Chapter XII
LE PUY
One of the finest things about a French city is the view of it from afar off. Le Puy is especially distinguished in this regard. You approach it from the altitudes and you see it lying in a basin formed by the hills, gleaming, picturesque, many spired—in fact, beautiful. The evening sun was upon it as we approached, which, I think, gave it an added charm.
We were coasting slowly down into this sunset city when we noticed some old women in front of a cottage, making lace. We had reached the lacemaking district of the Auvergne. We stopped and examined their work and eventually bought some of it and photographed them and went on down into the city. Every little way other old women in front of humble cottages were weaving lace. How their fingers did make the little bobbins fly!
I had never heard of a puy (pronounced "pwee") before we went to the Auvergne and I should never have guessed what it was from its name. A puy is a natural spire, or cone, of volcanic stone, shooting straight up into the air for several hundred or several thousand feet, often slim and with perpendicular sides. Perhaps we should call them "needles." I seem to remember that we have something of the kind in Arizona known by that name.
The Auvergne has been a regular puy factory in its time. It was in the Quaternary era, and they were volcanic chimneys in the day of their first usefulness. Later—a good deal later—probably several million years, when those flues from the lower regions had become filled up and solidified, pious persons began building churches on the tops of them, which would seem pretty hazardous, for if one of those chimneys ever took a notion to blow out, it would certainly lift the church sky high. Here at Le Puy the chimney that gives it its name is a slender cone two hundred and eighty feet high, with what is said to be a curious tenth-century church on the very tip of it. We were willing to take it for granted. There are about five hundred steps to climb, and there is a good deal of climbing in Le Puy besides that item. We looked up to it, and across to it, and later—when we were leaving—down to it from another higher point. I don't know why churches should be put in such inconvenient places—to test piety, maybe. I am naturally a pious person, but when I think of the piety that has labored up and down those steps through rain and shine and cold and heat for a thousand years I suffer.
We did climb the stair of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Puy, which sweeps upward in broad majesty, like a ladder to heaven. There are over a hundred steps, and they were originally designed so the overflow congregation could occupy them and look into the church and see the officiating priest. An architectural change has made this impossible to-day, so perhaps the congregation no longer overflows. In fact, there was a time when great pilgrimages were made to Notre Dame du Puy, and it was then that the steps were filled. There are little shops on each rise of this great flight—ascending with it—shops where religious charms and the like are sold. At the earlier period the merchants displayed their wares on small tables, and the street is called Rue des Tables to this day.
The church is built of black and white stone, and has a curiously Turkish look. It all seems very foreign to France, and indeed the whole place was not unlike a mosque, though more somber, less inviting. It was built in the twelfth century, and under its porch are two of the original cedar doors, with Latin inscriptions.
I am sure Le Puy is a religious place. On every high point there is a church or a saint, or something inspiring. A statue of Notre Dame de France is on the highest point of all, four hundred and thirty-five feet above the town. This statue was cast from the metal of two hundred Russian cannons taken at Sebastopol. You can ascend to it by some six or seven hundred steps cut in the solid rock. We did not go up there, either. Even the statement that we could ascend another flight of steps inside the statue and stand in its very head did not tempt us. Americans have been spoiled for these things. The lift has made loafers of us all.