Part 17

The drive home was enchanting, with a lovely view from the top of the hill; a beautiful blue sea at our feet and the turrets and pointed roofs of the Villers houses taking every possible colour from the sunset clouds.

We went back once more to a thé dansant given for her seventeen-year-old daughter. It was a lovely afternoon and the place looked charming--the gates open--carriages and autos arriving in every direction--people came from a great distance as with the autos no one hesitates to undertake a drive of a hundred kilomètres. The young people danced in the drawing-room--Madame d'Y---- had taken out all the furniture, and the parents and older people sat about on the terrace where there were plenty of seats and little tea-tables. The dining-room--with an abundant buffet--was always full; one arrives with a fine appetite after whirling for two or three hours through the keen salt air. The girls all looked charming--the white dresses, bright sashes, and big picture hats are so becoming. They were dancing hard when we left, about half past six, and it was a pretty sight as we looked back from the gates--long lines of sunlight wavering over the grass, figures in white flitting through the trees, distant strains of music, and what was less agreeable, the strident sound of a sirène on some of the autos. They are detestable things.

We were very comfortable at Villers in a nice, clean house looking on the sea, with broad balconies at every story, where we put sofas and tables and green blinds, using them as extra salons. We were never in the house except to eat and sleep. Nothing is more characteristic of the French (particularly in the bourgeoise) than the thorough way in which they do their month at the sea-shore. They generally come for the month of August. Holidays have begun and business, of all kinds, is slack. Our plage was really a curiosity. There is a splendid stretch of sand beach--at low tide one can walk, by the shore, to Trouville or Houlgate on perfectly firm, dry sand. There are hundreds of cabins and tents, striped red and white, and umbrellas on the beach, and all day long whole families sit there. They all bathe, and a curious fashion at Villers is that you put on your bathing dress in your own house--over that a peignoir, generally of red and white striped cotton, and walk quite calmly through the streets to the établissement. Some of the ladies and gentlemen of mature years are not to their advantage. When they can, if they have houses with a terrace or garden, they take their meals outside, and as soon as they have breakfasted, start again for the beach. When it is low tide they go shrimp-fishing or walk about in the shallow water looking for shells and sea-weed. When it is high tide, all sit at the door of their tents sewing, reading, or talking--I mean, of course, the petite bourgeoisie.

At other places on the coast, Deauville or Houlgate, the life is like Newport or Dinard, or any other fashionable seaside place, with automobiles, dinners, dressing, etc. They get all the sea air and out-of-door life that they can crowd into one month. One lady said to me one day, "I can't bathe, but I take a 'bain d'air' every day--I sit on the rocks as far out in the water as I can--take off my hat and my shoes and stockings."

There is a great clearing out always by the first of September and then the place was enchanting--bright, beautiful September days, one could still bathe, the sun was so strong; and the afternoons, with just a little chill in the air, were delightful for walking and driving. There was a pretty Norman farm--just over the plage--at the top of the falaise where we went sometimes for tea. They gave us very good tea, milk, and cider, and excellent bread and butter and cheese. We sat out of doors in an apple orchard at little tables--all the beasts of the establishment in the same field. The chickens and sheep surrounded us, were evidently accustomed to being fed, but the horses, cows, and calves kept quite to the other end. We saw the girls milking the cows which, of course, interested the children immensely.

We made some charming excursions in the auto--went one Saturday to Caen--such a pretty road through little smiling villages--every house with a garden, or if too close together to allow that, there were pots of geraniums, the falling kind, in the windows, which made a red curtain dropping down over the walls. We stopped at Lisieux--a quaint old Norman town, with a fine cathedral and curious houses with gables and towers--one street most picturesque, very narrow, with wooden houses, their projecting roofs coming so far over the street one could hardly see the sky in some places. There were all kinds of balconies and cornices most elaborately carved--the wood so dark one could scarcely distinguish the original figures and devices, but some of them were extraordinary, dragons, and enormous winged animals. We did not linger very long as we were in our new auto--a Martini hill-climber--built in Switzerland and, of course (like all automobilists), were anxious to make as fast a run as possible between Villers and Caen.

The approach to Caen is not particularly interesting--the country is flat, the road running through poplar-bordered fields--one does not see it at all until one gets quite near, and then suddenly beautiful towers and steeples seem to rise out of the green meadows. It was Saturday--market day--and the town was crowded--every description of vehicle in the main street and before the hotel, two enormous red 60-horse-power Mercedes--farmers' gigs and donkey carts with cheeses and butter--a couple generally inside--the man with his blue smock and broad-brimmed hat, the woman with a high, clean, stiff-starched muslin cap, a knit shawl over her shoulders. They were not in the least discomposed by the bustle and the automobiles, never thought of getting out of the way--jogged comfortably on keeping to their side of the road.

We left the auto at the hotel and found many others in the court-yard, and various friends. The d'Y----s had come over from Grangues (their place). He is Conseiller Général of Calvados, and market day, in a provincial town, is an excellent occasion for seeing one's electors. There were also some friends from Trouville-Deauville, most of them in autos--some in light carriages. We tried to make a rendezvous for tea at the famous pâtissier's (who sends his cakes and bonbons over half the department), but that was not very practical, as they had all finished what they had to do and we had not even begun our sightseeing. However, d'Y---- told us he would leave our names at the tea-room, a sort of club they have established over the pâtissier's, where we would be quieter and better served than in the shop which would certainly be crowded on Saturday afternoon. We walked about till we were dead tired.

St. Pierre is a fine old Norman church with beautiful tower and steeple. It stands fairly well in the Place St. Pierre, but the houses are much too near. It should have more space around it. There was a market going on, on the other side of the square--fruit, big apples and pears, flowers and fish being heaped up together. The apples looked tempting, such bright red ones.

We went to the two abbayes--both of them quite beautiful--St. Étienne--Abbaye aux Hommes was built by William the Conqueror, who was originally buried there. It is very grand--quite simple, but splendid proportions--a fitting resting-place for the great soldier, who, however, was not allowed to sleep his last sleep, undisturbed, in the city he loved so well. His tomb was desecrated several times and his remains lost in the work of destruction.

We went on to the Abbaye aux Dames which is very different; smaller--not nearly so simple. The façade is very fine with two square towers most elaborately carved, the steeples have long since disappeared; and there are richly ornamented galleries and balustrades in the interior of the church, not at all the high solemn vaulted aisles of the Abbaye aux Hommes. It was founded by Queen Mathilde, wife of William the Conqueror, and she is buried there--a perfectly simple tomb with an inscription in Latin. There was at one time a very handsome monument, but it was destroyed, like so many others, during the Revolution, and the remains placed, some years after, in the stone coffin where they now rest. We hadn't time to see the many interesting things in the churches and in the town, as it was getting late and we wanted some tea before we started back. We found our way to the pâtissier's quite easily, but certainly couldn't have had any tea if d'Y---- had not told us to use his name and ask for the club-room. The little shop was crowded--people standing and making frantic dashes into the kitchen for chocolate and muffins. The club-room upstairs was quite nice--painted white, a good glass so that we could arrange our hair a little, one or two tables--and we were attended to at once. They brought us the spécialité of the place--light, hot brioches with grated ham inside--very good and very indigestible.

We went home by a different road, but it looked just like the other--fewer little hamlets, perhaps, and great pasture fields, filled with fine specimens of Norman dray horses and mares with long-legged colts running alongside of them. It was late when we got home. The lighthouses of Honfleur and Havre made a long golden streak stretching far out to sea, and the great turning flashlight of St. Adresse was quite dazzling.

We went back over the same ground two or three days later on our way to Bayeux. The town is not particularly interesting, but the cathedral is beautiful and in wonderful preservation--the columns are very grand--every capital exquisitely carved and no two alike. Our guide, a very talkative person--unlike the generality of Norman peasants, who are usually taciturn--was very anxious to show us each column in detail and explain all the really beautiful carving, but we were rather hurried as some of the party were going to lunch at Barbieville--Comte Foy's château.

On the same place as the cathedral is the Hôtel de Ville, with the wonderful tapestries worked by the Queen Mathilde, wife of William the Conqueror. They are really most extraordinary and so well preserved. The colours look as if they had been painted yesterday. I hadn't seen them for years and had forgotten the curious shapes and vivid colouring. We went to one of the lace shops. The Bayeux lace is very pretty, made with the "fuseau", very fine--a mixture of Valenciennes and Mechlin. It is very strong, though it looks delicate. The dentellières still do a very good business. The little girls begin to work as soon as they can thread their needle, and follow a simple pattern.

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The F.'s enjoyed their day at Barbieville, Comte Foy's château, very much. They said the house was nothing remarkable--a large square building, but the park was original. Comte Foy is a racing man, breeds horses, and has his "haras" on his place. The park is all cut up into paddocks, each one separated from the other by a hedge and all connected by green paths. F. said the effect from the terrace was quite charming; one saw nothing but grass and hedges and young horses and colts running about. Comtesse Foy and her daughters were making lace. The girls went in to Bayeux three or four times a week and took lessons from one of the dentellières.

BOULOGNE-SUR-MER

One year we were at Boulogne for the summer in a funny little house, in a narrow street just behind the port and close to the Casino and beach. There were a great many people--all the hotels full and quantities of automobiles passing all day. The upper part of the town is just like any other seaside place--rows of hotels and villas facing the sea--some of the houses built into the high green cliff which rises steep and almost menacing behind. Already parts of the cliff have crumbled away in some place and the proprietors of the villas find some difficulty in letting them. The front rooms on the sea are charming, but the back ones--directly under the cliff--with no air or sun, are not very tempting. There is a fine digue and raised broad walk all along the sea front, with flowers, seats, and music stand.

It is a perfectly safe beach for children, for though the channel is very near and the big English boats pass close to the shore, there are several sand banks which make the beach quite safe, and from seven in the morning till seven at night there are two boats au large and two men on the beach, with ropes, life-preservers, and horns which they blow whenever they think the bathers are too far out. There is an "Inspecteur de la Plage," a regular French official with a gold band on his cap, who is a most important and amiable gentleman and sees that no one is annoyed in any way. We made friends with him at once, moyennant une pièce de dix francs, and he looked after us, saw that our tents were put up close to the water, no others near, and warned off stray children and dogs who were attracted by our children's toys and cakes.

The plage is a pretty sight on a bright day. There are hundreds of tents--all bright-coloured. When one approaches Boulogne from the sea the beach looks like a parterre of flowers. Near the Casino there are a quantity of old-fashioned ramshackly bathing cabins on wheels, with very small boys cracking their whips and galloping up and down, from the digue to the edge of the water, on staid old horses who know their work perfectly--put themselves at once into the shafts of the carriages--never go beyond a certain limit in the sea.

All the bathers are prudent. It is rare to see any one swimming out or diving from a boat. A policeman presides at the public bathing place and there are three or four baigneurs and baigneuses who take charge of the timid bathers; one wonderful old woman, bare-legged, of course, a handkerchief on her head, a flannel blouse and a very short skirt made of some water-proof material that stood out stiff all around her and shed the water--she was the première baigneuse--seventy years old and had been baigneuse at Boulogne for fifty-one years. She had bathed C. as a child, and was delighted to see her again and wildly interested in her two children.

There were donkeys, of course, and goats. The children knew the goat man well and all ran to him with their mugs as soon as they heard his peculiar whistle. They held their mugs close under the goat so that they got their milk warm and foaming, as it was milked directly into their mugs. The goats were quite tame--one came always straight to our tents and lay down there till his master came. Every one wanted to feed them with cakes and bits of sugar, but he would never let them have anything for fear it should spoil their milk.

Another friend was the cake man, dressed all in white, with his basket of brioches and madeleines on his head--then there were the inevitable Africans with fezes on their heads and bundles of silks--crêpes-de-chine and ostrich feathers, that one sees at every plage. I don't think they did much business.

The public was not all distinguished. We often wondered where the people were who lived in the hôtels (all very expensive) and villas, for, with very rare exceptions, it was the most ordinary petite bourgeoisie that one saw on the beach--a few Americans, a great many fourth-rate English. They were a funny contrast to the people who came for the Concours Hippique, and the Race Week. One saw then a great influx of automobiles--there were balls at the Casino and many pretty, well-dressed women, of both worlds, much en evidence. The châtelains from the neighbouring châteaux appeared and brought their guests.

For that one week Boulogne was quite fashionable. The last Sunday of the races was a terrible day. There was an excursion train from Paris and two excursion steamers from England. We were on the quay when the English boats came in and it was amusing to see the people. Some of them had left London at six in the morning. There were all sorts and kinds, wonderful sportsmen with large checked suits, caps and field glasses slung over their shoulders--a great many pretty girls--generally in white. All had bags and baskets with bathing suits and luncheon, and in an instant they were swarming over the plage--already crowded with the Paris excursionists. They didn't interfere with us much as we never went to the beach on Sunday.

F. was fishing all day with some of his friends in a pilot boat. (They brought back three hundred mackerel), had a beautiful day--the sea quite calm and the fish rising in quantities. C. and I, with the children, went off to the Hardelot woods in the auto. We established ourselves on a hillside, pines all around us, the sea at our feet, a beautiful blue sky overhead, and not a sound to break the stillness except sometimes, in the distance, the sirène of a passing auto. We had our tea-basket, found a nice clear space to make a fire, which we did very prudently, scooping out a great hole in the ground and making a sort of oven. It was very difficult to keep the children from tumbling into the hole as they were rolling about on the soft ground, but we got home without any serious detriment to life or limb.

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The life in our quarter on the quais is very different, an extraordinary animation and movement. There are hundreds of vessels of every description in the port. All day and all night boats are coming in and going out: The English steamers with their peculiar, dull, penetrating whistle that one hears at a great distance--steam tugs that take passengers and luggage out to the Atlantic liners, lying just outside the digue--yachts, pilot boats, easily distinguished by a broad white line around their hulls, and a number very conspicuously printed in large black letters on their white sails, "baliseurs," smart-looking little craft that take buoys out to the various points where they must be laid. One came in the other day with two large, red, bell-shaped buoys on her deck which made a great effect from a distance; we were standing on the pier, and couldn't imagine what they were; "avisos" (dispatch-boats), with their long, narrow flamme, which marks them as war vessels, streaming out in the wind. Their sailors looked very picturesque in white jerseys and blue bérets with red pompons. Small steamers that run along the coast from Calais to Dunkirk--others, cargo boats, broad and deep in the water, that take fruit and eggs over to England. The baskets of peaches, plums, and apricots look most appetizing when they are taken on board. The steamers look funny when they come back with empty baskets, quantities of them, piled up on the decks, tied to the masts. Many little pleasure boats--flat, broad rowing boats that take one across the harbour to the Gare Maritime (which is a long way around by the bridge), a most uncomfortable performance at low tide, as you go down long, steep, slippery steps with no railing, and have to scramble into the boat as well as you can.