Part 15

The hotel is full, mostly French, but there are of course some exceptions. We have a tall and stately royal princess with two daughters and a niece. The girls are charming--simple, pretty, and evidently much pleased to be away for a little while from court life and etiquette. They make their curé quite regularly, like any one else, walking and sitting in the Allée Dante. The people don't stare at them too much. There are one or two well-known men--deputies, membres de l'Institut--but, of course, women are in the majority. There is a band--not very good, as the performers, some of them good enough alone, had never played together until they came here. However, it isn't of much consequence, as no one listens. I make friends with them, as usual; something always draws me to artists. The boy at the piano looks so thin--really as if he did not get enough to eat. He plays very well, told me he was a premier prix of the Conservatoire de Madrid. When one thinks of the hours of work and fatigue that means, it is rather pathetic to see him, contented to earn a few francs a night, pounding away at a piano and generally ending with a "cake walk," danced by some enterprising young people with all sorts of remarkable steps and gestures, which would certainly astonish the original negro performers on a plantation.

The view from the terrace at night is pretty--quantities of lights twinkling about among the trees, and beyond, always on each side and in front, the thick green walls of the forest quite shutting in the quiet little place. We are usually the last outside. It grows cooler as the evening gets on, and I fancy it is not wise to sit out too late after the hot bath and fatigue of the day.

It is a splendid automobiling country, and every afternoon there is a goodly show of motors of all sizes and makes waiting to take their owners on some of the many interesting excursions which abound in this neighbourhood. We have an English friend who has brought over his automobile, a capital one--English make--and we have been out several times with him. The other day we went to Domfront--a lovely road, almost all the way through woods, the forest of Audaine with its fine old trees making splendid shade. We passed through the Étoile--well known to all the hunting men, as it is a favourite rendezvous de chasse. It is a lovely part of the forest, a great green space with alleys running off into the woods in all directions. Some of them, where the ground was a little hilly, looked like beautiful green paths going straight up to the clouds.

We kept in the forest almost all the way--as we got near Domfront the road rising all the time, quite steep at the end, which, however, made no perceptible difference in our speed. The big auto galloped up all the hills quite smoothly and with no effort. It was a divine view as we finally emerged from the woods--miles of beautiful green meadows and hedges stretching away on each side and a blue line of hills in the distance. We had been told that we could see Mont St. Michel and the sea with our glasses, but we didn't, though the day was very clear. Domfront is a very old walled town, with round towers and a great square donjon, perched on the top of a mountain. A long stretch of solid wall is still there, and some of the old towers are converted into modern dwellings. It looked out of place to see ordinary lace curtains tied back with a ribbon and pots of red geraniums in the high narrow windows, when one thought of the rough grim soldiers armed to the teeth who have stood for hours in those same windows watching anxiously for the first glimpse of an armed band appearing at the edge of the meadows. The château must have been a fine feudal fortress in its time and has sheltered many great personages. William the Conqueror, of course--he has apparently lived in every château and sailed from every harbour in this part of Normandy--Charles IX, Catherine de Medicis, and the Montgomery who killed Henri II in tournament.

It was too early to go home, so we went on to the Château de Lassay. We raced through pretty little clean gray villages, looking peaceful and sleepy and deserted and evidently quite accustomed to automobiles. No one took much notice of us. There were only a few old people and children in the streets; all the men were working in the fields gathering in their harvest. Lassay is quite a place, with hotels, shops, churches, and an old Benedictine convent. We left the auto in the square, as it couldn't get up the narrow, steep little road to the hotel. There were swarms of beggars of all ages--old women, girls, children--lining the road before we got to the château. Monsieur B. (deputy), who was with us, remonstrated vigorously, particularly with stout, sturdy young women who were pursuing us, but they didn't care a bit, and we only got rid of them once we had crossed the moat and drawbridge and got into the court-yard, where a wrinkled and red-cheeked old woman locked the door after us. The château is almost entirely in ruins, but must have been splendid. There is a sort of modern dwelling-house in the inner court, but I fancy the proprietor rarely lives there. It is enormous. There are eight massive round towers connected by a courtine (little green path) that runs along the top of the ramparts. The big door that opens on the park is modern, and makes decidedly poor effect after the fine old pointed doorway that gives access to the great court-yard. The park, with a little care and a little money spent on it, would be beautiful, but it is quite wild and uncared for. There are splendid old trees, some of them covered entirely with ivy growing straight up into the branches and giving a most peculiar effect to the trees; ragged green paths leading to woods; running waters with little bridges thrown over them; a splendid vegetation everywhere, almost a jungle in some places--all utterly neglected. The old woman took us through the "casemates"--dark stone galleries with little narrow slits for windows or to fire through; they used to run all around the house, connected by a subterranean passage, but they are now, like all the rest, half in ruins. It was most interesting. We had not the energy, any of us, to go up into the tower and see the view--we had seen it all the way, culminating at Domfront on the top of the mountain, and though very beautiful, it is always the same--great stretches of green fields, hedges, and fine trees. It is a little too peaceful and monotonous for my taste. I like something bolder and wilder. A high granite cliff standing out in the sea, with the great Atlantic rollers breaking perpetually against it, appeals to me much more than green fields and cows standing placidly in little clear brooks, and clean, comfortable farmhouses, with pretty gray Norman steeples rising out of the woods, but my companions were certainly not of my opinion and were enchanted with the Norman landscape. We had a long ride back in the soft evening light. I am afraid to say how many kilomètres we went in the three hours we were away.

It has been warm these last days. There is a bit of road absolutely without shade of any kind we have to pass every time we go to the établissement, which is very trying. I love the early morning walk, everything is so fresh and the air singularly light and pure. It seems wicked to go into that atmosphere of hot air and suffering humanity, which greets one on the threshold of the bathhouse. To-day I have been driving with the princess. She does not like the automobile when she is making a cure--says it shakes her too much.

We had a pretty drive, past the château of Couterne, which is most picturesque. A beautiful beech avenue leads up to the house, which is built of brick, with round towers and a large pond or lake which comes right up to the walls. It is of the sixteenth century, and has been inhabited ever since by the same family. One of the ancestors was "chevalier et poète" of Queen Marguerite of Navarre. I had a nice talk with the princess about everything and everybody. I asked her if she had ever read "The Lightning Conductor." As her own auto is a Napier, I thought it would interest her. I told her all the potins (little gossip) of the hotel--that people said her youngest daughter was going to marry the King of Spain, and the general verdict was that the princess would make "a beautiful queen." Every one is horror-struck at the murder of the Russian Minister of the Interior, and I suppose it is only a beginning.

This afternoon I have been walking in the lovely woods at the back of the établissement. It is rather a steep climb to get to the point de vue and troublesome walking, as the paths are dry and slippery and the roots of the pine-trees that spread out over the paths catch one's heels sometimes. Some people spend all their day high up in the pines--take up books, seats, work, and goûter, and only come down after six, when the air gets cooler. We saw parties seated about in all directions and had glimpses of the white dresses, which are a uniform this year, flitting through the trees. It was very pretty, but not like the walls of Marienbad, with the splendid black pine forest all around and every now and then a glimpse of a green Alm (high field on the top of a mountain), with the peasant girl in her high Tyrolean hat and clean white chemisette standing on the edge, with her cows all behind her and the bells tinkling in the distance.

It was so warm this evening that we sat out until ten o'clock. We had a visit from Comte de G., son-in-law of our friend Mrs. L.S. He lives at Deauville, and had announced himself for Monday morning for breakfast at twelve. He did come for breakfast, but on Tuesday morning, having been en route since Monday morning at seven o'clock. He was in an automobile and everything happened to him that can happen to an automobile except an absolute smash. He punctured his tires, had a big hole in his reservoir, his steering gear bent, his bougies always doing something they oughtn't to. He dined and slept at Falaise; rather a sketchy repast, but as he told us he could always get along with poached eggs, could eat six in an ordinary way and twelve in an emergency, we were reassured; for one can always get eggs and milk in Normandy. He arrived in a perfectly good humour and made himself very pleasant. He is an old soldier--a cavalry officer--and doesn't mind roughing it.

The journey from Deauville to Bagnoles is usually accomplished in three or four hours. Falaise, the birthplace of William the Conqueror, is an interesting old town, but looks as if it had been asleep ever since that great event. The old castle is very fine, stands high, close to the edge of the cliff, so that the rock seems to form part of the great walls. There is one fine round tower, and always the grass walk around the ramparts.

The views are beautiful. Looking down from one of the narrow, pointed windows, still fairly preserved, we had the classic Norman landscape at our feet--beautiful green fields, enormous trees making spots of black shade in the bright grass, the river, sparkling in the sunshine, winding through the meadows, a group of washerwomen, busy and chattering, beating their clothes on the flat stones where the river narrows a little under the castle walls, and a bright blue sky overhead.

We walked through the Grande Place--picturesque enough. On one side the Church of La Trinité, and in the middle of the Place the bronze equestrian statue of William the Conqueror. It is very spirited. He is in full armor, lance in hand, his horse plunging forward toward imaginary enemies. They say the figure was copied from Queen Mathilde's famous tapestries at Bayeux, but it looked more modern to me. I remember all the men and beasts and ships of those tapestries looked most extraordinary as to shape. Monsieur R. took over the young princesses the other day in his auto. They were very keen to see the cradle of their race. It was curious to see the descendants of the great rough soldier starting in an auto, fresh, pretty English girls, dressed in the trotteuses (little short skirts) that we all wear in the country, carrying their Kodaks and sketching materials.

All this part of the country teems with legends of the great warrior. Years ago, when we were at Deauville, we drove over to Dives to breakfast--one gets a very good breakfast at the little hotel. We wandered about afterward down to the sea (William the Conqueror is said to have sailed from Dives), and into the little church where the names of all the barons who accompanied him to England are written on tablets on the walls. We saw various relics and places associated with him and talked naturally a great deal about the Conqueror. On the way home (we were a large party in a brake) one of our compatriots, a nice young fellow whose early education had evidently not been very comprehensive, turned to me, saying; "Do tell me, what did that fellow conquer?" I could hardly believe my own ears, but unfortunately for him, just at that moment we were walking up a steep hill and everybody in the carriage overheard his remark. It was received with such shouts of laughter that any explanation was difficult, and one may imagine the jokes, and the numerous and fabulous conquests that were instantly put down to the great duke's account. The poor fellow was quite bewildered. However, I don't know if an American is bound to know any history but that of his own country. I am quite sure that many people in the carriage didn't know whom Pocahontas married, nor what part she played in the early days of America. But it was funny all the same.

We have been out again this afternoon in Monsieur R.'s auto--a charming turn. We started out by the Étoile, as Monsieur R. wanted to show it to some gentlemen who were with us. The drive, if anything, was more lovely than the first time, the slanting rays of the sun were so beautiful shining through the rich green foliage, making patterns upon the hard, white road. We raced all over the country, through countless little villages, all exactly alike, sometimes flying past a stately old brick château just seen at the end of a long, beech avenue, sometimes past an old church standing high, its gray stone steeple showing well against the bright, cloudless sky, and a little graveyard stretching along the hillside, the roads bordered on each side with high green banks and hedges, the orchards full of apple-trees, and the whole active population of the village in the fields. It is a beautiful month to be in Normandy, for one must have sun in these parts. As soon as it rains everything is gray and cold and melancholy, the forest looks like a great high black wall, the meadows are shrouded in mist, and the damp strikes through one. Now it is smiling, sunny, peaceful.

We have frightened various horses to-day; a quiet old gray steed, driven by two old ladies in black bonnets. They were too old to get out, and were driving their horse timidly and nervously into the ditch in their anxiety to give us all the road. However, we slowed up and the horse didn't look as if he could run away. Two big carthorses, too, at the end of a long line, dragging a heavy wagon, turned short round and almost ran into us; also a very small donkey, driven by a little brown girl, showed symptoms of flight. I don't know the names of half the villages we passed through. Near Bagnoles we came to La Ferté-Macé, which looks quite imposing as one comes down upon it from the top of a long hill. The church makes a great effect--looks almost like a cathedral. Bagnoles looked very animated as we came back. People were loitering about shopping--quite a number of carriages and autos before the door of the Grand Hotel, and people sitting out under the trees in the gardens of the different villas. It was decidedly cool at the end of our outing; I was glad to have my coat.

This morning after breakfast, in the big hall, where every one congregates for coffee, we had a little political talk--not very satisfactory. Everybody is discontented and everybody protests, but no one seems able to stop the radical current. The rupture with the Vatican has come at last, and I think might have been avoided if they had been a little more patient in Rome. There will be all sorts of complications and bitter feeling, and I don't quite see what benefit the country at large will get from the present state of things. A general feeling of irritation and uncertainty, higher taxes--for they must build school-houses and pay lay-teachers and country curés. A whole generation of children cannot be allowed to grow up without religious instruction of any kind. I can understand how the association of certain religious orders (men) could be mischievous--harmful even--but I am quite sure that no one in his heart believes any harm of the women--soeurs de charité and teachers--who occupy themselves with the old people, the sick, and the children. In our little town they have sent away an old sister who had taught and generally looked after three generations of children. When she was expelled she had been fifty years in the town and was teaching the grandchildren of her first scholars. Everybody knew her, everybody loved her; when any one was ill or in trouble she was always the first person sent for. Now there is at the school an intelligent, well-educated young laïque with all the necessary brevets. I dare say she will teach the children very well, but her task ends with the close of her class. She doesn't go to church, doesn't know the people, doesn't interest herself in all their little affairs, and will never have the position and the influence the old religieuse had.

I am sorry to go away from this quiet little green corner of Normandy, but we have taken the requisite number of baths. Every one rushes off as soon as the last bath (twenty-first generally) is taken. Countess F. took her twenty-first at six o'clock this morning, and left at ten.

A NORMAN TOWN

VALOGNES, August.

I seem to have got into another world, almost another century, in this old town. I had always promised the Florians I would come and stay with them, and was curious to see their installation in one of the fine old hotels of the place. The journey was rather long--not particularly interesting. We passed near Caen, getting a very good view of the two great abbayes with their towers and spires quite sharply outlined against the clear blue sky. The train was full. At almost every station family parties got in--crowds of children all armed with spades, pails, butterfly nets, and rackets, all the paraphernalia of happy, healthy childhood. For miles after Caen there were long stretches of green pasture-lands--hundreds of cows and horses, some of them the big Norman dray-horses resting a little before beginning again their hard work, and quantities of long-legged colts trotting close up alongside of their mothers, none of them apparently minding the train. We finally arrived at the quiet little station of Valognes. Countess de Florian was waiting for me, with their big omnibus, and we had a short drive all through the town to their hotel, which is quite at one end, a real country road running in front of their house. It is an old hotel standing back from the road and shut in with high iron gates. There is a large court-yard with a grass-plot in the middle, enormous flower-beds on each side, and a fine sweep of carriage road to the perron. A great double stone staircase runs straight up to the top of the house, and glass doors opposite the entrance lead into the garden. I had an impression of great space and height and floods of light. I went straight into the garden, where they gave me tea, which was most refreshing after the long hot day. They have no house party. The dowager countess, Florian's mother, is here, and there was a cousin, a naval officer, who went off to Cherbourg directly after dinner. The ground-floor is charming; on one side of the hall there are three or four salons, and a billiard-room running directly across the house from the garden to the court-yard; on the other, a good dining-room and two or three guests' rooms; the family all live upstairs.

Abbaye aux Hommes, Abbaye aux Dames.

It is a delightful house. My room is on the ground-floor, opening from the corridor, which is large and bright, paved with flagstones. My windows look out on the entrance court, so that I see all that goes on. As soon as my maid has opened the windows and brought in my petit déjeuner, I hear a tap at the door and the countess's maid appears to ask, with madame's compliments, if I have all I want, if I have had a good night, and to bring me the morning paper. The first person to move is the dowager countess, who goes to early mass every morning. She is a type of the old-fashioned French Faubourg St. Germain lady; a straight, slender figure, always dressed in black, devoted to her children and to all her own family, with the courteous, high-bred manner one always finds in French women of the old school. She doesn't take much interest in the outside world, nor in anything that goes on in other countries, but is too polite to show that when she talks to me, for instance, who have knocked about so much. She doesn't understand the modern life, so sans gêne and agitated, and it is funny to hear her say when talking of people she doesn't quite approve of, "Ils ne sont pas de notre monde."

Then comes the young countess, very energetic and smiling, with her short skirt and a bag on her arm, going to market. She sees me at the window and stops to know if I am going out. Will I join her at the market? All the ladies of Valognes do their own marketing and some of the well-known fishwomen and farmers' wives who come in from the country with poultry would be quite hurt if Madame la Comtesse didn't come herself to give her orders and have a little talk. This morning I have been to market with Countess Florian. The women looked so nice and clean in their short, black, heavily plaited skirts, high white caps, and handkerchiefs pinned over their bodices. The little stalls went all down the narrow main street and spread out on the big square before the church. The church is large, with a square tower and fine dome--nothing very interesting as to architecture. Some of the stalls were very tempting and the smiling, red-cheeked old women, sitting up behind their wares, were so civil and anxious to sell us something. The fish-market was most inviting--quantities of flat white turbots, shining silver mackerel, and fresh crevettes piled high on a marble slab with water running over them. Four or five short-skirted, bare-legged fisher girls were standing at the door with baskets of fish on their heads. Florian joined us there and seemed on the best of terms with these young women. He made all kinds of jokes with them, to which they responded with giggles and a funny little half-courtesy, half-nod. Both Florians spoke so nicely to all the market people as we passed from stall to stall. The poultry looked very good--such fat ducks and chickens. It was funny to see the bourgeoises of Valognes all armed with a large basket doing their marketing; they looked at the chickens, poked them, lifted them so as to be sure of their weight, and evidently knew to a centime what they had to pay. I fancy the Norman ménagère is a pretty sharp customer and knows exactly what she must pay for everything. The vegetable stalls were very well arranged--the most enormous cabbages I ever saw. I think the old ladies who presided there were doing a flourishing business. I did not find much to buy--some gray knitted stockings that I thought would be good for my Mareuil boys and some blue linen blouses with white embroidery, that all the carters wear, and which the Paris dressmakers transform into very pretty summer costumes. I bought for myself a paper bag full of cherries for a few sous, then left the Florians, and wandered about the streets a little alone. They are generally narrow, badly paved, with grass growing in the very quiet ones. There are many large hotels standing well back, entre cour et jardin, the big doors and gate-ways generally heavy and much ornamented--a great deal of carving on the façades and cornices, queer heads and beasts. Valognes has not always been the quiet, dull, little provincial town it is to-day. It has had its brilliant moment, when all the hotels were occupied by grands seigneurs, handsome equipages rolled through the streets, and its society prided itself on its exclusiveness and grand manner. It used to be said that to rouler carrosse at Valognes was a titre de noblesse, and the inhabitants considered their town a "petit Paris." In one of the plays of the time, a marquis, very fashionable and a well-known courtier, was made to say: "Il faut trois mois de Valognes pour achever un homme de cour." One can quite imagine "la grande vie d'autrefois" in the hotel of the Florians. Their garden is enchanting--quantities of flowers, roses particularly. They have made two great borders of tall pink rose-bushes, with dwarf palms from Bordighera planted between, just giving the note of stiffness which one would expect to find in an old-fashioned garden. On one side is a large terrace with marble steps and balustrade, and beyond that, half hidden by a row of fruit-trees, a very good tennis court. We just see the church-tower at one end of the garden; and it is so quiet one would never dream there was a town near. The country in every direction is beautiful--real English lanes, the roads low, high banks on each side, with hawthorn bushes on top--one drives between thick green walls. We have made some lovely excursions. They have a big omnibus with a banquette on top which seats four people, also a place by the coachman, and two great Norman posters, who go along at a good steady trot, taking a little gallop occasionally up and down the hills.

Mareuil is the name of the village near our place in France.

Countess de Nadaillac, Countess Florian's sister-in-law, arrived to-day with her daughter for a short visit. We had a pleasant evening with music, billiards, and dominoes (a favorite game in this country). The dowager countess always plays two games, and precisely at half-past nine her old man-servant appears and escorts her to her rooms. We all break up early; the ten o'clock bell is usually the signal. It rings every night, just as it has done for hundreds of years. The town lights are put out and the inhabitants understand that the authorities are not responsible for anything that may happen in the streets of Valognes after such a dangerous hour of the night.

... There are some fine places in the neighborhood. We went to-day to Chiffevast, a large château which had belonged to the Darus, but has been bought recently by a rich couple, Valognes people, who have made a large fortune in cheese and butter. It seems their great market is London.

They send over quantities via Cherbourg, which is only twenty minutes off by rail. It is a splendid place--with a fine approach by a great avenue with beautiful old trees. The château is a large, square house--looks imposing as one drives up. We didn't see the master of the house--he was away--but madame received us in all her best clothes. She was much better dressed than we were, evidently by one of the good Paris houses. Countess Florian had written to ask if we might come, so she was under arms. She was a little nervous at first, talked a great deal, very fast, but when she got accustomed to us it went more easily, and she showed us the house with much pride. There was some good furniture and one beautiful coverlet of old lace and embroidery, which she had found somewhere upstairs in an old chest of drawers. They have no children--such a pity, as they are improving and beautifying the place all the time. The drive home was delightful, facing the sunset. I was amused with the Florians' old coachman. He is a curiosity--knows everybody in the country. He was much interested in our visit and asked if we had seen "la patronne"--said he knew her well, had often seen her on a market day at Valognes, sitting in her little cart in the midst of her cheeses and butter; said she was a brave femme. How strange it must seem to people like that, just out of their hard-working peasant life--and it is hard work in France--to find themselves owners of a splendid château and estate, receiving the great people of the country. I dare say in ten or twelve years they will be like any one else, and if there were sons or daughters the young men would get into parliament or the diplomatic career, the daughters would marry some impoverished scion of a noble family, and cheeses and butter would be forgotten.

We had one delightful day at Cherbourg. The Préfet Maritime invited us to breakfast with him at his hotel. We went by rail to Cherbourg, about half an hour, and found the admiral's carriage waiting for us. The prefecture is a nice, old-fashioned house, in the centre of the town, with a big garden. We took off our coats in a large, handsome room upstairs. The walls were covered with red damask and there were pictures of Queen Victoria and Louis Napoleon. It seems the Queen slept in that room one night when she came over to France to make her visit to Louis Philippe at the Château d'Eu. We found quite a party assembled--all the men in uniform and the women generally in white. We breakfasted in a large dining-room with glass doors opening into the garden, which was charming, a blaze of bright summer flowers. We adjourned there for coffee after breakfast. The trees were big, made a good shade, and the little groups, seated about in the various bosquets, looked pretty and gay. When coffee and liqueurs were finished we drove down to the quay, where the admiral's launch was waiting, and had a delightful afternoon steaming about the harbour. It is enormous, long jetties and breakwaters stretching far out, almost closing it in. There was every description of craft--big Atlantic liners, yachts, fishing boats, ironclads, torpedoes, and once we very nearly ran over a curious dark object floating on the surface of the water, which they told us was a submarine. It did not look comfortable as a means of transportation, but the young officers told us it was delightful.