[CHAPTER VI.]
Up the Garonne—The old Wars on its Banks—Its Boats and its Scenery—Agen—Jasmin, the last of the Troubadours—Southern Cookery and Garlic—The Black Prince in a New Light—A Dreary Pilgrimage to Pau.
A solemn imprecation is on record, uttered against the memory of the man who invented getting up by candle-light; to which some honest gentleman, fond of long lying, has appended a fellow curse, fulminated against the man who invented getting up at all. Whatever we may think of the latter commination, I suppose we shall all agree in the propriety of the former. At all events, no one ever execrated with more sincere good will the memory of the ingenious originator of candle-light turnings-out than I did, when a red ray shone through the keyhole of my bedroom, and the knuckles of—one would call him boots at home—rattled at the door, while his hoarse voice proclaimed, "Trois heures et demi,"—a most unseasonable and absurd hour certainly; but the Agen steamer, having the strong stream of the Garonne to face, makes the day as long as possible; and starts from the bridge—and a splendid bridge it is—of Bordeaux, crack at half-past four. There was no help for it; and so, leaving my parting compliments for my worthy host, I soon found myself following the truck which conveyed my small baggage, modestly stuck into the interstices of an Alp-like pile of ricketty boxes and faded valises, the property of an ancient commis voyageur, my fellow-lodger; and pacing, for the last time, the stately quays of the city of the Black Prince.
Early as it was, and pitch-dark, the steam-boat pier was crowded and bustling enough. Men with lanterns and luggage were rushing breathlessly about—and gentlemen with brushy black beards were kissing each other with true French éffusion—while a crowd of humble vintagers were being stowed away in the fore part of the boat. On the pier I observed a tent, and looking in, found myself in a genuine early breakfast shop, where I was soon accommodated with a seat by a pan of glowing charcoal. The morning was bitter cold; and a magnificent bowl of smoking coffee, bread hot from the oven, and just a nip of cognac, at the kind suggestion of the jolly motherly-looking old lady in no end of shawls, who presided over the establishment, and who pronounced it "Bon pour l'estomac, du monsieur le voyageur." Then aboard; and after the due amount of squabbling, bell-ringing, and contradictory orders, we launched forth upon the black, rushing river.
A dreary time it is waiting for the daylight of an autumnal morning, watching the pale negative lighting of the east—then the spreading of the dim approaching day—stars going out, and the outlines of hills coming in—and houses and trees, faint and comfortless, looming amid the grey, cold mist. The Garonne gradually turned from black to yellow—the genuine pea-souppy hue—and bit by bit the whole landscape came clearly into stark-staring view—but still cold and dreary-looking—until the cheering fire stood upon the hill-tops, and announced the rising sun. In half an hour the valley of the Garonne was a blaze of warmth and cheerfulness, and nothing could be more picturesquely beautiful, seen under such auspices, than the fleet of market-boats through which we threaded our way, and which were floating quietly down to Bordeaux. I dismiss the mere vegetable crafts; but the fruit-boats would have made Mr. Lance leap and sing for joy. They were piled—clustered—heaped over—with mountains of grapes bigger than big gooseberries—peaches and apricots, like thousands of ladies' cheeks—plums like pulpy, juicy cannon-balls—and melons big as the head of Gog or Magog. I could not understand how the superincumbent fruit did not crush that below; but I suppose there is a knack in piling. At all events, the boats were loaded to the gunwales with the luscious, shiny, downy, gushing-looking globules, purple and yellow, and both colours mellowed and softened by the grateful green of the clustering leaves. These boats looked like floating cornucopias. Amongst them sometimes appeared a wine-boat—one man at the head, one at the stern, and a Pyrenees of wine casks between them—while here and there we would pass a huge Noah's ark of a barge, towed by a string of labouring oxen, and steered from a platform amidships by a tiller a great deal longer, thicker, and heavier than the mast.
And now for a bit of the landscape. We have Gascony to our right, and Guienne to our left.
Here and there, then, particularly in Guienne, the Garonne is not unlike the tamer portions of the Rhine. The green vine-clothed banks rise into precipitous ridges, whitened by streaks of limestone cliff, cottages nestling in the crevices and ravines, and an occasional feudal tower crowning the topmost peak. The villages passed near the water's edge are doleful-looking places, ruinous and death-like; whitish, crumbling houses, with outside shutters invariably closed; empty and lonesome streets, and dilapidated piers, the stakes worn and washed away by the constant action of the river. Take Langon and Castres as specimens of these places: two drearier towns—more like sepulchres than towns—never nurtured owls and bats. They seem to be still lamenting the old English rule, and longing for the jolly times when stout English barons led the Gascon knights and men-at-arms on profitable forays into Limousin and Angoumais. Occasionally, however, we have a more promising and pleasing looking town. These, for the most part, are tolerably high up the river, and possess some curious and characteristic features. You will descry them, for instance, towering up from a mass of perpendicular cliffs; the open-galleried and bartizaned red houses, reared upon arches and pillars, rising from the rock; flights of stairs from the water's edge disappearing among the buildings, and strips of terraced gardens laid out on the narrow shelves and ledges of the precipice.
The ruins of old feudal castles are numerous on both sides of the river; and if the red mossy stone could speak, many a tale of desperate siege and assault it could, no doubt, tell—for these strongholds were perpetually changing masters in the wars between the French and the English and Gascons; and often, when peace subsisted between the crowns, were they attacked and harried by moss-trooping expeditions led by French Watts Fire-the-Braes, or by English Christies of the Clinthill. While, then, the steamer is slowly plodding her way up stream, turning reach after reach, and showing us another and yet another pile of feudal ruins, let us sit down here with Froissart beneath the awning, and try to gain some inkling into the warlike customs of the times when these thick-walled towers—no doubt built, as honest King James remarked, by gentlemen who were thieves in their hearts—alternately displayed the Lion Rampant and the Fleur-de-Lis.
In all the fighting of the period—I refer generally to the age of the Black Prince—there would appear to have been a great deal of chivalric courtesy and forbearance shown on either side. It was but seldom that a place was defended à outrance. If the besiegers appeared in very formidable force, the besieged usually submitted with a very good grace, marched honourably out, and had their turn next time. I cannot find that there was anything in the nature of personal animosity between the combatants, but there was great wantonness of life; and though few men were killed in downright cold blood, a man was frequently made the victim of a sort of murderous frolicsomeness, the manner of his death being suggested, by the circumstances of the moment. For instance, on one occasion, an English and Gascon garrison was besieged in Auberoche—the French having "brought from Toulouse four large machines, which cast stones into the fortress night and day, which stones demolished all the roofs of the towers, so that none within the walls dared to venture out of the vaulted rooms on the ground-floor." In this strait, a "varlet" undertook to carry letters, requesting succour, to the Earl of Derby, at Bordeaux. He was unsuccessful in getting through the French lines, and being arrested, the letters were found upon him, hung round his neck, and the poor wretch bound hand and foot, inserted in one of the stone-throwing machines. His cries for mercy all unheeded, the engine made two or three of its terrific swings, and then launched the screaming "varlet" into the air, right over the battlements of Auberoche, "so that he fell quite dead amid the other varlets, who were much terrified at it;" and presently, the French knights, riding up to the walls, shouted to the defenders: "Gentlemen, inquire of your messenger where he found the Earl of Derby, seeing that he has returned to you so speedily." But the Earl of Derby did come, and took signal vengeance. The battle, which Froissart tells in his best manner, resulted in the capture by the English of nine French viscounts, and "so many barons, squires, and knights, that there was not a man-at-arms among the English that had not for his share two or three."