On crossing the bridge, we observed a man on one of the piers, spearing aiguilles de mer, a beautiful silvery fish, of which he had taken several. They were about two feet long, and of the shape of an eel, excepting in the form of their long picked heads and jaws, which correspond exactly with their name. The tunny is also caught in abundance near this part of the coast; and Vernet has introduced the fishery, from a lack of picturesque circumstances, into one of his sea-ports, painted by royal order. No other fish can better deserve this particular compliment, uniting, as it does, size, flavour, and the merits of both fish and flesh in a great degree. The "thon mariné" is its plainest and best preparation, and is preferable, with a dish of salad, to all the high-seasoned dishes which form a Provençal bill of fare; in short, if our national sirloin obtained knighthood, such a good lenten substitute as the tunny deserves canonization.[39] I cannot say so much for the dish, common enough among Frenchmen, which a well-dressed man, the harlequin to a troop of comedians, was eating in the salle-à-manger when we entered; viz. a raw artichoke with oil and vinegar. Sterne, it appears, little knew the extent of the ass's good taste, when he deprived him of this article in the Tabella Cibaria, "to see how he would eat a macaroon."
We set off at two o'clock in the day on our return to Montpelier, not a little envying the horses and mules their cool quarters in the immense remise. Within a mile of Cette lies the breakwater of rough stones, which forms a prominent object in the foreground of Vernet's picture, and serves to ascertain the spot from whence he took his design. At Villeneuve, where we stopped to bait the horses, we were diverted by a scene characteristic of the country. A bag had just been found on the road by the conductor of the Cette diligence, which drove up to the inn while we were there; and on Durand disowning it, a shabby-looking foot passenger claimed it, but could not establish his plea by identifying a single article. In a few seconds every soul in the inn, excepting ourselves, was assembled to take part in the discussion, and argued the pro and con with a vehemence of voice and action, which would have made a stranger believe it was a matter of life and death to each. A female inside-passenger, with an infant in her arms, which she nearly let drop in her energies, was the coryphée of this chorus of tongues, which could be compared to nothing but bees in the act of swarming, or the cackle which the entrance of a fox causes in a hen-roost. We were no longer surprised at hearing the peasants whom we met conversing in a tone which we had mistaken for quarrelling. The French generally, indeed, are fond of noise and action and emphasis about what does not concern their own interests a jot, while a London mob indulges an equal degree of curiosity by silent gaping; but these good folks certainly outdid anything I ever witnessed in France before. An action for defamation brought in Languedoc[40] might, with propriety, be worded, "that the defendant did, with four-and-twenty mouths, four-and-twenty tongues, and four-and-twenty pair of lungs, vilify and damnify his neighbour's reputation;" for it is probable that a scolding match could not take place in the open air of that country, without enlisting volunteer seconds to that amount on both sides, all equally bawling and violent. At Nismes, a fellow bellows across the street to offer himself as cicerone, in a tone which seems intended to warn you of a mad dog at your heels; and, in general, the lungs of Languedoc appear constructed on a larger and more discordant scale than is usual, and their volubility is rather a contradiction to the yea and nay appellation of the country. A respectable Frenchman informed us, that the peasants of Languedoc were considered to possess much wit and ingenuity by those who could understand their patois, which he frankly owned was unintelligible to himself. Their liveliness and animal exuberance are as strong a contrast to the immoveable form into which they are swathed when infants, as the flutter of a butterfly is to its torpidity as a chrysalis; indeed a fanciful person might be apt to suppose, that on emerging from their bandages, they indemnify themselves for the previous constraint by a life of perpetual fidget, and that the same re-action takes place as in the case of Munchausen's horn, which played for half an hour of its own accord when unfrozen. To speak seriously, nothing can be more piteously ridiculous than the state of a poor Languedoc child, swathed and bandaged into all the rigidity of a mummy, and totally motionless. Our friend H. declares, that his attention was once drawn behind a door by a faint cry, and that he there discovered and took down one of these little teraphims from the hook by which it hung suspended by a loop, like a young American savage. "C'est la mode du pays," is the only account of the practice which you get either here or at Nice; and it is fortunate that they have not still improved on it by a hint from the black nurses of Barbadoes, who embalm weakly young Creoles in wrappers lined with assa-foetida, and think it prejudicial to "burst their cerements" more than once in a fortnight.
After our horses had eaten a pound of honey with their corn, which honest Durand considered a powerful cordial, we resumed our route, and reached Montpelier to a late dinner, enjoying in no small degree the coolness and quiet of Pical's house. It was indeed the love of quiet, and the dislike to a constant ferment, which drove our landlord from Nismes to settle in this place. The bigotry and party zeal of the former town, in truth, appear to have been hardly exaggerated in the accounts which have reached England, and to exist in such a degree as to render Nismes an unsafe place for a moderate man, who is owned by neither party. The spirit of discord and enmity is instilled by the more violent of both parties into their children as a duty, so that it will probably descend from generation to generation. Both parties, indeed, might adopt as a crest and motto a boot-maker's sign in Montpelier, which is somewhat diverting from its bombast, when merely applied as honest Crispin meant it. A lion is represented tearing a boot, with the inscription, "Tu peux me dechirer, mais jamais me decoudre." Construe it, "You may cut my throat, but not alter me," and it will show the pleasant state of party spirit at Nismes, if what we heard so near the scene of action be true. We returned to Nismes on the 18th with associations not so pleasant as had been created by its beautiful walks and buildings, and the civility with which our questions were answered by the inhabitants. We might have seen the country between Montpelier and Nismes to greater advantage, the dust being somewhat less stifling than before; but unluckily there was nothing worth seeing. The district is certainly a garden, but then it is a flat uninteresting kitchen garden, for the supply of the Lunel brandy merchants, and the rich Nismes manufacturers, who appear too polite in their tastes to venture into it. Hardly a single thing that can be called a gentleman's house occurs, and that not for want of culture or opulence. The case seems to be this; the people of Nismes, like the Bordelais, are proud of their elegant and airy city, embellished with classical relics, and uniting most of the advantages of town and country, and are well satisfied without the campagne which a rich Lyonnais, carrying on his business in a close town, considers as his paradise. Although this system of "rus in urbe" gives but a mean and poor appearance to the environs of a town, it produces much pleasure and convenience to such resident strangers as can enjoy the society of Nismes, which, by all accounts, must somewhat resemble sleeping in Exeter 'Change, the keepers, in the shape of a strong preventive force of military, on the alert, it is true, and the bars are well secured, but the beasts only watch their opportunity to tear each other to pieces. How an Englishman would fare in a public disturbance is difficult to say. It is probable that the Catholics would abominate him as a heretic, and the Protestants denounce him as an anti-Buonapartist, and that he would consequently be thrust from the one to the other, like a new comer between two roguish school-boys. This, however, was no concern of ours, as we left Nismes the next morning on the road to Beaucaire. The old Pharos was the last landmark we took leave of, as it was the first of which we caught sight. It contrasts with the Maison Carrée as a wild legend of the dark ages would with a letter of Pliny; and though rough in its fabric, and uncertain in its history, dwells as strongly on the recollection as that highly-finished gem.
"The tower by war or tempest bent,
While yet may frown one battlement,
Demands and daunts the stranger's eye,
Each ivied arch and pillar lone
Pleads haughtily for glories gone!"
[CHAP. IX]
TARASCON—BEAUCAIRE—ST. REMY—ORGON—LAMBESC.
To Tarascon 19 miles of road for the most part bad and sandy. I am not geologist enough to decide with accuracy on the formation of that part of the banks of the Rhone which we were approaching, but the detached specimens of rock are of a curious nature. After passing a little village called St. Vincent, we came to an open plain, bounded in front by several singular round hills on the summit of one of which, called the Roche Duclay, was a rock so exactly resembling an old castle in size and shape, that a nearer inspection alone satisfied us as to its real nature. There is also a great singularity of outline in the hills which became soon visible in the distance on the other side of the Rhone, one or two of which appeared as if they had shells upon their backs. Beaucaire, with its old castle overhanging the Rhone, soon came in sight.
"Jeunet encore, étois sortant de page,
Lorsque à Beaucaire ouvrit un grand tournoi.
Maint chevaliers y firent maint exploits,
Dames d'amour animoient leur courage;"