The Roof of France Part 1

The Roof of France.

by Matilda Betham-Edwards.

INTRODUCTORY.

It is upon this occasion my rare and happy privilege to introduce the reader to something absolutely new. How many English-speaking tourists have found their way to the Roof of France--in other words, the ancient Gevaudan, the romantic department of the Lozere? How many English--or for the matter of that French travellers either--have so much as heard of the Causses, [Footnote: From calx, lime] those lofty tablelands of limestone, groups of a veritable archipelago, once an integral whole, now cleft asunder, forming the most picturesque gorges and magnificent defiles; offering contrasts of scenery as striking as they are sublime, and a phenomenon unique in geological history? On the plateau of the typical Causse, wide in extent as Dartmoor, lofty as Helvellyn, we realize all the sombreness and solitude of the Russian steppe. These stony wastes, aridity itself, yet a carpet of wild-flowers in spring, are spa.r.s.ely peopled by a race having a peculiar language, a characteristic physique, and primitive customs. Here are laboriously cultivated oats, rye, potatoes--not a blade of wheat, not an apple-tree is to be discerned; no spring or rivulet freshens the parched soil. The length and severity of the winter are betokened by the trees and poles seen at intervals on either side of the road. But for such precautions, even the native wayfarer would be lost when six feet of snow cover the ground. Winter lasts eight months, and the short summer is tropical.

But descend these grandiose pa.s.ses, dividing one limestone promontory from another--go down into the valleys, each watered by lovely rivers, and we are, as if by magic, transported into the South! The peach, the almond, the grape ripen out of doors; all is smilingness, fertility, and grace. The scenery of the Causses may be described as a series of exhilarating surprises, whilst many minor attractions contribute to the stranger's enjoyment.

The affability, dignity, and uprightness of these mountaineers, their freedom from vulgarity, subservience, or habits of extortion, their splendid physique and great personal beauty, form novel experiences of travel. The general character of the people--here I do not allude to the 'Caussenard,' or dweller on the Causse alone, but to the Lozerien as a type--may be gathered from one isolated fact. The summer sessions of 1888 were what is called _a.s.sizes blanches_, there being not a single cause to try. Such an occurrence is not unusual in this department.

The Lozere, hitherto the Cinderella, poorest of the poor of French provinces, is destined to become one of the richest. Not only the Causses, but the Canon du Tarn, may be regarded in the light of a discovery by the tourist world. A few years ago the famous geographer, Joanne, was silent on both. Chance-wise, members of the French Alpine Club lighted upon this stupendous defile between the Causse de Sauveterre and the Causse Mejean; their glorious find became noised abroad, and now the Tarn is as a Pactolus flowing over golden sands--a mine of wealth to the simple country folk around. The river, springing from a cleft in the Lozere chain, winding its impetuous way, enriched by many a mountain torrent, through the Aveyron, Tarn, and Garonne, finally disemboguing into the Garonne, has lavished all its witchery on its native place.

Every inch of the way between the little towns of St. enimie and Le Rozier is enchanted ground by virtue of unrivalled scenery. In time the influx of tourists must make the river-side population rich. The sandy bed of the Tarn must attain the preciousness of a building site near Paris. This materialistic view of the question affords mixed feelings.

I have in mind the frugality of these country folks, their laboriousness, their simple, upright, st.u.r.dy ways. I can but wish them well, even at the price of terrible disenchantment. Instead of rustic hostelries at St. enimie, gigantic hotels after the manner of Swiss tourist barracks; the solitude of the Causses broken by enthusiastic t.i.ttle-tattle; tourist-laden flotillas bearing the ensign of Cook or Gaze skimming the gla.s.sy waters of the majestically environed Tarn!

On the threshold of the Lozere, just outside the limits of the department, lies another newly-discovered marvel, more striking, stranger than the scenery of the Causses--as beautiful, though in quite another way, as the Canon or Gorge of the Tarn. This is the fantastic, the unique, the eerie Cite du Diable, or Montpellier-le-Vieux, with its citadel, ramparts, watch-towers, amphitheatres, streets, arcades, terraces--a vast metropolis in the wilderness, a Babylon untenanted from the beginning, a Nineveh fas.h.i.+oned only by the great builder Nature. Little wonder that the peasants formerly spoke of the dolomite city, when forced to speak at all, with bated breath, and gave it so ill-omened a name. The once uncanny, misprized, even accursed city, since surnamed Montpellier-le-Vieux, from a fancied resemblance to Montpellier, is now very differently regarded by its humble owners.

Literally discovered in 1882, its first explorers being two members of the French Alpine Club, the Cite du Diable is already bringing in a revenue. French tourists, who first came by twos and threes, may now be counted by the hundred a month during the holiday season. Alert to the unmistakable rat-tat-tat of Dame Fortune at their front-doors, the good folks are preparing for the welcome invasions to come. The auberge is being transformed into an inn, roads are improving, a regular service of guides has been organized, and all charges for guides, carriages, and mules have been regulated by tariff. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the weird fascination and eldritch charm of this once dreaded, ill-omened place. Only one pen--that, alas! at rest for ever-- could have done justice to such a theme. In the hands of the great Sand, Montpellier-le-Vieux might have afforded us a chef d'?uvre to set beside 'La Ville Noire' or the adorable 'Jeanne.'

Fresh and interesting as is a sojourn on the Roof of France, a name in verity accorded to the Lozere, I have not restricted myself within such limits. The climbing up and the getting down offer many a racy and novel experience. I have given not only the middle of my journey, but the beginning and the end. Those of my country-folk who have traversed the picturesque little land of the French Morran, who have steamed from Lyons to Avignon, made their way by road through the Gard and the Aveyron, and sojourned in the cheese-making region of the Cantal--I fancy their number is not legion--may pa.s.s over my chapters thus headed. Had I one object in view only, to sell my book, I must have reversed the usual order of things, and put the latter half in place of the first. I prefer the more methodical plan, and comfort myself with the reflection that France, excepting Brittany, Normandy, the Pyrenees, the Riviera and the Hotel du Jura, Dijon, is really much less familiar to English travellers than Nijni-Novgorod or Jerusalem. I no more encountered anyone British born during my two journeys in the Lozere than I did a beggar. This privileged corner of the earth enjoys an absolute immunity from excursionists and mendicants. Strong enthusiasts, lovers of France, moved to tread in my footsteps, will hardly accuse me of exaggerating either the scenery, the good qualities and good looks of the people, or the flawless charm of Lozerien travel.

In years to come I may here be found too eulogistic of all cla.s.ses with whom I came in contact, who shall say? A long period of increasing prosperity, a perpetually swelling stream of holiday-makers, may by degrees change, and perhaps ultimately pervert, the character of the peasants, so glowingly delineated in the following pages. Let us hope that such a contingency is at least very far off, and that many another may bring home the same cordial recollections of the boatmen of the Tarn, the aubergistes and voituriers of the Causses, the peasant owners of the Cite du Diable. I need hardly add that I give a mere record of travel. The geology of the strange district visited, its rich and varied flora, its wealth of prehistoric remains, are only touched upon.

For further information the reader is referred to other writers. On the subject of agriculture I have occasionally dwelt at more length, being somewhat of a farmeress, as Arthur Young styles it, and having now studied a considerable portion of France from an agricultural point of view. The n.o.ble dictum of 'that wise and honest traveller'--thus aptly does our great critic describe the Suffolk squire--'the magic of property turns sands to gold,' will be here as amply ill.u.s.trated as in my works on Eastern and Western France.

One word more. No one must undertake a journey in the Lozere with a scantily-furnished purse. A well-known artist lately contributed a paper to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in which he set forth--in the strangest English surely ever penned by man, woman, or child--the facilities and delights of cycling in France on seven francs a day. Why anyone in his sober senses should dream of travelling abroad on seven francs a day pa.s.ses my comprehension. Money means to the traveller not only health, enjoyment, comfort, but knowledge. Why should we expect, moreover, to be wholesomely housed and fed in a foreign country upon a sum altogether inadequate to the tourist's needs at home? The little wayside inns in out-of-the-way places mentioned by me were indeed very cheap, but taking into account horses, carriages and guides, the exploration of the Causses, the Canon du Tarn and Montpellier-le-Vieux will certainly cost twenty-five francs per diem, this outlay being slightly reduced in the case of two or more persons. Of course, when not absolutely making excursions, when settling down for days or weeks in some rural retreat, expenses will be moderate enough as far as inns are concerned. But carriage-hire is costly all the world over, and the inquiring traveller must have his carriage. There will also be a daily call upon his purse in the matter of pourboire to guides and conductors. A pound a day is by no means too liberal an allowance for the wise bent upon having the best, of everything. Those content to put up with the worst may exist upon the half.

THE ROOF OF FRANCE

PART I.

_MY FIRST JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES._

CHAPTER I.

FROM LE PUY TO MENDE.

The traveller in France will not unseldom liken his fortunes to those of Saul the son of Kish, who, setting forth in search of his father's a.s.ses, found a kingdom; or, to use a homelier parable, will compare his case to that of the donkey between two equally-tempting bundles of hay.

Such, at least, was my luck when starting for my annual French tour in 1887. I had made up my mind to see something of the Lozere and the Cantal, settling down in two charming spots respectively situated in these departments, when, fortunately for myself, I was tempted elsewhere. Instead of rusticating for a few weeks in the country nooks alluded to, there observing leisurely the condition of the peasants and of agriculture generally, I took a contrary direction, thus ultimately becoming acquainted with one of the most romantic and least-known regions of Central France.

'Since you intend to visit the Lozere' wrote a correspondent to me, 'why not explore the Causses? The scenery is, I believe, very remarkable, and the geology deeply interesting.'

The Causses? the Causses? I had travelled east, west, north, south on French soil for upwards of thirteen years, yet the very name was new to me. Having once heard of the Causses, it was, of course, quite certain that I should hear of them twice.

Meeting by chance a fellow-countryman at Dijon, as enthusiastic a lover of French scenery as myself, and comparing our experiences, he suddenly asked:

'But the Causses? Have you seen the wonderful Causses of the Lozere?'

It was a curious and highly-characteristic fact that both my informants should be English, thus bearing out the a.s.sertion of an old French writer, author of the first real tourist's guide for his own country, that we are 'le peuple le plus curieux de l'Europe'; he adds, 'le plus observateur,' perhaps a compliment rather paid to Arthur Young than to the English as a nation. The work I refer to ('Itineraire descriptif de la France,' by Vaysse de Villiers, 1816) was evidently written under the inspiration of our great agriculturist.

From French friends and acquaintances I could learn absolutely nothing of the Causses. The region was a _terra incognita_ to one and all.

I might every whit as well have asked my way to Swift's Liliputia or Cloud Cuckoo Town, and the Island of Cheese of his precursor, the witty Lucian. People _had_ heard of l'Ecosse; oh yes! but why an Englishwoman should seek information about Scotland in the heart of France, they could not quite make out.

There was nothing for me to do but trust to happy chance and the guide- book, and set out; and as a stray swallow is the precursor of myriads, so no sooner had I got an inkling of one marvel than I was destined to hear of half a dozen.

Wonderful the scenery of the Causses, still more wonderful the canon or gorge of the Tarn and the dolomite city of Montpellier-le-Vieux, so I now learned.

There were difficulties in the way of seeing all these. I had been unexpectedly detained at Dijon. It was the second week in September, and the Roof of France--in other words, the department of the Lozere-- is ofttimes covered with snow before that month is out. My travelling companion was a young French lady, permitted by her parents to travel with me, and for whose health, comfort and safety I felt responsible.

It seemed doubtful whether this year at least I should be able to realize my new-formed project, and penetrate into the solitudes of the Causses. However, I determined to try.

My journey begins at the ancient town of Le Puy, former capital of the Vivarais, chef-lieu of the department of the Haute Loire, and, it is unnecessary to say, one of the most curious towns in the world. We had journeyed thither by way of St. etienne, and were bound for Mende, the little mountain-girt bishopric and capital of the Lozere.

We had to be up betimes, as our train for Langogne, corresponding with the Mende diligence, started at five in the morning. It might have been midnight when we quitted the Hotel Gamier--would that I could say a single word in its favour!--so blue black the frosty heavens, so brilliant the stars, the keen September air biting sharply.

More fortunate than a friend whose pocket was lately picked of twenty- five pounds at the railway-station here, I waited whilst the terribly slow business of ticket-taking and registration was got over, thankful enough that I had breakfasted overnight--that is to say, had made tea at three o'clock in the morning. Not a cup of milk, not a crust of bread, would that inhospitable inn offer its over-charged guests before setting out. As I have nothing but praise to bestow upon the hostelries of the Lozere and the Cantal, I must give vent to a well-deserved malediction here.

By slow degrees the perfect day dawned, a glorious sun rising in a cloudless sky. We now discovered that our travelling companions were two sisters--the one, an admirable specimen of the belle villageoise, in her charming lace coiffe; the other, equally good-looking, but as much vulgarized by her Parisian costume as Lamartine's sea-heroine, Graziella, when she had exchanged her contadine's dress for modern millinery. These pretty and becoming head-dresses of Auvergne, made often of the richest lace and ribbon, may now be described as survivals, the bonnet, as well as the chimney-pot hat, making the round of the civilized world.

From Le Puy to Langogne, via Langeac, we traversed a region familiar to many a tourist as he has journeyed from Clermont-Ferrand to Nimes. The s.h.i.+fting scenes of gorge and ravine are truly of Alpine grandeur, whilst the railway is one of those triumphs of engineering skill to which Alpine travellers are also accustomed.

One remark only I make by the way. The sarcasms levelled against the system of peasant proprietors.h.i.+p, that would be cruel were they not silly, are here silenced for once and for all. Nothing can be more self-evident than the beneficial result of small holdings to the State, wholly setting aside the superiority of the peasant-owner's position, moral, social and material, to that of the English farm labourer. Even a prejudiced observer must surely be touched by the indomitable perseverance, the pa.s.sionate love of the soil, evinced by the small cultivators in the valley of the Allier, and, indeed, witnessed throughout every stage of our day's journey.

Wherever exists a patch of cultivable soil, we see crops of rye, buckwheat and potatoes, some of these plots being only a few yards square, and to all appearances inaccessible. In many places earth has been carried by the basketful to narrow, lofty ledges of rock, an astounding instance of toil, hopefulness and patience. No matter the barrenness of the spot, no matter its isolation or the difficulty of approach, wherever root or seed will grow, there the French peasant owner plies hoe and spade, and gradually causes the wilderness to blossom as the rose.

So true it is, as Arthur Young wrote a hundred years ago, 'Give a man secure possession of a black rock, and he will turn it into a garden.'

A considerable proportion of the land hereabouts has been quite recently laid under cultivation, and on every side we see bits of waste being ploughed up.

At Langeac, a little junction between Le Puy and St. Georges d'Aurac, we had a halt of over two hours, easily spent amid charming scenery.

The air is sweet and fresh, everyone is busy in the fields, and as we saunter here and there, people look up from their work to greet us with a smile of contentment and bonhomie. It is a scene of peace and homely prosperity. A short railway jaunt to Langogne; a bustling breakfast at the little restaurant; then begins the final packing of the diligence.

The crazy old berline looks as full as it can be before our four boxes and numerous small packages are taken from the railway van, and the group of bag and basket laden folks standing round, priests, nuns, and commis-voyageurs, evidently waiting for a place. Surely room can never be found for all these! Just then a French tourist came up and accosted us, smiling ruefully.

'Ah!' he said, shaking his head with affected malice, 'just like you English--you have secured the best places.'

True enough, the English when they travel are as the wise virgins, and secure the best places. The French are as the foolish virgins, and trust ofttimes to chance.

I had, of course, telegraphed from Le Puy the day before for two seats in the coupe. Our interlocutor, an army surgeon, making a holiday trip with his wife, was obliged to relinquish the third good place to madame, placing himself beside the driver on the banquette. The little disappointment over, we became the best of friends, a highly desirable contingency in such terribly close quarters.

Once securely packed, we stood no more chance of being unpacked than potted anchovies on their way from Nantes to Southampton. There we were, and there perforce we must remain till we reached our destination. To move a finger, to stir an inch, was out of the question. Nothing short of physical torture for the s.p.a.ce of six hours seemed in store for us--for the three occupants of that narrow coupe, like fas.h.i.+onable ladies of old,

'Close mewed in their sedans for fear of air.'

We could at least enjoy the selfish satisfaction of faring better than our neighbours. The unlucky occupants inside were as short of elbow- room as ourselves, and had not the enjoyment of the view; the pa.s.sengers of the banquette were literally perched on a knife-board, whilst one old man, a cheery old fellow, supernumerary of the service, hung mid-air on one side of the vehicle, literally sitting on nothing.