FROM NORMANDY TO PROVENCE.
DONALD G. MITCHELL.
[“Fresh Gleanings; or, A New Sheaf from the Old Fields of Continental Europe,” an interesting and appreciative work of travel by the “Ik Marvel” of literary fame, presents us with the following picturesque account of some of the more interesting cities of Normandy and Southern France, which can scarcely fail to prove of interest to readers. Leaving Lyons, our traveller makes a diligence journey to Limoges, in which city we take up the thread of his route.]
We wish to take our stop at some not too large town of the interior, and which shall it be,—Châlons-sur-Saône, with its bridge, and quays, and meadows; or Dijon, lying in the vineyards of Burgundy; or Châteauroux, in the great sheep plains of Central France; or Limoges, still more unknown, prettily situated among the green hills of Limousin, and the chief town of the department Haute Vienne?
Let it be just by the Boule d’Or, in the town last named, that I quit my seat in the diligence. The little old place is not upon any of the great routes, so that the servants of the inn have not become too republican for civility, and a blithe waiting-maid is at hand to take our luggage.
A plain door-way in the heavy stone inn, and still plainer and steeper stair-way, conduct to a clean, large chamber upon the first floor. Below in the little salon some three or four are at supper. Join them you may, if you please, with a chop nicely done, and a palatable vin du pays.
It is too dark to see the town. You are tired with eight-and-forty hours of constant diligence-riding,—if you have come from Lyons, as I did,—and the bed is excellent.
The window overlooks the chief street of the place; it is wide and paved with round stones, and dirty, and there are no sidewalks, though a town of thirty thousand inhabitants. Nearly opposite is a café, with small green settees ranged about the door, with some tall flowering shrubs in green boxes; and even at eight in the morning two or three are loitering upon their chairs and sipping coffee. Next door is the office of the diligence for Paris. Farther up the street are haberdashery shops and show-rooms of the famous Limoges crockery. Soldiers are passing by twos, and cavalrymen in undress go sauntering by on fine coal-black horses; and the guide-book tells me that from this region come the horses for all the cavalry of France....
There are curious old churches, and a simple-minded, gray-haired verger, to open the side chapels and to help you spell the names on tombs. Not half so tedious will the old man prove as the automaton cathedral-showers of England, and he spices his talk with a little wit. There are shops, not unlike those of a middle-sized town in our country; still, little air of trade, and none at all of progress. Decay seems to be stamped on nearly all the country towns of France, unless so large as to make cities, and so have a life of their own, or so small as to serve only as market-towns for the peasantry....
Wandering out of the edge of the town of Limoges, you come upon hedges and green fields, for Limousin is the Arcadia of France. Queer old houses adorn some of the narrow streets, and women in strange head-dresses look out of the balconies that lean half-way over. But Sunday is their holiday time, when all are in their gayest, and when the green walks encircling the town, laid upon that old line of ramparts which the Black Prince stormed, are thronged with the population.