Wanderings by Southern Waters, Eastern Aquitaine

by Edward Harrison Barker

I passed a troubled night at Espalion, for there were a couple of feathered fiends just underneath the window crowing against each other with maddening rivalry. One, an old cock, had a very hoarse crow, and seemed to be suffering from chronic laryngitis brought on by an abuse of his vocal powers; and the other was a young cock with a very squeaky crow, for he was still taking lessons, and, as is the case with many beginners, he had too much enthusiasm.

I had had more than enough of this duo before the night was through, and was out very early in the morning looking at the ancient town of Espalion, which witnessed both the victory and the defeat of British arms long ere the Maid of Domrémy came to the rescue of the golden lilies. Its capture took place soon after the Battle of Crécy. The lords of Espalion were the Calmont d'Olt, who played an active part in the wars with the English. The town deserves a prominent place among the many picturesque old burgs stamped with mediaeval character on the banks of the Lot. One may stand upon its Gothic bridge of the thirteenth century and dream of the past without risk of being hustled by a crowd except on market days. This venerable bridge must have been admirably built to have withstood all the floods which have smote it in the course of six centuries. The great central arch is so much higher than the others that in crossing you go up a hill and then down one. Close by on the river-bank is the sixteenth-century Hôtel de Ville, a castle, partly built on a rock, in the gracefully-ornamental style of the French Renaissance, with turrets, mullioned windows, and a loggia.

Having crossed the river, I went in search of the chief architectural curiosity in or near Espalion—that known as the Church of Pers, or the Chapel of St. Hilarion. It is on the outskirts of the town, and stands in the old cemetery. I had first to find a potter who kept the key, and I discovered him at length in a narrow street in the midst of his clay and the vessels of his handicraft. He gave me the great key, and it was one that some fervent archaeologist might press reverentially to his heart, for the smith who forged it must have died centuries ago. Entering the cemetery, I saw, surrounded by a multitude of closely-packed tombs and grave mounds, on which the long grass stood with the late summer flowers, a small Romanesque building that seemed to have sunk far into the soil, like the ancient lichen-covered slabs from which the inscriptions had been washed away by time's inexorable and ever-wearing sea. Perhaps the soil had risen about the walls.

This church of the twelfth century is built of red sandstone, the blocks being laid together without mortar. On entering it such a dimness falls, with such a sacred silence; the air is so heavy with dampness and the odour of mildew, that you feel as if you were already in the vestibule of the Halls of Death, where darkness and stillness have never known the sound of a human voice or the blessed light of the sun. The design of the building is that of a nave with transept and apse. At each end of the transept is some curious cross-vaulting. The columns have all very large capitals in proportion to the diameter and height; some are ornamented with plain acanthus leaves, others are carved with numerous small figures of men and animals, ideally uncouth and typical of the fantastic medley of Christian symbolism and the barbaric imagination that found a mystical relationship between the monsters of its own creation and the problems of the universe. The exterior of the church is not less interesting than the interior. The charming Romanesque apse, with its three narrow windows, its blind arcade, the capitals ornamented with the acanthus, the row of fantastic modillions above carried all round the building, their sculpture exhibiting the strangest variety of ideas—heads of men, women, beasts, birds, and fabulous monsters; and then the venerable portal, with its elaborate bas-relief of the Last Judgment, furnish much matter for reflection and study. In this 'Judgment' Christ is standing in the midst of the Apostles, and the dead are rising from the tombs below. Fiends are pulling the wicked out of their coffins, and others are throwing the condemned into the wide-opened jaws of a frightful monster. Above are numerous figures separated by various mouldings forming archivolts. The arch of the door is Gothic, but all the other work is Romanesque. The belfry is simply a roofed wall pierced with four arched openings for bells.

Espalion had once its strong fortress on a neighbouring hill—the Castle of Calmont d'Olt. It is now a ruin. I climbed to it, and found the undertaking more tedious than I had supposed. The narrow path winding through the vineyards was bordered with cat-mint, agrimony, vervain, and camomile. Then it passed through a little village, where there were old walnut-trees and mossy walls, and a small church with these words over the door: 'C'est ici la maison de Dieu et la porte du ciel.' After the village, the path was almost lost amidst blocks of sandstone and the débris of the fortress, where snakes basking in the sun slid away at my approach, hissing indignantly at the intruder. On the summit there had been in the far-off ages an outpour of basalt, which had crystallized into columnar prisms, and upon this foundation of ancient lava the castle was built. A good deal of wall and the lower part of a rectangular keep remain of this fortress, which dates from the twelfth century. The outer wall was strengthened with semicircular bastions, the ruins of which are seen. Fennel now thrives amongst the fallen stones, which were dumb witnesses of so much that was human.

Returning to the inn, I resisted the temptation held out to stop and lunch, although the preparations in the kitchen were far advanced, and started off on the road to Estaing. I was again following the Lot, which here flows between high vine-clad hills. After walking a few miles, I saw a bush over the door of a roadside cottage, and, entering, found that the only person in charge of this very rustic inn was a pretty girl of about seventeen. She looked a little scared at first; but when I had sat down with the evident intention of making myself at home, she became reconciled to the sight of me, and consented to let me have what there was in the house to eat. This was not much, as she took care to point out. The nearest approach to meat there was eggs, excepting, of course, the fat bacon—quite uneatable in the English fashion—which is the basis of all the soup made throughout a great part of France. Having lighted a fire on the hearth, and fried me some eggs with bits of fat bacon instead of butter, she said she must go and call 'papa,' who was working in the vineyard. So she left me in charge of the inn while she went to fetch her father on the hillside. While I was alone, I looked at the sunny view of green meadows and trees through the open door that faced the shining river, and easily fancied that what I saw was a bit of verdant England. In the room, too, the twittering of a pair of canaries recalled impressions of other days; but the plague of flies was thoroughly French, and it soon brought me back to realities. When the girl returned with her father, she gave me some excellent goat-cheese, and for my dessert some hazelnuts, together with a spirit distilled from plums, similar to the quertch of Alsace.

I had not been long in the sunshine again, when I noticed a large house in the midst of the vines not far off the road. On drawing near I found that it was ruinous, and had been long since abandoned. It had been a rather grand house once, and must have belonged to people of importance in the country. There was a finely-carved scutcheon with arms over the Gothic door, and the mullioned windows, which had lost all their glass, had something of the pathos of gentility that, becoming poor and old, has been abandoned to all winds and weathers. The little courtyard was full of high weeds and shrubs, and the wild flags that grow on the rocks had laid their green leaves together to hide the wounds of the old walls. Swallows, sparrows, and bats were now the tenants of this mysterious house, which must have had a troubled history. The picture has since haunted my memory; the mind goes back to it in a strange way, and the sentiment of it, as it was communicated to me, I find perfectly expressed in these lines by Alphonse Karr:

'De la solitaire demeure
Une ombre lourde d'heure en heure,
Se détache sur le gazon,
Et cet ombre, couchée et morte
Est la seule chose qui sorte
Tout le jour de cette maison.'

Some distance farther I passed another deserted dwelling. It was perched upon rocks, and was overgrown with ivy and clematis. The road led me down beside the Lot, which now began to rush again over rocks as the hills drew closer, and the valley became once more a gorge. On one side were dense woods; on the other vines reached up to the sky.

At length I saw before me a row of houses beside the river in a bright bit of valley hemmed in by high cliffs. On the rocks behind the houses were a church and a castle.