Two Summers in Guyenne Part 19

The bed in which the political philosopher slept is a broad four-poster, not with slender and finely carved posts, like Fenelon's, but severely simple. Indeed, in none of the furniture of this room is there any indication of the love of the ornamental. On the contrary, everything tells of a mind that set no value upon aught but the strictly needful.

Montesquieu's small writing-case, divided into compartments, the borders of the leather covering embellished with dingy, half-obliterated gold ornament, was perhaps the finest bit of property he had before his eyes as he sat and worked there. He always carried it about with him when he travelled. No doubt it went with him to England, and he probably wrote letters to his friend Lord Chesterfield upon it. And here is his travelling trunk. It still looks fit to bear many years' rough usage; and yet, if railway porters had to pull it about, they would not know whether to laugh at its strange appearance or to swear at its weight. It was built for wear, like Noah's ark, and it is entirely covered with leather, elaborately decorated with patterns, composed of the round heads of small nails. The high stone chimney-piece, plain and solid like the character of the man who did so much lasting work in this room, remains, together with the fire-dogs, as it was in his time.

Montesquieu formed the habit when thinking alone of leaning back in his chair before the hearth and resting his feet against one of the jambs of the chimney-piece. The stone was much worn away by his feet; but the marks would pa.s.s un.o.bserved if the knowledge of their cause had not been preserved in the family. A bust of Montesquieu made in his life-time shows him with closely-cropped hair, and without a wig. It is a remarkably Caesar-like head, every feature indicating the decision and positivism of the Roman character--such a one, indeed, as ideally became the author of the 'Considerations.' But how the face is altered when we look at it in another portrait--a painted one, representing the writer in a great wig as President of the Parliament of Guyenne! A head becomes another head if the coiffure be but changed.

A little room adjoining this one was where Montesquieu's secretary worked.

He was the drudge of a literary man, who was probably not exempt from the const.i.tutional irritability of those who carry a whirling grindstone within their brains for the sharpening and polishing of thought. The unremembered scribe may have done good service to literature while undergoing his purgatory in this world.

Distributed throughout this suite of apartments on the ground-floor is much furniture of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, most of which was here when Montesquieu was _chatelain_.

A spiral staircase leads to the great hall of the old castle. It has been very carefully preserved, and although the walls are now lined with book-shelves, it keeps the air of baronial grandeur and simplicity.

Montesquieu made it his library, and had reading-desks set up all down the middle. His books remain, as well as some of his ma.n.u.scripts, including that of 'Les Lettres Persanes.' This long hall is covered by a plain barrel-vault, and at the far end is an immense chimney-place, the chimney built out at the base several feet from the line of the wall, and sloping back towards the ceiling. On the plain (not conical) surface of this mediaeval chimney are painted figures, said to be of the thirteenth century, but probably later. One can distinguish a king, a cardinal, and a page on horseback. The mediaeval fireplates are still in their old place at the back of the vast hearth.

I have little more to add to this story of my wanderings. From La Brede I went to Bordeaux, where I found much to admire that I had not noticed before. The architecture of this city is incomparably richer than that of Paris by the diversity of style and the good fortune that has protected so many of the buildings from the destructive influences of war, fanaticism, and the presumption of those who in all ages would abolish the past if they could, and refashion the world according to their own ideas. The Roman period is only represented by a fragment of the amphitheatre, now called the Palais Gallien. But what a picturesque fragment this is, and how well it introduces the visitor to the study of the Romanesque, the Gothic, and the Renaissance buildings, of which he will find such characteristic examples here! The interest of the Englishman will be increased by the knowledge that some of the most notable of the Gothic edifices were raised when to his countrymen Bordeaux was a continental London, and a well-known tendency of his will probably lead him to attribute much of their grave stateliness to the influence of the Anglo-Saxon character.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GARONNE AT BORDEAUX.]

The people of Bordeaux are supposed to have derived not a little of their keen commercial spirit from the English. If this be so, they may take credit for having in some respects surpa.s.sed their teachers. By the gift of persuasiveness and the abundance of words, by aplomb, combined with astuteness, they are fitted by nature to be the most successful traffickers on earth. But in return for a little work they expect a great deal of enjoyment, and more than most industrious cities is Bordeaux given up to the worship of pleasure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PALAIS CALLIEN AT BORDEAUX.]

From Bordeaux I continued down the river until I saw the Dordogne join the Garonne, where both are lost in the Gironde. Here the two beautiful and n.o.ble streams, one flowing from the Auvergne mountains, and the other from the Pyrenees, no sooner embrace than they die on the breast of the salt wave. They and their tributaries caused one of the sternest, and yet one of the most smiling, of regions--a country where Nature seems to have the pa.s.sion of contrast, and where she brings forth all the best fruits of the earth--to be named by the Celts the Land of Waters, and by the Romans Aquitania. A little reflection explains why the English of the Middle Ages, having once possessed it, should have clung to it with such tenacity. Less easy is it to understand why so few of their descendants of to-day feel the peculiar spell that almost every rood of this broad land should cast upon them, apart from the charm of old story and of the picturesque that appeals to all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP SHOWING THE ITINERARY of 'TWO SUMMERS IN GUYENNE' and 'WANDERINGS BY SOUTHERN WATERS']

THE END.