ankles above [22,6] IN OLD BRITTANY their wooden shoes. They were just finishing as I arrived, and off down the street started the sonneurs. One and all followed, myself included. The pipes whistled and squealed, the children shouted, the wed- ding guests laughed and talked, windows opened at every step, the American with the camera was chaffed good-naturedly. On and on we went, now down a tiny alley, now along the water-front, past the silent ships at the docks, through the ancient gate and on up the hill, winding around to the street above the river, and stopping at last before the bride's home. Galudec and Recevrec began to pipe again, and once more everybody danced. The wife of an army officer who lived next door courteously offered me her window to stand in, so I could photograph down upon the dancers. It was a beautiful and spontaneous ex- pression of simple gaiety and happiness. The guests, young and old, clasped hands with the bride and groom and with each other, forming a huge circle, as if for ring-around-a-rosy. It reminded me strongly of the wonderful Sardanas of the Catalunians in Barcelona. Like the Sardanas, this is a folk dance ; the officer's wife told me it was believed to have had a Druidic origin, as a festival of public rejoicing. Later it came to be a hymeneal dance. After the dancing had put everybody out of breath, guests and pipers all filed into the house — I was invited, too — and a great clink of glasses and clatter of plates followed me on my way. I wonder still why I did not accept that hearty, simple invitation. [237] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA %^:J Of the megalithic monuments with which France V^' abounds, the great majority, and the most remark- able ones, are in Brittany. A number are near the little town of Locmariaquer, which in itself is well -"^C worth a visit. There is no railroad, but it is a pleasant trip by boat from Vannes, through the Gulf of the Morbihan — ^Little Sea — a great, land- locked harbor, eight miles long by fifteen wide, full of little islets, forty or fifty of which are inhabited. We went down one morning on the eight o'clock boat. At three we were slowly prowling our way back to the wharf, when the afternoon boat came in — it leaves at four. We were surprised to see quite a crowd land — we did not know there were sleeping accom- modations in town for so many. They rushed ashore, sng-pped up the boy guides, and when the whistle blew an hour later were all on board, safe but breathless. Had they seen the monuments? Indeed they had — well — not — quite all. Their satisfaction was as clear as their notion of what they had seen was vague. Monuments and town cover, I should say, about two square miles. To be sure, a menhir — even if it be a sixty-seven- foot fallen giant, in four pieces — a tumulus, and a few dolmens scattered over a barren moor, may not appeal especially to the casual traveler. To such I would recommend Carnac, five miles and a half away, and better reached from Auray. There the menhirs make more show, two thousand of them, stretching away in long, silent lines. [238] IN OLD BRITTANY France has no more fascinating old houses than at Locmariaquer, built of irregular stones, with thick, thatched roofs. Vines are trained up like trees over the doorway, and the thatch is cut away in neat archways over upper windows and doors. Pigs are housed, as well as their owners, and there seems little difference in the cleanliness of the two domiciles. We were anxious to examine a Breton interior, especially the bed, and we could see one through an open door. But the earthen floor was so covered with litter we hesitated to enter. Besides, I could not understand a word the housewife said, and her attitude was not inviting. Perhaps what she said was not so bad as it sounded — the Breton tongue is a harsh and primitive speech, very like Welsh in sound and appearance. In many parts of the province the visitor who speaks only French finds it difficult to make himself understood. Small as the town is, it has a very good twelfth century church. Much is being written about the Breton being more religious than his fellow coun- trymen. If pardons and pilgrimages mean religion — yes. Otherwise, we noted no perceptible differ- ence: no more people praying in the churches, no larger congregations. But the faith of the province — a prey to the Biscayne gales and the Channel storms — is sadder than the religion of more sheltered regions. For if the Bretons live by the harvest of the sea, what in its turn does the sea harvest? In this little church of Locmariaquer, as in many an- [239] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA other, day and night there stands a bier, waiting for what the sea may harvest. How could men who daily wait their turn upon it, and women who wait to see their loved ones there, have anything but a sad religion? Off the beaten track, to the north of Vannes, but well worth the trouble of finding, is the twelfth century chateau of Josselin, practically rebuilt in the seventeenth century. The present owner, the Due de Rohan, a descendant of the ancient and illustrious family of that name, graciously permits inspection by visitors. Kemper, in Breton, signifies to flow together; and the beautiful city of Quimper sits in a delightful valley at the confluence of the little rivers Odet and Steir. Its chief glory is its Cathedral, one of the finest Gothic edifices in Brittany ; and though its building extended over a period of almost three centuries, its architects had the common sense and taste to keep it to the original plans. Even the nine- teenth century spires are an intelligent reproduction of the Gothic. They are due to the townf oik's being willing to be taxed a sou a pound on all butter brought to market. The ground plan, though peculiar, is not unique. The choir leans considerably to the left, and the junction with the transepts is awkward. It is said this failure to make nave and choir parallel was deliberate — to show the bending of the head of Christ while in agony on the cross. [240] IN OLD BRITTANY In one room of the Quimper Museum of Archae- ology is an exceedingly instructive exhibit of the home life of the people — a farmhouse interior, said to be typical of the country. At one side is a massive peasant loom, for weaving the flax that mother spins by the fire while she rocks the cradle. In a high- backed settle sits mademoiselle with her fiance, while beside them her younger sister industriously churns and listens. Opposite, father smokes comfortably, perhaps thinking of bed. It is right before him, a carved closet aff'air, that shuts up as tight as any New York apartment. Every district outside the greater centers has its own peculiarities of costume, seen to best advantage at the great pardons, when the people troop in in vast crowds, in carts, on foot, by train and boat. The costumes are what bring most strangers to the rather dreary little town of Pont I'Abbe, at the ex- treme southwest corner of Finistere. Its people are a strange folk, called Bigoudens, believed to be the descendants of a race even farther back in the remote past than the Celts. Practically all the Bigouden women wear the higouden, a sort of woven-straw casque, with black ear-muffs, tied with a broad silk or lawn sash. That is as nearly as I can describe it. Even the children wear it ; the tinier and the fatter they are, the droller is their expression. The Breton pardon is theoretically a peni- tential service to which the people come to be par- [241 j FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA doned of their sins, and in parts of Brittany in the old days the pardons were for animals and fowls as well as for human beings. There is something inexpressibly touching about the devotion of these ignorant peasants, who often come from great dis- tances to take part in the ceremony. Their faith is more than half superstitious; their very observ- ance of the rites of the Church is tinctured with paganism. And it is the solemnity of the occasion that calls forth the exquisite costumes, many of them heirlooms of long-dead generations. The church cannot begin to accommodate the eager hundreds. They fill the square with their brilliant colors and quaint headdresses. Nor is there any lack of devotion. What woman, not utterly con- secrated for the moment, would think of dropping to her knees, in a dusty square, to pray before the multitude, with childlike frankness, often aloud, and without ever a thought of the rich and costly clothes she wears? Down in the dust they go, here one, there a group together, farther away a score or more. No sooner was I out of the crowd than a toothless female ragbag came whining up, demanding alms of me, for the third time in an hour. "I have given you money twice," I reminded her. "Then give again for the love of the Christ who is the patron of beg- gars," she answered promptly. Beggars are a fea- ture of the pardons all over Brittany, and their cry, "Pay the right of the poor!" is a demand, not [242] IN OLD BRITTANY a request. At the Pardon of the Sea, at La Palude, in fact they behave Hke extortioners ; but they may only beg thus on the day of the pardon — the next they have vanished as mysteriously as they appeared. The only httle Bigouden at the pardon who did not wear the complete bigouden — she only wore the coif — was a tiny baby. Papa explained that Yvonne really hadn't enough hair yet to make it practical. He was on the outskirts of the crowd, while his wife was in it, worshiping. Indeed, in all that con- course of worshipers I did not count more than half a dozen men ; the majority of the devotees were girls, from babies to well-grown young women who were ready to be married. A side issue of the pardon is a marriage mart. Those girls who wish to find husbands remain out of the crowd, and line up against the fence of the churchyard, to be inspected by whatever swain may be of like mind. Had three German gentlemen, who also leaned against the fence, known why the male Bigouden s laughed at them, they would probably have beaten a speedy retreat. The harvest of the sea is the main support of Brittany — sardines along the shore, and the larger fish on the Banks and as far away even as Iceland. It is more than a mere prosperous industry — it is the Breton's reason for being, and three-quarters of the sailors in the French navy to-day are Bretons who have served their apprenticeship in that stern and dangerous calling. The odorous, prosperous town of Douarnenez, out almost at the end of Brit- [ 243 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA tany, is one of the principal homes of the "toilers of the sea," and carries off first honors for its sar- dine fisheries. When the majority of the fleet lies here at anchor, its dark-brown hulls and blue nets contrasting with the shining sea, the spectacle is well worth going far to behold. Throughout France, especially in Brittany, are many simple crosses by the wayside, of wood or iron or stone, where the peasants or fisher folk invoke their God. There are also elaborate calvaries, one of the most noted in the churchyard of the little village of Plougastel. The calvary dates from 160^, and there is nothing more curious in the province. The Christ is shown crucified in the center, the two thieves on smaller crosses, and the easily recognized small figures on the extra arms of the cross and upon the pedestal are those of persons connected with the Passion. The frieze around the upper sec- tion represents the Last Supper, the washing of feet, the flight into Egypt, and so on. The ragged north coast of Brittany is a long series of bays and little capes, with islands like defensive outposts just off shore, and beside being delightfully scenic, is especially rich historically. The town of St. Brieuc has seen its share of fighting, and the austere fa9ade of the Cathedral has the effect of a medieval stronghold. Indeed, it was twice used as a fortress — once when Constable de Clisson was be- sieged in it, again when he was the besieger. The most noticeable thing about its interior is its lack [244] IN OLD BRITTANY of care. Sacristans seem to have lost interest in sacred buildings since they have ceased to be the property of the Church. The clergy before the Separation may not have made their temple a den of thieves, but they did allow a common groggery to be built right on the Cathedral walls between the buttresses much like an exterior chapel. And as if that sacrilege were not enough in itself, the proprietor of the wine- shop has decorated his walls with so-called sacred pictures and portraits of ecclesiastical dignitaries, to give the place a specious air of righteousness. It is the same story down one whole side: shops, shops, shops, all fast to the wall. Beside the apse the Widow Tourmel conducts an intelligence office and general millinery and dry-goods shop, built in such a way as to cover almost completely one of the fine stained glass windows. From personal observation, I should say that the cattle markets of all France are not so much a necessity as a social function. Buyers and sellers are as gossipy as a sewing circle, men even more so than women. There is not the same opportunity for sociability at the pig markets — women are largely in the majority there; at least they were in St. Brieuc. They tuck their purchases under their arms and go calmly off, seemingly unconscious of what a noise they are making in the world. You can hear each particular pig long after his buyer is lost to view. [245] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA A narrow-gauge steam tram rattles alarmingly aver a lofty, twisting viaduct and down a valley from St. Brieuc to its tidal harbor at La Legue, on the little river Gouet. A small hotel stands on a point high above the station, and* as we stepped from the train at Sous-le-Tour the veranda and yard automatically, or so it seemed, filled with men and maids of various sizes and descriptions. One or two started toward the station. After taking a look at the view, we turned and walked unhurriedly back down the track. When we looked again at the hotel not a living thing was in sight. We wondered what they said. As for the town itself, we were disappointed to find, instead of quaint old houses full of the at- mosphere of the sea, excellent stone structures built wall to wall. But we were repaid for our trip when an ancient dame invited us into her home. The inte- rior was typically Breton. We descended a step to a bare earthen floor. Straight ahead was a huge fireplace, full of pots and cranes; to our left, one window and two small tables ; and the right side was taken up by two great Breton beds. The bed is nothing but a closet, big enough to crawl into, mounted upon a linen-locker. The upper berth of an old-fashioned Pullman is the nearest comparison to it I can make. Once inside, you pull to the cur- tains, or sliding wooden doors, and go to suffocation. At least, that is the way it appeals to any one who likes fresh air. [246] IN OLD BRITTANY From St. Brieuc, the way eastward is through a verdant land of farms and gardens, until you reach the garrison town of St. Malo, which stands on a granite island, now connected with the mainland by a causeway. Its massive walls rise so high you have to climb to the third floor of any sort of building to see over them ; the streets are narrow and black and tortuous ; the air seems never to circulate through them, and it is easy here to conjure up the romantic past. The Malouins have always been a seafaring folk, bold and successful traders in peace and dash- ing privateers in war. Jacques Cartier, the discov- erer of Canada, was born here. So was the pirate Duguay-Trouin, afterward the famous admiral ; the other pirate Surcouf, Mahe de la Bourdonnais, and many another. Unfortunately, the little city is as dirty and slimy and damp as its history is exciting. One glimpse of the street-cleaning department tells why — it seems to be a suffragette organization entirely. The only street-cleaners we saw were women with wheelbar- rows, who can scarcely be physically strong enough to give these absolutely filthy streets the drastic cleaning they need. Indeed, such frank disregard of \ the principles of cleanliness in a country that claims ; to be civilized is unparalleled in our experience. St. \ Malo's odor is something that can neither be ignored nor forgotten. i The town's most pleasant feature is the massive wall that has guarded it so long against man and [247] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA sea, and a tour of the ramparts affords a succession of pictures not soon forgotten: the queer, black, crowded together little city itself huddling inside; ^the neighbor- town of St. Servan; the bay full of fortified islets, on the largest of which, Grand Bey, Chateaubriand sleeps ; the favorite English bathing resort of Dinard, on the little cape opposite, a mod- ern, costly, stylish place, with a spacious beach and dehghtful surroundings, reached by the electric vedettes that skip over the glinting water like so many sea-spiders. And if, on the seaward side of town, you gaze straight down the wall, you appre- ciate, as never before, what high tides mean — from twenty to thirty feet normally, and at the full of the spring tide forty-nine feet! Until 1770, St. Malo was protected by fierce mas- tiffs, who might still have been the city's policemen had they not fallen into the reprehensible habit of ^'biting the calves of gentlemen." Not the least amusing part of the story is that when the watch- dogs were suppressed the town had to adopt a new coat-of-arms — it had been a silver shield bearing a red dog. Not even Mark Twain himself could have conceived a more astonishing insignia, nor a more ludicrous collapse of its oflScial dignity. [248] XXI THE NORMAN COUNTET THOSE rollicking pirates, the Northmen, first spread terror along the northern coasts of France in a series of dashing raids in the ninth century, sacking, burning and destroying. The Franks hated and feared them so that in 861 they gave Woland, the sea king, five thousand livres of silver to drive his turbulent fellow countrymen out of the Seine valley. They, in turn, offered him more to let them alone, and Woland, being a thrifty soul, accepted both gifts, and sailed cheerily off with his double fee. Can this have been the origin of graft in France.'^ Finally, in 911, King Charles the Simple, one of the degenerate Carlovingians, allowed the Northmen to settle permanently along the lower Seine, with Rouen as their capital, on condition that they become Christians and acknowledge the supremacy of the King of France. They did what was required of them in amusing fashion, and rebuilt the churches and mponasteries they had burned. Their leader, Rollo, became the founder of a long line of rulers, Dukes of Normandy, and their province the most prosperous portion of France. [249] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA The Norman of to-day is a pleasant, manly fellow, proud of the great mother, France, though it is of Normandy that he speaks most lovingly. He thinks of the province as M. Jules Janin has written of it: "Normandie, land blest of heaven. Land rich in old ruins, in fresh landscapes ; equally dear to the historian and to the painter, never can it be too much celebrated. At every step, in both past and present, you encounter a grand monument or a grand man." When we think of Normandy, however, neither the grand monuments nor the grand men come first to mind. Instead, we see peaceful blossoming or fruit-laden apple orchards, broad fields glowing with billowing grain, acre upon acre of perfectly tilled and richly productive land ; fertile hill and vale full of soft-eyed kine, gemmed with magnificent forests, veined with pellucid streams. Cider, produced by these apple orchards so lovely in spring, is the chief drink of the province, and has been for centuries — witness the fifteenth century Apology of Cider, ac- credited to Olivier Basselin. Rollo's most illustrious descendant was William the Conqueror, seventh duke of his line. Illegitimate, early an orphan, and heir to a duchy which took hard fighting to hold, young William was reared in an atmosphere of combat and conquest that brought out all the sterner qualities, and fitted him well for the conquering and kingship of England in 1066. The city of Caen was especially beloved of the great [250] THE NORMAN COUNTRY duke, and it was there that he and his duchess built their penitential abbeys — the price they paid for breaking the ecclesiastical law by marrying within the forbidden degrees of relationship. Though many changes have been made since its dedication, William's monastic church of St. Etienne still shows its bold and simple Romanesque design, depending rather upon mass than detail for its effect, the very kind of sanctuary we might expect to find planned by the Conqueror. His burial here was marked by astonishing scenes that verged close upon both tragedy and farce. After that his bones rested in peace for almost five hundred years, when they were rudely scattered by a Calvinistic mob, and again by the revolutionists in 1793. It is said that a thigh- bone is all that remains in his tomb to-day. The Protestants also demolished stained glass, destroyed the spire of the central tower, and left the choir in such a condition that it was saved with diflScultv. During the religious wars of the sixteenth century there seems to have been httle to choose between the two factions — each persecuted and destroyed whenever strong enough, or opportunity permitted. Like St. Etienne, the Duchess Matilda's conventual church of St. Trinite is a splendid and satisfying example of the vaulted basilica with piers, though it is both more delicate in conception and far richer in execution. This Duchess was beautiful, virtuous and accomplished, yet the Calvinists did not spare her bones, but scattered them right and left, destroy- [251] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA ing her tomb. The revolutionists were more cour- teous ; they, in turn, destroyed the rebuilt tomb, but they did not disturb the bones. Some of the streets of Caen are veritable museums of medieval architecture, so far as the houses are concerned, and the number of interesting churches is remarkable. The church of St. Pierre, a com- posite structure of three centuries, is none the less a fine piece of Gothic, crowned with a wonderful fourteenth century spire, a triumph of architectural skill, which rises 246 feet above the busy street. Simply a shell of masonry sixteen centimeters thick, unsupported from within, it has withstood the wind and wear of seven centuries, and even a bombard- ment. The beautiful Renaissance apse, added in 1521 by Hector Sohier, a native of Caen, is one of the richest and most tasteful examples of the period. The flower market of Caen, on the principal street in the commercial center of the city, adds greatly to the pleasure of an early morning walk with its fragrance and brilliant color masses. It was here that I made the acquaintance of a lady with a vege- table cart and a draft-dog. Marie-Claire she called herself. She may have been ; or she may very well have had a copy of Marie-Claire stowed away among her vegetables, to read when business was slack. Our pleasant conversation was interrupted by her hurling terrifying anathemas after an impudent street arab who snatched at a cabbage as he went by. [252] THE NORMAN COUNTRY Away up on the hill back of the town proper, in the Street-of-the-Powder-Magazine, a long, blank wall, with an insignificant door, conceals the old Protestant Cemetery. In one of its quiet, flow- ering byways, over a grass-grown, forgotten grave, stands a marble slab inscribed simply : "In the memory of George Brummel, Esq." The idol of English men of fashion and the bosom friend of the Prince of Wales during the early years of the last century, Beau Brummel was not a mere fop. Lord Byron said of him that there was nothing notable about his dress except "a certain exquisite propriety." He had the power of repartee to a remarkable degree, also. But the Beau's popularity waned after a quarrel with the Prince. He fled to France to escape his creditors, was made British consul at Caen, and after a long series of misadven- tures died a pauper in the charity hospital. There are three ways to enter or to leave Caen: the flowing road, the prosaic railway, the river of a thousand delights. I have tried all three. Each has its advantages and its correlative disadvantages. One would naturally think the automobile the best; but the rate at which most motorists travel does not give as much opportunity for studying the people, or for photography, as the little local trains. Along the roads you find many houses literally made of mud; yet even these have a palpable air of pros- perity, for Normandy is a thrifty, prosperous prov- ince. Many of the wayside scenes between Caen [253 1 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA and Cherbourg have quite an English air. You might even take some of the farmers themselves to be Englishmen, until they say "Bon jour, m'sieuT* Another of the Conqueror's cities is sleepy old ^ Bayeux, whose aspect at every turn is of placid age and dignity. Set in "green pastures beside still waters," it clings about its noble Cathedral as the little lambs gather about their stalwart shepherd. Along with the memory of William, Bayeux calls up ;..>\ the story of his brother Odo, the greatest of the bishops of a day when the ecclesiastic handled mace as well as crozier. We see Odo in many lights : now in armor, fighting fiercely beside William ; now with him in England, made Earl of Kent, ruling there temporarily, in Normandy spiritually ; but always leaving his contemporaries far behind in the race for power and reward. Though the present Cathedral is a composite of Romanesque, Gothic and flamboyant, it appeals to me as one of the most beautiful and symmetrical of the French cathedrals ; not so large as to stupefy, not so elaborate as to confound the beholder, but generously proportioned, with fine lines and boldly tapering spires. The interior is notable because of its dignity, harmony, and splendid carving: diaper- ing of many patterns, trefoil-headed arcades, a hun- dred other elegant details ; and in the choir, rich stalls and magnificent sedilia. Bayeux's chief claim to fame, however, lies not in the Cathedral, but in the so-called "Bayeux Tap- [ 254 ] THE NORMAN COUNTRY estry," a historic monument of the first rank. The "Tapestry" is not tapestry at all, as we know the word, but a seamless strip of plain linen, 230 feet long by 20 inches wide, embroidered with crewel in eight colors. It relates the story of the conquest of England in seventy-two vivid scenes, many of them explained by equally graphic Latin inscriptions. Tradition would have us believe that the Duchess Matilda worked it with her own hands, but it seems more likely that it was made for Bishop Odo, and intended to decorate the nave of the cathedral on state occasions. When Napoleon dreamed of Eng- lish conquest and empire in 1803, he had the "Tap- estry" exhibited in the Louvre at Paris, and on the stages of the provincial theaters to inflame popular sentiment and make the people eager to invade "per- fidious Albion." We know what a melancholy fizzle that "invasion" proved. Since Napoleon's time the "Tapestry" has reposed safely in the Bayeux Museum. The western part of Normandy, called the Coten- tin, thrusts out into the Channel, its literal jumping- off place, Cherbourg, where most of the great Hners/a^v*^ call. Sooner or later, if you land there often enough, you will come in of a misty, sunny morning at day- light, when the water is burnished copper, the drying sails golden parchment, and the quaint old houses by the docks agate and carnelian. Then you will be glad of Cherbourg. The Cotentin Peninsula played an important part in the successive wars with [255 1 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA England, and later distinguished itself for hard fight- ing in the religious wars, especially about Coutances and St. Lo. The west fa9ade of the great church of Notre Dame at St. Lo, once the Cathedral, gives ample evi- dence of the frenzied joy of the Huguenot m mu- tilating wonders of past days which he could not duplicate. As a whole, the church is disappointing, both inside and out, because of its structural pecu- liarities, though it has a charming little exterior stone pulpit, with a delicate stone canopy to give shelter alike from sun and rain. It is easy to see why St. Lo is a joy to artists — the frowning cliff whence it looks down the pretty little river Vire, the old houses, the steep streets, the delightful walks in every direc- tion through the verdant countryside. St. Lo's neighbor, Coutances, was also shuttle- cocked back and forth between French and English, and sacked, battered, and even burned three or four times by the Huguenots. It stands upon a hill that rises gently from the plain, and against the cool Norman sky its arrowy spires etch their slender bodies as sharply as with acid; while below, the shapes of trees and houses blend in a harmonious tone-picture of gray and green. Besides its beau- tiful Gothic Cathedral, it has two other attractive churches, St. Pierre and St. Nicolas, and some very unusual houses like miniature castles, massive and secret, with strong archways and slender stair-towers. On down the west coast of Normandy we come to [256] THE NORMAN COUNTRY _Avranches, one of the oldest towns in the province. From its height you can look across the bay to that great abbey-fortress of Mont St. Michel, crowning a towering mass of granite, with houses clinging, limpet-fashion, below. It is one of the most remark- able sights in the world. The town originated with peasants who fled before the raiding Northmen and took shelter under the wing of the monks. The rock would be as barren as Gibraltar, but that the Gulf Stream helps it support vegetable life fairly well; and in little terrace gardens flowers bloom brightly against a background of fig, pine, cherry and cedar trees of considerable size. There are said to be over two hundred inhabitants, who live upon the visitors. No sooner do you step within the gates than they swarm about you in a bedlam that might have leaped out of a Cairene bazaar, snarling, quarreling, thrusting themselves in your way and their trash in your hands, until you literally thrust them all aside and bolt up the one real street, the Grande Rue. Perhaps they mean you a kindness, thinking that if you buy their wares — postcards, spoons, models, and no one knows what other souvenirs — you will be saved the leg-strain of the five hundred and more steps you must climb to reach the top. The fortifications date mostly from the fifteenth century, and are so constructed as to take every possible advantage of the natural rock. "The build- ings made by the abbots at this time" — the Middle [257] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Ages — "are the index of their civil status; being feudal lords, they behaved as such," says VioUet- le-Duc. The entrance is through twin portals, the Boulevard Gate and the King's Gate, where the rusted teeth of the iron portcullis still project a few inches below the edge of the arch. The Grande Rue, with its trashy shops, curves from the gateway up to the abbey, ending in flights of steps leading to the portals of the fortress. Inside, we are imprisoned, with other rash inva- ders, in the huge guard-hall until there are enough to be herded in one great, straggling drove. On and up we go, until, having mounted our five hun- dred steps, we come out on a great platform where stands the abbey church, restored out of all recogni- tion. "Restoration" is a word very dear to the French architect of to-day. From the platform, seaward you look out over bare sands or gleaming bay, according to the tide; while landward, Nor- mandy and Brittany stretch in verdant plains as far as the eye can reach; and straight overhead, at the peak of the spire, St. Michael floats in his proper place in the heavens. It would take an entire book to describe all the diff'erent structures that carry on the rough, natural pyramid of the rock into what a French critic has called a paradox of architecture — building in the air and burrow in the rock, cloisters and cellars, dining-rooms and almonry, crypts and chapter hall, promenades and sleeping-rooms, gar- dens and fortress-like entrances. [258] THE NORMAN COUNTRY The north side of the rock is almost wholly cov- ered by the great, three-storied pile called the Marvel, and truly marvelous is the construction. From the church we enter the cloisters, a masterpiece of the thirteenth century, with beautiful little shafts of polished granite, most of them pink. The carving is all in Caen stone, the sculptures themselves of infinite delicacy and countless variety : roses, parts of figures, inscriptions, and here and there a monk picking grapes in a vineyard. In olden times the central court was a flower garden. Now it is paved with asphalt, to protect the Chevaliers' Hall directly below, a magnificent specimen of thirteenth century architecture, with pointed vaults and a triple row of columns, two supported by enormous pillars in the crypt below, the other by the solid rock. Its name comes from the initiation in it by Louis XI, in 1469, of the Order of the Chevaliers of St. Michael. Down among the crypts and cellars of the sub- structures is the charmer, or burying-ground, in which the deceased monks were interred in quicklime ; also the black and appalling dens grouped under the name of prisons. In the town, the little parish church of St. Pierre illustrates the restrictions of space on this rocky pin- nacle. Part of it is built out over the main street, and part of it cut out of the natural rock, left rough and unshaped as when it was created. The hatch- ments or arms blazoned on the walls and ceiling are those of a hundred and nineteen of the nobles [259] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA of the Order of St. Michael who defended the rock against the English, according to the story the parish priest told me. They give the little interior more the air of a manor hall than of a church. The fortress-like character of the abbey and town is nowhere better seen than from the ramparts. The massive bulk of the chatelet, or entrance to the abbey precincts, lofty and frowning, throws the elegant, flamboyant apse and fleche into strong contrast against the dull sky, that seems to hang directly over the gilded copper statue of St. Michael. How strange that this spot was once a mere bald outcrop of granite in a forest by the sea! Stranger yet that the abbey should have been founded by the intervention of the Archangel Michael himself ! The story goes that Bishop Aubert of Avranches was twice told in visions to build here, but neglected to fulfill the command. The third time the Archangel came he put his finger upon the bishop's head — and burned a hole clean through miter and hair and bone. Then the bishop built as fast as he could. Such a visitation inspired him to speed and good works, and eventually the abbey became a testimony to the faith of men. To this day the pierced skull is to be seen in Avranches, that he who scoffs may behold. [260] XXII ROUEN WHO would go roaring over a dusty road "upon" his car, as the French say, when he can glide along emerald pathways at a seemly pace and enjoy the living pictures that unroll ahead without dust or jar? Nothing could be more delightful than the boat trip from Caen to Havre. At first the channel is so narrow and sharp-cornered that boats have to back out, and I have never seen prettier handling of a craft under any circumstances. The least hesitation would have rammed us into a steel side or, worse yet, into the stone abutment of one of the many little bridges we passed after we swung around and headed toward the sea. At the first of these bridges a very small boy on a bicycle rode out so close to the edge it looked as if he intended to take the leap on his wheel. Instead, he began an animated conversation with a young girl, and, as we steamed on, mounted again and rode along the towpath for some time, still talking to her in fast staccato. Words were indistinguishable for the chatter on deck. Perhaps Maman had sent final in- [ 261 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA , structions for daughter's behavior in the gay city of Le Havre. How hke the long reaches of the Suez Canal: the narrow channel, the vessels passing so close you can toss a biscuit from one to another. But there is no desert; instead, graceful lines of trees, between whose slender trunks glimmer entrancing paysages — warm-colored houses, nestling in the green of orchards; cattle grazing; an automobile tearing a furrow through the background it hides in dust- clouds. From Caen to Le Havre the pictures are all small ; but from Le Havre to Rouen, along the Seine, the canvases are big, and the river bank fairly bristles with memories of the past: quaint little Honfleur, the grim castle of Tancarville, the spire of Caudebec, and Jumieges, a shimmering ghost of an abbey. Twisting and winding like a snake, the river at last reaches the one-time capital of the Northmen, for more than twelve hundred years a great commercial center, and now the point where deep-water vessels discharge their cargoes into smaller craft for trans- portation by river and canal to inland cities. It is well to come in by river, for if you come by train you burrow under the hills that guard Rouen like walls, and emerge in a smoky station over in one corner of the town that gives no idea whatever of the city as it really is. Much better the wide wharves, with their cheerful cafes. As we stepped ashore upon the gleaming quay, fresh washed by the rain and '- ' - [262] ROUEN now flashing in the afternoon sunshine, Rouen seemed a city of jasper paved with gold. Even the shabby old barouche, for which we bargained with true Gallic ferocity and shrewdness, took on unwonted chic and gaiety, and rumbled us over the cobbles of the broad water-front into a city so full of charm, so instinct with life, that even its meanest and dullest streets filled us with enthusiasm and eagerness. A thousand figures of the past came crowding up before us ; names unnumbered called to mind great deeds and great infamies. Here Joan of Arc met her cruel ,fate; here loving hands reared the towering Cathe- dral ; here Georges of Amboise ruled, and was buried and commemorated ; and here, in a bleak little street, we found ourselves at home in a wonderful, age-old hotel, full of kindness and surprises. And yet, despite all this, Rouen is a material, thriving, mod- ern center, devoted to cotton-spinning and weaving and the manufacture of handkerchiefs. How utterly trivial that seems, compared with the making of his- tory and great stone monuments for posterity to wonder at ! There is a page in one of my French notebooks headed, "Pleasant Reflections on P. O." They were not quite so pleasant the day I reflected them. It so chanced that some one sent me a registered pack- age, and as I had no passport or other means of official identification, the same postal clerk who for days had been giving me regular mail refused me [263] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA with the decision of a time-lock on a bank vault. "Two witnesses, or the consul's certificate," he in- sisted, after I had attempted subterfuge. Back to the hotel I plodded for "witnesses of identity," and M, le Proprietaire solemnly assured me that he would go, and it would be all right. "Attendez-peu, s' plait y" he said — "Just a minute, please." Half an hour later, when he had finished washing the breakfast dishes-^I sat in a delightful little court, where I could see straight into the kitchen — cleaning the sink, feeding his canary and cleaning its cage, getting the vegetables ready for dinner, and doing sundry other odd jobs about the place, he lumbered out, beaming, shouted to his daughter for "rrwn carnef — my tag — and struggling into his coat, we were off as fast as his 350 pounds of rheumatism could waddle. At the corner he said smilingly: " 'Tendez-ici. J' cherche Vautre temoin; laT' and vanished into a confectioner's. Followed another delay, during which I stood on the comer and saw a man on a bicycle deliberately turn out of his way to run over a small dog. Then came Monsieur, and with him one in carpet slippers and long blue apron, lacking collar and hat. Sol- emnly we bowed to each other and marched on again toward the Post Office. Confidently I approached the brusque clerk. "Be- hold my excellent witnesses, monsieur — two gentlemen of Rouen. Give me my package, please." [264] ROUEN Severely he scrutinized them. "Have you your licenses, gentlemen?" '*Oui! oui! out!" they chorused, and presented voters' cards, entitling them to wear their heads and be out after eight o'clock at night unattended. Monsieur le Clerc studied the cards gravely, then the men who presented them. Then he nodded judi- cially. Two minutes later it was all over. Outside, we all shook hands and bowed and parted with mutual expressions of endearment and esteem. The resistless demands of modem life and com- merce have cut the patchwork-like old city into bits with broad, straight boulevards, run tramcars along streets where their presence seems desecration — and mightily convenient at times — and built uninterest- ing, straight fa9ades in exchange for beauty and fascination. Of course, the city had to be made sanitary. But why should the modernizer be either a vandal or an ignoramus.'' A few streets are still a joy to the eye: the rue St. Romain, to the north of the Cathedral, for instance, with its curious, over- hanging house-fronts — the one with the heads of the bishops carved upon its corbels, and its opposite neighbor, called the Joan of Arc house. Probably she saw it when she was here. In the very heart of Rouen, the Grosse Horloge spans one of the busiest streets ; and the great bell- tower, with a toylike curiosity-shop and a mediocre fountain, stands beside it. The clock frame appro- priately conveys the idea of passing time: the flam- [2651 FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA ing sun, the fleecy clouds. Above and below, the Agnus Dei, part of the city's arms, steps forward, one patte raised, as much a wanderer as his fellow Northmen. The bell-tower is one of the many simi- lar tokens in France of the people's civic rights, and since 1150, when the great bell Rouvel was first hung in it, the belfry's story has been the tale of the con- tinual resistance of the masses to the encroachments of their kings. Not one stone remains upon another to tell of the wild days of Merovingian rule, nor yet of the later Carlovingian times, though Charlemagne thought so well of the city that he left its cathedral a valuable legacy in his will. Almost nothing is there of even the Norman period, though those baptized pirates rebuilt much of what they had previously destroyed. Almost all of interest is of the French Renaissance, except the great churches; but what a revelation they are in themselves ! No meaningless masses of stone and mortar these, but the living voice of the age that built them. Ages, in the Cathedral's case; for here is no such consecu- tive work as in Amiens, but a mingling of styles, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. And since each architect expressed his age, without regard to what went before, the result might be called an architectural progression, scarcely happy in effect. Add to this the mutilations by the Calvinists and the heavy hand of the restorer, and the fa9ade is a keen disappointment as a whole because of its jumbled [266] ROUEN and unfinished or mutilated designs ; but the central portal, with its leaping, flame-like gable, stands out a jewel, perfect and satisfying. The beautiful Gothic Butter Tower is said to have been largely built with money the people paid for dispensations to eat butter in Lent. Inside, no great rood-screen obstructs the view; instead, an unbroken vista stretches away 446 feet to the stilted arches of the apse, through which may be seen the distant east windows of the Lady Chapel. Though the nave is 92 feet high, the effect of this height is lost by the peculiar method of arcading, the imposing upon the main arches of short duplicates of themselves. Many illustrious dead have found a resting-place within the Cathedral walls ; and the heart of the Lion-Hearted Richard of England is here. The great tombs are in the locked Lady Chapel, and you are allowed to cool your heels outside its bars until a pompous flunkey with a club — he calls himself Le Suisse^ and his club a b at on- d' office — con- descends to hustle you around in groups, mouthing the patter that few hear and none heed, and pocketing what he can. Why does not the great Republic charge an entrance fee, post proper guards, and leave the visitor to examine the monument at leisure? The elaborate mausoleum of the two Cardinals Georges d'Amboise is a regal structure, like a can- opied altar, characterized by a curious mixture of Renaissance details and medieval arrangement. Within, the two cardinals kneel upon the pediment, [267] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA and in the features of Georges I, on the right, it is easy to read the strong yet wise and merciful personality which so impressed itself upon everything he touched. The premier of Louis XII, and often called the French Wolsey, he was not only the great- est archbishop Rouen ever had, but a prelate whose blessings took a grand material as well as spiritual form. His nephew, Georges II, though not so great, was also a prudent and righteous churchman. Another famous tomb is that of the Due de Breze, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, who died in 1531. It was built by Diane de Poitiers, his widow, who boasts in the inscription of her fidelity to him while alive, and promises its continuance after his death. In* her widow's weeds she kneels at the head of his nude body, which, contorted as though death had come suddenly or painfully, reclines on a marble slab. Legend would have us believe that, like many other cities, Rouen suffered from a man-eating dragon which lived in the nearby swamps. Upon the cen- tral trunk of the north transept door, a marvel of carving of the high tide of the Gothic, St. Romain, the patron of the city, leads the captured monster prisoner with his episcopal stole, symbolizing the overthrow of paganism and its vices by Christianity. The legend grew, out of the ancient ceremony, the "Privilege of St. Romain." This was the pardon and release of some condemned criminal by the Cathe- dral Chapter each Ascension Day ; and there are records of numerous quarrels between the civil and [268] ROUEN the religious authorities over its exercise. At first the ceremony was held in the chapel of the* Norman dukes' old castle. When that gave way to the great market halls and the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, or Square of the Old High Tower, a chapel was erected on the same spot for the same purpose. This peculiar, open-air chapel of the Fierte St. Romain was built about 1542, and here, in full view of the multitude, the prisoner celebrated his pardon by thrice elevating the reliquary of the saint. Between the square and the Cathedral runs the dark rue de I'Epicerie, or Street-of-the-Groceries, where on market days you must go circumspectly. Fortunately for eyes and noses alike the street soon opens into the Place de la Calende, where, right un- der the walls of the Cathedral, a simply dazzhng flower market fills the air with all the color and per- fume of Nature's choicest offerings. And directly on the other side of the Cathedral is the most bewitch- ing spot in the whole city,, the little Cour d'Albane, which must be seen to be appreciated. Second of Rouen's treasures is St. Ouen, the most beautiful and perfect of all the abbey churches of France. The west front shows what restoration can do at its worst. The ancient fa9ade, a noble, unfin- ished, concave structure, was ruthlessly torn down in the nineteenth century, and the present flat, badly proportioned one took its place. The view from the southeast of the side and apse, however, is very lovely, even if it is of the wrong side, with chapels, [269I FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA choir and lantern piled symmetrically one above the other. The lantern, so much admired and called the Crown of Normandy, is a mere ornamental es- crescence, having no part in the Gothic construc- tion of the edifice. The characteristics of the interior are its graceful height, the absence of any strongly marked horizontal divisions in either wall or pillar, and the extraordinarily brilHant effect given by the unusual number and size of the windows, even the triforium itself being backed by glass instead of stone. In the holy-water font, near the front door, one can see a remarkable reflection of practically the whole interior — vaulting, piers and windows. One afternoon I was studying this, too much occupied to notice anything else, when hang! A hungry verger clapped on a wooden cover. We looked at each other, but neither spoke. I knew what he wanted, but I had seen all I wanted. The same man had accosted me surlily the day before. "You can't take pictures here. This is not a public place." To my query, "What is it, then ?" he had nothing to say. Unfortunately, the third great shrine of Rouen, the parish church of St.. Maclou, is so hedged in by ugly utilitarian buildings that it is impossible to get an adequate view of it. The triumphant, flam- boyant fa9ade, a convex series of five great arches, rising in size and height toward the center, suggests a great, spreading, five-part porch, a design im- mensely more effective than the usual flat one. The [270] ROUEN rather heavy figures* on the celebrated doors were badly defaced by the Huguenots, and in 1793 the mob applauded a gutter child who hacked at the heads of the statues with an axe. How perfectly this shows the spirit of those times ! The effect of the interior, which ought to be as beautiful as the out- side, is completely ruined by furnishings which are in the worst possible taste. Only one gem has sur- vived destruction or extinction — the exquisite stair- case, lacework in carved stone, leading to the organ loft. Not far from the church Is one of the strangest of all the city's varied sights, the ancient cemetery called the Aitre St. Maclou, founded during the rav- ages of the black plague in 1348. It is a tiny place, a mere interior court, surrounded by moldy, sixteenth century buildings — ^with skeletons leaping wildly in the Danse Macabre, as they drag away unwilling victims, in an astonishing series of carvings all around the cloister-like enclosure. The children and the sisters of the charity school in the enclosing buildings pass blithely to and fro beneath them, quite unconscious of the contrast. For a little variety, after so much architecture, wander leisurely out through some of the less familiar quarters of the city, especially through the street Flaubert abused as an "Ignoble Little Venice," the / rue Eau-de-Robec. It is like Venice, yet it is wholly / French : a narrow, cobbled road on one side, a nar- rower stream of murderous-looking black water on [271] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the other, flanked by houses ranged as tight as sar- dines, and approached each by its Httle bridge. Some of the blocks are alive with fierce-looking little saiu- culotteSi who spring up from the barren cobbles, elf-like. Slatternly women, and slouchy men in baggy corduroys and undershirts, lean from win- dows or bridge-rails, before dwellings that charm by their grotesque beauty or repel by their grimy rot- tenness ; for you are in no elegant quarter here, but among the oldest and poorest homes in town, an outsider whom even the babies recognize, yet for whom, if spoken to, there is always a courteous word. Besides the three great churches there are enough others to make any ordinary city proud. St. Patrice and St. Vincent are especially noted for their stained glass. High up on a gargoyle of St. Vincent's apse a little salt-porter modestly reminds Rouen of the church's one-time royal privilege. In 1409, King Charles VI granted letters patent to St. Vin- cent's, permitting it to take toll of every cargo of salt that came into port. The river was very much nearer the church then than it is now, and the porter was placed where he could look off toward the busy port and watch for more salt. Many churches of this City of Steeples have been brutally converted to base uses — one, a wine-cellar, with a bottling machine where the holy-water font used to stand; another, St. Pierre-du-Chastel, a fine relic of the past, has been turned into a livery stable._ High on its strong and simple tower, the Sweet Singer [272] ROUEN of Israel gazes down over the changing city, his harp mute and idle at his side. Better far wipe out the unneeded churches altogether than treat them thus. St. Andre was thus swept out of the way of the broad new rue Jeanne d'Arc, one of the main arteries of the newer and greater city, with the exception of its tower, which looks queer and lonely in its little grass-plot. Set up against a blank wall, facing the tiny lawn, is a delicate and beautiful Renaissance fa9ade, which, fortunately, the city fathers had sense enough to save intact. No noble's palace this, but a simple tradesman's house from the busy Street-of-the-Clock. Clearly and artistically it tells us what sort of men these bourgeois traders were in the sixteenth century. We are fond of decrying our own architecture, or supposed lack of it; but what is the twentieth century Frenchman building? Our architectural past is the log hut, often flamboyant with blazing Indian arrows. From it we have developed size and dignity and other values ; but the Frenchman, notwithstand- ing his glorious models, is building monstrosities to- day that would be intolerable here, in spite of our lack of architectural tradition and our commercial spirit. The most magnificent building of its type any- where in Europe, the flamboyant Gothic Palace of Justice rises so huge and ornate and solemn that it imposes itself upon you as even larger and more grandiose than it is, if such a thing be possible. [273] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Cardinal Georges I d'AmboIse made it the home of the permanent Echiquier, or High Court of Nor- mandy ; and the Hall of Assizes, with its splendid cassetted ceiling, has been the scene of famous trials - — great personages have had seats upon its bench, or been haled before it. Not a few of the sentences it imposed seem to have had as their main purpose making the punishment fit the crime — hanging a murderer right before his victim's house, for instance. Wonderful houses are so numerous in Rouen it is not only impossible to describe but even to name them. Take a guide-book, and make your own selec- tion of a favorite. But the house which excels in beauty and historical interest is the Maison Bourg- theroulde, within whose court the buttressed Gothic walls are covered with purely Renaissance decorative carvings. To the left is the wing whose pictorial record is historically valuable as a contemporaneous transcript of the meeting between Henry VIII, "King of England and France," as he described himself, and Francis I. That useless and costly pageant was called, for its extravagance, "The Field of the Cloth of Gold" ; and the chroniclers declared that more than one of the French knights wore on his back the value of woodland and water-mill. To many, however, the most interesting building in Rouen is a restored round tower, all that is left of the Chateau de Rouen, built in 1205 by Philippe- Auguste. In it Joan of Arc was questioned, with instruments of torture and executioner's gear before [ 274 ] ROUEN her eyes. We will not linger over the hideous trag- edy. Suffice it that she was burned to death in the Old Market Place, May 80, 1431 — the spot is marked plainly in the pavement. The story seems incredible. The English attitude we can comprehend: they had captured a dangerous enemy. But the French — here was a king she had given his crown ; here a people she had made a nation. The recent beatifica- tion of the white, heroic soul that passed upward on wings of fire that May afternoon in the Old Market Place is tardy, paltry recompense for the crime of five hundred years ago. "Good and Glorious St. Joan of Arc" they label her now ! And high on the hill of Bon Secours they have reared a huge, ugly, triplicate monster in her honor. Why, with all the exquisite work of three great architectural periods to draw from, could France not have built a fitting shrine, one worthy to be an expiatory offering .^^ It is worth remembering that less than twenty years after the tragedy, the English, as Joan had prophesied, were all on their homeward way, except those who had left their bones. But though this was the last, it was not the first time they had been compelled to leave Rouen. Memories of the first time cluster around the little town of Petit-Andely, on up the winding river, and the ruins of Richard Coeur de Lion's magnificent Chateau Gaillard. Phil- ippe-Auguste raged over the building of the castle, and he might have continued to rage had not Richard [275] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA died. His weak and cowardly brother, John, failed to hold his vantage-point, which Philip captured in 1204«, paving the way for the expulsion of the English from the province. How they came back with the preposterous claim of Edward III in the Hundred Years' War, we have already seen. It is a long, steep climb up to the castle, which was built purely for strength, without one decorative line or feature. Its ruinous condition is due not to the many sieges it has withstood, but to its use, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, as a quarry by two religious orders of the neighborhood. For- tunately, they fell to quarreling over it. A down- pour drove us into the deep window embrasures, whence we watched the changing panorama below: broad, sweeping vistas, full of the glory of river and gracious fields. And as we sat there, looking out, now through storm, now through sunshine, we wondered if the medieval folk recognized the beauty of the scene. Scarcely — the men were watching for enemies, and the women, perchance, waited, heavy- hearted, with eyes too full of tears. The little town of Petit-Andely grew up on the river bank as the castle grew. Philippe-Auguste made short work of its defenses, and the people fled to the castle, only to be turned back as useless for fighting. Between the French on one side and the English on the other, the suflPerings of these helpless old men, women and children were too horrible to tell here. It is enough that half of them died before I 276] ROUEN Phillppe-Auguste gave them bread and passed them through his lines. At Petit-Andely, still tiny, we found another of those delightful little hotels run by a family. A fascinating boy who met us at the train quietly and politely told us of the charms of a tea-terrace above the river. We stood in the courtyard to bar- gain with kindly Madame, who held the kitchen door. The daughter who served us might have been an old-time princess, black-haired and wild-eyed and sternly lovely. Little Yvonne, who washed vegeta- bles at the fountain, was a fair-haired Norman of Normans. Monsieur was a viking himself, tall and brawny. Absent when we arrived, he was probably one of the inevitable fishermen scattered along the river bank. An outside stair led to our room, and when it rained we had to use our umbrellas to reach the dining-room. It was only a step through an archway from the courtyard to the river, where lay the boats for the use of which monsieur would take no pay. Floating out upon the great river below the castle to watch the sunset, we could not wonder at the mighty struggles of the past to hold this loveliest of provinces ; and we agreed with the Norman — "Normandie, land blessed of heaven. Land rich in old ruins, in fresh landscapes ; equally dear to the historian and to the painter, never can it be too much celebrated." XXIII HISTORIC PARIS TO the traveler who really wishes to know some- thing of France, the provinces and their people should be the solid foundation he lays, without haste or wasted effort, before coming to Paris ; for many who rush to the Siren of the Seine first are overmastered by her and lose all sense of proportion — they come to think that Paris is France. As for her frivolities and banalities, we, the traveling public, are to blame for all that ; and as soon as we get over the idea that it is "smart" to see or to be or to do things away from home that we would not see or be or do at home, so soon will Paris change her ways. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the city is her amazing vitality. No matter what has happened to her — streets full of the blood of her children, famine, oppression, war and desolation — she has bounded up after each calamity stronger than before, and magnificently optimistic. The city has been severely criticised for sameness, due to its "Haussmannizing" in the nineteenth cen- tury. It is true that broad streets have plowed through old cow-path highways, houses, everything in [278] HISTORIC PARIS their path, with the ruthlessness of cannon-shots. But that is a part of modern life. A great city has to breathe, has to have room to circulate, and the work was prophetic: every large city is coming to the same conclusion, and though much that is beau- tiful or artistic perishes under the pickaxe of prog- ress, there comes in exchange a municipal sanity and health that more than compensates for the loss. As for sameness, there is not another city on earth that has so widely and strongly varied an individual- ity in its different parts. Here is an elegant capital, with people of fashion and costly appurtenances ; there a backwater of revolutionary days, evil-smell- ing, black, dirty, picturesque as a grimoire. Now you find yourself in an Italian city of silent palaces, now in an electric-lighted boulevard, humming with pleasurers, and bubbling over with gaiety; now in a noisy, cheery, out-of-doors quarter that might have been plucked right out of the heart of the irresponsible south. Here is a great river, quick with darting shuttles, with ponderous tows, with all the varied activities one expects only in a prosperous seaport; and everywhere historic palaces and art galleries, vast open squares and brilliant, flowering parks. The most fascinating thing about the city is the river that cuts it in two and binds it to Rouen and the sea; that carries its pleasure and cargo boats, and helps to keep it fed and employed — incidentally keeping its fishermen busy, too, by every quay under [279] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the long lines of trees that shade both banks. Bridges cross it like the staff of a music score, sometimes only a block or two apart. Up and down each side and across the bridges rush pounding, two-storied trams, automobiles, omnibuses, flying cabs and hurrying crowds. The whole scene is unf orgetable — ^big, alive. Gray, green, brown, whatever color the river be by day, black by night, with long ripples and tremors of multi-colored lights, it is always lovely, but no- where more so than where the lies de Cite and de St. Louis rise from its busy surface like enchanted isles, fresh, verdant, inviting. It was on the lie de Cite that the primitive found- ers of Paris fixed, probably more as a matter of safety — the swirling stream moated it perfectly — than for its beauty. The Romans carried on the settlement into a city — ^Lutetia it was then ; and when Clovis returned from his victorious campaign against the Visigoths he made the city his official capital. The Frankish kings, however, never spent much time there. Wild men that they were, they preferred to stay in the safety of the open. Clovis made his residence the splendid palace where Rome had ruled, high on the hillside of the left bank above the Seine, with gardens that ran down the slope to the water's edge. The fragments of the baths that add so much to the spell of the Musee de Cluny's back yard are all that is left of it now. At that time Ste. Genevieve, now the patroness of the city, was alive and exercised a powerful influ- [ 280 ] HISTORIC PARIS ence over both Clovis and his Queen Clotilde. At her death they built a great basilica and monastery over her tomb on the hill, where they, too, were buried. These buildings were among the first of the monastic foundations, which now began to play so important a part in the life of France. Free schools were always attached to those great abbeys and also to the cathedrals ; and the Latin Quarter of to-day, with its baggy corduroy, floppy neckties and floppier morals, is the direct outgrowth of those early schools. As the fame of certain teachers grew, and students flocked to them in Paris from all over the world, the monastic schools were overcrowded, and individual teachers took rooms wherever they could get them — a majority grouped about Mt. Ste. Genevieve — ^to teach all who came. The university itself was the slow outgrowth of these loose and unofficial bodies. The Place St. Michel and the famous Boule'-Miche' beyond, are still the heart of the students' quarter. But neither in attire nor demeanor are the scholars so conspicuous as in the days of the first schools. Then they were ragged, hungry, impertinent, beg- ging tatterdemalions, living the life the poet Villon, himself student, bohemian, burglar and man-killer, so wonderfully describes. They recognized no au- thority save that of the Church; and they had fre- quent and often bloody fights with the town officials. Many of the students are desperately poor even yet, and a mighty convenience for penniless genius is the row of second-hand book-stalls that line the [281] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA river wall along the Quai Voltaire, near the booksell- ers' Street-of-the-Holy-Fathers. Wooden trays, with hinged lids covered with zinc, are most of the stalls, and bending above them day by day you find not only students, eager to pick up old text and refer- ence books for a few sous, but collectors, curiosity- seekers, foreigners "doing" the Quarter, and all manner of other folk, even to cabmen hunting for a pennyworth of blood-and-thunder to while away the unemployed hours. The stalls recall the fact that in olden times you could go up and down and to and fro through Paris without ever glimpsing the river, the houses were built so close to it; and not only were the houses set solidly along both banks of the fifteenth century Seine, but its five bridges were also^ lined in the same way, like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence to-day. Just to the east of the Place St. Michel is one of the very dingiest and most sordid districts in Old Paris, a perfect maze of tangled, filthy little streets, but absolutely fascinating. Here we find the little twelfth century reconstruction of one of the early monastic churches, St. Julien-le-Pauvre. Both tower and portal have been stripped away from the tiny edifice, yet that mutilation could not despoil it of its interior beauty. We wandered about in this loca- tion one morning, in a chilly drizzle not heavy enough to send us to our hotel, but disagreeable enough to drive the denizens of the Quarter indoors. The streets looked dreary and prosaic, and the few hurrying [282] HISTORIC PARIS pedestrians we passed seemed harmless and common- place in the extreme. We had just left St. Severin, and turned into a mean little alley, when two men suddenly reeled from a barroom, fighting. Quicker than I can tell it, the street was full of evil faces, men and women alike. They circled about the fight- ers, their hands very suggestively in their pockets, jeering and making horrible jokes. In these crea- tures, unwashed, uncombed, more beasts than human beings, we saw the spirit of the Revolution incarnate : all the evil passions barely beneath the surface, ready even yet at a spark to turn Paris into a shambles. Up the hill we come to one of the most beautiful mansions of the fifteenth century, the Paris resi- dence of the Abbots of Cluny, built on the site of the palace of the Romans. Fortunately, it was not swept away in the building orgies of following cen- turies, but still retains its original appearance almost unaltered, to testify to the beauty of native French domestic architecture, merely modified by the rising Renaissance. To-day it is a celebrated museum of medieval objects of art and products of industry. As the mixture of the different styles went on, the buildings of the transitional period often proved a strange medley. In the case of the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont, on this Mount of Ste. Genevieve, though the different styles are clearly visible, the general effect is good. The Revolutionary madness turned this venerated fane into a Temple of Filial Piety, and presented it to the Theophilanthropists — [283] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA whatever they may have been! Scattered about in this section are relics of the Abbey of Ste. Genevieve, of course not of the original construction, a transi- tional tower called the Tower of Clovis, a fragment of facade, a fine bit of refectory. The Sorbonne, the University of Paris,, dates from 1253, when Robert de Sorbon, the confessor of St. Louis, founded it as a sort of hostel for both poor students and teachers of theology. In its vast am- phitheater, which seats 3,500 persons — our American exchange professors go every year to lecture there on behalf of the American universities — is Pierre Puvis de Chavannes' great mural allegory. The Sacred Grove, one of the best decorative works of our times. Here Science and Letters are so poetically represented that they do not seem cold, scholastic allegories at all, but fitting divinities for the Elysian background that gives the great painting so much of its charm and power. In the olden times, people had to have sculptures because they could not read; nowadays they have to have their history in tabloid doses in great paintings or small moving pictures and the like, because they will not read. The church, which contains the beautiful tomb of Cardinal Richelieu, is crowned by a fine seventeenth century dome. Nobody seems to know to this day on entering the Pantheon — which rises commandingly over the site of the tomb of Ste. Genevieve, on the highest ground on this bank of the river — whether he is [284] HISTORIC PARIS in a pagan temple, a Christian church, or a hall of fame. Built as a church, dedicated to Ste. Gene- vieve, it was turned into a hall of fame, back into a church, again made a temple, reconsecrated as the sanctuary of the Saint, and, as somebody has well said, finally "taken away from God and given to Victor Hugo !" Of course, there are many illustri- ous dead entombed here beside Hugo — Mirabeau, Voltaire and Rousseau, among others. The tympa- num decorations, by David d' Angers, are illustrative rather than monumental art. Inside, Puvis de Cha- vannes is represented by his beautiful incidents in the life of Ste. Genevieve, ranging onward from her childhood, that contrasts ingenuously with her placid old age, in the gathering twilight. The pictures are saturated with humanity and instinct with spirit. The most delightful spot on this left bank is the Luxembourg Garden, the only Renaissance garden left in the entire city. The gem of this verdant setting is the splendid Medici fountain, by Salomon de Brosse, one of the ablest architects of his time, who also built the Palace of the Luxembourg — for Marie de' Medici, widow of Henry IV — modeled after the Pitti Palace, her ancestral home. After many vicissitudes, the palace is still useful as the Senate Chamber, and the former orangery has been trans- formed, in its turn, into the celebrated Luxembourg Museum of Modern Art, painting and sculpture. After an artist who is "hung" here has been dead ten year* his paintings are added to the Louvre [2S5] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA collection if they are worth while, and if not — out to the provinces with them. Though the Pantheon occupies the most command- ing position on the left bank, the building which is easily the most striking and conspicuous is the tremendous Hotel des Invalides, founded by Louis XIV. It is the oldest and most magnificent soldiers' home in the world, where seven thousand braves could be accommodated. When the handful now alive there are gone, no more will be received, and the whole vast pile will be, as most of it already is, only a military museum. What a setting for a dead man's throne! Up through the enormous, park-like Esplanade, that stretches away for more than a quarter of a milp toward the river, in. front of the imposing square fa9ade you go, and crossing through the Court of Honor, with everything prepared as a sol- emn approach, you stand at last under the gilded dome of the Invalides church, and look down into the circular open crypt upon the tomb of Napoleon. Five huge blocks of dull red Finnish porphyry com- pose the gigantic sarcophagus, massive enough for a Pharaoh. The pavement is a mosaic laurel wreath of victory, with memorable triumphs writ large upon it, while about the crypt stand great figures sym- bolic of the Emperor's greatest successes, and six trophies — sets of stained and tattered captured bat- tle-flags — stir the most sluggish blood. Yet even here, to the thoughtful, there may come Shakespeare's [ 286 1 HISTORIC PARIS ringing inquiry: "0 mighty Caesar, hast thou sunk so low? Are all thy triumphs, conquests, shrunk to this small measure?" About the middle of the third century, St. Denis and two of his disciples brought Christianity to Lutetia, and soon became its first martyrs. Legend says that St. Denis walked, carrying his head in his hands, from the hill of Montmartre to a spot in* the suburbs where he wished to be buried. Over his grave one of the great abbeys grew up. The church as we see it to-day is the result of many reconstructions, and is specially interesting since it determines accurately what one critic calls the natal hour and the birth place of the Gothi c^ though others claim that it is impossible to fix the origin of an architectural style by any single building. Almost all of the Capetian kings were buried in St. Denis, among them Louis XII and Francis I, in superb tombs as rich as jewel caskets. But if a suburb was the birthplace of the Gothic, the cramped little lie de Cite was its nursery, and the stupendous Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is the model and foster-mother of many more beautiful churches throughout the country. The general ef- fect it produces is heavy, but that is clearly because the Gothic in its infancy was still full of the robustiousness of the parent Romanesque. Notwith- standing this, the great structure is a classic. The sculptures of the fa9ade distinctly show the transi- [287 J FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA tion from the Romanesque to the Gothic, especially in the life and sentiment of the figures. The interior is disappointing to many people after the greater height and delicacy of some of its de- scendants. Yet one cannot help but be impressed by its general dignity and proportion. In 1793 this Temple of Christianity was turned into a Temple of Reason, a great mound thrown up in the choir, and a shrine built upon it, inscribed "To Philosophy." If you would see the orgies that desecrated the Cathedral during that period of insanity, read Car- lyle's vivid picture. David's song of the heathen who rage and the people who imagine vain things never had a stronger exposition than in this world- center of culture and refinement. And then, to make the sacrilege all the more ghastly, Robespierre him- self, some six months later, had the Cathedral turned into a Temple of the Supreme Being, to recognize, as he put it himself, "the consoling principle of the immortality of the soul." Long ago the tide of life in Paris flowed away from the cramped little He de Cite, and since the fifteenth century the Palace of Justice has occupied the site of the palace of Phillippe-Auguste, parts of the round towers alone remaining of his construc- tion. The interior has been systematically restored in modern times, and the two most impressive parts are the vast, vaulted Salle des Pas-Perdus, the former Grand Salle of the palace, and now the favorite meeting place of the lawyers and their clients before [288] HISTORIC PARIS and between court sessions ; and the Cour de Cassa- tion, the rich and handsome civil tribunal, most lav- ishly decorated of all the different chambers. Open- ing out of the great Pas-Perdus hall is the bloodiest room in the world, where the Revolutionary tribunal condemned so many to the guillotine — 2,742 all told, including Marie Antoinette, the pitiful widow of "Citizen Louis Capet." And down below is the grim old Conciergerie — a prison as full of interest and as rich in bitter memories as any in Europe — where the poor Queen spent those black months before her execution. On the whole broad page of France, that St. Louis illuminated so royally with churches, there is none so wondrous as that blazing rubric letter, the Sainte Chapelle, the chapel he built to enshrine the crown of thorns in his palace on the Cite. Surely, though it looks so fragile standing there in the palace en- closure, it has a charmed life, since it passed un- scathed through the Revolution and through several fires that well-nigh destroyed the palace. A pure gem of the purest and loftiest Gothic, it is as much apart from its encircling setting of massive masonry as the diamond is apart from its enclosing gold. It is built in two stories, and the vaulting and proportions of the lower chapel — for the retainers and servants — are very beautiful, the polychromatic decorations faithful to the originals, found under a coat of whitewash at the time the building was restored by Viollet-le-Duc, about 1855. Not alone [289] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA in architecture did the lovers of beauty in that won- derful thirteenth century express their aspirations, but by brilliant color as well ; and it is only because, as William Morris so well remarked, "our eyes have become so atrophied to color amid our drab sur- roundings" that "a building . . . restored in some measure to its ancient splendor . . . dazes us." The single vaulted chamber of the upper chapel produces an enchanting effect. Here, for the first time, apparently, stained, traceried windows seem to have been perfected, and the structure itself has been so thoroughly organized that, instead of mere walls with windows, we have a glorious lantern erected for the joy of its own display. In the apse is still pre- served part of the tribune where, in the olden days, the holy relics were exposed in a rich reliquary of gold glittering with precious stones. And in some of the panels of the windows St. Louis himself, barefoot and humble, is seen bearing the precious relics from Sens to Paris. Standing in the nave, gazing up at the thousand paneled windows, that glow like jewels in the soft afternoon sunlight and flood the empty interior with rebounding waves of myriad colors, in which the whole Bible story from the Creation to the Apocalypse has a part, your mind goes back instinctively to the dark and solemn crypt under the dome of the Inva- lides, and to him who slumbers there. Two great monarchs, each a mere human being — one a great warrior, one a great saint — one leaving behind him [290] HISTORIC PARIS hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans and cripples, and a somber tomb ; the other leaving a record for constructive statesmanship, for righteous dealing at whatever cost, and a blazing monument to something higher and finer than mere human egotism, something to inspire and to help future generations, so long as man has eyes to see and to understand. [^il XXIV THE SIREN OF THE SEINE ALL the queer things in which Paris abounds are by no means gathered in the Latin Quarter, and in a small square near the end of the rue St. Honore is a little wine-shop dedi- cated "To the Infant Jesus." The ancient iron grille, to which riders used to fasten their horses when they went inside, is still there, worn thin at the bottom by many halters. But the Child and the monogram among the symbolic vines at the top are freshly gilded. One would naturally expect that the delight of the pious bourgeois in the holy Name for shops would confine itself to past ages, yet in another place I photographed a spick-and-span, glar- ingly new dairy with the very same label. This quarter is rich in suggestion. Robespierre lived, and Moliere was born, on the rue St. Honore. Not far away, a department store stands on the spot where the Three Musketeers once dwelt. The Taveme du Saint Esprit — the Holy Ghost — still dis- penses the good spirit of old to its patrons here; and the church of St. Roche, which has the finest baroque fa9ade in Paris, fronts upon the same street. In its pillars and walls alike are still visible the [292] THE SIREN OF THE SEINE traces of the "whiff of grapeshot" Napoleon fired at the royahsts in the church gardens. Only two years before, in October, 1793, the church steps were the favorite rendezvous of the rabble, from which to hurl insults and street filth at the tumbrils filled with victims for the guillotine. As Queen Marie Antoinette passed slowly by, a woman spat into her face. For a moment the heroic queen lost her calm demeanor. "This vile mob !" she cried bitterly, and turned away. In this same district is the Palais Royal, built in the seventeenth l^^J^Vn^torically one of the most interesting buildings in Paris. Philippe-Egalite lived such a riotous life here that he was finally reduced to the extent of surrounding the garden behind the palace with buildings, which were leased to shopkeepers, gamblers and cafetiers. The court quickly became an unsavory resort, thronged with malcontents, the forum of revolutionary agitation. One of the agitators, Camille Desmoulins, developed into the leader of the Revolution, calling his fellows to arms on July 12, 1789, in the Cafe de Foy, under the arcades. It looks to-day very much as it did then, though instead of the malcontents and con- spirators you find children at play under the eyes of nurses who doze in the sunshine. And the statues are different, too. The most noted is the great Victor Hugo, by Rodin, a figure full of the placid certainty and poise of age and wisdom and strength — naked, like Truth. [293] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Close to the entrance, rising from the bare earth, stands Boverie's masterful figure of Desmoulins. To me the work is a creation — and it was produced in 19045! It shows the whole spirit and resistless force of the Revolution. It is portraiture, spiritual insight, the sympathy and understanding of a blood brother of the revolutionaries. Desmoulins' eyes burn with the fanatic's fire ; his face is cruel, implacable. Like his hands, it displays the nervous energy so characteristically French, while his thin, bitter mouth is roaring out his will, his wishes, his ideas. Was he an inspired hero.'* The sculptor has not told us: he has given us the greater thing — the genius and the genesis of the Revolution itself. Desmoulins' greatest achievement was his first — the destruction of that horrible prison, the Bastille. On July 14, 1789, a rumor spread through the city that the fortress was about to bombard the quarter. The people's answer was decisive. With Desmoulins as leader, they massacred the prison governor and his handful of guards, released the prisoners, many of whom were guiltless, and battered the Bastille into a shapeless heap of stones. The fine Column of July in the Place de la Bastille does not, however, commemorate that event but is a memorial to those who fell in the revolution of July, 1830. At the top of the shaft, Liberty holds the torch of civiliza- tion and the broken shackles of slavery. The whirlwind Desmoulins blew into being reaped part of its harvest in the immense Place du Trone, [294] THE SIREN OF THE SEINE at the eastern edge of the citj, where Louis XIV after the Peace of the Pyrenees sat the throne to receive the homage of his subjects. More than thir- teen hundred heads did the knife of Dr. Guillotine's infernal machine shear away here before the blood- madness cleared from the eyes of France and men could see normally again. While the executions were going on, and the bluest blood in France was being spilled, the headless bodies were taken away in carts, stripped, and dumped naked into ditches, without stone or board to mark the spot. The location might never have been discovered had not a young woman followed her father's body and seen where it was thrown. To-day the spot is guarded by high walls and dark cypress trees, and you may only look through an iron grille. And in the adjacent little cemetery of Picpus no one can be buried who is not a descendant of the victims. Many an illustrious name is carved upon the plain stones — our own friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, lies in a modest tomb with the Stars and Stripes floating above him. It is a very moving spot, and our chagrin was un- bounded when the concierge compelled us to leave everything that even looked like a camera at his lodge before going inside. The most important secular building in Paris is, of course, the Louvre, both architecturally and on account of its art treasures. The marvel of the structure is not its beauty, not even its architectural qualities, but its cyclopean size. It grew out of a [ 295 ] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA moated chateau built by Philippe- Auguste ; as we see it to-day, however, it dates from the reign of Francis I, and later. From the main building, sur- rounding the Cour du Louvre, part of which incor- porated a section of the original chateau, wings stretch away to the west in block after block, vast, lofty, connected, enclosing great gardens and cobbled cross streets, stopping at last in the charming gar- den where the Tuileries Palace once stood, completing the enclosure by giving it a fourth side. Built by Catherine de' Medici, the Tuileries was sacked more than once by the populace in their rages, but it remained for the Communards to destroy it in 1871. It is an astonishing thing that in the vast central court of this palace, still called the Place du Carrou- sel, a congeries of ramshackle old houses and many little streets were allowed to remain until the time of Napoleon III. What a picture this place makes to-day — a vast garden, long, wide, ribbed with as- phalt, bordered and dotted and splashed with brilliant flowers, some of them so far away you receive only the effect of a tiny bit of strong color in the fresh grass ! On three sides tower the elaborate walls, with their colossal pilasters, windows, monograms and ornamentation, all grimed with the indescribable reek of a great city ; on the other side, through Napo- leon's beautiful imitation of Septimus Severus' arch, the gardens of the lost Tuileries to which the arch gave entrance — gardens that stretch out clear to the Place de la Concorde. Far in the distance, truly [296] (U W3 THE SIREN OF THE SEINE like a star of the first magnitude, the Arch of the Place of the Star looks down its long Eljsian Avenue toward you. To the constructive municipal spirit of the Second Empire we owe the peerless Place de la Concorde. Place of Peace! What bloody horrors has it not seen, what heartbreak, what rivers of blood! The heavy knife of Guillotine mowed this field to the ground, in a harvesting neither France nor the rest of the world can ever forget. And other bitter things has this Place of Peace been compelled to witness — the tramp of armed men in 1814 and 1815, and again in 1871, when the dashing German hussars mocked their French adversaries by waltzing under their very noses to their own Uhlans' music. How the Gallic sentries of the Tuileries, not yet destroyed, must have gritted their teeth at such a spectacle! To this day the mourning and bitterness of the whole people keeps the statue of the lost city of Strasbourg here draped black, and garlanded with wreaths of immortelles that feed fat the national passion of resentment for a loss every Frenchman feels confident will some day be recouped. But what does the world care for that? It is the Place that counts, with its magnificent fountains, its great obelisk from great Rameses' temple gate, its commanding views in, every direction of garden and avenue, of bridge and palace — vistas that have made it famous wherever mankind has an eye for beauty. [297] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA One thing that strikes you here and elsewhere in Paris — indeed, all over France — is the number and mediocre quality of statues and monuments that everywhere arrest the eye. Appreciation is a fine thing enough, but when it takes the obtrusive form of innumerable uninteresting works of bronze and marble that are always in the way, you wish there were some distant Picpus where they could all be taken out and dumped. The peerless collection of the Louvre requires an encyclopaedia all to itself, and the only word that can be given the art-lover here is — go and see it. Nor is this the only collection that must thus regretfully be passed by. Museums in Paris are legion — I know of more than forty — many of them housed in ancient palaces or beautiful mansions. One, however, must be mentioned because of its rela- tion to the art of all France^ — the Trocadero. In its comprehensive collection of comparative sculpture you find accurate casts that display the evolution of French architecture and sculpture, duplicates of all those great works past which the local custodians in the provinces make you hurry, without a chance to give them the attention they deserve. Most of its palaces the Republic has transformed into museums, not only in Paris itself, but also in the environs, where the majority were built after royalty had deserted fair Touraine, finding it expe- dient to be in or near the capital. There are Fon- tainebleau, with its great, low, unimposing chateau [298] THE SIREN OF THE SEINE and Its beautiful forest ; Versailles of the quaint, old- fashioned, formal gardens and fountains, with its shimmering Glass Salon, where Germany became a nation, its Trianons and Marie Antoinette's play- houses ; Chantilly, St. Germain, and Malmalson, so full of Josephine's sad memories. Along one side of the Louvre runs Napoleon's fine, broad rue de Rivoli, named for his victory of 1797 over the Austrians, and built solidly of Italian- looking arcades. The great Emperor made this and his other new streets, similarly named after triumphs — Pyramides, Wagram, Marengo, Austerlitz, and so on — the fashionable quarter of the city. But to-day fashion is not so much in evidence on the rue de Rivoh as the shopkeeper, the guide and the tourist. Often you hear as much English as French under the wide arcades, from visitors who idle along, look- ing into the windows of shops full of cheap-looking jewelry, chains and beads and pins enough to deck out the women of all creation. But though this "junk" looks cheap, it isn't — the merchants of Rivoli know how to charge as well as their more pretentious brethren of the rue de la Palx. Everything is on sale, from copies of paintings in the Louvre to gloves with square-ended fingers — occasionally a finger too small, perhaps, for artistic irregularity. Up and down thunder the great automobile omni- buses, ground-shaking contrivances, as swift and murderous as they are fearsome to see and to hear. Would you see the city, do not take them ; patronize [299] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA the slower, humbler, double-decked tram, and ride on the imperiale, which is high enough to give an excellent and safe view-point. And the noise! New York's roar is famous ; so is the dull grind of Lon- don and the sharp staccato of Madrid ; but the noise characteristic of Paris is a continuous, high-pitched shriek, in which the agonizing squeal of suddenly applied brakes, the sirens of automobiles and the gritting of motors play a prominent and nerve-rack- ing part. For a comprehensive view of the city, however, go up the Eiffel Tower, or the historic Butte Mont- martre, with its brand new Romano-Byzantine basilica of the Sacre Coeur ; and then, by way of novelty, try the other extreme, and plunge dovvn below the surface to inspect the famous sewers, of which a vast network undermines the city, their total length about nine hundred miles ! When Napoleon came to the throne he determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in the world. Nothing else appealed to him so strongly as the mass and richness of the Roman style of architecture. It was monumental and gorgeous, and it made an appropriate medium of expression for this exponent of the new spirit of Caesarism. That it was the- atrical probably also fitted in with his keen apprecia- tion of the mob spirit he was always considering. With unerring skill, he chose that lofty spot, the Place de I'Etoile, for his colossal Arc de Triomphe, so marvelously set off by the Avenue of the Elysian [300] THE SIREN OF THE SEINE Fields and eleven others that center there. Towering up 164 feet into the air, it is the largest as well as the finest arch in existence ; and among the great mass of sculptures that cover every side of the Arc is the noble and spirited relief by Rude, showing the rising of the people in 1792 to the clarion summons of the fierce Genius of War, a fiery piece of realism. In the little Place d'lena, not far away, is a simple statue of our own Washington. We wonder what he thinks of that sublime piece of personal glorification. Napoleon's other arch, in the Place du Carrousel, was originally crowned by the great bronze horses brought from St. Mark's in Venice. The amount of loot brought home by this imperial brigand, van- dal, or whatever else you may choose to call Napoleon, and the amount of damage done by his soldiery, is appalling. Everywhere in Spain and Italy you can follow their trail by the wanton mutilation of art works. But what else could be expected of a people who have so mutilated their own works of art. J* For- tunately, as in the case of the bronze horses, most of the plunder was returned to its proper owners, under English guard. One of the most superb monuments of that monu- mental day is the church of the Madeleine, a huge Corinthian temple. Napoleon commenced it as a temple of glory, but it was not finished until 1842 under Louis Philippe, as a church. The striking interior, a richly decorated, aisleless nave without a [301] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA single window, but perfectly illuminated from the domed ceiling, somehow lacks the churchly atmos- phere. It seems more a place of entertainment, and this thought is carried out by the music and orches- tral performances on great festivals. During one of our visits to Paris we attempted to attend the midnight Christmas musical service. At ten o'clock we not only could not get in — we could not get near the church for the dense crowds waiting about to hear what they could through the noise of the streets. But if one does not like a Roman temple for a house of worship he need not stay away from Paris for that reason. Nearly a hundred churches, of every size and style and age and condition, afford the nations who dwell within the pleasure-seeking town ample opportunity to gratify their souls as well as satisfy their jaded senses; and he can take his choice, be it simply for a house for worship, for artistic study, or for mere sesthetic gratification. A typical example of modern architecture is the Opera House, by Charles Garnier, marvelously rich in marbles and gilding. Yet the fa9ade is so lacking in details it would be monotonous were it not deco- rated with groups and single figures, mere additions on pedestals and brackets. Groups that stand free and clear are a feature of the age, but they are very poor substitutes for the elaborate minor parts that in their coherence contributed to the great and noble structures of the past. [ 302 ] THE SIREN OF THE SEINE Through gilded gates we reach the grand stair- case of white marble, with balustrades of rosso antico and an Algerian onyx handrail. Monolithic marble columns, great ceiling frescoes, statues and mosaics add to the richness of the display. It is the largest theater in the world, covering an area of nearly three acres, but the interior is so cut up into gorgeous stairways, foyers, and so forth, that the auditorium is small, the boxes narrow and shut in, and no such display of the audience is possible as in our own Metropolitan. Before the Opera spreads the Place de I'Opera, from which radiate five of the most important streets in Paris : straight ahead the wide Avenue de POpera, to right and left the Grands Boulevards, and on either side of the theater two other wide and busy thorough- fares. You begin to appreciate Baron Haussmann's genius here. For every single great building is so placed as to be commanded from as many different points as possible, and every street laid out only after considering how its course and character and junctions with other streets will affect the appearance of the city. From the Madeleine to the Bastille, in a great semi- circle, sweeps that main artery of Parisian gaiety, the Grands Boulevards, where the ebullient tide of life flows freely from sundown to midnight. It is the typical French street scene, on a grander and more lavish scale than in the provinces, with more glare and glitter. And what a setting for the daily [303] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA guard-mount of wealth, fashion and beauty the mag- nificent Champs Eljsees makes, in its arrowy flight uphill from the Concorde to the Etoile and the Arch! Automobiles and carriages in the roadway, pedestrians filling the shady sidewalks and, not so infrequently as to attract unusual wonder, a buzzing aeroplane overhead in the gray sky. Then, too, there is the Bois. Yes, taking it all in all, there is no gainsaying it, Paris is a wonderful, a beautiful city, truly the Siren of the Seine; and most of those who know her are ready to echo Montaigne, in Florio's translation: "/ loz}e Mr so tenderly that even Mr spottSy Mr blemishes, and Mr warts are deare unto me,^^ liA FIN [304] SOME GOOD BOOKS ON FRANCE WHILE it is impossible to name all the many excellent books available to-day on France, there are several so conspicu- ously meritorious in their various fields as to be well worth notice. A few of these follow: Cook, Theodore A. "Old Provence" ; "Old Touraine" ; "Rouen." These three books are both very valu- able and delightful from cover to cover ; full of historical and other interest. Allen, Percy. "Impressions of Provence" ; "Burgun- dy: The Splendid Duchy." The former book is one of the most charming pieces of interpretative writing that has been produced on France, brim- ming over with sympathy, humor, legend and history. Burgundy, in the nature of things, has not quite the same charm, but is a fine piece of work. Adams, George B. "Growth of the French Nation." The best short history I know in English ; a very valuable book indeed. Barker, E. H. "France of the French." An excel- lent and dispassionate statement of the France that can be known at first hand only through long acquaintance and residence. [305] FRANCE FROM SEA TO SEA Okej, Thomas. "Paris." One of the Medieval Towns series. Like Mr. Cook's "Rouen," this book is interesting from cover to cover, full of delightful sketches of every sort in which the siren city is so rich. Haggard, D.S.O., Lieut.-Col. A. C. P. "The France of Joan of Arc." Any lover of the tragic story of the Maid of Orleans will find it here told with a wealth of detail, and a setting so comprehensive and vivid as to give it new life, freshness and value. Miltoun, Francis. Mr. Miltoun's lengthy series of books dealing with the different provinces, castles and chateaux, and cathedrals of France are too familiar to require any comment. They can be found in practically all the public libraries of the larger cities. Besides all these there is a host of other works, both for general reading and reference, which make it easy to take up almost any phase of French life or history. Among the most valuable of the refer- ence works will be found Ruskin's studies of French architecture, Fergusson's history of architecture, Luebke's history of art, Freeman's sketches and his Norman Conquest of England; and in French, of course, Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionnaire Raisorme is in- valuable, while there are local publications by the score issued by antiquarian and other societies that yield much material of importance. [306] INDEX INDEX Abbeville, 25-35 Ab61ard and H61oise, 11 Abbeys : Citeaux, 61 Cluny, 61 lies des Lerins, 127 Jumieges, 262 Mont St. Michel, 257-260 Ste. Genevieve, 28i St. R6mi, 54, 55 Adams, Prof. Geo. B., 305 ^duii, The, 71 Agde," "Black, 179 Agricultural Merit, Order of, 70 Aigues-Mortes, 176-178 Aitre St. Maclou, 271 Aix-en-Provence, 11, 139, 140- 142 Aix-les-Bains, 105, 107, 108, 112 Albane, Cour d', 269 Allen, Percy, 305 Alps, The, 2, 91, 94, 107, 108 Alyscamps, Cemetery, 148-150 Amboise, 214-216 Amboise, Cardinals George I, II, of, 263, 267, 268, 274 Ambrose, St.. 88 Amiens, 36-49, 56, 266 Amienois, The, 37, 39 Ampere, electrician, 88 Amphitheatres : Aries, 146, 147 Nlmes, 171, 172 Perigueux, 194 Ampoule, The Ste., 57 Andely, Petit. 275-277 Andre, Fort St., 164, 166, 167 Angers, City of, 227-231 Angevin (style). 203, 231 Anjou, Province of, 210, 227, 230, 231 Anne of Austria, 203 of Brittany, 211, 215, 216, 232, 233 Annot, Roeks near, 118 Aqueduct (s), Roman, 73, 142 176 [307 Aperitif, 53, 110, 111 Arc de TEtoile (de Triomphe), 297, 300, 301, 304. Aries, 9, 142, 145-154, 195 Arlesiennes, 145, 146, 151, 152, 153, 154 Arvemi, The, 72 Attila, 70 Aubert. Bishop, St., 260 Aucassin and Nicolette, 168 Augustodunum — See Bibracte Augustus, Gate of, at Nimes, 174 Automobile trips, 104-107, 209, 254, 261 Autun, 71, 72, 92 Auvergnot, (style), The, 73, 79 Auvergne, Old province of, 74, 75, 76 Avalanches, 105 Avignon (Avenio), 158-168 Avranches, 257, 260 Baggage, 4, 5, 6 Balue, Cardinal de la, 212 Baou, Crag of, 121 Bar, Le, Town and people of, 124 Barker, E. H., 305 Bartholdi, sculptor, 95, 96 Basse Ville (Low Town) — See Boulogne Basselin, Olivier (Apology of Cider), 250 Bastille. Fall of the, 294, 303 Bathing, 18, 75 Baume. Cave of Ste., 139 Bayard, Chevalier, 22, 102 Bayeux, 254. 255 Bayeux Tapestry, The, 255 Beatification of Joan of Arc, 275 Beaucaire. Castle of, 168 Beaune, 65-70 Bed. Breton, 246 Beggars, 78, 242, 243 Bells, Personality of, 28, 266 ] INDEX B§n6zet, St. (and bridge of), 163, 164, 165 Beurrl&re, La, 16 Beziers, City of, 179, 180 , Count of, 176 , Massacre of, 180 Bibles, Stone, 37-42 Bibracte (Mt. Beuvray), 71, 72 Bicycles (and riding), 7, 8, 261, 262 Bignon, Mile., 26 Bigoudens (bigoudens), 241-243 Binions (Breton pipes), 286,237 Blois, 216-218 Bluebeard — See Champtoce Blue Shore (Cote d'Azur) — 8ee Boat, Travel by, on rivers, etc., 6. 261, 262 Bohier, Thomas and Catherine de, 219 Bon S^cours, Hill of, 275 Bouillon, Count Godefray de, 20 Boulevards, The Grands, 303, 304 Boulogne-sur-Mer, 13-24 Boulogne, Counts of, 19, 20 , Walls of, 19, 20 Bourges, 75, 223-226 Bourges," "King of — See Charles VII Bourget, Lake, 107 Bourgth6roulde, Maison, 274 Boverie, sculptor, 294 Braz, M. Anatole le, 38 "Breads," 91, 92 Breton(s), 232, 234, 235, 243 Breze, Due de. Tomb of, 268 Brieue, St., 244-246 Briton — See English Brittany, Old, 11, 20, 232, 233, 240, 242, 244, 258 Brougham, Lord, 126 Brummel, George (Beau), 253 Bruno, St., 106 Bull-fights, 155, 156, 171, 172 Burgundian (style), The, 61, 64, 92 Burgundians, Int. i, ii : 61, 64 Burgundy, Dukes of, 62 , Tombs of, 63 Burgundy, Old, 56, 61 Butchers' Guild of Limoges, 199 Butter Tower, The, 267 Byron's, Lord, anathema, 16 Byzantine (style), The, 71, 90, 193 Cabs, 118 Caen. 11, 250, 251-253, 259, 261 [308] Caesar, 31, 80, 167, 287 Caf6s, 9, 10, 53, 77, 88, 89, 93, 94, 110, 263, 293 Cafetiers, 53, 293 Cage for prisoners, 212 Calvaries, 244 Calvin el pore, 185 Calvinist(s), 102, 195, 251, 266 Camargue, The, 154, 155, 171 Campbell, Thos., 20 Campi Putridi — See Pourri^res Canals, The, 1, 7, 31, 174, 177, 179, 187, 261 Cannes, 126-128, 135 Capet, Capetian(s), Int. iii ; 54, 287 289 Caps, 'women's, 9, 16, 23 152 Carcassonne, 178, 180, 181 Caricatures — See Sculptures Carlovingian(s) [and dynasty]. Int. iii; 47, 48, 249, 266 Carlyle, Thomas, on Paris, 288 Carrousel, Place du, 296 Cartier, Jacques, 247 Cathedrals : Aix-en-Provence, 141, 142 Albi, 188-190 Amiens, 37-42 Angers, 231 Aries, 150, 151 Autun, 71 Bayeux, 254, 255 Boulogne-sur-Mer, 14-20 Bourges, 225-227 Clermont-Ferrand, 79 Coutances, 256 Dijon, 64 Grenoble, 104 Limoges, 197, 198 Lyon, 92 Nevers, 73 Paris, 48, 287, 288 Perigueux, 192-194 Poitiers, 203, 204 Quimper, 240 Reims, 55-60 Rouen, 263, 265, 266-269 Soissons, 47 Toulouse, 185, 186 Tours, 209 Vannes, 235 Venice, 193 Cattle-markets, 245 Caubert, Mt, 31 Cave-dwellings, 208 Caves (wine), 50, 51 Celts, The, Int. i, ii, 71, 234, 241 Cette, 179 Chamb^ry, 105, 108-112 INDEX Champagne, 50-52, 61 Champtoce (Bluebeard), 231, 232 Chantilly, 299 Chapelle, Sainte, 289-291 Charlemagne, 266 Chartreuse, La Grande, 104-107 Chateaubriand, 219, 248 Chateau-Chinon, 70, 71 Chateaux : Amboise. 214-216 Azay-le-Rideau, 220, 221 Barri&re, 195 Blois, 216-218 Chambord, 218, 219 Champtocg, 231, 232 Chantilly, 299 Chantillon, 108 Chenonceaux, 219, 220 Chinon, 212-214 Commerce, 50 Evolution of the, 206, 218, 221 Fontainebleau, 298 Gaillard, 275-277 Josselin, 240 Loches, 210-212 Malmaison, 299 Nantes, 232, 233 of Touraine, 11, 206, et seq. Paris (Louverle), 296 Plessis-les-Tours, 208 Rouen (Tower), 274 St. Germain, 299 Versailles. 299 Cherbourg, 13, 255 Chevlas-la-BuissiSre, Le, 102 Chimeras, 59, 60 Choir, Importance of, 27, 38 Choir-stalls, etc., 40, 138, 185 Church, The, Int. iv ; 182, 188, 202, 203, 221, 242, 251, 281 Churches : Abbeville, St. Gilles, 27 St. S^pulcre, 27, 28 St. Wulfran, 26, 27 Aix-en-Provence, St. Sauveur, 141, 142 Aries, St. Anne (Museum), 148 Avignon, N. D. des Doms, 162, 163 Avignon, St. Pierre, 163 Beaune, Notre Dame, 66 Bourges, St. Trinity, 231 Caen, St. Etienne, 250 " St. Pierre, 251 " St. Trinite, 250, 251 Clermont-Ferrand, St. Pierre, 78 Clermont-Ferrand, N. D. du Port, 79 Coutanees, St. Nicolas. 256 St. Pierre, 256 Dijon, St. Michel, 64 Grasse, N. D. de Podio, 124 Grenoble, St. Andre, 101 St. Laurent, 103 lies des L§rins, St. TrinitS, 131 Laon, Notre Dame, 48 Le Portel, 23 Limoges. St. Michel, 199 Loches, St. Ours, 210, 211 Lyon, St. Bonaventure, 97 " N. D. de Fourviere, 87, 90, 91 Lyon, St. Martin d'Ainay, 95 Mont St. Michel, St. Pierre, 259 Nevers, St. Etienne, 73 Paris, Sacre Coeur, 300 St. Etienne-du-Mont,283 " St. Julien-le-Pauvre,282 " St. Roche, 292, 293 " Sorbonne, 284 " Madeleine, 301, 302, 303 PSrigueux, St. Etienne, 194 Poitiers, N. D. la Grande, 203 St. Hilaire, 202 St. Jean, 201, 202 Ste. Radegonde, 202, 203 Rouen, St. Maclou, 270. 271 St. Ouen, 269, 270 St. Patrice. St. Pierre- du-Chastel, St. Vincent, St. Andr6, 272, 273 Rovat (fortified Benedictine), 83, 84 St. Lo, Notre Dame, 256 St. Maximin, 138, 139 Ste.'s-Maries-de-la-Mer, 156, 157 Sisteron, Notre Dame, 114, 115 Soissons, St. Jean-des-Vignes, 46 Churches debased, 245, 272, 273 Cider, 250 Cistercians (C.-style), 131, 150 Cite, lie de, 280, 287, 288 Clermont-Ferrand, 76-83 Climate — -See Weather Cloche (bell glass), 8, 9 Coeur. Jacques, 223, 224 -, House of, 223-225 Coliseum, 147 Colorado, Canon of the, 1 Communards, The, 296 [309] INDEX Concorde, Place de la, 296, 297, 304 Conductors, R.R., 5, 6 Consignee — See Baggage Constance, Tower of, 177, 178 Constantine, 55, 150 Cook, Theodore A. (quoted), 216, 305 Corks, Discovery of, 52 Coronations, 54, 55, 57 Corsairs, 130, 177, 192 Costumes, 241-243 Cote d'Or (Golden Side), 61-74 Cotentin Peninsula, 255 Coutances, 256 Crau, The, 143, 144 Cr6cy, Battle and town of, 31-34 Croux, Porte du, 73, 74 Crusade (s), 27, 161, 175, 178, 180, 182 Customs regulations, 3 Cyr, St. (Saint Cyrus), 73 Dance, Breton folk, 236, 237 Dauphine, 9, 98, 101, 105 David d' Angers, sculptor, 228, 285 David, Madame, 103, 104 Dea, Bona (Good Goddess), 148 Debit des vins — See Wineshop Delorme, architect, 88 D6nis, St. {and church), 287 Dernier Sou, Le, 20, 21 Desert (s), 1, 143, 144, 154, 155 Desert, Le, 106 Desmoulins, Camille, 293, 294 , Statue of, 294 Dickens, 19 Dijon, City of, 62-65 Dinard (resort), 248 Diogenes' tub, 173, 174 Dog-power, 10, 30, 31, 137, 231 Dolmen (s), 238 Domes of Auvergne, 76, 79, 83 Dominican martyrs, 138 Donjon at Loches, 212, 225 "Dosage" (champagne), 51, 52 Douarngnez, 243, 244 Dove of the Holy Spirit, 107 Bchiquier (High Court), 274 Eiffel Tower, 300 Elys^es, Avenue des Champs, 297, 300, 304 Emperors mentioned, Roman, 88 Enamel-making, 196, 197 England," "Conquest of — See Bayeux Tapestry [3 English (and -men), 15, 22, 23, 34, 35. 126, 153, 260, 275, 276, 299 English : Possessions in France, Int. iv Entremont, St. Pierre d', 107 Entrevaux. 118-121 Equiben, 24 Est^rel Mountains, 127 fitang(s), 143, 178, 179 Everard, Bishop of Amiens, Tomb of, 40 Farming, 8, 9, 86, 120 Feet, French, 111 F61ibre(s), 161, 162 Fergusson's architecture, 306 Feudal system, Int. iii Field of the Cloth of Gold, The, 274 Finistere, Departement of, 241 Firmin, St., martyr, 37, 39, 41 Fishermen and women, 15, 16, 17 Fishing, 7, 15, 16, 24, 243, 277, 279 Fishmarket at Boulogne, 15, 16, 18 Flamboyant (style), 26, 27, 254, 267 Flandrin, painter. 88 F16che (arrow-spire), 37, 44 Flemish-Gothic (style). The, 67 Fontainebleau, 298 Fountain (s), 9, 10 France, lie de. Int. iii Franks (Frankish), The, Int. i, ii, iii, iv ; 36, 54, 61, 62, 249, 280 Freeman, E. A., 57, 306 Fr^jus, 135 Fulk, Black, of Anjou, 210, 214, 228 Funerals, 78 Gardening (petite culture), 8, 9 Gargoyles, 59, 64, 65, 187, 217 Garnier, Charles, architect, 302, 303 Garter, Incident of the, 90 Gates of Autun (St. Andr§, and d'Arroux), 71, 92 Gatien, St., Bishop (and church), 209 Gaul, Int. Ii : 61. 72, 130. 147 Gautier, Theophile (quoted), 189 Geneva, Lake, 94 Genevieve. Ste., 11, 280, 281, 283, 284, 285 10] INDEX Genie Nationale, Source of, Int. i Geoflfroy, Bishop of Amiens, Tomb of, 40 Germain, St., 299 German (s), Germanic, 36, 46, 89, 203, 234. 297 Gipsies, 117, 118, 155, 156, 208 Girl conductors, 164, 165 Gloves (g.-making), 103, 104 Goatherd (goats). The musical, 76 Goethe (quoted K 170 Gorge of the Wolf, 122 Gothic (style J, 26, 37, 39, 47, 48, 63, 64, 67, 71, 92, 138, 165, 166, 189, 198, 205, 216, 221, 231, 240, 252, 254, 267, 270, 273, 274, 287, 288 Goujon, Jean, sculptor, 217 Granada (Spain), 100, 208 Grasse, 3, 121, 123-126 Greeks, The, Int. i, ii ; 134, 145, 147 Gregory of Tours, 209 Greenaway. Kate, 98 Grenoble, City of. 98, 100-104 Guesclin, Constable Bertrand du. 21 Guillotine, Dr. (and the guillo- tine), 96, 191, 295, 296 Guise, Due de, 214, 216 Haggard, D. S. O., Lieut.-Col. A. C. P., 306 Hairdresser, 45 Haussmann, Baron, 303 Haussmannizing Paris, 278, 279, 303, 304 Havre, Le, 261. 262 Hercules, 143, 198 Hilaire, St., Bishop (and church), 202 Hoffreingue, Abbe, 20 Honorat, lie and Monastery of, 127, 130-133. 135 Horloge, The Grosse, 265, 266 Hortillonages, Les, 43, 44 Hostel Dieu, The, at Beaune, 66-69 Hotel proprietors, 2, 263, 264, 265, 277 Hotels (inns, hostelries). 2, 3, 146, 195. 196. 263, 277 Hourticq, M. Lanis, critic, 48, 258 Houses, Names of, 29, 54, 274 Hubert, St. (and chapel), 215, 216 Hugo. Victor. 285 , Statue of, 293 [31 Huguenot(s), 214, 215, 256,271 Hundred Years' War, 33, 34, 276 Iberians, The, Int. i lies des L6rins, 127, 130-133, 135 Invalides, Hotel des, 286, 287, 290 "Invasion of England," 21 Ireland. 130 Irenseus, St., 88 Italy, Fountain in, 9 Janin, M. Jules (quoted), 250 Jeanne, Baby, 70 Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc), 11, 213. 214, 223, 263, 265, 273, 274, 275 Jeannet-la-Gaude, St., 121 Jesus," Caf6 of the "Infant, 292 Jewelry of Clermont, 85 John the Baptist, 41, 55 John of Bohemia, Blind King, 35 Jouglar(s), 153, 160, 161 Juggernaut (gambling), 129 July 14th. 207 Jupiter, 143, 183 Justice, Palace of, at Rouen, 273, 274 , Palace of, at Paris, 288, 289 Kemper — See Quimper Kings of England : Edward III, 35, 276 Henry II, Plantagenet, 200, 212 Henry VIII. 274 Richard Coeur de Lion, 161 William of Normandy, 250 Kings of France : Charles III, 249 Charles V, The Wise, Int. v Charles VI, 272 Charles VII, The Well-Served, Int. iv; 52, 210, 213, 223, 225 Charles VIII, 211, 215, 232 Charles X. 57 Clovis, 36. 37, 45, 54, 55, 57, 61, 202. 209, 280 Dagobert I. 21 Francis I. 29, 215, 216, 218, 233, 274, 287 Francis II, 214 Henry III. 216 Henry IV, 285 I] INDEX Louis IX, St. Louis, Int. iv ; 176-178, 284, 290, 291 Louis XI. Int. iv; 208, 209, 211, 212, 225, 259 Louis XII, 211. 217. 232, 268 Louis XIV, Grand Monarque, Int. iv; 96, 166, 286, 295 Louis XV, 174, 175 Louis XVI, 289 Louis XVIII, 21 Louis-Ptiilippe, 301 Pliilip III, 177 Philippe-Auguste, Int. iv ; 206, 274, 275, 276, 288, 296 Philippe-Ie-Bel, 163, 165 Kingsley, Rev. C. (poem), 17 Lafayette, Marquis de, 295 Lallement, Hotel, 225 Laon, 47-49 Languedoc, Province of, 181, 182 Laundress-Saints, 157 Laval, Countess Jeanne de, 141, 228 Ledieu, historian, 28 Legends (myths, fables, etc.), 11, 73, 132, 133, 137, 138, 231, 232, 260 Legion of Honor instituted, 21 Lemps, Grand, 99 Lesdiguigres, Due de, 102 Levantine commerce, 192, 193 Liberte, Fraternity, E g a 1 i t e , Int. V Ligurians, The, Int. i ; 134 Lily and Rose, Meaning of (Amiens), 39 Limoges, 195-200 Lo, St., 256 Loches, 210-212 Locmariaquer, 238-240 Louis, lie de St., 280 Louvre Museum, 255, 285, 295- 297, 298 Luebke, Dr., art critic, 26, 59, 306 Lutetia — See Paris Luxembourg, Palace and Gar- dens, 285 Lyon, City of, 86-97, 98 McGibbon, author, 148 Magdalen, St. Mary, 139 Magne, Tour de, 175 "Maison Carrie," The, 172, 173 Malmaison, 299 Malo, St., 247, 248 , arms of, 248 , odors of, 247, 248 [3 Malo, street-cleaning dep't, 247 , tides at, 248 , watchdogs of, 248 Man§cauterie, 92 Mannequin in strejgt, 45 Marguerite, Ste., lie and Con- vent of. 127, 130-133 Marie Antoinette, 289, 293, 299 Marie-Claire ( w om an, and novel), 252 Marius, Roman consul, 139, 140 Markets, 29, 30, 44, 92, 93, 269 Marriages, Breton, 235, 236, 237 Marseilles, 193 Marthe, Ste. (and Tarasque),169 Martin, St., soldier, 37, 209 Marvel, The. 259 Matilda, Duchess, of Normandy, 251, 252, 254 Mattress-makers, 198 Maximin, St., 136-139 Meals (food, and ordering), 94 Medici, Catherine de', 126, 214, 216, 219. 296 Medici, Marie de', 285 Mediterranean, The, 1, 7, 129, 130, 177, 179 Megalithic monuments. Int. 1 ; 12, 238 Meissonier, painter, 88 Menhir(s), 238 Mercury, Temple of, 82 Merovingian (dynasty), The, Int. ii; 21, 266 Michael, the Archangel, 260 Michel, Mont St., 257-260 Michael, Order of Chevaliers of St., 259 Millinery on Cathedral, 245 Miltoun, Francis, 306 Mirabeau, 285 Mistletoe. 209 Mistral, Frederic, poet, 153, 162 Moli&re, 292 Montaigne (quoted), 304 Monte Carlo, 129, 130 Montee des Chazeaux, 91 Montfort, Count Simon de, 182 Montmartre, 287, 300 Morbihan, D#partement of, 234, 238 Morris, William (quoted), 290 Morvan, The, 70-72 Morvandeaux, The, 70, 71 Motto of France — See LiherU Mourning, Children in, 204 12] INDEX Muller, A Maud, 69 Mustard and gingerbread, 62 Najac, 191, 192 Nantes, 193, 232, 233 Napoleon I, Emperor, 14, 88, 255, 286, 290, 293, 296, 300, 301 Napoleon III, 296 Napoleon's egotism, 21, 22, 255, 301, 302 Narbonne, 180, 193 Neptune, 143 Nevers, City of, 72-74, 75 Nice, 121 Night-life of Lyon, 89, 90 Nimes, 170-175, 195 Norman (s). The, 250, 277, 279 Normandy, Dulce of. Int. iii ; 249 Normandy, Old, 11. 13, 250, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258, 277 Northmen, The, Int. i; 249, 250, 257, 262, 277 Odo, Bishop, of Normandy, 254 255 O'Key', Thomas, 306 Opera House, The, 302, 303 Opportunity for greatness. Int. vi Orange, Roman ruins at, 167 Orleans, 214 Oxen memorialized, 49 Palais Royal, 293, 294 Papyrus, 52, 53 Pardon, The Breton, 241-243 Paris : 2, 13, 21, 142. 143, 182, 223, 278-304. Characteristics of, 278-280 Colors of, 280 Counts of, 241-243 Latin Quarter, 281, 282, 292 Monuments, 286, 287, 288, 298, 300 Museums, 280, 283, 285. 298 Noise, characteristic, 300 Palaces, 293, 296. 297 Students, 281, 282 Transportation means in, 299 300 Vitality of, in trouble, 278, 279 Parks, 103. 174, 175, 182 "Parthenon of French Archi- tecture," 37 Pascal, Bloise. physicist, 83 Pastry (patisserie). 25, 26 Pasty-faced children, 26, 92 [3 Patois (different), 15, 44, 114, 162, 239 Patrick, St.. 130 People, Common, Int. v People, Provincial characteris- tics of, 11, 278 Perfume (s). 2, 3, 123, 124-126 Perignon, Dom, 50, 52 P^rigueux, 191-194 Peter the Hermit, 27, 37 Petrarch ^nd Laura, 167, 168 Philippe-Egalite, 293 Phoenicians, The, Int. i ; 134 Physical character of France, 1, 2, 12 Picard patois, 15, 44 Picardy, Old province of, 1, 13, 21, 28 Picpus, Cemetery of, 295 Pie, Apple, 25, 32, 94 Plessis-les-Tours, 208 Plougastel, 244 Poitiers, 11, 200-205 , Three Battles of, 201 Poitiers, Diane de, 268 Poitou, Old, 200 Pommard, 69 Pont I'Abbg, Pardon of, 241-243 Pope(s), 158, 159, 162, 163, 166 Popes, Palace of, 158-160 Porcelain, 196 Portel, Le, 23, 24 Post Office, Reflections on, 263, 264 Pourri^res, Les, 139, 140, 167 Provengal, 135, 150, 161, 162, 167, 193 Provence, Count of, 124, 176 Provence, Old, 11, 114, 128, 130, 131, 134, 135, 140 Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre, painter, 88. 99, 284, 285 Puy de Dome, The, 80-83 Queens of France : Anne of Brittany, 211, 215, 216, 217 Clotilde, 36, 61, 209, 280 Marie-Antoinette Mary Stuart. 214 Medici, Catherine de', 126, 214, 216, 219 Medici, Marie de', 285 Quimper, 240, 241 Quixote, Don, 153, 154 Railroads. 4. 5, 6, 104, 115, 121, 122, 142, 262 Reflections, in St. Ouen, 270 13] INDEX Reims, 11, 52-60 R§mi, St., 54, 55, 58 R6my. St., Roman ruins at, 167 Renaissance (period and style), 64, 71, 106, 146, 184, 209, 215, 216, 220, 221, 266, 267, 273, 274, 283, 285 Rene, Count of Provence, etc., 140, 141, 168, 169, 228 Restaurants, 82. 93, 94 "Restoration," 258 Revolution, The, Int. v ; 40, 57, 173, 221. 283, 288, 289, 293 294 295 Richelieu, ' Cardinal-Duke, 189, 284 Ringois, Death of, 28 Riom, Baths of, 75, 76 Riquet, Paul, 179 RiVEE : Aisne, 46 Allier, 86 Aveyron, 191 Boivre, 201 Cher, 207, 219, 220 Clain, 201 Dordogne, 191, 192 Durance, 142 Garonne, 187 Gouet, 246 Is^re, 100 Liane, 14 Loire, 72, 207, 227, 229 Lot, 191 Maine, 227, 229 Odet, 240 Orne, 261 Rhone, 87, 91, 94, 98, 145, 149, 158, 163 Saone, 87, 90, 91, 92 Seine, 262, 276, 277, 282 Somme, 31, 42, 43, 44 Steir, 240 Tarn, 188 Vannes, 234 Var, 121 Vere, 191 Vienne, 213 Vire, 256 Rivers, The, 1, 6, 14, 31, 42, 43, 44, 72, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 94, 98, 100. 104, 114, 120, 121, 158, 163, 165, 187, 188, 201, 206, 207, 213, 227, 229, 234, 240, 246. 2.50, 253, 261, 262, 276, 277, 279 Rivoli, rue de (and victory of), 299 Roads ("flowing roads"), 1, 6, 31, 104-107, 253 Riviera, The, 126 Robespierre, M., terrorist, 88, 288, 292 Rochelle, La, 193 Rodin, sculptor, 293 Rognac, 142 Rolin, Dom Nicolas, 66, 67, 68 Rollo, the Ganger, 249, 250 Romain, St., 268, 269 , Fierte of, 269 , Privilege of, 268, 269 Roman (s), The, Int. i, - ii ; 12, 36, 46. 72, 134, 135, 145, 146, 147, 162, 170, 171, 176, 195, 234, 280, 300 Romanesque (style), 23, 38, 47, 54, 55, 71, 73, 79, 92, 104, 142, 150, 162, 183, 184, 198, 201, 221, 230, 231, 254, 287 Romano-Byzantine (style), 64, 300 Rossetti, D. G., 20 Rouen, 249, 262-275, 279 Roumanille, Jotise, poet, 162 Rousseau, J. J., 285 Rouvel, the bell, 266 Royat, watering-place and town, 75, 83-85 Rude, sculptor, 301 Ruskin, John, critic, 37, 306 Saints mentioned, 138 Sands, Golden (and other), 1, 13, 18, 22, 23, 24 Saracens. The, Int. i ; 27, 158, 177, 207 Sarah, Black St., 155. 156 Sardanas (folk-dance), 237 Sardinia, Kings of — See Dues de Scrvoie Savoie, 9, 105, 109, 110 Scenery, Natural (inland, coast, mountain, railroad), 1, 2, 12, 47, 48, 74, 75, 80, 81. 82, 83, 86, 87, 98-101, 105, 106, 107, 108, 113, 114, 118, 121, 122, 129, 142-144. 170, 179, 180, 191, 192, 208, 250, 256, 262, 276 Sculpture, Mastery of, at Reims, 59 Sculptures, Reasons for, 41 Sea, Blessing of the, 24 , Harvest of the, 239, 240 Pardon of the. 243 Sernin, St. (and church of), 183-185 Shoemaker, M. M, (quoted), 213 I 314] INDEX Siren of the Seine — See Paris Sisteron, 114-118 Sohier, Hector, architect, 252 Soissons, 36, 45-47 Soldiers, types of. 111, 207, 297 Sorbon, Robert de, 284 Sorbonne, The, 284 Sorel, Agnes, 211 Sorgne, L'lle-sur-, 167 Sorolla, painter, 120 Soup, 94 Sous-le-Tour, 246 Spain, Fountain in, 9 Speed, Folly of, in France, 13 Stair-streets, 16, 91 Ste.'s-Maries-de-la-Mer, Les, 154- 157 Street scenes, 10, 14, 15, 44, 45, 53, 63, 77, 78, 116, 117, 119, 120, 137, 170, 174, 263, 265, 292. 293, 303. 304 Streets, Names of. 28, 29, 199, 253, 282, 299, 303 Switzerland, 99 Syndicat d'Initiation, 3, 4, 106 Tapestries, 221 Tarascon, 168, 169 Tarasque. The, 168, 169 Tart-to-the-apples — See Pie Tartarin of Tarascon, 168, 169 Tea (tea-rooms), 22, 23, 76 Terror, The, Int. v ; 88, 221 Thackeray. 19 Theatre, Greek, of Aries, 147, 148 Tickets, R.R., 4, 5 Time-tables, R.R., 4 Tissues (t.-working), 96, 97 Toibiac, Battle of, 36 Tombarelli, Sieur, perfumer, 126 Tombs, Early, 148, 149 Touet-de-Beuil. 121 Toulouse, 7. 181-187 Touraine, Old. 11. 75. 206, 208, 209, 223, 227, 298 Tourettes, 122 Touriste, The true French, 81 Tourne-broche, 68 Tours. 206-208 Tonrves, 135 Trafalgar lost. 21 Trains (matchboxes, et al.). 2, 121, 122, 142, 143, 154, 209, 262 Transition (al) style. 54, 287 Traveling companions, 5. 76 Tristan the Hermit, 208, 212, 225 [315 Trocadero Museum. The. 298 TrOne, Place du, 294, 295 Trophine, St., Bishop of Aries, 149, 150 Trophine, St., Cathedral of, 150, 151 Troubadour (8), 11, 161, 162, 195, 200 Trupln, Jhan, 40 Tuileries, Palace of, 296, 297 University of Paris — See Sor- bonne Vannes, 234-238 Vassel, G., jouglar, 160, 161 Vauban, engineer, 115 Vence, 122 Venetii, The, 234 Venice," Flaubert's "Ignoble, 271 Venice, A literal French, 43 Venus d'Arleg, 148 Vercingetorix, 72, 80, 167 Versailles, 299 Vichy, Baths of, 75 Victories of Napoleon I, 299 Villeneuve-les-Avignon, 164-167 Villon, Frangois, 281 Vinci, Leonardo da, 215 Vines, American, 65 Vineyards. 1, 65, 66, 69 Viollet-le-Duc, M., architect, 37, 64. 79, 183, 229, 258, 289, 306 Visigoths (Vlsigothie), The, Int. i, ii; 36, 158, 201, 280 Voiron, Town of, 99 Volcanoes, • B u r n t - o u t — See Domes Voltaire, 285 Washington, Statue of. 301 Waters, City of Dead — See Aigues-Mortes Weather, 1, 8, 53, 80, 81, 82, 206 William the Conqueror, 250, 251, 254 Wimereux. 22, 23 Wine, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65, 68, 69, 128. 160, 250 Wineshop. 84. 245 Witches, Little, 120 Woland, pirate chief. 249 Wolsey, The French — Seg Am- boise Women, Worship of. 161 Wrong side of cathedrals, 39, 269, 270 LOAN DEPT. T -n 91 A-40Tn-4,'63 ^(r)ll71slO)476B ID o m' C ¥' 35853 '-> UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY t1:-f'%f