Читать книгу The Sunny South: An Autumn in Spain and Majorca - John William Clayton - Страница 5

Table of Contents

LE MANS.—ANCIENT CITY BY NIGHT.—THE LUXURY OF BATHING.—CATHEDRAL OF ST. JULIEN.—TOURS.—POITIERS.—ANGOULÊME.—BORDEAUX.—EN ROUTE FOR BAYONNE.—A MERCANTILE DEFAULTER.—A LONELY REGION.—HOTEL INTERIOR.—INGENIOUS INVENTION.—TABLE D'HÔTE.

AT midnight Le Mans was reached, amidst a deluge of rain and an insufficiency of street lamps. Gas, we believe, has found its way to Jerusalem, but not to Le Mans; and yet Le Mans is a large and important town, blessed with an enlightened and despotic government.

After settling ourselves, to our extreme inconvenience, in a vehicle like an opera-box drawn side-ways by a horse and bells, we bumped and jingled slowly on through long, dark streets, the houses in which were all so large and gloomy that they looked like prisons, and in which there appeared to be a general flushing of sewers.

Le Mans may or may not be the "trodden ground" our critics complain of, but we are quite sure it was not so when we arrived there, for not a living thing was seen in the great black town save a benighted cat or two and one very ancient rag-picker. A more forsaken and deserted-looking place could not be imagined—no, not even by Daniel the Prophet, with all his experience of "the abomination of desolation," &c.

The grey light of the skies showed us at last a great square opening before us, with a lofty stone building like a war tower rising dark in the midst. We stopped at an inn door in this square, and descended, the opera-box making a vigorous plunge to assist us in the operation. Repeated pulls at a cracked bell, which sounded dismally in some remote depth of the old house, eventually produced the effect desired, for a rattling of chains was heard, and then the heavy door swung slowly on its hinges, sufficiently to admit of the protrusion of a man's head. The head came out as far as the shoulders, and nothing more ghastly could be conceived, as for a few seconds it remained there motionless and isolated against the black background, like the decapitated skull of some malefactor nailed to a gibbet, the face gleaming deadly in the uncertain night-light. The dreary silence of the dark square was broken only by the lonely cry of some distant watchman, pacing the old streets here and there with a dull lamp, which served to deepen still more the darkness beyond, whilst, high, gaunt, and spectral against the dull grey air, loomed the fortress-like building. A gigantic lighted clock was poised on a high tower, the long hands thereof making great leaps of five minutes each along the dial, as if it were dozing, and then suddenly waking and making up for lost time by desperate strides. In fact, to anyone who had recently supped upon pork chops, or to the cheerful mind of the late lamented Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, of raw-head-and-bare-bones memory, this old tower and its clock might have appeared as the Ogre Time, or some huge Cyclopean ghoul of night, watching and gloating, with its burning eye, over the surely passing hours of the thousand slumberers lying for a season sweetly unconscious of the fleeting of life beneath, and counting each heave of breath which as it passes must bring all nearer and nearer to its maw.

The waiter who belonged to the head before mentioned turned out to be a most excellent young man, and, in his assiduous exertions to make himself agreeable to apparently the first British traveller he had ever beheld, danced about like an electrified frog. Indeed, we were grateful enough for this very sprightliness of his, for it acted as a corrective to the depressing effect of the entire establishment, which was pervaded by an air of dull, forlorn gloom. The walls appeared to be constantly in tears. The long cavernous passages and mysterious corridors were made doubly dark by the sulky gleam of a consumptive "short ten." The lofty bedrooms were provided with beds which had too close a resemblance to four-post hearses, and their furniture in general had too much of the faded grandeur of other days. The old wooden staircases creaked audibly before we began to walk upon them, as if some invisible ghost of a dead housemaid were waiting to show us up to bed, and when we ventured upon them we found they were leaning alarmingly on one side. We endeavoured as well as we could to keep in the middle, but they were so unsteady that their movement produced a sensation like that of mild intoxication or incipient sea-sickness. We were not without dread lest, supposing the balustrades showed equal signs of weakness, we might, if we did not hug the wall and coast along it very carefully, be shovelled neck and crop into the abyss below. Can anyone wonder, therefore, that in such a place we were grateful for the sprightliness of our waiter, whose good spirits and lively antics prevented us from indulging in depressing thoughts? Variety of any kind is pleasing. Who has not heard of the gentleman who got into such a depressed condition of mind from attending the debates in the House of Lords and the burlesques at the London theatres, that, with the view of obtaining a little beneficial change, he took occasional walks in Brompton Cemetery, attended executions at the Old Bailey, or paid frequent visits to an anatomical museum? It was the same gentleman who was said always to carry an umbrella with an ivory death's-head as the handle, who had a velvet coat made from a piece of his wife's pall, and who took to singing the songs of Claribel.

Le Mans is a grand old town, stately, but mouldy and only half alive. Throughout there is happily an absence of that white garish Parisian element. No whitewash, gilded railings, or sculptured gewgaws offend the genius of the spot. The solemn old houses and walls stand looking down on the quiet streets as sadly as on that day when the last remnant of the gallant Vendean army under Larochejaquelein, wearied with the toils of long campaigns, was cut to pieces beneath them in the year 1793. The face of the old town seems as sorrowful now as when the shrieks of dying women and children, remorselessly slaughtered before it by the conquering Republicans, died away upon the air, on that day when cannonades of grape and volleys of musketry swept through all the streets, among a helpless crowd of the wretched wives and little ones of the scattered Royalists, of whom ten thousand corpses lay red in that awful sunset.

In the early morning we nearly frightened to death some good citizens by bathing in the river Sarthe, and several crowded to the bank to witness the last gasps of two insane victims to the love of ablution. It was a fine warm day in September, yet the idea to them seemed madness. However, this little adventure brought to light what Diogenes had so long sought for—an honest man. As we were drying ourselves on the river bank, beneath the shadows of the old cathedral on the height above, a passer-by in course of conversation observed—

"Pour moi, messieurs, I detest water—never touch it—ni chaude, ni froide."

Now we like this blunt truthfulness, so much better than the big talk of some people respecting their tubs and baths, who yet never go near them. We remember, upon one occasion, in a country house there was a gentleman who was always talking about the luxury of "tubbing," and whose constant refrain was, "What a brute a man must be who doesn't tub," &c. Being the occupant of the adjoining room to us, we happened, quite by accident, one fine morning, upon hearing a tremendous splashing and dashing, to look through the key-hole, and discovered, much to our astonishment, our friend standing up, half dressed, in knickerbockers, shirt, and diamond pin, squeezing a sponge into a tin bath, and shouting in a very loud whisper (which would have made his fortune in an "aside" on the stage), as if overpowered with the freshness of the water, "Oh! how delightful! By Jove, how cold! Ahi! phew! a—h! oh!"

The cathedral of St. Julien is a grand, imposing Gothic structure, grey with the hoar of age. Its lofty towers, which are so richly ornamented that they appear as if covered with fretwork, hang at a great elevation above the city, crowning a height. In it we found the monument of Berengaria of Sicily, Queen of Richard I. of England, and the tomb of Charles of Anjou.

Le Mans has the honour of having given birth to Henry II., the first Plantagenet king of England; and we suppose we ought here to mention, what every one on earth must know, that his father Geoffroi always wore in his cap a sprig of genêt, or broom, which grows luxuriantly throughout Maine and Anjou, and hence the name of a race of kings—Plante-a-genêt.

From Le Mans we took the railway to Tours. Upon nearing that city we passed an old red château, where Louis XI. shut himself up, dreading, like Oliver Cromwell and many great criminals, daily assassination. Gates within gates, castle within castle, like a remarkably strong Chinese ball-puzzle; such is the interior. On a plain near Tours—an old story—Charles Martel beat the Saracens in 731. No one writes on Tours who does not say, "If the Saracens had beaten Charles Martel, we should all be keeping harems, smoking tchibouques, and praying on bits of square carpets, or, whenever we had a moment or two to spare, on turnpike roads," &c.

After we had passed Tours the country was flat, ugly, and very uninteresting. Poitiers, which we reached in due course, is a picturesque, battlemented old town, built on the tops of precipices, the sides of hills, rocks, and ravines, with green slopes, gardens, and river. We say nothing about the Black Prince, Lord Chandos, and King John, at the battle of Poitiers. We wonder, indeed, if they were ever there; for was there not a man who once wrote a book to prove that there had been no such person as Napoleon?

After passing Angoulême, at which we stopped for a short interval, it became too dark to see or read, and we tried to sleep; but soon discovered what a quantity of hitherto unknown and extraordinary bumps and sharp angles the human form possesses. In spite, however, of our discomforts, the train rattled on, and we arrived at Bordeaux. After a good night's rest, the disagreeable effects of our journey disappeared; and getting up fresh and active in the morning, we set out to explore the city. But what did we see? Docks, et præterea nihil!

As we were taking our seats in the train for Bayonne, we perceived in the next carriage to us, guarded by three gendarmes, a pale, middle-aged man of gentle exterior, at whom several persons at the carriage window were hurling execrations. Being unfortunate in the management of his affairs, he had attempted to maintain his position by means which brought him within the clutch of the law, and the consequence was loss and ruin, not only to himself, but also to many who had placed entire confidence in his integrity. Now, doubtless, he regretted his folly, and formed many good intentions as to the future; but, alas, several years must pass over before he can put them into practice, and when he emerges once more into life, the world will laugh to scorn the fine sentiments of a man out of jail, and, securely mailed in the panoply of their own good luck—we beg its pardon, high morality—politely refer him to an observation of Seneca's:—"Quid est turpius quam senex vivere incipiens?" [1]

However, every proverb has its reverse, "Ogni medaglia ha il suo reverso;" and against Seneca we can pit Mr. Charles Reade, who thinks it "never too late to mend."

We were roused from our reverie by a voice exclaiming, "En voiture, messieurs!" and at the same time the whistle screamed, the bell rang, and that great leveller, the railway train, glided off. In a few minutes the spires and masts of Bordeaux had passed away, and with them every vestige of the bustle and clang of busy life. How strange it seemed that in so short a time we should have dashed into the midst of lonely regions where the tracks of civilization seemed all but lost! Onwards we scoured, over the desolate Landes, over brown trackless moor, and through the gloom of forests. The leaden heavens seemed stagnant and dead, and indeed a ray of sunlight or gleam of warmth in such a scene would seem but a mockery to the heart. On, through desert places where the wild bird and solitary wood-cutter alone quicken the deadness of the silent wastes which spread away in dark expanse to the horizon. Far and wide no life is seen, and no sign thereof, save an occasional group of wretched hovels buried in the recesses of the black woods, which are perceived only for a moment through a storm-torn gap as we fly along and then are gone, leaving the wilderness again in all its dead stillness under the fading light of the dreary skies.

The lights of Bayonne at length gladly broke upon us as the evening darkened, and in a short time we were rattling with horse and bells through the heavy stone gates, and over the moats and drawbridges of the city walls. The old narrow streets, with their tall houses covered with balconies, lattices, and coloured blinds, were a foretaste of those to be seen in Spain. The rows of lighted shops, beneath heavy low arcades built of hewn stone, and supported by stout pillars, brown with age, were all crowded with busy passengers, garbed with sash, velvet breech, and bonnet. The bright cafés—filled with loungers, small politicians, and trim waiters, with their hair mowed to the roots—were shedding on the roadway floods of yellow light.

On we rattled, over roads not paved yesterday, if ever paved at all, amidst bumping and jingling, forced to listen from time to time to periodic fits of shocking language addressed to the smoking horses, gay in coloured trappings, and trotting us merrily along. Now we dived into a narrow alley, black as pitch darkness could make it. Then we twisted out of it so sharply, round a corner, that, had our hair not been carefully oiled, it would have stood on end, and emerged into a wide street full of gas lamps, illuminated windows, and rows of bright green little trees, trimmed so artificially that they had as little resemblance to their natural growing congeners as those in a child's Noah's ark. It was pleasant, after our dreary day's journey, to find ourselves thus hurrying, in the brilliant flare of the night lamps, through a most picturesque old town, over bridges from which we could see in the rapid waters below the twinkling reflection of a hundred lights, along streets in which we passed companies of soldiers marching to the music of drums and bugles, and through busy quays all alive with bustle and loaded with merchandise. In fact,

"The city gates were opened; the market, all alive

With buyers and with sellers, was humming like a hive;

Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was ringing;

And blithely o'er her panniers the peasant girl was singing."

And "blithely" we eventually entered the Hotel * * *, and sat down to a remarkably good dinner of fresh sardines, wild boar, paté de foie de canard, and a dish of beccaficoes. "Our bore," the inevitable Cockney across the table, fired off a sickly joke at the expense of those little birds, to the effect that, if we had never yet eaten beccaficoes, we ought-to-learn (ortolan). Now really! Oh! who can minister to the "mind diseased" that produces such monstrosities?

The hotel was a great square house, with a wonderful collection of keys on a board by the entrance door, as if they had been fired there like grape-shot out of a gun. The passages and staircases were liberally supplied by day with sand and saliva, and by night with cockroaches of remarkable size. Hanging on the walls of the salle-à-manger were advertisements of bull-fights to come off in various towns of Spain, and also others of various hotels in different countries. There was one of a boarding-house in Weymouth Street, Portland Place, London, with a picture of the same. Now we do not wish to set up as art-critics, but merely state that we have once or twice in the course of our lives had occasion to find ourselves in that salubrious district, but don't remember noticing any detached house or Italian villa in a park, with palm trees waving over it, and a plantain in full growth. There was another picture of a hotel in Granada, with the Moors walking about the streets and conversing with the waiters at the door, as if Abderrhaman was still residing in Spain.

In the courtyard of our inn a fountain was playing, and a vine formed a large shady arbour for smokers and idlers beneath. There was not much to complain of, and notwithstanding the general smell of garlic, and an odour resembling that of steamboat cabins, with which the bedrooms were perfumed, we slept most comfortably for a short time with calm consciences and clean sheets, gratefully manufacturing a proverb for the occasion, to the effect that fine feathers make fine beds, to say nothing of good housemaids. We even glided into dreams, in which we held conversations with individuals of every possible complexion, dressed in scarlet Scotch bonnets, velveteen jackets, broken out into a nettle-rash of metal buttons, red sashes, breeches, and hose, in Basque, Spanish, French, English, and all sorts of patois, all at once, and with incredible ease, coherence, and velocity. We say we slept most comfortably for a short time, and one must have been very deaf, or stolid, or philosophical—in a word, insensible to all sorts of disturbance—to have slept comfortably after 2 a.m. in such a place. For diligence after diligence coming from somewhere or other, and going in the same direction, rolled by every quarter of an hour immediately underneath our windows, accompanied with loud shouts, cracking of whips, and jangling of bells.

Between the quarters of the hours a gentleman and his wife enlightened the entire hotel with a domestic wrangle in one of the rooms in our neighbourhood, and at 5 a.m. some person or persons overhead, probably experimentalising with a cold tub for the first time in their lives, apparently found it impossible to restrain themselves from giving vent to the natural exhilaration produced by the bath in what seemed, by the trampling they made, to be an Indian war-dance. Added to this, there was a clock in our apartment which struck six when it should have struck four, and eight when it should have struck six, thereby becoming a source of much anxiety to the half-dormant mind, torturing it with vague speculations when it should have been at rest.

The bedroom bell was ingenious enough, going off like an alarum when a knob of wood fixed in the wall was touched; and the invention would be still more valuable if it would at the same time induce any servants to answer it. As it was, the only chance, after prodding it for a good quarter of an hour without any other result than a sore thumb and a great deal of noise, was to seat oneself in an arm-chair before it with the latest newspaper, or some interesting book, and, the elbow firmly pressed against the knob, so to remain, if needs be, for the whole afternoon until some one below was sick of the rattle, and condescended to come and inquire the cause of the summons.

A table-d'hôte breakfast in places like Bayonne is very trying to a delicate stomach, especially when an opposite lady is in the habit of wearing a false nose, and when the gentlemen wear diamond rings and very dirty wristbands. Individuals of excited imaginations may possibly regale themselves with potage à paté d'Italie, but to minds of ordinary level it appears but as some mystic and not very inviting fluid with things like boiled gentles in it. Rognons sautés en champagne is a dish also considered by the sanguine as something quite unique, whereas a philosopher (at all events at so early a meal as breakfast) is apt to connect that condiment in a general way with old hats and hot water.