Every year the truth of Burns’s “the best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley,” comes more home to me. From the time I was ten the Pass of Roncesvalles has had a fascination for me. Then the habit of ballad-singing was popular, and a relative of mine had a well-deserved repute in that line. Amongst her old-world favourites were “Boland the Brave” and “Durandarté.” The first told how Boland left his castle on the Rhine, where he used to listen to the chanting in the opposite convent, in which his lady-love had taken the veil on the false report of his death, and “think she blessed him in her prayer when the hallelujah rose”; and followed Charlemagne in his Spanish raid, till “he fell and wished to fall” at Boncesvalles. The second, how Durandarté, dying in the fatal pass, sent his last message to his mistress by his cousin Montesinos. In those days I never could hear the last lines without feeling gulpy in the throat:—
Kind in manners, fair in favour,
Mild in temper, fierce in fight,—
Warrior purer, gentler, braver,
Never shall behold the light.
They may not be good poetry, but Monk Lewis, the author, never wrote any others as good. Then Lockhart’sSpanish Balladswere given me, and in one of the best of those stirring rhymes, Bernardo del Carpio’s bearding of his King, I read—
The life of King Alphonso I saved at Roncesval,
Your word, Lord King, was recompense abundant for it all;
Your horse was down, your hope was flown; I saw the falchion
shine
That soon had drunk thy royal blood had I not ventured mine, etc.
Then, a little later, a family friend who had been an ensign in the Light Division in July 1813, used to make our boyish pulses dance with his tales of the week’s fighting in and round Roncesvalles, when Soult was driven over the Pyrenees and Spain was freed. And again, later, came the tale of Taillefer, the Conqueror’s minstrel, riding before the line at the battle of Hastings, tossing his sword in the air, and chanting the “Song of Roland,” and of the “Peers who fell at Roncesvalles.” So you will believe, sir, that my first thought when I got to Biarritz, with the Pyrenees in full view less than twenty miles off, was, “Now I shall see the pass where Charlemagne’s peers, and five hundred British soldiers as brave as any paladin of them all, had fought and died.” The holidays galloped, and one day only was left, when at our morning conference I found that my companions were bent on Fontarabia and San Sebastian, and assured me we could combine the three, as Roncesvalles, they heard, was close to Fontarabia. Then my faith in Sir Walter—combined, I fear, with my defective training in geography—led me astray, for had he not written in the battle-canto of Marmion:—
Oh, for one blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,
That to King Charles did come,
When Roland brave, and Oliver,
And every Paladin and Peer,
At Roncesvalles died, etc.
Now, of course, if Charlemagne could hear the horn of Roland on the top of the pass where he turned back, “borne on Fontarabian echoes,” then Fontarabia must be at the foot of the pass, where Roland and the rear-guard were surrounded and fighting for their lives. In a weak moment I agreed to Fontarabia and San Sebastian, and so shall most likely never see Roncesvalles. It is fourteen miles distant as the crow flies, or thereabouts; and I warn your readers that the three can’t be done in one long day from Biarritz.
However, I am bound to admit that Fontarabia and San Sebastian make a most interesting day’s work. I had never been in Spain before, and so was well on the alert when a fellow-passenger, as we slowed on approaching the station, pointed across the sands below us and said, “There’s Fontarabia!” There, perhaps two miles off, lay a small gray town on a low hill with castle and church at the top, and gateway and dilapidated walls on the side towards*us, looking as though it might have gone off to sleep in the seventeenth century—a really curious contrast to bustling Biarritz from which we had just come. We went down to the ferry and took a punt to cross the river, which threaded the broad sands left by the tide. It was full ebb; so our man had to take us a long round, giving us welcome time for the view, which, when the tide is up, must be glorious. Our bare-footed boatman, though Basque or Spaniard, was quite “up to date,” and handled his punt pole in a style which would make him a formidable rival of the Oxford watermen in the punt race by Christ Church meadow, which, I suppose, is still held at the end of the summer term. A narrow, rough causeway led us from the landing-place to the town-gate in the old wall, where an artist who had joined the party was so taken with the view up the main street that he sat down at once to about as difficult a sketch as he will meet in a year’s rambles. For from the gateway the main street runs straight up the hill to the ruined castle and church at the top. It is narrow, steep, and there are not two houses alike all the way up. They vary from what must have been palaces of the grandees—with dim coats-of-arms still visible over the doorways, and elaborately carved, deep eaves, almost meeting those of their opposite neighbours across the street—to poor, almost squalid houses, reaching to the second story of their aristocratic neighbours’, but all with deep, overhanging, though uncarved eaves, showing, I take it, how the Spaniard values his shade. Up we went to the church and castle, the ladies looking wistfully into such shops as there were, to find something to buy; but I fancy in vain. Not a tout appeared to offer his services; or a shopkeeper, male or female, to sell us anything. Such of the Fontarabians as we saw looked at us with friendly enough brown eyes, which, however, seemed to say, “Silly souls! Why can’t you stop at home and mind your own business?” Even at the end of our inspection, when we spread our lunch on a broad stone slab near the gate—the tombstone once, I should think, of a paladin—there being no houses of entertainment visible to us, we had almost a difficulty in attracting three or four children and a stray dog to share our relics.
The old castle is of no special interest, though there were a few rusty old iron tubes lying about, said to have once been guns, which I should doubt; and Charles V. is said to have often lived there during his French wars. The church is very interesting, from its strong contrast with those over the border—square, massive, sombre, with no attempt at decoration or ornament round the high brass altars, except here and there a picture, and small square windows quite high up in the walls, through which the quiet, subdued light comes. The pictures, with one exception, were of no interest; but that one exception startled and fascinated me. The subject is the “Mater Dolorosa,” a full-length figure standing, the breast bare, and seven knives plunged in the heart,—a coarse and repulsive painting, but entirely redeemed by the intense expression of the love, the agony, grid the sorely shaken faith which are contending for mastery in the face. The painter must have been suddenly inspired, or some great master must have stepped in to finish the work. San Sebastian does not do after Fontarabia; a fine modern town, with some large churches and a big new bull-ring, but of little interest except for the fort which dominates the town on the sea-front. How that fort was stormed, after one repulse and a long siege of sixty-three days; how, in the two assaults and siege, more than four thousand gallant soldiers of the British and allied army fell; and the fearful story of the sack and burning of the old town by the maddened soldiers, is to me almost the saddest episode in our military history. I was glad when we had made our cursory inspection and got back to the station on our return to Biarritz. That brightest and most bustling of health resorts was our head-quarters, and I should think for young English folk must be about the most enjoyable above ground. I knew that it was becoming a formidable rival of the Riviera for spring quarters, but was not at all prepared for the facts. Almost the first thing I saw was a group of young Englishmen in faultless breeches and gaiters, just come back from a meet of the pack of hounds; next came along some fine strapping girls in walking costume, bent, I should think, on exploring the neighbouring battlegrounds; next, men and youths in flannels, bound for the golf links, where a handicap is going on (I wonder what a French caddie is like?); then I heard of, but did not see, the start of the English coach for Pau (it runs daily); and then youths on bicycles, unmistakable Britons,—though the French youth have taken kindly, I hear, to this pastime. There are four gigantic hotels at which friends told me that nothing is heard but English at theirtables d’hôte; and in the quiet and excellent small “Hôtel de Bayonne,” at which we stayed, having heard that it was a favourite with the French, out of the forty guests or thereabouts, certainly three-fourths were English, and the other one-fourth mostly Americans. On Easter Monday there was a procession of cars, with children in fancy dresses representing the local industries; but the biggest was that over which the Union Jack waved, and a small and dainty damsel sat on the throne surrounded by boys in the orthodox rig of a man-of-war’s-man and Tommy Atkins. In fact, a vast stream of very solvent English seem to have fairly stormed and occupied the place, to the great delight of the native car-drivers and shopkeepers; and so grotesque was it that Byron’s cynical doggerel kept sounding in my head as, at any rate, appropriate to Biarritz:
The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses that pull;
Each tugs in a different way,
And the greatest of all is John Bull.
But, apart from all the high jinks and festive goings-on, there is one spot in Biarritz which may well prove a magnet to us, and before which we should stand with uncovered heads and sorrowfully proud hearts; and that is the fine porch of the English church. One whole side of it is filled by a tablet, at the head of which one reads: “Pristinæ virtutis memor. This porch, dedicated to the memory of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the British army, who fell in the south-west of France from 7th October 1813 to 14th April 1814, was erected by their fellow-soldiers and compatriots, 1882.” Then come the names of forty-eight Line regiments, and the German Legion, followed in each case by the death-roll, the officers’ names given in full. Let me end with a few examples. The 42nd lost ten officers—two at Nive, one at Orthez, and seven at Toulouse; the 43rd—five at Nivelle and Bayonne; the 57th—six at Nivelle and Nive; the 79th—five at Toulouse, of whom three bore the name of Cameron; the 95th—six at the Bidassoa, Nivelle, and Nive. Such a record, I think, brings home to one even more vividly than Napier’s pages the cost to England of her share in the uprising of Europe against Napoleon; and it only covers six months of a seven years’ struggle in the Peninsula! At the bottom of the tablet are the simple words:—
Give peace in our time, oh Lord!
We had heard through telegrams and short paragraphs in the French papers of the sinking of theVictoriabefore theSpectatorof 1st July came to us here, in these far-away highlands of Auvergne; but yours was the first trustworthy account in any detail which reached us. I am sure that others must have felt as thankful to you as I did, for your word was worthy the occasion, and told as it should be told, one of the stories which ennoble a nation, and remain a [Greek phrase] for all time. The lonely figure on the bridge is truly, as you say, a subject for a great pictorial artist, and belongs “rather to the poet than the journalist”; and one trusts that Sir George Tryon’s may stand out hereafter in worthy verse as one of “the few clarion names” in our annals. But it was surely the noble steadfastness of all, from admiral to stoker, which has once more given us all “that leap of heart whereby a people rise” to a keener consciousness of the meaning of national life. I think one feels it even more out here amongst strangers than one would have felt it at home, and can give God thanks that the old ideal has come out again in the sinking of theVictoriaas it did in that of theBirkenheadforty years ago, when the ship’s boats took off all the women and children, and the big ship went down at last “still under steadfast men.”
Those are, as you know, the words of Sir Francis Doyle, who gave voice to the mixed anguish and triumph of the nation in worthy verse. I heard the great story from the lips of one of the simplest of men, Colonel Wright, who as a subaltern had formed the men up on the deck of theBirkenheadunder Colonel Seton, and stood at his place on the right of the line when she broke in two. He was entangled for some moments in the sinking wreck, but managed to free himself, and, being a famous swimmer, rose to the surface, and struck out for the shore amongst a number of the men. It must have been one of the most trying half hours that men ever went through; for, as they swam and cheered one another, now and again a comrade would suddenly disappear, and they knew that one of the huge sharks they had seen from the deck, passing backwards and forwards under the doomed ship, was amongst them. When they had all but reached the shore the man who swam by Wright’s side was taken. When I heard the tale he was Assistant-Inspector of Volunteers under Colonel M’Murdo, and going faithfully through his daily work. Strange to say, neither Horse Guards nor War Office had taken any note of that unique deck-parade and swim for life, and Ensign Wright had risen slowly to be Major and Sub-Inspector of Volunteers. Stranger still, he seemed to think it all right, and there was no trace of resentment or jealousy in his plain statement of the facts—which, indeed, I had to draw out by cross-questioning on our march from the Regent’s Park to our headquarters in Bloomsbury. I was so moved by the story that I wrote it all to Mr. Cardwell, then at the War Office, and had the pleasure of seeing Major Wright’s name in the nextGazetteamongst the new C.B.‘s.
Well, well! It does one good now and then to breathe for a little in a rarer and nobler atmosphere than that of everyday, into which we must after all sink, and live there for nine-tenths of our time,—like the old fish-wife, Mucklebackit, going back to mending the old nets and chaffering over the price of herrings which have been bought by men’s lives. And here we have great placards just out, announcing “Fêtes de jour et de nuit,” with donkey-races and all manner of games, and fireworks, including an “embrasement général,” whatever that may forebode. “This life would be quite endurable but for its amusements,” said Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, a wise man and excellent Minister of the Crown.
Our first Sunday at La Bourboule has been edifying from the Sabbatarian point of view, and I shouldn’t wonder if the good little parson who is taking the duty here during the bathing-season holds it up to us for instruction next Sunday, if he can get a room for service, and a congregation. There is no English church, and from what I hear not much prospect of an arrangement for joint worship in the French Protestant church, which was almost concluded, being carried out. Unfortunately, a succession of young Ritualists have managed to alarm the French Protestant pastor and his small flock, by treating them as Dissenters, and making friends ostentatiously with the Roman Catholic priests. However, happily the present incumbent (or whatever he should be called) is a sensible moderately broad Churchman, who it may be hoped will bring things straight again. But to return to my Sabbatarian story. An English lady fond of equestrian exercise hired horses for herself and a friend, and invited the able and pleasant young Irishman who doctors us all, and is also churchwarden, to accompany them for a ride in these lovely mountains. They started from this hotel, and, as it happened, just as the parson was coming by; so, not being quite easy in their consciences (I suppose), asked him if he saw any harm in it. To this he replied, sensibly enough, that it was their fight, not his; and if they saw none, he had nothing to say. So off they rode, meaning certainly to be back by 8 P.M. for supper. I was about till nearly nine, when they had not turned up; and next morning I heard the conclusion of the whole matter. The doctor’s horse cast a shoe, and had to be led home, limping slightly; while the lady’s horse came back dead-lame, and her companion’s steed with both knees broken! Judging by the unmistakable talent of these good Bourboulais for appreciating the value to their guests of their water and other possessions, I should say that this Sunday ride will prove a costly indulgence to the excursionists.
Currency questions are surely amongst the things “which no fellow can understand,”—a truth for which. I think, sir, I may even claim you as a witness, after reading your cautious handling of the silver question in recent numbers. But so far as my experience goes, there are no questions as to which it is more difficult to shake convictions than those which have been arrived at by unscientific persons. For instance, in this very charming health-resort, the authorities at the Établissement des Bains, where one buys bath-tickets, are under the delusion that 20 fr. (French money) are the proper equivalent for the English sovereign. On my first purchase of six tickets, amounting to 15 fr. (each bath costs 2 fr. 50 c., or 50 c. more than at Royat), the otherwise intelligent person who presided at thecaisse d’établissement, tendered me a single 5 fr. piece; and on my calling his attention to the mistake, as I supposed it to be, and demanding a second 5 fr., calmly informed me that 20 fr. was the change they always gave, and he could give no other. Whereupon, I carried off my sovereign in high dudgeon, and—there being neither bank nor money-changer’s office in this place, though more than twenty large hotels!—applied to two of the larger shops only to find the same delusion in force. In short, I only succeeded in getting 25 fr. in exchange for my sovereign as a favour from our kind hostess at this hotel. Wherefore, as I hear that a great crowd of English are looked for next month, I should like to warn them to bring French money with them. This experience reminded me of a good story which I heard Thackeray tell thirty years ago. (If it is inThe Kicklebury’s on the Rhine, or printed elsewhere, you will suppress it). Either he himself or a friend, I forget which, changed a sovereign on landing in Holland, put the change in one particular pocket, and on crossing each frontier on his way to the South of Italy, before that country or Germany had been consolidated, again exchanged the contents of that pocket for the current coin of the Kingdom, Duchy, or Republic he was entering. On turning out the contents at Naples he found them equivalent to something under 5s. of English money.
Before I forget it, let me modify what I said last week as to the ecclesiastical position of the Protestants here.
The Anglicans are now represented by the “Colonial and Continental Society.” They sent a clergyman, who has managed so well that we are now on excellent terms with our French Protestant brethren, though we have as yet no joint place of worship. This, however, both congregations hope to secure shortly,—indeed, as soon as they can collect £400, half of which is already in hand. Then the municipality, or the “Compagnie d’Établissement des Bains,” I am not sure which, give a site, and another £400, which will be enough to pay for a small church sufficient for the present congregations. These will hold the building in common, and, let us hope, will adjust the hours for the services amicably. At present, the French Protestants worship in thebuvette, where we all drink our waters; and we Anglicans in an annex of the establishment—a large room devoted during the week to Punch and Judy and the marionettes. This rather scandalises some of our compatriots; I cannot for the life of me see why. Indeed, it seems to me a very healthy lesson to most of us, who are accustomed to the ritual which prevails in so many of our restored, or recently built, English churches,—the lesson which Jacob learnt on his flight from his father’s tents, when he slept in the desert with a stone for pillow, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” Our congregation yesterday was something over thirty. I believe it rises to one hundred, or more, next month. The service was thoroughly hearty, and I really think every one must have come meaning to say their prayers. I felt a slight qualm as to how we should get on with the singing, and could not think why the parson should choose about the longest hymn in the book, for there was no organ, harmonium, or other musical instrument, and no apparent singing-men or singing-women. However, my qualms vanished when our pastor led off with a well-trained tenor voice which put us all at our ease.
The rest of our Sunday was by no means so successful, for thefête du jour et du soirbegan soon after our 11 A.M.déjeûner, and lasted till about 10 P.M., when the lights in most of the paper-lanterns had burnt out, and people had gone home from the Casino and the promenade to their hotels or lodgings. I am old-fashioned enough to like a quiet Sunday; but here, when the place isen fête, that is out of the question,—at any rate, if you are a guest at one of the hotels which, as they almost all do, faces on the “Avenue Gueneau de Mussy.” That name will probably remind some of your readers of the able and popular doctor of the Orleans family, who accompanied their exile, lived in England during the Empire in Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, and was popular in London society. After 1870 he returned to France, and, it seems, rediscovered these waters, or, at any rate, made them the fashionable resort of patients in need of arsenical treatment. In gratitude, his name has been given to this main avenue of La Bourboule, which runs the whole length of the town, parallel to the River Dordogne, which comes rushing down the valley from Mont Dore at a pace which I have never seen water attain except in the rapids below Niagara, in which that strongest and rashest of swimmers, Captain Webb, lost his life. The Avenue, though parallel with, is some fifty yards from the river, and the intervening space is planted with rows of trees, under which many donkeys and hacks stand for the convenience of visitors. The opposite bank of the Dordogne, which is crossed by two bridges, rises abruptly, and is crowned by the two rival casinos, with the most imposing hotel of the place between them, where (I am told) you pay 5 fr. a day extra for the convenience of the only lift in La Bourboule! The fête of last Sunday was given by the old Casino, and commenced directly afterdéjeûnerwith a gathering in the rooms and in front of the Casino on the terrace, where the guests sat at small tables consuming black coffee, absinthe, and other drinks, and strolling now and then into the billiard-room, or the room in which thejeu aux petits chevaux, and some other game of chance which I did not recognise, were in full swing. There is an inner room where baccarat and roulette are going on, supposed to be only open to tickets bought from the^ authorities, but which a young Englishman, my neighbour at thetable d’hôte, tells me he found no difficulty in entering without a ticket. The rest of the fête, consisting chiefly of donkey-races, climbing greasy poles, and fishing half-francs out of meal tubs with the mouth, came off in a small park and plateau on the hillside above the Casino.
I used to enjoy donkey-races as a boy, when at our country feasts each boy rode his neighbour’s donkey, and the last past the post was the winner, and should probably have gone up the hill to witness a French race, but that I found that here each boy rides his own donkey, and the first past the post wins. This takes all the fun out of the race, so I abstained. There were a few second-rate fireworks after dark, and the Casino and most of the hotels were prettily lighted, and the trees hung with yellow paper lanterns which looked like big oranges, but to the Englishman, more or less accustomed to the great Brock’s performances, the illumination business was very flat.
An Englishman can scarcely avoid the danger of having his national vanity fed in this La Bourboule. A new hotel is being built on a fine site above the Dordogne, just beyond the new Casino, and I hear on the best authority that the proprietor means to have it furnished from top to bottom by Messrs. Maple. As this will involve paying a duty of from 30 to 50 per cent on the articles imported, it is not easy to see where the profit can come in, as the most prejudiced John Bull will scarcely deny that native French furniture is about as good, and not very much dearer than English. I can only account for it by the desire of all purveyors here—from the chief hotel-keepers to the dealers in the pretty Auvergne jewellery and the donkey-women—to get us as customers,—not, perhaps, so much from love or admiration for us, as because we have so much less power of remonstrance or resistance to their charges. Unless he sees some flagrant overcharge in his hotel bill, the Briton does not care to air his colloquial French in discussing items with the former, who only meet him with polite shrugs; and as for the others, they at once fall back upon an Auvergnesepatois, at least as different from ordinary French as a Durham miner’s vernacular is from a West countryman’s. What satisfaction can come of remonstrating about 2 fr., even in faultless grammatical French, when it only brings on you a torrent of explanation of which you cannot understand one word in ten?
But the desire to make us feel at home has another—I may almost say a pathetic—side. Thus theComité des fêtesspares no effort to meet our supposed necessities, and has not only provided tennis-grounds and other conveniences forle sport, but for the last ten days has been preparing for a grandchasse au renard, as a special compliment, I am told, to the English visitors. The grand feature of the hunt is arecherchéluncheon in an attractive spot in the forest, at the end of the run, at which the Mayor presides, and to which the other civic dignitaries go in full costume, accompanied by a chief huntsman and twochasseurswithtridents—of all strange equipments for a fox-hunt! For this luncheon the charge is 5 fr.; but, so far as I can learn, you may join the chase without partaking. The question naturally occurs: “How if Renard will not run that way, or consent to die within easy distance of the luncheon?” and the answer of the Mayor would, I suppose, be Dogberry’s: “Let him go, and thank God you are rid of a knave.” But, in any case, theComité des fêtesare prepared for such a mishap, for they have had four foxes ready for some days,in a large oven—of all places in the world! and one of these will surely be induced to take the proper course, which is carefully marked out. As two of them have come from Switzerland, and there cannot be much to occupy or amuse Swiss foxes in an oven, except quarrelling with their French cousins, I should doubt as to the condition of the lot on the day of the hunt, even if all survive to that date. This, I am sorry to say, cannot be fixed as yet, for it seems that no English visitor has been found who will take a ticket; so I fear my “course” may be over before thechassecomes off. In that case I shall always bear a grudge against your lively contemporary, theDaily Graphic, who, it seems, printed an illustrated account of thechasseof last summer, to which the present abstinence of the British sportsman to-day is generally attributed. Can we wonder at the want of understanding between the two peoples when one comes across such strange pieces of farce as this, meant, I believe, for a genuine compliment and advance towards good-fellowship?
I wish I could speak hopefully upon more serious things than thechasse au renard; but in more than one direction things seem to me to be drifting, or going back, under the Republic. E.g. a friend of mine, who prefers smoking the cigars he is used to, ordered a box from his tobacconist in Manchester, who entrusted them to the Continental Parcels Delivery Company on 15th June. Next day, though notice had been given of payment of all charges on delivery, they were stopped at the Gare du Nord, at Paris, where the station-master refused to forward them until he got an undertaking in writing from my friend to pay all charges. This was sent at once, but produced no effect for three days, when another letter arrived—not now from the station-master, but from a person signing himself “Contributions Agent”—saying that undertaking No. 1 was not in proper form. Thereupon, undertaking No. 2 is sent; but still nothing happens, and my friend had almost given up hope of getting his cigars when he bethought him of advising with a deputy, who was luckily staying here in the same hotel. That gentleman seemed not at all surprised, but offered to write to his secretary in Paris to go to the Gare du Nord and look after the box. The offer was, of course, thankfully accepted, with the result that the cigars were sent on at once, with the following bill: “Droit d’entrée, 38 fr. 77 c.; timbre d’acquit à caution, 7 c.; toile d’emballage—consignation, 40 fr. 27 c.: total, 79 fr. 11 c.”—which about doubled the original cost. This instance of the slovenliness (if not worse) of a railway company and the Customs has been quite eclipsed, however, by the Post Office. Another friend posted a letter here to his sister in England, but unluckily in the forenoon, when the next departure was for Bordeaux. To that town, accordingly, his letter went, and thence to America, whence in due course—i.e. at the end of three weeks—it reached its destination in England. Again, a lady here received several dividends more than a week ago, which she forwarded to her husband in England in a registered letter. This has never reached him; and the Post-Office officials here are making inquiries (very leisurely ones) as to what has become of it. Then the clergyman of the church here, having a payment to make in his parish in England, sent the money, and got the official receipt several posts before he received a reminder from the same official (dated a week earlier than the receipt) that the payment was due; and lastly,pour comble, as they say here, a county J.P. has never received at all the formal summons from his High Sheriff, sent some weeks since, to serve on the grand jury at the coming Assizes! Whatever the consequences may be of utterly ignoring such summons, he has thus incurred them, which, for all I know, may be equal to the penalties of præmunire. But seriously, I fear the incubus of the Republican superstition, as you have defined it, is spreading fast and far in this splendid land. The centralisation fostered by the Second Empire, and favoured by the Republic for the last twenty years, seems to have demoralised the national nerve-centre at Paris under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower—which,
Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies,
—and to be spreading its baleful influence through the Departments. At any rate, that is the only explanation I can suggest for the marked deterioration and present flabbiness of all Government departments with which the foreign visitor comes in contact. I am glad to be able, however, to record, before closing this, that the registered letter containing dividend warrants mentioned above has reached its destination in England.
During the greater part of our stay, the theatre here was devoted to comic and other operatic performances, which I did not care for, and so scarcely glanced at the play-bills, posted up daily in our hotel; and was not even tempted by the announcement of “une seule représentation extraordinaire” of Le Songe d’une Nuit d’Eté, as I did not like to have my idea of A Midsummer Night’s Dream disordered by a French metrical version. When too late, I sorely regretted it, as, had I even read the caste, I should have gone, and been able to give you a trustworthy report,—for the three principal characters were William Shakespeare—by M. Dereims, of the opera (who would sing his great song ofLa Reine de Saba)—Falstaff, and Queen Elizabeth! Next morning I catechised a young Englishman, whose report was, as near as I can recollect, as follows: “Well, there wasn’t much of ourMidsummer Night’s Dreamin it, no Oberon and Titania, or Bottom, or all that fairy business. Queen Elizabeth and one of her ladies went out at night disguised, to a sort of Casino or Cremorne Gardens” [what would Secretary Cecil have said to such an escapade?], “and coming away they met Shakespeare and Falstaff, and had a good time; and Falstaff sang a song which brought the house down. Then, as the Queen falls in love with Shakespeare, they get some girl to marry him right away.” One more lost opportunity, and to think that I shall probably never get another chance!—
There is a flower that shines so bright,
They call it marigold-a:
And he that wold not when he might,
He shall not’ when he wold-a.
As you are fond of dog-lore, here is a sample from Auvergne. Just opposite our hotel lives the young Scotch (not Irish, as I think I called him last week) doctor. His wife owns a clever pug, whose friendship any self-respecting dog would be anxious, I should say, to cultivate. One of the rather scratch-pack gathered for the coming fox-chase, who wandered as they pleased about the town, seems to have shared my view, for every morning, betweencaféanddéjeûner, he came and paid a visit of about five minutes to Mrs. Gilchrist’s pug, in the doctor’s vestibule, always open to man and dog. At the end of his call, he trotted off down the avenue to whatever other business he might have in hand. Now, his visits could not have been amatory, as both are of the masculine sex, nor could they have been gastronomic, for he invariably refused the food which Mrs. Gilchrist offered him. What other conclusion is possible than that he came to talk over the gossip afloat in the dog-world of La Bourboule?
Lastly, as to the excursions. These are numerous, and very interesting in all ways, for you drive through great, sad pine-forests (in which I was astonished to see many of the trees gray with the weeping moss which makes the Louisiana and Texas forests so melancholy) and breezy heaths all aglow with wild flowers, getting every now and then indescribably glorious glimpses of the rich plain which stretches away from this backbone of Central France to the Alps. The flora is quite beyond me, but I recognised many varieties of heart’s-ease, fox-gloves, gentians, amongst them an exquisite blue variety, and the air was often scented with meadow-sweet or wild-thyme. Then almost every mountain-top is crowned by a peculiarly shaped block of dark rock, which looks as if some huge saurian, disgusted with a changing world, had crawled up there to die and get petrified. They must, however, have been even bigger than theAtlanlosaurus immanis, the biggest of the family yet found, I believe. I well remember the delight of Dr. Agnew, of New York, when the American geologists came upon its thigh bone, two feet longer than that of any European monster. It had become agate, and I have a scarf-pin made of a polished fragment, and presented to me by the triumphant doctor. I cannot tell you what these rocks really are, as I made no ascent, preferring nowadays, like dear Lowell, “to make my ascents by telescope.”
But the human interest of the excursions, as usual, far exceeds the botanical or geological. The chief of these is the “Tour d’Auvergne,” the seat of the Count who enlisted to repel invasion, but never would take a commission from Republic or Napoleon, and died in battle, the “premier grenadier de la France.” There is nothing left of his tower except the foundations, and a dungeon on the high rock, on which a native woman sells photographs and relics, quite as genuine, I should say, as most such. Opposite, across a deep valley, rises another rock crowned by a chapel, which is approached by a steep path, up which once a year goes a procession, past the seven stations, at each of which there is a crucifix, and on the lowest a figure the size of life. Christianity, they say, has died down very low in Auvergne. I should doubt it, as I saw no sign of defacement, either here or on any of the roadside crosses, which are everywhere. I fear we could hardly say as much if we had them—as I wish we had—on every English high-road. On the walls of the village which clusters round the side of the keep, a placard (of which I enclose a copy) interested me much. The three Municipal Councillors there give their reasons for resigning their seats on the Council. On the whole, I think they were wrong, and should have stayed and “toughed it out.” I should like to know how it strikes you. You will see that the poster bears a stamp. Might not our Chancellor of the Exchequer raise a tidy sum that way? What a lump Pears, Hudson, Epps, or Van Houten and Co. would have to pay, and earn the thanks of a grateful country too! But I must not try your patience or space further, so will only note the Roman remains at Mont Dore, another health-resort of the Dordogne Valley, four miles above La Bourboule, which are worth going all the way to see, as I would advise any of your readers to do who are looking out for an interesting countryside, with as fine air as any in the world, in which to spend their coming holidays.
Much may be said both for and against breaking one’s good resolutions, but no one, I should think, will deny the merit of making them. Well, sir, before starting for my Whitsuntide jaunt this year, I resolved firmly that nothing should induce me to send you any more letters over this signature. Have I not been trying your patience, and the long-suffering of your readers any time these thirty years, with my crude first impressions of cities and their inhabitants, from Constantinople to the Upper Missouri? “Surely,” I said to myself, “sat prata biberunt.” What can young England in the last decade of the century—who enjoy, or at any rate read,Dodo, and The Fabian Essays, and The Heavenly Twins—care or want to know about the notions of an old fogey, whose faiths—or fads, as they would call them—on social and political problems were formed, if not stereotyped, in the first half? What, then, has shaken this wise resolve? You might guess for a week and never come within miles of the answer. It was the sight of a group of Dutch boys playing leap-frog in front of this hotel, and the contrast which came unbidden into my head between the chances of Dutch and English boys in this matter, and the different use they make of them.
In front of this hotel lies the large open space, now planted with trees, and about the size of Grosvenor Square, which is called “Tournooiveld,” and was in the Middle Ages the tilt-yard of the doughty young Dutch candidates for knighthood. The portion of this square immediately in front of the hotel, about 40 yards deep and 150 broad, is marked off from the rest by a semicircular row of granite posts, rather over three feet in height, and three to four yards apart, two of them being close to lampposts, but the line otherwise unbroken. No chain connects these posts, and they have no spike on the top of them. As I stood at the door the morning after my arrival, admiring the fine linden-trees in full foliage, enter four Dutch boys from the left, who, without a word, broke at once into single file, and did “follow my leader” over all the posts till they got to the end on the extreme right, and disappeared quietly down a side street. Well, you will say, wouldn’t four English boys have done just the same % and I answer, Yes, certainly, so far as playing leap-frog over the posts goes; but they would have to come out here to find such a row of posts in the middle of a city. At any rate, in the city with which I am best acquainted in England, the few posts there fit for leap-frog are connected with chains and have spikes on their tops. Moreover, do I not pass daily up a flight of steps, fenced on either side by a broad iron banister, which was obviously intended by Providence for passing boys to get a delicious slide down 1 But, sir, no English boy on his way to school or on an errand has ever slid down those banisters, for the British Bumble has had prohibitory knobs placed on them at short intervals for no possible reason except to prevent boys sliding down. The faith that all material things should be made to serve the greatest good of the greatest number is surely as widely held in England as in Holland, and yet, here are the tops of these Dutch postsculotté, if I may say so, worn smooth and polished by the many generations of boys who have enjoyed leap-frog over them, while the British posts and banisters have given pleasure to no human being but Bumble from the day they were put up.
But it was not of the Dutch posts but the Dutch boys that I intended to write, for they certainly struck me as differing in two particulars from our boys, thus. Two of the posts, as I have said, are so close to the lamp-posts that you can’t vault over them without coming full butt against the lamp-post on the other side. When the leader came to the first of them he did not pass it, as I expected, but just vaulted on to the top, and sat there while he passed his leg between the-post and the lamp-post, and then jumped down and went on to the next. Every one of the rest followed his example gravely and without a word; whereas, had they been English boys, there would have been a bolt past the leader as soon as he was seated, and a race with much shouting for the lead over the remaining pillars. I have been studying the Dutch boy ever since, and am convinced that he is the most silent and most “thorough” of any of his species I have ever come across; and the boy is father to the man in both qualities. On Whit-Monday this city was crowded, all the citizens and country-folk from the suburbs being in the streets and gardens; the galleries and museums, oddly enough, being closed for the day. Walking about amongst them the silence was really rather provoking. At last I took to counting the couples we met who were obviously just married, or courting, and ought at any rate to have had something to say to each other. Out of eleven couples in one street, only one were talking, though all looked quite happy and content. It is the same everywhere. As we neared the landing-place at the Hook of Holland, our steamer’s bows were too far out, and a rope had to be thrown from the shore. There were at least twenty licensed porters waiting for us, in clean white jackets,—one of these, without a word, just coiled a rope and flung it. It was missed twice by the sailor in our bows, and fell into the water, out of which the thrower drew it, and just coiled and threw it again without a word of objurgation or remonstrance, and the third time successfully. Not one of the white-jacketed men who stood round had uttered a syllable of advice or comment; but what a Babel would have arisen in like case at the pier-heads of Calais or Dieppe, or for that matter at Dover or Liverpool. No wonder that William the Silent is the typical hero of Dutchmen; there are two statues of him in the best sites in this city, and half a dozen portraits in the best places in the galleries. Hosea Biglow’s—
Talk, if you keep it, pays its keep,
But gabble’s the short road to ruin.
’Tis gratis (gals half price), but cheap
At no price when it hinders doing,—
ought to be put into Dutch as the national motto. Then as to thoroughness. Take the most notable example of it first. We have been driving all round for some days, and have only once come to a slope up which our horse had to walk. When we got to the top, there was the sea on the other side, obviously even to the untrained eye at a considerably higher level than the green fields through which we had just been driving. Of course it is an old story, the Dutchman’s long war with the German Ocean, but one never realises it till one comes to drive uphill to the sea, and then it fairly takes one’s breath away. I was deeply impressed, and took advantage of a chance that offered of talking the subject over with an expert, who, like most Dutchmen, happily speaks English fluently. Far from expressing any anxiety as to the land already won, he informed me that they are seriously contemplating operations against the Zuider Zee, and driving him permanently out of Holland! And I declare I believe they will do it, and so win the right, alone, so far as I know, amongst the nations, of saying to the sea: “Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” One more example,—their thoroughness as to cleanliness. Not only the pavements of the main thoroughfares, but all the side-streets are thoroughly well washed and cleansed daily. When you walk out in the early morning you might eat your breakfast anywhere with perfect comfort on the sidewalks. We had to look for more than a quarter of an hour to find a bit of paper in the streets, and the windows in the back streets, even of houses to let, are rubbed bright and polished to a point which must be the despair of the passing English housewife. Why are Dutch house-maidens so incomparably more diligent and clean than English? Can it be their Puritan bringing-up? In short, ten days’ residence here—I have never before done anything but rush through the country on my way east—seems likely to make me review old prejudices, and to exclaim, “If I were not an Englishman, I would be a Dutchman!” One may read and enjoy Motley without really appreciating this silent and “thorough” people, or understanding how it came to pass that by them, in this tiny and precarious corner of Europe, “the great deliverance was wrought out.”