Part 29

I wish I could speak half as favourably of the attitude of France, so far as these journals disclose it, towards her neighbours; but this is about as bad as it can be, touchy, jealous, and unfair, all round. Take, for instance, the _Troupier_, which is specially addressed to the Army. The cartoon represents the “Grand Jeu de Massacre,” at which all passers-by are invited to join free of charge. The _jeu_ consists of throwing at a row of puppets, citizens of Alsace-Lorraine, in which a brutal German soldier is indulging, while the French “Ministre des Affaires (qui lui sont) Etrangères” slumbers peacefully on a neighbouring seat. But we come off at least as badly as Germany. In a vigorous leader, entitled “Une Reculade,” on the Zanzibar Question, after a very bitter opening against England--“il n’y a guère de pays qui n’ait été roulé dupé et volé par elle,”--the _Troupier_ breaks into a song of triumph over the backing-down of England, “flanquée d’Allemagne et de ses alliés,” before the resolute attitude of France. “Cette reculade,” it ends, “de nos ennemis indique suffisamment que La France a repris la place et le rang qui lui conviennent, et qu’elle est de taille à se faire respecter partout et par tous. C’est tout ce que nous desirions.” In all commercial and industrial matters we are equally grasping and unscrupulous. There seems to be just now a great stir in the sardine industry, and, so far as I can make out, English and American Companies seem to be competing for a monopoly of that savoury little fish. It is, however, upon the English “Sardine Union Company, Limited”--“qui s’appelle en France, Société Générale de l’Industrie Sardinière de France”--that the vials of journalistic wrath are being emptied. “Sept polichinelles,” it would seem, have subscribed for one share each, and the whole scheme is utterly rotten. Nevertheless, this bogus Company threatens to buy up all the sardine manufactories in France at fancy prices, and, the control being in England, will manufacture there all the metal boxes, and will build all the fishing-boats over there, “au détriment de nos constructeurs Français,” and so on, and so on. I was getting quite melancholy over all these onslaughts on my native country, when I came upon a topic which alone seems to excite the petit-journaliste more than the sins of the long-toothed Englishman--viz. those of priests and their followers and surroundings. Here is a comic example, over which the Grelot foams in trenchant and sarcastic but incredibly angry sentences. A Belgian Council has decided to divide the 500 fr. which it has voted to the “Institut Pasteur,” the vote being “pour M. Pasteur et pour St. Hubert.” This remarkable vote was carried on the pleading of a Deputy, who, after paying homage to M. Pasteur, added: “C’est un grand homme qui a opéré des cures merveilleuses; seulement il y a un autre grand homme, qui depuis onze cent soixante-trois années a opéré des miracles, c’est St. Hubert--M. Pasteur devra travailler longtemps avant d’en arriver là.” I am afraid you will have no room for more than one of the scathing sentences in which the writer tosses this unlucky vote backwards and forwards: “M. Pasteur acceptera-t-il de partager les 500 fr. avec St. Hubert (adresse inconnue), ou St. Hubert refusera-t-il de partager avec M. Pasteur (adresse connue)?--‘That is the question/ comme disait le nommé Shakespeare.”

It was in the midst of such instructive if not entirely pleasant reading, that I arrived at Clermont, the old capital of Auvergne, by far the most interesting town I have been in this quarter of a century, not excepting Chester. From thence, one comes up to Roy at, about three miles, in an electric tramway, or by ’bus or cab.

Royat les Bains, 23rd August 1890.

Some thirty years ago, more or less, I remember reading with much incredulous amusement Sir Francis Head’s “Bubbles of the Brunnen.” It was in the early days of the Saturday Review, when the infidel Talleyrand gospel of surtout jooint de zèle was being preached to young England week by week in those able but depressing columns. I, like the rest of my contemporaries, was more or less affected by the cold water virus, and was certainly inclined to look from the superior person standpoint on what I could not but regard as the outpourings of the second childhood of an eccentric septuagenarian, who was really asking us to believe that the Schwalbach waters were as miraculously potent as the thigh-bone of St. Glengulphus, of which is it not written in _The In-goldsby Legends_:--

And cripples, on touching his fractured _os femoris_,

Threw down their crutches and danced a quadrille.

I need scarcely say to you, sir, that it is many years since I have been thoroughly disabused of this depressing heresy; but perhaps one never quite recovers from such early demoralisation. At any rate, now that I find myself approaching Sir Francis’s age, and much in his frame of mind when he blew his exhilarating bubbles, I can’t quite make up my mind to turn myself loose, as he did, and in Lowell’s words, “pour out my hope, my fear, my love, my wonder,” upon you and your readers. The real fact, however, stated in plain (Yankee) prose is, that Schwalbach (I have been there) “is not a circumstance” to this refuge for the victim of gout, rheumatism, eczema, dyspepsia, and I know not how many more kindred maladies, amongst the burnt-out volcanoes of the Department Puy-de-Dome. Nevertheless, you may fairly say, and I should agree, that my ten days’ experience of the effect of the waters is scarcely sufficient to make me a trustworthy witness as to the healing properties of these springs. Twenty-one days is the prescribed course, and as I am as yet but half through, I will not “holloa till I am out of the wood,” but will try in the first place to give you some idea of this Royat les Bains and its surroundings.

Let us look out from this third-floor window at which I am writing, on the highest guest-floor of the topmost hotel in Royat, to which a happy chance (or my good angel, if I have one) led me on my arrival. I look out across a narrow valley, from three to four hundred yards wide, upon a steep hill which forms its opposite side. They say this hill is a burnt-out volcano. However that may be, it is now clothed with vineyards on all but the almost precipitous places where the rock peeps out. On the highest point, against the sky-line, stands out a small white house, calling itself the Hôtel de l’Observatoire, from which there must be a magnificent view; but how it is to be reached I have not yet learned, for there is no visible road or footpath, and the peasants object to one’s attempting the ascent through the vineyards. The valley winds up round this hill, taking a turn to the north, our side widening out and sweeping back behind Royat Church and village, to which the retreating hill behind forms a most picturesque background. For, on the lower slope, just above the houses, are stretches of bright green meadow, interspersed amongst irregular clumps of oak; above this comes a brown-red belt of rough ground, growing heather and wild strawberries; and, again above that, all along the brow, are dense pine woods. The constant changes of colour which this southern sun brings out all day long on this hillside make it difficult to break away from one’s window and descend to the _établissement_ to drink waters and take baths. This institution lies down at the bottom of the valley I have been describing, some 200 feet below this window, and 150 feet below the broad terrace which is thrown out from the ground-floor of this hotel. From the terrace a rough zigzag path leads down to the brook, which rushes down from Royat village in a succession of tiny waterfalls, sending up to us all day the murmur of running water. On reaching the brook’s bank, we have about one hundred yards to walk by its side, when, crossing a good road which runs round it, we reach the low wall of the park, in which lies the bathing establishment. From this point the electric tram-cars run to Clermont, carrying backwards and forwards for two sous baigneurs and holiday-folk enough, I should say, to pay handsome dividends. This park occupies the whole breadth of the valley, pushing back the houses on either side against the hillsides. Its main building, a handsome structure, built of lava, with red-tiled roof, contains all the separate baths and a _piscine_, or swimming bath, besides a good-sized hall for sanitary gymnastics, and a _salle d’escrime_, in which a professor instructs pupils daily in fencing and _le boxe_. The broad path runs from top to bottom of this park, having this _établissement_ building on its left or northern side, and on its right two parallel terraces, one above the other. On the lower of these is the great _source_, the “Eugénie,” which bubbles up here in magnificent style, sending up some millions of gallons daily. Over the Eugénie _source_ is a pavilion, with open sides and striped red and white curtains. A second pavilion on the same terrace, a little lower down, is devoted to the band, which plays every afternoon for two or three hours; and below that again, the casino. On the second or upper terrace are a few favoured _châlet_ shops, for the sale of books, pictures, photographs, and the pottery and _bijouterie_ of Auvergne. Then, above again, comes the road which encloses the park, on the opposite side of which are the row of large hotels built against the rocky side of the valley, and communicating at the back from their upper stories with the road which runs up to Royat village. The rest of the park is laid out in lawns and garden-beds, full of bright flowers and walks, amongst which are found three other sources--the Cæsar, the St. Mart, and the St. Victor, each of which has its small drinking-pavilion. In front of these several pavilions and along the terraces are a plentiful supply of seats, and chairs which you can carry about to any spot you may select under the shade of the plane-trees and acacias which line the terraces and walks, with weeping-willows, chestnuts, and poplars happily interspersed here and there. The abundant water-supply which the brook brings down is well utilised, so that the whole park, some six acres in extent, is kept as fresh and green, and the flower-beds as luxuriant and bright with colour, as if it were in dear, damp England. At the bottom of the park, a handsome viaduct of arches, built of lava, spans the valley, seeming to shut Royat in from the outer world, and beyond, the valley broadens out into a wide plain, with Clermont, the capital of Auvergne, in the foreground, and beyond the city, stretching right away to Switzerland, a splendid sea (as it were) of corn and maize and vines and olives, the richest, it is said, in the whole of _la belle_ France. It is stated in all the guidebooks, and by trustworthy residents, that on a clear day you may see Mont Blanc from Royat, but as yet I have not been lucky enough.

Unless I have failed altogether in describing the view which lies constantly before me--from the pine-clad hillside over Royat village, with its gray church and white red-roofed houses to the west, away down over the park and surrounding hotels and shops, and viaduct and city and plain to the far east--you can now fancy what it must be in the early morning, when the light mist is lying along the hillsides until the sun has had time to dispose of the clouds in the upper air, or at night, when the clear sky is thick with stars, and the Northern Lights flame up behind the silent volcano opposite this Hôtel de Lyon. There is no place on earth, from the back-slums of great cities to the mountain-peak or mid-ocean, to which early morns and evening twilights do not bring daily, or almost daily, some touch of the beauty of light-pictures which sun and moon and stars paint for us so patiently, whether we heed them or no; but to get them in their full perfection, one should be able to look at them in the light, dry, warm air of such places as these volcanic highlands of Auvergne.

And now for the life we lead in this air and scenery. Every morning at six I arrive at the Cæsar spring and drink two glasses, with twenty minutes’ interval between them. Then I climb the hill to _café au lait_ and two small rolls and butter on the terrace, which comes off about 7 A.M., as soon as the last of our party of four has come up from the park. Rest till eleven follows, when we have _déjeûner à la fourchette_, which, as we sit down about a hundred, lasts for an hour. In the afternoon I drink two glasses at the St. Mart spring, and between them have twenty minutes in the _piscine_, which is my great treat of the day. Going punctually at two, when the ladies surrender this swimming-bath to the men, I almost always get it to myself, and enjoy it as I used to do years ago, when my blood was warm enough, lying about amongst the waves on the English coast, and letting them just tumble and toss me about as they would. This water comes warm from the Eugénie spring daily, and is so buoyant that one can lie perfectly still on the top of it with one’s hands behind one’s head; and if there were no roof to the _piscine_, and one could only look straight up all the time into the deep-blue sky, twice as high, so it looks, as ours in England, the physical enjoyment would be perfect. It is not far from that as it is, and I thoroughly sympathise with Browning’s Amphibian:--

From worldly noise and dust,

In the sphere which overbrims

With passion and thought--why, just

Unable to fly, one swims.

Royat les Bains, 30th August 1890.

I suppose there never was a garden since Eden (unless, perhaps, in the early days of the Jesuit settlements in the Paraguay) in which the devil has not had a tree or a corner somewhere; and it would be well for us all if he were no more in evidence in other health and holiday resorts than he is here in the _parc_. His booth is at the end of the middle terrace, a small pavilion, well shaded by tall acacias, in which in the afternoons you can risk a franc, occasionally two, every minute on the _course des petits chevaux_. The _course_ is a round table, with eight or ten concentric grooves, in each of which a small horse and jockey runs. Outside this _course_, with room for a page-boy to move round between the two, there is a slight railing with a flat top, at which the players sit round and post their stakes. These are collected by the page, who lets each player draw a number in exchange for the francs. As soon as he has made his circuit, the croupier gives a turn to a handle which works the machinery. The first turn brings all the horses into line, and the next starts them round the course, each in his own groove. After another turn or two, the croupier lets go the handle, and the puppets begin to scatter, the winner being the one which passes the post last before the machine stops, and they all come to a standstill.

Then the croupier calls out the winning number, and the owner gets all the stakes, except one, which goes to the table. Beyond this, the Company has no interest whatever, so it is said. Of course one looks with jealousy at every such game of chance, and I was inclined to think at first that the croupier was in league with two women, one spectacled, who sat steadily at one end of the players, playing in partnership, and seeming to win oftener than any of the others; but the longer I watched, the weaker grew my suspicions. Most of the players, by the way, are women, though there are a few men who come and sit for hours, playing and smoking cigarettes. Besides the sitters many strollers come up, stake their francs for a course or two, and then move on, not unfrequently with a handful of silver. On the whole, if play is to be allowed at all, it can scarcely take a more harmless form, if only the good-natured French papa could be kept from letting his children play for him. He comes up with a child of ten or twelve years, lets them sit down, and supplies them from behind with the necessary francs, and after a round or two the little faces flush and hands shake, especially if they be girls, in a way which is painful to see. A child gambling is as sad a sight, for every one but the devil and his elect, as this old world can show.

Next to the _courses des petits chevaux_, at some thirty yards’ distance, comes the large pavilion in which the excellent band sit and play for an hour in the forenoon and afternoon, and again at 8 P.M. Round the pavilion is a broad space, gravelled and well shaded, and furnished with chairs which are occupied all the afternoon by _baigneurs_ and visitors, mostly in family groups, the women knitting or sewing, and the children playing about in the intervals of the music, and before and after the regular concerts. Occasionally they have a _bal d’enfants_ in this space, controlled by a master of the ceremonies, a dancing-, master, I am told. Under him the children, boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen, down to little trots who can scarcely toddle, may enjoy polkas, galops, and the _taran-tole des postilions_, as well as the gravel allows; and now and again comes a _défilé_, in which, in couples carefully graduated according to size and age, the children march round the walks, and in and out amongst the approving sitters. A very pretty, and to me rather a curious sight, as I much doubt if the English boy could be induced to perform such a march, even in the hope of small packets of bonbons at the end, which are distributed to the best performers.

The big orchestral platform in this pavilion is often occupied, when the band is not playing, by itinerant performers, who (I suppose) hire it from the Company in the hope of getting a few francs out of the sitting and circulating crowd. The performances are poor, so far as I have seen, though one conjurer certainly played a trick which entirely beat me at the time, and for which I am still quite unable to account. He produced what he called a _garotte_, made of two stout planks which shut one upon another (like our old stocks), and in which was a central hole for the neck, and two smaller ones for the wrists. This garotte he handed round, and though I did not get hold of it, I inspected it in the hands of a youth who was standing just in front of me, and satisfied myself that the planks were solid wood. Then he placed it on a stand, and called up a stout damsel in the flesh-coloured tights which seem to be _de rigueur_ for all female performers, who knelt down and laid her neck in the big hole, and a wrist in each of the smaller ones. The conjurer then let down the upper plank upon her, and having borrowed a signet ring from an elderly _décoré_ Frenchman who was sitting near the platform, proceeded to encircle the two planks with strips of stout paper or tape, which he sealed with the ring. Then he held up a screen for the space of twenty seconds, and on lowering it the damsel was posturing in her tights, while the _garotte_ remained _in situ_, with the tapes still there and the seals unbroken. By what trick she got her head and hands out I was utterly unable to guess, and strolled away with the rather provoking sense of having been fooled through my eyes. I hope a green parrot who flew down and sat on the railing close to the _garotte_, with his head wisely on one side, flew off better satisfied.

Below, on the lowest terrace, at the end of the _établissement_ buildings, is the _salle d’escrime_, which is open daily in the afternoons, when you may see through the big windows the “Maître d’Escrime, Professeur de S.A.R. le Prince des Galles,” sitting ready to instruct pupils, or, so it seemed, to try a friendly bout with all comers. The former were generally too much of mere beginners to make any show worth seeing, but on one day an awkward customer turned up who ran the professor, so far as I could judge, very hard. Indeed, I am by no means sure that he acknowledged several shrewd hits, but my knowledge of fencing is too small to make my judgment worth much. Le boxe is also announced to go on here, but I have never seen the gloves put on yet. Indeed, I much doubt whether young Frenchmen really like having their heads punched for love. It is an eccentricity which does not seem to spread out of the British Isles. There was a tempting _assaut d’armes_ last Sunday, presided over by General Paquette, at which eleven _maîtres d’escrime_ of regiments in this department, and one professor from Paris were to fence. I was sorely tempted to go, but as the thermometer stood at 80° in the shade, and so reinforced my insular prejudices as to the day, abstained.

Again, beyond the Casino, on the upper terrace, is a good croquet-ground on the broad gravel space at the lower end of the _parc_. I should think it a difficult ground to play on, but as a rule the French boys are decidedly good players, and seem to enjoy the game thoroughly, and to get round the hoops quicker than any of ours could do on a lawn like a billiard-table. The Casino, besides a restaurant and reading-room, contains a theatre, at which there are performances five nights in the week, and generally a ball on the off-nights. These are often fancy-balls, and always, I hear, very lively; but I cannot speak from experience, never having as yet descended either to them or to the plays and operettas. When one can sit out on a terrace and see the lights coming out in the valley, and the Milky Way and all the stars in the heaven shining as they only do down South, even the artists of the Théâtre Français, and the other theatrical stars who visit the Casino in the season, cannot get me indoors o’ nights, even at Casino prices. These are very reasonable, the _abonnement_ for a seat being only 1 franc a night, or 2 francs for a _fauteuil_. Your readers may perhaps be able to judge of the kind of entertainment given by a specimen. To-night there are two operettas,--_Violonnaux_, music by Offenbach; and _Les Charbonneurs_, music by G. Coste. I own I never heard of either of the pieces.