Normandy Picturesque Part 5

The fisherwomen of Granville are famed for their beauty, industry, and courage; we, certainly, have not seen such eyes, excepting at Cadiz, and never have we seen so many active hard-working old women. The women seem to do everything here--the 'boatmen' are women, and the fishermen young girls.

We may well admire some of these handsome Granvillaises, living their free life by the sea, earning less in the day, generally, than our Staffordshire pit girls, but living much more enviable lives. Here they are by hundreds, scattered over the beach in the early morning, and afterwards crowding into the market-place; driving hard bargains for the produce of their sea-farms, and--with rather shrill and unp.r.o.nounceable e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns and many most winning smiles--handing over their shining wares. It is all for the Paris market they will tell you, and they may also tell you (if you win their confidence) that they, too, are one day for Paris.

Let us leave the old women to do the best bargaining, and picture to the reader a bright figure that we once saw upon this shining sh.o.r.e, a Norman maiden, about eighteen years of age, without shoes or stockings; a picture of health and beauty bronzed by the sun.[25] This young creature who had spent her life by the sea and amongst her own people, was literally overflowing with happiness, she could not contain the half of it, she imparted it to everyone about her (unconsciously, and that was its sweetness); she could not strictly be called handsome, and she might be considered very ignorant; but she bloomed with freshness, she knew neither ill health nor _ennui_, and happiness was a part of her nature.

This charming 'aphrodite piscatrix' is stalwart and strong (she can swim a mile with ease), she has carried her basket and nets since sunrise, and now at eight o'clock on this summer's morning sits down on the rocks, makes a quick breakfast of potage, plumes herself a little, and commences knitting. She does not stay long on the beach, but before leaving, makes a slight acquaintance with the strangers, and evinces a curious desire to hear anything they may have to tell her about the great world.

It is too bright a picture to last; she too, it would seem, has day-dreams of cities; she would give up her freedom, she would join the crowd and enter the 'great city,' she would have a stall at '_les halles_,' and see the world. Day-dreams, but too often fulfilled--the old story of centralization doing its work; look at the map of Normandy, and see how the 'chemin de fer de l'Ouest' is putting forth its arms, which--like the devil-fish, in Victor Hugo's '_Travailleurs de la Mer'_--will one day draw irresistibly to itself, our fair 'Toiler of the sea.'[26]

'What does Monsieur think?' (for we are favoured with a little confidence from our young friend), and what can we say? Could we draw a tempting picture of life in cities--could we, if we had the heart, draw a favourable contrast between _her_ life, as we see it, and the lives of girls of her own age, who live in towns--who never see the breaking of a spring morning, or know the beauty of a summer's night? Could we picture to her (if we would) the gloom that shrouds the dwellings of many of her northern sisters; and could she but see the veil that hangs over London, in such streets as Harley, or Welbeck Street, on the brightest morning that ever dawned on their sleeping inhabitants, she might well be reconciled to her present life!

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TOILER OF THE SEA.]

'Is it nothing,' we are inclined to ask her, 'to feel the first rays of the sun at his rising, to be fanned with fresh breezes, to rejoice in the wind, to brave the storm; to have learned from childhood to welcome as familiar friends, the changes of the elements, and, in short, to have realised, in a natural life the 'mens sana in corpore sano'? Would she be willing to repeat the follies of her ancestors in the days of the _Trianon_ and Louis XIV.? Would she complete the fall which began when knights and n.o.bles turned courtiers--and roues? Let us read history to her and remind her what centralization did for old France; let us whisper to her, whilst there is time, what Paris is like in our own day.

Do we exaggerate the evils of over-centralization? We only at present, half know them; but the next generation may discover the full meaning of the word. There is exaggeration, no doubt; some men have lived so long in the country that they speak of towns as a 'seething ma.s.s of corruption,' pregnant of evil; and of villages as of an almost divine Arcadia, whence nothing but good can spring; but the evils of centralization can scarcely be overrated in any community. The social system even in France, cannot revolve for ever round one sun.

CHAPTER VII.

_AVRANCHES--MONT ST. MICHAEL._

There are some places in Europe which English people seem, with one consent, to have made their own; they take possession of them, peacefully enough it is true, but with a determination that the inhabitants find it impossible to resist. Thus it is that Avranches--owing princ.i.p.ally, it may be, to its healthiness and cheapness of living, and to the extreme beauty of its situation--has become an English country town, with many of its peculiarities, and a few, it must be added, of its rather unenviable characteristics.

The buildings at Avranches are not very remarkable. The cathedral has been destroyed, and the houses are of the familiar French pattern; some charmingly situated in pleasant gardens commanding the view over the bay. The situation seems perfect. Built upon the extreme western promontory of the long line of hills which extend from Domfront and the forest of Audaine, with a view unsurpa.s.sed in extent towards the sea, with environs of undulating hills and fruitful landscape; with woods and streams (such as the traveller who has only pa.s.sed through central France could hardly imagine) we can scarcely picture to ourselves a more favoured spot.

No district in Normandy (a resident a.s.sures us) affords a more agreeable resting place than the hills of Avranches, excepting, perhaps, the smiling environs of Mortain and Vire. Mortain is within easy distance, as well as Mont St. Michael (which we have sketched from the terrace at Avranches, at the beginning of this chapter), and Granville, also, on the western sh.o.r.e of the Norman archipelago; to the extreme south is seen the Bay of Cancale in Brittany, and the promontory of St. Malo; to the north, the variegated landscape of the Cotentin--hills, valleys, woods, villages, churches, and chateaux smiling in the sunshine,--the air melodious with the song of the lark and innumerable nightingales.'

True as is this picture of the natural beauty of the position of Avranches, we will add one or two facts (gathered lately on the spot) which may be useful to intending emigrants from our sh.o.r.es. Within the last few years house rent, though still cheap, has greatly increased; and the prices of provisions, which used to be so abundant from Granville and St. Malo, have risen, as they have, indeed, all over France. The railway from Granville to Paris will only make matters worse, and the resident will soon see the b.u.t.ter, eggs, and fowls, which used to throng the market of Avranches, packed away in baskets for Paris and London. The salmon and trout in the rivers, are already netted and sold by the pound; and the larks sing no longer in the sky. Thus, like Dinan, Tours and Pau, Avranches feels the weight of centralisation and the effects of rapid communication with the capital; and will in a few years be anything but a cheap place of residence.

However, from information gathered only yesterday, we learn that 'house rent bears favourable comparison with many English provincial towns; that servants' wages are not high, and that provisions are comparatively cheap;' also that the climate is 'very cold sometimes in winter, but more inclined to be damp; and that there is no good inn.'

Again,--'if any quiet family demands fine air, a lovely position, cheap house-rent and servants, easy and cheerful society, regular church services, and, above all, first-cla.s.s education for boys, and good governesses and masters for girls, it cannot do better than settle down here.'

And again (from another point of view) that, 'after a year's residence in Normandy, I can see but little economy in it compared with England, and believe that sensible people would find far greater comfort, and but little more expense, if resident in Wales, Ireland, or some of the distant parts of our own country; if they would but make up their minds to live with as few servants, and to see as little society as is the custom abroad.'

These varying opinions are worth having, coming as they do from residents, and giving us the latest information on the subject; but our friend whom we have quoted last seems to put the case most fairly, when he says, in so many words, 'English people had better live in their own country, if they can.'

Life at Avranches is a strange contrast to Granville. In a few hours we pa.s.s from the contemplation of fishermen's lives to a curious kind of civilization--an exotic plant, which some might think was hardly worth the transplanting. A little colony of English people have taken possession of one of the finest and healthiest spots in Europe, and upon this vantage ground have deposited, or reproduced as in a magic mirror, much of the littleness and pettiness that is peculiar to an English country town: they have brought insular prejudices and peculiarities, and unpacked several of them at Avranches.

Do we overdraw the picture? Hear one more resident, who thus tersely, and rather pathetically, puts his grievances to us, _viva voce_:--

'We quiet English people,' he says, 'generally dine early, because it is considered economical--_which it is not!_

'We live exclusively and stiffly, because it is considered proper and necessary--_which it is not!_

'We go to the expense and trouble of bringing out our families, because living is supposed to be cheaper than in England--_which practically it is not!_

'We believe that our children will be well educated, and pick up French for nothing--_which they do not!_'--&c, &c.

An amusing book might be written about English society in French towns; no one indeed knows who has not tried it, with what little society-props such coteries as those at Avranches, Pau, &c., are kept up. It varies, of course, every year, and in each place every year; but when we were last at Avranches, 'society' was the watchword, we might almost say the war cry; and we had to declare our colours as if we lived in the days of the Wars of the Roses.

The old inhabitants are, of course, 'rather particular,' and, to tell the truth, are sometimes rather afraid of each other. They are apt to eye with considerable caution any new arrival; the 'new arrival' is disposed to be equally select, and so they live together and apart, after the true English model; and indulging sometimes, it must be added, in considerable speculation about their new neighbours' business.

'Why were they proud--because red-lined accounts Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?

Why were they proud--again we ask, aloud, Why in the name of glory were they proud?'

And so on; but what we might say of Avranches would apply to nearly every little English colony abroad. There are two sides to the picture, and there is a good, pleasant side to the English society at Avranches; there is also great necessity to be 'particular,' however much we may laugh. English people who come to reside abroad are not, as a rule, very good representatives of their nation; neither they nor their children seem to flourish on a foreign soil, they differ in their character as much as transplanted trees; they have more affinity with the poplars and elms of France than with the st.u.r.dy oaks of England.[27]

Let us not be thought to disparage Avranches; if it is our lot to live here we may enjoy life well; and if we are not deterred by the dull and 'weedy' aspect of some of the old chateaux, we may also make some pleasant friends amongst the French families in the neighbourhood.

In summer time we may almost live out of doors, and ramble about in the fields and sketch, as we should do in England; the air is fresh and bracing, and the sea breeze comes gratefully on the west wind. We may stroll through shady lanes and between hedgerows, and we shall hear the familiar sound of bells, and see through the trees a church tower, such as the following (which is indeed the common type throughout Normandy); but here the similarity to England ceases, for we may enter the building at any hour, and find peasant women at prayers.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

And we may see sometimes a party of English girls from a French school, with their drawing master; sketching from nature and making minute studies of the brandies of trees. They are seated on a hill-side, and there is a charming pastoral scene before them,--wood and water, pasture-land and cattle grazing,--women with white caps, and little white houses peeping through the trees.

But the trees that they are studying are small and characterless compared with our own, they are scattered about the landscape, or set in trim lines along the roads: our fair artists had better be in England for this work. There is none of the ma.s.s and grandeur here that we see in our forest trees, none of the suggestive groups with which we are so familiar, even in the parks of London, planted 'by accident' (as we are apt to call it), but standing together with clear purpose of protection and support,--the strong-limbed facing the north and stretching out their protecting arms, the weaker towering above them in the centre of the square; whilst those to the south spread a deep shade almost to the ground. French trees are under an Imperial necessity to form into line; the groves at Fontainbleau are as straight as the Fifth Avenue at New York. There are no studies of trees in all Normandy like the royal oaks of Windsor, there is nothing to compare in grandeur with the stems of the Burnham beeches, set in a carpet of ferns; and nothing equal in effect to the ma.s.sing of the blue pines--with their bronzed stems against an evening sky--in Woburn Park in Bedfordshire. We may bring some pretty studies from Avranches and from the country round, but we should not come to France to draw trees.

But there are studies which we may make near Avranches, and of scenes that we shall not meet with in England. If we descend the hill and walk a few miles in the direction of Granville, we may see by the roadside the remnants of several wayside 'stations' of very early date. Let us sit down by the roadside to sketch one of these (A.D. 1066), and depict for the reader, almost with the accuracy of a photograph, its grotesque proportions. It stands on a bank, in a prominent position, by the roadside; a rude contrast to the surrounding scenery. Presently there comes up an old cantonnier in a blouse and heavy sabots, who has just returned from mending the roads; he takes off his cap, crosses himself devoutly, and kneels down to pray. The sun shines upon the cross and upon the kneeling figure; the soft wind plays about them, the bank is lovely with wild flowers; there are purple hills beyond, and a company of white clouds careering through s.p.a.ce. But the old man sees nothing but the cross, he has no eyes for the beauty of landscape, no ear for the music of the birds or the voices of nature; he sees nothing but the image of his Saviour, he kneels as he knelt in childhood before the cross, he clasps his worn hands, and prays, with many repet.i.tions, words which evidently bring comfort to his soul. In a few minutes the old man rises and puts on his cap, with a bra.s.s plate on it with the number of his canton, produces a little can of soup and bread and sits down on the bank to breakfast; ending by unrolling a morsel of tobacco from a crumpled paper, putting it into his mouth and going fast asleep.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Many more such scenes we could record, but they are more fitted for the pencil than the pen; the artist can easily fill his sketch-book without going far from Avranches.

But as autumn advances our thoughts are naturally turned more towards 'le sport;' and if we are fortunate enough to be on visiting terms with the owners of the neighbouring chateaux, we may be present at some interesting scenes that will remind us of pictures in the galleries at Versailles.

'With good books, a good rod, and a double gun, one could never weary of a residence at Avranches,' says an enthusiastic settler who has found out the right corners in the trout-streams, and, possibly, the denizens of the neighbouring woods. The truth, however, is that in spite of the beautifully wooded country round, and the rivers that wind so picturesquely beneath us; in spite of its unexampled situation and its glorious view, Avranches is scarcely the spot for a sportsman to select for a residence.

In the season there are numerous sportsmen, both English and French, and occasionally a very fair bag may be made; but game not being preserved systematically, the supply is variable, and accounts of sport naturally differ very widely. We can only say that it is poor work after our English covers, and that we know some residents at Avranches who prefer making excursions into Brittany for a week's shooting. Trout may be caught in tolerable abundance, and salmon of good weight are still to be found in the rivers, but they are diminishing fast, being, as we said, netted at night for the Paris market.[28]

It was in the shooting season of the year, when game had been unusually scarce for the sportsman and provokingly plentiful to behold in the market-place at Granville--when the last accounts we had of the success of a party (who had been out for a week) was that they had bagged 'only a few woodc.o.c.ks, three partridges, and a hare or two'--that the following clever sketch appeared in the newspapers. It was great fun, especially amongst some of our French friends who were very fond of the phrase 'cha.s.se magnifique,' and resented the story as a terrible libel.

An enthusiastic French marquis offered one of our countrymen, whom he met in Paris, a few days' shooting, in short, a 'cha.s.se magnifique.' He accepted and went the next day; 'the journey was seven hours by railway, but to the true sportsman this was nothing.' The morning after his arrival he was attended by the marquis's keeper, who, in answer to X.'s enquiries, thus mapped out the day's sport:--

'Pour commencer, monsieur, nous cha.s.serons dans les vignes de M. le Marquis, ou a cette saison nous trouverons certainement des grives (thrushes).' 'Et apres?' says X. 'Eh bien! apres, nous pa.s.serons une pet.i.te heure sur la grande plaine, ou, sans doute, nous trouverons une ma.s.se d'alouettes (larks). En suite je montrerai a monsieur certaines poules d'eau (moorhens) que je connais; fichtre! nous les attraperons. Il y a la-bas aussi, dans le marais, un pet.i.t lac ou, l'annee pa.s.see, j'ai vu un canard, mais un canard sauvage! Nous le chercherons; peut-etre il y sera.'

'But have you no partridges?' 'Des perdreaux! mais oui! je le crois bien! (il demande si nous avons des perdreaux!) Il y en a, mais ils sont difficiles. Nous en avions _quatre_, mais, le mois pa.s.se, M.

le Marquis en a tue un et serieus.e.m.e.nt blesse un second. La pauvre bete n'est pas encore guerie. Cela ne nous laisse que deux. Nous les cha.s.serons sans doute si monsieur le veut; _mais que feronsnous l'annee prochaine_? Si monsieur veut bien achever cette pauvre bete blessee, ca peut s'arranger.'

'Well, but have you no covert shooting--no hares?'

'Les lievres? mais certainement, nous avons des lievres. Nous irons dans la foret, je prendrai mes chiens, et je vous montrerai de belles lievres. J'en ai trois--_Josephine, Alphonse_, et le vieux _Adolphe_. Pour le moment Josephine est sacree--elle est mere. Le pet.i.t Alphonse s'est marie avec elle, comme ca il est un peu pere de famille; nous l'epargnerons, n'est-ce-pas, monsieur? Mais le vieux Adolphe, nous le tuerons; c'est deja temps; voila cinq ans que je le cha.s.se!'

_MONT ST. MICHAEL._