me ti manda Dieus de pla
Que t'en anes en Gavalda,[*]
Car, lay trobaras una fon
Que redra ton cors bel e mon
Si te laves en l'aygua clara.
* * * *
A nom Burla; vay l'en lay
Non ho mudar per negun play.'

[*] Gйvaudan.

The relics of the saint were destroyed or lost at the time of the
Revolution; but high upon the side of a neighbouring hill a chapel has
been raised to her, and it is a place of pilgrimage.




IN THE VALLEY OF THE LOT.


The rambler in the highlands of the North knows so well what the
wretchedness of being shut up by bad weather in a mountain inn means,
that he may have grown reconciled to it, and have learnt how to spend
a day under such circumstances pleasantly. But to me, a sun-lover, to
whom the charm of the South has been irresistible, such a trial is one
that taxes to the utmost all the powers of endurance. Hence it is
that, when I think of Sainte-Enimie, I can recall nothing but
impressions of dismal wetness. This may seem shocking to those who
have seen, under a different aspect, the little town on the Upper
Tarn, named after the Merovingian saint. Be it remembered, however,
that I was shut up hour after hour in an inn crowded with peasants in
damp blouses, shouting _patois_ at each other, and clutching great
cotton umbrellas, whose fragrance under the influence of moisture, was
not idyllic; In that abominable little auberge, that styled itself a
hotel, I decided to go no farther up the Tarn, but, as soon as the
weather would set me free, to cross the _causse_ that separated me
from the Lot, and to descend the valley of this river towards the
warmer and dryer region of the plains.

Not until the afternoon were there any signs of improvement in the
weather; and then, as soon as the clouds grew lighter, I started
without waiting for the rain to stop. It was Sunday, and outside the
old church was a crowd of men and boys, who had come for vespers. The
women did not join them, but passed through the door as they arrived.
Throughout rural France, wherever religion keeps a firm hold on the
peasant, it is the custom of the men to gather for gossip in front of
the church some time before the service, and, just as the bell stops;
to make a rush at the doorway, and struggle through the opening like
sheep into a fold when there is a dog at their heels. While looking at
these men, I was again struck by the prevailing tendency of the
peasants of the Lozиre to develop long, sharp noses--a feature that
often gives them a very weasel-like expression.

Having passed the ruins of the monastery, whose high loopholed walls
and strong tower showed that it had once been a fortress as well as a
religious house, I was soon rising far above the valley of the Tarn.
The winding road led me up the flanks of stony hills, terraced
everywhere for almond-trees; but after two or three hours of ascent
the almonds dwindled away, and the country became an absolute desert
of brashy hills, showing little asperity of outline, but mournful and
solemn by their wastefulness and abandonment to a degree that makes
the traveller ask himself if he is really in Europe, or has been
transported by magic to the most arid steppes of Asia. But there is a
plant that thrives in this desert, that loves it so much as to give to
it a tinge of dusty blue as far as the eye can reach on every side.
Needless to say that this is the lavender. It was in all its flowering
beauty as I crossed the treeless waste, and it gave to the breath of
the desert what seemed to be the mystical fragrance of peace.

Leaving the highway to Mende, I took a rough road on the left, which,
according to the map, led directly to Chanac by the Lot. I should
recommend no one else to take it unless he have more hours of daylight
before him than I had. Again I ran a near risk of passing the night in
the open air. The road became little better than a track; then it
crossed others, and it was a very pretty puzzle to tell which was the
one for me and which was not. It is true that I could have made
straight towards the Lot by the compass, but the descent of the
precipitous cliffs into the deep gorge, unless one knows the paths, is
only a task to be undertaken at nightfall with a light heart by those
who have had no experience of this savage district. When my perplexity
was at its worst I saw a shepherd, whose form, wrapped in the long
brown homespun cloak called a _limousine_, stood solemnly against the
evening sky. I made towards him, thinking that he would help me out of
my difficulty; but no: either he did not understand a word I said, or
did not choose to give any information. Perhaps he thought me an
escaped madman, or a dangerous tramp, with whom it was better to hold
no conversation. The sun was setting when I reached a wood of
scattered firs--a more melancholy spot at that hour than the bare
_causse_. The weather had been fine for some hours, but now a storm
that had been gathering broke. As the wind blew the rain in slanting
lines, the level sun shone through the vapour and the streaming
atmosphere. Looking above me, as I sheltered myself behind a wailing
fir, I saw that the dreary world was spanned by two glorious rainbows.
But although the scene was so wildly beautiful, the spirit of
desolation was upon me, and I felt like a homeless wanderer. I was
roaming among the firs in the dusk, when I met a shepherd boy, who put
me on a path that joined the main road to Chanac. Then began the
descent into the valley of the Lot. It was very long; the winding road
passed through a black forest of firs, and the dark night fell when I
was still far from the little town. The walk was gloomy, but in all
gloom there is something that is grand and elevating--something that
gives a sense of expansion to the soul. The cries of the unseen
night-birds, the solemn mystery of the enigmatic trees wrapped in
darkness, make us feel the supernatural that surrounds us, and is a
part of us, more than the visible movement of life in the light of the
sun.

At length the oil-lamps of Chanac flashed brightly in the hollow
below, and not long afterwards I was sitting at a table in an upper
room of a comfortable old inn, the lower part of which was filled with
roisterers, for it was Sunday night. I dined with a Government
functionary--an inland revenue _contrфleur_, who happened to be a
Frenchman of the reserved and solemn sort that cultivates dignity. By
dint of being looked up to by others he had acquired the fixed habit
of looking up to himself. All the time that I was in his company I
felt that, had he been an angel dining with a modern Tobias, he could
scarcely have shown greater anxiety not to sit upon his wings. Moved
by the genial spirit of the grape, or not wishing, perhaps, to crush
me altogether with the weight of his official importance, his ice
began to melt a little at about the second or third course. Forgetting
discretion, he actually smiled. The meal, which had been prepared in
anticipation of his coming, was a much more splendid entertainment
than would have been got up for me had I been alone. The cook's
masterpiece was a very cunningly contrived pasty--a work of local
genius that I was quite unprepared for. Even M. le contrфleur, had he
not checked himself in time, would have beamed at this achievement;
but he would never have forgiven himself such an admission of weakness
common to mortals not in the service of the Government. Just before
the dessert a superb trout that had been drawn out of the sparkling
Lot was brought in, and it had been mercifully spared the disgrace of
being sprinkled with chopped garlic.

While we were dining the wassailers in the great kitchen and general
room downstairs became more and more uproarious. Dancing had
commenced, and it was the _bourrйe_, the delightful _bourrйe_ of
Auvergne (the Upper Lot here runs not very far from the Cantal) that
was being danced. It is a measure that has no local colour unless it
is accompanied by violent stamping. The _contrфleur_ looked very
scandalized, and said it was abominable that the house should be given
up to such tumult and disorder. I observed, however, that as the
joyousness of the party downstairs increased my companion's face
became animated by an expression that was not one of genuine anger,
and as soon as he had drunk his coffee he remarked in a tone of
indifference that, as the evening had to be spent somehow, it might be
less disagreeable to see what was going on below than simply to hear
it. I soon followed him, and found that he was enjoying himself
thoroughly, although discreetly, in a quiet corner. The kitchen was
filled with young fellows in blouses, some sitting at tables drinking
and smoking, others standing; all were shouting, whistling or raising
peals of laughter that might have brought the house about their ears
had it been built by a modern contractor. In the centre of the room
the bare-armed kitchenmaid, who had left the platters, and a young
peasant in a blouse were dancing, their backs turned to each other,
moving their arms up and down like puppets in a barrel-organ, and
banging the floor with their sabots, with the full conviction that the
greater the noise the greater the fun. And this was the opinion of all
except the stout hostess, who looked on at the scene with a distressed
countenance from behind a mighty pile of dirty plates. The musicians
were spectators who whistled in a band the air of the _bourrйe_, which
is enough to make the most sedate Canon who ever sat in a stall dance,
or at least to remember with charity the promptings of his
adolescence.

When the kitchenmaid went back to her plates--to the great relief of
her mistress, who would have sternly condemned her tripping if
thoughts of business had not beset her practical mind--two young men
stood up and danced another _bourrйe_. With the exception of the
scullion and household drudge there was no chance of getting a female
partner. In these villages and small towns the girls are kept out of
harm's way. They go to bed at eight or nine, and are hard at work
either in the fields or in the house, or washing by the stream, all
through the hours of daylight. The priests, wherever they have
influence--and in the South they have a great deal--set their faces
strongly against dancing by the two sexes, except under very
exceptional circumstances. They are right; they have peculiar
facilities for knowing the variety of human nature with which they
have to deal. Humanity is fundamentally the same everywhere, but what
is fundamental is modified by race and climate. Temperament, fashioned
by causes innate and local, exercises an immense influence upon
practical morality.

And so the revel went on. As the glasses were refilled the noise grew
louder and the smoke denser. I soon had enough of it, and taking a
candle I climbed to my bedroom, leaving the _contrфleur_ in his
corner. Before going to bed I did a little sewing, having borrowed a
threaded needle from the landlady with this object in view. The
wayfarer should be ready to help himself as far as he can, and
although sewing is not, perhaps, the most manly of accomplishments, no
tourist should be incapable of sewing on a button or closing up a rent
that makes the village children laugh.

My walk across the _causse_ separating two rivers had tired me, but I
might as well have remained downstairs for all the sleep that I
enticed. As the hours wore on the uproar, instead of subsiding, became
more terrific. These Southerners have voices of such rock-splitting
power that, when twenty or thirty of them, inspired by Bacchus, or
excited by discussion, shout together, one asks if it would be
possible for devils on the rampage to raise a more hideous tumult. The
house trembled as from a succession of thunderclaps. Midnight struck,
and the uproar was unabated. At one it had entered upon the
quarrelsome phase, and at two there was a fight. Chairs or tables were
overthrown, there was a smashing of glass, a rapid scuffling of feet,
and the screaming and howling as of a menagerie on fire. Above the
fiendish din rang out the shrill voice of the hostess, who was
evidently trying to separate the combatants, and who seemed to be
successful, for the hurricane suddenly lulled.

This hostess was a woman of words, but the landlady of an inn near
Rodez, which I entered one summer evening, showed herself under
similar circumstances to be a woman of action. Two young men who were
sitting at a table, after a very brief difference of opinion, stared
fixedly and fiercely into each other's face, and then sprang at one
another like a couple of tom-cats. Presently the stronger took the
other up in his arms, carried him out through the door, and, having
pitched him considerately upon the manure-heap in the yard, returned
to