In The Heart Of The Vosges And Other Sketches Part 9

Looking from the lofty platform on the other side of the upper church, we behold a strange scene. The s.p.a.ce below is black with people, hundreds and thousands of pilgrims, so called, priests and nuns being in full force, one and all shouting and gesticulating with fierce zealotry, a priest or two holding forth from a temporary pulpit.

Between these closely-serried ma.s.ses is a ghastly array. On litters, stretchers, beds, chairs, lie the deformed, the sick, the moribund, awaiting their turn to be sprinkled with the miraculous waters or blessed by the bishop. These poor people, many of whom are in the last stage of illness, have for bearers, volunteers; these are priests, young gentlemen of good family, and others, who wear badges and leather traces, by which they attach themselves to their burden.

All day long ma.s.ses are held inside the church and in the open air; at a given signal the congregation stretching out their arms in the form of a cross, prostrating themselves on the ground, kissing the dust.

We must descend the broad flight of steps in order to obtain a good view of the grotto, an oval opening in the rocks made to look like a stalact.i.te cave, with scores and hundreds of _ex-votos_ in the shape of crutches. Judging from this display, there should be no more lame folks left in France. The Virgin of Lourdes must have healed them all. In a niche of the grotto stands an image of the Virgin, and behind, perpetually lighted with candles, an altar, at which ma.s.s is celebrated several times daily.

On one side, the rock has been pierced in several places, deliciously pure, cool water issuing from the taps. Crowds are always collected here, impatient to drink of the miraculous fountain, and to fill vessels for use at home. We see tired, heated invalids, and apparently dying persons, drinking cups of this ice-cold water; enough, one would think, to kill them outright. Close by is a little shop full of trifles for sale, but so thronged at all hours of the day that you cannot get attended to; purchasers lay down their money, take up the object desired, and walk away. Here may be bought a medal for two sous, or a crucifix priced at several hundred francs.

The praying, chanting, and prostrating are at their height when the violet-robed figure of a bishop is caught sight of, tripping down a side-path leading from the town. Blessing any who chance to meet him on the way, chatting pleasantly with his companion, a portly gentleman wearing the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour, the bishop hastens towards the grotto, dons his sacerdotal robes of ivory-white and gold, and celebrates ma.s.s. The ceremony over, there is a general stir.

Adjusting their harness, the bearers form a procession, the bishop emerges from the grotto, and one by one the thirty and odd litters are drawn before him to be sprinkled, blessed--and healed! alas, such, doubtless, is the fond delusion of many.

The sight of so many human wrecks, torsos and living skeletons all agog for life, health, and restoration, is even less heart-breaking than that of their companions. Here we see a mother bending with agonized looks over some white-faced, wasted boy, whose days, even hours, are clearly numbered; there a father of a wizen-faced, terribly deformed girl, a mite to look at, but fast approaching womanhood, brought hither to be put straight and beautiful. Next our eye lights on the emaciated form of a young man evidently in the last stage of consumption, his own face hopeful still, but what forlornness in that of the adoring sister by his side! These are spectacles to make the least susceptible weep. Grotesque is the sight of a priest who must be ninety at least; what further miracle can he expect, having already lived the life of three generations?

The last litter drawn by, the enormous crowd breaks up; tall candles are offered to those standing near, and a procession is formed, headed by the bishop under his gold and white baldachin, a large number of priests following behind, then several hundred men, women, and children, the black and white robes of the priests and nuns being conspicuous.

Chanting as they go, outsiders falling on their knees at the approach of the baldachin, the pilgrims now wind in solemn procession round the statue in front of the church, and finally enter, when another religious celebration takes place. Services are going on all day long and late into the night. Hardly do these devotees give themselves time for meals, which are a scramble at best, every hotel and boarding-house much overcrowded. The _table d'hote_ dinner, or one or two dishes, are hastily swallowed, and the praying, chanting, marching and prostrating begin afresh. At eight o'clock from afar comes the sound of pilgrims'

voices as the procession winds towards the grotto.

There is picturesqueness in these nocturnal celebrations, the tapers twinkling against the dark heavens, the voices dying away in the distance. Superst.i.tion has its season as well as sulphur-baths and chalybeate springs. The railway station is a scene of indescribable confusion; enormous contingents come for a few hours only, the numbered trains that brought them are drawn up outside the main lines awaiting their departure. Here we are hustled by a motley throng; fashionable ladies bedizened with rosaries, badges, and medallions; elegant young gentlemen, the _jeunesse doree_ of a vanished _regime_, proudly wearing the pilgrim's badge, all travelling third-cla.s.s and in humble company for their soul's good; peasant women from Brittany in charming costumes; a very, very few blue blouses of elderly civilians'; enormous numbers wearing religious garb.

It seems a pity that a bargain could not be struck by France and Germany, the Emperor William receiving Lourdes in exchange for Metz or Strasburg! Lourdes must represent a princely revenue, far in excess, I should say, of any profit the Prussian Government will ever make out of the annexed provinces; and as n.o.body lives there, and visitors only remain a day or two, it would not matter to the most patriotic French pilgrim going to whom the place belonged.

The tourist brings evil as well as good in his track, and the tax upon glorious scenery here is not the globe-trotter but the mendicant.

Gavarnie is, without doubt, as grandiose a scene as Western Europe can show. In certain elements of grandeur none other can compete with it.

But until a balloon service is organized between Luz and the famous Cirque it is impossible to make the journey with an unruffled temper.

The traveller's way is beset by juvenile vagrants, bare-faced and importunate as Neapolitans or Arabs. Lovers of aerial navigation have otherwise not much left to wish for. Nothing can be more like a ride in cloudland than the drive from Pierrefitte to Luz and from Luz to Gavarnie. The splendid rock-hewn road is just broad enough to admit of two carriages abreast. On one side are lofty, shelving rocks, on the other a stone coping two feet high, nothing else to separate us from the awful abyss below, a ravine deep as the measure of St. Paul's Cathedral from base to apex of golden cross. We hear the thunder of the river as it dashes below by mountains two-thirds the height of Mont Blanc, their dark, almost perpendicular sides wreathed with cloud, on their summits gleaming never-melted snow, here and there the sombre parapets streaked with silvery cascades. At intervals the t.i.tanic scene is relieved by glimpses of pastoral grace and loveliness, and such relief is necessary even to those who can gaze without giddiness on such awfulness. Between gorge and gorge lie level s.p.a.ces, amid dazzlingly-green meadows the river flows calm and crystal clear, the form and hue of every pebble distinct as the pieces of a mosaic. Looking upwards we see hanging gardens and what may be called farmlets, tiny homesteads with minute patches of wheat, Indian corn, and clover on an incline so steep as to look vertical. Most beautiful and refreshing to the eye are the little hayfields sloping from the river, the freshly-mown hay in c.o.c.ks or being turned, the shorn pasture around bright as emerald. Harvest during the year 1891 was late, and in the first week of September corn was still standing; nowhere, surely, corn so amber-tinted, so golden, nowhere, surely, ripened so near the clouds. In the tiny chalets perched on the mountain ridges, folks literally dwell in cloudland, and enjoy a kind of supernal existence, having for near neighbours the eagles in their eyries and the fleet-footed chamois or izard.

These vast panoramas--towering rocks of manifold shape, Alp rising above Alp snow-capped or green-tinted, terrace upon terrace of fields and homesteads--show every variety of savage grandeur and soft beauty till we gradually reach the threshold of Gavarnie. This is aptly called "chaos" which we might fancifully suppose the leavings, "the fragments that were left," of the semicircular wall now visible, thrown up by transhuman builders, insurmountable barrier between heaven and earth. No sooner does the awful amphitheatre break upon the view, than we discern the white line of the princ.i.p.al fall, a slender silvery column reaching, so it seems, from star-land and moon-land to earth; river of some upper world that has overleaped the boundaries of our own. No words can convey the remotest idea of such a scene.

We may say with regard to scenery what Lessing says of pictures, we only see in both what we bring with us to the view. More disconcerting than the importunities of beggars and donkey-drivers are the supercilious remarks of tourists. To most, of course, the whole thing is "a sad disappointment." Everything must necessarily be a disappointment to some beholders; and with critics of a certain order, the mere fact of not being pleased implies superiority. The hour's walk from the village to the Cirque is an event also in the life of the flower-lover. We have hardly eyes for Gavarnie, so completely is our gaze fascinated by the large luminous gold and silver stars gleaming conspicuously from the brilliant turf. These are the glorious flower-heads of the white and yellow Pyrenean thistle that open in sunshine as do sea-anemones, sending out lovely fringes, sunrays and moonbeams not more strikingly contrasted. As we rush hither and thither to gather them--if we can--their roots are veritable tentaculae, other lovely flowers are to be had in plenty, the beautiful deep-blue Pyrenean gentian, monk's-hood in rich purple blossom, rose-coloured antirrhinum, an exquisite little yellow sedum, with rare ferns. On one side, a narrow bridle-path winds round the mountain towards Spain; on the other, cottage-farms dot the green slopes; between both, parting the valley, flows the Gave, here a quietly meandering streamlet, whilst before us rises Gavarnie; a scene to which one poet only--perhaps the only one capable of grappling with such a subject--has done justice--

"Cirque, hippodrome, Stage whereon Stamboul, Tyre, Memphis, London, Rome, With their myriads could find place, whereon Paris at ease Might float, as at sundown a swarm of bees, Gavarnie, dream, miracle!"

[Footnote: "Un cirque, un hippodrome, Un theatre ou Stamboul, Tyre, Memphis, Londres, Rome, Avec leurs millions d'hommes pourraient s'a.s.seoir.

Ou Paris flotterait comme un essaim du soir.

Gavarnie!--un miracle! un reve!"--Victor Hugo, "Dieu."]

How to give some faint conception of the indescribable? Perhaps the great French poet has best succeeded in a single line--

"L'impossible est ici debout."

We feel, indeed, that we are here brought face to face with the impossible.

Let the reader then conjure up a solid ma.s.s of rock threefold the circ.u.mference of St. Paul's Cathedral; let him imagine the facade of this natural masonry of itself exceeding the compa.s.s of our great Protestant minster; then in imagination let him lift his eyes from stage to stage, platform to platform, the lower nearly three times the height of St. Paul's from base to apex of golden cross, the higher that of four such alt.i.tudes; their gloomy parapets streaked with glistening white lines, one a vast column of water, although their shelving sides show patches of never-melted snows; around, framing in the stupendous scene, mountain peaks, each unlike its majestic brother, each in height reaching to the shoulder of Mont Blanc. Such is Gavarnie.

My next halting-place was a remote Pyrenean village admirably adapted for the study of rural life. Within a few hours' journey of the Spanish frontier, Osse lies in the beautiful valley of Aspe, and is reached by way of Pau and Oloron. At the latter town the railway ends, and we have to drive sixteen miles across country, a delightful expedition in favourable weather. The twin towns, old and new Oloron, present the contrast so often seen throughout France, picturesque, imposing antiquity beside utilitarian ugliness and uniformity. The open suburban s.p.a.ces present the appearance of an enormous drying-ground, in which are hung the blankets of the entire department. Blankets, woollen girdles or sashes, men's bonnets are manufactured here. "Pipers, blue bonnets, and oatmeal," wrote an English traveller a hundred years ago, "are found in Catalonia, Auvergne, and Suabia as well as in Lochaber." We are now in the ancient kingdom of Beam, with a portion of Navarre added to the French crown by Henry IV, and, two hundred years later, named the department of the Ba.s.ses Pyrenees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OSSE]

Every turn of the road reveals new features as we journey towards Osse, having always in view the little Gave d'Aspe, after the manner of Pyrenean rivers, making cascades, waterfalls, whirlpools on its way.

Most beautiful are these mountain streams, their waters of pure, deep green, their surface broken by coruscations of dazzlingly white foam and spray, their murmur ever in our ears. When far away we hardly miss the grand contours of the Pyrenees more than the music of their rushing waters. No tourists meet us here, yet whither shall we go for scenes sublimer or more engaging? On either side of the broadening velvety green valley, with its tumbling stream, rises a rampart of stately peaks, each unlike its neighbour, each having a graciousness and grandeur of its own. Here and there amid these vast solitudes is seen a white glittering thread breaking the dark ma.s.ses of shelving rock, mountain torrent falling into the river from a height of several hundred feet. Few and far between are the herdsmen's chalets and scattered cornfields and meadows, and we have the excellent carriage road to ourselves. Yet two or three villages of considerable size are pa.s.sed on the way; of one, an inland spa much frequented by the peasants, I shall make mention presently.

For three hours we have wound slowly upward, and, as our destination is approached, the valley opens wide, showing white-walled, grey-roofed hamlets and small towns all singularly alike. The mountains soon close round abruptly on all sides, making us feel as if we had reached the world's end. On the other side of those snow-capped peaks, here so majestically ma.s.sed before our gaze, lies Spain. We are in a part of France thoroughly French, yet within a few hours of a country strikingly contrasted with it; manners, customs, modes of thought, inst.i.tutions radically different.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEAR THE SPANISH FRONTIER]

The remoteness and isolation of Osse explain the existence of a little Protestant community in these mountain fastnesses. For centuries the Reformed faith has been upheld here. Not, however, unmolested. A tablet in the neat little church tells how the original place of Protestant worship was pulled down by order of the king in 1685, and only reconstructed towards the close of the following century. Without church, without pastor, forbidden to a.s.semble, obliged to bury their dead in field or garden, these dales-folk and mountaineers yet clung tenaciously to their religion. One compromise, and one only, they made.

Peasant property has existed in the Pyrenees from time immemorial, and in order to legitimize their children and enjoy the privilege of bequeathing property, the Protestants of the Vallee d'Aspe were married according to the rites of the Romish Church. In our own days, here as elsewhere throughout France, the religious tenets handed down from father to son are adhered to without wavering, and at the same time without apparent enthusiasm. Catholics and Protestants live amicably side by side; but intermarriages are rare, and conversions from Rome to rationalism infrequent. The Sunday services of the little Protestant church are often attended by Catholics. Strangers pa.s.sing through Osse, market-folk, peasants and others, never fail to inspect it curiously.

The Protestant pastor is looked up to with respect and affection alike by Catholic and Protestant neighbours. The rival churches neither lose nor gain adherents to any extent. This fact is curious, especially in a spot where Protestantism is seen at its best. It shows the extreme conservatism and stability of the French character, often set down as revolutionary and fickle. In England folks often and avowedly change their religion several times during their lives. Is not the solemn reception into Rome of instructed men and women among ourselves a matter of every day? In France it is otherwise, and when a change is made we shall generally find that the step is no retrograde one.

If the social aspect is encouraging at Osse, the same may be said of peasant property. Even a Zola must admit some good in a community unstained by crime during a period of twenty years, and bound by ties of brotherhood which render want impossible. A beautiful spirit of humanity, a delicacy rare among the most polished societies, characterize these frugal sons and daughters of the soil. Nor is consideration for others confined to fellow-beings only. The animal is treated as the friend, not the slave of man. "We have no need of the Loi Grammont here," said a resident to me; and personal observation confirmed the statement.

As sordidness carried to the pitch of brutality is often imputed to the French peasant, let me relate an incident that occurred hereabouts, not long before my visit. The land is minutely divided, many possessing a cottage and field only. One of these very small owners was suddenly ruined by the falling of a rock, his cottage, cow and pig being destroyed. Without saying a word, his neighbours, like himself in very humble circ.u.mstances, made up a purse of five hundred francs, a large sum with such donors, and, too delicate-minded to offer the gift themselves, deputed an outsider to do it anonymously. Another instance in point came to my knowledge. This was of a young woman servant, who, during the illness of her employer, refused to accept wages. "You shall pay me some other time," said the girl to her mistress; "I am sure you can ill afford to give me the money now."

Peasant property and rural life generally here presented to me some wholly new features; one of these is the almost entire self- sufficingness of very small holdings, their owners neither buying nor selling, making their little crops and stock almost completely supply their needs. Thus on a field or two, enough flax is grown with which to spin linen for home use, enough wheat and Indian corn for the year's bread-making, maize being mixed with wheaten flour; again, pigs and poultry are reared for domestic consumption--expenditure being reduced to the minimum. Coffee is a luxury seldom indulged in, a few drink home- grown wine, but all are large milk-drinkers. The poorest is a good customer of the dairy farmer.

I was at first greatly puzzled by the information of a neighbour that he kept cows for the purpose of selling milk. Osse being sixteen miles from a railway station, possessing neither semi-detached villas, hotels, boarding-houses, convents, barracks, nor schools, and a population of from three to four hundred only, most of these small farmers--who were his patrons?

I afterwards learned that the "ha'porth of milk," which means much more in all senses than with us, takes the place of tea, coffee, beer, to say nothing of more pernicious drinks, with the majority. New milk from the cow costs about a penny a quart, and perhaps if we could obtain a similar commodity at the same price in England, even gin might be supplanted. Eggs and b.u.t.ter are also very cheap; but as the peasants rear poultry exclusively for their own use, it is by no means easy at Osse to procure a chicken. A little, a very little money goes to the shoemaker and general dealer, and fuel has to be bought; this item is inconsiderable, the peasants being allowed to cart wood from the communal forests for the sum of five or six francs yearly. The village is chiefly made up of farmhouses; on the mountain-sides and in the valley are the chalets and shepherds' huts, abandoned in winter. The homesteads are ma.s.sed round the two churches, Catholic and Protestant, most having a narrow strip of garden and balcony carried along the upper storey, which does duty as a drying-ground.

One of these secluded hamlets, with its slated roofs, white walls, and brown shutters, closely resembles another; but Osse stands alone in possessing a Protestant church and community.

Although the little centre of a purely agricultural region, we find here one of those small, specific industries, as characteristic of French districts as soil and produce. Folks being great water-drinkers, they will have their drinking-water in a state of perfection. Some native genius long ago invented a vessel which answers the requirement of the most fastidious. This is a pail-shaped receptacle of yewen wood, bound with bra.s.s bands, both inner and outer parts being kept exquisitely clean. Water in such vessels remains cool throughout the hottest hours of the hottest summer, and the wood is exceedingly durable, standing wear and tear, it is said, hundreds of years. The turning and encasing of yewen wood, bra.s.s-bound water-jars is a flourishing manufacture at Osse.

Here may be seen and studied peasant property in many stages. I would again remark that any comparison between the condition of the English agricultural labourer and the French peasant proprietor is irrelevant and inconclusive. In the cottage of a small owner at Osse, for instance, we may discover features to shock us, often a total absence of the neatness and veneer of the Suss.e.x ploughman's home. Our disgust is trifling compared with that of the humblest, most hard-working owner of the soil, when he learns under what conditions lives his English compeer. To till another's ground for ten or eleven shillings a week, inhabit a house from which at a week's notice that other can eject him, possess neither home, field nor garden, and have no kind of provision against old age, such a state of things appears to our artless listener wholly inconceivable, incommensurate with modern civilization and bare justice.

As an instance of the futility of comparisons, I will mention one experience. I was returning home late one afternoon when a poorly-dressed, sunburnt woman overtook me. She bore on her head a basket of bracken, and her appearance was such that in any other country I should have expected a demand for alms. Greeting me, however, cheerfully and politely, she at once entered into conversation. She had seen me at church on Sunday, and went on to speak of the pastor, with what esteem both Catholics and Protestants regarded him, then of the people, their mode of life and condition generally.

"No," she said, in answer to my inquiry, "there is no real want here, and no vagrancy. Everybody has his bit of land, or can find work. I come from our vineyard on the hillside yonder, and am now returning home to supper in the village--our farmhouse is there". She was a widow, she added, and with her son did the work of their little farm, the daughter-in-law minding the house and baby. They reared horses for sale, possessed a couple of cows, besides pigs and poultry.

The good manners, intelligence, urbanity, and quiet contentment of this good woman were very striking. She had beautiful white teeth, and was not prematurely aged, only very sun-burnt and shabby, her black stuff dress blue with age and mended in many places, her partially bare feet thrust in sabots. The women here wear toeless or footless stockings, the upper part of the foot being bare. I presume this is an economy, as wooden shoes wear out stockings. We chatted of England, of Protestantism, and many topics before bidding each other good-night.

There was no constraint on her part, and no familiarity. She talked fluently and naturally, just as one first-cla.s.s lady traveller might do to a fellow-pa.s.senger. Yet, if not here in contact with the zero of peasant property, we are considering its most modest phase.

A step higher and we found an instance of the levelling process characteristic of every stage of French society, yet hardly to be looked for in a remote Pyrenean village. In one of our afternoon rambles we overtook a farmeress, and accepted an invitation to accompany her home.

She tripped cheerfully beside us; although a Catholic, on friendliest terms with her Protestant neighbours. Her thin white feet in toeless stockings and sabots, well-worn woollen petticoat, black stuff jacket, headgear of an old black silk handkerchief, would have suggested anything but the truth to the uninitiated. Here also the unwary stranger might have fumbled for a spare coin. She had a kindly, intelligent face, and spoke volubly in patois, having very little command of French. It was, indeed, necessary for me to converse by the medium of an interpreter. On approaching the village we were overtaken by a slight, handsome youth conducting a muck-wagon. This was her younger son, and his easy, well-bred greeting, and correct French, prepared me for the piece of intelligence to follow. The wearer of peasant's garb, carting manure, had pa.s.sed his examination of Bachelor of Arts and Science, had, in fact, received the education of a gentleman. In his case, the patrimony being small, a professional career meant an uphill fight, but doubtless, with many another, he would attain his end.

The farmhouse was large, and, as is unusual here, apart from stables and cow-shed, the kitchen and outhouse being on the ground floor, the young men's bedrooms above. Our hostess slept in a large, curtained four-poster, occupying a corner of the kitchen. A handsome wardrobe of solid oak stood in a conspicuous place, but held only a portion of the family linen. These humble housewives count their sheets by the dozen of dozens, and linen is still spun at home, although not on the scale of former days. The better-off purchase strong, unbleached goods of local manufacture. Here and there I saw old women plying spindle and distaff, but the spinning-wheel no longer hums in every cottage doorway.

Meantime our hospitable entertainer--it is ever the women who wait on their guests--brought out home-grown wine, somewhat sour to the unaccustomed palate, and, as a corrective, home-made brandy, which, with sugar, formed an agreeable liqueur, walnuts--everything, indeed, that she had. We were also invited to taste the bread made of wheaten and maize flour mixed, a heavy, clammy compound answering Mrs. Squeers's requirement of "filling for the price." It is said to be very wholesome and nutritious.

The kitchen floor, as usual, had an unsecured look, but was clean swept, and on shelves stood rows of earthen and copper cooking-vessels and the yewen wood, bra.s.s-bound water-jars before mentioned. The facade of the house, with its shutters and balcony, was cheerful enough, but just opposite the front door lay a large heap of farmhouse manure awaiting transfer to the pastures. A little, a very little, is needed to make these premises healthful and comfortable. The removal of the manure-heap, stables, and cow-shed; a neat garden plot, a flowering creeper on the wall, and the aspect would be in accordance with the material condition of the owner.

The property shared by this widow and her two sons consisted of between five and six acres, made up of arable land and meadow. They kept four cows, four mares for purposes of horse-breeding, and a little poultry.

Milch cows here are occasionally used on the farm, an anomaly among a population extremely gentle to animals.

My next visits were paid on a Sunday afternoon, when everybody is at home to friends and neighbours. Protestant initiative in the matter of the seventh day test has been uniformly followed, alike man and beast enjoy complete repose. As there are no cabarets and no trippers to disturb the public peace, the tranquillity is unbroken.

Our first call was upon an elder of the Protestant Church, and one of the wealthier peasants of the community. The farmhouse was on the usual Pyrenean plan, stables and neat-houses occupying the ground floor, an outer wooden staircase leading to kitchen, parlour, and bedrooms; on the other side a balcony overlooking a narrow strip of garden.