In and out of Three Normandy Inns

by Anna Bowman Dodd

There was a scurrying and scampering up the wide steps to the dining room, and a hasty settling into the long rows of chairs. Presently madame herself would appear, bearing the huge dish. And the omelette—the omelette, unlike the pilgrims, would be found to be always the same—melting, juicy, golden, luscious, and above all hot!

The noon-day table d'hôte was always a sight to see. Many of the pilgrim-tourists came up to the Mont merely to pass the day, or to stop the night; the midday meal was therefore certain to be the liveliest of all the repasts.

The cloth was spread in a high, white, sunlit room. It was a trifle bare, this room, in spite of the walls being covered with pictures, the windows with pretty draperies, and the spotless linen that covered the long table. But all temples, however richly adorned, have a more or less unfurnished aspect; and this room served not only as the dining-table, but also as a foreshadowing of the apotheosis of Madame Poulard. Here were grouped together all the trophies and tributes of a grateful world; there were portraits of her charming brunette face signed by famous admirers; there were sonnets to her culinary skill and her charms as hostess, framed; these alternated with gifts of horned beasts that had been slain in her honor, and of stuffed birds who, in life, had beguiled the long winters for her with their songs. About the wide table, the snow of the linen reflected always the same picture; there were rows of little palms in flower-pots, interspersed with fruit dishes, with the butter pats, the almonds, and raisins, in their flat plates.

The rows of faces above the cloth were more varied. The four corners of the earth were sometimes to be seen gathered together about the breakfast-table. Frenchmen of the Midi, with the skin of Spaniards and the buzz of Tartarin's ze ze in their speech; priests, lean and fat; Germans who came to see a French stronghold as defenceless as a woman's palm; the Italian, a rarer type, whose shoes, sufficiently pointed to prick, and whose choice for décolleté collars betrayed his nationality before his lisping French accent could place him indisputably beyond the Alps; herds of English—of all types—from the aristocrat, whose open-air life had colored his face with the hues of a butcher, to the pale, ascetic clerk, off on a two weeks' holiday, whose bending at his desk had given him the stoop of a scholar; with all these were mixed hordes of French provincials, chiefly of the bourgeois type, who singly, or in family parties, or in the nuptial train of sons or daughters, came up to the shrine of St. Michel.

To listen to the chatter of these tourists was to learn the last word of the world's news. As in the days before men spoke to each other across continents, and the medium of cold type had made the event of to-day the history of to-morrow, so these pilgrims talked through the one medium that alone can give a fact the real essence of freshness—the ever young, the perdurably charming human voice. It was as good as sitting out a play to watch the ever-recurring characteristics, which made certain national traits as marked as the noses on the faces of the tourists. The question, for example, on which side the Channel a pilgrim was born, was settled five seconds after he was seated at table. The way in which the butter was passed was one test; the manner of the eating of the famous omelette was another. If the tourist were a Frenchman, the neat glass butter-dish was turned into a visiting-card—a letter of introduction, a pontoon-bridge, in a word, hastily improvised to throw across the stream of conversation. "Madame" (this to the lady at the tourist's left), "me permet-elle de lui offrir le beurre?" Whereat madame bowed, smiled, accepted the golden balls as if it were a bouquet, returning the gift, a few seconds later, by the proffer of the gravy dish. Between the little ceremony of the two bows and the smiling mercis, a tentative outbreak of speech ensued, which at the end of a half-hour, had spread from bourgeois to countess, from curé to Parisian boulevardier, till the entire side of the table was in a buzz of talk. These genial people of a genial land finding themselves all in search of the same adventure, on top of a hill, away from the petty world of conventionality, remembered that speech was given to man to communicate with his fellows. And though neighbors for a brief hour, how charming such an hour can be made when into it are crowded the effervescence of personal experience, the witty exchange of comment and observation, and the agreeable conflict of thought and opinion!

On the opposite side of the table, what a contrast! There the English were seated. There was the silence of the grave. All the rigid figures sat as upright as posts. In front of these severe countenances, the butter-plates remained as fixtures; the passing of them to a neighbor would be a frightful breach of good form—besides being dangerous. Such practices, in public places, had been known to lead to things—to unspeakable things—to knowing the wrong people, to walks afterward with cads one couldn't shake off, even to marriages with the impossible! Therefore it was that the butter remained a fixture. Even between those who formed the same tourist-party, there was rarely such an act of self-forgetfulness committed as an indulgence in talk—in public. The eye is the only active organ the Englishman carries abroad with him; his talking is done by staring. What fierce scowls, what dark looks of disapproval, contempt, and dislike were levelled at the chattering Frenchmen opposite.

[Illustration: MONT SAINT MICHEL SNAIL-GATHERERS]

Across the table, the national hate perpetuated itself. It appears to be a test of patriotism, this hatred between Frenchmen and Englishmen. That strip of linen might easily have been the Channel itself; it could scarcely more effectually have separated the two nations. A whole comedy of bitterness, a drama of rivalry, and a five-act tragedy of scorn were daily played between the Briton who sat facing the south, and the Frenchman who faced north. Both, as they eyed their neighbor over the foam of their napkins, had the Island in their eye!—the Englishman to flaunt its might and glory in the teeth of the hated Gaul, and the Frenchman to return his contempt for a nation of moist barbarians.

Meanwhile, the omelette was going its rounds. It was being passed at that moment to Monsieur le Curé. He had been watching its progress with glistening eye and moistening lips. Madame Poulard, as she slipped the melting morsel beneath his elbow, had suddenly assumed the role of the penitent. Her tone was a reminder of the confessional, as of one who passed her masterpiece apologetically. She, forsooth, a sinner, to have the honor of ministering to the carnal needs of a son of the Church!

The son of the Church took two heaping spoonfuls. His eye gave her, with his smile, the benediction of his gratitude, even before he had tasted of the luscious compound.