'Eh bien! It was the heel of an old woollen stocking!'
'And did you drink the coffee?'
'No. I said that I had changed my mind.'
We did not take any coffee that evening. We had something less likely to set the fancy exploring the secrets of the kitchen, where, through the open doorway, we could see our old peasant hostess seated on her little bench in the ingle and nodding her head over the dying embers of her hearth. Her husband was induced by the traveller to bring up from the cherished corner of his cellar a bottle of the old wine of Tursac, made from the patriarchal vines before the pestilential insect drew the life out of them. The hillsides above the Vézère are growing green again with vineyards, and again the juice of the grape is beginning to flow abundantly; but years must pass before it will be worthy of being put into the same cellar with the few bottles of the old wine which have been treasured up here and there by the grower, but which he thinks it a sacrilege to drink on occasions less solemn than marriages or christenings in the family.
'You can often coax the old wine from them,' said my knowing companion, 'if you go the right way to work.'
'And what is the secret?'
'Flattery: there is nothing like it. Flatter the peasant and you will be almost sure to move him. Say, 'Ah, what a time that was when you had the old wine in your cellars!' He will say, 'Nest-ce pas, monsieur?' and brighten up at the thought of it. Then you will continue: 'Yes, indeed, that was a wine worth drinking. There was nothing like it to be found within fifty kilomètres. What a bouquet! What a fine goút du terroir!' He will not be able to bear much more of this if he has any of the wine. Unless you are pretty sure that he has some, it is not worth while talking about it. Expect him to disappear, and to come back presently with a dirty-looking bottle, which he will handle as tenderly as if it were a new baby.'
Those whose travelling in France is carried out according to the directions given in guide-books—the writers of which nurse the reader's respectability with the fondest care—will of course conclude that the best hotels in the wine districts are those in which the best wine of the country is to be had. This is an error. The wine in the larger hotels is almost invariably the 'wine of commerce'; that is to say, a mixture of different sorts more or less 'doctored' with sulphate of lime, to overcome a natural aversion to travelling. The hotel-keeper, in order to keep on good terms with the representatives of the wine-merchants—all mixers—who stop at his house, distributes his custom among them. Those who set value on a pure vin du pays with a specific flavour belonging to the soil, should look for it in the little out-of-the-way auberge lying amongst the vineyards. There it is probable that some of the old stock is still left, and if the vigneron-innkeeper says it is the old wine, the traveller may confidently believe him. I have never known in such cases any attempt at deception.
The next morning I reached Le Moustier. Here the valley is broad, but the rocks, which are like the footstools of the hills, shut in the landscape all around. These naked perpendicular masses of limestone, yellow like ochre or as white as chalk, and reflecting the brilliance of the sun, must have afforded shelter to quite a dense population in the days when man made his weapons and implements from flints, and is supposed to have lived contemporaneously with the reindeer. Notwithstanding all the digging and searching that has gone on of late years on this spot, the soil in the neighbourhood of the once inhabited caverns and shelters is still full of the traces of prehistoric man.
Shortly before my coming, a savant—everybody is called a savant here who goes about with his nose towards the ground—gave a man two francs to be allowed to dig for a few hours in a corner of his garden. The man was willing enough to have his ground cleared of stones on these terms. The savant therefore went to work, and when he left in the evening he took with him half a sackful of flints and bones.