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The Roof of France

M >> Matilda Betham Edwards >> The Roof of France




Growing close to road and river are apple-trees laden with ruddy fruit.
In England such crops would be pillaged in a day. Among peasant
proprietors, each respects the possession of his neighbour. This fact
and one or two others impressed my companion much. It was her first
acquaintance with rural France, and she had undertaken the journey
purely as a lover of nature and art, not at all as a student of
political economy, agriculture, or statistics. Peasant property was no
more in her way than the Impressionist school of modern art in mine.
But being keenly observant, and feeling, as any other member of the
propertied class must do, aghast at the condition of rural affairs in
England--vast tracts of cultivated land deteriorating into waste,
agricultural wages lowered to nine shillings a week, vagrancy on the
increase in consequence of the general migration to the towns, the sons
of country squires enlisting in the ranks, or betaking themselves to
manual labour in the Colonies--aghast, I say, at these signs of the
times among ourselves, she could but feel some surprise at her French
experiences. The entire absence of mendicants in the departments we had
lately traversed--these reputed among the poorest in France--was
altogether a revelation to her, as indeed it must be to any stranger on
French soil. Even in a neglected-looking place like Peyreleau, where
the people are wholly unused to the sight of tourists, and life is
evidently one of extreme laboriousness, no hand is held out for an
alms. In our long drives across country, where strangers in a carriage
and pair are assuredly taken for millionaires, we were never asked by
man, woman or child for a sou.

Again, the good, neat, suitable clothes of the country-people struck my
friend no less. The total absence of tawdriness and finery on Sundays,
the equally total absence of rags and squalor on week-days, afforded a
striking contrast to what we are accustomed to see at home. It is more
especially in the matter of foot-gear that the working-classes in
France show to advantage. My friend noticed with admiration the well-
stockinged, well-shod children, all having good strong shoes--stockings
evidently bought or made for them, not the ill-fitting belongings of
others, gifts of charity or bargains of the pawnshop. The men and
women, too, are uniformly well shod, with strong, clean, home-knit
stockings. Again, the implied sense of security in these unprotected
gardens and wayside orchards is a novelty to the English mind. At
Hastings, which may also be called the metropolis of vagrancy, it is
impossible to keep a poor little wallflower or a primrose in one's
garden. An apple-tree would be pillaged on any public road in England
before the fruit was half ripe. Not only here, but in Anjou and many
other regions, I have walked or driven for miles, amid unprotected
vineyards and fruit-trees, the ripening crops being within reach of
passers-by. No one pillages his neighbour.

Yes, peasant property is a detestable, nay, an iniquitous, institution,
only to be compared to the Inquisition itself. No one who does not
already possess several thousand acres of land ought to be permitted by
law to purchase a single rood. Nine shillings a week, Christmas doles
of beef and flannel petticoats from the Hall, the workhouse as a reward
for fifty years' patient following the plough--these make up the only
Utopia worth mentioning. Every right-minded person, every true
Christian, has come to such conclusions long ago. Yet when it is
possible to spend weeks in a civilized country without encountering a
beggar; when we see an entire population well-clothed, cheerful, and
self-supporting in old age; when we see fruit-crops ripening in all
security by the roadside, and inquire throughout the length and breadth
of the land for a poor-house in vain; when we find judge and jury
dismissed at assize after assize because there are no criminals to try,
we are tempted to exclaim:

'Peasant property or no, they manage these things better in France!'

'There is no want here,' our driver said, and the fact is self-evident.

As we approach Millau we meet streams of country folk disporting
themselves, some afoot, others in rustic vehicles--the men wearing
clean blue blouses over the Sunday broadcloth, the women neat black
gowns, kerchiefs, and spotless white coiffes. The fields are deserted.
Man and beast are resting from the labours of the week.

The landscape now changes altogether, and we are reminded that we have
quitted the Lozère for the Aveyron. The air has lost the matchless
purity and exhilarating briskness of Sauveterre and Montpellier-le-
Vieux. Alike sky, atmosphere, and vegetation recall the south. Pink and
white oleanders bloom before every door; the quince, the mulberry, the
peach, ripen in every garden. We long to get at our boxes and exchange
woollen travelling-dresses for cottons and muslins.

Pleasant and welcome as is this soft air, this warm heaven, this
bright, rich-coloured, flowery land, we strain our eyes to get a last
glimpse of the Causse Noir. To betake ourselves to cosmopolitan hotels,
cities and railways, after this sojourn in elfdom, was like closing the
pages of 'Don Quixote' or Lucian to read a debate in the House or
listen to a sermon.

And now that I am no longer held spellbound by wizardry and genii, good
or evil, and the first glow of enthusiasm is over, let me jot down a
few hard facts for the reader's edification--give in a few words the
geological and general history of the Causses, if nothing more--a bare
outline to serve the tourist on his way. The origin of the phenomenon
is thus explained by the great French geographer, Elisée Réclus, in his
chapter on 'Le Plateau Central de la France.' [Footnote: See his
'Géographie Universelle,' vol. ii.: 'La France,' 1885.] 'There is no
doubt,' he writes, 'that at a remote period all these plateaux of
jurassic rock formed a single Causse, deposed by the sea in the
southern strait of the granitic group of France. Although the Causse
Méjean, placed almost in the centre of the series of plateaux, is a
hundred mètres loftier than the rest, its formation accords with
theirs. All show the same features. From the banks of the Hérault to
those of the Lot and the Aveyron, all show the same development of
continuous strata. The ancient glaciers spread on the highest summits
of the Cévennes as they melted, gradually cut into the rock, channelled
openings--finally, forcing their way through the layers, have formed
these gigantic defiles, now the marvel of geologists. If the rivers
flow in an unbroken stream in these deep gorges, on the contrary, water
is altogether absent from the plateaux above. The ground, riddled
everywhere into holes and fissures, is hardly moistened by a shower.
The rain, as if falling through a sieve, immediately disappears. In
some places the chasms of rock have widened, the intermediate
projections given way, and huge cavities of rightful depth--avens or
tindouls, as they are locally called--are formed in the limestone. But
the surface of the Causse is almost universally uniform, and these
subterranean wells are only indicated by slight openings. Nowhere a
foundation springs forth. Alike as to formation, aspect, and climate,
the Causses are unique in France.'

This entire chapter is a necessary preparation for no matter how hasty
a journey in the Lozère; equally to be recommended is the study of the
Causses by M. Onèsime Réclus in his work 'La France.' [Footnote:
'L'orage aux larges gouttes, la pluie fine, les ruisseaux de neige
fendue, les sources joyeuses ne sont pas pour le Causse, qui est
fissure, criblé, cassé, qui ne retient point les eaux, tout ce que lui
verse la nue, entre dans la rocaille. Et c'est bien, bien bas que
l'onde engloutie se décide à reparaître, elle sort d'une grotte, au
fond des gorges, au pied de ces roches droites, symétriques,
monumentales, qui porte le terre-plein du Causse. Mais ce que le
plateau n'a bu qu'en mille gorgées, la bouche de la caverne le rend
souvent par un seul flot, les gouttes qui tombent du filtre s'unissant
dans l'ombre en misseaux, puis en rivières. Aussi, les sources du pied
du Causse, sont-elles admirables par l'abondance des eaux, par la
hauteur et la sublimité des rocs, de leur "bouts de mondes." Trop de
soleil si le Causse est bas, trop de neige s'il est élevé, toujours et
partout le vent, qui tord les bois chétifs, pour lac, une mare, pour
rivière un ravin, de rocheuses prairies tondues par des moutons et des
brébis à laine fine, des champs caillouteux d'orge, d'avoine, de pommes
de terre, rarement de blé, voila les Causses! Le Caussenard seul peut
aimer le Causse, mais qui n'admirerait les vallées qui l'entourent?']

I may add that the only traces of volcanic action in the Causses have
been found at Sauveterre, near the so-called capital. Here basaltic
rocks exist amid the limestone.

It is not only the geologist and the botanist, in search of an emotion,
to use a French phrase, who will find a paradise here. The
palæontologist is no less happy. Sparsely peopled, isolated from
civilization as is the 'great jurassic island' in our own day--lost as
it seems to have been in the pages of French history--it was inhabited
by our prehistoric forerunners, contemporaries of the great cave-bear.
The entire department of the Lozère is a rich palæontological field,
and the Causse Méjean especially has afforded abundant treasure-trove.
In the vast caverns and grottoes of its walls, great quantities of
flint implements and fossils, human and animal, have been discovered. A
collection of these may be seen in the museum of Mende.

The Causses, owing to their isolated position, may be said to have
escaped a history. The great wave of religious warfare that devastated
the Cévennes in the Middle Ages passed them by. Only here and there on
the skirts of Sauveterre, near Mende, and of the Causse Noir, near
Millau, as we have seen, are relics of feudal times. Close around,
under the very shadow of these vast promontories, cresting the borders
of the Tarn and the green heights between Millau and Mende, ruined
strongholds and châteaux abound. The Causse itself enjoyed immunity
alike from ferocious seigneurs and still more ferocious theologian
bandits, seeking, as they put it, the salvation of their neighbours'
souls. The merciless Calvinist leader, Merle, who burnt, pillaged, and
depopulated Mende; the equally merciless quellers of the Camisard
revolt, emissaries of Louis XII., were tempted by no more prey to
penetrate these solitudes.

Were they, indeed, peopled at all? Was the so-called capital of
Sauveterre even in existence? Who can answer the questions? Nor is it
easy to determine when the entire region first fell under the
observation of French geographers, and found at last a name and a place
on the map of France.

Arthur Young, the most curious and accurate traveller of his time,
brought, moreover, into contact with the best informed Frenchmen of the
day, had evidently never heard of any portion of the Gévaudan, as the
Lozère was then called, at all answering to the Causses. But a French
traveller before alluded to--himself without doubt stimulated by the
example of our countryman--M. Vaysse de Villiers, author of the
'Itinéraire Descriptif de la France,' did in 1816, or thereabouts,
accomplish the journey from Mende to Florac by way of Sauveterre.
'Never,' he wrote, 'have I seen a more complete aridity, so utter a
desert,' He goes on to describe the beauty of the Tarnon (a small river
of the Lozère) and its verdant banks. 'All this, added to the
delightfulness of the autumn day and the horrible Causse of
Sauveterre,' but just passed, transformed the dreary town and narrow
valley of Florac into a delicious retreat. In a note he gives the
accepted derivation of _Causse_ from _calx_, saying that it
was of general application, and that the word certainly filled a blank
in French nomenclature.

It is now instructive to turn to French guidebooks and see how
completely the region here described was ignored till within the last
few years. I have before me Joanne's invaluable and conscientious
guides for Auvergne, including the Cévennes, published respectively in
1874 and 1883. In the former, whilst the Causses figure in the map,
beyond a brief allusion to the Causse Noir, they are ignored
altogether. St. Énimie is not once mentioned, and nothing is said about
the gorges of the Tarn. As to Montpellier-le-Vieux, it could find no
place in a guide-book of that date, seeing that it was only discovered
ten years later. We now take the edition of 1883. Here, the route from
Mende to St. Énimie by way of Sauveterre is described also in the
fewest possible words, two pages being found sufficient for short
descriptions of the gorges of the Tarn by way of Florac, St. Énimie and
the valley of the Joute. Montpellier-le-Vieux, for the very good reason
mentioned above, is still absent. But just a year later we find the
guide-book remodelled altogether. Joanne now devotes an entire, volume
to the Cévennes, and states in his preface that the new issue of the
'General Itinerary of France' contains an account of a region very
little known to French tourists, yet well worth visiting, the region
comprising the Causses, the Cañon du Tarn and Montpellier-le-Vieux. The
distinguished geographer, alas! did not live to see his little purple
volume, and, I am compelled to add, Baedeker's red rival, in the hands
of scores and hundreds of his fellow-countrymen and women bound for the
Lozère.

If the reader now turns to a map of France, and draws a perpendicular
line from Mende to Lodève, and a vertical line from Millau to Florac,
he will have a pretty good notion of the area occupied by the Causses,
including that of the Larzac in Aveyron.

When it is taken into account that the superficies thus covered in the
Lozère alone reaches the total of 125,000 hectares, some idea may be
gathered of the magnitude of the whole. The entire population of these
highlands was only 6,662 souls in 1876, and there can be little doubt
that, in the slow process of time, either they will be abandoned
altogether, or by means of scientific methods utterly transformed. The
laborious, long-suffering, hitherto ignored Caussenard will not surely
be long neglected by the patriarchal Government of France. The Republic
has laid iron roads across the Lozère, thus redeeming the department
from the isolation and inertia of former times. Another tardigrade act
of justice will surely ere long complete the work, and the inhabitant
of the French steppes be made to share in the well-being and happiness
long enjoyed by his fellow-countrymen.




CHAPTER XVI.
RODEZ, VIC-SUR-CÈRE REVISITED.--A BREAKFAST ON THE BANKS OF THE
SAÔNE.


In future, tourists bound northward will be able to reach Neussargues
on the Clermont and Nîmes railway by a direct line from Mende and St.
Flour. As this new line is not yet completed, and I had set my heart
upon revisiting Rodez and Vic-sur-Cère, we took the more circuitous
route, going over the same ground I had traversed the year before. It
was once my ambition to visit one by one every noteworthy spot in
France. The appetite grows by what it feeds on, and now I never see any
striking place without making up my mind to see it twice.

Great was my delight at Rodez to find a bright, cheerful, spick and
span hotel, newly opened since last year. The time-honoured house of
Biney has two credentials worthy of mention--very low charges and good
food. Its modern rival has greater claims upon the wayfarer's
gratitude--pleasant, wholesome rooms, neat chambermaids, and the kind
of modernization so necessary to health and comfort. The Hôtel Flouron,
too, is presided over by a lady, and when we have said this we have
implied a good deal. A grand old town is the capital of the Aveyron. We
must see it again and again to realize its superb position and the
unique splendour of its cathedral, towering over the wide landscape as
our own Ely Cathedral over the eastern plains. To-day it was not
flushed with the flaming red and gold of sunset, as when first I saw it
a year before, but its aspect was perhaps all the more grandiose for
sombre colouring.

From both extremities of the town we obtain vast panoramas; we look
down as if from a mountain-top, the plateau or isthmus on which Rodez
stands being two hundred and fifty feet above the circumjacent plain,
the river Aveyron almost cutting it off from the mainland. Within a few
yards of the Hôtel Flouron we reach the edge of this escarpment, and
gaze upon the wide valley of the Aveyron, village-crested hills, and
the dim blue outline of the far-off Larzac.

From the public promenade at the other end of the city we look westward
upon a richly-cultivated plain set round with the Cantal mountains,
gold-green vineyards, wine-red soil, and deep purple distance.

The physical characteristics of some French departments are as nicely
defined as their political demarcations. Nothing can afford a sharper
contrast than the Aveyron, with its ruddy soil and red rocks, and the
green, pastoral Cantal, land of smiling valleys, unbroken pastures, and
hills that wear a look of perpetual spring. These differences cannot
fail to strike the traveller who journeys from Rodez to Vic-sur-Cère; a
charming bit of railway it is, especially in autumn, when the chestnut
woods begin to show autumn crimson and gold.

And Vic-sur-Cère, too, delights even more on a second visit. The spot
is indeed a corner of Eden--a happy valley, to be transformed, alas!
into a miniature Vals. My hostess told me that a casino, hotel, and
bathing establishment are about to be built, all bringing their
concomitant evils or advantages, as we may respectively regard
cosmopolitan comforts, high prices, frivolous distractions, and a
fashionable crowd.

How kindly the good folks of the homely Hôtel du Pont welcomed their
guest of last year, filling my basket at departure with gifts of
flowers, fruit, and little cheeses, begging me to return the following
summer! At Clermont-Ferrand, good fortune for the first time directed
me to a really comfortable hotel, as on previous visits, alike in
lodgings and hotels, I had been cheated, bullied, and made
uncomfortable. Let me signal alike the fact and the name: at the Hôtel
de la Poste I was enabled really to enjoy this interesting old town,
the views of the Puy de Dôme from every opening, the noble, Romanesque
church of Nôtre Dame du Port, the magnificent display of the shops-no
town in all France where you can buy more beautiful jewellery, bronzes
and porcelain than at Clermont.

My companion quitted me here, proceeding by night express to Paris, and
I took the long, slow, wearisome parliamentary to Lyons, a ten hours'
journey, which wiser travellers will not fail to break half-way. The
only express train between Clermont and Lyons leaves very early in the
morning, so we have a choice of evils.

I do not know why the Puy de Dôme should be my favourite mountain, but
so it is, and never did it look lovelier than to-day, as, with its
sister volcanoes, pyramid upon pyramid of warm purple, it towered above
the green Limagne; gradually the rest receded from view, till at last
nothing was left but that solitary dome of amethyst under the golden
heaven. At Lyons--where I awaited a dear French friend--I always make a
point of seeing the famous town-clock, work of a modern sculptor, a son
of Lyons.

This clock, or rather the marble façade adorning it, is not only a work
of genius, but a sermon in stone, perpetually preached to the surging,
buzzing crowds below. It stands high above the central hall of the
Exchange, at business hours a scene of extraordinary bustle and
excitement, which the public can always watch from the gallery above,
and from which they command an excellent view of the clock.

The noble piece of sculpture forming the façade represents the various
stages of human life--three female figures composing the group--the
Hour that is gone, the Hour that is here, the Hour that is coming.
Simple as is the arrangement of the whole, nevertheless, so skilful is
the pourtrayal that each figure seems to move before our eyes. We
almost see the despairing past sink into the abyss, her passive, erect
sister, the dominant hour, letting go her hand, whilst, radiant and
impatient for her own reign to begin, the joyous impersonation of the
future springs upward as if on wings.

This allegory, so powerfully and poetically rendered in marble, might
have been more appropriately placed. Does it not savour of irony thus
to idealize the three stages of human existence 'among the money-
changers of the Temple'?

Next day was Sunday, as glorious a sixteenth of September as could be
desired. In company with my friend I set off for an al-fresco breakfast
on the banks of the Saône.

No city in all France boasts of more umbrageous walks than Lyons, and
for miles we drive along the plane-bordered quays and suburban slopes,
dotted with villas and chateaux, the modest chalet of the artisan and
small shopkeeper peeping amid vineyards and orchards, whilst showing a
splendid front from English-like park we see many a palatial mansion of
silk merchant or iron-founder. Between the sunny vine-clad hills and
belt of suburban dwellings flows the placid Saône, a contrast indeed to
its swift, impetuous brother--no wonder the Rhône has a masculine name!

An hour of upward climb, and we might fancy ourselves in Switzerland or
at Keswick, anywhere but within an easy walk of the second Paris--so
cool the shadow of the over-arching trees, so rustic the ferny rock, so
quiet the woodland glades. We got lovely glimpses of the clear, blue
river as, freighted with many a pleasure-boat, it winds its way towards
Macon.

In a sequestered nook at the foot of these wooded hills is a curious
monument, none more martial to be found in the world--the tomb of a
soldier, constructed by soldiers; on a plain marble slab inscribed the
words: 'Here lies a soldier,' not a syllable more.

On either side, under a small open chapel, portico-shaped, in which the
stone lies, are two figures, a dragoon and a foot-soldier, who keep
perpetual watch over their chief.

This is the self-chosen monument of the General Castellane, one of the
first Napoleon's veterans. Perpetual Masses are celebrated here on his
behalf.

We drive on to our destination, the Île Barbe, a narrow wooded islet,
dividing the Saône into two branches, and forming the favourite
holiday-ground of the Lyonnais. The rich hire a special pleasure-boat
or carriage; the happy tourist is, perhaps, like myself, driven thither
by ever-hospitable, too hospitable, French friends, who, not content
with affording their guests a day's unmitigated pleasure, invariably
contrive to eliminate every element of fatigue. Holiday-making is
indeed cultivated to the point of a fine art in France.

For slender purses there are cheap boats, cheap railways, and the
omnibus. It does one's heart good to see scores of family parties to-day
availing themselves of the superb weather and taking a last picnic.
In every green, shady nook we see a merry group squatted on the ground,
relishing their cold patties, fruit and wine, as they can only be
relished out of doors. The babies, nursemaids, and pet dogs are there.
Breakfast over, the holiday-makers amuse themselves, grandparents and
bantlings, with fishing for minnows in the clear waters.

How merry are all! How all too swiftly fleet the bright hours!

In the spacious, terraced garden of the restaurant we find dozens of
tables spread for richer folk. We prefer the cool, quiet dining-room,
which we have to ourselves, after all. The food is not of the choicest,
the wine compels criticism between each course, we have to wait long
enough for the making of an ordinary meal; but French gaiety and good-
nature overlook these drawbacks, and the charming view of the river and
its wooded banks, the freshness of the air, the atmosphere of gala and
relaxation, make up for everything; the bill is cheerfully paid, and
all but the separate items of the day's enjoyment forgotten.

Perhaps the charm of a French picnic is enhanced by the fact that it is
never made too long. Our neighbours do not make what is called 'a day
of it,' but wisely prefer to take their pleasure as they do their
champagne--in moderation. We drive home, feeling fresh and alert as
when we set out.

Everyone is abroad. As we pass through the workman's suburb, the ultra-
socialist, ultra-revolutionary quarter of the city, in which political
passions have so often raged hotly, and popular feeling has taken
incendiary form, we find only peacefulness and calm. The socialist and
red-revolutionary, in his Sunday's best, sits before his front door,
reading a newspaper, playing with his baby or chatting with a
neighbour. Pet dogs and cats sun themselves with a lazy, Sunday air,
girls and lovers flirt, children play, gossips tell each other the
news. It is difficult to believe that we are passing the stormiest
quarter of the stormiest city in France. All is as quiet as the
riverside scenes we have just left.

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