CHAPTER X.
THE VALLEY OF THE SEINE.
In the fruitful hills that border the river Seine, and form part of the great watershed of Lower Normandy, Nature has poured forth her blessings; and her daughters, who are here lightly sketched, dispense her bounties.
It is a pleasant thing to pass homeward through this 'food-producing' land—to go leisurely from town to town, and see something more of country life in Normandy—to see the laden orchards, the cattle upon the hills, and the sloping fields of corn. It is yet early in the autumn, but the variety of colour spread over the landscape is delightful to the eye; the rich brown of the buckwheat, the bright yellow mustard; the green pastures by rivers, and the poppies in the golden corn; the fields, divided by high hedges, and interspersed with mellowed trees; the orchards raining fruit that glitters in the sunshine as it falls; the purple heath, the luxuriant ferns. There is 'une recolte magnifique' this year, and the people have but one thought—'the gathering in;' the country presents to us a picture—not like Watteau's 'fêtes galantes,' but rather that of an English harvest-home.
We are in the midst of the cornfields near Villers-sur-mer, and the hill-side is glorious; it is covered to the very summit with riches—the heavily-laden corn-stems wave their crests against a blue horizon, whilst, in a cleft of the hill, a long line of poppies winds downwards in one scarlet stream. They are set thickly in some places, and form a blaze of colour, inconceivably, painfully brilliant—a concentration of light as utterly beyond our power of imitation by the pencil, as genius is removed from ordinary minds. We could not paint it if we would, but we may see in it an allegory of plenty, and of peace (of that peace which France so urgently desires); we may see her blood-red banner of war laid down to garland the hill-side with its crimson folds, and her children laying their offerings at the feet of Ceres and forgetting Mars altogether. The national anthem becomes no longer a natural refrain—anything would sound more appropriate than 'partant pour la Syrie' (there is no time for that work)—to our little friend in fluttering blouse, who sits in the grass and 'minds' fifty head of cattle by moral force alone; we should rather sing:—
| 'Little boy blue, | come blow me | your horn, |
| The orchards are | laden, the cow's | in the corn!' |
| * | * | * |
We cannot leave this pastoral scene, at least until the evening; when the sun goes down behind the sea—leaving a glow upon the hill-side and upon the crowd of gleaners who have just come up, and casts long shadows across the stubble and on the sheaves of corn; when the harvest moon shines out, and the picture is completed—the corn—sheaves lighted on one side by the western glow, on the other by the moon; like the famous shield over which knights did battle,—one side silver, the other gold.
All this time we are within sight, and nearly within sound, of the 'happy hunting grounds' of Trouville and Deauville, but the country people are singularly unaffected by the proximity of those pretty towns, invented by Dumas and peopled by his following.[52] It is true that on the walls of a little village inn, there is something paraded about a 'Trouville Association, Limited,' and a company for 'the passage of the Simplon,' with twenty-franc shares; but these things do not seem to find much favour amongst the thrifty peasantry. They have, in their time, been tempted to unearth their treasures, and to invest in bubble companies like the rest of the world; but there is a reaction here, the Normans evidently thinking, like the old Colonnæ, that a hole in the bottom of the garden is about the safest place after all. And they have, it is true, some other temptations which come to them with a cheap press, such as 'la sureté financière,' 'le moniteur des tirages financiers,' 'le petit moniteur financier,' &c., newspapers whose special business it is, to teach the people how to get rid of their savings, we are speaking, of course, of the comparatively uneducated agricultural population—the farmers, all through the district we have come, especially near Vire and Falaise, being rich propriétaires and investing largely; and there are many other things in these half-penny French newspapers which find their way into these remote corners of France, which must make the curé sometimes regret that he had taught his flock to read. In a little paper which lies before us, the first article is entitled 'Le miroir du diable;' then follows a long account of a poisoning case in Paris, and some songs from a café chantant, interspersed with illustrations of the broadest kind. But let us not be too critical; we have seen many things in France which would startle Englishmen, but nothing, we venture to say, more harmful in its tendency, than the weekly broad-sheet of crime which is spread out over our own land (to the number, the proprietors boast, of at least a hundred thousand[53]), wherein John and Jane, who can only sign their names with a cross, read in hideous cartoons, suggestions of cruelty and crime more revolting than any the schoolmaster could have taught them.
In these rich and prosperous provinces, the people (revolutionary and excitable as their ancestors were) certainly appear happy and contented; the most uneducated of them are quick-witted and ready in reply, they are not boorish or sullen, they have more readiness—at least in manner—than the germanic races, and are, as a rule, full of gaiety and humour. These people do not want war, they hate the conscription which takes away the flower of the flock; they regard with anything but pleasure the rather dictatorial 'Moniteur' that comes to them by post sometimes, whether they ask for it or not, and would much rather be 'let alone.'[54]