CHAP. XII.

CHAP. XII.

Angers—Situation—Antiquity and Face of the Town—Grand Cathedral—Markets—Prices of Provisions—Public Walks—Manners and Diversions of the Inhabitants—Departure from Angers—Country between Angers and Saumur—Saumur.

We had intended to have reposed ourselves at Angers, but Mons. de Corseult, having been very lately married, had his house daily full of visitors, and as we were strangers, parties were daily made for us. Whatever time I could steal from this unintermitting round, I employed in walks to the town, and in the neighbourhood. Mr. Younge generally accompanied me, but I was sometimes fortunate enough to be honoured with Mademoiselle St. Sillery, an happiness of which I should have been more sensible, had it not usually tempted the intrusion of some coxcomb, who converted a tour of information into a mere lounge of levity and senseless gallantry. How miserable would have been an English girl, of the beauty and wit of this young lady, with such gallants! Or is it with ladies as with the poet in Don Quixotte—are love and flattery sweet, though they may come from a fool and a madman? I should hope not, or at least with Mademoiselle St. Sillery.

In despite, however, of these intrusions, we had two or three pleasant walks through Angers, in which the curiosity of Mademoiselle was of much use to me. He must be less than a man, who could be wearied even by the most minute interrogations of an handsome woman. Mademoiselle St. Sillery, as if resolved to be ignorant of nothing, put the most endless questions to those who accompanied us about the town; and with true French gallantry, the answers even exceeded the questions. I had little to do but to look and to listen.

Angers is situated in a plain, which, in the distance being fringed with wood, and being very fertile in corn and meadow, wants nothing of the richness and beauty which seem to characterize this part of the province. It is parted into two by a river called the Mayenne, which is a small branch of the Loire, and again falls into the main river about five miles from the town. The French, like the Dutch, seemed to be peculiarly attached to this kind of site, having a river run through their towns, one half being built on one side, and one on the other. The water of the Mayenne is so harsh, that it cannot be drunk or used for cookery, and were it not for the proximity of the Loire, and some aqueducts, Angers, though built on a river, must necessarily become desolate for want of water. The same improvidence is visible in many towns in France, and still more in Holland.

The walls round this city were built by King John of England, and though six centuries, have elapsed, are still nearly entire. Part of them were indeed demolished by Louis the Eighth, but they were restored in their original form by his successor, and remain a proof of the durable style of building of that Age (1230). The castle of Angers was built at the same time. It is situated on a rock which overhangs the river, and though now in decay, has still a very striking appearance. The walls are lofty and broad, the towers numerous, and the fosses deep. They are cut out of the solid rock, and must have required long and ingenious labour.

The cathedral of Anjou, the inner part of which exactly resembles Westminster Hall, is chiefly celebrated for containing the monument of Margaret of Anjou, the queen of Henry the Sixth of England. This woman was in every respect a perfect heroine, and worthy of her illustrious father, René, King of Sicily. She was taken prisoner in the battle of Tewkesbury, and immediately committed, to the Tower, from which she was ransomed by Louis the Eleventh, of France. This King, however, who was never known to forget himself, and act otherwise than selfishly, had a very different motive than humanity for this apparent generosity: having gained possession of the person of Margaret, he immediately rendered her his own prisoner, and caused her father to be informed that if he wished to ransom her, he must give up all his hereditary rights to the duchies of Anjou and Lorrain. So tenderly did René love his daughter, that he made the sacrifice without hesitation. The history of this princess, as collected from the French memoirs, has an air rather of romance than of real history. Though the English historians all concur in her praise, they seem to know very little of her. A remark here suggested itself: that the best of the English historians seem totally to have overlooked all the French records, and to have confined themselves to the writers of their own country.

The general appearance of Angers does not correspond with the magnificence of its walls, its castle, and its cathedral. Its size is respectable; there are six parish churches, besides monasteries and chapters, and the inhabitants are estimated at 50,000. The streets, however, are very narrow, and the houses mean, low, and huddled: there is the less excuse for this, as ground is plentiful and cheap; there is scarcely a good house inhabited within the walls. The towns in France differ in this respect very considerably from those in England: in a principal town in England you will invariably find a considerable number of good houses, where retired merchants and tradesmen live in the ease and elegance of private gentlemen. There is nothing of this kind in the French towns. Every house is a shop, a warehouse, a magazine, or a lodging house. I do not believe that there is one merchant of independent fortune now resident within the walk of Angers. This, indeed, may perhaps arise from the difference in the general character of the two kingdoms: in England, and even in America, there are few tradesmen long resident in a town, without having obtained a sufficiency to retire; whilst the French towns being comparatively poor, and their trade comparatively insignificant, the French tradesman can seldom do more than obtain a scanty subsistence by his business. In all the best French towns, the tradesmen have more the air of chandlers than of great dealers. There are absolutely no interior towns in France like Norwich, Manchester, and Birmingham. In some of their principal manufacturing places, there may indeed be one or two principal men and respectable houses; but neither these men nor their houses are of such number and quality, as to give any dignity or beauty to their towns beyond mere places of trade. The French accordingly, judging from what they see at home, have a very contemptible idea of the term merchant; and if a foreign traveller of this class should wish to be admitted into good company, let him pass by any other name than that of a marchand or negociant. To say all in a word, this class of foreigners are specifically excluded from admission at court.

I visited the market, which in Angers, and I believe throughout France, is held on Sunday. This is one of the circumstances from which a foreigner would be very apt to form a wrong estimate of the French character, which now, whatever it might be, is decidedly religious. But the Roman Catholics have ever considered Sunday as at once a day of festivity and a holiday; they have no scruple, therefore, to sing and dance, and to hold their markets on this day; all they abstain from is the heavier kind of work—labour in the fields and warehouses. A French town, therefore, is never so gay as on a Sunday. I inquired the prices of provisions. Beef and mutton are about 2d. per pound; a fowl 5d.; and turkies, when in season, from 18d. to 2s.; bread is about 1½d. a pound; and vegetables, greens, &c. cheap to a degree. A good house in Angers about six Louis per year, and a mansion fit for a prince (for there are some of them, but without inhabitants) from forty to fifty Louis, including from thirty to forty acres of land without the walls. I have no doubt but that any one might live at Angers on 250 Louis per annum, as well as in England for four times the amount. And were I to live in France, I know no place I should prefer to the environs of this town. The climate, in this part of France, is delightful beyond description. The high vault of heaven is clad in ethereal blue, and the sun sets with a glory which is inconceivable to those who have only lived in more northerly regions; for week after week this weather never varies, the rains come on at once, and then cease till the following season. The tempests which raise the fogs from the ocean have no influence here, and they are strangers likewise to that hot moisture which produces the pestilential fevers in England and America. There are sometimes indeed heavy thunder storms, when the clouds burst, and pour down torrents of rain: but the storm ceases in a few minutes, and the heavens, under the influence of a powerful sun, resume their beauty and serenity.

The soil in the neighbourhood of Angers (I speak still with reference to its aptitude for the residence of a foreigner, for I confess this dream hung very strongly on my imagination) is fertile to a degree, and as far as I could understand, is very cheap. Every house, as I have before said, without the walls, has its garden, and all kind of fruits and vegetables were in the greatest plenty. The fences around the gardens of the villages were very fantastically interwoven with the wreaths of the vine, which would sometimes creep up the trunk of a tree, and sometimes hang over the casements. Nothing can be more delightful than the vine when flourishing in all this unbridled wildness of its natural luxuriance, and as if justly sensible of its beauty, the French cottagers convert it to the double purpose of ornament or utility. Whilst travelling along, my spirits frequently felt the cheering influence of the united images of natural beauty and of human happiness. Often have I seen the weary labourer sitting under a sunny wall, his head shaded by the luxuriant branches of the vine, the purple fruit of which furnished him with his simple meal. Bread and fruit is the constant summer dinner of the peasantry of the Loire. Upon this subject, the general plenty of the country, I should not have forgotten to mention, that in the proper season partridges and hares are in great plenty, and being fed on the heath lands of Bretagne and Anjou, are said to have the best flavour. An Englishman will scarcely believe, that whilst he is paying 12s. a couple for fowls, half a guinea for a turkey, seven shillings for a goose, &c. &c.: whilst such I say are the market prices in London, the dearest price in the market of Angers is 10d. a couple for fowls, a shilling a couple for ducks, 1s. 6d. for a goose. As to the quality of these provisions, the veal and the mutton being fed in the meadows on the Loire, are entirely as good as in England; but the beef, not being in general use except for soups and stews, is of a very inferior kind. Wood is the only article which is dear; but an Englishman in this country would doubtless rise above the prejudices around him, and burn coal, of which there is a great plenty in every part of France.

I must not take leave of Angers without mentioning, that it was a favourite station of the Romans, who, like the monks, always consulted natural beauty in the site of the towns and permanent encampments. Many remnants of this people are still visible: some of the arches of an aqueduct are yet entire, and without a guide speak their own origin.

Accompanied by Mr. Younge and Monsieur de Corseult, I visited the Caserne and the National School. The Caserne was formerly a Riding School of general reputation, and is one of the most superb buildings of the kind in the world. Peter the Great of Russia was here instructed in the equestrian art, and many other illustrious men are on its list of scholars. The National School has nothing worthy of peculiar remark. Angers before the Revolution was celebrated as a seat of literature: its university, founded in 1246, was only inferior to that of Paris; and its Academy of Belles Lettres, founded in 1685, was the first after that of the Nation. The chapel of the university is now a gallery for paintings. The professors of these literary institutions have very competent salaries: the sciences taught are Mathematics, Medicine, Natural and Experimental Philosophy, and the Fine Arts. The best quality, however, of these institutions is that the instructions, such as they are, are gratuitous; the doors are open to all who choose to enter them; those only who can afford it are expected to pay.

Angers, being so near La Vendée, suffered much by the Chouans, and still retains many melancholy traces of the siege which it had to maintain. The people, with feelings which are better conceived than expressed, spoke with great reluctance on their past sufferings: there seems indeed one great maxim at present current in France, and this is to forget the past as if it had never happened. A foreigner is sure to offend, who interrogates them upon any thing connected with the horrible Revolution.

Nothing can be more delightful than the environs of Angers, whether for those who walk or ride. The country is thickly enclosed, and on each side of the river varied with hill and dale, with woodland and meadow. The villages and small towns along the whole bank of the Loire are numerous, and invariably picturesque and beautiful. In the vicinity of Angers the vineyards are very frequent, and cover the hills, and even the valleys, with their luxuriance; nothing can be more beautiful than the natural festoons which are formed by their long branches as they project over the road, and when the grapes are ripe, the landscape wants nothing of perfect beauty. The peasantry, the Vignerons as they are called, live in the midst of their vineyards: their habitations are usually excavated out of the rocks and small hillocks on which they grow their vines, and as these hillocks are usually composed of strata of chalk, the cottages are dry and comfortable. Some of them, as seen from the road, being covered even over their doors by the vine branches, had the appearance of so many nests, and as many of them as had two stories, were picturesque in the extreme. Upon the whole, the condition of the peasantry in this part of France is very comfortable: they are temperate, unceasingly gay, and sufficiently clad; their wants are few, and therefore their labour, added to the fertility of the soil, is sufficient to satisfy them. They repine not for luxuries of which they can have no notion.

We took leave of Monsieur de Corseult on the Wednesday instead of the Monday, but he insisted upon accompanying us on horseback half way to Saumur, where we proposed sleeping. The ladies could not but accept this obliging offer, and the information which Mons. de Corseult was enabled to give us, rendered his society equally agreeable to Mr. Younge and myself. We learned from this gentleman, that though Anjou is reputed to have a great proportion of heath and barren land, it does not yield to any province in France either for beauty or fertility. As much of it as lays along the Loire, I have already had occasion to describe, and what we were now passing through was not a whit behind it. Every village was most romantically situated; some in orchards, some in fenced gardens, some in corn-fields, and others in vales and in recesses on each side of the road. The corn being ripe, added much to the beauty of the landscape. In some fields the reapers were at work, and the harvest was going on with true French gaiety. Sometimes we would see them dancing in the field; sometimes sitting round some central tree sporting and gamboling with the women and girls. I never saw a scene in England which could enter into comparison with a French harvest. I was sorry, however, to see that the women had more than their due share of the labour; they reaped, bound, and loaded. Some of the elder women were accordingly very coarse, but the girls were spirited, and pleasing. They nodded to us whenever we caught their eyes, and if we stopt our horses, would come to us, at whatever distance, as if to satisfy our inquiries.

We happened to pass an estate which was for sale, and the house being at hand, inquired the price and particulars. There were six hundred acres of land, a good house, and the purchase-money was five thousand pounds English. Four hundred acres were arable, the other wood and heath. In England, the price of such an estate would have been at least twenty thousand pounds. The land, though stony, was good, and under the hands of a tolerable farmer, might have cleared the purchase-money in five years. There was a trout stream and fish-ponds, and the whole country was even infested with game. The chateau itself would certainly have required some repairs; it was large and rambling, and seemed to have more wood than brick. The land, however, was richly worth the money four times over.

We reached Saumur very late in the evening; it is a small, but very pretty town, on the southern bank of the Loire. There are here two bridges over the river; the one from the northern shore to an island in the middle of the river; the other from the island to the southern shore. Saumur was formerly a fortified city, and though the fortifications are now neglected and in perfect ruin, it still maintains its rank as a military town, and the names of travellers are formally required, and formally registered. The inn at which we put up was very comfortable; but the beds were so scented with lavender as to prevent me from sleeping. Here likewise, I had the happiness of being again waited upon by females. A young woman, the daughter of the landlord, not only lighted me to my room, but took her seat at the window, and retained it till she saw that I was in bed. The French women have none of that bashful modesty which characterises the women of England and America. Before getting into bed I was about to close a door, which I perceived half open at the extremity of the room opposite to that occupied by my bed; but Felice prevented me, by informing me that her sister and herself were to sleep there, and as a further proof, shewing me the bed. "Then I must leave my own chamber-door open," said I. "Certainly," said she, "if you are not afraid of my sister and me: I have only to see if Madame and Mademoiselle are in want of any thing, and then I shall come to bed." "Where does Mademoiselle sleep?" said I. "In the same chamber with Monsieur and Madame; it is a double-bedded room, on the first floor, fronting the road; you might have observed the casements of it shaded with the barberry tree. But you seem curious as to Mademoiselle. Perhaps there is a petite affaire of the heart between you. Well, Heaven bless Monsieur, and may you dream that you are walking with your love in the corn-fields!" Saying this, the sprightly girl left me with the characteristic trip of French gaiety. I had the curiosity to remain awake till her sister and herself passed through my chamber to their own. The girls laughed as they went through the room, and had not even the modesty (for so I must call it) to close their own door. It remained a third part open during the whole night; and as they talked in bed, they prevented my sleep. One of these young women might be twenty; the other, though tall, could not be more than fourteen.

I rose early in the morning with the purpose of a walk in the fields around the town, and finding Felice was going to fetch some milk from a village about half a mile distant, I accompanied her. It is needless to say that she played off all the coquetries which are natural to French girls in whatever station. By dint of frequent questions, however, I collected from her some useful information. I had adopted it as a rule, to obtain information on three points in every French town or village where I might happen to stop—the price of provisions, the price of land, and the price of house-rent. The price of provisions at Saumur, as I learned from this girl, was very cheap: beef, not very good, that is, not very fat, about 1½d. (English) per pound; mutton and veal about 2d.;—two fowls 8d.; two ducks 10d.; geese and turkies from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d..;—fuel, as much as would serve three fires for the year, about 5l.;—a house of two stories and garrets, two rooms in front and two in back in each story, such being the manner in which they are built, a passage running through the middle, and the rooms being on each side—such a house, resembling an English parsonage, about five Louis a year; or with a garden, paddock, and orchard, about eight Louis;—butter 8d. per pound; cheese 4d.; and milk a halfpenny a quart. According to the best estimate I could make, a family, consisting of a man, his wife, three or four children, two maid-servants, a man-servant, and three horses, might be easily kept at Saumur, and in its neighbourhood, for about 100l. a year. I am fully persuaded that I am rather over than under the mark. The country immediately about Saumur is as lively and beautiful as the town itself. It chiefly consists of corn-fields studded with groves, or rather tufts of trees, and divided by green fences, in which were pear and apple-trees in full bearing. The fields near the town had paths around them and across them, where the towns-folk, as I understood from my informer, were accustomed to walk in the evening and which, the corn being ripe and high, were pleasantly recluse. Felice and myself crossed three or four of them, and if I may judge from the little scrupulosity with which she ran amongst the corn, the proprietors of the lands must gain little from their fields being the customary promenade of their townsmen. One thing, however, I have observed peculiar to the landholders in France—that wherever the free use of their property can contribute in any thing to the enjoyment of others; wherever their fields, or even their parks and gardens, lie convenient for a promenade, those fields, parks, and gardens, are thrown open, and whatever they contain, flowers, fruits, and seats, are all at the public disposal. A Frenchman never thinks of stopping up a bye-path, because it passes within half a mile of his window; a Frenchman never thinks of raising the height of his own wall, in order to interrupt the prospect of his neighbour. One quality, in a few words, pervades all the actions, all the words, and all the thoughts of a Frenchman—a general benevolence, an anxious kindness, which is daily making sacrifices to oblige and even assist others.

Upon my return to the inn, I found Mademoiselle at the breakfast table, which was set in a back room fronting a very pleasant garden. She rallied me pleasantly enough, but as I thought with an air of pique, upon my morning walk and my fair companion, and Felice happening to enter the room, asked her how she should like a foreign husband. "Very well, Mademoiselle," replied the girl with great innocence, "after I had taught him to talk in French: and I believe you are of the same opinion, Mademoiselle," added she with more pertness. Mademoiselle, with true French dexterity, here dropt a cup on the floor, and thus saved the necessity of reply, and furnished an excuse for the confusion into which the girl's impertinence had evidently thrown her. Shall I confess that my vanity was gratified, but I will defy any one to travel through France, without becoming something of a coxcomb.

Having resumed our journey, we proceeded merrily, under a cheering sun refreshed by a morning breeze, on the road for Tours, through les Trois Volets, and Langes. The road was still along the banks of the Loire, and continued on the southern side till we reached Chousay, a very sweet village, about twelve miles from Saumur. We had here a repast of bread, grapes, and a sweet wine peculiar to the country, but the name of which I have not noted; and though together with our servants we drank nearly four quart bottles, and ate a good quantity of grapes and bread, our reckoning did not exceed seven francs. Nothing indeed surprised me so much as the uncommon cheapness in this country. The country to Chousay had a very near resemblance to what we had passed through the preceding day, except that it was more hilly, and the hills being clothed in vines, more beautiful. On some of these hills, moreover, amidst groves or tufts of trees, and lawns extending down the declivity, were some very pretty chateaus, which being white and clean, looked gay and animated. The landscape, indeed, seemed to improve upon us as we advanced; every mile was as charming as the preceding, but every mile began to have a new character. Sometimes the river ran through a plain in which the peasants were gathering in their harvest, to the very brink of the water. Sometimes, the banks on each side were covered with forests, from the centre of which were visible steeples, villas, windmills, and abbeys. At Chousay, I saw the cleanly way in which the Vignerons of the Loire bruise their grapes. In Spain and Portugal, they are put into a mash tub, and the juice is trodden from them by the bare feet of men, women, and girls hired for the purpose: here the practise is to use a wooden pestle. The grapes being collected and picked, are put into a large vat, where they are bruised in the manner I have mentioned, and are thence carried to the press. The vintage had not indeed as yet begun, but I saw the process performed on a small quantity of grapes, which had been ripened in a garden. Every vineyard proprietor, besides his stock-fruit, has some peculiar species of grape from which he makes the wine for his own use and that of his immediate friends: these grapes are very carefully picked and culled, and none but the soundest and best are thrown into the tub. The wine thus made is infinitely superior to the stock-wine for sale: when old, it is not inferior to Hock, and I believe is frequently sold as such by the foreign purchasers.

Our next post was Planchoury, a small village, which we reached about six o'clock in the evening, and where we agreed to remain for the night, that our horses might have a rest, which they seemed to require. Our inn here was a farm-house. We had for our supper a couple of roasted fowls, and a dish which I had never seen before, some new wheat boiled with pepper and salt. It was so savoury, and I have reason to believe so wholesome, that I have frequently taken it since. I can say from experience, that it is a powerful sudorific, and very efficacious in a cold. I must not forget to mention that I slept on some straw, in a kind of hay-oft, and to the best of my memory never slept more delightfully. When I opened my razor case on the following morning, I found a paper, upon unrolling of which I found a ringlet of hair, with the word Felice on the envelope. Once for all, the French women can think of nothing but gallantry, and live for nothing but love. Sweet girl, I will keep thy ringlet, and when weary of the world, will remember thee, and acknowledge that life may still have a charm.

We remained at Planchoury till the noon of the following day, when we resumed our journey, with the intention of dining at Tours. From Planchoury throughout the whole way to Tours, the scenery exceeded all the powers of description. The Loire rolled its lovely stream through groves, meads, and flowers. On both sides was a border of meadow clad in the richest green, varied sometimes by hills which hung over the river, the sides of these hills robed in all the rich livery of the ripening grape, and the towers and battlements of castles just surmounting the woods in which they were embosomed. How delightful must it be to wander in a summer's evening along these lovely banks, far from the din of the distant world, and where the deep tranquillity is only interrupted by the song of the nightingale, the whistle of the swain returning from labour, or the carol of the milkmaid as she is filling her pail. Surely man was formed most peculiarly to relish the charms of Nature. Would Heaven grant me my fondest wish, it would be to wander with * * * * on the banks of the Loire. How sweetly, and even justly, did Felice express the true image of love, when she wished me the golden dream,—that I was wandering with my love in the corn-fields of Saumur.

We passed through Langeais, a small town, celebrated for its melons, with which it supplies Paris, and all France. This town was known to the Romans, by whom it was called Alingavia. We stopped to examine its castle, which is celebrated in the history of France, as the scene of the marriage of Charles the Eighth and Anne of Bretagne. The castle, as may be expected, is now in ruins; but enough remains of it, to prove its former magnificence. It frowns with much sublimity over the subject land. I never remember to have passed through a more lovely country, more varied scenery, abounding in vines, corn, meadow, wood, and water, than the whole of the road between Saumur and Tours. Well might Queen Mary of Scotland exclaim, when leaving the vines and flowers of France for her Scotch kingdom, "Dear, delightful land, must I indeed leave thee! Gay, lovely France, shall I never see thee more!"

We reached Tours somewhat later than we expected. According to our previous arrangement, we were to stay there only the whole of the following day, but we again broke our resolution, and extended our time from one day to three. I envy not that man's heart who can travel France by his watch.