A Year in Western France

Chapter 1

'AGE I. From Nantes to La Rochelle . . . . i II. Poitiers 21 III. Through the Vendean Bocage to Saumur . 31 IV. Country Life in Anjou 48 V. Country Life in Anjou — continued ... 65 VI. Peasant Farms in Brittany 81 VII. A Winter in Nantes 92 VIII. A Winter in Nantes — continued . . . . 107 IX. Walks and Drives in the Loire Inferieure . 11S X. Grand Jouan — A French School of Agri culture . ■ . . . . . . . 129 XL French Boys and Girls 137 XII. Education — Clerical and Secular . . . VI Contents. CHAPTER PAGE XIII. Scenes of Convent Life 155 XIV. Some Aspects of French Social Life . . . 172 XV. A French Science Congress .... 200 XVI. An Autumn Trip in Brittany — I. Morbihan . 221 XVII. //. Finistere 252 XVIII. III. More of Finistere 269 XIX. IV. Cotes du Nord 293 XX. Angers 312 XXI. Some Noble Bretons of To-day. . . . 332 Chapters XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., XIX., XX. have already appeared in ' Fraser's Magazine,' and part of Chapter XIII. in the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' ILLUSTRATION. Hotel de Ville, La Rochelle .... Frontispiece A YEAR IN WESTERN FRANCE.

CHAPTER I. FROM NANTES TO LA ROCHELLE.

A MORE delightful little trip cannot be conceived than that I am about to describe ; namely, the journey from Nantes to La Rochelle, Poitiers, and Saumur, by way of La Vendee. Not that La Vendee retains any of its most striking characteristics. The strategic roads made under Louis Philippe's reign, the railways, the cheap newspapers, have changed the face of the country, and in a measure modified the character of the people. Yet, historically speaking, there is no more interesting department in France. Every hamlet, every wind mill, every brook and hillock, has its blood-stained annals ; and, in spite of the prosperity now witnessed on every side, there is hardly a village without its ruined chateau, by turns the stronghold of Blancs or Bleus, Royalists or Republicans. Books about La Vendee are rare ; and though its little sea-side resort, Les Sables d'Olonne, is now a fashionable watering-place, with a grand hotel, a casino, and the usual accessories of a town given up to what is B amusingly called ' promenades en mer,' travellers are seldom met with off the beaten track.

There are, how ever, two works which all tourists who propose to follow my itinerary will do well to consult. One is the last book of Vendean travels I could hear of in France — 'Voyage dans la Vendee, par E. Genoude,' Paris, 1821 — a work especially useful, as the author set out on purpose to go over the scenes of the Vendean war. All the ruins, all the dead, have still their witness, he writes, and from one end of the country to the other was but a vast desolation. In those days the peasant folks had a geography of their own, and instead of calling places by their names, they spoke of 'the country of La Rochejacquelein or M. Henri,' as he was familiarly called, ' the country of de Bon champs, the country of Charette,' and so on. The author's chief sources of information were the older men who had taken part in the war ; and wherever he went he picked up stories of heroism and devotion.

When a man of very short stature wanted to enlist in the Vendean army, and an officer was about to measure him, the Colonel interposed. ' It is from the head to the heart we must measure a Vendean,' he said. When Charette was offered a refuge in Eng land, he replied : ' What would become of these good fellows about me ? They would perish alone ; I will die in their midst' Even the Republicans wrote of Charette — De Charette, passants, respectez le repos ; II vecut en brigand, il mourut en heros. But our author, who speaks of the barbarians of the Convention, is too partial to be relied upon. The companion volume I have before referred to is a very good counteractive. This is a purely historical work by M. Bonnemere, author of a well-known book, ' L'Histoire des Paysans,' and entitled ' La Vendee in 1793.' If M. Genoude detests the Bleus, M. Bonne mere detests the Blancs still more, and on no account should the one author be consulted without the other.

M. Bonnemere moreover gives a graphic picture of La Vendee before the war, and certainly, after realis ing the state of semi-barbarism in which it was plunged, we have little difficulty in understanding the savage nature of the war and the ferocity displayed, as well on the side of the Vendean ladies and gentlemen as on that of 'les barbares de la Convention.' Who had ever heard of La Vendee before the insurrection ? Was it a province, a river, or a mountain ? Was it in Brittany, in Anjou, or in Poitou ? Had it historic annals, warriors, poets, great men; any of those things, in fact, which make a noise in the world ? No. Without a past, without a tradition, without ennobling memories, it had been for centuries asleep ; and so entirely, that when, in 1793, France invaded, thought to wake it from its apathy by the magic words La patrie en danger, these two words, France, patrie, had no meaning for La Vendee.

The country was for the most part a wilderness, and agri culture consisted chiefly in the culture of rye and buck wheat. One road only, namely, that from Nantes to La Rochelle, traversed the country. Towns there were not. After the pacification of the department, it was found necessary to convert La Roche-sur- Yon B into a place of sufficient importance to be chef-lieu, which is still one of the dullest towns in France. The poor people lived in wretched hovels ; and, as a Royalist historian describes them, knew just enough to culti vate the land, to pay the dime docilely, and to obey the corvee. The nobles were hardly less ignorant, often unable to write, coarse-mannered, and spending their time in eating and drinking and the chase. The priests, always recruited from the peasant class, were by no means calculated to exercise an elevating in fluence.

Fanatical, stupid, and vindictive, they were all-powerful among a superstitious population shut out from other lights ; and it was mainly owing to the clergy that the Vendean war held out with such unexampled tenacity. ' L 'inexplicable Vendee? said Barere, not sufficiently taking into account the awful threats held over the timid and the recalcitrant, and the way in which the women played into their hands. The priests and the women indeed made the war of La Vendee — a war more misrepresented, perhaps, than any other historical event. Great heroism and un exampled devotion doubtless may be cited on the part of the Vendeans ; but it must ever be remem bered that they were promoters of civil war, and that their hopes of success from the beginning were based on the aid of foreign invaders, invited by them to crush the country.

All travellers in La Vendee will visit Clisson, a miniature Switzerland whither the Nantais resort for pic-nics. But as I had already seen thrS charming country resort, I made my first halt at the little town of Montaigu, where I was awaited by kind friends who were to give me an itinerary for the rest of my route. This is the only way to travel to the best advantage ; to be able to dismiss guide-books and ordinary sources of information, for what is much more valuable and inexhaustible — namely, oral information from those who have lived all their lives on the spot. As was the case with my journey in Brittany, to be described further on, I was handed from friend to friend and acquaintance to acquaintance, throughout my tour in La Vendee and Poitou ; and was thus enabled to see much more than if I had been an ordinary traveller, provided only with Murray.

Moreover, herein lies the real poetry of travel. Instead of the interested wel come of hotel-keepers, kind faces greet you at every halting-place, friendly hands clasp yours, and you are conducted from place to place, not by hired cicerones who have got up a parrot-like knowledge of places and things, but by educated ladies and gentlemen who delight to do the honours of that corner of their native land in which they live. Thus it befel me, at every stage of my journey ; and with unforgetable recollec tions of lovely scenes and historic sites, I brought away more cherished recollections still of that winning affectionate French hospitality which was lavished upon me from the beginning to the end. There is a rustic little inn at Montaigu, which has quite a local celebrity ; and, judging from its look of cleanliness and comfort, deservedly so.

The hotel Cassard, with its modest charges and pleasant people, might be an agreeable summer resort for an artist or an angler, and during the war of 1870-71 was occupied by the well-known painter, Auguste Bonheur, and his family. It was on the 25th of June that I arrived — season of the flowering of the vine, when the neighbouring atmosphere is impregnated with a delicate and indescribable perfume. This is a critical moment for the plant, and if rain falls in any quantity the vintage is ruined. My cicerone and host, a Vendean gentleman of great learning and Republican principles, took me for a long pleasant ramble round the ruined walls of the old town and chateau, ending in his gardens, where we feasted on strawberries and cherries. Montaigu lies amid very pretty scenery, and has abundant historical associations.

The river, La Maine, winds amid willowed banks and park-like glades ; and along the borders of the public walk is the public washing ground, the busy scene of the washer women in the evening light making a picturesque whole. The grey old tower is almost all that remains of the fortified chateau built by Louis XL with the hope of planting a firm foot in Brittany. Near the chateau is a well in which the Vendeans thrust dead, dying, and wounded Republican prisoners after a victory gained here. My host was present when, about twenty years ago, some bones and portions of blue cloth adhering to them were taken up. Under the chateau is a beautiful pleasure-ground, or so-called Garenne, which belonged to a member of the Con vention. On the grey walls of a grotto he carved the word ' Spei'' — to hope — which showed that he hoped and believed in the Republic of the future.

The scenery on every side is pastoral and poetic, with delicious little bits recalling Troyon, Daubigny, and Corot, or our own Constable — willowy, silverygreen banks and cool brown streams ; low-lying meadows, with cattle knee-deep in the grass ; and avenues of tall poplars or birch opening into lovely little dells. No wildness or ruggedness or grandeur here, as in Brittany ; all is lovely, quiet, poetic, and uneventful. The farming is much like that I have described elsewhere in the Loire Inferieure. The peasants, though called metayers, and their farms metairies, are for the most part really and truly small tenant farmers, who pay a money rent for their holding, and do not farm on the half profit system, as in Italy. Outside the Vendean cottage is a rude block of stone, hollowed out so as to form a washing-basin ; and here the whole family perform their ablutions !

These good people are not much in advance of the Bretons as far as some forms of cleanliness go, and a young Vendean lady told me that nothing strikes them as more ridiculous than the bourgeois habit of washing over-much ; but they are cleanly in their dress, and the excellent and often-washed coarse linen worn next their skins does undoubtedly keep them in a measure clean and healthy. They also have the Breton habit of only one common sleeping-room for a whole family, and sleep on beds, shelf-like arranged, like berths in a ship's cabin. The cottages are certainly much cleaner externally than in Brittany ; the usual dung-heap before the door is wanting, and bits of trellised vine, and even a flower-bed, are seen here and there. The richness of the soil is apparent everywhere. Vines, vegetables and fruit flourish, with evidently but little pains spent upon them ; and these peasant folks eat green peas, artichokes, strawberries, and other rare luxuries with us, every day.

The primitive little town of Montaigu, like Pornic in the Loire Inferieure and many others I saw in my travels, is lighted by the stars and the moon in sum mer and by lanterns slung on cords in winter. Even the railway has not modernised it. Next day, after an animated breakfast party at my friend's house, we paid visits to neighbours ; and I must say nothing can be more agreeable than this way of spending a long summer day. Beautiful old faience, historic furniture, and other interesting things, are found in these pleasant country houses, and good stories were not wanting. There was in the drawing-room a superb Henri IV. sideboard, richly carved in oak, that our hostess had found in a farmhouse. Unfortunately, during the Vendean war, the heads of the eagles surmounting the top were hacked off, and it was absolutely necessary to get new heads put on.

A skilful workman was found to undertake the job ; but alas ! when the sideboard came home, instead of the matter being mended, it had been made much worse. Some kind of nondescript bird's head had been put instead of the detested symbol of Imperialism, and re monstrance was vain. The ardently Royalist sculptor was willing to carve owls' heads, bustards' heads — anything except eagles' — and why in the name of heaven should not they do as well ? At last the sideboard had to be sent to Paris, where the eagles' heads were put on without compunction. This Vendean lady, now a grandmother, told me that in her youth the only way of getting from one place to another was on horseback. Every lady had her horse, and it was on horseback that she accomplished her shopping, her church-going, and her visiting.

Now, you find nowhere in France better roads than in La Vendee. There is one blot upon pastoral life here as well as in Brittany, and that is the hard treatment of animals. The cruel habit of separating a sucking calf from its mother, lest it should suck too much milk, prevails, and in a neat-house I visited, it was pitiable to see the cow tied up at one end of the place and the week-old calf tied up at the other, both bleating and looking at each other, making every now and then helpless little attempts to get loose. Further on I shall have to dwell on a much more cruel prac tice still, defacing this prosperous, peaceful, happy France, where it seems as if only the animals were badly off! After a pleasant little stay of two days with my Vendean friends, I went to Les Sables d'Olonne, or Les Sables as it is called, thus traversing the Marais.

The Marais, writes an author I have before quoted, is Venice in sabots ; but a barren, unfertile, dreary Venice, indeed ! The Maraichin is stronger and taller of stature than the inhabitant of the Bocage or the Plaine, the two other geographical divisions of La Vendee, to which a fourth should properly be added, namely, the islands. A very slight acquaintance with the natural features of the first three will make it clear how easy was victory to the Vendeans so long as they stayed in their own country. In those days the Bocage, the Marais, and the greater part of the Plaine, were impenetrable wildernesses to those who had not been accustomed to them from childhood. The Bleus, whose movements were made known by certain mysterious war signals — windmills, church towers, and trees being used in this curious system of telegraphy — were lost as soon as they got off the beaten track. ' There are the Bleus ; disperse yourselves, my lads,' cried the chief; and, quick as lightning, the Vendean force became invisible.

Behind every furze or heather bush a soldier lay hid, who, unseen till the approach of the enemy, pounced upon them at the right moment, working fearful slaughter. For the Vendean, retreat lay open on every side ; for the Republican, retreat there was none. The Vendean had food and arms at hand in every hovel ; the Republican had to carry his wherever he went. No wonder that the Convention lost patience at last, not being able to understand the resistance of ' the inexplicable Vendee.' Les Sables is aptly called. Never, I think, I saw such sands as these — so velvety smooth, so cool, so firm ! This, and the bluest, warmest sea in the world, are enough to account for the great popularity of this little watering-place. But a sojourn at Les Sables in June reminded me of Egypt, Algeria, and all the hottest places I can remember.

There is not a vestige of shade — not a tree, not an inch of wall, not a rock — ■ absolutely nothing to protect the eye and the head from the burning heat and the glare. How people can go there in the summer-time I cannot conceive ; yet July and August form the real season, and when I arrived the hotels were crowding fast. The town consists of a straggling line of brand new hotels, and green-shuttered, white-walled villas, mostly of the tiniest dimensions ; a new casino and a convent, where ladies are received as boarders at six francs a day during the season, and are made very comfortable. Why, indeed, should not the nuns turn an honest penny this way as well as any other ? The Sablais are a fine, sunburnt, athletic race, and the women, with their bare legs, short red petticoats, black hair, and brownishred cheeks, are picturesque creatures, especially as they walk arm-in-arm with a swinging gait, their short, very short red skirts swinging as they go.

So great is the heat, that during the day — that is to say from nine o'clock in the morning till five at night — there is nothing to do but remain in your room ; but the evenings are cool and delicious. The sands grow golden, the colour of the sea grows an intenser and yet intenser purple, little fishing-boats with orangecoloured sails lie at anchor far off; and on this, almost the longest day of the year, namely, the 26th of June, the night, when at last it does come, hardly seems night at all, so luminous is the atmosphere. People then take their sea dip, or what is called their ' promenade en mer,' not as we do, but after a much more amusing and original fashion. In the first place, they prefer it before dinner instead of a constitutional walk, and about five o'clock the business of bathing begins.

Close up under the long line of houses fronting the sea stretch long lines of bathing huts, in which the bathers make their toilette, after wards walking" into the sea, a distance varying with the tide, and, on the evening I speak of, about half a quarter of a mile. No masqueraders at Carnival time present an odder appearance than the fashionable frequenters of Les Sables thus equipped for their daily dip. The children, quaintest little figures imaginable, in harlequin-like dress of blue and white, or pink and white, much befrilled and beflounced ; the ladies, in coquettish Bloomer costumes of various-coloured serges, bordered with bright colours, in most cases the trousers only reaching just below the knee ; the men in tiglj}: cuirass like garments, shirt and drawers in one, both of the narrowest possible dimensions, leaving legs, arms and neck bare ; generally of striped black and red, or of some other combination equally gay.

Thus fanci fully clothed, men, ladies, and children take their walks into the sea, fathers of families conducting their wives and children, young ladies and young gentlemen flirting as if at a ball, all enjoying their amphibious amusement as in any other company. A little way off the line of bathing huts were a party of men disporting themselves in Adam's dress ; boys of all ages were also bathing on the rocks as uncere moniously as if they were on a desert island, and what with one thing and another, ' the human form divine ' might be as profitably studied at Les Sables d'Olonne as on a wrestling-ground of ancient Greece. It is odd that the family bathing hour should be from five to seven post meridian, and next morning, when I looked out of my window at six o'clock, not a soul was taking advantage of the deliriously cool water and solitude.

In spite of the great beauty of the late evenings and early mornings, I cannot conceive of anyone stay ing here during the summer more than twenty-four hours. The hotels are dear, noisy and crowded, the glare unsupportable, and, excepting the sea-bathing, no kind of amusement is offered. Yet to this little seaside resort, flock thousands and thousands of holi day-makers, in the hottest months of the year ; many marriages are made by parents and guardians, while the young people are flirting in the water ; and so great is the influx of visitors that landlords are able in two months to make up for the deadness of the remaining ten. One fact is to be noticed about the hotels here — they are clean. To journey from Les Sables to La Rochelle is to change the desert for the oasis. A greater contrast cannot be conceived than the Algerian sky, burning blue sky and brown burnt-up leeside of the one, to the blooming gardens, the cool antique arcades, the delicious freshness, and shadow of the other.

La Rochelle reminds the traveller of those quaint, stately Italian towns so little changed by the march of time and progress. On the hottest day of the year you can stroll under its dusky porches as agreeably as if it were spring; and when you quit these pleasant promenades, can still find shelter in the suburban-like streets, with large gardens offering shelter to the passer-by. All is quiet, harmonious, mediæval ; and the aspect of the Rochellois is in accordance with the staid yet cheerful antiquity of the place. Nowhere the stranger encounters greater courtesy and kindness than here ; while instead of the over-dressed conspicuous toilettes of Nantes, you find the simplicity and elegance of the Angevines. Never shall I forget with what a sense of relief and delight I hailed the tranquil, home-like, Hotel de France— the best hotel I met with during an entire year in Western France — after the bustling, unwelcoming, glaring Grand Hotel of Les Sables.

Here I was given a cool and pleasant room overshadowed by acacia trees, and looking into a well-kept garden full of trees and flowers, all so refreshing this sultry weather that I was reminded of those grateful gardens in Egypt and Algeria, which make you forget that you are in the East. The landlady — I will call her, rather, my hostess — was charming; and the servants, not over-worked, officious, and interested, but agreeable human beings with sufficient leisure to do their work cheerfully. In fact, the whole thing was one of those pleasant surprises that make up for the vast discomforts of travelling in France, even in these days. It is a place in which you feel at home at once, and quit with regret, this antique, stately, picturesque La Rochelle. Whichever way you turn you come upon some sign of mediæval times; and nowhere in my travels have I seen more beautiful old houses than these, with their harmonious grey walls, pointed roofs, carved corbels, projecting gurgoyles, and arched windows.

Evidently no wholesale demolition has been carried on here, and the new quarters are built in keeping with the old. People live after English fashion, each in their own house or hotel, so called ; and through the half-open front door I caught glimpses of creepers, trees, and flowers, giving a cheerful and countrified aspect to the streets. One superb house not mentioned in guide-books — a palace, of the time of Louis XIV.— will attract the eye of any traveller as he passes the Rue des Augustins ; and I am sorry to say that it has been so far desecrated as to be turned into a linen ware house! Worse still, a lovely column has been bar barously cut in halves to make way for the carts that otherwise could not be conveniently turned before the front door ! The pretty maid-servant — all the women are pretty here — who, seeing my longing looks as I stood at the garden gate, had offered herself as cicerone — seemed to take this piece of Vandalism much as a matter of course.

The rooms are small, but the ceilings, chimney-pieces, and pillars are richly sculptured, and with very little pains might be made habitable. Instead they are piled to the top with Breton-cloth, empty wine-bottles, and packing cases ; and who can predict that the whole building may not meet with the fate of the column ? It is an architectural gem. For even the merest tourist there is a great deal to see at La Rochelle, whilst it would be difficult to point out a town in France offering more deeply interesting historic associations. The Hotel de Ville of glorious memory — now, alas ! being restored — the noble clock tower, the towers of St. Nicholas, and the Lanterne, lend extraordinary imposingness to the place as a whole, and are well worth studying from an architectural point of view. Towards the end of the last century La Rochelle, as well as several other towns of Saintonge, was invaded by a host of termites or white ants, which threatened to become a public scourge.

The invading enemy came in some foreign cargo, none knew how, and wrought terrible devastation in the Prefecture, the arsenal, and several neighbouring houses. Though very small, these creatures can work through the hardest wood with their mandibles, and entire houses have been undermined by their means. Neither tar, nor arsenic, nor gunpowder, have proved efficient to destroy them. They fall upon clothes, paper, pens, pencils, eating up the latter, wood and lead altogether, and destroying the former. In the bureau of the Prefecture they devoured the archives of the department, and this without leaving any outward signs of their invasion, the upper and lower leaves being always left intact. Out of doors their ravages were equally complete, every bit of wood being attacked twenty-four hours afterwards.

The Hotel de Ville escaped the termites, but has fallen into the hands of restorers, and, like every other ancient monument in France, should be seen quickly. The famous marble table, scarred by the knife destined for the first who should dare speak of surrender, is all that is left in the way of a relic to recall the iron-hearted defender of Protestantism, when Protestantism was as yet a political power in France. It was proposed during the reign of Louis Philippe to erect a statue to Guiton, the heroic mayor of La Rochelle during the famous siege, but the projectors were forbidden to carry out their idea then, and it is hardly likely that it will be revived. Yet such a statue might read a salutary lesson to those who, even in these days, discern the necessity of religious persecution. Never did foreign enemy inflict so terrible a blow upon any country as that France inflicted upon herself when she drove the Huguenots out of the kingdom.

Wherever they went they carried enterprise, industry, and character with them, thus enriching their adopted country at the expense of the one they had left behind. It is not my intention to say more than a word about the history of La Rochelle and its memorable siege. All this is to be had for the asking, and most of us have learned the story in our childhood. I will only advise travellers to look at a little side door, now walled up, of the chapel of the Jesuit brotherhood, formerly the church of St. Marguerite. Through this door, on the 1st of November, 1628, Richelieu and Louis the Thirteenth passed, when about to celebrate mass in honour of the act of pardon. The town had been occupied on the 30th of October. The soldiers were seized with pity and horror on seeing the famished multitude who fell upon them, seizing the bread carried on their persons.

The streets and public places were covered with withered corpses none had found courage to bury. The half of the population had perished of hunger. A mother had fed on the body of her daughter. A father had nourished his son with his own blood. Thus fear fully does Henri Martin close his description of the siege. Guiton was at first exiled, with ten of the principal citizens, but was afterwards recalled by Richelieu, and was put in command of a war-ship. After the siege the Rochelois turned their attention to commerce. Three thousand inhabitants quitted their C homes on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, carrying their talents and their industry with them. The Revolutionary ideas of 1789 took immediate root here, and the national guard of the city set out to fight the Vendeans, but were defeated.