CHAPTER V.
Tournus—Greuze’s grave—Mâcon—The walking Wedding—Retirement of a Count of Mâcon, with thirty Knights, to the Abbey of Cluny—Dealings of his Successor with evil Spirits—His exit from Earth in the Car of a black Visitor—His Son turning Monk through fear—The County sold by his Daughter Alice to France—Bloodless occupation of Mâcon by the Huguenots—Mâcon retaken through bribery by the Marshal of Tavannes—Madame de Tavannes’ mode of increasing her Revenues—Sauteries de Mâcon—Farce of St. Poinct—Assassination of Huguenot Prisoners—Sang froid of Catholic Dames—A Russian Noble—Villefranche—Privilege granted to its married Men—Descent into Lyons—Monastère des deux Amans, supposed Herod and Herodias—Fortress of Pierre Encise—The Prison of Cinq Mars—Fort commanding the Croix Rousse—Homage paid to the wooden Statue of 1550—Hôtel de l’Europe—View of Fourvières—Its Church escaping violation throughout the Revolution—The Antiquaille on the site of the Palace where Germanicus was born—Traces of fire in Nero’s time—Recollections of Princess Mary of Württemberg—Her love of Art to the last—Nourrit’s Funeral—A Racer’s determination to trot—Going to races—Mistaken for a Candidate—Perrache—Horses, riders, and accoutrements—Triumph of the King’s Fête—A Boat upset—The Tower of the fair German-Croix Rousse—Wretchedness of the Operatives—Causes of Insurrection in 1831—The most ancient Monastery in Gaul—Church of Aisnay.
Tournus, Hôtel de l’Europe,
23d April.
Arrived here last evening, having left the inn yard at Chalons under the inspection of all the guests assembled there for breakfast. Remembered, when we had crossed the bridge, having left no address for my bonnet, which is to be sent after me to Mâcon; and were obliged to ride back.
From Chalons to Sennecey, two posts; a long fertile plain bounded by hills; to the left, in the distance, the Swiss mountains. The only sights at dirty Sennecey, a horridly gigantic head grinning with its tongue out, transplanted from some fountain to the wall of the first house, and a very old fort at its extremity, within whose walls the parish church has been lately erected. The extensive plain which again succeeds is skirted by nearer and wooded hills, whose shade, as we ascended them, made a pleasant contrast to the burning, treeless flat below. We let poor Fanny drink from a clear stream gushing forth at the foot, over which has been built a neat lavoir. As we walked the horses up the steep, the view bespoke more comfort and plenty than does any part of France I have yet travelled. Green meadows and fruit trees in flower, and villages dotting valley and rising ground, reminded me of England; from the summit the prospect was enchanting. The descent before us was rapid, and a few crags made a bold foreground, as did the Swiss mountains a splendid distance. Tournus rose in the plain, with its old church towers and grey abbey, and suspended bridge across the Saône, whose shores, seen for many a mile of its windings, merit their name of “bords fleuris.” This is one of the very best inns we have yet rested in; close to the bridge and the river; in all respects superior to its rival, the Sauvage, which is at the entrance of the town in a dull and dirty situation: but, as it pays postilions at a ruinous rate, attracts the larger proportion of post carriages. My indifferent health alters our destination, for, dreading the heat of an Italian summer, we go hence to Switzerland instead of Nismes. Here we remain some days for letters, and to give rest to our horses, though they appear to require none. Our most intimate acquaintance is a fat gentleman, who is anxious we should take a furnished château in these environs, which has its own private theatre, (he has discovered D——’s taste already,) and, with grounds and large vineyard, is to be let for thirty pounds a year; and an old soldier of the empire, one of the few returned from Moscow, who holds young France in great contempt, and showed us the scar of a lance thrust in his throat; and a sabre cut which crippled his hand: two of the six wounds for which a grateful country bestows on him a pension of eight sous a day. Do not suppose him a beggar, or one to whom you could presume to offer money. Before he was drawn for the conscription he was a carpenter. After his military life, unable to return to his first trade, he took up another, and is now a carrier, and transports goods in his cariole from Tournus to the villages surrounding it. We made acquaintance in the stable, where I had gone to see Fanny luxuriously rolling on her clean straw; and he particularly prides himself on being divested of all prejudices belonging to the untravelled. Greuze, the painter of the sweet family-pieces we have so often admired in the Louvre, was born at Tournus; in the church is a monument erected in his honour.
27th April, Mâcon.
We loitered away the fine weather at Tournus, and took to-day the melancholy road hither, with a north-east wind which whirled its dust in our faces, and made us shiver, as we rode up and down long hills, which succeed each other without view or interest. We met a wedding trudging along a little path which wound through the clods of a ploughed field, and crossing the high road and ourselves in the direction of a village. Three fiddles preceded bride and bridegroom, who walked arm in arm, and half a dozen couples of friends and relatives followed; we made a bow to the bride, who was very plain and looked very proud. The fiddlers were conscientiously playing with all their might, and we heard the sharp, squeaking notes, “like the cracked treble of an old man’s voice,” long after we lost sight of them. The female peasantry hereabouts wear a strange kind of tiny hat tied on the top of the head, and the white cap: it is about large enough to fit that of a doll, and above a fair face might be picturesque, but worn over weather-beaten features, which the “foreign aid of ornament cannot serve,” adds to their natural ugliness; and being so small as barely to shade one eye, affords no protection against the burning summer. The Hôtel de l’Europe where we are lodged is a good inn situated on the quay: the view is pretty across the broad river, and to the plains beyond, and bounded by the Alps. The inn has good beds and civil masters, but a bad cook. We dined to-day at the table d’hôte, which consisted of only two besides ourselves, young men of no very brilliant intellect, for one asked the waiter whether the radishes served at table were of this or last year’s growth; and nothing could persuade the other that the insurrection of the Lyons workmen was not suscitated by the English, with a view to destroy the silk-trade. There is an old horse in these stables thirty-two years of age, they tell me once a favourite charger of Napoleon.
Mâcon is a very ancient town, and was of importance even in Cæsar’s time. Under the first race of French kings it formed part of the kingdom of Burgundy; under the second race the Counts of Mâcon had insensibly become hereditary, and after the reign of Hugues Capet, one of these, yielding to the devotional feelings which took sudden and absorbing possession of his mind, retired with his sons and thirty knights to the monastery of Cluny, where they assumed the cowl, while at the same time their wives became nuns in the abbey of Marcigny. The county of Mâcon then again formed part of Burgundy, and in 1245 it was sold to St. Louis, King of France, by Alice, who had inherited it from her father and brother.
The parent of the Countess Alice had, it was said, dark dealings with bad spirits; and choosing to place no bridle on his love of enjoyment, laid violent hands on property belonging to the two chapters of Mâcon, and to the abbey of Cluny. The hour of reckoning came, and a black man of fearful exterior appeared one day, and summoned the count at the foot of his palace stair. Forced to obey, he mounted, at his silent companion’s sign, a kind of car, and thereupon miraculously disappeared from his wondering subjects. His cries of despair were heard and lost in the distance. “Had he sunk into earth, or melted in air,” they knew not; but his son, witness of this event, became a monk, and ceded the county to his sister Alice, who had espoused a prince of the blood of France, and her wishes according with her husband’s, sold to Louis the holy king, a domain whose unholy lords ended so fatally. The palace was allowed to go to decay, and in the sixteenth century its ruined walls were still visible within the citadel which was in the centre of the town. The Countess Alice retired to the Abbaye des Lis near Melun, and died its abbess. Long after, in the year 1562, the Huguenots had obtained possession of Mâcon with little violence, and no shedding of blood. The Marshal of Tavannes several times, and each unsuccessfully, attempted to retake the town, until at last he entered it by the means of traitors bought over. Notwithstanding, in each street a combat awaited him, but the Huguenot party, weaker than his own, and unprepared, wasted its bravery. With the victorious troops there re-entered the town a number of women, who, on account of their shameful lives, had been expelled thence, as well as the priests, in whose habitations many of them had been found: they served to point out the houses belonging to men of the Huguenot creed, particularly of those who had been active in driving them forth.
The butchery which took place would be too horrid for minute detail; and by means of merciless pillage, Tavannes and other leaders made or augmented their fortunes. Madame de Tavannes was noted for being particularly clever in discovering in houses, which already seemed sacked, the hiding-places of plate, jewels and linen, with all which Mâcon at this time was better supplied than any town in France. The mournfully famous Sauteries de Mâcon took place when Tavannes, having departed, left in his place as governor, a certain St. Poinct, son of a woman who asserted that a priest was his father. This man was in the habit of terminating pastimes and festivals, to which he had invited all the Catholic ladies of the town, by inquiring if the farce were ready to be acted (it has since been called the farce of St. Poinct); and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, he led the way to the bridge—I believe the very same which still crosses from Mâcon to Bresse, built of stone, with thirteen arches. Hither by his command, one or two, sometimes more, of the Huguenot prisoners had already been summoned; and when St. Poinct arrived, surrounded by ladies richly attired, he would enter into gay conversation, joke with them, and give them hope of pardon, till at his well-known signal they were seized and cast from the bridge into the river. It does no honour to the Catholic dames and damsels of the day, that D’Aubigné wrote that “this man could instil into the minds of females, even maids and children, with the fruits and wines of his desserts, such feelings as taught them to look on without pity at the execution of a Huguenot.” Last night there arrived a Russian noble, with his train of serfs. The north-east wind blew bitterly, yet by the master’s order the groom, who had in some wise offended, passed the hours till morning, shivering on the box of the travelling-carriage. One of the hôtel waiters in pity carried him a bottle of wine, but as he passed
“Betwixt the wind and his nobility,”
the Russian interfered, the servant received a reprimand, and the serf no wine.
28th April.
From Mâcon to Villefranche the country improving; the low hills on the right relieve the eye, barren as they are. At St. George de Rognain’s, through which we passed, it was fair-day, and the streets so crowded, that we were forced to proceed at a slow walk,—stared, laughed, and hooted at, with what patience we might. At Villefranche it was market-day, and our progress was impeded by droves of horned cattle along the road: found, when we arrived, all the good rooms occupied at the post-house, therefore pay high prices for bad accommodation. We dined at the same table with a gentleman who has travelled on horseback from Dijon hither, and complains of the fatigue piteously! Humbert the Fourth, sire de Beaujeu, who died in 1202, singularly privileged the husbands of Villefranche, allowing them to beat their wives till the blood flowed, provided they did not die!!
29th April.
From Villefranche to Anse,
La plus belle lieue de France,
says the popular rhyme, and truly as we rode it, this warm, lovely morning, it was fair and fertile beyond any country we have travelled over. The high grounds on the right covered with vineyards; on the left, the meadows rich and green, and the Saône—a sheet of silver, and enough hill to give the scenery the boldness it would want otherwise.
Droves of oxen again on their way to supply Lyons; their drivers not more civil than yesterday,—for they merely said they were dangerous, without an attempt to leave us room at either side of the broad road; and their being savage was a likely consequence of the heat, and their fatigue—joined to the blows of the men, and the bites of their dogs. We kept in the rear till they opened their ranks themselves, and then cantered through this most unromantic peril. Our next meeting was with a runaway cow! galloping at full speed from her master, whom her unceremonious haste had commenced by overturning at the top of the hill, and who was making vain efforts to come up with her. As we left valiantly as much room with as little delay as possible for the fugitive, two post-carriages passed us, their inmates asleep as usual. We have not yet met two travellers with their eyes open.
We passed Anse, and its bridge over the narrow river, which is perhaps a branch of the Saône:—there is an air of comfort about the habitations of the poor, not visible in the north of France or nearer Paris. We noticed that the improvement commenced near Chalons. At Anse the cottages have neatly-enclosed gardens, gay with flowers and fruit trees; the sides of the Grande Route, which here turns abruptly towards the high hill which towers between it and Lyons, is bordered by poplars and willows; the green lanes, branching from it, have hedges, now white with hawthorn; and the peach-trees, which it is here the custom to plant between the rows of vine, are covered with their delicate blossoms. We remarked, that nowhere had we noticed so many fine châteaux as we saw dotting the country here; either placed, in commanding situations, on the hills to the right, or nestled in the nooks of the Mount d’Or itself, which we were ascending. Perhaps this accounts for the happier aspect of the dwellings of the poor: they are not, like those in Normandy, long, unmeaning buildings, with mansarde roofs; but for the most part extremely picturesque, built with high peaked turrets,—probably in the architecture of Henry the Fourth’s time. The steep road is uneven and stony, and we suffered from its dust, as well as the heat of the day; but the view of the country to the left, and that we were leaving behind, was at every step lovelier, and when we reached the summit, that of Lyons and its environs which lay below, in no degree inferior to it, though a thick haze shut out the Swiss mountains. We asked three men, within the space of five minutes, what might be the distance to Lyons: the first said two leagues; the second, one; and the third, three. The descent is long and rapid, passing some wild and beautiful gorges of the mountain, where the summer residences of the Lyonnese citizens are thickly scattered, and when we reached the bottom we were on the bank of the Saône, its windings on the left hand leading among green shores, and to the Isle Barbe, and on the right into Lyons. The Faubourg de Vaise, through which the grande route runs, gives no very favourable first impression. We believed that we had mistaken our way; but the crooked, narrow streets opened at last on the fine quay, and the finest town-view ever seen. We both made an exclamation of surprise at its beauty, which increased as we proceeded; but my enjoyment of which Fanny very much interfered with, as she chose to start more violently than ever, and the busy quays have often no barrier between them and the river below but rare placed curbed stones; sometimes not even these. We passed the ruined Monastery des Deux Amans, a Gothic building, of which little remains but the walls and a few windows with light and elegant tracery. It was of the order of St. Francis, and took its name from a tomb without an inscription, which existed here in the sixteenth century, and from time immemorial had been called that of the Two Lovers. Some, who exercised their erudition on the monument, affirmed it to be that of Herod, king of Judea, and his mistress Herodias, exiled to Lyons by Caligula. The high crag, which we rode beneath immediately after, starting so strangely up from the quay and among houses, with vegetation on its top, and a mere vestige of broken wall, was the seat of the strong fortress of Pierre Scise, held by the archbishops of Lyons till Henry the Fourth thought it wiser to take possession of it for the crown.
During Louis the Thirteenth’s reign, it was a state prison, and became that of Cinq Mars, whose memory Alfred de Vigny has made imperishable; another victim to the weakness of Gaston, and the jealousy of Richelieu. The rock was of considerable extent, for its fortifications were cut in its stone, and it hung over the river; but it has been blasted, and removed, to widen the quay and afford a passage for the fine road which leads in zigzags up the hill to the new fort, which commands the entire city, and whose cannon would above all find no difficulty in reducing to powder the Faubourg of the Croix Rousse, (built on a corresponding elevation on the other side of the river,) should the Croix Rousse think fit to renew its revolts of 31 and 34. At a guard-house we rode by, seeing 66th regiment on the soldiers’ caps, D—— asked news of our friend Capt. ——. His battalion is not here, but is expected shortly, and we have decided on remaining, as “we three” have not met for years.
After passing the rock of Pierre Scise, there is another and lower crag, on which are the rotting remains of a wooden statue. The people merely know that it is the bon homme de Vaise, or Monsieur de la Roche, who, in days of yore, gave marriage portions to their daughters, as is exemplified by the large wooden purse he holds in his hand. I find that he was an “échevin” of Lyons, of German family: his name was John Fleberg, and he had been so successful in commerce, that when the domains of the traitor Constable of Bourbon were confiscated to the crown, he was enabled to purchase various châteaux and estates situated in the neighbourhood of Lyons, and freed the inhabitants of Vaise of various seignorial exactions, which had before lain heavily on them.
As the statue has stood and mouldered on its present pedestal since the year 1550, or 1560, it has been thrown down by storm or accident several times, and on such occasions re-installed with great ceremony. It was long the custom to carry it in procession, once a year, through the streets, repaired and fresh painted, and adorned with flowers; but it has been discontinued of late, and the head and one arm are now broken away. We continued to ride along the quay till we had passed the cathedral, and crossing the second of the splendid suspension bridges which traverse the Saône, arrived at the Hôtel de l’Europe, whose entrance is from the Place Bellecour, and whose superb rooms look on the river, and the bridges of Foy and Fourvières; a glorious view, with the lights and shadows of sunset on it. This 30th of April has been more like August. We have arrived heated and tired, but the horses neither: both very hungry, and little Fanny rolling: which from the character we purposely give her, she has room to do in comfort, French ‘cochers’ standing in awe of quadrupeds.
1st of May.
I think a Frenchman, wishing to impress a foreigner favourably, might succeed better in affording him a glimpse of Lyons, than the same of Paris. Fancy yourself for a moment standing at one of these windows, the atmosphere more clear than further northward in France. The old church on the opposite bank of the Saône, with two low massive towers, each surmounted by a cross, is St. Jean, the cathedral, in part erected during the reign of Philip Augustus, contemporary of Richard Cœur de Lion. The ugly ruinous looking building adjoining is the Archevêché. Pius the Seventh, on his way to crown Napoleon, in Paris, Napoleon, on his road to be crowned in Italy, slept here! Behind St. Jean rise vineyards and fruit gardens in steep terraces, gay with white blossom and delicate verdure,—a background from which the grey cathedral stands darkly out. Directly above, on the extreme summit of the hill, is the small church of Notre Dame des Fourvières, remarkable for having escaped the ravages of the old revolution, during the whole of which it remained closed, and was re-opened by Pius the Seventh. A square tower built near it, on the same platform, in some degree hurting the effect of the tiny steeple, is a new and useless observatory. A little to the left, and lower on the hill, a long building with three pavilions, half concealed among old trees, is the Antiquaille, now an hospital and house of refuge: built on the site—it is said on the foundations—of the palace of the emperors, where Germanicus was born. Fourvières took its name from a splendid market erected there in Trajan’s reign, and called Forum Vetus. On the hill have been found at various times, pieces of fused metal and calcined stones, traces of the great fire which ruined the city in the time of Nero. The heights of Foy join those of Fourvières, and are equally bold, but more barren. When the poor young Princess Mary of Württemberg came to Lyons on her way to Pisa, where she died, she insisted on painting this view, though she did so supported by cushions. The landlord’s sister showed me her apartments, which join ours: she says the Princess was so gentle and uncomplaining, her husband so attached to her, and both she and the Prince so fond of their infant, whose sleeping place was in a cabinet adjoining their bed-chamber, and whom they were hanging over and admiring twenty times a-day, that it was heart-breaking to see her increasing feebleness. When they continued their journey, he would suffer no other person to give the assistance necessary, but himself carried her down the hôtel stairs, and lifted her into the carriage. She was an artist to the last; but a day or two before her decease at Pisa, cheered by warmth and sunshine, she asked for a pencil, and commenced a sketch of the fine view from the windows. “The ruling passion was strong in death.” When the Prince again passed through Lyons, on his return to Paris, without her, his appearance was so changed, that (the people of the inn say) they barely recognized him.
I have just been summoned to the Hôtel Terrace, which looks on the Place Bellecour, to see the passage of Nourrit’s funeral procession. His body had arrived at Lyons in a travelling carriage, and (transferred to a hearse only to cross the city) will again be deposited in a coach at its gates, and hurried up to Paris. The hearse was preceded by military, with music and drums muffled, and the pall covered with crowns of flowers, offerings made by the towns he has thus been borne through since Naples; but the two postilions, who in their common dress rode the hearse horses, were out of character with its plumes and draperies. A crowd of Lyons artists and of Nourrit’s admirers followed, but the archbishop has refused religious rites to the actor.
This is a most lovely night, like one in summer, and Lyons looks proud and imposing seen through the partial obscurity. The fine deep toll of the cathedral bell, and the discharges of cannon echoed back from the range of hills, and carried along by the dark river, adds to its effect. To-morrow, the fête of St. Philip, there will be gay rejoicings. We intend riding to see the races at La Perrache; for last year a horse who had excited great hopes, in the hour of trial, despite whip and spur, went round the course at a trot.
May 2nd.
As we were about to mount our horses in the inn yard this morning, a considerable crowd assembled to gaze at us, and completely filled the archway; so that when we attempted to ride out at it, the porter was obliged to employ rough words, as well as entreaties, and his wife whispered in my ear, that the people were so curious, because one of them had told the rest that I had arrived in Lyons for the sole purpose of riding one of these races. We could do nothing but move very slowly and patiently among the wide-eyed and open-mouthed spectators. I heard some one say close to me in a tone of contemptuous pity, “Sure, your honour, the likes of them knows no better,” and looking round, wondering to find so perfect a brogue so far from its birthplace, the speaker again replied to the expression of my face, “Is it where I come from, your honour? why then, from Cuffe-street,” and I saw a very red round face, with a merry blue eye, belonging to an Irishman with a wooden leg. Paddy has been a sailor, first in the English, then in the French service; but to quiet his conscience, which might reproach him with this caprice of which he has been guilty, he yields to the first the palm of superiority, which he says “altogether proceeds from the system of flogging,” as “the French navy will never flourish without that same.” He is now a good shoemaker, or rather he might be, for, like many of his countrymen, he abhors control; and prefers living on the good will of his acquaintances, in which he succeeds pretty well, as he is allowed to walk in and out of the hôtel yard, where his humour and appearance seldom fail to attract some traveller’s notice, though he never begs. When hunger presses and travellers have become scarce, he takes his line and his basket to the river and lives uncomplainingly on scanty fare till the good times come round again. As he is improvident, so he is popular: to-day with the silver D—— gave him, he went away in company of the inhabitants of the stable invited by him to share the treat. You see he keeps up his country’s character for hospitality.
We crossed the Place Bellecour on our way to the races, a noble square from its extent; its fine equestrian statue of Louis the Fourteenth, the view of the heights of Foy and Fourvières seen above the tall houses and the rows of “time honoured” lime trees, which make a shady promenade on its southern side. The review took place here. The race-ground is a plain forming the centre of a beauteous panorama. We took, to arrive there, the narrow street which leads to a place looking sufficiently desert and uncared for to be a fitting spot for the purpose it is put to, when the execution of a criminal takes place in Lyons; beyond is a noble boulevard, stretching from river to river, the Rhone to the Saône. Crossing this we almost directly came on the plain of Perrache.
Here at the starting place was erected a booth; and the ladies and authorities of Lyons, the préfet, &c., occupied seats prepared for them, the former elegantly attired, and the latter wearing a look of great interest, and (what was more wonderful still) of gravity. Persons on horseback and on foot were admitted within the well-sanded circle, and without it were ranged a line of gay equipages; next, under the tricoloured flag, came forth the competitors, two by two, a poster with a tied up tail, a cart-horse with a long flowing one, a thin light pony, a broken down English hunter, who, notwithstanding age and infirmities, I thought would have won, as the “spirit was willing,” but he was matched against the poster, and the last named kept up his awkward canter longest: and others, whose appearance, from being less decided, was not more favourable. There were six in all; the rider of the English horse had the least ludicrous dress, for he had imitated, though not faithfully, that of an English jockey, the rest had followed their own various tastes. He of the pony wore loose trousers of dingy white and a short open red jacket, both seamed and embroidered with tarnished gold, and his shoulders adorned with epaulettes, which seemed to have been ill-used in battle. At his saddle-bow he carried holsters; his legs had long leather leggins, and his feet shoes with spurs, but they rested in no stirrups. The rider of the poster wore a very long blue jacket covering his hips, long cloth pantaloons and no spurs, and a broad orange-coloured sash swathed him round even from under his arms.
The peasant was a very fat man, and he too had chosen a red jacket and loose white trousers, but the latter were confined in a pair of Wellington boots drawn up over them, and to these the wearer had added tops of mock-yellow morocco.
The first race was between the last mentioned and the pony, for the highest prize; and these two first made their appearance, all the horses were ticketed; a colossal number inscribed on a white card which hung below the left ear—these were (1) and (2); the jockeys came forward, and with great dignity and much trouble, placed themselves on a line, after the cart-horse, who was vicious, had backed to kick the pony. Then the word was given, and they leaned back to the tails, pulled with one hand and flogged with the other and started. We had no trouble in following within the circle sufficiently close to see all the interesting events of the race. The pony started a little, and his rider slipped from the saddle to the sand, which was thick enough to prevent injury; during this time the cart-horse gained on him and the peasant won. The prize was 600 francs. I heard a spectator bet 10 francs on the pony previous to his misadventure.
The other races very much resembled this one, the horses at starting crossed each other, and the jockeys rode them against the ropes at the turn of the course; and each time, “when the hurly-burly was done,” military music greeted the victor beneath the tricoloured flag. When it was all over, the three winners, preceded by the band of the horse-artillery, rode in triumph round the course. The self-satisfied air of the peasant as he bowed the whole way the head at the back of which hung the jockey-cap, was the most amusing sight possible. The sun was burning, and the excessive heat, and the fatigue of laughing so much, made us glad to ride home to rest.
The fireworks were splendid, and their effect enhanced by a sky which threatened storm. The troops, ranged along both quays of the Saône, kept up a harmless fire of those brilliant white stars which momentarily lighted up the hills and the city with a lustre of the purity, but more than the brightness, of moonshine. They were answered by other soldiers posted on the height, and at intervals by the cannon from the fort of Fourvières and the town; the country and the old cathedral appeared and vanished by turns through the smoke and in the varying light. On the bridge opposite was a palace of diamonds; it brought to my memory one I saw at Rosny, at a fête given in honour of the young Duke of Bordeaux, it was so like; there was only the change of cypher: and last night the “L.” burned brightly, but the P. went totally out. The bouquet went up almost beneath our windows, and sprang, as it seemed to the clouds, a sheet of fire, each branch as it burst scattering a shower, variously and gorgeously coloured, and illuminating the town, during the few moments it lasted, more perfectly than did the day’s sunshine. The crowd uttered an exclamation of applause. I had no idea, at the time, that the cries of the dying were mingled with it. Twelve persons of the working-class, to see the feu-d’artifice better, went out on the Saône in one of their narrow and dangerous batelets. They made a sudden movement as the bouquet rose, and the boat overturned! Their cries were heard, and attempts to rescue them made, which proved vain in the confusion and partial darkness. Eight contrived to reach the shore—the remaining four went down; they formed an entire family—mother, son, daughter, and the husband, to whom she had been lately married.
3rd May.
As we were standing at the window yesterday morning, the two expected battalions of the 66th regiment passed under it, and D—— ran down stairs to ask news of his friend. As it happened, he accosted a soldier of Capt. de ——’s own company. He is still on leave in Paris, and the man did not know the precise time of his return. This morning we started on an expedition we failed to accomplish; for I wished to see the Isle Barbe, and the quays on this side the Saône which lead thither become very narrow, and are high above the water without curb stone or parapet, and therefore too perilous for Fanny, who full of spirit started round from each individual we met, we took the first narrow road which led up the hill; but, ere we did so, passed the site of a romantic story, whose exact date is unknown to me.
Nearly opposite the diminished rock on which the fortress of Pierre Scise or Encise once stood advanced into the water, there is still a tower, which with the remains of a moat and drawbridge belongs to a house called, from its present owner, “Maison Vouti.” A French nobleman, a native of Lyons, had quitted it to seek his fortunes in Germany, where he became not only rich, but placed and favoured at court.
In the midst of his prosperity he contracted an unfortunate attachment to a low-born maiden, whose grace and beauty did not, in German eyes, excuse her origin. He married her; but, unable to bear the disgrace and contempt which fell upon him, he broke all the ties which attached him to her country, and conveyed her to Lyons, where it was his will to live in almost perfect solitude. The bride pined in her lonely habitation, rendered sadder by the now morose temper of the disappointed noble. She seemed to recover a portion of her former gaiety only during the visits of a young man, her husband’s sole friend and intimate. These visits became by degrees more frequent, and at last excited unpleasant feelings in the husband’s mind. His jealousy once roused, intrigues and false political accusations enclosed his former associate within the fortress walls, while his young wife was conducted to the tower, which still bears the name of “Tour de la Belle Allemande.”
Whether she too felt the love with which she had inspired the prisoner, or whether indignation at her own fate and pity for his only prompted her, the chronicler does not tell; but from the summit of her gaol-tower she constantly looked towards Pierre Encise. At last the day came on which the young man, profiting by a moment in which the usual watchfulness had failed, threw himself from a window, of which he had sawed the bar, into the river. The current of the Saône is not strong, and he was a skilful swimmer, and arrived at the opposite shore in safety. She had watched his progress in hope and agony; uttering cries he could not hear, and making signs of encouragement he failed to see during his strife with the water. At length he was near, approaching to free her, and she repeated her signs; and her husband’s guards, who had watched her strange motions in wonder, now at last discovered their object. As he arrived at the foot of the tower, and stretched forth his arms to her,—as she stooped over the battlement to greet him—he fell—the shot had been faithfully and fatally aimed.
The steep stony road (up which D—— led Grizzle, and little Fanny gaily carried me) led among winding lanes and stone walls to the summit of the hill, and the Croix Rousse, which is the Faubourg of Lyons, exclusively occupied by silk weavers, and the head-quarters of the insurrection. Pauche the landlord said, when we returned, that those who knew the town and its inhabitants better than ourselves would scarcely venture there. We met with no incivility: a few squalid faces looked out in wonder, for the descent to the quay for foot passengers is by flights of twenty or thirty steps each; and between these the horse-road winds, still so steep, that we had some difficulty in leading the horses. As we passed the operatives’ dwellings we agreed that the temptation of seeing their work in progress was not sufficiently strong to lead us within; most were employed with their doors open, to admit as much air as the narrow street and hot day suffered to circulate: that which issued forth was infected; and within, besides the heavy loom and its pale master, there seemed barely room for the few articles of wretched furniture. On the relative position of manufacturer and workman, my informant is Mons. Pauche the landlord, who, besides the revenues of this hôtel, now possesses a landed property worth about 60,000 francs a-year, and whose vineyards yield 300 hogsheads of wine annually. He began life as a workman in the silk trade, so that his two conditions of operative and proprietor are likely to make him impartial. At this moment the purchaser finds silk dear, both in Paris and Lyons; but precisely in the proportion that the head manufacturer’s profits increase, those of the workman decline. The former takes advantage of the latter’s necessities; offers reduced prices, and can afford the delay, if the workman demurs, which the wants of his family prevent his doing long, and, having food to buy and rent to pay, he will accept fifteen or even twelve sous for his long day’s labour. At present, the usual remuneration is twenty-two sous, the wife earns twelve, the children so little that they do not lighten the burthen; but supposing no incumbrances, thirty-four sous, the price of the man and woman’s work, can hardly enable them to exist and pay house-rent, which is dear in Lyons.
The disturbances of November 1831 had in their commencement no reference to politics. The workmen, whose wages were miserably low, demanded an augmentation. Their masters summoned them before the Préfet, and the increase was agreed on in his presence. The day of payment arrived; the manufacturers, in greater part, refused to adhere to their engagements, and the workmen, meeting in groups of four, had in a short time in various parts of the city gathered to the number of many thousands; bearing on their banners the motto, “Vivre en travaillant ou mourir en combattant.”
In the conflict which followed, the 66th, then the only regiment in Lyons, lost two hundred men and thirteen officers. It was almost totally unsupported; as the greater part of the National Guard, taken from the class of which were the insurgents, refused to act against them.
You know that Lyons is famous for its black and crimson dyes; it is strange that this superiority should depend on the waters of the Rhone, all parts of which, as it flows through Lyons, have not a similar effect. In one place, for instance, the black dye attains its perfection; a hundred yards further it fails. The workmen attribute this to peculiar properties of springs in the bed of the river.
The most ancient monastery in this, probably in any part of Gaul, was that of the Isle Barbe, built in the time of the Emperor Constantine, about the year 300; its first inhabitants were a few fugitive Christians, who had fled thence from Lyons, and from the troops of the Emperor Severus.
The church of Aisnay, which we passed on our ride from the Place Bellecour to La Perrache, is built on the foundations of the temple raised by the sixty tribes of Gaul. That which exists, of partly Gothic partly Roman architecture, is such as it was repaired in the eleventh century, after the ravages of the Saracens. Long before, Queen Brunehaud had ceded to the monks, who possessed a small hermitage near, the ruins of the edifice dedicated “to Rome and to Augustus,” on which they built a magnificent church; but this, as I said, was pillaged and destroyed in part by the barbarians. The four massive granite columns which sustain the roof are, however, believed to have belonged to the Roman temple.