Two Summers in Guyenne Part 9

Then there is a caldron of soup, made very 'thick and slab.' Home-baked loaves, round like trenchers, and weighing 10lb. each, are on the side table, together with an immense bowl of salad and a regiment of bottles filled with wine newly drawn from the cask.

In the evening, when all the gra.s.s has been cut, there is another and a greater feast. The work being done, the men linger long at the table.

Then all the household is a.s.sembled in the great kitchen, including the _chatelain_ and _chatelaine_, and the young men who are known to have voices are called upon to sing. They do not need much pressing, for what with the heat of the sun during the day, then the wine, the coffee and rum, their blood is rushing rather hotly through the veins. One after another they stand up on the benches and give out their voices from their st.u.r.dy chests, which are burnt to the colour of terra-cotta. They make so much noise that the old warming-pan trembles against the wall. Although they all speak patois among themselves, they are reluctant to sing the songs of Perigord in the presence of strangers. The young men are proud of their French, bad as it is, and a song in the cafe-concert style of music and poetry fires their ambition to excel on a festive occasion like this, whilst their patois ditties seem then only fit to be sung at home or in the fields. At length, however, they allow themselves to be persuaded, and they sing in chorus a 'Reapers' Song,' composed long ago by some unknown Perigourdin poet, who was perhaps a jongleur or a troubadour. The notes are so arranged as to imitate the rhythmic movements of the reaper: first the drawing back of the right arm, then the stroke of the sickle, and lastly, the laying down of the cut corn. There is something of sadness as well as of joy in the repeated cadences of the simple song, and it moves the heart, for now the old men join in, and the sound gathers such strength that the little martins under the eaves must be pressing troubled b.r.e.a.s.t.s against their young.

This chateau had remained in the same family for centuries, and the actual owner, although by no means indifferent to the n.o.ble exploits of his ancestors, had long ago settled down to the life of an agricultural gentleman, and devoted what energy may have come down to him from the Crusaders to the cultivation of tobacco, the improvement of stock, the rearing of pigeons and poultry, the planting of trees, and a great deal more belonging to the same order of interest. He was a strongly marked type of the _gentilhomme campagnard_, in whom blue blood combines perfectly with rustic tastes and simplicity of manners. Like most men who live greatly to themselves, he had his hobbies, and they were all of a very respectable kind. One was to surround himself with trees; another was to have all kinds of captive birds about him. I was never able to know exactly how many aviaries he possessed, for I was always finding a fresh one curiously hidden in some neglected corner. He liked to mix up all sorts of birds together, such as pigeons, doves--tame and wild--blackbirds, linnets, canaries, chaffinches, sparrows, tomt.i.ts--no, the tomt.i.ts had been turned out. I asked why.

'Because,' said M. de V., 'there is no bird so wicked for its size as the t.i.tmouse. It pecks other birds with which it is shut up so often in the same part of the head that at length it makes a hole and picks out the brains.'

He used to catch his birds by means of a long net, and his favourite place for spreading it was along the side of the patch of buckwheat which was sown to feed the captives. He was a true lover of birds, and by observing them had stored up in his mind a fund of curious knowledge respecting their characters and habits. He only worked a portion of his land with the aid of the servants of the chateau; the rest was farmed on the system of _metayage_, for which he had a very strong liking. He said it was far preferable from the landlord's point of view to leasing, because the owner of the soil remained absolute master of his property. He could take care that nothing was done which did not please him, for the _metayer_ or _colon_ was on no firmer footing than that of an upper servant. If the landlord was not satisfied with the manner in which his land was treated, or if he suspected his _metayer_ of trying to take an unfair advantage of him in the division of proceeds, all he had to do was to change him for another. But it was the interest of both to work well together, and it was the duty of the landlord to a.s.sist the _metayer_ as much as possible, especially when times were hard.

On this estate the _colons_ were housed free, but they paid one-third of the taxes. At the time of sowing, the seed was found by the landlord, but the colon returned half of the amount when the crop was gathered.

_Metayage_, or the system of sharing results between the landowner and the labouring peasant, still flourishes in France, notwithstanding the severe denunciations pa.s.sed upon it by various writers. If it were a very bad system, it would have fallen into disuse long before now, for although the French have a tendency to keep their wheels in old ruts, they are as keen as any other people in protecting their own interests. It is a system that would soon become impossible without trustfulness and honesty. On both sides there must be fair dealing. The _colon_ must feel that the landlord will help him in time of trial and need, and the landlord must feel that the _colon_ is not trying to cheat him. In the great majority of cases, the man who does the ploughing, the sowing and the harvesting quite realizes that honesty with him is the best policy, and the owner of the soil knows that it is to his interest to support his _metayer_, and encourage him with judicious aid when the times are bad. The _metayer_, who has hope of making a little money over and above what is barely sufficient to support himself and his family, and knows that results will depend largely upon his own sagacity and industry, works with a steady zeal that it would be unreasonable to expect of the hired labourer, who, having his measured wage always in his mind's eye, has no incentive to do more than what is rigorously expected of him.

It may happen that the _metayer_, with all his labour--carried sometimes to an extreme that degrades the man physically and mentally--and all his frugality, which so often entails const.i.tutional enfeeblement and degeneration, because the nutrition is not sufficient to correct the exhaustion of toil, obtains really less value for his work than an English farm labourer, and is not so well housed; but, on the other hand, he enjoys a large amount of liberty and independence, and has the hope, if he is young, of being able to save money, buy some land, and become his own master. A _metairie_ is seldom so large as to be beyond the working capabilities of a man and his family. In Guyenne an estate of a few hundred acres, if the land is productive, is often divided up into several _metairies_.

Farm labourers are not an overfed or overpaid cla.s.s in Perigord. Food that is almost bread and vegetables, and a wage of one franc a day, are the ordinary conditions on which men work from sunrise to darkness. Lodging is not always included. I have known men in the full vigour of life earning only the equivalent of ninepence halfpenny a day, paying rent out of it, and presumably supporting a wife and children.

The daily life at the chateau was quite old fashioned in its simplicity.

Everybody rose with the sun, or very soon afterwards. At nine o'clock the bell in the court rang for the princ.i.p.al meal, which was called dinner.

Kings dined at about the same hour in the times of the Crusaders. Early in the afternoon the bell rang again. This was for _collation_, a very light repast, which was often nothing more than salad or fruit and a _frotte_--a piece of crusty bread rubbed with garlic. At about seven o'clock the bell rang for supper.

The small chateaux with which the whole country hereabouts is strewn, notwithstanding that most of them have been partially rebuilt or grossly and wantonly mangled without a purpose such as the rational desire of increasing homely comfort may excuse, even when combined with no respect for the past, nevertheless contain numerous details that call up in the mind pictures of the life of old France. In the rat-haunted lofts and lumber-rooms may still be seen, worm-eaten and covered with dust, the _cacolet_--a wooden structure shaped like the gable roof of a house, and which, when set upon a horse's back, afforded sitting accommodation for two or three persons on each side. There are people who can still remember, on the roads of Perigord, the _cacolets_ carrying merry parties to marriage feasts and other gatherings. In a few of the great dining-rooms the visitor will still notice the _alcove volante_--a bedstead, that is a little house in itself, put into a cosy quiet nook where a person can get into bed without being observed by others in the room. A pretty sentiment caused it to be especially reserved for the grandmothers, who, stretched upon the warm feathers on the winter evenings, could rest their weary limbs while listening to the talk of their descendants and friends, until drowsiness began to make confusion of the present and the past, and then they would pull the cords which closed the curtains and go to sleep. Poor old ladies, now in their graves under the paving-stones of little churches or beneath the gra.s.s of rural cemeteries, how happy for them that they did not dream of the future in their snug alcoves near the fire--of a revolution that would kill or scatter their descendants, and of the strangers to their blood who would lie in their beds!

The detached dovecot is seen in almost every old manorial garden. Although pigeons are seldom kept in it, the structure has been preserved because of its usefulness for various purposes and the solidity of its masonry. In some of them is to be seen the old spiral ladder or staircase winding like a serpent round the interior wall from the ground to the domed or pointed roof. By means of this ladder the pigeons could be easily taken from their nests as they were wanted. These great dovecots are an interesting remnant of feudalism. Down to the Revolution the right of keeping pigeons was still a _droit seigneurial_. To those who enjoyed the privilege, the business was therefore a profitable one, for the birds fed largely at other people's expense.

It is rare to find the ancient walls and towers which stud the hills that rise above these valleys in the hands of families who owned them even in the last century. Terror of the Revolutionists caused most of the small n.o.bility of the country to forsake their homes and lands, which were consequently sold by the State _revolutionnairement_, and they who acquired them were thrifty, sagacious people of the agricultural, mercantile, or official cla.s.s, whose political principles bent easily before the wind that was blowing, and whose savings enabled them to profit by the misfortunes of those who had so long enjoyed the advantages of a privileged position. The descendants of the men who seized their opportunity, and who purchased the estates of the refugees--often at the price 'of an old song'--generally cultivate anti-Republican politics, for they have the best of reasons to be suspicious of the 'great and glorious principles' by virtue of which property was made to change hands so unceremoniously at the close of the last century.

The present owners of most of the country houses in Perigord, whether they belong to the old families or the new families, whether they put the n.o.ble particle before their names or not, have very much the same habits and manners. Not a few of them have never been to Paris, and in speech they often use old French forms, which sound strange in the ears of the modernized society of the North. Although the accent is often drawling or sing-song, their language is more grammatically correct than that now ordinarily used in conversation. They observe the true distinction of the tenses with an exact.i.tude that sounds stiff and pedantic to those French people who move about, and who consider that they live in the 'world.' To the unprejudiced foreigner, however, it is not unpleasant to hear this old-fashioned literary French spoken in an easy, simple manner that removes all suspicion of affectation.

In the relations of master and servant, something of the old regime still survives. The master still says _tu_ and _toi_ to his servant; but if the latter were to take the liberty of replying with the same p.r.o.noun, his insolence would be considered quite unpardonable. And yet no people appear to be troubled less with false pride than the cla.s.s of whom I am speaking.

Relatively large landowners, whose names count for a good deal in the district, think there is nothing derogatory in sending a maidservant to market to sell the surplus fruit and eggs. Those who buy are equally practical. They haggle over sous with their friends' servant just as if she were a peasant driving a bargain on her own account. It is the exception, however, when to this keen appreciation of money warm-hearted hospitality and disinterested kindness are not joined.

There was a chateau combining the country house, the farm, and the ruin on the summit of the steep hill that rose above our little island just beyond the river. It often tempted me to climb to it, and one day at the end of summer I wended my way up the stony path. I met with that courteous reception which so rarely fails in France to place the visitor completely at his ease. I was surprised to find how extensive the ramparts were, and how easily the castle behind the modern house could have been rendered habitable. But all the windows were open to the weather. A Gothic chapel with groined vaulting at the base of one of the towers had been turned into a coach-house. Following an old servant who carried a lantern along a dark pa.s.sage leading to an _oubliette_, I saw what looked like a large cattle trough, and inquired the use of it in such a place. It was put to no purpose now, was the reply, but it was intended for keeping a whole bullock in salt. In the tumultuous ages it was always necessary to be prepared to take immediate measures in view of a siege, and at no period more than during the wars of religion, when the owners of these castles, whether they were Huguenots or Catholics, had to be continually on the alert. When there was fighting to be done, a salted bullock gave less trouble than a live one.

The old man, having tied a string to the top of the lantern, let it down through the round hole of the _oubliette_ until it touched the ground many feet below. Then he told me that, when the dungeon was discovered years ago, immediately beneath the opening an old tree was found stuck about with rusty blades and spikes, with their points turned upwards. This story was confirmed by others.

In the garden on the edge of the cliff the myrtle flourished in a little Provence sheltered from the cold winds; the physalis--beautiful southern weed--now laid its large bladders of a vivid scarlet along the edges of the paths, and the walls flamed with the red fruit of the pomegranate.

The most important feudal ruin in this district is that of the Chateau de Grignols, the cradle of the Talleyrand family. It was raised by Hely Talleyrand, Seigneur de Grignols, at the close of the twelfth century. Much of the outer wall and a few fragments of the interior buildings remain.

I lived a good deal upon the water when I was not in my hermitage under the trees or wandering across country. I found in the water an ever-growing interest and charm. It often drew me from my work, for my canoe was on the ca.n.a.l only a few paces from my dwelling. On each side the high banks were glorious with their many-coloured clothing of summer flowers. There were patches of purple thyme, of blue stachys, and yellow gallium; there were countless spikes of yellow agrimony and heads of wild carrot, and white ox-eyes looked out from amidst the long gra.s.ses like snowflakes of summer.

Near the water's edge, mingling with sedges, flags, marsh-mallows, bur-reed, and alisma, were the golden flowers of the shrubby lysimachia in dense mult.i.tudes, while from the ca.n.a.l itself rose many a spike of water-stachys, with here and there blossoming butomus, near the fringe of the banks. Then there were the pond-weeds, and other true water-plants, whose summer luxuriance nearly stopped the navigation of the ca.n.a.l, and whose pollen in July, collecting near the locks, lay there upon the water like a thick sc.u.m. As my little boat moved over them, I could note all the wondrous beauty and delicacy of the strange foliage that lives below the air, and preserves so much of the character of the earliest vegetation of the earth.

It is twilight, and I am paddling up to the river, gliding now along by one bank and now by another. A humming-bird moth, that seems to have been just created, for the eye cannot follow its movement in the dusky air, appears suddenly upon the topmost flower of a stachys, and in another moment it has vanished. Upon the broader and more open river the day appears to revive.

There is a faint l.u.s.tre upon the distant chalky hills and their corn-fields that rise against the quiet sky. But the pale moon just above them is brightening; already the rays are glinting upon the water. A little later the boat is moving up a long brilliant track, where small waves lap and quiver like liquid fire. It is now night, and the forms of the alders in the air and on the water have become weird and awful. I often come alone at this hour, or later, to be filled with the horror of them. There is a strong fascination in their terrible and fantastic shapes, which may be because the sublime and the horrible are so thinly separated. Rarely does the same tree wear the same ghostly appearance when seen a second time, and a shape that may seem to one person appallingly life-like may convey no meaning to another.

Had the gendarmes met me while water-wandering at night, they would certainly have concluded that I was a fish-poacher. All fishing by night in French rivers and streams is illegal, but it is much practised notwithstanding.

There are many carp in the Isle, weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds, but they are very rarely caught. The river is full of very deep pools, caused by the washing away of the sand down to the solid rock, and the carp seldom get within reach of a net except when they are stirred up and washed out of their lairs in time of flood. Then, when an old fish gets entangled in a net, it is almost certain to break through it, so that it is not with a feeling of pure pleasure that the fisherman recognises by the weight and tug that he has thrown his meshes over one of these monsters. Nor does any better success attend the angler--at all events, the angler who is known in these parts. It is quite an extraordinary event when a carp weighing more than five pounds is taken with the line. The bait commonly used is boiled maize or a piece of boiled chestnut. There is another method of hooking these fish which I have seen practised on the quays at Perigueux. The fisher has a very strong rod, and also a strong line many yards long, at the end of which is fastened, not a bait, but a piece of lead two or three inches in length. To this large hooks are fixed, which barbs turned in all directions. The man, whose eyes have become very keen with practice, sees some carp coming up or going down the stream, and, throwing the plummet far out into the river, he draws it rapidly through the water, across the spot where he believes the fish then to be. It is not often that he feels a tug, but he does sometimes, and then follows a deadly struggle, which may result in his landing a splendid carp that is worth more than he might earn by any other industry in two days.

Among the peasants in this part of Perigord there is a deeply-engrained superst.i.tious horror of what is called a _rencontre_. If a person falls suddenly ill, especially if his sickness be not a familiar ailment, he will begin to probe his memory, and to ask himself if he has lately sat upon a stone or the stump of a tree. If he remembers having done so, he murmurs, unless he should be free from the popular superst.i.tion, 'Ah! I thought so.

This is a _rencontre!_'--by which he means that he has met one of the three unholy reptiles, the snake, the toad, or the lizard, although it was hidden under the stone or stump.

'Marie,' said I to an old farm woman who was hobbling about with a rheumatic leg, 'what is the matter?'

Oh, mossieu,' said she, 'it's a _rencontre_. I sat down the other day upon a stone.'

This made me inquire what was meant by a _rencontre_.

I will only set down a few impressions of Perigueux, there being already quite enough written respecting the ancient capital of the Petrocorii.

The upper part of the town commands a pleasant view of the valley of the curving Isle, with the wooded hills that lead away towards the upper and wilder country of Perigord; but it is in the lower town near the river, where the odours are strong, that the interest really lies. Here is the cathedral of St. Front, a church in the Byzantine style of the tenth century, and closely imitated from St. Mark's at Venice. It is impossible to see it now, however, without regret and disappointment. In many it stirs both sorrow and anger. It is no longer one of the most precious monuments of old France. What we see now on the site of St. Front is a new church, scrupulously rebuilt, it is true, according to the original plan, and with a great deal of the original material, but its interest is that which belongs to a model: its venerable character, with all the a.s.sociations of the past, is gone. Whether those responsible for the complete demolition of the ancient structure when it threatened to fall and become a heap of ruins were right or wrong in their decision is a technical question on which very few persons are now competent to give an opinion. The plan of the church is a Greek cross, and, like St. Mark's and St. Sophia's, it has five domes; but the building has, nevertheless, a feature of its own which makes it one of the most original of churches. It possesses a Byzantine tower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOUR DE VeSONE.]

In common with many towns of Southern France, Perigueux shows remarkable vestiges of different races and dominations. Remnants of Roman or Gallo-Roman architecture stand with others that belong to the dawn of mediaeval art, and others, again, that are marked by the florid and graceful fancy of the Renaissance. The ruins of the amphitheatre are insignificant compared to those at Nimes and Arles, and there is no beautiful example of Roman art like the Maison Carree at Nimes; but there is an exceedingly curious monument of antiquity, which was long a puzzle to archaeologists, but which is now generally believed to be the _cella_ of a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to the city's tutelary divinities. It is called the Tour de Vesone, and, indeed, it was supposed for centuries to have been originally a tower. Its cylindrical shape and its height (ninety feet) give it all the appearance of one. It is built of rubble, faced inside and out with small well-shaped stones, and has chains of brick in the upper part. The circle of the tower is no longer complete, for about a fourth of the wall has been broken down from top to bottom. The ground is strewn with fragments of immense columns and entire capitals, some Corinthian, others Tuscan. These, doubtless, were parts of the peristyle, which, with the exception of such scattered fragments, has quite disappeared. There is something decidedly barbaric in the fantastic structure that has come down to us, and it is difficult to understand the motive of its height. Such a cylinder rising far above the peristyle could not have had a cla.s.sic effect. This ruin stands in an open field, and the foulness of the spot, although quite in accordance with the Southern manner of showing respect for antiquities, is nevertheless a disgrace to the ideals of modern Vesunna.

Another curiosity of the lower town is the ruin of a very early mediaeval castle, said to have been built by Wulgrin, surnamed Taillefer, the first of the hereditary Counts of Perigord. Close to this picturesque ruin is one of the ancient gateways of the town. It goes by the name of La Porte Normande, but its slightly pointed arch disposes of the suggestion that the Normans were in some manner concerned in its construction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE 'NORMAN GATE' AT PeRIGUEUX.]

What interested me most at Perigueux was something that very few strangers, or even townspeople, for that matter, ever see, because, it is hidden from public view. This is a considerable fragment of one of the early walls of the town, which, tradition says, was thrown up in great haste at the approach of the Normans during one of the incursions of these adventurers up the valley of the Dordogne and, its tributary, the Isle, in the tenth century. It is a bit of wall that speaks to us in a language by no means common. It is not built of stones such as could be found anywhere in all ages, but is put together with the fragments of temples and palaces which even now tell of the power and splendour of Rome. The shafts of fluted columns, capitals wearing the acanthus, pieces of cornice and frieze, all mortared together with undistinguishable rubbish, bear testimony in the quiet garden of the Ursuline convent to the vanity of human works. Vesunna, splendid city of Southern Gaul, completely Latinized, with native poets, orators, and historians speaking and writing the language of Virgil and Cicero, raised temples, palaces, thermae, and a vast amphitheatre to be used centuries later as material for building a wall to keep out the Northern barbarians!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DRONNE AT BOURDEILLES.]

FROM PeRIGUEUX TO RIBERAC (BY BRANToME).

From Perigueux I made my way to Brantome in the neighbouring valley of the Dronne--a tributary of the Isle, which n.o.body who has not stifled the love of beauty in his soul can see without feeling the sweet and winning charm of its gracious influence. Between the two valleys are some fifteen miles of chalky hills almost bare of trees, a dreary track to cross at any time, but especially detestable when the dust lies thick upon the white road and the summer sun is blazing overhead. But how delightful is the contrast when, going down at length from these cretaceous uplands, where even the potato plants look as if they had been whitewashed, you see below the verdant valley of the Dronne, that seems to be blessed with eternal spring, the gay flash of the winding stream, the grand rocks that appear to be standing in its bed, and the cool green woods that slope up to the sky beyond! The pleasure grows as you descend, and when at length you reach the little town you are quite enchanted with the grace and elegance, the poetic and romantic charm, of the scene. Although the church, with its tower half built upon a rock, dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the influence of the sixteenth century is so strong that no other is felt. The eye follows the terraces with graceful bal.u.s.trades in the shadow of old trees, dwells on the fanciful Renaissance bridge, that looks as if its first intention was to span the stream in the usual manner, but, having gone some distance across, changed its mind, and turned off at an abrupt angle; then the little pavilion in the style of Francis I., connected with a machicolated gateway, fixes the attention. There is something in the air of the place which calls up the spirit of Shakespeare, of Spenser, and of all the poets and romancers of the sixteenth century; you feel that everything here belongs to them, that you are in their world, and that the nineteenth century has nothing to do with it. Upon these bal.u.s.traded terraces, beside the limpid river full of waving weeds, you can picture without effort ladies in farthingales and great ruffs, gentlemen in high hose and brilliant doublets; you can almost hear the lovers of three centuries ago kissing under the trees--lovers like Romeo and Juliet, who kissed with a will and meant it, and who were afraid of nothing. But Brantome has clearer and more precise a.s.sociations with letters than such as these, which belong purely to the imagination. Its name has been inextricably entangled with literature by Pierre de Bourdeilles, Seigneur de Brantome, author of the famous and scandalous 'Memoires'--terrible chronicles of sixteenth-century venality, intrigue, and corruption, written in a spirit of the gayest cynicism. Brantome--he is known to the world by no other name now--was the spiritual as well as the temporal lord here, for he was abbot of the ancient abbey which was founded on this spot in the eleventh century or earlier. His ecclesiastical function, however, was confined to the enjoyment of the t.i.tle and benefice, for if ever man was penetrated to the marrow by the spirit of worldliness, it was Pierre de Bourdeilles. What he has written about the women of his time is something more than the critical observations of a chronicler who was also a caustic a.n.a.lyst of the female character. Such was his cynicism that he, the Abbot of Brantome, laughed in his sleeve at the horrible strife of Catholics and Huguenots in his own and neighbouring provinces. It is true that he fought at Jarnac against Coligny, but the admiral had met him in the court of the Valois before these wars, and knew him to be an _abbe joyeux_, without prejudices, if ever there was one. The astute chronicler played his cards so well as to keep on safe terms with both sides, and it was by this diplomacy of their lord and abbot that the inhabitants of Brantome escaped the sword and the rope when Coligny and his terrible German mercenaries entered the weakly-defended place on two occasions in 1569. On the first of these Coligny was accompanied by the young Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Orange. They were all made very welcome by Brantome, and treated by him with 'good cheer' in his abbey. He was rewarded for his diplomatic talent, for he tells us that no harm was done to his house, nor was a single image or window broken in the church. No doubt he had turned to good profit his distant relationship with Madame de Coligny. On the second occasion the admiral merely hurried through Brantome with his _reitres_ in full flight after the bad defeat at Montcontour.

The abbey church of Brantome is not without beauty, but it is the tower that is the truly remarkable feature. It was raised in the eleventh century, and although the architect--probably a monastic one--observed the prevailing principle of Romanesque taste, he showed so much originality in the design that it served as a model, which was much imitated in the Middle Ages. It is not only one of the oldest church towers in France, but its position is one of the most peculiar, it being built, not on the church, but behind it, and partly grafted upon the rock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ABBEY OF BRANToME.]

Of the old abbey little remains; but there is a cavern, formerly in communication with the conventual buildings, which contains sculptures cut upon the rock in relief, which are a great curiosity to ecclesiologists.

They are the work of the monks, who used this old quarry as a chapel, and, it would appear, likewise as an ossuary in a limited sense, if the rows of square holes cut in the rock were to serve as niches for skulls, as some have maintained. One of the compositions in relief has given rise to discussion among archaeologists. The first impression that it conveys is that of an exceedingly uncouth representation of the Last Judgment, but the Marquis de Fayolle's explanation, namely, that the idea which the sculptor-monk endeavoured to work out here was the triumph of Death over Life, meets with fewer objections. There are three figures or heads symbolizing Death, of which the central one wears a diadem that bristles with dead men's bones. Immediately below is Death's scutcheon emblazoned with allegorical bearings. On each side of this is a row of heads rising from the tomb, in which a pope, an emperor, a bishop, and a peasant are to be recognised. In the middle part of the composition are two kneeling angels blowing trumpets, and above these is a vast and awful figure, apparently unfinished, and scarcely more human in its shape than some stalagmites I have met underground. Are we to see here the Eternal Father, or Christ sitting in final judgment? It depends upon the interpretation placed upon the work of the monk, who, with slow and painful effort, gave fantastic life to his solemn thoughts in the gloom of this old quarry, from which stone had been taken to build the church. He was a rude artist, such as might have belonged to the darkest age, but certain ornamental details of the bas-relief indicate that he was a man of the sixteenth century. The walls of the cavern have been blackened by the damp, and these awful shapes reveal themselves but slowly to the eye, so that they look like a vague and dreadful company of ghosts advancing from the darkness.

A visit to this sepulchral cavern gives an appet.i.te for lunch at the good inn which is hard by, and at whose threshold sits or did sit a very fat, broad-faced landlord, seemingly fashioned upon the model of an ideal tapster of old time. Here a _friture_ of the famous gudgeons of the Dronne is placed before the guest, whether the fishing be open or closed, and a magistrate would feel as much aggrieved as anybody if the law were not laughed at when its observance would lay a penalty upon his stomach. At the hospitable board of this inn I made the acquaintance of a somewhat eccentric gentleman who lived alone in a large old house, where he pursued the innocent occupation of hatching pheasants with the help of hens. In almost every room there was a hen sitting upon eggs or leading about a brood of little pheasants. This gentleman was more sad than joyous, for he could not take his handkerchief from his pocket without bringing out the corpse of a baby pheasant with it--one that had been trodden to death by a too fussy foster-mother. I owe him a debt for having led me a charming walk by moonlight to see a dolmen--the largest and best preserved of all those I had already seen in Southern France and elsewhere.

It was not without a little pang that I broke away from the spell of coquettish Brantome and began my wanderings down the valley of the Dronne.

A few miles below the little town the stream pa.s.ses into the shadow of great rocks. I looked at these with something of the regret that one feels when awaking from a long dream of wonderland. I knew that they were almost the last vestiges towards the west, in the watershed of the Gironde, of the stern jura.s.sic desert, gashed and seamed with lovely valleys, and deep gorges full of the poet's 'religious awe,' where I had spent the greater part of three long summers. And now, on the outskirts of the broad plain or gradual slope of undulating land that leads on from the darker and rockier Perigord, through the greenness of the l.u.s.ty vine--led captive from the New World and rejoicing in the ancient soil of France--or the yellow splendour of the sunlit cornfields, towards the sea that rolls against the pine-clad dunes, I felt tempted to turn from my course and go back to my naked crags and stone-strewn wastes. But I did not go back. Life being so short in this world of endless variety, we cannot afford to return upon our path.

A little beyond where the double line of rocks ended, I saw a round tower of unusual height with machicolations and embattlements, in apparently perfect preservation, rising from the midst of what once must have been a fortress of great strength, which on the side of the river had no need of a moat, for it was there defended by the escarped rock, to the edge of which the outer ramparts were carried. This was the castle of Bourdeilles, the seat of the family of which the Abbe de Brantome was a younger son. I was soon able to get a closer view of it. It is one of the most instructive remnants of feudalism in Perigord, and one of the most picturesque, by the contrast of its great gloomy keep and frowning ramparts with the peaceful beauty of the valley below. The tall _donjon_, 130 feet high, and most of the outer wall, are of the fourteenth century. The inner wall encloses a sixteenth-century mansion, marked with none of the picturesqueness of the Renaissance period, but heavy and graceless. In the interior, however, are sculptured chimney-pieces and other interesting details. This residence was built by the sister-in-law of Pierre de Bourdeilles. The burg itself, which lies close to the castle and is much embowered with trees, has something of the open, s.p.a.cious, and decorative air of Brantome. It tells the stranger that it has known better days. The broad terrace, planted with trees so as to form a _quinconce_, where the people stroll and gossip in the summer evenings, is quite out of keeping with a little place that has scarcely more than a thousand inhabitants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHaTEAU DE BOURDEILLES.]