Wanderings by the Loire

Front matter

WANDERINGS BY THE LOIRE.

BY

LEITCH RITCHIE, ESQ.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGt

I. THE PAT ACHE 1

II. THE GARDEN OF FRANCE 3

Chapter I. The Patache

When a traveller desires to get into any of the provinces of France, he first betakes himself to the capital, however far it may seem to be out of the line ; and from thence he calculates with safety on being conveyed at once to his place of destination. In England, on the contrary, we can go from Bristol to Liverpool without thinking it necessary to visit London. But Paris is not in one, but in every respect the heart of the kingdom. It is the sun of the system, and, as such, an object of worship to the ignorant, and of admiration to the well-informed. It is the centre from which every thing radiates, and the focus to which all things return.

When we were there last, the revolution of July being the idea uppermost in our mind, we looked and listened, with intense curiosity, for the moral traces which might be supposed to follow so stupendous an event. We saw nothing, however, but the usual vanity fair, and heard nothing beyond the usual grumbling of politicians. Things had settled into their natural state ; and the

B

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mind of Paris exhibited no more traces of the ]ate tempest than does the sea to-day in which a navy was drowned last week. This time we have the same stimulus for curiosity. The blood of the Parisians is hardly dry on their streets ; the echo of the deadly cannonade has hardly melted from the ear; yet the people have already forgotten every thing. The wounds have been dressed, the victims buried, and masons, plasterers, and glaziers, are at work on the shattered walls. The citizens raise their heads, and look at them calmly as they pass, and then pursue their way to the theatre, the Boulevards, or the Palais Royal.

Considerable anxiety, notwithstanding, is evinced by strangers and provincials to get out of a city where such pranks are in fashion, and where people think so little of them. The scene at the police, when we went for our passport/8 was quite alarming. We never sustained such a pressure, or were kept so long in a crowd, since the last night of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons at

* The people at the hotels used to go through this farce themselves ; but in the Louis-Philippian era, the stranger who has the honour of being admitted into France must appear personally, not only here, but in the office at Calais. In the latter place he receives a provisional passport (containing a detailed description of his person), which he is desired to exchange at Paris for the original one sent forward by the Calaisian authorities. Sometimes, however, the original never arrives. But this is of no consequence ; for the whole of this absurd, clumsy, and cumbrous machinery is set into motion for the purpose of putting two francs into the pocket of government, which the traveller pays for his provincial passport ! Why do not our ministers retaliate on French visitors 1 The paltry tax would not keep one Frenchman out of the country — it would put a considerable sum into the treasury —and it would be an infinite satisfaction to every English traveller.

THE PATACHE.

Drury Lane theatre. The French, however, we must confess, have a certain politesse even on such occasions. They squeeze with feeling, and never put their elbows into your side without saying, " Pardon, monsieur ! "

The root of French politeness is vanity ; but it is politeness for all that. Every one has a higher opinion of himself than his station in society warrants, and endeavours to secure indulgence for his own foible by treating tenderly that of others. The English in France, for want of understanding this peculiarity, think the French mean ; and if their consequent rudeness is repelled in a proper manner, exclaim bitterly against the union exhibited of servility and insolence ! When two beggars, on meeting, pull off their hats, and inquire ceremoniously after the health of one another's madame, the English laugh. They remember that they were addressed by them but a minute before, with " Do give a half-penny to a poor devil!" and cannot conceive how people in such circumstances should think of ceremony. It is precisely because they are poor devils that they are polite. It is their only pride — their solitary consolation amidst the scoffs and buffets of this bitter world. God help them ! A man who would laugh at their grimaces, except in ignorance, would rob a church.

The bondage of the house-servants in France has no degradation in it. They cannot understand the absurd and insolent hauteur of English masters and mistresses : they feel that, although servants, they arc men and women, like their betters ; or rather they

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have no betters, except in the accidental circumstance of situation. A girl may he seen walking side hy side, and sometimes arm in arm, with her mistress along the street, and the familiarity engenders no contempt ; while among the spectators there cannot he any doubt as to the relative rank of the parties, the maid confining herself scrupulously to the dress of her caste.

In her application for the employment, the servant shews clearly the footing on which she wishes to engage. She does not advertise, " Wants a place, a young woman, to do for a family ;" but, " Mademoiselle Julie, who understands plain cookery, is ambitious of undertaking the situation of servant of all work or, " A demoiselle, of a reasonable age and of the highest respectability, has the honour of proposing to manage the kitchen department."

But we must leave the great Vanity Fair, where courtesy is the current coin, and proceed, a solitary but not discontented wanderer, towards the heart of the kingdom. We had, on other occasions, followed the course of the Rhone and the Rhine, and were now anxious to see the Loire. The character of the first is sublimity ; of the second, the picturesque ; and of the third, as we were told, beauty and majesty combined. The Loire, to an Englishman, is the most interesting of the three. It waters those famous countries of Touraine and Anjou, where the bones of his ancestors are found to this day. Its banks are connected with numberless associations both of history and romance. Blue Beard and Coeur-de-Lion jostle on the scene. Every ruin on its hills is celebrated in story — every

THE PATACHE.

dash of its enchanted wave calls up the spirits of memory —

" By a thousand tokens of sight and sound Thou wilt feel thou art treading on haunted ground V

If auguries can be drawn from the weather, we might have promised ourselves a fortunate journey ; for there never shone a more glorious evening than the one on which we left Paris. There was no twilight ; for the evening, though different in character, seemed as bright as the day. The skies were of a golden yellow, dappled in different shades, and streaked with crimson in the west ; and, as if eyeing the show with impatience, a great . round moon, already far above the horizon, waited till her hour of empire should arrive.

The crimson at last faded into gold, and the gold was transmuted to silver ; but, as before, the change was in the character, not quantity, of the light. The moon —

" O call her fair, not pale ! " —

shewed not a shade of her accustomed melancholy ; it had, from first to last, been a jour de fete, and the various powers of nature were joyful by convention.

The effect of this, in one instance, was very curious. Three diligences had left Paris at the same moment, and were crawling along as usual, like huge alligators, at the rate of four miles an hour. By and by they began to snort and fling; and by the time the last tinge of evening had faded from the sky, and it was now the

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radiant and rejoicing night, unable longer to withstand the influence of the hour, they set off racing, and chasing, and roaring, as if seized with madness. We never witnessed such a spectacle in France before ; and occurring as it did in the deep middle of the night, on a lonely road stretching across a measureless plain of fields and meadows steeped in moonlight, the effect was indescribably strange. This phenomenon continued the whole night, but did not continue long. The reign of the moon expired before she was half weary of the throne, and the usurping day-star rose, like a strong man rejoicing in his strength. The labourers came out to their work in the fields, whistling as they came, with dogs and children gamboling round them; and the lasses of the village glided trippingly along, with their bright pewter milk-vessels glancing in the sun. All the world was astir ; and so short had seemed the time filled up with such a show, that we could hardly understand how an evening and a night could have passed since we left Paris.

Our first view of the Loire was productive of disappointment. The banks here are flat and tame, and the stream more like a haunt of Mercury, in his commercial character, than of the muses. A revulsion took place in our feelings : we thought bitterly of that bogie of sensitive authors, the Public, and wished ourselves on the Rhine, or in it. We became more reconciled to the scene, however, on approaching nearer. The river is broad, full, and rapid ; and the city of Orleans, built on the water's edge, impresses the imagination even of those who are unacquainted with its

THE PAT ACHE.

historical associations. From the further end of the bridge more especially, which spans the stream with nine wide arches, its appearance is magnificent. The towers of the old cathedral, seen on the left, are the principal object, and terminate the view with a venerable majesty which confers its own character upon all the other details.

From this spot, the town appears to be built upon a perfect flat ; and at the present moment there is a kind of repose in the whole scene which we never before witnessed in any of the crowded haunts of men. It is partly, no doubt, owing to the extreme sultriness of the weather that the few inhabitants we see move slowly and languidly about. The tap of a solitary hammer upon the shore is heard distinctly, as if there was no other sound among the thousands of human beings around it; the mariners recline at full length in their antique-looking vessels, whose white sails hang in utter lifelessness from the mast ; and the fruit- women suffer their heads, that are turbaned with handkerchiefs of every bright and glorious colour, to nod over their forgotten stalls, while they dream of custom which would just now be accounted a plague.

This spirit of repose, however, receives its colour from the cathedral, which impresses upon the whole scene a character of conventual stillness united with Romish grandeur. Its silence resembles that of a ruined temple, crowded only by the phantoms of memory ; and as we stand here, musing and solitary, with only the stilly murmur of the waters beneath in our ear, we are ready to believe that we behold a city of history

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conjured up from the grave of time, and peopled by shadows.

Sauntering slowly along the bridge, we at length entered the forest of houses, and prepared to explore. There is to some people — and we confess ourselves to belong to this class — an extraordinary pleasure in wandering, for the first time, through a foreign town, ignorant and uninquiring, without a plan and without a purpose — turning from street to street, from building to building, from group to group — mingling in crowds, gazing at windows, staring at faces, unknowing and unknown, a foreign language in our ear, a new costume before our eye, new manners, new features, new character, in men, their business, pleasures, customs, habitations. Alone where all else are united, in the scene but not of it, a feeling of pride mingles with the idea of strange and outcast solitude. We are like a being of another sphere, endowed with power to wander at will through the ranks of mankind, to penetrate unobserved into crowds, to single out, when we choose, an individual victim, and

" Probe his heart, and watch his changing cheek,"

without being subject, in turn, to the power possessed by others,

" At once the observer's purpose to espy, And on himself roll back his scrutiny."

A day employed thus vaguely is not thrown away, even when the purpose of the traveller is to seek precise information. He obtains a general idea on which to found his after acquisitions; his mind is

THE PATACHE.

saturated, as it were, with the character of the scene ; and when he comes to make his inquiries in detail, he finds that he is no longer a stranger.

On entering the town, we found, instead of a plain of houses, as it had appeared, a series of streets rising on gentle eminences. In one place, indeed, the inequality of the ground is so great, that a street is thrown like a bridge over the valley, in which other streets run below. The effect here, however, is not so great as the same circumstance produces on the more gigantic proportions of Edinburgh. Many of the streets are narrow, winding, irregular, and picturesque ; but, in general, they are well built, and apparently intended for the accommodation of the better middling orders of society. The doors and windows, as we passed, were all open, gasping for air, and the interior of the houses distinctly visible. On the shady side of the street the inhabitants sat, working languidly on the comparatively cool stones of the pavement.

We at length arrived at the cathedral, and were thankful that we had done so ; for there is not a more delightful refuge from the glare of the sun than those huge temples of Catholic idolatry. For some moments after entering, we were absorbed in the pleasurable sensations arising from a change of temperature ; and the next thing which struck us was the intense and unusual silence of the scene. In the distance, a priest was standing at the high altar, with four boys, dressed in white, kneeling on the steps behind him. The enclosed area was lined on either side with a rank of kneeling priests, in highly picturesque costume ; and the

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whole of these figures were so absolutely motionless, as to resemble statues more than living men.

As we approached, the echo of our measured, tiptoe tread ran hushingly round the vault, like the voice of one enjoining silence in a whisper. Before the rails there was a coffin, with a plain black pall, and near it a few mourners on their knees, the men at one side, and the women at the other. The rite, therefore, in which they were engaged, was the service for the dead. The profound silence of all, both priests and laymen, the clasped hands, the eyes fixed on the ground, the utter lifelessness of the figures, together with the gorgeous dresses of the ecclesiastics, the black weeds of the mourners, and the solemn and antique grandeur of the temple above and around them, formed in their union one of the most remarkable pictures we had ever beheld.

Suddenly a low, mournful chant, deepened and mellowed by wind instruments, broke from the lips of the priests, and, resounding for a few moments through the temple, died slowly away. It was answered by a shrill but sweet strain, in the voices either of women or boys; and as the singers were invisible — concealed, probably, by an immense black drapery which overhung the space behind the altar, it seemed like a reply from heaven. The whole scene was inexpressibly touching, from its solemnity, and the contrast afforded by its earnestness to the fainting and relaxation without. At such a moment, we look upon the dead with neither grief nor horror ; but rather with a kind of affectionate congratulation. We ourselves

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must return into " the hum, the crowd, the shock of men," into the world where the sun scorches while he enlightens, and the villain stabs while he smiles : but he — that calm, dark, silent, mystic guest of the church — his wanderings are over; he has reached the bourn of his pilgrimage ; he has arrived at a place — the enviable yet dreaded destination of all — where the sun shines not, where the winter chills not, where " the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!"

The cathedral, called the church of Sainte Croix, was founded in the thirteenth century, ruined by the Calvinists in the sixteenth, and rebuilt by Henri Quatre, who laid the corner-stone in person, in 1601. The ancient towers remained till about a century ago, when they were demolished to make room for the new, which, with the portico, also a modern erection, are the finest parts of an edifice supposed to be one of the most beautiful specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in France.

A short distance from the Sainte Croix is the Mairie — a jumble of old houses, surrounding a court not vastly unlike an English farm-yard. If the reader imagines himself standing with his back to the gate, he will comprehend the position of the artist while sketching the opposite view. On the left is the theatre, with two lower buildings, appearing as wings, one of which is the Cafe de Loiret, and the other the Cafe de la Comedie. The cathedral then appears, with its fine Gothic towers overtopping the other houses ; and the whole piece gives as accurate an idea of the localities

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as it is possible for the pencil to convey. The living figures, the procession, the carriages — those adjuncts which the poetical imagination of our friend has so characteristically supplied' — afford an admirable contrast to the still and silent scene from which we have just emerged. His fruit-women, too, are all wide awake, and as busy as they can be in realising the dreams of ours.

Our attention was next attracted by a monument in the Place du Martroy — an irregular and somewhat awkward -looking square, although the best in the town. It represented a female figure, standing on a massive pedestal of white marble, with a sword in one hand, and a standard in the other. We saw nothing but mediocrity, or something less, in the workmanship ; but here, in the town of Orleans itself, was it possible to gaze without reverence on the statue of the heroic Maid? In spite of the beastliness of Voltaire — the clever, snappish, impudent, heartless petit- maitre of French philosophy — with the sneers of far less talented and still more superficial inquirers, we look upon this admirable enthusiast to be one of the finest characters presented in the history of her country. The statue, however, is quite unworthy of her, and perhaps was a hasty erection, substituted for the more ancient monument destroyed in the revolutionary fever in 1792, when a love of liberty degenerated into disease.

The church of St. Aignan, where Louis XII. acted as canon, and received the alms, is worth seeing ; the bridge is handsome and spacious — and this is absolutely all that the ancient capital presents in the way of lions.

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Orleans is supposed to be the Genabum Carnatum mentioned in the Commentaries of Caesar, which afterwards took the name of Aurilianum, or Auriliana Civitas, whence the modern corruption, Orleans. It was besieged and taken (supposing the identity established) by Caesar himself, and later the attempt was made by Attila. The latter, however, was driven away by the prayers of Saint Aignan, who was then bishop, assisted a little by the arms of the Romans, Visigoths, and Francs, who had joined forces.

Piganiol tells us that it is said proverbially, that " la glose d'Orleans est pire que le texte ;" which means, according to his solution, that the Orleanais have the gift of raillery, inasmuch as such people are accustomed to add notes, as it were, to their facts, till the text is lost in the commentary. This, it must be allowed, is sufficiently far-fetched ; but it scarcely equals in pleasantry the mode which a poet has taken of accounting for the number of hunchbacks which are seen in Orleans. This deformity, it seems, was unknown till the people complained to Fate of the hills and hillocks with which their country was at that time afflicted.

" Oh ! oh ! leur repartit le Sort, Vous faites les mutins, et dans toutes les Gaules Je ne vois que vous seuls qui des monts vous plaigniez ;

The traveller is usually invited by the Orleanais to visit the source of the Loiret, two leagues from the town, and the visit is pleasant enough to be worth the trouble. The river rises in what looks like an artificial

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pond, in the centre of which you see the water bubbling and whirling ; and this is the birth of the Loiret.

Leaving behind the great woods extending in the distance — which were formerly so famous for murderers and their punishment, that one of them still rejoices in the name of the Bois des Pendus — we bade adieu to Orleans, and plunged into the midst of the orchards and plantations on the right bank of the river, with the view of proceeding to Blois. Among our fellow-travellers — for this time we indulged ourselves in a ride in the diligence— was an old lady, who amused the company by bouncing into a violent passion on being asked for her passport. She had travelled, she said, up and down, backwards and forwards, lengthways and breadthways, for the last half century, and had passed, till this disgraceful hour, in freedom and honour, by the royal signet of woman, the unquestioned and unquestionable privilege of her sex ! The gendarmes were at length awed, if not convinced ; and, informing her that she was at liberty to proceed on condition of her providing herself with a passport at the next town, they shut the door instantaneously to avoid hearing her indignant refusal of the conditions. This is by no means an uncommon scene. The French have a habitual deference for women, which is neither gallantry, nor affectation, nor puppyism : they are brought up to it.

The village of Saint- Ay, three leagues from Orleans, was the first stage. It is situated amidst the vineyards which produce the famous Orleans wine, scarcely inferior to Burgundy itself, and commands a fine view of the river and its opposite banks. There the village of

Notre Dame de Clery, with its lofty church, is the principal object: the latter renowned as the grave of Louis XI. — this odd compound, who was at once a cunning politician, an absurd bigot, a useful king, and an atrocious villain.

A league and a half farther, we passed through Mehan, a small town, where Jean Clopinel, one of the authors of the famous Romance of the Rose, was born in 1280; and after a ride of the same distance, reached Beaugency. There is something odd in the appearance of this place, which captivated our imagination at once. In vain we were told by our fellow-travellers that there was nothing to be seen ; and in vain we recollected that De Villiers, the travelling postman,* passes it in a single sentence. It was necessary to judge for ourselves; and leaving the diligence people changing horses and eating soup, we ran at full speed into the town, to see the lions.

The bridge over the Loire is itself a curiosity, consisting of no fewer than thirty-nine arches ; but the enormous square tower in the middle of the town was the principal object of attraction. This, we were told, is all that remains of an ancient fort, and, apparently, it must have been connected with other buildings of great strength. A fine range of lofty, antique houses runs along the quay, and behind them stands a venerable church. The streets are narrow, dark, crooked, and without the slightest pretension to regularity in the architecture. Sometimes they are connected

* Itineraire de la France, &c. Par Vaysse de Villiers, Inspecteur des Postes, &c.

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by vaulted passages, dark, cold, and dreary ; sometimes a canal in miniature runs along them in the middle, crossed by rude wooden bridges, or simply by a plank thrown from side to side. The water, after serving faithfully one street, is conducted to another by the shortest way, disappearing with a rumbling, grumbling sound beneath the houses, and rushing through the interior.

The whole place, in short, afforded a bodily representation of the idea we had formed, from the study of old writers, of a town of the middle ages : nor were the manners, habits, and appearance of the people less of the old-world caste. The main road running past the town rather than through it, and the post-house being at a little distance beyond, few travellers are tempted to pause for the purpose of exploring a place which only a dreamer like ourselves would think worthy of notice. The inhabitants, therefore, are seldom favoured with the sight of a stranger ; and when they are, they look upon the circumstance with an interest proportioned to its rarity. As we insinuated ourselves through the narrow streets, many a head was thrust out of the windows to stare at us as we passed ; and one ancient lady, seated by the tiny canal, ducking a child, had nearly drowned the object of her care, forgetting, in her astonishment, to raise him from the depths, where he lay kicking and choking in her grasp. In general, the population may be seen at -their doors, or sitting in the street at work ; and thus each neighbourhood resembles a single family. When a visit is paid, it must be to the street, not to the individual ;

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and for ourselves, we have no doubt that such intercommunication, in which the news of one quarter is carried to another, perhaps fifty or a hundred yards distant, are quite as interesting as a national embassy despatched from continent to continent.

While cogitating over such matters, and returning the stare of the natives with all our eyes, the idea of the diligence suddenly galloped across our brain, and, in some alarm, we took to flight, and made for the post-house as directly as we could. The diligence was gone ! We saw it at the top of a distant hill, and continued our race with renewed impetuosity. It disappeared ; but when we had gained the summit, we saw it as before, though at a 'greater distance. We ran on : it again disappeared, and we saw it no more.

The mishap was not so unimportant as the reader may imagine. Our baggage, which contained also the treasury of the journey, was merely inscribed with our name. What certainty had we that it would be left for us at Blois? or even that we should ever see it again ? In the mean time we had only two or three francs in our pockets ; and we had a journey of eight leagues and a half to perform in a burning mid-day sun. To turn back to Beaugency and hire a carriage was out of the question, for we had no money to pay for it, and but little probability of being better situated when we reached our destination ; while, to wait for the next public conveyance would diminish, if not destroy, the little chance we appeared to have of regaining our baggage. It was necessary, therefore, to gird up our loins and walk, as stoutly as we might ;

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and, wreaking our vengeance on the district by feloniously cutting a stick in the next plantation, we set forth on the pedestrian adventure.

Not a great many years ago, and in a like situation, we should have fancied ourselves a hero of romance ; a few centuries earlier, and we should have been a knight-errant ! Who could have grumbled at a walk of eight leagues and a half with such ideas crowding into his mind 1 We had been dragged back into the past by Beaugency — even now we were on the classic ground of chivalry. The glorious country on our right, with its vast vineyards stretching away till lost in the distance — the glorious river on our left, sweeping along its course in beauty and in pride; the glorious sun above showering his spear-like beams upon our head — combined to steep our senses in a kind of intoxication. The trump of the herald was in our ear ; the glitter of armour in our eye ; the brave, the fair, the noble, the personages of history, the as palpable creations of old romance, swept before our vision ; and as the pageant passed we felt our heart beat high and our step grow firm and free.

Such are the advantages of imagination, — such are the virtues of fiction. Let those still deride who place the sole pride and happiness of human beings — not made up, be it remembered, merely of bones, sinews, muscles, senses, but also of heart, mind, and intellect — in the advancement of the exact sciences. For us, we will continue to fill up the dreary waste which life sometimes presents with the airy fabrics of poetry ; and we will teach our children to look upon