Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

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That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Germain de Calberte, the
imagination with difficulty receives; all is now so quiet, the pulse of
human life now beats so low and still in this hamlet of the mountains.
Boys followed me a great way off, like a timid sort of lion-hunters; and
people turned round to have a second look, or came out of their houses,
as I went by. My passage was the first event, you would have fancied,
since the Camisards. There was nothing rude or forward in this
observation; it was but a pleased and wondering scrutiny, like that of
oxen or the human infant; yet it wearied my spirits, and soon drove me
from the street.

I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly carpeted with
sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil the inimitable attitudes of the
chestnuts as they bear up their canopy of leaves. Ever and again a
little wind went by, and the nuts dropped all around me, with a light and
dull sound, upon the sward. The noise was as of a thin fall of great
hailstones; but there went with it a cheerful human sentiment of an
approaching harvest and farmers rejoicing in their gains. Looking up, I
could see the brown nut peering through the husk, which was already
gaping; and between the stems the eye embraced an amphitheatre of hill,
sunlit and green with leaves.

I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I moved in an atmosphere
of pleasure, and felt light and quiet and content. But perhaps it was
not the place alone that so disposed my spirit. Perhaps some one was
thinking of me in another country; or perhaps some thought of my own had
come and gone unnoticed, and yet done me good. For some thoughts, which
sure would be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly scan their
features; as though a god, travelling by our green highways, should but
ope the door, give one smiling look into the house, and go again for
ever. Was it Apollo, or Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who shall
say? But we go the lighter about our business, and feel peace and
pleasure in our hearts.

I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the condemnation of a
young man, a Catholic, who had married a Protestant girl and gone over to
the religion of his wife. A Protestant born they could understand and
respect; indeed, they seemed to be of the mind of an old Catholic woman,
who told me that same day there was no difference between the two sects,
save that 'wrong was more wrong for the Catholic,' who had more light and
guidance; but this of a man's desertion filled them with contempt.

'It is a bad idea for a man to change,' said one.

It may have been accidental, but you see how this phrase pursued me; and
for myself, I believe it is the current philosophy in these parts. I
have some difficulty in imagining a better. It's not only a great flight
of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out of his family for
heaven's sake; but the odds are--nay, and the hope is--that, with all
this great transition in the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a
hairbreadth to the eyes of God. Honour to those who do so, for the
wrench is sore. But it argues something narrow, whether of strength or
weakness, whether of the prophet or the fool, in those who can take a
sufficient interest in such infinitesimal and human operations, or who
can quit a friendship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I think I
should not leave my old creed for another, changing only words for other
words; but by some brave reading, embrace it in spirit and truth, and
find wrong as wrong for me as for the best of other communions.

The phylloxera was in the neighbourhood; and instead of wine we drank at
dinner a more economical juice of the grape--La Parisienne, they call it.
It is made by putting the fruit whole into a cask with water; one by one
the berries ferment and burst; what is drunk during the day is supplied
at night in water: so, with ever another pitcher from the well, and ever
another grape exploding and giving out its strength, one cask of
Parisienne may last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will
anticipate, a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste.

What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three before I left St.
Germain de Calberte. I went down beside the Gardon of Mialet, a great
glaring watercourse devoid of water, and through St. Etienne de Vallee
Francaise, or Val Francesque, as they used to call it; and towards
evening began to ascend the hill of St. Pierre. It was a long and steep
ascent. Behind me an empty carriage returning to St. Jean du Gard kept
hard upon my tracks, and near the summit overtook me. The driver, like
the rest of the world, was sure I was a pedlar; but, unlike others, he
was sure of what I had to sell. He had noticed the blue wool which hung
out of my pack at either end; and from this he had decided, beyond my
power to alter his decision, that I dealt in blue-wool collars, such as
decorate the neck of the French draught-horse.

I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modestine, for I dearly desired to
see the view upon the other side before the day had faded. But it was
night when I reached the summit; the moon was riding high and clear; and
only a few grey streaks of twilight lingered in the west. A yawning
valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in created nature at my
feet; but the outline of the hills was sharp against the sky. There was
Mount Aigoal, the stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet, not only as an
active undertaking leader, deserves some mention among Camisards; for
there is a spray of rose among his laurel; and he showed how, even in a
public tragedy, love will have its way. In the high tide of war he
married, in his mountain citadel, a young and pretty lass called
Mariette. There were great rejoicings; and the bridegroom released five-
and-twenty prisoners in honour of the glad event. Seven months
afterwards, Mariette, the Princess of the Cevennes, as they called her in
derision, fell into the hands of the authorities, where it was like to
have gone hard with her. But Castanet was a man of execution, and loved
his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, and got a lady there for a hostage;
and for the first and last time in that war there was an exchange of
prisoners. Their daughter, pledge of some starry night upon Mount
Aigoal, has left descendants to this day.

Modestine and I--it was our last meal together--had a snack upon the top
of St. Pierre, I on a heap of stones, she standing by me in the moonlight
and decorously eating bread out of my hand. The poor brute would eat
more heartily in this manner; for she had a sort of affection for me,
which I was soon to betray.

It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, and we met no one but a
carter, visible afar off by the glint of the moon on his extinguished
lantern.

Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at supper; fifteen miles and a
stiff hill in little beyond six hours!



FAREWELL, MODESTINE!


On examination, on the morning of October 3rd, Modestine was pronounced
unfit for travel. She would need at least two days' repose, according to
the ostler; but I was now eager to reach Alais for my letters; and, being
in a civilised country of stage-coaches, I determined to sell my lady
friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon. Our yesterday's
march, with the testimony of the driver who had pursued us up the long
hill of St. Pierre, spread a favourable notion of my donkey's
capabilities. Intending purchasers were aware of an unrivalled
opportunity. Before ten I had an offer of twenty-five francs; and before
noon, after a desperate engagement, I sold her, saddle and all, for five-
and-thirty. The pecuniary gain is not obvious, but I had bought freedom
into the bargain.

St Jean du Gard is a large place, and largely Protestant. The maire, a
Protestant, asked me to help him in a small matter which is itself
characteristic of the country. The young women of the Cevennes profit by
the common religion and the difference of the language to go largely as
governesses into England; and here was one, a native of Mialet,
struggling with English circulars from two different agencies in London.
I gave what help I could; and volunteered some advice, which struck me as
being excellent.

One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged the vineyards in this
neighbourhood; and in the early morning, under some chestnuts by the
river, I found a party of men working with a cider-press. I could not at
first make out what they were after, and asked one fellow to explain.

'Making cider,' he said. 'Oui, c'est comme ca. Comme dans le nord!'

There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice: the country was going to the
devil.

It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and rattling through
a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that I became aware of my bereavement.
I had lost Modestine. Up to that moment I had thought I hated her; but
now she was gone,

'And oh!
The difference to me!'

For twelve days we had been fast companions; we had travelled upwards of
a hundred and twenty miles, crossed several respectable ridges, and
jogged along with our six legs by many a rocky and many a boggy by-road.
After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and distant in manner,
I still kept my patience; and as for her, poor soul! she had come to
regard me as a god. She loved to eat out of my hand. She was patient,
elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimitably small. Her
faults were those of her race and sex; her virtues were her own.
Farewell, and if for ever--

Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I had sold her in my turn,
I was tempted to follow his example; and being alone with a stage-driver
and four or five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to yield to my
emotion.