Vanished Halls and Cathedrals of France

by George Wharton Edwards

My Lady Anne was quite taken with the idea.

The furniture was in good taste, stained a dark brown; it made a charming foil for the bright yellows and pale greens of the crockery.

The bedrooms had alcoves for the beds, with a curious little door cut out of the wooden partition wall at the back of the bed: this was for the convenience of the housemaid, as it saved the necessity of pulling out the bed to get behind it. These walls were almost always made of boards, and thus the doors were easily cut, so that covered with wall paper one scarcely ever noticed them.

My Lady Anne discovered that the clothing sent to be washed was, unless otherwise ordered, sent home rough dried! Ironing is special. Following the custom here there was no weekly washing day, but washing was done once a month or even two months, and this is the reason why there were so many of the really fine oak or chestnut armoirs to be found. Some of these were most beautiful, made of polished wood, and had often unique brass hinges and locks. Every household had one or more, in spite of the fact that the dealers were on the quest for them. The peasants who lived off the beaten track of travel willingly parted with them for comparatively small prices. We thought it rather extraordinary to find in a poor laborer's cottage a specimen of these fine chests fit for the hall of a millionaire collector. There were also fine wardrobes to be found, with handsomely carved chestnut or applewood panels polished like glass, and with brass knobs and locks worn bright with the use of many generations.

Occasionally one could find the old fashioned double decked bed made of dark oak, and the long heavy Norman table, which was the household larder, for in its long and deep drawer were generally stored the household provisions of ham, bacon, or dried fish; never the bread, though, for this was kept overhead upon a well polished board, in the older houses, hung from the ceiling, well out of the way of the rats, the torment of the peasant. In these houses the clothes were hung on ropes high up against the sloping roofs to prevent these pests from gnawing them. The broken necks of bottles were fastened at the ends of these cords or ropes, and on these the rats jumped from the rafters and went spinning over onto the floor far beneath. In all the villages there were public washing pools, a feature of the country. No washing was done in the cottages. Hundreds of peasant women washed the clothes, kneeling in long lines at the sides of the streams, keeping up all the time a chattering and laughing that could be heard from a distance.

Sometimes there were shelters overhead for their protection from sun and rain, sometimes not. They washed the clothes on flat boards, and beat them when lathered with a flat wooden sort of paddle. The washing was well done too, surprising to tell, but although they say not, one would think that the process was rather hard upon the clothes.

These quaint customs quite charmed us, and we were inclined to shut our eyes to certain evidences of drunkenness and its accompanying sins among the lower classes which could not be concealed, and which perhaps need not be entered into here.

Valenciennes was a manufacturing town, and the condition of the artisan classes was said to be even worse than that in Belgium just over the border. The hours of labor were long—unquestionably too long—and said to be as a rule fixed by the employer. Children of tender age were employed in factory and warehouse, and this perhaps explains the stunted appearance of the poor people. The law says that no child under sixteen can be kept at work for more than twelve hours a day, but it is understood that this law was easily evaded. The result was inevitable. If the child could be kept at work for twelve hours a day, then it will be understood that an adult was assumed to be able to do more.

Of course the man did not really work as hard as our own men do, and that he did piece work, and also that a considerable portion of his time must be deducted for shirking, for gossip and for rest. Still, at the foundries the hours and the labor were both excessive. The thought had not occurred to these manufacturers and proprietors that a man might do more in sixty hours a week than he will do in seventy. The terrible "Borinage" district of the mines of Belgium, which extends as far west as Quevrain on the border, really runs over the line, and some of its conditions existed at Blanc Misseron, Fresnes, and at Bruay. The name "Borinage" signifies the place of boring. Here was to be found a state of society that does not exist in any other part of the country, and the miners and their wretched families were a type quite distinct from all the rest of their countrymen. By the character of their work and by the deficiencies or lack of education, supplemented by the poisonous effects of the fiery and deleterious potato brandy and other decoctions which they freely imbibe, they had sunk into a state of both physical and mental decay.

"A visit to these places is not a pleasant experience, and the closer the acquaintance made with the life of the mining population the less attractive does it appear. The employment of children of tender years lies at the root of the ignorance of the people of the province.... To the proprietors, with rare exceptions, the miners are mere beasts of burden, in whom they do not feel the least interest. No steps whatever are taken to improve the lot of the miners, to elevate their ideas, or even to provide them with amusement or recreations.... The only places of resort are the 'Estaminets' and cabarets that are to be found in every third or fourth house.... It is scarcely going too far to say that morality does not exist in the Borinage; but the great curse in this community is the large number of immature mothers, and the consequent inseparable deterioration of the whole race.... Ignorance and immorality explain the low condition to which the mining population has sunk, but even these causes would not have produced such an appalling result if they had not been supplemented by the prevalence of drunkenness. As there is no restriction upon the sale of drink, every house may retail intoxicating liquors, and in many places where it is procurable there is no external appearance of the place being a drinking shop. The room of the cottage will contain a few chairs and benches, besides a table, and the liquor comes from a cupboard or an inner room. In warm weather the table and chairs are placed outside, and on Sundays and feast days there is not one of these houses which will not be crowded with visitors. The only amusement known to these people is to drink and to get drunk.... The beer drinkers are the more reasonable drunkards of the two. Having soaked themselves with 'faro' (a thin sour beer) they sleep it off. Not so the spirit drinkers, for when they have finished their orgies they are half mad with the poisonous alcohol which they have imbibed.