But for some months previous to the vendange, no one but a proprietor has the right to enter a vineyard; at this period a perfect calm and silence reigns, and they become an asylum, a veritable land of Goshen, an oasis for all the partridges, hares, and rabbits of the neighbourhood. In order to prevent gentlemen and professional poachers from cruising in these delightful latitudes, killing the game and injuring the vines, a number of gardes champêtres, generally old soldiers, are chosen, who armed with an old sabre, post themselves on some height which commands the vineyard, ready to lay violent hands on any delinquent that may make his appearance. But in spite of the garde champêtre, his long sabre, their interminable cut and thrust, and his eternal de par la loi, arretez! there is a sport in the early morning, called à la traulée, which is not without its charms.
The vineyards of Burgundy are for the most part divided into sections, that is to say, at from two to three hundred paces the contiguity of the vines is interrupted, and a small road, which serves during the vendange to facilitate the communication and transport of the grapes, is cut in the vineyard. At daylight, therefore, before the sun is above the horizon, or the white fog hanging in the valleys has been dispersed by his rays, and the fashionable gentleman of the town is on the point of going to bed, the sportsman, always keen and on the alert, arrives, walks slowly and carefully along the roads I have just mentioned, looking cautiously right and left, and between the intervals of the vines on either side of him.
The rabbits hopping under the leaves, the covey of partridges bathing amidst the dew, the hares gravely discussing among themselves the respective merits of the heath and wild thyme, are thus surprised in their matutinal occupations, and become the prey of the delighted sportsman. But the moment approaches when the comparative calm and protection which the poor animals enjoy will cease—their days of fun and festival are numbered; their enemies up to this period have been few—the rich proprietors, the privileged, but now the masses are preparing, they are cleaning up their clumsy blunderbusses, and to-morrow "the million" will take the field and assail and pop at them from every road and pathway—for the mayor, after due consultation with the principal personages in the village, has sent his drummer, his Mercury, his crier, to beat a tattoo in all the public places, and crossways, and announce in front of the cabarets that the grapes being ripe the vendange is opened.
The following day, when the last star in the heavens is disappearing, when the doors of morning are scarcely opened, every road is covered with long lines of waggons drawn by oxen, and a cavalcade of horses and mules, and great asses carrying panniers may be seen galloping along in all directions. Voices, shouts, squeaking wheels, and neighing horses are also heard on every side, and parties of vendangeurs and vendangeuses, arm in arm, with baskets on their backs, and grape knives in their belts, their broad-brimmed hats encircled with ribbons and flowers, are seen marching along, singing many a Bacchanalian chorus in honour of the occasion. They are on their way to the vineyards, and like so many fauns and Bacchantes, only well draped, are with joyous hearts ready to gather in the harvest of the ruby grape.
In advance of this delighted and merry crowd, and always like the lark, the first on the wing, the sportsman is already at his post,—for the first day of the vendange is, as Navarre used to say, a day of powder, the fête du fusil. And now is formed a line of sometimes three hundred vendangeurs and vendangeuses who starting at the same moment, ascend the hill-side cutting the grapes, filling and emptying their baskets. The young men strike up some jovial song in praise of wine, the girls reply; and before this soul-stirring chorus, this burst of gay and animated feeling, the game, astounded at the concert, break and retire before them. Then is the moment for the sportsman, who, concealed in a large thicket and comfortably seated at the summit of the hill, listens and laughs in his sleeve as he hears the affrighted partridge call, and the timid hare rushing through the vines towards him; they approach, are within range of his gun, and ere long the shot-bag is emptied, and the sportsman is in that rare but agreeable dilemma of not knowing what to do with his game or his gun.
In a wine country the vendange is certainly the most exciting and merriest season of the year—it is a succession of delightful fêtes in the open air, of repasts amongst the vines and under the shade of the peach-trees, riding-parties in the forest, whose echoes are awakened by the melancholy notes of the horn, water-parties on the lakes, dances in the field and round the wine-press, &c.
Every château is full to overflowing in Le Morvan during the month of August,—bands of Parisians, Picards, and Normans, acquaintances scarcely made, friends, friends'-friends, with their wives, children, dogs, nurses, and luggage arrive each hour and by every road. Every family is invaded, beds are doubled, plates are not to be found,—there is only one glass for two, one knife for three; the servants, stupified and astonished, know not how to reply or which way to turn themselves; the cooks, half-roasted and lost amidst an army of sauce-pans, know not what they are doing; they put mustard into the méringues, cruets of vinegar in the soup—every one is on the laugh, except however the heads of families, who rendered almost crazy by this tide of human beings always rising, by the bell of the porte cochère always ringing, pass on from one to the other the new arrivals, with a note as follows:
"Mons. de G.... presents his compliments to Mons. de V...., and has the honour to inform him that not possessing in his house one bed or one arm-chair that is not occupied, he has the pleasure of sending him two Normans and three Parisians."
P.S. "The two Normans are first-rate waltzers, the Parisians perfect singers." The reply will perhaps be couched in the following strain:
"Mons. de V.... presents his compliments to Mons. de G...., and has the honour to inform him that being himself under the necessity of sleeping in his cellar, he cannot, though most anxious to oblige him, receive the two Norman dancers and the three Parisian warblers." Thus it sometimes happens that very charming, elegant, and sensitive gentlemen, who under ordinary circumstances would be very difficult to please, are obliged to sleep in a barn or loft, on a very nice bed of clean straw, with a dark lantern to light them there, and the luxury of a truss of hay for a pillow.