East of Paris

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EAST OF PARIS

SKETCHES IN THE GATINAIS, BOURBONNAIS, AND CHAMPAGNE

By MISS BETHAM-EDWARDS

CONTENTS

Chap.

INTRODUCTION

I.--MELUN

II.--MORET-SUR-LOING

III.--BOURRON

IV.--BOURRON--_continued_

V.--BOURRON--_continued_

VI.--LARCHANT

VII.--RECLOSES

VIII.--NEMOURS

IX.--LA CHARITE-SUR-LOIRE

X.--POUGUES

XL.--NEVERS AND MOULINS

XII.--SOUVIGNY AND SENS

XIII.--ARCIS-SUR-AUBE

XIV.--ARCIS-SUR-AUBE--_continued_

XV.--RHEIMS

XVI.--RHEIMS--_continued_

XVII.--SOULAINES AND BAR-SUR-AUBE

XVIII.--ST. JEAN DE LOSNE

XIX.--NANCY

XX.--IN GERMANISED LORRAINE

XXI.--IN GERMANISED ALSACE

INTRODUCTORY.

I here propose to zig-zag with my readers through regions of Eastern
France not described in any of my former works. The marvels of French
travel, no more than the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of French literature, are
unlimited. Short of saluting the tricolour on Mont Blanc, or of echoing
the Marseillaise four hundred and odd feet underground in the cave of
Padirac, I think I may fairly say that I have exhausted France as a
wonder-horn. But quiet beauties and homely graces have also their
seduction, just as we turn with a sense of relief from "Notre Dame de
Paris" or "Le Pere Goriot," to a domestic story by Rod or Theuriet, so
the sweet little valley of the Loing refreshes after the awful Pass of
Gavarni, and soothing to the ear is the gentle flow of its waters after
the thundering Rhone. Majestic is the panorama spread before our eyes as
we pic-nic on the Puy de Dome. More fondly still my memory clings to
many a narrower perspective, the view of my beloved Dijon from its
vine-clad hills or of Autun as approached from Pre Charmoy, to me, the
so familiar home of the late Philip Gilbert Hamerton. If, however, the
natural marvels of France, like those of any other country, can be
catalogued, French scenery itself offers inexhaustible variety. And so,
having visited, re-visited, and re-visited again this splendid hexagon
on the European map, I yet find in the choice of holiday resorts a
veritable _embarras de richesses_. And many of the spots here described
will, I have no doubt, be as new to my readers as they have been to
myself--_Larchant_ with its noble tower rising from the plain, recalling
the still nobler ruin of Tclemcen on the borders of the
Sahara--_Recloses_ with its pictorial interiors and grand promontory
overlooking a panorama of forest, sombre purplish green ocean unflecked
by a single sail--_Moret_ with its twin water-ways, one hardly knows
which of the two being the more attractive--_Nemours_, favourite haunt
of Balzac, memoralized in "Ursule Mirouet"--_La Charite_, from whose
old-world dwellings you may throw pebbles into the broad blue
Loire--_Pougues_, the prettiest place with the ugliest name, frequented
by Mme. de Sevigne and valetudinarians of the Valois race generations
before her time--_Souvigny_, cradle of the Bourbons, now one vast
congeries of abbatial ruins--_Arcis-sur-Aube_, the sweet riverside home
of Danton--its near neighbour, _Bar-sur-Aube_, connected with a bitterer
enemy of Marie Antoinette than the great revolutionary himself, the
infamous machinator of the Diamond Necklace. These are a few of the
sweet nooks and corners to which of late years I have returned again and
again, ever finding "harbour and good company." And these journeys, I
should rather say visits, East of Paris led me once more to that sad
yearning France beyond the frontier, to homes as French, to hearts as
devoted to the motherland as when I first visited the annexed provinces
twenty years ago!

EAST OF PARIS

CHAPTER I

MELUN

Scores upon scores of times had I steamed past Melun in the Dijon
express, ever eyeing the place wistfully, ever too hurried, perhaps too
lazy, to make a halt. Not until September last did I carry out a long
cherished intention. It is unpardonable to pass and re-pass any French
town without alighting for at least an hour's stroll!

Melun, capital of the ancient Gatinais, now chef-lieu of the Department
of Seine and Marne, well deserves a visit. Pretty as Melun looks from
the railway it is prettier still on nearer approach. The Seine here
makes a loop, twice curling round the town with loving embrace, its
walls and old world houses to-day mirrored in the crystal-clear river.
Like every other French town, small or great, Melun possesses its outer
ring of shady walks, boulevards lying beyond the river-side quarters.
The place has a busy, prosperous, almost metropolitan look, after the
village just left. [Footnote: For symmetry's sake I begin these records
at Melun, although I halted at the place on my way from my third sojourn
at Bourron.] The big, bustling Hotel du Grand Monarque too, with its
brisk, obliging landlady, invited a stay. Dr. Johnson, perhaps the
wittiest if the completest John Bull who ever lived, was not far wrong
when he glorified the inn. "Nothing contrived by man," he said, "has
produced so much happiness (relaxation were surely the better word?) as
a good tavern." Do we not all, to quote Falstaff, "take our ease at our
inn," under its roof throwing off daily cares, assuming a holiday mood?

A survey of the yard awoke another train of reflections. It really seems
as if the invention of the motor car were bringing back ante-railway
days for the tourist and the travelling world, recalling family coach
and post-chaise. The place was crowded with motor cars of all shapes and
sizes, some of these were plain, shabby gigs and carts of commercial
travellers, others, landaus, waggonettes and victorias of rich folks
seeing the world in their own carriage as their ancestors had done
generations before; one turn-out suggested royalty or a Rothschild, I
was about to say, rather I should name a Chicago store-keeper, since
American millionaires are the Haroun-el-Raschids of the twentieth
century. This last was a sumptuously fitted up carriage having a seat
behind for servants, accommodating eight persons in all. There was also
a huge box for luggage. It would be interesting to know how much
petroleum, electricity, or alcohol such a vehicle would consume in a
day. The manufacture of motor cars must be a very flourishing business
in France, next, I should say, to that of bicycles. Of these also there
was a goodly supply in the entrance hall of the inn, and the impetus
given to travel by both motor car and bicycle was here self-evident. The
Hotel du Grand Monarque literally swarmed with tourists, one and all
French folks taking their ease at their inn. And our neighbours do not
take their pleasure solemnly after the manner of the less impressionable
English. Stay-at-home as they have hitherto been, home-loving as they
essentially are, the atmosphere of an inn, the aroma of a holiday, fill
the Frenchman's cup of hilarity to overflowing, rendering gayer the
gayest.

The invention and rapidly spreading use of the motor car in France shows
the French character under its revolutionary aspect, yet no people on
the face of the earth are in many respects so conservative. We English
folks want a new "Where is it?" for social purposes every year, the
majority of our friends and acquaintances changing their houses almost
as often as milliners and tailors change the fashion in bonnets and
coats. A single address book for France supplies a life-time. The
explanation is obvious. For the most part we live in other folks' houses
whilst French folks, the military and official world excepted, occupy
their own. Revisit provincial gentry or well-to-do bourgeoisie after an
interval of a quarter of a century, you always find them where they
were. Interiors show no more change than the pyramids of Egypt. Not so
much as sixpence has been laid out upon new carpets or curtains. Could
grandsires and granddames return to life like the Sleeping Beauty, they
would find that the world had stood still during their slumber.

Melun possesses perhaps one of the few statues that may not be called
superfluous, and I confess I had been attracted thither rather by
memories of its greatest son than by its picturesque scenery and fine
old churches. The first translator of Plutarch into his native tongue
was born here, and as we should expect, has been worthily commemorated
by his fellow citizens. A most charming statue of Amyot stands in front
of the grey, turreted Hotel de Ville. In sixteenth century doctoral
dress, loose flowing robes and square flat cap, sits the great
scholiast, as intently absorbed in his book as St. Jerome in the
exquisite canvas of our own National Gallery.

Behind the Hotel de Ville an opening shows a small, beautifully kept
flower garden, just now a blaze of petunias, zinnias, and a second crop
of roses. Long I lingered before this noble monument, one only of the
many raised to Amyot's memory, of whom Montaigne wrote:--

"Ignoramuses that we are, we should all have been lost, had not this
book (the translation of Plutarch) dragged us out of the mire; thanks to
it, we now venture to write and to discourse."

And musing on the scholar and his kindred, a favourite line of
Browning's came into my mind--

"This man decided not to live but to know."

Indeed the whole of "A Grammarian's Funeral" were here appropriate. Is
it not men after this type of whom we feel

"Our low life was the level's and the night's. He's for the morning"?

To my surprise I found the church of St. Aspais locked. A courteous
hair-dresser thereupon told me that all churches in Melun were closed
from noon till half past one, but that, as noon had only just struck, if
I were brisk I might possibly catch the sacristan. After a pretty hot
chase I succeeded in finding a deaf, decrepit, dingy old man who showed
me round the church, although evidently very impatient for his mid-day
meal. He informed me that this closing of churches at Melun had been
necessitated of late years by a series of robberies. From twelve till
half past one o'clock no worshippers are present as a rule, hence the
thieves' opportunity. Unfortunately marauders do not strip beautiful
interiors of the tinselly gew-gaws that so often deface them; in this
respect, however, St. Aspais being comparatively an exception. Alike
within and without the proportions are magnificent, and the old stained
glass is not marred by modern crudities. I do not here by any means
exhaust the sights of this ancient town, from which, by the way,
Barbizon is now reached in twenty minutes, an electric tramway plying
regularly between Melun and that famous art pilgrimage.

CHAPTER II.

MORET-SUR-LOING.

The valley of the Loing abounds in captivating spots, Moret-sur-Loing
bearing the palm. Over the ancient town, bird-like broods a majestic
church, as out-spread wings its wide expanse of roof, while below by
translucent depths and foliage richly varied, stretch quarters old and
new, the canal intersecting the river at right angles. Lovely as is the
river on which all who choose may spend long summer days, the canal to
my thinking is lovelier still. Straight as an arrow it saunters between
avenues of poplar, the lights and shadows of wood and water, the
sunburnt, stalwart barge folk, their huge gondoliers affording endless
pictures. Hard as is undoubtedly the life of the rope tower, rude as may
appear this amphibious existence, there are cheerful sides to the
picture. Many of these floating habitations possess a fireside nook cosy
as that of a Parisian concierge, I was never tired of strolling along
the canal and watching the barge folk. One day a friend and myself found
a large barge laden with coal at the head of the canal, the huge dark
framework and its sombre burden lighted up with touches of grace and
colour. At the farther end of the vessel was hung a cage of canaries, at
the other end was a stand of pot-flowers, geraniums and petunias in full
bloom and all the more brilliant by virtue of contrast. A neighbour of
the bargeman, a bright, intelligent woman, brown as a gipsy but
well-spoken and of tidy appearance, invited us to enter. Imagine the
neatest, prettiest little room in the world, parlour, bedchamber and
kitchen in one, every object so placed as to make the most of available
space. On a small side-table--and of course under such circumstances
each article must be sizable--stood a sewing machine, in the corner was
a bedstead with exquisitely clean bedding, in another a tiny cooking
stove. Vases of flowers, framed pictures and ornamental quicksilver
balls had been found place for, this bargewoman's home aptly
illustrating Shakespeare's adage--"Order gives all things view." The
brisk, weather-beaten mistress now came up, no little gratified by our
interest and our praises.

"You ladies would perhaps like to make a little journey with me?" she
asked, "nothing easier, we start to-morrow morning at six o'clock for
Nevers, you could take the train back."

Never perhaps in our lives had myself and my companion received an
invitation so out of the way, so bewilderingly tempting! And we felt
too, with a pang, that never again in all probability should we receive
such another. But on this especial day we were not staying at Moret,
only running over for the afternoon from our headquarters at Bourron.
Acceptance was thus hemmed round with small impediments. And by way of
consolation, next morning the glorious weather broke. A downpour
recalling our own lakeland would anyhow have kept us ashore.

"Another time then!" had said the kind hostess of the barge at parting.
She seemed as sorry as ourselves that the little project she had mooted
so cordially could not be carried out.

The Loing canal joins the Seine at Saint Mammes, a few kilometres lower
down, continuing its course of thirty kilometres to Bleneau in the
Nievre. Canal life in Eastern France is a characteristic feature, the
whole region being intersected by a network of waterways, those _chemins
qui marchent_, or walking roads as Michelet picturesquely calls them.
And strolling on the banks of the canal here you may be startled by an
astonishing sight, you see folks walking, or apparently walking, on
water. Standing bolt upright on a tiny raft, carefully maintaining their
balance, country people are towed from one side to the other.

These suburban and riverside quarters are full of charm. The soft reds
and browns of the houses, the old-world architecture and romantic sites,
tempt an artist at every turn. And all in love with a Venetian existence
may here find it nearer home.

A few villas let furnished during the summer months have little lawns
winding down to the water's edge and a boat moored alongside. Thus their
happy inmates can spend hot, lazy days on the river.

Turning our backs on the canal, by way of ivy-mantled walls, ancient
mills and tumbledown houses, we reach the Porte du Pont or Gate of the
Bridge. With other towns of the period, Moret was fortified. The girdle
of walls is broken and dilapidated, whilst firm as when erected in the
fourteenth century still stand the city gates.

Of the two the Porte du Pont is the least imposing and ornamental, but
it possesses a horrifying interest. In an upper storey is preserved one
of those man-cages said to have been invented for the gratification of
Louis XI, that strange tyrant to whose ears were equally acceptable the
shrieks of his tortured victims and the apt repartee of ready-witted
subjects.

"How much do you earn a day?" he once asked a little scullion, as
incognito he entered the royal kitchen.

"By God's grace as much as the King," replied the lad; "I earn my bread
and he can do no more."

So pleased was the King with this saying that it made the speaker's
fortune.

We climb two flights of dark, narrow stone stairs reaching a bare
chamber having small apertures, enlargements of the mere slits formerly
admitting light and air. The man-cage occupies one corner. It is made of
stout oaken ribs strongly bound together with iron, its proportions just
allowing the captive to lie down at full length and take a turn of two
or three steps. De Commines tells us that the cage invented by Cardinal
Balue, and in which he languished for eleven years, was narrower still.
An average sized man could not stand therein upright.

The bolts and bars are still in perfect order. Nothing more brings home
to us the abomination of the whole thing than to see the official draw
these Brobdingnagian bolts and turn these gigantic keys. The locksmith's
art was but too well understood in those days. By whom and for whom this
living tomb was made or brought hither local records do not say.

From a stage higher up a magnificent panorama is obtained, Moret, old
and new, set round with the green and the blue, its greenery and bright
river, far away its noble aqueduct, further still looking eastward the
valley of the Loing spread out as a map, the dark ramparts of
Fontainebleau forest half framing the scene.

The town itself is a trifle unsavoury and unswept. Municipal authorities
seem particularly stingy in the matter of brooms, brushes and
water-carts. Such little disagreeables must not prevent the traveller
from exploring every corner. But the real, the primary attraction of
Moret lies less in its historic monuments and antiquated streets than in
its _chemins qui marchent_, its ever reposeful water-ways. Like most
French towns Moret is linked with English history. Its fine old church
was consecrated by Thomas a-Becket in 1166. Three hundred years later
the town was taken by Henry V., and re-taken by Charles VII. a decade
after. Not long since five hundred skulls supposed to have been those of
English prisoners were unearthed here; as they were all found massed
together, the theory is that the entire number had surrendered and been
summarily decapitated, methods of warfare that have apparently found
advocates in our own day.

Most visitors to Paris will have had pointed out to them the so-called
"Maison Francois Premier" on the Cour La Reine. This richly ornate and
graceful specimen of Renaissance architecture formerly stood at Moret,
and bit by bit was removed to the capital in 1820. A spiral stone
staircase and several fragments of heraldic sculpture were left behind.
Badly placed as the house was here, it seems a thousand pities that
Moret should have thus been robbed of an architectural gem Paris could
well have spared.

My first stay at Moret three years ago lasted several weeks. I had
joined friends occupying a pretty little furnished house belonging to
the officiating Mayor. We lived after simplest fashion but to our
hearts' content. One of those indescribably obliging women of all work,
came every day to cook, clean and wait on us. Most of our meals were
taken among our flower beds and raspberry bushes. The only drawback to
enjoyment may at first sight appear unworthy of mention, but it was not
so. We had no latchkey. Now as every-one of all work knows, they are
constantly popping in and out of doors, one moment they are off to
market, the next to warm up their husbands' soup, and so on and so on.
As for ourselves, were we not at Moret on purpose to be perpetually
running about also? Thus it happened that somebody or other was always
being locked out or locked in; either Monsieur finding the household
abroad had pocketed the key and instead of returning in ten minutes'
time had lighted upon a subject he must absolutely sketch then and
there; or Madame could not get through her shopping as expeditiously as
she had hoped; or their guest returned from her walk long before she was
due; what with one miscalculation and another, now one of us had to
knock at a neighbour's door, now another effected an entrance by means
of a ladder, and now the key would be wholly missing and for the time
being we were roofless, as if burnt out of house and home. Sometimes we
were locked in, sometimes we were locked out, a current "Open Sesame" we
never had.

But no "regrettable incidents" marred a delightful holiday. Imbroglios
such as these only leave memories to smile at, and add zest to
recollection.

CHAPTER III.

BOURRON.

Two years ago some Anglo-French friends joyfully announced their
acquisition of a delightful little property adjoining Fontainebleau
forest. "Come and see for yourself," they wrote, "we are sure that you
will be charmed with our purchase!" A little later I journeyed to
Bourron, half an hour from Moret on the Bourbonnais line, on arriving
hardly less disconcerted than Mrs. Primrose by the gross of green
spectacles. No trim, green verandahed villa, no inviting vine-trellised
walk, no luxuriant vegetable garden or brilliant flower beds greeted my
eyes; instead, dilapidated walls, abutting on these a peasant's cottage,
and in front an acre or two of bare dusty field! My friends had indeed
become the owners of a dismantled bakery and its appurtenances, to the
uninitiated as unpromising a domain as could well be imagined. But I
discovered that the purchasers were wiser in their generation than
myself. Noticing my crestfallen look they had said:--

"Only wait till next year, and you will see what a bargain we have made.
You will find us admirably housed and feasting on peaches and grapes."

True enough, twelve months later, I found a wonderful transformation.
That a substantial dwelling now occupied the site of the dismantled
bakery was no matter for surprise, the change out of doors seemed
magical. Nothing could have looked more unpromising than that stretch of
field, a mere bit of waste, your feet sinking into the sand as if you
were crossing the desert. Now, the longed-for _tonnelle_ or vine-covered
way offered shade, petunias made a splendid show, choice roses scented
the air, whilst the fruit and vegetables would have done credit to a
market-gardener. Peaches and grapes ripened on the wall, big turnips and
tomatoes brilliant as vermilion took care of themselves. It was not only
a case of the wilderness made to blossom as the rose, but of the horn of
plenty filled to overflowing, prize flowers, fruit and vegetables
everywhere. For the soil hereabouts, if indeed soil it can be called,
and the climate of Bourron, possess very rare and specific qualities. On
this light, dry sand, or dust covering a substratum of rock, vegetation
springs up all but unbidden, and when once above ground literally takes
care of itself. As to climate, its excellence may be summed up in the
epithet, anti-asthmatic. Although we are on the very hem of forty
thousand acres of forest, the atmosphere is one of extraordinary
dryness. Rain may fall in torrents throughout an entire day. The sandy
soil is so thorough an absorbent that next morning the air will be as
dry as usual.

This house reminded me of a tiny side door opening into some vast
cathedral. We cross the threshold and find ourselves at once in the
forest, in close proximity moreover to its least-known but not least
majestic sites. We may turn either to right or left, gradually climbing
a densely wooded headland. The first ascent lands us in an hour on the
Redoute de Bourron, the second, occupying only half the time, on a spur
of the forest offering a less famous but hardly less magnificent
perspective, nothing to mar the picture as a whole, sunny plain, winding
river and scattered townlings looking much as they must have done to
Balzac when passing through three-quarters of a century ago.

This eastern verge of the Fontainebleau forest is of especial beauty;
the frowning headlands seem set there as sentinels jealously guarding
its integrity, on the watch against human encroachments, defying time
and change and cataclysmal upheaval. Boldly stands out each wooded crag,
the one confronting the rising, the other the sinking sun, behind both
massed the world of forest, spread before them as a carpet, peaceful
rural scenes.

I must now describe a spot, the name of which will probably be new to
all excepting close students of Balzac. The great novelist loved the
valley of the Loing almost as fondly as his native Touraine; and if
these pastoral scenes did not inspire a _chef d'oeuvre_, they have
thereby immensely gained in interest. "Ursule Mirouet," of which I shall
have more to say further on, is not to be compared to such masterpieces
as "Eugenie Grandet." But a leading incident of "Ursule Mirouet" occurs
at Bourron--a sufficient reason for recalling the story here.

The beauty of our village, like the beauty of French women, to quote
Michelet, "is made up of little nothings." There are a hundred and one
pretty things to see but very few to describe. Who could wish it
otherwise? Little nothings of an engaging kind better agree with us as
daily fare than the seven wonders of the world. With forty thousand
acres of forest at our doors we do not want M. Mattel's newly discovered
underground river within reach as well.

From our garden we yet look upon scenes not of every day. Those sweeps
of bluish-green foliage strikingly contrasted with the brilliant vine
remind us that we are in France, and in a region with most others having
its specialities. Asparagus, not literally but figuratively, nourishes
the entire population of Bourron. Everyone here is a market gardener on
his own account, and the cultivation of asparagus for the Paris markets
is a leading feature of local commerce.

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