Wanderings by Southern Waters, Eastern Aquitaine

by Edward Harrison Barker

In the room of the inn where I lunched there were four beds; two at one end and two at the other. There was plenty of space left, however, for the tables. The rafters were hidden by the heads of maize that hung from them. The host sat down at the same table with me, and when he had nearly finished his soup he poured wine into it, and, raising the plate to his lips, drank off the mixture. Objectionable as this manner of drinking wine seems to those who have not learnt to do it in their youth, it is very general throughout Guyenne. Those who have formed the habit would be most unhappy if they could not continue it. Faire chabron is the expression used to describe this sin against good manners. The aubergiste was very friendly, and towards the close of the meal he brought out a bottle of his old red wine that he had treasured up 'behind the faggot.'

Before reaching this village I had heard of a retired captain who lived here in a rather dilapidated château, and who was very affable to visitors, whom he immediately invited to look through his telescope, which, although not a very large one, had a local celebrity, such instruments being about as rare as blue foxes in this part of the world. Conducted by the innkeeper, I called upon this gentleman. The house was one of those half-castellated manors which became scattered over France after the Renaissance, and of which the greater number were allowed to fall into complete or partial ruin when the territorial families who were interested in them were extinguished or impoverished by the Revolution. They are frequently to be found in Guyenne, but they are generally occupied by peasants either as tenant-farmers or proprietors; two or three of the better preserved rooms being inhabited by the family, the others being haunted by bats and swallows and used for the storage of farm produce. It suited the captain's humour, however, to live in his old dilapidated mansion, scarcely less cut off from the society that matched with his position in life than if he had exiled himself to some rock in the ocean.

The ceremony of knocking or ringing was dispensed with for the sufficient reason that there was neither bell nor knocker. We entered by the open door and walked along a paved passage, which, was evidently not held as sacred as it should have been by the roving fowls; looked in at the great dark kitchen, where beside the Gothic arch of the broad chimney was some ruinous clockwork mechanism for turning the spit, which probably did turn to good purpose when powdered wigs were worn; then ascended the stone staircase, where there was room for four to walk abreast, but which had somewhat lost its dignity by the balusters being used for hanging maize upon. Presently we came to a door, which the aubergiste knocked sharply with his knuckles.

There was a sound of footsteps within, and then the door opened. I was standing before a rather florid man of about fifty, with close-cropped hair, a brush moustache, and a chin that seemed undecided on the score of shaving. He wore a flannel shirt open at the throat, and a knitted worsted tricot. This was the captain. He evidently did not like Sunday clothes. When he settled down here, it was to live at his ease, like a bachelor who had finished with vanities. But although no one would have supposed from his dress that he was superior to the people around him, his manners were those of a gentleman and an officer who had seen the world elsewhere than at Loubressac. The simple, easy courtesy with which he showed me his rooms, and pointed his telescope for me, was all that is worth attaining, as regards the outward polish of a man. This was so fixed upon him that his long association with peasants had taken none of it away. The few rooms that he inhabited were plainly furnished; in others were heaps of wheat, maize and beans. Passing along a passage I noticed a little altar in a recess, with a statue of the Virgin decked with roses and wild flowers. 'C'est le mois de Marie,' said the captain. He lived with a sister, and she took care that religion was kept up in the house.

It being the Fête-Dieu, preparations were being made in the village for the procession that was to take place after vespers. Sheets were spread along the fronts of the houses, with flowers pinned to them, and reposoirs had been raised in the open air. I did not wait for the procession, as I expected to be in time for the one at the next village, Autoire. I took a path that led me up to the barren causse, from which the red roofs of Autoire soon became visible under an amphitheatre of high wooded hills.

As I approached the little village, the gleam of white sheets mingled with the picture of old houses huddled together, some half-timber, some with turrets and encorbelments, nearly all of them with very high-pitched roofs and small dormer windows. The procession was soon to start. I waited for it at the door of the crowded church, baking in the sun with others who could not get inside, one of whom was a woman with a moustache and beard, black and curly, such as a promising young man might be expected to have. The number of women in Southern France who are bearded like men shocks the feelings of the Northern wanderer, until he grows accustomed to the sight. The curé was preaching about the black bread, and all the other miseries of this life that had to be accepted with thankfulness. Presently the two bells in the tower began to dance, and the rapid ding-dong announced that the procession was forming. First appeared the beadle, extremely gaudy in scarlet and gold, then the cross-bearer, young men as chanters, little boys, most strangely attired in white satin knee-breeches and short lace skirts, scattering rose-leaves from open baskets at their sides; the curé came bearing the monstrance and Host, followed by Sisters with little girls in their charge; lastly was a mixed throng of parishioners. Most of the women held rosaries, and a few of them, bent with age, carried upon their heads the very cap that old Mother Hubbard wore, if tradition and English artists are to be trusted. As the last of the long procession passed out of sight between the walls of white linen, the wind brought the words clearly back:

'Genitori, Genitoque
Laus et jubilatio.'

Now I entered the little church that was quite empty, and where no sound would have been heard if the two voices in the tower had not continued to ring out over the dovecotes, where the white pigeons rested and wondered, and over the broad fields where the bending grasses and listening flowers stood in the afternoon sunshine, 'Laus et jubilatio,' in the language of the bells.

The church was Romanesque, probably of the twelfth century. The nave was flanked by narrow aisles. Upon the very tall bases of the columns were carved, together with foliage, fantastic heads of demons, or satyrs of such expressive ugliness that they held me fascinated. Some were bearded, others were beardless, some were grinning and showing frightful teeth, others had thick-lipped, pouting mouths hideously debased. A few were really bons diables, who seemed determined to be gay, and to joke under the most trying circumstances; but the greater number had morose faces, puckered by the long agony of bearing up the church. Such variety of expression in ugliness was a triumph of art in the far-off age, when the chisel of an unremembered man with a teeming imagination made these heads take life from the inanimate stone.

The road from Autoire to St. Céré soon led me into the valley of the Bave, a beautiful trout-stream, galloping towards the Dordogne through flowery meadows, on this last day of May, and under leaning trees, whose imaged leaves danced upon the ripples in the green shade. As I had no need to hurry, I loitered to pick ragged-robins upon the banks, flowers dear to me from old associations. Very common in England, they are comparatively rare in France.