* * * Long live the Xaintongeois * * *
It seems to me that at certain times “Young America” is in truth “Old France.” This impression is strengthened still more after we have embarked on the steamer which is to take us to the opposite shore of the lake, to the promontory where the monument to the heroes of this magnificent fête is erected. This monument is not yet finished. But the figure of the “Lord of Champlain, geographer to the King, and captain of the Navy of the West,” is present in all minds because on the pedestal of granite, under the gleam of the lighthouse, it is visible from top to toe in the eyes of all sailors in quest of a good route in these parts. Here he is, with his good face, a trifle broad, and very strong, his moustache curled up at the ends, and his small pointed beard in the fashion of Louis XIII.; his lips, prompt to reply, but skillful in keeping a secret; his large, thoughtful forehead, his eyes full of dreaminess, and at the same time skilled in the exact knowledge of men and things by the habit of his profession of watching the caprices of the inconstant sea, of the changing heavens, and of the varying breezes. His lake, that “Sea of the Iroquois,” whose Odysseyan distances he skimmed in birch-bark canoes paddled by tattooed Hurons, with whom he felt at home—being, in the words of a narrator of his voyages, “a man who was astonished at nothing, and a ready talker, knowing how to accost these people tactfully and to accommodate himself to their ways”—his lake we overlook to-day from the bulwarks of a steamer decorated with all the splendor of holidays. His work is finished. What he foresaw, what he predicted, what he prepared, has been realized. Civilization has laid hold upon all these countries where he was the first explorer and of which he foretold in his writings the future harvest. Here is the landscape whose picture he has described so vividly that one can, after having read his “Voyages and Discoveries”, easily find one’s way and recognize the different points; the immensity of this lake, whose fertile shores stretch in endless perspective; the hillsides covered with forests; the islands “where there are plenty of walnuts and vines and pretty meadows.” * * * In place of the encampments stockaded by the Iroquois or by the Mohegans, filled with the noise of the tom-tom and the war dance, there are now pleasant country houses where men and women of a less turbulent race can henceforth enjoy a happiness which is no longer menaced by the unreasoned impulses of a primitive and barbarous humanity.
As our steamer pulls out from the port and traverses the waves, gilded by the sun, in the track which the achievements of Champlain have traced, we see the buildings of Port Henry rise one above the other like an amphitheatre among the forests in the woodland clearing. On the battlefield where the conqueror, peaceful and brave, was forced to use his blunderbuss, there are now shipbuilders’ yards, warehouses, factory chimneys. * * * The horizon, under the vast dome of the blue sky, is beautified by the whiteness of the snows, which shine with a silvery splendor on the tops of the Adirondack Mountains and of those Green Mountains which have given their ancient French name to the American State Vert Mont (Vermont).
The weather is marvellous. This is the most beautiful day of our trip; a day of brightness and of glory; what the Americans call a “glorious day.” A fine breeze which comes from afar makes the gay colors of the oriflamme flutter from the halyards of the ship. The French delegation is gay. We are happy to see this admirable scenery, which was discovered by the eyes of a Frenchman. One of our number is especially captivated by the beauty of this spectacle; it is the great painter Cormon, appointed more than any one else, as one who could understand and feel the charm of this vision, because his art is exercised and triumphs by turns in the magnificent understanding of primitive times and in the fine meaning of the beauties imagined by the modern æsthetic. We are happy to see that his ready and true pencil has caught in passing some of the scenes from the fairyland before us. Our notes on the trip will thus be much more accurate because of a true, exact and sincere illustration, which would have been the delight of honest Champlain.
In honor of the heroes of this festival, and to please us, Mr. Witherbee’s musicians play the airs which were most pleasing to the good mariners who came with Champlain from Saintonge or from Aunis—the old songs of Old France. “C’est le roi Dagobert,” “J’ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,” “La bonne aventure, ô gué.” * * *
Apropos of this, a Canadian whom I met at this delightful festival of French remembrance told me that these songs, brought by Champlain’s sailors, preserved by Montcalm’s sailors, still exist among “our people” all through the country.
“Among us are still played on the hurdy-gurdy those refrains of long ago. We transmit them in the family, from father to son, like a charming echo of the far away mother country. If you come to our French villages in Canada, Monsieur, to Beauharnais, to Saint Hilaire, to Maisonneuve, to Sorel, to Trois-Rivières, you will hear all sorts of pleasant couplets which come in a direct line from Angoumois, from Normandy, from Saintonge, from Poitou—and I, too, come from Poitou.
“So, then. Monsieur,” adds my Canadian questioner, laughingly, “We will sing you some Poitevine songs, which will recall your childhood days and the quaint melodies of the country-folk over there. We have a good collection of them. You will only have the embarrassment of choice.”
And that good Frenchman of Canada begins to name over for me a whole string of ancient sayings, which have retained the perfume and, as it were, the melancholy softness of the gardens of the past. First of all a “danse ronde”: