THE NEW-ENGLAND MAGAZINE. SEPTEMBER, 1831. ORIGINAL PAPERS. THE SCHOOLMASTER. CHAP. II. A l'issue de l'hiver, que le joli temps de primavère commence, et qu'on voit arbres verdoyer, fleurs espanouir, et qu'on oit les oisillons chanter en toute joie et doulceur, tant que les verts bocages retentissent de leurs sons, et que cœurs tristes, pensifs y dolens s'en esjouissent, s'émeuvent à delaisser deuil et tristesse, et se parforcent à valoir mieux.-Plaisante Histoire du très preux et vaillant Guerin de Montglave. It was early in the " merry month of June," that I traveled through the beautiful province of Normandy. As France was the first foreign country I visited, every thing wore an air of freshness and novelty, which pleased my eye, and kept my fancy constantly busy. Life seemed like a dream. It was a luxury to breathe again the free air, after having been so long cooped up at sea: and, like a long-imprisoned bird let loose from its cage, my imagination reveled in the freshness and sunshine of the morning landscape. On every side, valley and hill were covered with a carpet of soft velvet green. The birds were singing merrily in the trees, and the landscape wore that look of gaiety so well described in the quaint language of the old romance, making the "sad, pensive, and aching heart to rejoice, and to throw off mourning and sadness." Here and there a cluster of chestnut trees shaded a thatch-roofed cottage, and little patches of vineyard were scattered on the slope of the hills, mingling their delicate green with the deep hues of the early summer grain. The whole landscape had a fresh, breezy look. It was not hedged in from the high-ways, but lay open to the eye of the traveler, and seemed to welcome him with open arms. I felt less a stranger in the land : and as my eye traced the dusty road winding along through a rich cultivated country, and skirted on either side with blossomed fruit trees, and occasionally caught glimpses of a little farm-house resting in a green hollow, and lapped in the bosom of plenty, I felt that I was in a prosperous, hospitable, and happy land. I had taken my seat on top of the Diligence, in order to have a better view of the country. It was one of those ponderous vehicles, which totter slowly along the paved roads of France, laboring beneath a mountain of trunks and bales of all descriptions, and, like the Trojan horse, bearing a groaning multitude within it. It was indeed a curious and cumbersome machine, resembling the bodies of three coaches placed upon one carriage. On the pannels of the doors were painted the fleurs-de-lis of France, and all along the side of the Diligence emblazoned in golden characters: "Exploitation Générale des Messageries Royales des Diligences pour le Havre, Rouen et Paris." A French Diligence is the most truly aristocratic of anything I saw in France. Its three divisions represent the three great divisions of society. The cabriolet, or front, is the place of honor, for those who were "born to fine linen and the silver spoon;" the intérieur represents the middle class the Bourgeoisie; and the rotonde, or hindermost division, seems made for the sans culottes, or in other words the sovereign people. In the present instance, the cabriolet was occupied by an Englishman, who, having paid for all the seats, had shut himself in, and sat, growling defiance from the window. It would be useless to describe the motley groups, that filled the interior and the rotonde. There was the dusty tradesman, with green coat and cotton umbrella; the sallow invalid, in skull-cap, and cloth shoes; the priest in his cassock; the peasant in his frock; and a whole family of squalling children. My fellow-travelers on top were a gay subaltern, with fierce mustaches, and a nut-brown village beauty of sweet sixteen. The subaltern wore a military undress, and a little blue cloth cap in the shape of a cowbell, trimmed smartly with silver lace and cocked on one side of his head. The brunette was decked out with a staid white Norman cap, nicely starched and plaited, and nearly three feet high; a rosary and cross about her neck; a linsey-woolsey gown, and wooden shoes. The personage who seemed to rule this little world with absolute sway, was a short pursy man, with a busy, self-satisfied air, and the sonorous title of Monsieur le Conducteur. As insignia of office, he wore a little round fur cap, and fur-trimmed jacket; and carried in his hand a small leather portfolio, containing his feuille de route, or waybill. He sat with us on top of the Diligence, and with comic gravity issued his mandates to the postillion below, like some petty monarch speaking from his throne. In every dingy village we thundered through, he had a thousand commissions to execute and to receive: a package to throw out on this side, and another to take in on that: a whisper for the landlord's wife at the inn: a love-letter and a kiss for his daughter and a wink, or a snap of his finger for the chambermaid at the window. Then there were so many questions to be asked and answered, while changing horses! Every body had a word to say. It was Monsieur le Conducteur here! Monsieur le Conducteur there! He was in complete bustle, till at length crying en route! he again ascended the dizzy height of the impériale, and we lumbered away in a cloud of dust. But what most attracted my attention was the grotesque appearance of the postillion and his horses. He was a comical looking little fellow, already past the heyday of life, with a thin, sharp countenance, to which the smoke of tobacco and the fumes of wine had given the dusty look of wrinkled parchment. He was equipped with a short jacket of purple velvet, set off with a red collar, and adorned with silken cord. Tight pantaloons of bright yellow leather, arrayed his nether members, which were swallowed up in a huge pair of wooden boots, fastened with iron, and armed with long, rattling spurs. His shirt-collar was of goodly dimensions, and between it and the broad brim of his high, bell-crowned, varnished hat, projected an eel-skin queue, with a little tuft of frizzled hair, like a powder-puff at the end, bobbing up and down with the motion of the rider, and scattering a white cloud around him. The horses which drew the Diligence, were harnessed to it with ropes and chains, in the most uncouth manner imaginable. They were five in number:-black, white, and gray; as various in size as in color. Their tails were braided and tied up with wisps of straw; and when the postillion mounted and cracked his heavy whip, off they started, one pulling this way, another that; one on the gallop, another trotting, and the rest dragged along at a scrambling pace, between a trot and a walk. No sooner did the vehicle get comfortably in motion, than the postillion, throwing the reins upon the horse's neck, and drawing a flint and steel from one pocket, and a short-stemmed pipe from another, leisurely struck fire, and began to smoke. Ever and anon some part of the rope harness would give way; Monsieur le Conducteur from on high would thunder forth an oath or two; a head would be popped out at every window: half a dozen voices exclaim at once, "what's the matter?" and the postillion, perfectly calm and unconcerned, thrust his long whip into the leg of his boot, leisurely dismount, and drawing a handful of packthread from his pocket, quietly set himself to mend matters in the best way possible. In this manner we toiled slowly along the dusty highway. Occasionally the scene was enlivened by a group of peasants, driving before them a little ass, laden with vegetables for a neighboring market. Then we would pass a solitary shepherd, sitting by the road-side, and with his shaggy dog at his feet, guarding his flock, and making his scanty meal on the contents of his wallet; or perchance a little peasant girl, in sabots, (wooden shoes,) leading a cow, by a cord attached to her horns, to browse along the sides of the ditch. Then we would all alight to ascend some formidable hill on foot, and be escorted up by a clamorous troop of sturdy mendicants, annoyed by the ceaseless importunity of worthless beggary, or moved to pity by the palsied limbs of the aged, and the sightless eyeballs of the blind. Towards the close of the afternoon, we stopped at the last relay. The postillion drew up in front of a dingy little cabaret, completely overshadowed by wide-spreading trees. A lusty grape-vine clambered up beside the door; a pine bough was thrust out from one window by way of "tavern bush," and upon the yellow wall of the house was painted in large black letters, "Aux Rendezvous des Bons Enfans. M. Pèlerin-Marchand de Vins, donne à boire et à manger-loge à pied et à cheval:" which may be paraphrased thus; "Good Entertainment for man and beast, kept by Mr. Pèlerin, Wine Merchant, at the Rendezvous of Good Fellows." Around a small table in front of the cabaret were seated a company of wagoners, and an old soldier, who was entre deux vins,-Anglicè, "superbly corned." The wagoners were dressed in long, blue frocks, and wore the sabots of the Norman peasantry. They were making merry over a flagon of Normandy cider, striking their glasses together, and boasting of the excellence of their beverage. The old soldier sat with his head on one side, a broken pipe in one corner of his mouth, one hand grasping a bottle of red wine, and the other hanging loose at his side. "Ah ça! Mon ancien !" said one of the wagoners, in broad patois, at the same time slapping him familiarly on the shoulder: "Comment que ça vous en va? Allons, buvons v'l à du cidre de Normandie. Jen ai-t-y bu de bon chez Monsieur Pèlerin! Vlà-z-en donc."—(Well, my old worthy, how now! come, drink away. Here's Normandy cider for you. I have drank it very good here at Mr. Pèlerin's; so here goes.) Saying this, he filled the soldier's tumbler to the brim with the muddy liquor; and then tossed off his own at a draught, smacking his lips, and exclaiming: "c'est-y donc là du bon!" (that's what I call good cider.) The soldier took his tumbler in his right hand, and holding on to the table with his left, arose half way from his bench, and shouted :"Eh bien, mon brave! Vive le Roy!" But no sooner had he tasted the liquor, than he dashed the tumbler down, sunk back to the bench again, and wiping his mustaches with the back of his hand, and then giving them a fierce curl upwards, he smote his fist upon the table till the glasses rang again, and exclaimed: "Sacré tonnère ! Vlà ton chien de cidre! Ah mille diables! Il me semble qu'on me bout du lait, quand on me donne ça!-Sacré mátin! (Thunder and lightning! There goes your vile cider! Thousand devils! You use me like a child-you are making a fool of me with your weak potations!-Hound!) This burst of eloquence produced a shout of laughter from the wagoners. "C'est-y pas beau là !" (Is not he a queer one,) cried one. "Vlà zun farceur!" exclaimed a second: " N'entend-y point-z-à dia, ni-z-à hurhau!" (There, now, he's a droll: he'll neither gee nor whoa!) And a third began singing the following old song in praise of "Le Cidre de Normandie : At us the Southern Frenchman laughs, Down, down; and rest, rest! How it strengthens throat and breast! Thy own merits, golden liquor! Neighbor! from all law-suits flee, For alway enough hath he. Down, down; and rest, rest! This Apologie du Cidre is a very ancient song; as old as the fourteenth century, though a little retouched in the original, which runs thus: De nous se rit le François; Mais vrayement, quoy qu'il en die, Ta bonté, ô sidre beau, De te boire me convie; Coule à val, et loge, loge! Voisin, ne songe en procez; Il en a tousjours assez. Coule à val, et loge, loge! Il fait grand bien à la gorge. The refrain of the last stanza was lost in the sound of wheels and the clatter of horses' hoofs on the pavement. Had I been like many travelers in our country, who draw sweeping conclusions from a solitary fact, which they may chance to observe from the windows of a stage-coach, I should instantly have inferred, from seeing this poor helot of the grape, that the French were all slaves to inebriation, and I should have written it down so in my note book. But I called to mind the many misrepresentations of America, which have gone abroad in books, and so merely noted down the fact, and drew no inference. Further observation showed me, that I was right; as I afterwards found that a drunkard was seldom seen either in the villages or cities of France. The reader will pardon me for presenting him this little picture of the Flemish school; for if he studies it aright, he will draw from it both a truth and a moral. At all events, I did;—but the train of thought it threw me into was soon interrupted by others of a more agreeable nature, and ere long we entered the broad and shady avenue of fine old trees, which leads to the western gate of Rouen, and, in a few moments more, were lost in the crowds and confusion of its narrow streets. |