As regards the gates, Murray declares the original six are still in existence, but though I tried my best to discover any remains of them, I could only find two, the one at the edge of the town leading to the open land outside St. Emilion, commanding a fine view of the "fair meadows of France," some lying faintly red-brown in the rays of a rather sulky-looking sunset, and others, further away, a dark mauve. In the immediate foreground was a splash of vivid yellow, making a gorgeous focus of light.
An old woman sitting beside the road (who informed us her age was ninety-two) told us that she still worked in the vineyards, (think of it, at ninety-two!) and that champagne was made in this district, as well as the claret named after the place. St. Emilion is a place whose houses—some three hundred years old—are built at all levels; up and down hill, and in most unexpected crooked corners; some, too, of the dwellings are caves simply. In the Arceau de la Cadêne there is the splendid old house of the perruquier Troquart, and beyond it an old timbered house built of dark oak with crest and sculptures.
Over many of the doors I had noticed little bunches of dead flowers, or bundles of wheat or corn, some in the form of a cross,—hung up. On asking the femme de chambre, who brought in our second déjeuner at the little old inn near this gate, she told me that on every festival of St. Jean, the people go to church in large numbers, pass up the aisle carrying these little bunches, and the priest blesses them as they go by, and then on the return home they are hung up over the door of each household, to remain there for the whole of the year until the festival comes round again. To the French, the Idea is everything. To us, it is too often only reverenced according to its money value.
Some of the vines at St. Emilion are on banks, on rising ground, flanked by two stone pillars at one end, with an iron gate and a flight of steps, generally deeply mossed, leading up to the vines. Here and there a vivid touch of colour from some fallen leaf, mauve or yellow, lay in strong contrast on the sandy path. There was the flaring yellow of the marigolds, too, which grew plentifully in the banks between the espaliers. A hollowed piece of limestone, for the water to drain off from the vineyards, marked the bank at regular intervals the whole way along. Red and white valerian hung in clustering branches over the edges of the rocks.
We spent a long time in the place du marché, under the lee of the high earthwork, with holes like burrows set in it at regular intervals on which the superstructure of the newer church is built over the ancient subterranean one. This latter is only opened, we were informed, once a year.
The market place, which the modern church overshadows, is a quiet, dreamy, tranquil little square. An acacia was meditatively shedding its garments, in the shape of leaves, on to the little green strip of turf in the middle. Underneath its branches lay already a soft heap of yellow, from its previous exertions.
Two travelling pedlars—a man and a woman—were plying on this little lawn a cheerful trade. He was mending the flotsams and jetsams of St. Emilion household crockery and unwarily drinking water from the flowing stream that descends from the tap's mouth. As he mended, he sang snatches of some of those little jaunty, gay, roulade-y songs which the French peasant loves: "Je marche à soir," "Ah! tirez de votre poche un sous!" were bits that caught my ear most often; perhaps they were meant to be, in a sense, topical songs, with an eye (or a voice) to the main chance.
An old woman hobbled across the square bringing an old brown jug to be riveted, and he besought her, as she was going away, to "cassez une autre."
We did not leave St. Emilion until twilight had fallen, and there was no light to see anything else. Then there was a little loitering about to be done, while we waited for the local omnibus which plied between Libourne and St. Emilion. There was very little room inside when we at last boarded it, but we presently overtook, a belated and garrulous voyageur, a weather-beaten countryman who talked to me without cessation during the whole journey. I was not sitting next to him, but that did not seem to deter him in the least; he talked insistently, loudly and urgently, leaning across the lap of the man who sat between us. He insisted on taking for granted that all the other passengers were near relations of mine, and asked questions as to ages, names, place of residence, etc., in strident tones, till the man beside me was convulsed with laughter. I have never known a conversation all on one side (for, after the first, none of us attempted to put in a word) kept up, intermittently, for forty minutes on end, as this was! Once before, I own, I succeeded in conversing for ten whole minutes entirely off my own bat, with no assistance from the opposite side, with a young Hawaiian friend of my uncle's who was dining at the house in which I was staying, but that was really in self-defence, because I dared not venture with him across the borders of the English language, having heard specimens of his conversation before, and never having been able to distinguish his nouns from his verbs, or his adverbs from his interjections! But though mutual understanding was difficult, there was yet between us that curious tacit sympathy which is independent of any words.