CHAPTER I.
Landing at Calais—Meeting of a Custom-House Officer with Fanny—Historical remains—John’s mode of Confession—The Hero malgré lui—The Courtgain—St. Omer’s—The Abbey of St. Bertin and the Cathedral—St. Denis and the miraculous St. Hubert—The Strength of the short Pepin—Lillers, and John’s precautions—St. Pol—Doullens, the Citadel and the Corporal—The possession of Doullens by the Huguenots—The taking of Amiens caused by love for a fair Widow—Hernand Teillo’s stratagem—His success chiefly owing to a body of Irishmen—Henry the Fourth’s emotion and resolve—Death of Hernand Teillo—Amiens—The Sunstroke—The warlike show—A religious Picture strangely imagined—The Beffroi and its tragedy—The Cathedral and its Tombs—The travelling Crucifix—The Bishop who sheltered Philip of Valois after the battle of Crecy—The Pavement marked in fatal memorial—The Grave of Hernand Teillo—Characters and Portraits of the Canons—The contrite Ass and presentation of an infant, Breteuil.
Wednesday, July the 5th 1838.
Hotel de Meurice, à Calais.
My dear William,
When we called on you a few weeks since, on our ride from Liverpool to Dover, you desired a journal of that which was to follow across France and to Florence. We embarked, then, at seven in the morning of the 4th of July, with no wind, but a heavy swell and drizzling rain: D—— and myself, Fanny and the patient Grizzel in their horse boxes, with John (from Cork!) beside them, combing tails and rubbing curb-chains—his resource against ennui. Landed at ten: Fanny profiting by her first free moment to bite a douanier who caressed her; and from his calling obtained no more pity from the bystanders than from John, who was grinning derision at his “big ear-ring.” Worried by the Customhouse, though we have nothing contraband. The signalement of the horses taken with care and gravity: it would suit any grey mare and bay pony in the world. The officers do not quite understand the shining of their coats, and (supposing them cleaned after the fashion of spoons) asked John “with what powder?” he has been rather awed by the ceremony of receiving his passport, particularly when standing up to be measured and described. We remain here three days, as the inn is exceedingly comfortable, but there is very little to see; on the Grande Place, near the lighthouse tower, stood, even in 1830, the ruins of the old Halle, where John de Vienne the governor, and Sire Walter de Mauny communicated the hard terms of surrender to Eustache St. Pierre: there is no trace of it now. The site of St. Pierre’s house is marked by a neat marble slab, at the corner of the street which bears his name. The building still called “Cour de Guise,” though it has been turned to various purposes, rebuilt and altered, was the wool staple originally built by Edward the Third of England; and afterwards bestowed on Guise the Balafré, in reward of his services when he retook Calais from the English in 1577. The church has little worth notice excepting its altar. The vessel, which in Louis the Thirteenth’s time bore it from Genoa, on its way to Antwerp, was wrecked on the Calais coast. With its bassi-relievi and crowd of statues and marble columns, it wants simplicity, and is too large for the place it occupies; for the roof appears to crush the glory of the Saviour. The old Suisse who shows the church is most proud of a Last Supper carved in relief, gilded and coloured: he knocks on the head the little figure of Christ to prove his assertion, “Monsieur c’est en bois!”
In the old revolution this church was unprofaned: a Club built before it masked its entrance; and the then mayor of Calais warned Lebon that he might enter if he would, but that he could not answer for the temper of his townsmen.
The chief building in Calais is the Hôtel de Ville with its handsome tower, and a clock which has a sweet clear chime; before it, each on its pedestal, are the busts of Richelieu and Guise le Balafré: that of Eustache St. Pierre holds the place of honour on the façade. To reward for the trouble of walking up stairs, the old woman only exhibited two rooms, “là où l’on marie” and “là où l’on reçoit,” she called them: in the latter, Louis Philip, whom the artist intended to smile, and who sneers instead, occupies the wall opposite a Surrender of Calais. The citadel is forbidden ground; we were turned back by the sentinel, as we were proceeding to search for the ruins of the Chateau of Calais, in which, by Richard the Second’s order, the Duke of Gloucester was imprisoned and murdered; they are built into a bastion, called that of the “Vieux Chateau.”
John has decided that eating a dinner in France is the most wonderful thing which has happened to him yet. He describes the spreading a white cloth over his knees preparatory to serving up soup, fish, made dishes and dessert; he has made acquaintance with the “Garçon d’Ecurie,” whose thin tall figure is a contrast to his own, with its round head and bowed legs. They keep up a conversation of signs and contortions; this hot day they have passed seated in a wheelbarrow on the sunny side of the court-yard: it was first Pierre’s place of repose, but beginning by sitting on the wheel, and encroaching by degrees, John made it so uncomfortable to his comrade, that he gained sole possession, and is now coiled up asleep. He told me this morning that he must go to church, the Irish father by whom he was married a month ago not having “quite done with him in the way of confession:” I represented that these priests were Frenchmen; that he said was of no consequence, “Clargy spaking all kinds of languages.” He knew but one exception, and that was the very father who married him and could not speak Irish; it was he who (by John’s account) gave him a blow when instead of the fifteen shillings he demanded he offered him five.
The stout waiter François, known for four and twenty years at the hotel, is as perfect a specimen of French nature in his class, as is John of that of Ireland. He informed me he had lately crossed to England; an ordinary intellect would have supposed it was to see the country, or the coronation, but no, it was to see Lablache! and being in London he also saw Taglioni!! and her dancing, he said, went to his very soul. While we were at dinner, a fair girl, with a wrinkled old woman on her arm, looked in at the window and touched a bad guitar: I said we wanted no music, and François scolded her away, but as he stooped down to arrange the fire, muttered in a low voice, “It was true that she was troublesome, and had only one excuse, she supported her old mother.” We gave her something, and François, whose face had grown radiant, told us his own story, and how he had worked from a boy with the hope of assisting his father, and at last had purchased him an annuity of 600 francs, which the old man had enjoyed thirteen years, proud in the gift of a son, who, like Corporal Trim, thought that “Honour thy father and thy mother” meant allowing them a part of his earnings. “He had been looked on as the best son of the province;” and his own child had promised well likewise but he died—he thought he might have weathered the storm, but death, François said, was the strongest and not to be battled with; and with a mixture of feeling and philosophy, as he changed my soup-plate, he shook his head and added, “que voulez-vous?”
D—— misses a Commissionaire, a civil fellow well known to all who frequented the Hotel Meurice, his story being romantic from its commencement; he has become a hero malgré lui; he was brought from Portugal when a child by an officer of the 11th Regiment, and left here when the army of occupation quitted France. He travelled to Paris in the July of 1830 and was there surprised by the revolution. Being of a peaceable temper he hid himself within doors; through some unlucky window a ball came and grazed his arm, and, determined to profit by events if possible, as soon as danger was passed he emerged, showing his wounds and claiming cross and pension; he has obtained both as due to his merit, and is now a “gros portier dans un hôtel de libéral.” We walked this lovely evening past the Courtgain to the Pier. The Courtgain is the fishermen’s quarter, being nothing more than a large bastion ceded them, with permission to build, in 1622; it contains seven very narrow streets. We watched the fishing-boats towed out against wind and tide by their owners’ wives and daughters; the men look picturesque in their red caps and high boots, and they crawl through the mud and up the sides of their craft, with two oars serving for ladder, with the dexterity of cats. It blew fresh this evening; the boats were out at sea a few moments after the women let go the ropes at the pier head. They did not murmur at their hard work, nor did sign or token offer them thanks for it. The skiffs sailed on and they just glanced at them as they lessened in the distance, and returned dragging along and scolding disobedient children; yet the sky was wild though the sun shone; sufficiently stormy to make one wonder they looked no longer.
St. Omer, July 8th, Grande St. Catherine.
One may certainly ride from Calais hither, and say “it is all barren.” The soil seems a deep sand, and we wondered that it could produce even thin wheat and dry grass; crossed the “Pont Sans pareil,” which is thrown over the two canals, where they meet at right angles. Twenty-six miles of broad straight road, only enlivened by a few pollarded trees, a great many windmills, some melancholy red chateaux with great gates and long avenues, and here and there villages of wretched cabins each in its unwholesome enclosure; the green pond in front and the tall trees around it: the group surmounted by a spire. Such as they are, they give the dead flat a look of the living: but they are scantily scattered. Left Ardres to the right: it has been a strong place, and is going to decay. Guines is farther on, and the field of “Cloth of Gold,” which still bears its name, lies between them, but not on the road: but for D——’s recollection of 1815, and some interest in tracing his old quarters, it would have been duller still.
Approached St. Omer at last: rode between rows of stripped elms with deplorable heads; through a long suburb; along a fine avenue skirting the fortifications, over bridges and drawbridges unending, and we were in the town. This is a good inn. We walked after dinner to see the Abbey of St. Bertin; our guide the “grosse fille d’auberge.” Its interior was burned in the old revolution, and the “Conseil Municipal,” judging the safety of the townsmen endangered, has caused all to be taken down, saving a side wall and its beautiful tower. English visitors still ascend the latter for the sake of the view, but it must be a work of danger; it is cracked to the very top, and bends awfully. Over its porch was a fresco painting, whose outline and some faded colours remain, and above it, sown there by some of the winds of heaven, grows and flourishes a young pear tree.
We seated ourselves on some timber to look at the sunset and the falling abbey, and the fille d’auberge sat down also. She said all the small houses round were inhabited by English, who admire ruins “furieusement.” When she was tired of talking she remembered she was wanted and left us. We returned ourselves through handsome desolate streets, passing some hotels of Louis the Thirteenth’s time, and many Spanish houses, of I presume Queen Elizabeth’s date, for they exhibit the gable peaked or in-steps of stone, but have an ugly addition of shell-like ornaments over doors and windows. The Place du Haut Pont, which we crossed, is surrounded by these. The Place itself, with its crooked canal crossed by a wooden bridge and disappearing under a dark arch of some ancient building—the boats lying on the water ready to depart for Dunkirk—a group of people collected on its edge round a street singer—looked in the red indistinct light like a Dutch picture or a fragment of opera scenery.
July 9th.
The cathedral is very fine, and we regretted that an exceedingly gruff Suisse would not allow us to stay more than five minutes in the lovely Gothic chapel behind the altar, which would be faultless, but that it is over-painted and gilded. Above the altar is a Crucifixion in stone, with a background of stained glass, through which the light comes on it with great effect, but rather theatrically. At the foot of the altar steps was a female figure in almost modern costume, seated on the floor, looking like a great wooden doll. What she does there I cannot say, and the Suisse left me no time to examine. We were obliged to rest satisfied with a passing glimpse of this, and the “grilles de chapelles,” on either side, in fine Italian marble, and the tomb in the nave of some monk or bishop who lies here in costly effigy. We went thence to St. Denis. Its exterior in some degree resembles St. Bertin and Nôtre Dame, as its square tower has the same character, but it has been pieced and renewed within. It was “fête” in this church, an old man said, and to do it honour the high altar was ornamented with hundreds of roses, and myrtle and orange-trees in their tubs, ranged in the choir beneath the church banners. On the right of the choir is the altar of the “Sacré Cœur,” on either side of which hang strings of silver hearts as big as the palm of the hand, offerings of the faithful!
On the left, in a hole sunk in the wall, framed and lined with room-paper, except on festivals screened from profane eyes by little pink calico curtains, is a gilded bust of St. Bertin, adorned with steel court buttons. Walking down the aisle on this side we arrived before the chapel of St. Hubert; we looked through the grille, and saw on the opposite wall a larger recess, its folding-doors thrown back for the holiday. Within, the saint (a foot high) kneels in a flowing wig and Roman toga! a tiny tin cor de chasse, such as you have seen on the caps of the light infantry of the National Guard, tacked to his side! The background, a piece of room-paper representing a great green tree; on which (in relief of course) shines out a second and similar hunting horn! The saint’s dog, in an attitude of astonishment, gazes, as does Hubert, on a small wooden stag, who stands on a rock; the Crucifix and two Thieves springing from his forehead in place of antlers. Below is written, “The Conversion of St. Hubert.”
In a second recess of the same chapel, St. Hubert reappears, rewarded; in gilded canonicals and holding a bunch of flowers, but still hangs at his girdle, to prove his identity, the tin cor de chasse of the bonnet de Voltigeurs.
I saw lower down a devout inscription praying that “St. Joseph’s presence in that spot might protect all carpenters,” and near the entrance an ancient basso relievo brought from the tomb of the Abbot of St. Bertin.
We walked on to the college, and round its fine courts. Some of the buildings bear the date of Francis the First, but the church and college themselves were erected by the Jesuits in the time of their power—1629. The former merely presents to the street a high ornamented gable, and a vast space within not worth looking at. Its curiosities (placed here temporarily) are some bassi relievi of Spanish processions, dug up some miles from St. Omer, and a group representing St. Pepin (who was the dwarf of his century) killing with his fist a lion, who is gnawing a bull.
The fire-engines are also here till the Hôtel de Ville, which is in progress, shall be ready to house them. I was surprised to see their buckets are baskets saturated with pitch, and hempen vessels of the same form, and to hear they answer perfectly. We walked on the ramparts which command the view of the prodigiously strong fortifications, and the flat, which can at pleasure be inundated a mile round; but like the broad desolate streets, the prospect is surpassingly melancholy.
Lillers, Hotel de la Poste, July 10th.
A fine avenue, leaving St. Omer; and a rather more interesting country, through which flows the little river. One hill in the distance (which we took for Cassel) breaking the flat, and here and there, some rather pretty looking hamlets—each cabin within its prairie; but between these no sign of habitation. The light sandy soil is extremely cultivated, and the unending plain less sad now than it will be later in the season, as the corn is in ear, and the bean and poppy fields are in blossom. From the seed of this purple and white poppy is expressed salad oil. Aire, which we passed through, is a picturesque, fortified town, its ramparts shaded with fine green trees. Beyond Aire, on each side of the grand route, are numberless gardens, and it was gay and sweet with flowers.
At every mile we pass a “petite chapelle,” being usually a small wooden case with a glass door, perched on a pole, planted at the road-side; and within, a tiny figure of the virgin, attired in white muslin. I saw Nôtre Dame de Grâce, Nôtre Dame de Guerison, and Nôtre Dame de Bonne Fin; the last with no great pleasure, thinking she might be there installed on account of the arrival of the black fever, which is in Flanders. We fancied the villagers looked pale, and passed at a gallop.
John had arrived before us at Lillers; and fearing the diligence had taken him too far, and unable to ask the name of the place in which he was deposited, he locked up our baggage in a room of the inn, and, with the great key in his hand, was contemplating a walk back to St. Omer. This inn is a mere farm-house with bad accommodation; the landlord and his friends sat smoking in the room where we dined; he regrets we will not walk three quarters of a league to the fête, and the servant and the landlady’s daughter are now describing Dominique’s dancing, and a minute ago had nearly come to high words about Dominique.
St. Pol, July 11th.
Started in burning weather, having found no conveyance for John, who trudged after cheerfully, though he says “it is these straight roads what breaks the heart of a traveller.” Stopped to rest whenever the shade of a bush made it possible, for the fine trees which grew here as well as on most of the grandes routes of France are all felled. Saw no traveller, excepting a white haired bishop, in his purple robes, who passed in his carriage. John said “he would have kneeled to ax a blessing but he took him for an officer;” at last we came up with a petite voiture, within which we deposited John, who directly commenced a conversation no one was likely to sustain. Arrived here ourselves, having suffered a good deal from the intense heat; and drank some beer which a peasant sold at four sous a quart, and explained to her how I sat on Fanny having no one behind to hold me on. Avoid this inn on pain of bad meat, and bad beds, and mistakes in the bill. Strolled out, for refreshment, in the heavy dew, and finding a rather pretty walk compared to the frightful plain, hailed as if it had been Swiss scenery the dry bed of a little stream with a bridge and broken bank, shaded by young birch trees, and a path winding upwards from it through corn and bean fields and a tiny copse to the town.
Doullens, le Grand Turc, July 12th.
Left St. Pol at four in the afternoon, to avoid the heat, and found it still so excessive that we sat under the shade of the first trees we found, and let the horses feed until the sun declined. John was to follow in the “Service des Dépêches,” a heavy cab with a raw-boned horse. The peasantry hereabouts are worse lodged and more filthy than between Calais and St. Omer. Woe to whom penetrate within the prairie, or step across the floor. The evening grew dark so suddenly that we had some trouble in finding (not the road, for there are no cross-ways or green lanes) but its least stony part, in the steep rough descent to Doullens; took a poppy field for a lake; it struck ten as we arrived in the bad air of the narrow street, where reigns the Grand Turk the moon rising as our ride ended. John appeared in the mail a few minutes after; it had changed horses on the road, but certainly not fatigued either, for ours were not put out of a walk. The fille d’auberge blinded me by holding her candle in my face to examine hat, habit, and wearer, before she thought proper to lead the way to a room. The atmosphere abominable, and the draught which, when I threw open the windows, came in from the narrow street and dirty yard, worse than the air it expelled. Nothing to be had but café au lait and cherries, but the beds comfortable and the dark-eyed bonne good humoured. She swept the room before breakfast this morning, and the floor bore witness to its being a favour.
We walked to the citadel, which is just without the town, now occupied by only twenty-five men; a pretty avenue leads to it up the glacis. We were admitted without difficulty, though with some formality. The soldier at the gate summoned the Corporal; the Corporal asked permission of the Commandant, and returned to conduct us across the two drawbridges. The form of the citadel is a square, flanked at each angle by a bastion, and defended by outworks. From his manners and conversation, the Corporal might have been a nobleman—for he had perfect ease and no familiarity; he offered his hand to assist me in climbing where it was rough and steep, but only when assistance was necessary. On the side of the citadel furthest from the town is the place where political offenders were confined some years back; it is a fort within a fort, and has its own defences. The rampart commands it, and its sentinel kept a constant look out, yet, in spite of all precautions, some escaped. They were retaken, but unpunished, Louis Philip having shortly after proclaimed his “general amnesty.” Subterranean passages opening from this citadel conduct to the town, and completely mine it. The heat was so intense that we could not make the entire tour, though it was only eleven o’clock; the Corporal regretted being deprived of the pleasure of accompanying us further, and accepted the silver put in his hand without looking at it, and with seeming reluctance, as a physician does his first fee.
Doullens has belonged to many masters: to the Huguenots during the wars of religion, then to their enemies, afterwards to the Spaniards, who took it when Henry the Fourth was yet unsettled on his throne. It was in 1595, and the surprise of Amiens, which took place two years after, was accomplished by the governor of Doullens’ love for a fair widow. The governor was the famous Captain Hernand Teillo, and the lady the Dame de Monchy, who was rich as well as noble and beautiful. “I was born at Amiens,” she replied proudly, when he besought her to accept his hand: “I will espouse no man unless we obey the same royal master; either abandon the King of Spain and become French as I am, or take Amiens and make me a Spanish subject.”
Adopting this last alternative, and having sworn to succeed, the Spaniard Hernand Teillo marched with his troops towards Amiens; before day broke a strong detachment lay concealed behind hedges near the town, the chapel of St. Montain and la Madelaine were occupied, and the cavalry concealed in a valley; at dawn, Hernand Teillo having made choice of sixteen soldiers and four officers on whose resolution he could rely, disguised the former as peasants and market women, and sent them by different paths to the gate of Amiens, carrying on their backs market baskets of walnuts and apples; the four officers, disguised in like manner, walked beside a heavy cart laden with wood covered over with straw; one acting as waggoner. The movement of troops, however secretly made, could not be entirely concealed, and some peasants not counterfeits apprized the governor of Amiens of what was passing; it was said he had been bought over, at all events he treated it as an idle report. At six o’clock, the gates of the town being opened, the sixteen soldiers, preceded by their officers and waggon, boldly presented themselves for admission at the gate called Montre Écu; arrived under the entrance arch, the waggon stopped, and the waggoner silently cut the traces that the portcullis might be arrested in its fall; at the same moment, one of the pretended peasants undid, as if by mistake, the cord which fastened the mouth of a sack of walnuts, and its contents were scattered on the pavement. The guard was composed of wretched mechanics (for Amiens, in her pride, had refused a royal garrison); they abandoned their post to seize on the prize, and the Spaniards, drawing their arms from beneath their clothes, in the course of a few moments had massacred their unresisting enemies, and gained possession of the guard house. The sentinel placed on the gate heard the cries of the wounded, and cut the ropes which upheld the portcullis, but the waggon was exactly beneath, and the portcullis fell on it and fixed it there, leaving the way open to the foe. The citizens roused, came in numbers to repulse the Spaniards who poured in, and to a body of Irishmen under his command Hernand Teillo owed in a great measure his success. In their gallant defence of the town, perished numbers of its inhabitants: the Comte de St. Pol, governor of the province, failed to imitate their noble example; for he fled, as soon as from the tower of the royal chateau he inhabited he recognised the red scarfs of the Spaniards. The townsmen were disarmed the same day; the sack of Amiens permitted for eight more; and these past, the already ruined citizens reduced to starvation by the exaction of heavy sums of money. Married to the Lady of Monchy, Hernand Teillo was rewarded for his success: and Henry the Fourth of France, after a night passed at a ball, had just lain down to rest when the courier arrived with news of the surprise of Amiens. Sully was summoned to his bedside, and Henry, grasping his hand in strong emotion, said, “I have played the part of king of France long enough; I must return to that of king of Navarre.”
All the nobility of France encamped before Amiens; the effective force amounted to 18,000 men, and Hernand Teillo, reduced to extremity, implored the assistance of the Archduke Albert, who was at Arras, and who arrived at the head of 4,000 horse and 15,000 foot. It is told that the day on which Henry was informed of their approach, he rode to a height whence he could distinguish the Spanish army advancing in good order; and leaning over his saddle bow, he prayed heaven, “If his sins deserved heavy punishment to strike the guilty: but not to scatter the flock for the fault of the shepherd.”
Hernand Teillo never knew that relief was so near; he had already fallen by a musket shot, near the Porte de Montre Écu—that very gate by which he entered. Beside it canvass had been spread to conceal the workmen while they repaired the breaches made in the rampart: a French soldier fancied he saw a shade through, and fired—it was Hernand Teillo. His successor Montenegro surrendered Amiens to King Henry on the 25th of September.
We left Doullens at twelve, for I thought no sun could be so terrible as the Grand Turk’s air; but the heat proved more intense than I ever felt it in France, and whenever we found shade, which was but three times, we stopped exhausted. Overtook, travelling at this rate, John in the diligence; woke a half-naked child which was blistering in the sun; let the horses drink in a pool of abomination, and bought sour wine for ourselves—though the greasy glass clasped in the black paw almost conquered thirst. We began to feel the effect of the rays on our head; I could not without consideration recollect where we were—and talking became so painful, that we rode some hours in perfect silence, till we came to a few yards of turf under half a dozen trees, the first for miles; it was like a bit of paradise. We staid there, the horses feeding till the sun was low; and even then the heat seemed undiminished, and the remaining three leagues interminable, for cathedral and town being built in a hollow, the former towers in sight long before houses are visible. Just as we were reviving in expectation of an inn we came to a windmill, slowly turning its sails in the light air, and throwing long shadows, changing as they turned, on the road before the horses’ feet: it proved a foe to us as it did of yore to Don Quixote; Fanny kicked, and the patient Grizzel plunged, and a half hour’s course of backing and beating was necessary to induce them to pass. When we dismounted at the Hôtel d’Angleterre a fat old gentleman, an “habitué,” seated on the wicker-seat on the shady side of the Cour under the Laurier-rose, asked the landlady, if we could be in our senses who travelled in such weather, and in such a way? but D—— has suffered no injury, and I, saving faintness and giddiness, have escaped also.
13th July.
We are warned against repeating our folly, by the sight of a poor fellow, who, as I crossed the court-yard, I found placed there in a chair between two women, one of whom was sobbing violently; I asked “what ailed her?” She said she was his sister, and the other his wife; that he had quitted home to come on a journey here, and two days before on the river had received a sunstroke. They were sent for, and came instantly: he had not recognized them or spoken; the physician said his tongue was paralyzed. He had always been a good husband, yet now when his fits of fury came on, his violence was wholly directed against his wife,—(I had not noticed before that he wore a strait waistcoat): the poor wife said nothing; she leaned on his chair looking at him with red eyes, which seemed to have no moisture left; and only shook her head, when her sister added, that the Doctor rested a last hope on his being taken home to his children. I inquired if they wanted money? She said, “they had been comfortable while they depended on him, and would try to aid him in turn;” she seemed too miserable to care about it, or even glance at what was given her. The horses were put to a few minutes after, and they led him to the coach; he walked like a man in his sleep, and I think his sight is impaired, for tho’ his face was flushed, his eyes were like stone. While we were at the table d’hôte, a very undaunted looking ballad-singer brought her harp to the door, and reaped a good harvest: the landlord tried to get up a subscription for the unfortunate peasant, but failed.
Here is the prettiest fair in the world: but held within the precincts of an ancient church and monastery, whose outer wall, still standing, exhibits the remains of fine tombs defaced and broken: part of the cloister, its arches filled up with masonry, is there also; and these make strange boundaries to ranges of shops forming streets between avenues of lime-trees, shows and buffoons, feats of horsemanship and rope-dancing. If the nuns who lie beneath the old monuments could look forth, they would understand the meaning of revolution. We walked to the fair after dinner, when it was brilliantly lighted, and the gay standings and green branches showed to advantage. It is the resort of the beau monde of Amiens, and its theatres and temporary cafés were crowded. I asked the meaning of the frequent discharges of musketry we heard—“Madame,” said a grave shopman, “c’est la prise de Constantine!”
The exhibition of paintings by Amiens artists is held in the Hôtel de Ville, and does them no great honour: the subject of one picture you will think curious. I copy from the catalogue: “Christmas Eve: some good children are employed in reverently gathering together miraculous playthings, sent them by the Enfant Jésus down the chimney”!!!
The Gaol joins the Hôtel de Ville. As we came out, we saw a crowd collected round a large machine like an omnibus, except that it received light and air from apertures in its roof: it was marked “Service des Prisonniers,” and is destined to convey some convicts to Bicêtre to-night: a better mode of transport than dragging them along the road in chains.
The Beffroi, a strange looking tower which rises alone on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, now serves as a prison for minor offences: it contains the great bell tolled on solemn occasions. It is said that this tower was raised by Louis le Gros, but the town records make no mention of it till the year 1244; it has been twice consumed by fire—the first time in 1524, when it was the scene of an awful tragedy. The keeper had ascended to the lantern at its top before the flames broke forth: and when about to descend, found, to his horror, that smoke and fire barred his passage. He attempted to force his way, and they drove him back; he rushed to the top once more, and shrieked for assistance to the terrified crowd: it was impossible to afford it; and as the floor heated beneath his feet, he implored, in his agony, that some one present would fire on him. His sad prayer was granted; and having recommended his soul to God, he fell dead from a harquebuss shot.
There is a fine “Établissement des Bains” near our hôtel, supplied by the river, but before you go thither, do not, as I did, walk in view of the filthy buildings which hang over the Somme, as the muddy water causes disagreeable associations, particularly as it also washes the walls of the church in the principal street, now converted into a splendid hospital.
I have said nothing of the Cathedral, yet there we have passed the greater portion of our time; and for its sake remain three days at Amiens. Its foundations were laid in 1220, when Everard was Bishop of Amiens, and Louis the Eighth King of France. Excepting its towers, it was finished about 1288.
415 feet long within, 132 in height, its proportions are so perfect, that its size fails to strike, except by comparison. I was made aware of it only by looking at a human figure in the aisle. What a pity that bad taste should have covered a great part of the carved stone work, and several tombs in the chapels, with painted and gilt wainscotings! Among the latter, one in black marble of the churchman who united Isabella of Bavaria, of infamous memory, to Charles the Sixth, the royal maniac. The gilding of the altar, railings, &c. was lately renewed by the testamentary donation of an Englishman, who, together with his wife and family, embraced the Catholic religion here. They were converted, the landlady tells me, by the wife of the English clergyman! who herself had abjured protestantism shortly before!! The little angel, who beside the kneeling figure of a bishop weeps behind the high altar, was so prized by the English, that it is said they offered to purchase him for his weight in gold. He sits with his head leaned on his hand, and his legs hung carelessly down—an image of all-absorbing sorrow. The monument was an offering of gratitude from its sculptor to the memory of the prelate who had been his patron; but why an ill-executed figure of the Virgin is placed so close as to spoil the effect, no one can tell.
The organ is voiceless still, notwithstanding the 40,000 francs spent this year on its repair.
As we are to leave Amiens in the morning, we returned to the Cathedral after dinner, as I wished, in company of its Suisse, to walk round it once more—but that this man is straight, and has two eyes, he might be the original of Quasimodo. We were too early, and staid outside to look again at the three beautiful porches, deeply sunk in the noble façade, among whose multitude of carved saints innumerable birds have built their nests, in cavities made by decapitated heads, and limbs wanting; they were flying about in quantities. As we entered, the priest was about to conclude his evening sermon; we waited its close, and I thought I had not seen the cathedral to advantage before. The weather was burning and cloudless; and while the coloured rosace of the transept opposite us looked deeper and richer, because, not fronting the west, it admitted no sunbeams; they came through a side window, and the whole cross aisle was a flood of light: roof, columns, and arches illuminated in all their details; and the figure of Fenelon’s friend, half reclined on his tomb, seemed about to start up. Through the stained glass of the large rose above the organ, and the smaller one on each side, the glory from the west streamed in likewise, brightening the gay dresses of the still congregation, and the bare head of the energetic priest, and the pulpit, supported by the three Cardinal Virtues, and surmounted by an angel whose foot seems hardly to rest on its roof, and whose hand points upward. You would have moralized on the Virtues cowering in shadow, and the winged form above them (like their emanation) floating in splendour.
The Suisse came to conduct us: his pride seemed centered in the cathedral, and in the study of its walls he says he has passed wakeful nights. The two bronzed monuments, hardly raised from the floor to right and left of the principal entrance, a human figure rudely outlined on each, are those of the founder Everard and his successor Godefroy.
Walking up the left-hand aisle, the Suisse pointed to the Crucifix Miraculeux: it is of the seventh century, clad in long gilded robes, wearing an expression, not of pain, but triumph; such being the mode of representing the Saviour before the time of Charlemagne. The miracle on which rests its fame consists in a change of lodging it one night effected, for it was originally placed in a chapel on the right of the nave. Why it preferred one opposite, the tradition does not tell.
Here, where the transept crosses the nave, is the tomb of the ambassador who negotiated peace between Francis the First of France and the Emperor Charles. The emblematical figures are those of Force wresting a Salamander from the grasp of Peace—Francis paid tribute. An altar opposite, erected during a plague, conceals the monument of a bishop, who, holding the see of Amiens at the period of the battle of Crecy, received and sheltered Philip of Valois. A pavement stone in the transept marks the grave of Gresset. The chapel near contains, in a superb reliquary, a piece of the skull of John the Baptist! and each time we have visited the cathedral, we have seen the same old lady kneeling before it, in immovable devotion. The curious stone screen raised outside the choir represents the various events of John the Baptist’s life; the small figures, though rudely drawn, have great expression; arches, canopies and pinnacles, carved above them in the same stone, form a light and beautiful frame. Formerly this screen surrounded the choir; the taste of Louis the Fifteenth’s time substituted the gilt bronze railing. The Suisse stopped a moment to admire the weeping cherub and criticise (not unskilfully) a beautiful Virgin, carved by the same hand, in the chapel, behind the high altar. A few steps further, the pavement stones for a considerable space are marked each with a deeply carved cross. It would seem that here, during the religious wars, there once took place a conflict between Huguenots and Catholics, in which many of the latter died. The pavement of the transept has one grave-stone more near the side entrance to the right; the initials it bears are H. T. (Hernand Teillo), for he was buried here; and it was of him that Henry the Fourth, viewing his small armour, said, “I had not believed so mighty a spirit could be lodged so narrowly!”
The carving of the screen, the canons’ seats, &c. of the choir, as they are celebrated for their beauty, we wished to see nearer; but their exhibition did not lie in our cicerone’s department—he went in search of a fat woman who has the key in charge. “Monsieur,” he said, smiling as he presented her, “c’est la dame du cœur!”
The sculptor of this fairy-work was by agreement bound to sacred subjects; and only an oversight left to his own taste the adorning of the wood-work which divides the canons’ seats. The artist was acquainted with their persons and histories; and when his task was done, each found his elbow resting on an indiscreet allusion to his life or himself. Some chafed over their own grotesque portraits; a meek looking young ass dressed in canonicals gazed sympathetically in the face of another; and the most unkindly treated of all beheld his own figure in a contrite attitude, his own hands receiving an infant from the hands of a lady! We staid in the cathedral till the daylight failed; and the high roof looked loftier when we could barely distinguish where it rested on the groups of slender columns. It will be long ere we forget its beauty, and the beautiful changes of its aspect; from the time its three portals thrown open after evening service admitted the whole flood of sunset, which lit it up as for a rejoicing, till the glow had faded; which it did so slowly, as if it had been loth to leave it.
Went to bed at twelve; a violent thunder-storm; up again at three; off at four; and but that the two hotel dogs followed us and we turned back fearing to lose them, we were in a fair way for Rouen; as the roads join and we had chosen the wrong one. A beautiful sunrise and uninteresting country. Arrived at half-past eight this 17th of July at Breteuil, and its Hôtel de l’Ange, a fallen one!
Doubtful meat, sulky servants, dirty floors; windows commanding the view of a farrier’s premises, admitting the scent of the smoking hoofs, which since nine this morning have accommodated themselves to red-hot shoes; nothing to be seen but “a belvedere,” that is, a circular seat at the top of a mound, which having climbed, we may look at the road we have travelled. Starved with the semblance of a dinner, disgusted with the stairs which act as fowl-house, and some of whose steps the bonne, to prove her cleanliness, scraped with a dinner knife! Walked out, weary of the farrier, the two comrades who assist, and the boy who dusts the flies away, and were driven back by the still dirtier town.