In and out of Three Normandy Inns Part 25

"If Filon is condemned, what would happen to them?"

"Oh, he would pa.s.s a few years in prison--not many. The jury is always easy on the rich. But his future is ruined. They--the family--would have to go away. But even then, rumor would follow them. It travels far nowadays--it has a thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they go they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alencon, what did you think of him, _hein_? There's a great man--what an orator! One must go as far as Paris--to the theatre; one must hear a great play--and even there, when does an actor make you weep as he did? Henri, he was superb. I tell you, superb! _d'une eloquence!_" And to her husband, when we reached the inn door, our vivacious landlady was still narrating the chief points of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our beds.

It was early the next morning when we descended into the inn dining-room. The lawyer's eloquence had interfered with our rest.

Coffee and a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we agreed.

Before the coffee came the news of the culprit's fate. Most of the inn establishment had been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict.

Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The thought of that poor wife had haunted her pillow. She had deemed it best--but just to us all, in a word, to despatch Auguste--the one inn waiter, to hear the verdict.

_Tiens_, there he was now, turning the street corner.

"_Il est acquitte!_" rang through the streets.

"He is acquitted--he is acquitted! _Le bon Dieu soit loue!_ Henri--Ernest--Monsieur Terier, he is acquitted--he is acquitted! I tell you!"

The cry rang through the house. Our landlady was shouting the news out of doors, through windows, to the pa.s.sers-by, to the very dogs as they ran. But the townspeople needed no summoning. The windows were crowded full of eager heads, all asking the same question at once. A company of peasants coming up from the fields for breakfast stopped to hear the glad tidings. The shop-keepers all the length of the street gathered to join them. Everyone was talking at once. Every shade of opinion was aired in the morning sun. On one subject alone there was a universal agreement.

"What good news for the poor wife!"

"And what a night she must have pa.s.sed!"

All this sympathy and interest, be it remembered, was for one they barely knew. To be the niece of a Coutances uncle--this was enough, it appears, for the good people of this cathedral city, to insure the flow of their tears and the gift of their prayers.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE FETE-DIEU--A JUNE CHRISTMAS.

When we stepped forth into the streets, it was to find a flower strewn city. The paving stones were covered with the needles of pines, with fir boughs, with rose leaves, lily stocks, and with the petals of flock and clematis. One's feet sank into the odorous carpet as in the thick wool of an Oriental prayer rug. To tread upon this verdure was to crush out perfume. Yet the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a touch of consecration in the very aroma of the fir sap.

Never was there a town so given over to its festival. Everything else--all trade, commerce, occupation, work, or pleasure even, was at a dead standstill. In all the city there was but one thought, one object, one end in view. This was the great day of the _Fete-Dieu_. To this blessed feast of the Sacrament the townspeople had been looking forward for weeks.

It is their June Christmas. The great day brings families together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EXCITING MOMENT--A COUTANCES INTERIOR]

From all the country round the farm wagons had been climbing the hill for hours. The peasants were in holiday dress. Gold crosses and amber beads encircled leathery old necks; the gossamer caps, real Normandy caps at last, crowned heads held erect today, with the pride of those who had come to town clad in their best. Even the younger women were in true peasant garb; there was a touch of a ribbon, brilliant red and blue stockings, and the sparkle of silver shoe-buckles and gold necklaces to prove they had donned their finery in honor of the _fete_.

The men wore their blue and purple blouses over their holiday suits; but almost all had pinned a sprig of bright geranium or honeysuckle to brighten up the shiny cotton of the preservative blouse. Even the children carried bouquets; and thus many of the farm wagons were as gay as the streets.

No, gay is not the word. Neither the city nor the streets were really gay. The city, as a city, was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too intent, to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all the days of the year in Coutances. In the climaxic moments of life, one is solemn, not gay. It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day of the year for this cathedral town. Here was a whole city to deck; every street, every alleyway must be as beautiful as a church on a feast-day. The city, in truth, must be changed from a bustling, trading, commercial entrepot into an altar. And this altar must be beautiful--as beautiful, as ingeniously picturesque as only the French instinct for beauty could make it.

Think you, with such a task on hand, this city-ful of artists had time for frivolous idling? Since dawn these artists had been scrubbing their doors, washing windows, and sluicing the gutters. One is not a provincial for nothing; one is honest in the provinces; one does not drape finery over a filthy frame. The city was washed first, before it was adorned.

Opposite, across from our inn door-sill, where we lingered a moment before we began our journey through the streets, we could see for ourselves how thorough was this cleansing. A shopkeeper and his wife were each mounted on a step-ladder. One washed the inside and the other the outside of the low shop-windows. They were in the greatest possible haste, for they were late in their preparations. In two hours the procession was to pa.s.s. Their neighbors stopped to cry up to them:

"_Tendez vous, aujourd'hui?_" It is the universal question, heard everywhere.

"_Mais oui_," croaked out the man, his voice sounding like the croak of a rook, from the height from which he spoke. "Only we are late, you see."

It was his wife who was taking the question to heart. She saw in it just cause for affront.

"Ah, those Espergnons, they're always on time, they are; they had their hangings out a week ago, and now they are as filthy as wash-rags. No wonder they have time to walk the streets!" and the indignant dame gave her window-pane an extra polish.

"Here, Leon, catch hold, I'm ready now!"

The woman was holding out one end of a long, snowy sheet. Leon meekly took his end; both hooked the stuff to some rings ready to secure the hanging; the facade of the little house was soon hidden behind the white fall of the family linen; and presently Leon and his wife began very gravely to pin tiny sprigs of purple clematis across the white surface. This latter decoration was performed with the sure touch of artists. No mediaeval designer of tapestry could have chosen, with more secure selection, the precise points of distance at which to place the bouquets; nor could the tones and tints of the greens and purples, and the velvet of the occasional heartsease, spa.r.s.ely used, have been more correctly combined. When the task was ended, the commonplace house was a palace wall, hung with the sheen of fine linen, on which bloomed geometric figures beautifully s.p.a.ced.

All the city was thus draped. One walked through long walls of snow, in which flowers grew. Sometimes the floral decorations expanded from the more common sprig into wreaths and garlands. Here and there the Coutances fancy worked itself out in _fleur-de-lis_ emblems or in armorial bearings. But everywhere an astonishing, instinctive sense of beauty, a knowledge of proportion, and a natural sense for color were obvious. There was not, in all the town, a single offence committed against taste. Is it any wonder, with such an heredity at their fingers' ends, that the provinces feed Paris, and that Paris sets the fashions in beauty for the rest of the world?

Come with us, and look upon this open-air chapel. It stands in the open street, in front of an old house of imposing aspect. The two commonplace-looking women who are putting--the finishing--touches to this beautiful creation tell us it is the reposoir of Madame la Baronne. They have been working on it since the day before. In the night the miracle was finished--nearly--they were so weary they had gone to bed at dawn. They do not tell you it is a miracle. They think it fine, oh, yes--"c'est beau--Madame la Baronne always has the most beautiful of all the reposoirs," but then they have decked these altars since they were born; their grandmothers built them before ever they saw the light. For always in Coutances "on la fete beaucoup;" this feast of the Sacrament has been a great day in Coutances for centuries past. But although they are so used to it, these natural architects love the day. "It's so fine to see--_si beau a voir_ all the reposoirs, and the children and the fine ladies walking--through the streets, and then, all kneeling--when Monseigneur l'Archeveque prays. Ah yes, it is a fine sight." They nod, and smile, and then they turn to light a taper, and to consult about the placing of a certain vase from out of which an Easter lily towers.

At the foot of these miniature altars trees had been planted. Gardens had also been laid out; the parterres were as gravely watered as if they were to remain in the middle of a bustling high street in perpetuity. Steps lead up to the altar. These were covered with rugs and carpets; for the feet of the bishop must tread only on velvet and flowers. Candelabra, vases, banners, crosses, crucifixes, flowers, and tall thin tapers--all the altars were crowded with such adornments.

Human vanity and the love of surpa.s.sing one's neighbors, these also figured conspicuously among the things the fitfully shining sun looks down upon. But what a charm there is in such a contest! Surely the desire to beautify the spot on which the Blessed Sacrament rests this is only another way of professing one's adoration.

As we pa.s.sed through the streets a mult.i.tude of pictures crowded upon the eyes. In an archway groups of young first communicants were forming; they were on their way to the cathedral. Their white veils against the gloom of the recessed archways were like sunlit clouds caught in an abyss. Priests in gorgeous vestments were walking quickly through the streets. All the peasants were going also toward the cathedral. A group stopped, as did we, to turn into a side-street. For there was a picture we should not see later on. Between some lovely old turrets, down from convent walls a group of nuns fluttered tremulously; they were putting the last touches to the reposoir of their own Sacre Coeur. Some were carrying huge gilt crosses, staggering as they walked; others were on tiptoe filling the tall vases; others were on their knees, patting into perfect smoothness the turf laid about the altar steps. There was an old cure among them and a young carpenter whom the cure was directing. Everyone of the nuns had her black skirts tucked up; their stout shoes must be free to fly over the ground with the swiftness of hounds. How pretty the faces were, under the great caps, in that moment of unwonted excitement! The cheeks, even of the older nuns, were pink; it was a pink that made their habitual pallor have a dazzling beauty. The eyes were lighted into a fresh flame of life, and the lips were temptingly crimson; they were only women, after all, these nuns, and once a year at least this feast of the Sacrament brings all their feminine activities into play.

Still we moved on, for within the cathedral the procession had not yet formed. There was still time to make a tour of the town.

To plunge into the side-streets away from the wide cathedral parvis, was to be confronted with a strange calm. These narrow thoroughfares had the stillness which broods over all ancient cities' by-ways. Here was no festival bustle; all was grave and sad. The only dwellers left in the antique fifteenth century houses were those who must remain at home till a still smaller house holds them. We pa.s.sed several aged Coutancais couples. By twos they were seated at the low windows; they had been dressed and then left; they were sitting here, in the pathetic patience of old age; they were hoping something of the _fete_ might come their way. Two women, in one of the low interiors, were more philosophic than their neighbors; if their stiffened knees would not carry them to the _fete_, at least their gnarled old hands could hold a pack of cards. They were seated close to the open cas.e.m.e.nt, facing each other across a small round table; along the window-sill there were rows of flower-pots; a pewter tankard was set between them; and out of the shadowy interior came the topaz gleam of the Normandy bra.s.ses, the huge bed, with its snowy draperies, the great chests, and the flowery chintz-frill defining the width of the yawning fireplace. The two old faces, with the strong features, deep wrinkles, sunken mouths, and bald heads tied up in dazzling white coifs, were in full relief against the dim background. They were as motionless as statues; neither looked up as our footfall struck along the cobbles; it was an exciting moment in the game.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET IN COUTANCES--EGLISE SAINT-PIERRE]

Below these old houses stretched the public gardens. Here also there was a great stillness. For us alone the rose gardens bloomed, the tropical trees were shivering, and the palms were making a night of shade for wide acres of turf. Rarely does a city boast of such a garden. It was no surprise to learn, later, that these lovely paths and n.o.ble terraces had been the slow achievement of a lover of landscape gardening, one who, dying, had given this, his master-piece, to his native town.

There is no better place from which to view the beautiful city. From the horizontal lines of the broad terraces flows the great sweep of the hillside; it takes a swift precipitous plunge, and rests below in wide stretches of meadow. The garden itself seemed, by virtue of this encompa.s.sing circle of green, to be only a more exquisitely cultivated portion of the lovely outlying hills and wooded depths. The cows, grazing below in the valleys, were whisking their tails, and from the farm-yards came the crow of the chanticleer.

One turned to look upward--to follow heavenward the soaring glory of the cathedral towers. From the plane of the streets their geometric perfection had made their lines seem cold. Through this aerial perspective the eye followed, enraptured, the perfect Gothic of the spires and the lower central tower. The great nave roof and the choir lifted themselves above the turrets and the tiled house-tops of the city, as gray mountains of stone rise above the huts of pygmies.

Coutances does well to be proud of its cathedral.

The sound of a footstep, crunching the gravel of the garden-walk, caused us to turn. It was to find, face to face, the hero of the night before; the celebrated Coutances lawyer was also taking his const.i.tutional. But not alone, some friends were with him, come up to town doubtless for the _fete_ or the trial. He was showing them his city. He stretched a hand forth, with the same magisterial gesture of the night before, to point out the glory of the prospect lying below the terrace. He faced the cathedral towers, explaining the points of their perfection. And then, for he was a Frenchman, he perceived the presence of two ladies. In an instant his hat was raised, and as quickly his eyes told us he had seen us before, in the courtroom. The bow was the lower because of this recognition, and the salute was accompanied by a grave smile.

Manners in the provinces are still good, you perceive--if only you are far enough away from Paris.

Someone else also bestowed on us the courtesy of a pa.s.sing greeting. It was a cure who was saying his Ave, as he paced slowly, in the sun, up and down the yew path. He was old; one leg was already tired of life--it must be dragged painfully along, when one walked in the sun.

The cure himself was not in the least tired of life. His smile was as warm as the sun as he lifted his _calotte_.

"Surely, mesdames, you will not miss the _fete_? It must be forming now."

He had taken an old man's, and a priest's, privilege. We were all three looking down into the valley, which lay below, a pool of freshness. He had spoken, first of the beauty of the prospect, and then of the great day. To be young and still strong, to be able to follow the procession from street to street, and yet to be lingering here among the roses!--this pa.s.sed the simple cure's comprehension. The reproach in his mild old eyes was quickly changed to approval, however; for upon the announcement that the procession was already in motion we started, bidding him a hurried adieu.

The huge cathedral portals yawned at the top of the hill; they were like a gaping chasm. The great place of the cathedral square was half filled; a part of the procession had pa.s.sed already beyond the gloom of the vast aisles into the frank openness of day. Winding in and out of the white-hung streets a long line of figures was marching; part of the line had reached the first reposoir and gradually the swaying of the heads was slackening, as, by twos and twos, the figures stopped.

Still, from between the cathedral doors an unending mult.i.tude of people kept pouring forth upon the cathedral square. Now it was an interminable line of young girls, first communicants, in their white veils and gowns; against the grays and browns of the cathedral facade this ma.s.s of snow was of startling purity--a great white rose of light.

Closely following the dazzling line marched a grave company of nuns; with their black robes sweeping the flower-strewn streets, the pallor of their faces, and the white wings of their huge coifs, they might have been so many marble statues moving with slow, automatic step, repeating in life the statues in stone above their heads, incarnations of meek renunciation. With the free and joyous step of a vigorous youth not yet tamed to complete self-obliteration, next there stepped forth into the sun a group of seminarists. In the lace and scarlet of their bright robes they were like unto so many young kings. High in the summer air they swung their golden censers; from huge baskets, heaped with flowers, they scattered flowers as they swayed, in the grace of their youth, from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion.

In the days of Greece, under the Attic tent of sky, it was Jove that was thus worshipped; here in Coutances, under the paler, less ardent blue of France, it was the Christian G.o.d these youths were honoring. So men have continued to scatter flowers; to swing incense; to bend the knee; surely in all ages the long homage of men, like the procession here before us, has been but this--the longing to worship the Invisible, and to make the act one with beauty.

Is it Greek, is it Christian, this festival? If it be Catholic, it is also pagan. It is as composite a union of religious ceremonials as man is himself an aggregate of lost types, for there is a subtle law of repet.i.tion which governs both men and ceremonials.