Oh! Those kind French people! And yet, how hard, hitherto, has been their life! In our regime of Classes (so useful, however, in itself, and from which we derive so much of giant strength) the sailor is compelled, at any moment, to leave the merchant service for the war ship, daily and hourly growing more severe, more crushing, in its hard discipline! Forty years ago the sailor sang, as he worked at the capstan bar; now he heaves in silence. (Ial. Arch II. 522). And in the merchant service, the great fisheries are almost worked out. The profits of the Whale Fishery belong, almost entirely, to the outfitter. (Boitard, Diet. art. Cetaceæ, Whales, &c.) The Cod has diminished, the Mackerel grows more and more scarce. A very precious little book (The Story of Rose Duchenin, by herself) gives a most touching picture of this great destitution. Alphonse Karr, that admirable writer, had the good sense to write that book from the dictation of that Fisherman's Wife, without altering a word of hers, or adding a word of his own.
Étretat is not, properly speaking, a port. Situated little, if any, above the level of the Sea, and defended only by the pebbly bar which the sea has washed in, it is but poorly sheltered. And consequently, it is necessary that, according to the old Celtic custom, every vessel that runs in there, must be hauled up to the Quay by the cable and the capstan; the capstan bars being handled by the women, for the lads are all at sea. The labor and the difficulty will be easily understood by all who read this. The lubberly craft, as it is drawn up, hits hard from boulder to boulder, and ascends only by leaps, violent and damaging, and still more threatening than either. And at every leap and every shock, those poor women suffer from the hard blow to their necks and from the bitterly painful emotions of their poor hearts.
When I first witnessed this terrible labor, I was wounded, saddened in mine inmost heart. My first impulse was to bear a hand and lend my aid. But the thing would seem so singular, I thought, that a something, I know not what, of false shame, arrested me. But every day I lent a hand, at least with my wishes and my prayers. I went, and looked. Those young and charming, though anything but pretty, women and girls did not sport the short red petticoat of the coasts, but long robes; and for the most part, they had the refined and delicate aspect of the young lady of the great city. Bending to that hard toil (a filial, and, therefore, a noble toil) they had a certain mingled grace and pride, and, in all that hard toil, not a complaint, not even a sigh, escaped them.
That very small Quay of Boulders, small as it is, yet is too large. I saw there a number of vessels, abandoned, useless. For, see you, the Fishery has become so unproductive! The fish have fled that shore. Entretat languishes, perishes, so near to languishing, and, but for its sea-bathing, perishing, Dieppe, which owes its present existence—such as it is!—to the greater or less number of visitors, who render Dieppe in one season prosperous, and in another as nearly as possible, bankrupt. And this very influx from Paris, worldly Paris, is, after all, morally, at least, a real scourge to that marine population.
Our Norman populations who discovered America, and who, ever since the fourteenth century, have known Africa, are every year becoming less and less in love with the sea, so that, year by year, more and more of them are turning their faces inland. The descendant of the bold fellow who formerly harpooned the Whale, is now a pale cotton-spinner of Montville or of Balbec.
It is for Science, it is for the Law, to put a stop to this fearful decay. The former with its skill, its sound advice will,—if such advice be resolutely acted upon, economise the Sea and revive that Fishery which is the very nursery of Seamen; and in the next place, the Law, less exclusively caring for the interests of the real élite, the real flower and elect of the country, in no wise to be compared to those great masses from which we draw our soldiery, but who, under given circumstances, will be able to cut the Gordian knot of the world.
Such were my reflections, on the little wharf or Quay of Etretat, in the cloudy and rainy summer of 1860, while the capstan bar was heaved at by young females, while the capstan screamed at every turn, and while the whole scene put one in mind of desolation for the present, and worse to come.
And thus is it with our century. Ever since 1730, and so in the present day, labor, fatigue, and slowness have been upon us. Let us all, of no matter what rank, put hand and strength to the capstan bar! But, alas! how many of us prefer picking up pebbles on the wild sea shore!
We read that Scipio, stern conqueror of Carthage, and Terence, the lucky refugee from that shipwreck of a world, amused themselves in picking up shells on the sea shore; capital friends in their forgetfulness of the past. They enjoyed the dolce far niente; they were luxurious in their enjoyment of the illusion of being boys once more. But let not that be our wish. We will not, we must not, we dare not, forget our duty; no, with persistent labor, with uncooling ardor, we will put our hands to the capstan bar, and help to warp up this great, but worn and much tried century.