The monk of Franquevaux. A novel

Front matter

Chap. Copyright No,.

PZ^

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I

Thanks to the beautiful poem of Mireio , thanks above all to the railway from Marseilles to Lyons, which traverses the little desert of Crau, few persons at the present day are unacquainted with the existence of this second Arabia Petrea that Providence has placed near the marshy soil of the Camargue, and not far from the green mountains of Cevennes, as if to unite at a single point, in our admirable France, climates the most varied and soils the most diverse,— Egypt, Holland, and Switzerland. Meanwhile if Crau, with its sands and its pebbles, with its phenomena of mirage and oasis, has ceased to be a stranger to us, its neighbor, the island of Camargue, clasped as it is between the greater and lesser Phone, and without any important road of communication, has remained nearly unknown. Hardly ever 1 *

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has mention been made of its herds of wild horses, degenerate descendants of Arab coursers which have been abandoned by the Saracens, and its troops of black bulls, left to themselves in its great salt pastures. It is, however, a curious and picturesque country, this uninhabited Holland, from its very monotony, — a tract as vast as certain kingdoms, throughout which you will not find a single city, and everywhere intersected with canals and ditches of all descriptions. Some portions of it are green and luxuriant as a Norman field, others solitary and desolate as a heath of Brittany. In this unpeopled country, under an ardent sun which is reflected in its tranquil waters, and which at evening disappears through a golden mist behind the graceful ramparts of Aigues-Mortes, silence has so much majesty, solitude breathes a sadness so penetrating, that the most vulgar soul must yield to their inspiring influence. One day Chateaubriand came to visit this corner of the earth. At the end of a week he was yet under its charm. He neither wished nor was able to tear himself away from this strange island, so much the melancholy of nature here harmonized with the genius and melancholy in the soul of the great poet.

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The soil of the Camargue is not much divided up, and contains but a very small number of inhabitants, and those are, for the most part, from Provence and the lower Languedoc, who are drawn to the island by the insufficient number of its laborers and the high prices given for work. Of the two or three scattered hamlets on this half -submerged land, the most important is situated at the mouth of the Rhone, outside of the Delta, and contains about five hundred inhabitants. It is the mysterious village of the Saintes, the Mecca of the Camargue, the holy object of an annual and popular pilgrimage ; it is the shore where tradition locates the shipwreck of the three Marys of the New Testament, who were tossed about in their frail vessel by the tempest, and cast ashore near the spot where still stands the church consecrated to their memory.

Two or three periods during the year the cultivated part of silent Camargue is peopled with a noisy crowd. From the neighboring villages, at the time of the harvest and the weeding, an army of young girls hastens to pick out the parasite-plants and tie up the wheat sheaves. The charming costumes and the vivacity of these women, who resemble the northern peasant about as much as the gazelle does

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the quiet sheep, their laughter, their songs and the sonorous brilliancy of their Prove^al language, so beautifully accented in every mouth, so lovely on the lips of a pretty girl, animate the landscape, and in this country, where the remembrance of Greece and Rome is still so fresh, recall involuntarily to mind the idyls of Theocritus and Virgil.

As to the uncultivated and purely marshy part, it is only in summer that it presents any animation. The sun having dried the swamps, the reeds are changed to yellow. On all the roads for ten miles around which lead to the Camargue, you will encounter under the oblique fires of the setting sun, innumerable files of wagons, enveloped, like a convoy of camel-drivers in the desert, in a thick cloud of warm and suffocating dust. The discordant cries of the muleteers, who constantly call from one to another, mingle with the noise of the little bells, and the grinding of the heavy wheels upon the stones of the road is not loud enough to drown the piercing chirp of myriads of grasshoppers that blacken the neighboring almond-trees. Sometimes the wagoner questions the horizon with an anxious look. He examines whether from the side of the Saintes some black cloud does not mount to the heavens

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and, advancing toward the north, threaten them with a storm. Arriving in the Camargue about daybreak, you may there see the crowd of laborers disperse through the marshes, already occupied by the mowers, and each team take in its load of reeds. Toward mid-day the same procession returns by the same route. Then men and beasts, the red or brown beards of the former, the black or white coats of the latter, all disappear under the gray uniform of the same dust, and the wagons high as houses, with a small white tent rising from the top, under which one of the wagoners usually dozes, find their way slowly and with an even balancing movement toward their homes abandoned since the previous night.

To the great delight of the engineers and roadmasters, who each year see their roads broken up by these heavy convoys, to the great delight above all of the wagoners themselves and their mules, overfatigued by night marches and by a labor without shelter under an overpowering sun, this rude work lasts less than a month. From the first rains of September, the water retakes possession of its domains, and man is driven away. As far as the eye can reach, a clear sheet of water covers the marshes the monk of franqttevatjx.

and sparkles in the sun. The Camargue again belongs to its sparse and pale population of fishermen and hunters of the water-fowl, and to its natural inhabitants — the swans and bustards, returning from the north, and the ibis and flamingoes which come back from Africa. The truth is, from its position on the borders of the Mediterranean, this region serves as a place of refuge or station for all birds which, driven from their native climate by the cold of winter or the too-ardent heat of summer, travel, isolated or in flocks, in search of a more genial sky.

Notwithstanding the incredible quantity of game which abounds under these rushes and in these ponds r hunting is too difficult for hunters ever to become numerous. The only months of the year in which the large migrations take place are October and March, and during these seasons a few persevering sons of St. Hubert come from Marseilles, Nimes, and Montpellier, and take up their quarters in some solitary hut in the midst of these waters.

The reputation of the Camargue as a marsh-hunting country has even crossed the seas, and of late, more than once, amateur hunters have been seen

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with their guns on their shoulders, coming from England, where they have left the Thames and the Clyde and their fox and grouse, to go flamingohunting on the banks of the .Rhone.

r

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n.

Last autumn, being obliged to make a prolonged sojourn at the South, I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of such a hunt myself. Unfortunately, the premature rains which had inundated the island, rendered all sport for the time impossible in the heart of the Camargue. I therefore resolved to stop at the marshes and ponds situated on the right bank of the lesser Rhone, since the bad weather and damaged roads had put an end to my intended excursion to the borders of the Yaccares.

At the very point where terminates the damp and marshy soil which extends as far as the canal of Beaucaire — on almost the last limits of terra firma, arose formerly the celebrated Abbey of Franquevaux. It was gracefully seated on the declivity of a beautiful hill, covered with secular forests on the northern slope, while from the south it appeared almost to float in the submerged plain. The revolution has demolished this learned monastery, dispersed its inhabitants, burned its books and its woods, and the hills ? which

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were formerly covered with majestic old oaks, are to-day left crowned with vines and grapes. Red partridge are found in abundance on these vineplanted hills, and from the bridge, which is in the form of a sugar-loaf and thrown over the canal of Beaucaire, you can, at certain hours, perceive in the distance whole flocks of wild geese and ducks, swallows, and sea-gulls, hovering in the last rays of the setting sun over the ponds of Vauvert and Scamandre. On the very ruins of the convent, covering a small space of ground which would bear well the comparison to a large farm-yard, are grouped five or six little houses, forming a hamlet and called Franquevaux, having inherited its name from the abbey. It was there I hired for a short time a little whitewashed room facing the South.

On the very evening of my arrival, as I was starting out to reconnoitre, accompanied by the peasant in whose house I had my room, and who had been kind enough to serve me as a guide on this my first expedition, I observed a hunter walking in front of me, smoking his pipe, and preceded by a magnificent hunting dog. I had heard too much of the flunters of these parts and their Robinson-Crusoe

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garb, not to be struck by the simple and decent dress of the one whom I had here before me.

“ Is that a stranger ? ” I inquired of my host.

“ No, sir,” he replied, “ we consider him one of our countrymen. He has lived a long time in Paris, but has taken up his residence with us during the last few years. He never leaves the hamlet, excepting an occasional Sunday, which he may pass at Saint-Gilles or Nimes, or twice a year, perhaps, he goes to the fairs of Saint-Roch and Saint-Michel.”

“ What is his name? ”

“His name is Maurice Yernier. But we only speak of him as the monk of Franquevaux.”

“ The monk ? ” I exclaimed with astonishment.

“ Yes, we have given him this name because he lives in solitude, and shuns people of his own rank in life ; because he shuts himself in, when the bad weather prevents him from hunting or fishing, to read during entire days the books that he procures from the neighboring town ; and because he never refuses to assist poor people with his alms and his good counsels, like the old hermits of the past who sleep to-day under these rushes. Ah ! if you could only manage,” added my guide, “ to make his acquaintance, and he would invite you to become his

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hunting companion, you might consider yourself too happy. He is the most intrepid hunter in the country. Oh ! heavens ! how he brings them down, the poor little creatures.”

We hastened our steps, and very soon found ourselves side by side with the mysterious hunter.

“ Say, monk,” cried my guide, suddenly accosting him in the familiar patois of the country, “ here is a gentleman from Paris, whom I am out hunting with to-day, but as I have much work at home, would you be so kind as to take him in charge and pilot him ? ”

The hunter, casting his eyes on me without replying, examined me a moment with curiosity ; then :

“ I am perfectly willing,” he answered briefly, in the same idiom.

“ Good ! ” replied my host, addressing me ; “ you are a man who is not much to be pitied. The monk grants you a favor he does not bestow on everybody, and which the gentlemen from Nimes and Montpellier, who come here sometimes snipe-hunting, would be furiously jealous of. You have nothing better to do now than to trust yourself entirely to him, and I swear to you that in changing your guide you have lost nothing.”

I eagerly accepted the change, and, after the cus-

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tomary courtesies, I started off with the monk of Franquevaux.

lie was a man still hale, although he might have reached his fiftieth year, vigorous, active, of middling size, and of a constitution which seemed formed by nature for a hunter. The ease with which he carried his gun, and an enormous game bag crossed over his chest by two large leathern straps like a soldier’s knapsack, his light but firm step, his sunburnt skin, all indicated a man broken to long and difficult tramps ; at the same time his look, his delicate and slightly melancholy smile, as well as a distinguished air which marked his slightest movements, betrayed a person who has lived in cities and in the best world.

After walking a few moments :

“ You are from Paris, sir? ” he remarked with an accent which dissipated any doubts that might have lingered in my mind.

“ Not precisely, but I live there.”

“ To whom have I the honor of speaking ? ”

I gave him in full my name and my profession.

“ Ah ! you are a writer ? ” he exclaimed with vivacity. “ So much the better, because your profession must have necessarily brought you in relation

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with many of my friends, my old friends,” lie added, with a sweet but sad smile.

“ You have lived in Paris ? ” I inquired of him, puzzled as I was by this half confidence and in the hope of bringing about a more complete disclosure.

“ I have.”

“And who are the writers you have known there?”

“ Bless me I nearly all,” he replied, with the most natural smile in the world.

He then spoke without the least affectation, and without appearing to question the astonishment caused me by hearing such words on the lips of a hunter, accidentally met in the marshes of the Camargue, of Theophile Gautier, Arsene Houssaye, poor Gerard de Nerval, and of the painter, Camille Rogier, whom he had well known, and how they had lived together in the rue du Doyenne, these four friends, and given those delightful entertainments so beautifully described by Gerard.

“ Alas ! ” added he, “ the rue du Doyenne no longer exists; Gerard is dead; Camille has disappeared under an Eastern sun. As to the other two, I congratulate them with all my heart on their successes, and when it rains I read their works, and in

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memory turn lovingly back to those who have written them.”

He inquired particularly of Jules Janin, and in two or three words described the apartment that this dramatic king of critics formerly occupied on the garden of the Luxembourg, and in a manner that convinced me he had often had the honor of being admitted there. Then the conversation would dwell by turns on Victor Hugo, on Lamartine, on Alexandre Dumas, on Balzac, on Scribe, on all the brilliant authors of the present epoch, dating as far back as the revolution of February. My astonishment was transformed into stupefaction when I heard him comment upon the political men of the last reign, as familiarly as on its writers and poets. Without any doubt, he had known them, he had lived among them. This strange hunter, only preoccupied henceforth with eel-fishing and duck-hunting, had really passed the first part of his existence behind the curtain, which, upon the theatre of the world as well as on all others, separates the stage from the house and the actor from the public ; he had penetrated into all the side scenes of the literary, dramatic, and political world.

While conversing we found ourselves on the bor-

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der of the pond. My guide jumped lightly into a little boat which lay concealed in a small inlet, and made a sign for me to follow. From the moment I had taken my place by his side, with a quick push of his foot he started the boat very rapidly, and seizing the oar he steered the frail skiff through the rushes with an extraordinary skill. We very soon came to a little isle, where he moored his boat, and we directed our steps toward two shelters constructed of branches on the water’s edge.

“ Now,” said he, when we were posted, “ silence, and attention to the ducks ! We will talk literature some other time.” . . .

Night approached. Behind some clouds, white and flaky as a lamb’s-fleece, and which a slight wind from the north had hurried toward the sea, appeared already in the east the reddish disk of the moon, which stood forth like a balloon of fire on the deep azure of the sky. Its first rays were reflected in the waters of the pond, and shed around us a sweet and caressing light, which recalled to my mind the pale glimmer shed by the winter sun through the morning mist upon the people of the north. With fixed eye, stretched neck, my ear on the watch, and my hand on my gun, I was mute

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and immovable at my post during half an hour, in spite of quite a stinging cold, and commenced to despair, when all at once I heard over my head a rustling of wings which lasted for a second. It appeared as if a shadow with the rapidity of lightning had passed over me. At the same moment a shot was fired, and I recognized the dull sound which is caused by the fall of an inanimate body in the water, and through the splashing of the waves I very soon distinguished the hunting dog of my guide, taking possession of the prey to fetch to his master. Not a word had been exchanged between us. A few moments had scarcely passed when another report was heard. Within an hour seven shots had been fired and seven pieces of game brought down. How my companion was able to hit the birds as they passed like an arrow through the darkness, and. which I could not even see, was a miracle my admiration was unable to account for, and can only be explained by that nervous sensibility, that extreme delicacy of hearing, and that unerring eye which the habit of hunting develops to such a marvellous degree amongst savages and poachers.

The darkness having become quite dense : “Halloo! friend,” called my neighbor, “now for

home ! Messieurs the ducks, and mesdames the geese have gone to bed now, and the hour has come when we will catch more rheumatism than game. Let us be off.”

I rejoined him and he took me back as rapidly as he had come, while I lavished exclamations upon the remarkable feat I had just witnessed.

“I sincerely hope, sir,” he remarked as we returned on foot to Franquevaux, “that our acquaintance will not end here. If there is nothing to prevent, will you have the kindness this evening to share my frugal supper? It is not, believe me, an idle politeness that I offer ; it is a favor I request of you. The few words we have exchanged have aroused within me a thousand remembrances. I would like to recall, during an hour or two this evening, my past life, and I will be very thankful to you if you will aid me in conjuring up, through the smoke of our pipes and in a cosy chat at the fireside, all those charming and sad phantoms.”

I accepted the invitation without much urging, and after having gone to the house and changed my damp clothing, I directed my steps toward his home.

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The monk of Franquevaux occupied a small house, or rather a kind of structure contrived between two arches, last remains of the old abbey, and built with the stones taken from the ruins of the monastery. The four principal walls of this hermitage were evidently the original old constructions which had escaped the hammer of the revolution. The entrance door, narrow and low, opened on a corridor, at the end of which was a modest stone staircase leading to the apartments. To the right of this corridor was the spacious and airy kitchen, shining with its bright tinned casseroles, copper kettles and table china, and the range placed under an immense chimney mantel. When I entered, the long spit was turning before a sparkling tire and exhibited one of those succulent and golden roasts, unknown of late in Paris, where the roasters and the patent oven, under pretext of progress, have replaced the spit, condemning our epicures to roasted meats, as insipid and flabby as boiled beef. The dog which accompanied us on

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the hunt was seated on his hind legs near the fire, warming his nose and drying his hair. A beautiful girl of twenty years, in Provei^al costume, superintended the preparations for dinner. Her nicely drawn-up stocking, which was visible from under her short skirt, suggested a well-formed leg, her close-fitting corsage of a shade deeper than her skirt brought out a perfect form, and a light handkerchief of red foulard, slightly opened at the neck, permitted a glimpse of its whiteness and healthy outline. Her raven hair, escaping in two evenlydivided bandeaux from under her Arlesian turban, crowned her pale face, which was of an exquisite outline, while her winning and sweet eyes were like those of a young girl in her first dream of love. As for me, whom the sight of certain cooks would disgust with the finest dishes, this lovely interior simply charmed me. After some moments of contemplation, in which I must admit there was nothing platonic, and following the direction of the girl, of whom I inquired where I might find her master, I ascended the staircase, and opening the first door I saw, I found myself in the dining-room.

Imagine a large square room hung with old tapestries representing a variety of hunting scenes, and

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furnished with large and commodious leather chairs and an enormous carved oak table in the centre — * an exquisite piece of furniture, on which the artists of the sixteenth century seemed to have exhausted their marvellous genius; imagine further one of those huge chimneys of olden times under which an entire family could gather at evening around the fire to listen to some pious legend of the grandfather or some fairy tale of the grandmother ; and, lastly, imagine an oaken buffet, carved like the table and the chimney-piece, and covered with porcelain of various shapes, pretty china articles of all dimensions, plates and vases of different colors, and you will have but an imperfect idea of the astonishment I experienced on finding such richness and comfort where I expected only to see the plain, coarse furniture of a simple villager. To crown all, an ancient clock placed on a pedestal of most exquisite workmanship so enthusiastically excited my admiration, that the master of the house, noticing my presence, came in to welcome me, and took me to the next room, which was the one he usually occupied.

It was a small library or study room, filled with books and hung with pipes of all descriptions, from the ordinary clay pipe to the Cummer. The seats,

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extremely simple in their form, were that kind of immense arm-chairs which at the present day are no longer made, with high backs, low, wide bodies, and projections on each side of the back to support the head and arms. A thick carpet more comfortable than expensive, which came from the factories of Nimes, covered the floor. In a corner a round closet inclosed five or six fire-arms bronzed by smoke, the common appearance of which might have elicited a smile of pity from a Parisian hunter. But for me, what I had just witnessed was another proof that, with guns as with hunters, the most elegant are not always the most terrible. Near the chimney, lying her full length, was a beautiful hunting dog, spotted white and red, with her nose delicately resting on her outstretched paws, and her eyes lazily closed.

“ You know Barbot,” said my host, showing her to me, “ my dog of the marshes ; this is Fauvette, which I use on the plain. One of these days, if agreeable to you, we will go and hunt among the vines near Valcombe, and there you will see her work. She is the only one in the country that hunts the red partridge as neatly as she does the quail. The poachers of Saint-Gilles pretend that she has the evile} r e, and that she fascinates our shy partridges, so easily these

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swift- winged creatures allow themselves to be killed under her nose.

My host, according to custom, insisted upon showing me, even to the smallest details, all the comforts of his little home. We entered his bed-room. An immense bed, one of those old canopied beds, resembling a battle-field, in which our fathers slept at the time when the father of Mai thus himself slept by the side of his wife, half disappeared under thick curtains of serge. The draperies of the windows and the portieres were of the same material, and harmonized with the sombre paper which concealed the walls. Two pictures, slightly darkened by time, but in which it was easy to recognize the hand of some unknown master, adorned a chimney as severe as the rest. A massive ebony bureau, ornamented with brass carvings and surmounted by an antique mirror with bevelled edges, stood facing the bed. Throughout the room were scattered two or three easy chairs furnished with cushions, which were formerly called bergeres, a sofa of an ancient model, and two modern cliauffeuses. I do not speak of the carpet, as it was nothing remarkable and evidently had no other object than the simplest comfort. Nevertheless, in all the furniture it was impossible

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not to observe that the monk of Franquevaux had done everything in his power to render inactivity easy and repose sweet, without any aim at either luxury or vanity, and above all without sacrificing anything to the exactions of fashion. In looking upon the contrast between this house where everything was so snug, so impregnated with the perfumes of well-being, and so thoroughly disposed for the charm of inaction, the comforts of sleep and the delicacies of life, and the man who inhabited it, persevering hunter, inured to fatigue, and perpetually on tramps over the rocky hill-sides or through the reeds of the marshes, it was impossible not to feel charmed in spite of one’s self by an indescribable impression of intimate and sweet contentment. After a long day’s hunt in the hot sun, or after a rainy evening’s watch, how delightful must be the return to this hospitable dwelling ! What voluptuousness in this repose and this silence suddenly succeeding so much fatigue and noisy activity ! And what a thorough knowledge of the spiritual and material being was displayed in the intelligent arrangement of this hunter’s home, the home of the monk of Franquevaux !

A little door contrived in the wall, behind the bed-

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curtains, opened on a room which served at the same time as a toilet and bath-room, and which contained those thousand little necessary nothings useful for this double purpose. Two other rooms, also furnished in a comfortable manner, but extremely simple, completed the habitation of my host. One of these was his own, or, if you like it better, his bachelor’s apartment ; the other, which is ordinarily called the spare room, did not bear that name, but was called the room of the unknown. The monk of Franquevaux had no friends. It was there he received the few travellers delayed by the bad weather, or the hunting companions he always tried to avoid, but whom an inevitable meeting or accident obliged him sometimes to receive.

“This,” he said, when we had seen everything, “ this is my palace. It is small, but I am happy here. In winter I calk up the cracks against the furious winds which too often desolate these latitudes. In summer the arrangement of the windows allows me to establish a natural ventilation which keeps in the apartment an atmosphere always supportable in spite of the overpowering heat which sometimes sweeps over this country like molten lead. I only receive

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a few peasants, and they like much better to stop in the kitchen.”

On retiring I threw a last look at the room, the delicate arrangement of which had struck me, and 1 inwardly wondered if another shared it with him, when a door opened —

“ My wife,” said my host.

I remained dazzled, stupefied.

England and Germany fascinate the traveller by the great number of beautiful and aristocratic faces he meets there. In Spain, Italy, Provence, that French Italy, he is repulsed by the stupidity and vulgarity of the greater portion of the women. Still the artists of the North are far from having attained the same brilliancy in the creation of their feminine types as the painters of the South. What woman of Rubens equals a virgin of the Italian masters ? Our French painters of the eighteenth century, so exclusively pre-occupied with love-scenes, have never found but pretty women on their elegant palettes. Raphael and Correggio, Andre del Sarto, and II Parmegiano, on the contrary, have left us types of a finished perfection. The beauty of their women is like a light from heaven. In order to succeed in