Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches Part 13

"My dear sir, reflect for a moment."

"No, gentlemen, I feel indignant at the paltry joke you have played upon me--you knew that my sight was weak, and on that infirmity you have practised a very shameful trick; you have said to yourselves, 'Send an a.s.s to this Parisian, he will no doubt take it for a wild boar.' Be off, gentlemen, depart; let me have a clear horizon, or I shall proceed to extremity."

"Monsieur le Banquier, if you do not become a little more reasonable, we shall leave you to your reflections and to yourself, and pretty pickings you will be for the wolves."

"So much the better; I wish to remain, I desire it; and after the gross insult you have offered me, I shall certainly not be beholden to you as a guide, or return to the town in your company." And he kicked the dead carca.s.s before him in his rage.

"But, Monsieur le Banquier, the night is getting chilly and damp, and remember you are only just convalescent; come, let us be off."

"Gentlemen, I have already told you I shall not accompany you."

"Why, this is madness, sir."

"Anything you please; but thus it shall be. I will not leave this wood until I have killed a wolf; yes, I must have a wolf; it is only in the blood of a wolf that I can wash out the insult I have received; and I will remain in the forest eight days, fifteen, three months, if necessary. I will live on acorns, ants, toad's eggs, and roots, but by the soul of that stupid brute that lays there," and he gave the deceased a.s.s a second kick, "I will not budge until I have killed a wolf: enable me to slaughter a wolf, and I will follow you; nay, what is more, forgive you."

"Monsieur le Banquier, let us in the first place tie a stone round the neck of this unfortunate animal, and throw his body into the _Mare_, and then, as we are the only witnesses of this adventure, we swear that we will never divulge it to any one, or make the slightest allusion to it; and, as we are men of honour, you will of course believe us;--the secret shall be kept inviolable. On the other hand, as we are to a certain extent responsible for your health, and as your remaining here any longer in this cold wind will seriously endanger it, do not feel discomposed if we defer to another day the pleasure of seeing you kill a wolf, and request you will accompany us back to the _chateau_."

With various flattering speeches and consoling words, to heal his mortification, we at length succeeded in bringing him away with us; many a laugh had we on our road home, and many were the promises given that we would never reveal the events of the evening. But, alas! the secret came out on the following day, for before twelve o'clock had struck, a peasant came knocking at the door, howling, crying, bawling like a blind beggar, and demanding who had killed his a.s.s. His importunity succeeded; the murderer was brought to light, the banker cheerfully paid for his shot, and laughed heartily at the adventure; but in spite of his apparent philosophy, I remarked that from that moment he never met an a.s.s that he did not turn away his head; and this is the kind of game that one finds in _Mare_ No. 2.

CHAPTER XVI.

The _Cure_ of the Mountain--Toby Gold b.u.t.ton--Hospitality--The _Cure's_ pig--His hard fate and reflections--The _Cure_ of the plain--His worth and influence--The agent of the Government--Landed Proprietors--Their influence--The Orator--Dialogue with a Peasant.

If the Burgundian curates dwelling in the richest parts of the province are fat, sleek, and jovial members of the Establishment,--if in their cellars are to be found the best and most generous wines, and on their tables the most exquisite dishes,--the _cures_ of that portion of Le Morvan which is immediately adjacent to Burgundy enjoy the same abundance, and appreciate the advantages of good living equally with them. But this is not the case with their _confreres_ who reside in the uplands, amongst the arid and volcanic mountains, without roads, and the thickly timbered hill-district which joins the Nivernais. There the village pastors are poor, thin, and badly fed; fairly buried in the forest, and surrounded by a population more wretched and squalid than the rats of their own churches;--they seem as it were abandoned by everybody. That which I am about to relate will prove this, and show what a deplorable existence theirs is, and the ingenious methods to which they are obliged to have recourse to keep up a fair outside.

One of them thus exiled to a most deserted part of our forests, and who, the whole year, except on a few rare occasions, lived only on fruit and vegetables, hit upon a most admirable expedient for providing an animal repast to set before the _cures_ of the neighbourhood, when one or the other, two or three times during the year, ventured into these dreadful solitudes, with a view of a.s.suring himself with his own eyes that his unfortunate colleague had not yet died of hunger. The _cure_ in question possessed a pig, his whole fortune: and you will see, gentle reader, the manner in which he used it.

Immediately the bell of his presbytery announced a visitor, (the bell was red with rust, and its iron tongue never spoke unless to announce a formal visit,) and that his cook had shown his clerical friend into the parlour, the master of the house, drawing himself up majestically, said to his housekeeper (_cures_ fortunately always have, cousins, nieces, or house-keepers), as Louis XIV. might have said to Vatal, "Brigitte, let there be a good dinner for myself and my friend." Brigitte, although she knew there were only stale crusts and dried peas in her larder, seemed in no degree embarra.s.sed by this order; she summoned to her a.s.sistance "Toby, the Carrot," so called because his hair was as red as that of a native of West Galloway, and leaving the house together, they both went in search of the pig.

Toby the Carrot, a youth of seventeen, was the presbyter's page, a poor half-starved devil that the _cure_ had taken into his service, who lodged him badly, boarded him worse, and gave him no clothes at all; but who, nevertheless, in his moments of good-humour--they were rare--and no doubt to recompense him for so many drawbacks, would call him "Toby Gold-b.u.t.ton." At this innocent little pleasantry, this touch of affability, Toby grinned from ear to ear, made a deep reverence, and put the compliment carefully into his pocket, regretting however, no doubt, that he had nothing more substantial and savoury than this to eat with his coa.r.s.e dry bread. Toby was a very useful servitor to the _cure_; he was always on the alert; fat did not check his rapid movements, and from the time the Angelus rang in the morning to Vespers in the evening, his long skinny legs were constantly going. He drew the water, peeled and washed the onions, blacked the shoes--and how _cure's_ shoes do s.h.i.+ne!--rang the chapel-bell, gathered the acorns for the pig, intoned the Amen when his master said ma.s.s, swept and weeded the garden, snared the thrushes--which he cooked and eat in secret--and, dressed in a white surplice, carried the cross and the Viatic.u.m, and accompanied the _cure_ at night when on his way to offer the last consolations of religion to some dying poacher in the forest. These expeditions were sometimes across the mountains, and along the dry bed of some torrent, in which, according to Toby's notion, they would have certainly perished had not the _Bon Dieu_ been with them.

But we must return to our parson's pig, which after a short skirmish was caught by Brigitte and her carrotty a.s.sistant; and notwithstanding his cries, his grunts, his gestures of despair and supplication, the inhuman cook, seizing his head, opened a large vein in his throat, and relieved him of two pounds of blood; this, with the addition of garlic, shallots, mint, wild thyme and parsley, was converted into a most savoury and delicious black-pudding for the _cure_, and his friend, and being served to their reverences smoking hot on the summit of a pyramid of yellow cabbage, figured admirably as a small Vesuvius and a centre dish.

The surgical operation over, Brigitte, whose qualifications as a sempstress were superior, darned up the hole in the neck of the unfortunate animal, and he was then turned loose until a fresh supply of black-puddings should be required for a similar occasion. This wretched pig was never happy: how could he be so? Like Damocles of Syracuse, he lived in a state of perpetual fever; terror seized him directly he heard the _cure's_ bell, and seeing in imagination the uplifted knife already about to glide into his bacon, he invariably took to his heels before Brigitte was half way to the door to answer it.

If, as usual, the peal announced a diner-out, Brigitte and Gold-b.u.t.ton were soon on his track, calling him by the most tender epithets, and promising that he should have something nice for his supper, skim-milk, &c.; but the pig, with his painful experience, was not such a fool as to believe them; hidden behind an old cask, some f.a.ggots, or lying in a deep ditch, he remained silent as the grave, and kept himself close as long as possible.

Discovered, however, he was sure to be at last, when he would rush into the garden, and running up and down it like a mad creature, upset everything in his way; for several minutes it was a regular steeple-chase--across the beds, now over the turnips, then through the gooseberry-bushes; in short, he was here, there, and everywhere; but in spite of all his various stratagems to escape the fatal incision, the poor pig always finished by being seized, tied, thrown on the ground, and bled: the vein was then once more cleverly sewn up, and the inhuman operators quietly retired from the scene to make the _cure's_ far-famed black-pudding. Half dead upon the spot where he was phlebotomized, the wretched animal was left to reflect under the shade of a tulip-tree on the cruelty of man, on their barbarous appet.i.tes; cursing with all his heart the poverty of Morvinian curates, their conceited hospitality, of which he was the victim, and their brutal affection for pig's blood.

I shall now endeavour to give the reader a description of the curate of the plain; but he should clearly understand that I do not present this character to him as the general standard of ecclesiastical excellence,--quite the contrary; I am sorry to say I think it an exception. My sketch, therefore, applies only to those _cures_, who reside in a remote rural district like that of Le Morvan; I advance nothing that I have not seen myself, and if I should ever have the pleasure of meeting any of my English friends in Le Morvan, I could introduce them to ten _cures_ one and all similar in every respect to the ecclesiastic I am about to pourtray.

In the interior of this district, that is to say in the midst of her rich plains, and in the hilly but not mountainous parts of it, the _cures_ are quite of another stamp; less poor than the herbivorous gentleman we have just described, but not so well to do as those of Burgundy; living under a state of things altogether peculiar to themselves, far from the great cities, and yet in direct communication with them, they are obliged by a common interest to identify themselves with the events of the day. Every curate of the plain possesses an immense influence in his parish and neighbourhood, and as at a moment their support may be of great use in a political point of view, the government, which is alive to everything, caresses, smiles on, and cajoles them.

In the moorland districts, also, and in the little villages which border the great forests, the _cures_ are everything, and do everything. They perform the part of judge, doctor and apothecary, banker and architect, carpenter and schoolmaster; they give the designs for the cottages, mark the boundaries of estates, receive and put out the savings of their flocks, marry, baptize, and bury, offer consolation to the afflicted, encourage the unfortunate, purchase the crops, and sell a neighbour's vineyard. They represent the sun, by the influence of whose rays everything germinates and lives; it is their hand--the hand of justice--that arrests and heals all quarrels; the unselfish source from whence good counsels flow--the moral charter from which the peasant reads and learns the duties of a citizen.

Ask not the population of our plains and forests, and secluded agricultural districts, to which political party they belong; if they are republicans, royalists, socialists or communists, reds or blues, whites or tricolor,--they know nothing of all this. Their opinions--their religion--are those of _Monsieur le Cure_. They know his prudence, his charity, his good sense; they know he loves them like a father; that he would not leave them for a bishopric--no, not for a cardinal's scarlet hat;--that as he has lived, so will he die with them: that is enough for them. Thus they consult him when they wish to form an opinion for themselves, much in the same way as a sportsman, anxious to take the field, looks up at the chanticleer on some village-steeple to know what he ought to think of the cloudy sky above; and when they see the good man sauntering past their cottages, with head erect and animated step, smiling, and evidently full of cheerful, charitable thoughts, and on good deeds intent, kissing the little children, giving a rosy apple to one, and a playful tap to another; offering a sly word of hope to the young girls, and a few kind ones to the aged and infirm,--all the village is elated; and the old maids fail not to present him with a fat fowl, or some such substantial expression of their respect. But if, alas! the good _cure_ should appear walking with a slow and solemn step, his hands behind his back, his eyes fixed upon the ground, and an anxious and thoughtful look upon his brow, his flock gaze at one another, and whisper in an under tone that something is amiss.

At the epoch of political convulsions and revolutions, when systems and governments, men and ideas, arise and disappear, as if they went by steam,--when the authorities in the great towns wish to interfere with the police regulations and customs that govern the agricultural cla.s.ses,--when they attempt to force them to gallop at full speed on the high road of progress as they call it, and that to attain this desirable end, handsome young men arrive from Paris in black coats and white neckcloths, furnished with a marvellous flow of eloquent sophisms, pretending to prove to the simple and honest peasants that in order to be more free, happy, and rich, they must, without further ado, kill, burn, and destroy,--the villagers, quite mystified, listen with open mouth; but as to understanding what the gentleman in black--the dark shadow of the government of progress--so glibly states, he might as well be talking Turkish or j.a.panese. Every one looks at _Monsieur le Cure_, they scan his face, and ask him what they are to do; and let him only feel angry or disgusted with the wordy nonsense, and just make one sign, or raise one finger, and 1200--aye, 2000 men would in a trice surround him, and send the orator and all his staff to preach their pestilential doctrines under the turf, and this without more ceremony and remorse than if they were so many mad dogs. Poor fools! who think it possible to change a people in a few weeks, and imagine that a fine discourse from lips unknown and unloved will have a deeper effect upon men's minds than the admonitions of a pastor, whose life has been without reproach, and adorned with every practical virtue.

Yes, the influence exercised in our rural districts by the _cures_ is great, and this influence is well merited, for it is never abused--and never used unless for the benefit and happiness of the flock confided to their care. Without any motive of a personal nature, without ambition in any sense to which that word can apply, they preach the Catholic religion in all its simplicity, accepting and considering as brothers all those who really desire to follow the example of their Saviour Christ--all those who really love to do good; unworldly and unselfish, they would think themselves dishonoured, their reputation sullied, if the gown, which gives them in the eyes of the people a sacred character, served as a cloak, a pretext to cover a dishonourable or disgraceful action.

It is also remarkable, and speaks volumes in their favour, that the bishops are almost always at war with these poor and self-denying _cures_, and would wish to see them take more interest in temporal affairs, which they do not in the least understand; they would fain put into their mouths the language of anger and bitter feeling, alike foreign to their natures and the religion of their Divine master. The large proprietors also, those who live on their estates and do not press hard upon their dependants, enjoy great consideration, and share largely with the _cures_ the hold they have on the affections of the people.

They frequently direct the opinions of the ma.s.ses, and, with the exception of their pastors, are the only cla.s.s our rural population know and revere. As to the generality of our statesmen, good, bad, or indifferent, their names, brilliant as they may be, are not half so well known in our villages as that of the most obscure labourer, the humble artizan who knows how to file a saw or make a wheel.

"Who is that gentleman, sir?" said a Morvinian of the plain to me one day, pointing to a tall thin man, with a bald head, and a pair of gold spectacles on his nose,--a notability of the legislative a.s.sembly who was going to step into the village tribune.

"That gentleman?" I replied; "he is an orator."

"Ah! an orator: and pray what sort of a bird is that? what is he going to chirrup about?"

"An orator is not a bird, my good fellow; he does not sing, he makes very fine speeches."

"And what of them?"

"What of them? why they teach men their duty."

"Their duty in what?" continued the peasant, with his pinching logic.

"Is it the duty of a father, of a son, of a soldier, of a baker?"

"Not at all; the duty of a citizen."

"Citizen? I don't understand, sir," said the peasant.

"Well, your political duties, if you like it better."

"I am still none the wiser. And so this fine gentleman, with his yellow spectacles and bald head, is not going to tell us anything about crops, vineyards, planting, or sowing?"

"No; but he will teach you your duty as a man, as a Frenchman, a citizen--a member of the great human family; he will teach you your rights; what you can and should demand of your government under the articles 199, 305, 1202, 9999 of the charter--the last charter."

"Sir, I am ashamed to have troubled you; I thank you much for your explanation; I wish you a very good morning; for mathematics you see, sir, do send me to sleep, and our _cure_ will tell me all about it on Sunday. I shall go back to the forest, and finish my job of yesterday."

And are not these simple-minded men much in the right? is not all the good sense on their side?--they, who living by the axe, the plough, and the produce of the earth, think only of their trees and their fields, and ask of G.o.d but health and strength to work, rain and sun to nourish the vines and gild their harvests. They leave to those who possess their confidence, because they have never deceived them, the care of their political interests; the care of setting and keeping them in the right path, and of directing them in that current of life, slow it is true, but which nevertheless is more effectual towards ameliorating the condition, and eventually increasing the happiness of the human race, than all the new-fangled doctrines promulgated by the statesmen and philosophers of France.

CHAPTER XVII.

The wolf--His aspect and extreme ferocity--His cunning in hunting his prey--His unsocial nature--Antiquity of the race--Where found, and their varieties--Annihilated in England by the perseverance of the kings and people--Decrees and rewards to encourage their destruction by Athelstane, John, and Edward I.--Death of the last wolf in England--Death of the last in Ireland.

The wild and furious wolf, both prudent and cowardly, is, from its strength and voracity, the terror and the most formidable pest of the inhabitants of those districts of France in which it is found. Provided by Nature with a craving appet.i.te for blood, possessing great muscular powers, and an extraordinary scent, whether hunting or laying in ambush; always ready to pursue and tear its victim limb from limb, the wolf,--this tyrant,--this buccaneer of the forest lives only upon rapine, and loves nothing but carnage.

The aspect of the wolf has something sinister and terrible in its appearance, which his sanguinary and brutal disposition does not belie.

His head is large, his eyes sparkle with a diabolical and cannibal look, and in the night seem to burn like two yellow flames. His muzzle is black, his cheeks are hollow, the upper lip and chin white, the jaws and teeth are of prodigious strength, the ears short and straight, the tail tufty, the opening of the mouth large, and the neck so short that he is obliged to move his whole body in order to look on one side. His length in our forests, from the extreme point of the muzzle to the root of the tail, is generally about three feet; his height two and a half feet. The colour of his hair is black and red, mingled with white and gray; a thick and rude fur, on which the showers and severe cold of winter have no effect. The limbs of this animal are well set, his step is firm and quick, the muscles of the neck and fore part of the body are of unusual strength,--he will easily carry off a fat sheep in his mouth, without resting it on the ground, and run with it faster than the shepherd who flies to its rescue. His senses are delicate and sensitive in the extreme; that of smelling, as I have before remarked, particularly: he can scent his prey at an immense distance,--blood which is fresh and flowing will attract him at least a league from the spot. When he leaves the forest, he never forgets to stop on its verge; there turning round, he snuffs the breeze, plunges his nostrils deep into the pa.s.sing wind, and receives through his wonderful instinct a knowledge of what is going on amongst the animals, dead or alive, that are in the neighbourhood.