Curiosities of Olden Times Part 16

On the following day, 4th July, a claim against Jacques Ferron for the sum of 1500 livres damages, and 20 sous a day for the keep of the a.s.s, was lodged with the Commissaire Laumonier.

On the 21st August the Court ordered Leclerc to bring forward evidence to establish his claim, and the defendant was bidden challenge it. The case was heard on the 29th of the same month.

The plaintiff urged that his wife had been brutally a.s.saulted by an enraged jacka.s.s belonging to the defendant, had been seriously alarmed by its ferocity, and had been severely bitten in the arm.

The damages claimed were reduced to 1200 livres, and payment was demanded, as before, for the keep of the delinquent.

The defence of Ferron was to this effect:--

"The a.s.s of the washerwoman was tied to a railing. It was not likely to break away unless induced to do so by some one else. The she-a.s.s of the plaintiff was the cause of the jacka.s.s breaking its halter and pursuing Madame Leclerc. Consequently the defendant was not responsible for what ensued.

"The distance between the Porte S. Jacques and the Gobelins is considerable, and the streets full of traffic. Had the florist's wife wished to get rid of the jacka.s.s, there were numerous persons present who would have a.s.sisted her; but from her not asking a.s.sistance, it was rendered highly probable that she had deliberately formed the design of profiting by the circ.u.mstance, and of appropriating to herself the pursuing a.s.s.

"The plaintiff pretends that 1200 livres are due to her because she was bitten by the a.s.s of the defendant. No medical certificate of the date is produced, but only one a month after the transaction. No evidence is offered that this bite was given by Ferron's a.s.s, and the wound attested by the medical certificate may have been given by the a.s.s of the plaintiff. But supposing the bite were that of Ferron's a.s.s, was not the poor beast driven to defend itself from the blows of the defendant? Is an a.s.s bound to suffer itself to be maltreated with impunity?

"a.s.ses are by nature gentle and pacific animals, and are not included amongst the carnivorous and dangerous beasts. Yet the sense of self-preservation is one of the rudimentary laws of nature, and the most gentle and docile brutes will defend themselves when attacked. Is it to be wondered at that the tender-spirited and love-lorn Neddy, when fallen upon by a ferocious woman armed with a thick club, her eyes scintillating with pa.s.sion, her face flaming, her teeth gnas.h.i.+ng, and foam issuing from her purple lips, whilst from her labouring bosom escape oaths and curses, at once profane and insensate--such as _sacre bleu_, and _ventre gris_, suggesting the probability that the utterer of the said expressions was a raving maniac; is it to be wondered at that Neddy when thus a.s.saulted, and by such a person, should fall back on the first law of nature and defend himself?

"The opinion of Donat. (_Loix Civiles_, tom. i. lib. 2, t.i.t. 8) is conclusive, for it enunciates the law (xi. t.i.t. 2, lib. 9) _Si quadrupes paup. fec._, ff.

"'If a dog or any other animal bites, or does any other injury because it has been struck or wilfully exasperated, he who gave occasion to the injury shall be held responsible for it, and if he be the individual who has suffered he must impute it to himself.'

"Now the woman Leclerc was not content with merely exasperating the jacka.s.s of Ferron, she almost stunned it with blows. She has therefore little reason for bringing so unfounded a claim for damages before the Court. _Si instigatu alterius fera d.a.m.num dederit, cessabit haec actio_ (Liv. i. -- 6, lib. I).

"The more one reflects," continued the counsel for the defendant, "upon the conduct of Madame Leclerc on this occasion, the less blameless appear her motives. If, as seems probable, she designed to gain possession of the donkey, she richly deserved the bite which she complains of having received. Pierre Leclerc cannot plead that his wife did not irritate the a.s.s, for this is proved by the very witnesses whom he summoned to sustain his case. They stated in precise terms that 'they saw Madame Leclerc pa.s.s, mounted on a she-a.s.s, followed by a jacka.s.s, to which the said woman Leclerc dealt sundry blows, with the intention of driving it off; that, on reaching her door, and the animal approaching nearer, she beat him violently, and that then the said jacka.s.s bit her in the arm.'

"But further, who induced the a.s.s to break his halter and follow the woman Leclerc as far as the Gobelins? Madame Leclerc's a.s.s, and none other but she. Having thus drawn another person's animal away from its owner, and having placed it in her own stable, she claims 20 sous a day for the keep of an a.s.s which Pierre Leclerc has retained on his own authority, against the will of the legitimate owner, from 1st July to 1st September, using it daily for going to market; thus, in all, he demands 60 livres for the keep of the beast. Although the price is twice the value of the a.s.s itself, Ferron does not dispute the amount; he contents himself with observing that the woman Leclerc having brought upon herself the wound from the bite of the a.s.s, which is the subject of litigation, she was not thereby morally or legally justified in detaining the animal that bit her till her demand for compensation was satisfied. If she fed and tended it, she was amply repaid by the use she and her husband made of it for carrying heavy burdens daily to market.

"On the other hand, Ferron has suffered from the loss of his a.s.s, through its unjustifiable detention. He has been compelled to hire a horse during two months to carry on his business, and this has involved him in expenses beyond his means. For this loss Ferron will claim indemnification at the hands of Leclerc."

Such was the case of the defendant. Along with it were handed in the two following certificates, the latter of which, as giving a character for morality and respectability to a donkey, is certainly a curiosity.

Certificate of the Sieur Nepveux, grocer, at whose shop-door the a.s.s was tied.

I, the undersigned, certify that on the 2nd July 1750 the day after the a.s.s of the defendant Jacques Ferron, which had been attached to my door, had followed the female a.s.s of the person Leclerc, there came, at seven o'clock in the morning, a woman to ask whether an a.s.s had not been lost here; whereupon I replied in the affirmative. She told me that the individual who had lost it might come and fetch it, and that it would be returned to her; and that it was at a floral gardener's in the Faubourg St. Marcel, near the Gobelins: in testimony to the truth of which I set-to my hand.

(Signed) NEPVEUX, grocer.

PORTE SAINT JACQUES, PARIS, _20th August 1720_.

Certificate of the Cure, and the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the parish of Vanvres to the moral character of the Jacka.s.s of Jacques Ferron.

We, the undersigned, the Prieur-Cure, and the inhabitants of the parish of Vanvres, having knowledge that Marie Francoise Sommier, wife of Jacques Ferron, has possessed a jacka.s.s during the s.p.a.ce of four years for the carrying on of their trade, do testify, that during all the while that they have been acquainted with the said a.s.s, no one has seen any evil in him, and he has never injured any one; also, that during the six years that it belonged to another inhabitant, no complaints were ever made touching the said a.s.s, nor was there a breath of a report of the said a.s.s having ever done any wrong in the neighbourhood; in token whereof, we, the undersigned, have given him the present character.

(Signed) PINTEREL, _Prieur et cure de Vanvres_.

JEROME PATIN, } C. JANNET, } LOUIS RETORE, } _Inhabitants of Vanvres_.

LOUIS SENLIS, } CLAUDE CORBONNET,}

The case was dismissed by the Commissaire. Leclerc had to surrender the a.s.s, and to rest content with the use that had been made of it as payment for its keep, whilst the claim for damages on account of the bite fell to the ground.

But if dismissed by the Commissaire, it was only that it might be taken up by the wits of the day and made the subject of satire and epigram. Some of the pieces in verse originated by this singular action are republished in the series _Varietes Historiques et Literaires_; allusions to it are not infrequent in the writers of the day.

About the same time an action was brought by a magistrate of position and fortune against the cure of St. Etienne-du-Mont, a M. Coffin, for refusing him the sacrament on account of a gross scandal he had caused. A wag contrasted the conduct of the two priests in the following lines:--

De deux cures portant blanches soutanes, Le procede ne se ressemble en rien; L'un met du nombre des profanes Le magistrat le plus homme de bien; L'autre, dans son hameau, trouve jusqu'aux anes Tous ses paroissiens gens de bien.

A MYSTERIOUS VALE

In the _Gretla_, an Icelandic Saga of the thirteenth century, is an account of the discovery of a remarkable valley buried among glacier-laden mountains, by the hero, a certain Grettir, son of Asmund, who lived in the beginning of the eleventh century. Grettir was outlawed for having set fire, accidentally, to a house in Norway, in which were at the time the sons of an Icelandic chief, too drunk to escape from the flames. He spent nineteen years in outlawry, hunted from place to place, with a price on his head. The Saga relating his life is one of the most interesting and touching of all the ancient Icelandic histories.

In the year 1025 Grettir was in such danger that he was obliged to seek out some unknown place in which to hide. In the words of the Saga:--About autumn Grettir went up into Geitland, and waited there till the weather was clear; then he ascended the Geitland glacier and struck south-east over the ice, carrying with him a kettle and some firewood. It is supposed that Hallmund (another outlaw) had given him directions, for Hallmund knew much about this part of the country. Grettir walked on till he found a dale lying among the snow-ranges, very long, and rather narrow, and shut in by glacier mountains on all sides, so that they towered over the dale.

He descended at a place where there were pleasant gra.s.sy slopes and shrubs. There were warm springs there, and he supposed that the volcanic heat prevented the valley from being closed in with glaciers.

A little river flowed through the dale, and on both banks there was smooth gra.s.sy meadow-land. The suns.h.i.+ne did not last long in the valley. It was full of sheep without number, and they looked in better condition and fatter than any he had seen before. Grettir now set to work, and built himself a hut with such wood as he could procure. He ate of the sheep, and found that one of these was better than two of such as were to be found elsewhere.

An ewe of mottled fleece was there with her lamb, the size of which surprised him. He fattened the lamb and slaughtered it, and it yielded forty pounds of meat, the best he had tasted. And when the ewe missed her lamb, she went up every night to Grettir's hut and bleated, so that he could get no sleep. And it distressed Grettir that he had killed her lamb, because she troubled him so much. Every evening, towards dusk, he heard a lure up in the dale, and at the sound all the sheep hurried away towards the same spot. Grettir used to declare that a Blending,[19] a Thurse named Thorir, possessed the dale, and that it was with his consent that Grettir lived there. Grettir called the dale after him, Thorir's dale.

Thorir had two daughters, according to his report, and Grettir entertained himself with their society: they were all glad of his company, as visitors were scarce there. When Lent came on, Grettir determined to eat mutton-fat and liver during the long fast. There happened nothing deserving of record during the winter. But the place was so dull that Grettir could endure it no longer; so he went south over the glacier range, and came north over against the midst of Skjaldbreid. There he set up a flat stone, and knocked a hole through it, and was wont to say, that "if any one looked through the hole in the slab, he would be able to distinguish the place where the gill ran out of Thorir's dale."

It is surprising that this account should not have stirred up the interest and curiosity of the natives to rediscover the rich valley, but we know of only two such attempts having been made: one by Messrs. Olafsen and Povelsen, at the close of last century, which was unsuccessful, and another, made in 1654, by Bjorn and Helgi, two Icelandic clergymen, an account of which is found among the Icelandic MSS. in the British Museum, and which has been kindly communicated to the writer of this paper by a native of the island, now in London. This account is of exceeding interest; it corroborates the description in the _Gretla_ in several points, and opens a field for exploration and adventure to members of the Alpine Club more novel than the glacier world of Switzerland, and not less interesting to science.

The writer, who visited Iceland in 1862, purposed exploring this mysterious valley from the south, but was unable to find gra.s.s for his horses within a day's ride of the glaciers, and was obliged to relinquish his attempt; had he then seen the account of the visit of Bjorn and Helgi to the valley, he would have attempted to reach it from the north.

In order that the position of this valley, and the course pursued by its explorers, may be understood, it will be necessary briefly to describe the glacier system in the midst of which it is situated.

Lang Jokull is an immense waste of snow-covered mountain, extending about forty-three miles from north-east to south-west, of breadth varying between eight and twelve miles. The ma.s.s rises into points of greater elevation along the edge than, apparently, towards the centre; and these mountains go by the names of Ball Jokull, Geitlands Jokull, Skjaldbreid Jokull, Blafell Jokull, and Hrutafell. Skjaldbreid Jokull is opposite the volcanic dome of Skjaldbreid, an extinct volcano, with its base steeped in a sea of lava. Due east of Geitlands Jokull is another glacier-crowned dome, called Ok, from which it is cut off by a trench of desolate ruined rock filled with the rubbish brought down by the avalanches on either side--a rift between black walls of trap, crowned with green precipices of ice, which are constantly sliding over the rocky edges and falling with a crash into the valley: this valley is called Kaldidalr, or the cold dale--a t.i.tle it well deserves. Those who traverse it from the south encamp at a little patch of turf around some springs, at the foot of Skjaldbreid, Brunnir by name, and thence have twelve hours' hard riding before they see gra.s.s again on the Hvita, north of Ok. Half-way through this Allee Blanche is a mountain of trachyte, which has been protruded through the trap, from which it is clearly distinguishable by its silvery gray and ruddy streaked precipices, so different in colour from the purple-black of the trap.

This mountain is called Thorir's Head, and is popularly supposed to mask the dale discovered by Grettir.

The elaborate map of Iceland published by Gunnlaugson indicates the valley as winding from opposite Skjaldbreid to this point, but this is conjectural; and it will be seen by the sequel that it is inaccurate.

North of Geitlands Jokull is an extraordinary dish-cover-shaped cake of ice raised on precipitous sides, called Eirek's Jokull, a magnificent, but peculiar pile of basalt, ice, and snow.

Before proceeding with the narrative of Messrs. Olafsen and Povelsen, and of the two clergymen, we may observe that several circ.u.mstances tend to give a colour of probability to the account in the _Gretla_.

In the first place, the phenomenon of the edges of the great glacier region of Lang Jokull rising above the centre, makes it possible that towards that centre there may be a considerable depression. Next, the stone a.s.serted to have been set up by Grettir on Skjaldbreid still stands, but has fallen out of the perpendicular, so that the hole in it does not point to any opening in the glaciers; but a little to the right appears a small ravine between piles of ice, through which runs a small river, which shortly after enters a lake, and, after having fed two other lakes, finally enters the Tungafljot, and flows past the geysers. And once more, throughout Iceland, the junction of the trap and trachyte is marked by boiling jetters; so that the mention of the hot-springs in the _Gretla_ is quite in accordance with what the geological structure of Thorir's Head would lead us to expect.

The suspicious portion of the account is the mention of Thorir and his daughters; but in all probability this Troll was nothing more than an outlaw, like Grettir himself, and, indeed, Hallmund, who is alluded to as having given Grettir his direction to the valley, and who was a personal friend of Grettir's, and an outlaw, is called a Troll in the Barda Saga, which speaks of him and the Thorir of the mysterious vale.

It is a curious fact that, in the south-east of the island, in the Vatna Jokull, a tract very similar in character to Lang Jokull, but on a far larger scale, is a valley full of gra.s.s and flowers and glistening birch, completely enclosed by glaciers, which sweep down on this little fairy dell from all sides, leaving only one narrow rift for the escape of the water, and as a portal to the glen.

The expedition of Messrs. Olafsen and Povelsen is given in their own words. "On the 9th of August we started from Reykholtsdal on our way to the glacier of Geitland; our object was not so much to discover a region and inhabitants different from those we had quitted, as to observe the glacier with the most scrupulous accuracy, and thus to procure new intelligence relative to the construction of this wonderful natural edifice. The weather was fine and the sky clear, so that we had reason to expect that we should accomplish our object according to our wish, but it is necessary to state that in a short time the Jokulls attract the fogs and clouds that are near. On the 10th of August in the morning the air was calm, but the atmosphere was so loaded with mist that at times the glacier was not visible. About eleven o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we continued our journey from Kalmanstunga.

"The high mountains of Iceland rise in gradations, so that on approaching them you discover only the nearest elevation, or that whose summit forms the first projection. On reaching this you perceive a similar height, and so pa.s.s over successive terraces till you reach the summit. In the glaciers these projections generally commence in the highest parts, and may be discovered at a distance, because they overtop the mountains that are not themselves glacier-clad. We found that it was much farther to the Jokull than we had imagined, and at length we reached a pile of rocks which, without forming steps and gradation at the point where we ascended, were of considerable height and very steep: these rocks extend to a great distance, and appear to surround the glacier, for we perceived their continuance as far as the eye could reach.[20] Between this pile of rocks and the glacier there is a small plain, about a quarter of a mile in width, the soil of which is clay without pebbles and flakes of ice, because the waters which continually flow from the glacier carry them off.

On ascending farther, we discovered, to the right, a lake situated at one of the angles of the glacier, the banks of which were formed of ice, and the bed received a portion of the waters that flowed from the mountains.