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TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
_My Dear Mr. Stedman: To this little company of Norman men and women, you will, I know, extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you perceive—as you must—that their qualities are all their own, their defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment. With sincere esteem_, New York ....
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
Narrow streets with sinuous curves; dwarfed houses with minute shops protruding on inch-wide sidewalks; a tiny casino perched like a bird-cage on a tiny scaffolding; bath-houses dumped on the beach; fishing-smacks drawn up along the shore like so many Greek galleys; and, fringing the cliffs—the encroachment of the nineteenth century—a row of fantastic sea-side villas. This was Villerville. Over an arch of roses; across a broad line of olives, hawthorns, laburnums, and syringas, straight out to s
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
The Trouville beach was as empty as a desert. No other footfall, save our own, echoed along the broad board walks; this Boulevard des Italiens of the Normandy coast, under the sun of May was a shining pavement that boasted only a company of jelly-fishes as loungers. Down below was a village, a white cluster of little wooden houses; this was the village of the bath houses. The hotels might have been monasteries deserted and abandoned, in obedience to a nod from Rome or from the home government. N
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
One travels a long distance, sometimes, to make the astonishing discovery that pleasure comes with the doing of very simple things. We had come from over the seas to find the act of leaning on a window casement as exciting as it was satisfying. It is true that from our two inn windows there was a delightful variety of nature and of human nature to look out upon. From the windows overlooking the garden there was only the horizon to bound infinity. The Atlantic, beginning with the beach at our fee
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
That same afternoon we were out on the mussel bed. The tide was at its lowest. Before us, for an acre or more, there lay a wide, wet, stretch of brown mud. Near the beach was a strip of yellow sand; here and there it had contracted into narrow ridges, elsewhere it had expanded into scroll-like patterns. The bed of mud and slime ran out from this yellow sand strip—a surface diversified by puddles of muddy water, by pools, clear, ribbed with wavelets, and by little heaps of stones covered with lic
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
Our visit to the mussel-bed, as we soon found, had been our formal introduction to the village. Henceforth every door step held a friend; not a coif or a blouse passed without a greeting. The village, as a village, lived in the open street. Villerville had the true French genius for society; the very houses were neighborly, crowding close upon the narrow sidewalk. Conversation, to be carried on from a dormer-window or from opposite sides of the street, had evidently been the first architectural
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
At dusk that evening the same subject, with variations, was the universal topic of the conversational groups. Still Auguste had not come; half the village was out watching for him on the cliffs. The other half was crowding the streets and the doorsteps. Twilight is the classic time, in all French towns and villages, for the al fresco lounge. The cool breath of the dusk is fresh, then, and restful; after the heat and sweat of the long noon the air, as it touches brow and lip, has the charm of a c
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
Quite a number of changes came about with our annexation of an artist and his garden. Chief among these changes was the surprising discovery of finding ourselves, at the end of a week, in possession of a villa. "It's next door," Renard remarked, in the casual way peculiar to artists. "You are to have the whole house to yourselves, all but the top floor; the people who own it keep that to live in. There's a garden of the right sort, with espaliers, also rose trees, and a tea house; quite the righ
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
The beach, one morning, we found suddenly peopled with artists. It was a little city of tents. Beneath striped awnings and white umbrellas a multitude of flat-capped heads sat immovably still on their three-legged stools, or darted hither and thither. Paris was evidently beginning to empty its studios; the Normandy beaches now furnished the better model. One morning we were in luck. A certain blonde beard had counted early in the day on having the beach to himself. He had posed his model in the
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
There were two paths in the village that were well worn. One was that which led the village up into the fields. The other was the one that led the tillers of the soil down into the village, to the door step of the justice of the peace. A good Norman is no Norman who has not a lawsuit on hand. Anything will serve as a pretext for a quarrel No sum of money is so small as not to warrant a breaking of the closest blood ties, if thereby one's rights may be secured. Those beautiful stripes of rye, bar
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
"Ah, mesdames, what will you have? The French peasant is like that. When he is in a rage nothing stops him—he beats anything, everything; whatever his hand encounters must suffer when he is angry; his wife, his child, his servant, his horse, they are all alike to him when he sees red." Monsieur Fouchet was tying up his rose-trees; we were watching him from our seat on the green bench. Here in the garden, beneath the blue vault, the roses were drooping from very heaviness of glory; they gave fort
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
"Will ces dames join me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall lose courage without the enlivening presence of ces dames. We will start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles. In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be garrisoned with provisions; Henri will accompany us as counsellor, purveyor, and bea
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
"Mesdames!" The priest's massive frame filled the narrow door; the tones of his mellow voice seemed also suddenly to fill the air, drowning all other sounds. The grace of his manner, a grace that invested the simple act of his uncovering and the holding of his calotte in hand, with an air of homage, made also our own errand the more difficult. I had already begun to murmur the nature of our errand: we were passing, we had seen the manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent, also that he, Monsi
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
The stillness of the park trees, as we passed beneath them, was like the silence that comes after a blessing. The sun, flooding the landscape with a deluge of light, lost something of its effulgence, by contrast with the fulness of the priest's rich nature. This fair world of beauty that lay the other side of the terrace wall, beneath which our luncheon was spread, was fair and lovely still—but how unimportant the landscape seemed compared to the varied scenery of the curé's soul-lit character!
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DIVES: AN INN ON A HIGH-ROAD. CHAPTER XIV.
DIVES: AN INN ON A HIGH-ROAD. CHAPTER XIV.
On our return to Villerville we found that the charm of the place, for us, was a broken one. We had seen the world; the effect of that experience was to produce the common result—there was a fine deposit of discontent in the cup of our pleasure. Madame Fouchet had made use of our absence to settle our destiny; she had rented her villa. This was one of the bitter dregs. Another was to find that the life of the village seemed to pass us by; it gave us to understand, with unflattering frankness, th
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
The wedding party was lost in a thicket. Pierre gave his whip so resounding a snap, it was no surprise to find ourselves rolling over the cobbles of a village street. "This is Dives, mesdames, this is the inn!" Pierre drew up, as he spoke, before a long, low facade. Now, no one, I take it, in this world enjoys being duped. Surely disappointment is only a civil term for the varying degrees of fraud practised on the imagination. This inn, apparently, was to be classed among such frauds. It did not
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
In the course of the first few days we learned what all Dives had known for the past fifty years or so—that the focal point of interest in the inn was centred in Madame Le Mois. She drew us, as she had the country around for miles, to circle close about her green bench. The bench was placed at the best possible point for one who, between dawn and darkness, made it the business of her life to keep her eye on her world. Not the tiniest mouse nor the most spectral shade could enter or slip away ben
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
It was a world of many mixtures, of various ranks and habits of life that found its way under the old archway, and sat down at the table d'hôte breakfasts and dinners. Madame and her gifted son were far too clever to attempt to play the mistaken part of Providence; there was no pointed assortment made of the sheep and the goats; at least, not in a way to suggest the most remote intention of any such separation being premeditated. Such separation as there was came about in the most natural and in
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The world that found its way to the mayor's table at this early period of the summer season was largely composed of the class that travels chiefly to amuse others. The commercial gentlemen in France, however, have the outward bearing of those who travel to amuse themselves. The selling of other people's goods—it is surely as good an excuse as any other for seeing the world! Such an occupation offers an orator, one gifted in conversational talents—talents it would be a pity to see buried in the d
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
"It is the winters, mesdames, that are hard to bear. They are long—they are dull. No one passes along the high-road. It is then, when sometimes the snow is piled knee-deep in the court-yard, it is then I try to amuse myself a little. Last year I did the Jumièges sculptures; they fit in well, do they not?" It was raining; and Monsieur Paul was paying us an evening call. A great fire was burning in the beautiful Francois I. fireplace of our sitting-room, the famous Chambre des Marmousets. We had n
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TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES. CHAPTER XX.
TWO BANQUETS AT DIVES. CHAPTER XX.
Outside the inn, some two hundred years ago, there was a great noise and confusion; the cries of outriders, of mounted guardsmen and halberdiers, made the quiet village as noisy as a camp. An imposing cavalcade was being brought to a sharp stop; for the outriders had suddenly perceived the open inn entrance, with its raised portcullis, and they were shouting to the coachmen to turn in, beneath the archway, to the paved court-yard within. In an incredibly short space of time the open quadrangle p
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
The three ladies grouped themselves about the fire, which they found already lighted. The duchesse chose a Henry II. carved aim chair, one, she laughingly remarked, quite large enough to have held both the King and Diana. A lackey carrying the inevitable muff-dogs, their fans, and scent-bottles, had followed the ladies; he placed a hassock at the duchesse's feet, two beneath the slender feet of Madame de Kerman, and, after having been bidden to open one of the casements, since it was still so li
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
The very next morning, after the rain, and the vision I had had of Madame de Sévigné, conjured up by my surroundings and the reading of her letters, Monsieur Paul paid us an early call. He came to beg the loan of our sitting-room, he said. He had had a despatch from a coaching-party from Trouville; they were to arrive for breakfast. The whip and owner of the coach was a great friend of his, he proffered by way of explanation—a certain count who had a genius for friendship—one who also had an art
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
I have always found the act of going away contagious. Who really enjoys being left behind, to mope in a corner of the world others have abandoned? The gay company atop of the coach, as they were whirled beneath the old archway, had left discontent behind; the music of the horn, like that played by the Pied Piper, had the magic of making the feet ache to follow after. Monsieur Paul was so used to see his world go and come—to greeting it with civility, and to assist at its departure with smiling i
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Caen seated in its plain, wearing its crown of steeples—this was our last glimpse of the beautiful city. Our way to Bayeux was strewn thick with these Normandy jewels; with towns smaller than Caen; with Gothic belfries; with ruined priories, and with castles, stately even when tottering in decay. When the last castle was lost in a thicket, we discovered that our iron horse was stopping in the very middle of a field. If the guard had shouted out the name of any American city, built overnight, on
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
The way from St. Lo to Coutances is a pleasant way. There is no map of the country that will give you even a hint of its true character, any more than from a photograph you can hope to gain an insight into the moral qualities of a pretty woman. Here, at last, was the ideal Normandy landscape. It was a country with a savage look—a savage that had been trained to follow the plough. Even in its color it had retained the true barbarians' instinct for a good primary. Here were no melting-yellow musta
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CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The court-room was brightly lighted; the yellow radiance on the white walls made the eyes blink. We had turned, following our guide, from the gloom of the dim streets into the roomy corridors of the Prefecture. Even the gardens about the building were swarming with townspeople and peasants waiting for the court to open. When we entered it was to find the hallways and stairs blocked with a struggling mass of people, all eager to get seats. A voice that was softened to a purring note, the voice th
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
When we stepped forth into the streets, it was to find a flower strewn city. The paving stones were covered with the needles of pines, with fir boughs, with rose leaves, lily stocks, and with the petals of flock and clematis. One's feet sank into the odorous carpet as in the thick wool of an Oriental prayer rug. To tread upon this verdure was to crush out perfume. Yet the fragrance had a solemn flavor. There was a touch of consecration in the very aroma of the fir sap. Never was there a town so
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Two hours later the usual collection of forces was assembled in our inn courtyard; for a question of importance was to be decided. Madame was there—chief of the council; her husband was also present, because he might be useful in case any dispute as to madame's word came up; Auguste, the one inn waiter, was an important figure of the group; for he, of them all, was the really travelled one; he had seen the world—he was to be counted on as to distances and routes; and above, from the upper window
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MONT ST. MICHEL:
MONT ST. MICHEL:
[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL]...
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CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXIX.
We were being tossed in the air like so many balls. A Normandy char a banc was proving itself no respecter of nice distinctions in conditions in life. It phlipped, dashed, and rolled us about with no more concern than if it were taking us to market to be sold by the pound. For we were on the grève . The promised rivers were before us. So was the Mont, spectral no longer, but nearing with every plunge forward of our sturdy young Percheron. Locomotion through any new or untried medium is certain t
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CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXX.
To awake on a hill-top at sea. This was what morning brought. Crowd this hill with houses plastered to the sides of rocks, with great walls girdling it, with tiny gardens lodged in crevices, and with a forest tumbling seaward. Let this hill yield you a town in which to walk, with a street of many-storied houses; with other promenades along ramparts as broad as church aisles; with dungeons, cloisters, halls, guard-rooms, abbatial gateways, and a cathedral whose flying buttresses seemed to spring
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