NEMOURS: A TYPICAL FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWN
BY ROGER BOUTET DE MONVEL
WITH PICTURES BY BERNARD B. DE MONVEL
IT is only a little provincial town, like many others in France. It has no famous monument, and the immediate neighborhood is neither imposing nor celebrated. And yet this little town, with its quiet streets, its modest houses, its limpid river, and its Champs de Mars, where in fine weather the prominent citizens come to discuss the events of the day, has a tranquil and intimate charm of its own, and the country thereabouts is so rich in smiling, changing views,—moist fields along the water’s-edge, wild heaths, and villages bathed in sunlight,—that the whole makes a picture that wins one’s heart at first sight.
Nemours lies in the department of Seine-et-Marne, that old part of France which used to be called La Brie, on the road leading from Fontainebleau to Montargis. As you approach the outlying houses, you come upon the first bridge that crosses the canal, on the sluggish waters of which glide unwieldy boats, heavily laden with wood, blocks of stone, or fine sand, and towed by mules or donkeys. Once over the bridge, to the right lies the main street, the Rue de Paris—naturally, for what town of the provinces is without its Rue de Paris? And what Rue de Paris has not, on one side, a window with a tempting display of delicacies, and on the other, the shops of the haberdasher, the grain-seller, the ironmonger, the harness-maker, and the barber, who, in his shirt-sleeves, stands at his door waiting for customers; and last, the Café du Progrès, where, gathered about little tables, the men drink, and hold forth on the future of France. Then you cross a second stream, bordered with old lime-trees and overshadowed by the high walls of the convent. Here is the Hôtel de l’Ecu, which still has the royal arms on its worn façade, and in front of which the mail-coaches used to stop; here is the market-place; the church, which dates from the thirteenth century; and, before the church, the statue of the great man of the neighborhood, Etienne Bezout, the distinguished mathematician.
If the truth must be told, Etienne Bezout’s fame is hardly world-wide; but since, in the matter of celebrities, one takes what one can get, for many long years the townspeople have been glad to have this old worthy—with his eighteenth-century wig, and his finger pointing heavenward in an attitude of wisdom and abstraction—preside over their weekly markets and the meetings of their fire-company, as well as at their outpourings from mass, from funerals, weddings, and christenings.
Beyond the market-place there is yet a third bridge, the great bridge overlooking the river Loing. A few steps farther, and you are amused by the droll sight of the washerwomen as they beat out their linen, gossiping and shrieking on the bank, like so many frogs at the edge of a marsh. Over there is the old pond, where the cows linger, and farther still stands the feudal castle, with its square tower. Beyond this we look down on the garden of M. le Curé, the tanneries, the convent, the town mill, and, last of all, on the river, which, though choked with weeds, is charmingly picturesque by reason of its tiny islands, its bubbling waterfalls, and its Normandy poplars. Just across the bridge lie the suburbs of the little town, with its working-men’s houses, quaint roofs, and farm-yards; and then again the open country and the green fields.
THE CANAL AT NEMOURS WITH ITS BORDER OF NORMANDY POPLARS