Cold weather still, but sunny, and the bridge and steep road which looks on Auxerre, once passed, no view to reward for the long succession of bare hills. Near the town the vine is much cultivated, but in France its stunted stumps give no charm to scenery. Further on the soil is worse, but prodigiously manured, and they grow oats and rye in what appears a stiff red clay, lightened only by layers of flat stones, which would break English hearts and ploughs. Nothing to relieve the eye, not a bush, not a speck of green, not an habitation for miles on either side of the glaring white road; we travelled for ever up the steep rise, and down the sharp descent, which succeed as like each other and uninteresting as if all had been cast in the same mould. Fed the horses at a lone farm-house, and reached at sunset the prettier country near Lucy le Bois; for the road for about a mile passes through a young oak wood, and it was really refreshing to the sight, as we had not seen a tree for twenty-seven miles. The village stands in a sheltered and rather pretty valley, at the foot of a hill, which is a petty mountain, so thought the post horses, who toiled up it. We got in at dusk. The sharp landlady was out, and her delegates were two good civil old women, her aunt and mother-in-law, and though it is an humble inn, we had good beds and a bright fire, and an excellent dinner from the hands of poor Annette, whose province is to clean the house, attend the comers, cook the meals, wash the linen, milk the cows, make bread, cheese, and butter, and bear (she told me in confidence) the blows of the spoilt child.
When the hostess returned, we saw no more of the old people and their civility, but the fine lady and her imposition instead.
Slept at Lucy, and rode on in the morning to this town, Rouvray, a melancholy road and wretched place, but the beds, cook, and stabling of the Hôtel de l’Ancienne Poste very good. As D—— always stops to feed the horses on the way, and the wonder my costume excites becomes very annoying, I to-day took refuge in the stable, and saw there a great face in a blue night-cap, staring at me through a hole in the wall. Before reaching the town we passed a group of labourers at work, and men and women ran to the edge of the high bank above the road to look down at me. I laughed at their astonishment; a fact the foremost of the group communicated to the rest, saying, “Voilà que cela nous rit.” “Cela” does not mean a human being, so that I do not exactly know for what they took me. Mons. Digy’s printed card asserts, in English, that “Post hotel is situated in the most fine quarter of town,” which means, the dirtiest end of the long street. The wind is high, and this room smokes, so that we sit with the door ajar, and the creaking sign, which hangs just at our windows by iron links, and swings backwards and forwards, excites agreeable thoughts of dead men hung in chains. We are to remain a day or two, notwithstanding, as I am not well.
We hear there is great poverty hereabouts, yet provisions, except bread, which sells at the Paris price, are very reasonable. Meat is only eight or nine sous a pound; but the labourer receives no more than twenty-four sous for his day’s hire, and the country people, like the Irish, live almost entirely on potatoes.
19th April.
Left Rouvray for Arnay le Duc, and saw nothing which at all interested me by the way, excepting the return post horses trotting gaily home by themselves. We have fine weather at last, and so warm, that we stopped on a little plain, and sat in the shelter of one of its hillocks, thinking to do so undisturbed; but a bevy of half black Bourguignonnes, who were tending thin sheep and unsightly pigs at a distance, took up a position which commanded ours, and grinned fearfully till they drove us out. They form a very unengaging population. The women, from hard work, soon lose all trace of feminine features, and their costume is unbecoming, as their short petticoats display their bare, thick, brown ancles. Arnay le Duc is rather prettily situated on the river Arroux, in a valley, which was formerly commanded by its strong castle, of which remains but one heavy tower. The Hôtel de la Poste is exceedingly good, and through this town, for the first time, I was not hooted, as near it lives a young French lady, who rides.
20th April, Hôtel du Parc, Chalons.
Sixty miles in two days of burning weather. I feared Fanny might suffer, and we decided on remaining a day in this noisy inn, which is not an agreeable one. I believe the “Trois Faisans” to be better. The plain of Givry, which we passed over, is surrounded by an interesting country, as on the right are wooded defiles, backed by a range of bold hills; and to the left, beyond the slender white pillar raised in the meadows, (none could tell me wherefore,) the view is fertile and extensive, stretching back towards Arnay. In front lay the dirty town, once fortified. We fed our horses there, and found the inhabitants more savagely insolent than usual. When we remounted, Fanny, and even the patient Grizzel, excited by their shouts, plunged so violently that they soon cleared a way through the night-capped crowd. From the long hill above Givry, the green plains and distant heights look to advantage, as does the old château, with peaked roof and turrets, which stands by the winding river in the hollow. We next came on a broad moor, and the horses enjoyed a long gallop over turf, the first since Salisbury Plain. It is broken by a few patches of brushwood, and covered with a very beautiful purple flower, whose name is unknown to me. We saw no habitation for miles; none, indeed, till we reached its extremity, where there is a lone inn, with ruined outhouses, in a wild and solitary situation, just fitting for the last scene of a Porte St. Martin melodrama.
The road thence descends suddenly, edging a precipice, and commanding a view which is a contrast to all we have toiled through till now. We rode under abrupt banks, and fragments of reddish rock, and below was a glen, shut in by hills, or rather small stony mountains, planted with vines, wherever cultivation is not impossible. There was no verdure, for the vine stalks are yet bare of leaves, and the face of the hills is only varied by the different tints of rock and soil, and the enclosures of the small fields, formed by piles of slaty stones thrown up from them; yet the prospect was beautiful as well as grand. The broken hill nearest us stood forth in deep shadow; those before, as well as the narrow valley, lay in splendid sunshine, and beyond them, through the haze of heat and distance, shone the windings of the Saône, and stretched the rich plains of Bresse, and above all towered the range of the Jura, resembling the cloud which hung over it, but that its rosy white was more delicate still. At our feet were two villages, so hidden in their nooks, that we perceived them only when the road passed directly above. The furthest is La Rochepot; its square castle, flanked by four massive towers, covers the surface of the solitary rock which forms its foundation, and rises among the cabins, yet at a commanding distance, as (ere power had departed and respect had followed) the old noble once did among his vassals.
Two watch-towers are still standing, and the windows opened at different epochs, some arched, some Elizabethan, make frames for the blue sky seen through them, or are lightly curtained by ivy, which seldom grows luxuriantly in France; its situation and itself are such, as, had Scott seen, would not have been left without a story.