The Nantes Revolution—Régnier—Paimbœuf—Landlords and travellers—Jacomety—The native of la Guadeloupe and his wife—Gull shooting—Axiom for sea-bird shooting—The captain of la Pauline—Woman and swallow—Lovers' superstition—Getting under sail
Nantes, like Paris, had had its revolution; its Raguse, who had given orders to fire upon the people; and its people, who had crushed Raguse. They pointed out houses to me that were almost as much marked as the Louvre or the Institut; the firing was so well maintained by the Royal troops that a young man named Petit had from a single discharge received three bullets in his arm, one in his chest and a gunshot wound right down his face; the latter had been fired from a window by a compatriot of his. The wounded man was recovering well; but one of his friends who had only received a charge of buckshot was at the point of death. If he died, he would make the eleventh who had lost his life in that secondary affray.
Régnier—who was at that time a charming comedian and who later became one of the main pillars of the Comédie-Française—happened to be at Nantes at the time, giving a series of representations, that were much run after.
I spent two or three days in the midst of old recollections of the Revolution, renewed for me by M. Villenave, who, as we know, nearly played the part of victim in the great drama composed by the Convention, which was put into action by Carrier. If there is a name on earth execrated by the public, it is that of Carrier!
I left Nantes for Paimbœuf. I had only seen the sea at Havre, where I was told it scarcely deserved the name; so I was curious to behold a real sea, a stormy sea, one which even sailors call la mer sauvage. I do not know anything more melancholy on earth than that band of houses, called Paimbœuf, which fringes the Loire for five or six hundred yards! One seems to be a thousand miles from Paris, and outside the pale of civilisation, confronted with these brave fellows who live by a river as wide as a sea almost, and who seem occupied with nothing outside the mending of their nets and going fishing. I wondered how the revolutions of the Parisian crater could possibly matter to them, seeing that its lava could not reach them, nor could they ever see even its flame or smoke.
But that did not matter to them, for at Paimbœuf they were boldly talking of another Vendean insurrection. Furthermore, the distance that separates Paimbœuf from Paris makes the very essentials of life of such a price as is beyond the conception of people in the central provinces of France to realise. The traveller who has heard of the cheapness of its fish; of lobsters being sold at six to eight sous, turbots at two francs, and skates—which no one will eat—and shrimps being flung at your feet, is labouring under a mythical delusion: for him, the prices at inns are very nearly the same all over; north, south, east and west, landlords adopt an even tariff which never lets the traveller come off too well in the matter of expenses.
We dined at the Philippe of the place, which was called Jacomety; our table d'hôte dinner cost us fifty sous—only between ten to twenty sous difference between other table-d'hôte tariffs all over the kingdom. At this meal, near me, a young, sad-looking woman was dining; or, rather, was not dining, for she ate nothing. Her husband, on her right hand, was attending to her with the solicitude of a lover, and yet, every few minutes, the breast of the lovely one in distress would heave with sobs, tears would come to her eyelids and, in spite of her efforts to restrain them, they rolled down her cheeks. I could not refrain from listening to the conversation of my two neighbours; I soon learnt that the young man was a native of Guadeloupe, and had just married this charming young woman from the neighbourhood of Tours, whom he was transplanting from the garden of France to that of the Antilles. The poor child, apart from the confidence which she had just placed in that blind side of life which we call the future, knew nothing of the country to which she was going, and, until she could have children who would suck her milk and dry her tears, she mourned for the friends and relatives she was leaving behind in the old land of Europe and, probably, for the old continent itself too. At the same table was dining the captain of the vessel which was to take the young married pair over seas; and it was from him that I learnt most of these details. They were to set sail the next day. I asked his leave to go on board and to stay till his ship sailed, which he readily granted me. The boat was at anchor between Paimbœuf and Saint-Nazaire, and was called la Pauline. She was a pretty three-masted trader with very graceful lines, and of five or six hundred tons.
I did not say anything of my plan to my two neighbours, certain that, indifferent to them as I was, the next day at the moment of leaving I should become even more to them than a fellow-countryman—namely, a friend! I spent the rest of that day by the river banks shooting at ordinary gulls and blackheaded gulls, amazed that they did not fall. A native sportsman, amused at my disappointment, whom I approached to question as to whether the Loire, like the Styx, had the property of rendering invulnerable the men and animals which bathed in its waters, informed me, to my great surprise, that, for want of the knowledge of measuring maritime distances, I was firing from double the ordinary length of range. He laid down the following rules as essential:—
Never fire at a sea-bird unless you can distinctly see its eye; when you see its eye, its body is within range of your lead.