If peasant and farming life in France certainly from time to time reminds us of Zola's "La Terre," we are also reminded of an aspect which the great novelist ignores. As will be seen from the following sketch sordidness and aspiration oft times, I am almost tempted to say, and most often, go hand in hand.

We see one generation addicted to an existence so laborious and material as to have no counterpart in England; under the same roof growing up another, sharing all the advantages of social and intellectual progress.

Not far from the church we called upon a family of large and wealthy farmers, owners of the soil they cultivate, millionaires by comparison with our neighbours at Bourron.

We arrived in the midst of a busy time, a steam corn thresher plying in the vast farm-yard. The interior of the big, straggling farm-house we did not see, but two aged women dressed like poor peasants received us in the kitchen, a dingy, unswept, uninviting place, as are most farm-house kitchens in France. These old ladies were respectively mother-in-law and aunt of the farmer, whose wife, the real mistress of the house, soon came in. This tall, stout, florid, brawny-armed woman was evidently what French folks call _une maitresse femme_, a first-rate housewife and manager; a somewhat awe-inspiring person she looked as she stood before us, arms akimbo, her short coa.r.s.e serge skirt showing shoes well acquainted with stable and neat-house, one dirty blue cotton ap.r.o.n worn over another equally dirty. Now, my hostess, as I have said, wanted to purchase some poultry for the table, and here comes in the moral of my story. Vainly the lady begged and begged again for a couple of chickens. "But we want them for our Parisians," the three farming women reiterated, one echoing the other. "Our Parisians, our Parisians,"

the words were repeated a dozen times. And as was explained to me afterwards, "our Parisians," for whom the pick of the poultry yard was being reserved, were the two sons of the rather forbidding-looking matron before us, young gentlemen being educated in a Paris Lycee, and both of them destined for the learned professions!

This side of rural life, this ambition, akin to what we see taking quite another form among ourselves, Zola does not sufficiently realize.

Shocking indeed were the miserliness and materialism of such existences but for the element of self-denial, this looking ahead for those to follow after. How differently, for instance, the farm-house and its group must have appeared, but for the evident pride and hopes centred in _nos Parisiens_, who knows?--perhaps youths destined to attain the first rank in official or political callings!

The farther door of the smoke-dried kitchen opened on to the farm-yard, around which were stables and neat-houses. In the latter the mistress of the house proudly drew our attention to a beautiful blue cow, grey in our ignorance we had called it, one of a score or more of superb kine all now reclining on their haunches before being turned out to pasture.

In front, c.o.c.ks and hens disported themselves on a dunghill, whilst beyond, the steam corn thresher was at work, every hand being called into requisition. No need here for particulars and figures. The superabundant wealth, so carefully husbanded for the two youths in Paris, was self-evident.

The tornado, with threatening showers and the sight of a huge tree just uprooted by the road side, necessitated the shortest possible cut home.

In fair weather a prolongation of our drive would have given us a sight of some famous rocks of this rocky forest. But we carried home memories enough for one day.

CHAPTER VII.

RECLOSES.

This ancient village, reached by the forest, is one of the most picturesque of the many picturesque places hereabouts. Quitting a stretch of pinewood we traverse flat cultivated land, gradually winding up towards a long straggling village surmounted by a lofty church tower of grey stone. On either side of this street are enclosed farm-houses, the interiors being as pictorial as can be imagined. Untidy as are most French homesteads, for peasant farmers pay little court to the Graces, there is always a bit of flower garden. Sometimes this flower garden is aerial, a bower of roses on the roof sometimes amid the incongruous surroundings of pig styes or manure heaps. This region is a petunia land; wherever we go we find a veritable blaze of petunia blossoms, pale mauve, deepest rose, purple and white ma.s.sed together without order or view to effect. In one of the little fortresses--for so these antique farmhouses may be called--we saw a rustic piazza, pillars and roof of rude unhewn stone blazing with petunias, no attempt whatever at making the structure whole, symmetrical or graceful to the eye. It seems as if these homely though rich farmers, or rather farmers' wives, could not do without flowers, above the street jutting many aerial gardens, the only touch of beauty in the work-a-day picture. These interiors would supply artists with the most captivating subjects. The women, their skins brown and wrinkled as ripe, sh.e.l.led walnuts, their head-dress a blue and white kerchief neatly folded and knotted, the expression of their faces shrewd and kindly, all contribute to the charm of the scene.

Here as elsewhere the young women and girls affect a little fashion and finery on Sundays.

We should not know unless we were told that Recloses was one of the richest villages in these parts. On this Sunday, September 1st, 1901, in one place a steam thresher was at work, although for the most part folks seemed to be taking their ease in their holiday garb. Perhaps the difficulty of procuring the machine accounted for the fact of seeing it on a Sunday.

One of the farm-yards showed a charming menagerie of poultry and the prettiest rabbits in the world, all disporting themselves in most amicable fashion. Here, as elsewhere, when we stopped to admire, the housewife came out, pleased to interchange a few words with us. The sight of Recloses is not, however, its long line of little walled-in farm-houses, but the curious rocky platform at the end of the village, perforated with holes always full of water, and the stupendous view thence obtained--an ocean of sombre green unrelieved by a single sail.

Already the vast panorama of forest shows signs of autumn, light touches of yellow relieving the depths of solemn green. On such a day of varied cloudland the perspective must be quite different, and perhaps even more beautiful than under a burning cloudless sky, no soft gradations between the greens and the blues. The little pools or perforations breaking the surface of the broad platform, acres of rocks, are, I believe, unexplained phenomena. In the driest season these openings contain water, presumably forced upwards from hidden springs. The pools, just now covered with green slime, curiously spot the grey surface of the rocks.

If, leaving the world of forest to our right, we continue our journey in the direction of Chapelle la Reine, we overlook a vast plain the population of which is very different from that of the smiling fertile prosperous valley of the Loing. This plain, extending to etampes and Pithiviers, might, I am told, possibly have suggested to Zola some scenes and characters of "La Terre." A French friend of mine, well acquainted with these parts, tells me that at any rate there, if anywhere, the great novelist might have found suggestions for such a work. The soil is arid, the cultivation is primitive in the extreme and the people are rough and uncouth. The other day an English resident at Marlotte, when cycling among these villages of the plain inquired his way of a countryman.

"You are not a Frenchman?" quoth the latter before giving the desired information.

"No I am not" was the reply.

"You are not an American?"

"No, I am an Englishman."

"Ah!" was the answer, "I smelt you out sure enough" (_Je vous ai bien senti_). Whereupon he proceeded to put the wayfarer on his right road.

As a rule French peasants are exceedingly courteous to strangers, but these good people of the plain seldom come in contact with the tourist world, their country not being sufficiently picturesque even to attract the cyclist.

The curious thirteenth-century church of Recloses had long been an art pilgrimage. It contains, or at least should contain, some of the most wonderful wood carvings in France; figures and groups of figures highly realistic in the best sense of the word. These sculptures, unfortunately, we were not able to inspect a second time; exhibited in the Paris Exhibition they had not yet been replaced.

It is a beautiful drive from Recloses to Bourron by the Croix de Saint Herem. A little way out of the village we came upon a pretty scene, people, in family groups, playing croquet under the trees. Dancing also goes on in summer as in the olden time. It was curious as we drove along to note the behaviour of my friend's dog: it never for a moment closed its eyes, and yet there was nothing to look at but avenue after avenue of trees. What could the little animal find so fascinating in the somewhat monotonous sight? A friend at home a.s.sures me that a pet of her own enjoyed drives from purely sn.o.bbish motives; his great gratification arising from the sense of superiority over fellow dogs compelled to trudge on foot. But in these woodland solitudes there was no room for such a sentiment, not a dog being visible, only now and then a cyclist flashing by.

There is no more splendid cycling ground in the world than this forest of Fontainebleau.

Shakespeare says:--

"This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here: no jutty frieze, b.u.t.tress, Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they Most breed and haunt, I have observed the air Is delicate."

About this time at Bourron the village street was alive with swallows preparing, I presume, for departure southwards. A beautiful sight it was to see these winged congregations evidently concerting their future movements.

Another feature to be mentioned is the number of large handsome moths frequenting these regions. One beautiful creature as large as a swallow used to fly into our dining room every evening for warmth; fastening itself to the wall it would there remain undisturbed until the morning.

I finish these reminiscences of Bourron by the following citation from Balzac's "Ursule Mirouet":--

"On entering Nemours at five o'clock in the morning, Ursule woke up feeling quite ashamed of her untidiness, and of encountering Savinien's look of admiration. During the time that the diligence took to come from Bouron (_sic_), where it stopped a few minutes, the young man had observed Ursule. He had noted the candour of her mind, the beauty of her person, the whiteness of her complexion, the delicacy of her features, the charm of the voice which had uttered the short and expressive sentence, in which the poor child said everything, while wishing to say nothing. In short I do not know what presentiment made him see in Ursule the woman whom the doctor had depicted, framed in gold, with these magic words:--'Seven to eight hundred thousand francs!'"

Holiday tourists in these parts cannot do better than put this love-story in their pockets.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEMOURS.

"Who knows Nemours," wrote Balzac, "knows that nature there is as beautiful as art," and again he dwells upon the charm of the sleepy little town memorialized in "Ursule Mirouet."

The delicious valley of Loing indeed fascinated Balzac almost as much as his beloved Touraine.

As his recently published letters to Madame Hanska have shown us, several of his greatest novels were written in this neighbourhood, whilst in the one named above we have a setting as striking as that of "Eugenie Grandet" or "Beatrix." A ten minutes' railway journey brings us to Nemours, one of the few French towns, by the way, in which Arthur Young lost his temper. Here is his own account of the incident:--

"Sleep at Nemours, where we met with an innkeeper who exceeded in knavery all we had met with, either in France or Italy: for supper, we had a _soupe maigre_, a partridge and a chicken roasted, a plate of celery, a small cauliflower, two bottles of poor _vin du Pays_, and a dessert of two biscuits and four apples: here is the bill:--Potage 1 liv. 10f.--Perdrix 2 liv. 10f.--Poulet 2 liv.--Celeri 1 liv.

4f.--Choufleur 2 liv.--Pain et dessert 2 liv.--Feu et appartement 6 liv.--Total 19 liv. 8f. Against so impudent an extortion we remonstrated severely but in vain. We then insisted on his signing the bill, which, after many evasions, he did, _a l'etoile, Foulliare_. But having been carried to the inn, not as the star, but the _ecu de France_, we suspected some deceit: and going out to examine the premises, we found the sign to be really the _ecu_, and learned on enquiry that his own name was Roux, instead of _Foulliare_: he was not prepared for this detection, or for the execration we poured on such infamous conduct; but he ran away in an instant and hid himself till we were gone. In justice to the world, however, such a fellow ought to be marked out."

I confess I do not myself find such charges excessive. From a very different motive, Nemours put me as much out of temper as it had done my great predecessor a hundred years before. Will it be believed that a town memorialized by the great, perhaps _the_ greatest, French novelist, could not produce its t.i.tle of honour, in other words a copy of "Ursule Mirouet"?

This town of 4,000 and odd souls and chef-lieu of department does not possess a bookseller's shop. We did indeed see in a stationer's window one or two penny books, among these an abridged translation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." But a friendly wine merchant, who seemed to take my reproaches very much to heart, a.s.sured us that in the munic.i.p.al library all Balzac's works were to be found, besides many valuable books dealing with local history.

Cold comfort this for tourists who want to buy a copy of the Nemours story! As we stroll about the gra.s.s-grown streets, we feel that railways, telephones and the rest have very little changed Nemours since Balzac's descriptions, written three-quarters of a century ago.

The sweet and pastoral surroundings of the place are in strong contrast with the sordid next-of-kin peopling the pages of his romance. Beyond the fine old church of rich grey stone, you obtain as enchanting a view as the valley of the Loing can show, a broad, crystal-clear river winding amid picturesque architecture, richest and most varied foliage, ash and weeping willow mingling with deeper-hued beech and alder. It is difficult, almost impossible, to describe the charm of this riverside scenery. In one pa.s.sage of his novel, Balzac compares the view to the scenery of an opera, and in very truth every feature forms a whole so harmonious as to suggest artistic arrangement.

Nature and accident have effected the happiest possible combination of wood, water and building stone. Nothing is here to mar the complete picture. Grandly the cathedral-like church and fine old chateau stand out to-day against the brilliant sky, soft grey stone and dark brown making subdued harmonies. Formerly Nemours was surrounded by woods, hence its name. People are said to attain here a very great age, life being tranquil and the nature of the people somewhat lethargic.

Amongst the more energetic inhabitants are a lady dentist and her sister, who between them do a first rate business.