I. Giberne Sieveking

At Arcachon there is an old Chapelle miraculeuse de Notre Dame, adjoining the newer church, founded about 1520 by Thomas Illyricus. It contains many of the fishermen's votive offerings, such as life-belts, stilts, pieces of rope, and boats and wreaths. I noticed, too, a barrel, on which were the words "EchappÉ dans le golfe du MÉxique, 1842." These offerings are hung up near the chancel, and give a distinct character to it.

As we came into the little church, a child's funeral was just leaving it, the coffin borne by children. We waited by the door till the sad little procession had gone by, and before me, as I write, there rises in my memory the expression on the father's face. It had something in it that was absolutely unforgettable.

Arcachon

ARCACHON, MIRACULOUS CHAPEL, 1722.

[Page 40.

As we passed down the village street, we passed another little procession; two acolytes in blue cassocks and caps, bearing in their hands the vessels of sacred oil, a priest following them in biretta, surplice and cassock, and by his side a server. I noticed that each man's cap was instantly lifted reverently, as it passed him. As they turned in at a cottage, the whole street down which they had passed seemed full of the lingering fragrance of the incense carried by the acolytes.

Arcachon, at one time, must have been exceedingly quaint and picturesque, but since then an alien influence has been introduced which has—for all artistic purposes—spoilt it. Facing the chief street—dominating it, as it were—is the Casino; an ugly, flashy, vulgar building, out of keeping structurally with everything near it. It resembles an Indian pagoda, and when we were there in November its huge, bleary eyes were shut as it took its yearly slumber, deserted by Fashion. It was like an enormous pimple on the quiet, picturesque, unpretending countenance of this village of the Landes which had been subjected to its obsession, and that of the two hotels in immediate attendance.

The people, however, appear unspoilt and unsophisticated. At each cottage door sit the women knitting; and, as one passes, they pass the time of day, or make some remark or other, with a pleasant smile.

When we were at Arcachon telegraph poles were being put up. The method of setting up these eminences was distinctly curious, to the English eye. There was an immense amount of propping up, and many anxious glances bestowed on the poles before anything could be accomplished. The men on whom this tremendous labour devolves have to wear curious iron clasps strapped on to their boots, so that they should be able to dig into the bark as they swarm up the poles for the poles are just trunks of pine trees stripped of their branches, and many of them look very crooked.

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In many of the gardens poinsettias were flowering, and hanging clusters of a vivid red flower which our hotel proprietress called "Songe de Cardinal." It was the same tint of scarlet as the berries called "Archutus" or "Arbousses," which grow here in abundance by the side of the road on bushes, and are like a large variety of raspberry, a cross between that and a strawberry. It has a very pleasant flavour when eaten with cream: this our waiter confided to me, and, after tasting the mixture, I quite agreed with him, although the proprietress had treated the idea with scorn.

In November the roads, in places, are red with the fallen fruit of this plant. There are also curious long brown seed cases which had dropped from trees something like acacias, but which have a smaller leaf than our English variety. The tint of the pods is a warm reddish brown; they are about the length of one's forearm, the inner edges all sticky with resin.

In the village street the inevitable little stream, which is encouraged in most French towns, runs beside the roadside, and is fed by all the pailfuls of dirty water that are flung from time to time into its midst. The plage at Arcachon is not attractive in autumn, and it is difficult to understand how it can be a magnet at a warmer time of the year to the hundreds that frequent it. An arm of land stretches all round the little inland pool—for it is not much more than a pool—in which in summer time the bathers disport themselves. In November, of course, it requires an enormous effort of imagination to picture it full of sailing ships and pleasure boats.

Murray mentions a particular kind of boat, long, pointed, narrow and shallow, which was much to the fore in 1867, and which he imagined to be indigenous to the soil, so to speak. But, apparently, they have changed all that. I only saw one that was built as he describes, and this was green and black in colour. He also mentions stilts being worn by the peasants at Arcachon and the neighbourhood near the village, but of these we saw few traces. There were pictures of them in an old print of the chapelle built in 1722, and in a photo of the shepherds of the plains. The photos, indeed, are numerous in the whole country of the Gironde of anciens costumes, but when one sets oneself to try and find their counterparts in real life, evidences are practically nil. All that remains of them in these matter-of-fact, levelling days, in which so much that is quaint, characteristic and peculiar is whittled down to one ordinary dead level of alikeness, are the stiff white caps, varied in shape and size, according to the district, and the sabots. Some of the peasants here often go about the streets in woollen bed-slippers, but most of them use wooden sabots—pointed, and with leathern straps over the foot.

One gets quite used to the sight of two sabots standing lonely without their inmates in the entrance to some shop, their toes pointing inwards, just as they have been left (as if they were some conveyance or other—in a sense, of course, they are—which is left outside to await the owner's return). Continually the women leave them like this, and proceed to the interior of the shop in their stockinged feet.

Sometimes the countrywomen go about without any covering at all to their heads, and it is quite usual to see them thus in church as well as in the streets. The men wear a little round cap, fitting tightly over the head like a bathing cap, and very full, baggy trousers, close at the ankles, dark brown or dark blue as to colour, and very frequently velveteen as to material.

At La Teste, a village close to Arcachon, the women much affect the high-crowned black straw hat, blue aprons and blue knickerbockers. At most of the cottage doors were groups of them, knitting and chatting; and, as we passed, the old grandmother of the party would be irresistibly impelled to step out into the road to catch a further glimpse of the strangers within their borders—clad in quite as unusual garments as their own appeared to ours.

There are no lack of variety of occupations open to the feminine persuasion: the women light the street lamps; they arrange and pack oysters; fish, and sell the fish when caught. They work in the fields; they tend the homely cow, as well as the three occupations which some folk will persist in regarding as the only ones to which women—never mind what their talents or capabilities—can expect to be admitted, viz: the care of children and needlework and cooking! I saw one quite old woman white-washing the front of her cottage with a low-handled, mop-like broom, very energetically, while her husband sat by and watched the process, at his ease.

La Teste stands out in my memory as a village of musical streets, though of course in the Gironde it is the exception when one does not hear little melodious sentences set to some street call or other. As we passed up the village street, a woman was coming down carrying a basket of rogans, a little silvery fish with dazzling, gleaming sides, and crying, "Derrr ... verai!" "Derrr ... verai!" with long sustained accent on the final high note. "Marchandise!" was another call which sounded continually, and its variation, "Marchan-dis ... e!"

Passing through Bordeaux, I remember a very curiously sounding street-hawk note: it did not end at all as one expected it to end. I could not distinguish the words, and was not near enough to see the ware.

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But the human voice was not the only street music, for as we sat on one of the benches that are so thoughtfully placed under the lee of many of the cottages at La Teste, there fell on our ears a sound from a distance which somehow suggested the approach of a Chinese procession: "Pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom!" mixed with the sharp "ting-ting" of brass, and the duller, flatter tone of wood, sweet because of the suggestion of the trickling of water which it conveys.

A procession of cows turned the corner of the long street and moved sedately towards us, their bells keeping time with their footsteps, their conductor, as seems the custom in these parts, leading the detachment. It was followed by a little cart drawn by two dogs, in which sat a countrywoman, much too heavy a weight for the poor animals to drag.

La Teste itself is a picturesque little village, and larger than it looks at first sight. Each cottage has its own well, arched over. Up each frontage, lined with outside shutters, is trained the home vine, while little plantations of vines abound everywhere. The women travel by train with their heads loosely covered with shawls, when not wearing the stiff caps or hats, and it is very usual for them to carry, as a hold-all, a sort of little waistcoat buttoning over a parcel; a waistcoat embroidered with some device or other.

THE GIRONDE SHEPHERDS.

[Page 51.

Coming back to Arcachon, we met a typical old peasant woman, with two huge straw baskets—one white and one black, a big stick, and a black handkerchief tied over her head, and a most characteristic face, crumpled, seamed and lined with all the different hand-writings over it that the pencil of Fate had drawn during a long lifetime. When young, the peasant women of the Landes are not striking. The peculiar characteristics of the face are unvarying; you meet with them everywhere all about the Gironde and Bordeaux. The faces are sallow, low-browed, with dark hair and eyes. They are brisk-looking, but just escape being either pretty or noticeable. Most of the women, too, that we saw, were of small stature and insignificant looking. It is when they are old that the beauty to which they are heir, is developed. The women of the Landes are evening primroses: the striking quality of their faces comes out after the heyday of life is over. It seems that the face of the Gironde woman needs many seasons of sun and heat to bring out the sap of the character. The autumn tints are beautiful in faces, as in trees. Theirs is the beauty that Experience—that Teacher of the Thing-as-it-is—brings; and it is in the clash of the meeting of the peculiar personality with the experience from outside, that character springs to the birth. You see—if you can read it—their life, in the eyes of the dweller by the countryside. In a more civilised class one can but read too often, what has been put on with intention, as a mask. Civilisation and convention eliminate individuality, as far as possible, and they recommend dissimulation, and we, oftener than not, take their recommendation.

So in all countries, and in all ages, Jean FranÇois Millet's idea is the right one—that to find life at its plainest, at its fullest, one should study it, au fond, in the lives of the sons and daughters of the soil. Their open-air life prints deep on their faces the divine impress of Nature, obtainable, in quite the same measure, in no other way; they have become intimate with Nature, and have lived their everyday life close to her heart-beats. What she gives is incommunicable to others: it can only be given by direct contact, and can never be passed on, for only by direct contact can the creases of the mind, caused by the life of towns and great cities, be smoothed out, and a calm, strong, new breadth of outlook given.

I remember a typical face of this kind. We had been out for a day's excursion from Arcachon, and, coming home, at the station where we took train, there got into our carriage, a mother and daughter. After getting into conversation with them—a thing they were quite willing to do, with ready natural courtesy of manner,—we learned that the mother was eighty-one years old and had worked as a parcheuse in her young days. She had a fine old face, wrinkled and lined with a thousand life stories. Kindly, pathetic, had been their influence upon her, for her eyes and expression were just like a sunset over a beautiful country: it was the beauty that is only reached when one has well drunk at the goblets of life—some of us to the bitter dregs—and set them down, thankful that at last it is growing near the time when one need lift them to one's lips no more.

The mother told me that the women parcheuses could not earn so much as the men, three francs a day—perhaps only thirty centimes—being their ordinary wage. She turned to me once, so tragically, with such a sudden world of sorrow rising in her eyes. "I have worked all my life in the fields, and at fishing, and now, one by one, all whom I love have left me, and I am so lonely left behind."

"Ah, c'est malheureux!" exclaimed the daughter, turning sympathetically to her.

We parted at Arcachon station, but how often since, have I not seen the face of the old mother looking sadly out of our carriage window, the tears gathering slowly in her eyes as she remembered those with whom she had started life, and whom death had distanced from her now, so far.

There are two distinguishing characteristics of the villages of the Landes as we saw them, and these are the absence of beggars and of drunkenness—I didn't see a single drunken man. As one knows, it is somewhat rare to meet with them in other parts of France, and one remembers the story of the English barrister who was taken up by the police and thought to be drunk (so seldom had they been enabled to diagnose drunkenness), and taken off to the lock-up! It turned out that he was only suffering from an over-emphasised Anglicised pronunciation of the French language, studied (without exterior aid) at home, before travelling abroad.

Thrift and sobriety are two virtues which generally go in company—they are very much in evidence in the country of the Gironde to-day. Happy the land where this is the case! Unfortunately it is not the case in England now, nor has been indeed for many a long year. Think of the difference too there is in manner between the countrymen of our own England and that of France. One cannot travel in this part of France without meeting everywhere that simple, native courtesy which is so spontaneously ready on all occasions. It is a perfect picture of what the intercourse of strangers should be.

As a nation, we are apt to be stiff and awkward in our initial conversation with a stranger. We require so long a time before we thaw and are our natural selves; our introductory chapters are so long and tiresome.

But to the Frenchman, you are there! that is all that matters. You do not require to be labelled conventionally to be accepted; there is such a thing, in his eyes, as an intimate strangership, and it is this very immediateness of friendliness and smile, that makes the charm of those unforgettable day-fellowships of intercourse which are so possible in France and—so difficult in England. How many such little cordial acts of camaraderie come back to my mind, perhaps some of them only ten minutes in duration, perhaps even less than that, and consisting solely in some spontaneous sympathy during travelling incidents; in the kindly, ready recognition of a difficulty, in the quick appreciation maybe of the humour of some idyll of the road. Whatever it is, you are at home and in touch at once for a happy moment, even if nothing more is to come of the brief encounter.

In a garden near the post-office at Arcachon we came upon this startling notice: "Beware of the wild boar!" Then there followed an injunction to the wild boar himself: "Beware of the snare," in the same sort of way as "Mind the step" is sometimes written up! Making inquiries later at the hotel, I found that there were plenty of wild boars in the forest of Arcachon, and that in winter time they often ventured into the town. Hunting parties, for the purpose of limiting family developments, are organised from time to time throughout the winter.

As regards the forest of Arcachon, we were struck specially by the fungi of all sorts and colours, that grow at the foot of the trees, and on the vivid green branching, long-stalked moss that envelops the surface of the ground: deep violet, orange, soft blue, brilliant yellow, scarlet and black spotted, dingy ink-black were some of the colours that I noted. Indeed, I did more than "note" them, for I picked a fair-sized basket full, took them back to the hotel, did them up carefully and despatched them to the post-office, where they refused to send them to England, saying that, owing to recent stipulations, they were not allowed to send such commodities by parcel post any longer. Crestfallen and disappointed, I had to unpack that gorgeous paint-box of colours again, and left them on my window ledge to enjoy them myself before they deliquesced.

In the forest here is no sound of birds. Too many have been shot for that to be possible any longer, and consequently a strange, eerie silence prevails over everything. Alas! I saw no birds at all, except a few long-tailed tits. The sunlight lay roughly gleaming on the red-brown needles below the dark pine trees, and grey and soft on the white, silvery sand. No other colour broke the sombre, olive green of the foliage overhead, but here and there flecks of vivid yellow, from the heather growing sparsely in clumps, spattered like a flung egg upon the banks. The stems of the pines are a rich red-brown, flaked and covered in places with soft, green lichen.

The hotel was not a place where one got much change in the matter of guests, but people came in for lunch now and again en route for somewhere else; and I shall never forget one such party. It consisted of a father, mother and two small infants of about one and a half and two and a half years of age. The children fed as did the parents. I watched with interest the courses which were packed into these children's mouths. Radishes, roast rabbit, egg omelet, vin ordinaire and milk, mixed (or one after the other, I really forget which!) From time to time they were attacked by spasms of whooping-cough, which rendered the process of digestion even more difficult than it would otherwise have been. One of the children had a cherubic face, and each time a doubtful morsel was crammed into his mouth he turned up his eyes seraphically to heaven as he admitted it, but—if he disliked its taste—only for time enough to turn it over once in his mouth previous to ejecting it! The parents never seemed to be in the least deterred from pressing these morsels on him, however often they returned.

The concierge at our hotel, (he who knew four words of English), was a distinct character. He would often come up to our room after table d'hÔte for a chat, on the pretence of making up our already glowing log fire. But whenever a bell rang he would instantly stop talking and cock his ears to hear if it were two peals or one, for two peals were his summons, and one only the chambermaid's. Before we left we added to his stock of English, and it was a performance during the hearing of which no one could have kept grave. "Ah, c'est difficile," he exclaimed after trying ineffectually to achieve a correct pronunciation: "Pad-dool you-r-y-owe carnoo!"

He told us that, as a rule, a concierge was paid only fifty francs, but sometimes he got as much as 250 francs a month in pourboires from the guests in the hotel. A femme de chambre would make twenty-five francs a month at a hotel. Neither concierge nor femme de chambre would be given more than eight days' notice if sent away. At this hotel he had no room to himself, no seat even (we often found him sitting on the stairs in the evening) and up most nights until half-past twelve, and yet he had to rise up and be at work, each morning by half-past five.

In the summer months it seemed the custom to go further south to some hotel or other, guests spending half the year at one place, and half at another.