VjtH. LOWDERMILK & CO., 
 
 Standard, Choice and Rare Law and 
 
 Miscellaneous Books, 
 
 Government Publications, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Gass Ir^^^m 
 Book .Tg^, ,, 
 
 By bequest of 
 
 William Lukens Shoemaker 
 
r> 
 
 \ 
 
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 IN THE CEVENNES. 
 
Travels with a Donkey 
 
 IN 
 
 THE CEVENNES. 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1879. 
 

 Cambridge : 
 University Press : John Wilson & Son. 
 
 Gift 
 
 W. li. Shoemaker 
 7 S '06 
 
MY DEAR SIDNEY COLVIN, 
 
 The journey which this little book is to describe was 
 very agreeable and fortunate for me. After an uncouth 
 beginning, I had the best of luck to the end. But we 
 are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the wilder- 
 ness of this world, — all, too, travellers with a donkey ; 
 and the best that we find in our travels is an honest 
 friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds many. We 
 travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end and the 
 reward of hfe. They keep us worthy of ourselves ; and, 
 when we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent. 
 
 Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter 
 to the friends of him who writes it. They alone take his 
 meaning ; they find private messages, assurances of love, 
 and expressions of gratitude dropped for them in every 
 corner. The public is but a generous patron who defrays 
 the postage. Yet, though the letter is directed to all, we 
 have an old and kindly custom of addressing it on the 
 outside to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not 
 proud of his friends ? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, 
 it is with pride that I sign myself affectionately yours, 
 
 R. L. S. 
 
1 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 <^>Ho 
 
 VELAY. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack-Saddle i i 
 
 The Green Donkey-Driver 22 
 
 I have a Goad 40 
 
 UPPER GEVAUDAN. 
 
 A Camp in the Dark 55 
 
 Cheylard and Luc y6 
 
 OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS. 
 
 Father Apollinaris 87 
 
 The Monks 97 
 
 The Boarders 112 
 
 UPPER GEVAUDAN {continued^. 
 
 A Night among the Pines 124 
 
 Across the Goulet 127 
 
8 Contents. 
 
 THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Across the Lozere 147 
 
 Pont de Montvert 158 
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn 171 
 
 Florac 191 
 
 In the Valley of the Mimente 197 
 
 The Heart of the Country 206 
 
 The Last Day 221 
 
 Farewell, Modestine 232 
 
VELAY. 
 
 * Ma7ty are the mighty things^ a7td 
 
 nought is more mighty than 
 mail. . . . He masters by his 
 devices the tenant of the fields. ' 
 — Antigone. 
 
 * Who hath loosed the bajtds of the 
 
 wild ass ? ' — Job. 
 
V E L A Y. 
 
 THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE 
 PACK-SADDLE. 
 
 In a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleas- 
 ant highland valley fifteen miles from Le Picy, 
 I spent about a month of fine days. Monastier 
 is notable for the making of lace, for drunken- 
 ness, for freedom of language, and for unparal- 
 leled political dissension. There are adherents 
 of each of the four French parties — Legitimists, 
 Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans — in 
 this little mountain-town; and they all hate, 
 loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Ex- 
 cept for business purposes, or to give each other 
 the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside 
 even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere moun- 
 tain Poland, In the midst of this Babylon I 
 
1 2 Velay. 
 
 found myself a rallying-point ; every one was 
 anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. 
 This was not merely from the natural hospitality 
 of mountain people, nor even from the surprise 
 with which I was regarded as a man living of 
 his own free will in Monastier, when he might 
 just as well have lived anywhere else in this big 
 world ; it arose a good deal from my projected 
 excursion southward through the Cevennes, A 
 traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto un- 
 heard of in that district. I was looked upon 
 with contempt, like a man who should project a 
 journey to the moon, but yet with a respectful 
 interest, like^one setting forth for the inclement 
 Pole. All were ready to help in my prepara- 
 tions ; a crowd of sympathizers supported me at 
 the critical moment of a bargain ; not a step was 
 taken but was heralded by glasses round and 
 celebrated by a dinner or a breakfast. 
 
 It was already hard upon October before I 
 was ready to set forth, and at the high altitudes 
 
Donkey^ Pack, and Pack-Saddle. 1 3 
 
 over which my road lay there was no Indian 
 summer to be looked for. I was determined, 
 if not to camp out, at least to have the means 
 of camping out in my possession ; for there is 
 nothing more harassing to an easy mind than 
 the necessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and 
 the hospitality of a village inn is not always to 
 be reckoned sure by those who trudge on foot. 
 A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is 
 troublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike 
 again ; and even on the march it forms a con- 
 spicuous feature in your baggage. A sleeping- 
 sack, on the other hand, is always ready — you 
 have only to get into it ; it serves a double pur- 
 pose — a bed by night, a portmanteau by day ; 
 and it does not advertise your intention of camp- 
 ing out to every curious passer-by. This is a 
 huge point. If the camp is not secret, it is but 
 a troubled resting-place ; you become a public 
 character ; the convivial rustic visits your bed- 
 side after an early supper ; and you must sleep 
 
14 Velay. 
 
 with . one eye open, and be up before the day. 
 I decided on a sleeping-sack ; and after repeated 
 visits to Z^ Puy, and a deal of high living for 
 myself and my advisers, a sleeping-sack was 
 designed, constructed, and triumphally brought 
 home. 
 
 This child of my invention was nearly six 
 feet square, exclusive of two triangular flaps to 
 serve as a pillow by night and as the top and 
 bottom of the sack by day. I call it ' the sack,' 
 but it was never a sack by more than courtesy : 
 only a sort of long roll or sausage, green water- 
 proof cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur 
 within. It was commodious as a valise, warm 
 and dry for a bed. There was luxurious turning 
 room for one ; and at a pinch the thing might 
 serve for two. I could bury myself in it up to 
 the neck ; for my head I trusted to a fur cap, 
 with a hood to fold down over my ears and a 
 band to pass under my nose like a respirator ; 
 and in case of heavy rain I proposed to make 
 
Donkey^ Pack^ and Pack-Saddle. 1 5 
 
 myself a little tent, or tentlet, with my water- 
 proof coat, three stones, and a bent branch. 
 
 It will readily be conceived that I could not 
 carry this huge package on my own, merely 
 human, shoulders. It remained to choose a beast 
 of burden. Now, a horse is a fine lady among 
 animals, flighty, timid, delicate in eating, of 
 tender health ; he is too valuable and too res- 
 tive to be left alone, so that you are chained to 
 your brute as to a fellow galley-slave ; a dan- 
 gerous road puts him out of his wits ; in short, 
 he's an uncertain and exacting ally, and adds 
 thirty-fold to the troubles of the voyager. What 
 I required was something cheap and small and 
 hardy, and of a stolid and peaceful temper ; and 
 all these requisites pointed to a donkey. 
 
 There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of 
 rather unsound intellect according to some, 
 much followed by street-boys, and known to 
 fame as Father Adaiu. Father Adam had a 
 cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive she-ass, 
 
1 6 Velay. 
 
 not much bigger than a dog, the color of a 
 mouse, with a kindly eye and a determined 
 under-jaw. There was something neat and high- 
 bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue that 
 hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview 
 was in Monastier market-place. To prove her 
 good temper, one child after another was set 
 upon her back to ride, and one after another 
 went head over heels into the air ; until a want 
 of confidence began to reign in youthful bosoms, 
 and the experiment was discontinued from a 
 dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a 
 deputation of my friends ; but as if this were not 
 enough, all the buyers and sellers came round 
 and helped me in the bargain ; and the ass and 
 I and Father Adam were the centre of a hubbub 
 for near half an hour. At length she passed 
 into my service for the consideration of sixty-five 
 francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had 
 already cost eighty francs and two glasses of 
 beer ; so that Modestine, as I instantly baptized 
 
Donkey, Pack, and Pack-Saddle. 1 7 
 
 her, was upon all accounts the cheaper article. 
 Indeed, that was as it should be ; for she was 
 only an appurtenance of my mattress, or self- 
 acting bedstead on four castors. 
 
 I had a last interview with Father Adam in 
 a billiard-room at the witching hour of dawn, 
 when I administered the brandy. He professed 
 himself greatly touched by the separation, and 
 declared he had often bought white bread for the 
 donkey when he had been content with black 
 bread for himself ; but this, according to the 
 best authorities, must have been a flight of fancy. 
 He had a name in the village for brutally mis- 
 using the ass ; yet it is certain that he shed a 
 tear, and the tear made a clean mark down one 
 cheek. 
 
 By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, 
 a leather pad was made for me with rings to 
 fasten on my bundle ; and I thoughtfully com- 
 pleted my kit and arranged my toilette. By 
 way of armory and utensils, I took a revolver, 
 
1 8 Velay. 
 
 a little spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some 
 halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large 
 leather flask. The main cargo consisted of two 
 entire changes of warm clothing — besides my 
 travelling wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, 
 and knitted spencer — some books, and my rail- 
 way-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, 
 made me a double castle for cold nights. The 
 permanent larder was represented by cakes of. 
 chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, 
 except what I carried about my person, was 
 easily stowed into the sheepskin bag ; and by 
 good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, 
 rather for convenience of carriage than from any 
 thought that I should want it on my journey. 
 For more immediate needs, I took a leg of cold 
 mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle 
 to carry milk, an egg-beater, and a considerable 
 quantity of black bread and white, like Father 
 Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme 
 of things the destinations were reversed. 
 
Donkey^ Pack^ and Pack-Saddle. 1 9 
 
 Monastrians, of all shades of thought in poli- 
 tics, had agreed in threatening me with many 
 ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden death 
 in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, rob- 
 bers, above all the nocturnal practical joker, 
 were daily and eloquently forced on my atten- 
 tion. Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent 
 danger was left out. Like CJiristian, it was 
 from my pack I suffered by the way. Before 
 telling my own mishaps, let me, in two words, 
 relate the lesson of my experience. If the pack 
 is well strapped at the ends, and hung at full 
 length — not doubled, for your life — across the 
 pack-saddle, the traveller is safe. The saddle 
 will certainly not fit, such is the imperfection of 
 our transitory life ; it will assuredly topple and 
 tend to overset ; but there are stones on every 
 roadside, and a man soon learns the art of cor- 
 recting any tendency to overbalance with a well- 
 adjusted stone. 
 
 On the day of my departure I was up a little 
 
20 Velay. 
 
 after five ; by six, we began to load the donkey ; 
 and ten minutes after, my hopes were in the 
 dust. The pad would not stay on Modestine s 
 back for half a moment I returned it to its 
 maker, with whom I had so contumelious a pas- 
 sage that the street outside was crowded from 
 wall to wall with gossips looking on and listen- 
 ing. The pad changed hands with much vivaci- 
 ty ; perhaps it would be more descriptive to 's^y 
 that we threw it at each other's heads ; and, at 
 any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and 
 spoke with a deal of freedom. 
 
 I had a common donkey pack-saddle — a bardey 
 as they call it — fitted upon Modestine ; and once 
 more loaded her with my effects. The doubled 
 sack, my pilot-coat (for it was warm, and I was 
 to walk in my waistcoat), a great bar of black 
 bread, and an open basket containing the white 
 bread, the mutton, and the bottles, were all 
 corded together in a very elaborate system of 
 knots, and I looked on the result with fatuous 
 
Donkey, Pack, and Pack-Saddle, 2 1 
 
 content. In such a monstrous deck-cargo, all 
 poised above the donkey's shoulders, with noth- 
 ing below to balance, on a brand-new pack-saddle 
 that had not yet been worn to fit the animal, 
 and fastened with brand-new girths that might 
 be expected to stretch and slacken by the way, 
 even a very careless traveller should have seen 
 disaster brewing. That elaborate system of 
 knots, again, was the work of too many sympa- 
 thizers to be very artfully designed. It is true 
 they tightened the cords with a will ; as many as 
 three at a time would have a foot against Modes- 
 tine s quarters, and be hauling with clenched 
 teeth ; but I learned afterwards that one thought- 
 ful person, without any exercise of force, can 
 make a more solid job than half a dozen heated 
 and enthusiastic grooms. I was then but a 
 novice ; even after the misadventure of the pad 
 nothing could disturb my security, and I went 
 forth from the stable-door as an ox goeth to the 
 slaughter. 
 
'THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER. 
 
 The bell of Monastier was just striking nine as 
 I got quit of these preliminary troubles and 
 descended the hill through the common. As 
 long as I was within sight of the windows, 
 a secret shame and the fear of some laughable 
 defeat withheld me from tampering with Modes- 
 tine, She tripped along upon her four small 
 hoofs with a sober daintiness of gait ; from time 
 to time she shook her ears or her tail ; and she 
 looked so small under the bundle that my mind 
 misgave me. We got across the ford without 
 difficulty — there was no doubt about the matter, 
 she was docility itself — and once on the other 
 bank, where the road begins to mount through 
 pine-woods, I took in my right hand the un- 
 
The Gree7i Donkey-Driver. 23 
 
 hallowed staff, and with a quaking spirit applied 
 it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace 
 for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into 
 her former minuet. Another application had 
 the same effect, and so with the third. I am 
 worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes 
 against my conscience to lay my hand rudely 
 on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over 
 from head to foot ; the poor brute's knees were 
 trembling and her breathing was distressed ; it 
 w^as plain that she could go no faster on a hill. 
 God forbid, thought I, that I should brutalize 
 this innocent creature ; let her go at her own 
 pace, and let me patiently follow. 
 
 What that pace was, there is no word mean, 
 enough to describe ; it was something as much 
 slower than a walk as a walk is slower than 
 a run ; it kept me hanging on each foot for an 
 incredible length of time ; in five minutes it 
 exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the 
 muscles of the leg. And yet I had to keep 
 
24 Velay. 
 
 close at hand and measure my advance exactly 
 upon hers ; for if I dropped a few yards into the 
 rear, or went on a few yards ahead, Modestine 
 came instantly to a halt and began to browse. 
 The thought that this was to last from here to 
 Alais nearly broke my heart. Of all conceivable 
 journeys, this promised to be the most tedious. 
 I tried to tell myself it was a lovely day ; I tried 
 to charm my foreboding spirit with tobacco ; 
 but I had a vision ever present to me of the 
 long, long roads, up hill and down dale, and a 
 pair of figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot 
 by foot, a yard to the minute, and; Hke things 
 enchanted in a nightmare, approaching no 
 nearer to the goal. 
 
 In the mean time there came up behind us a 
 tall peasant, perhaps forty years of age, of an 
 ironical snuffy countenance, and arrayed in the 
 green tail-coat of the country. He overtook 
 us hand over hand, and stopped to consider our 
 pitiful advance. 
 
The Green Donkey -Driver. 25 
 
 ' Your donkey/ says he, * is very old ? ' 
 
 I told him, I believed not. 
 
 Then, he supposed, we had come far. 
 
 I told him, we had but newly left Monastier. 
 
 * Et votes marchez comme ga ! ' cried he ; and, 
 throwing back his head, he laughed long and 
 heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel 
 offended, until he had satisfied his mirth ; and 
 then, ' You must have no pity on these animals,' 
 said he ; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 
 he began to lace Modestine about the stern- 
 works, uttering a cry. The rogue pricked up 
 her ears and broke into a good round pace, 
 which she kept up without flagging, and without 
 exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long 
 as the peasant kept beside us. Her former 
 panting and shaking had been, I regret to say, 
 a piece of comedy. 
 
 My dens ex machind^ before he left me, sup- 
 plied some excellent, if inhumane, advice; pre- 
 sented me with the switch, which he declared 
 
26 Velay. 
 
 she would feel more tenderly than my cane ; 
 and finally taught me the true cry or masonic 
 word of donkey-drivers, * Proot ! ' All the time, 
 he regarded me with a comical incredulous air, 
 which was embarrassing to confront ; and sm.iled 
 over my donkey-driving, as I might have smiled 
 over his orthography, or his green tail-coat. 
 But it was not my turn for the moment. 
 
 I was proud of my new lore, and thought I 
 had learned the art to perfection. And certainly 
 Modestine did wonders for the rest of the' fore- 
 noon, and I had a breathing space to look about 
 me. It was Sabbath ; the mountain-fields were 
 all vacant in the sunshine ; and as we came 
 down through St, Martin de FrtigereSy the 
 church was crowded to the door, there were 
 people kneeling without upon the steps, and the 
 sound of the priest's chanting came forth out 
 of the dim interior. It gave me a home feeling 
 on the spot ; for I am a countryman of the 
 Sabbath, so to speak, and all Sabbath obser- 
 
The Green Donkey -Driver. 27 
 
 vances, like a Scotch accent, strike in me mixed 
 feelings, grateful and the reverse. It is only a 
 traveller, hurrying by like a person from another 
 planet, who can rightly enjoy the peace and 
 beauty of the great ascetic feast. The sight of 
 the resting country does his spirit good. . There 
 is something better than music in the wide 
 unusual silence ; and it disposes him to amiable 
 thoughts, like the sound of a little river or the 
 warmth of sunlight. 
 
 In this pleasant humor I came down the hill 
 to where Goudet stands in a green end of a 
 valley, with Chateau Beaufort opposite upon a 
 rocky steep, and the stream, as clear as crystal, 
 lying in a deep pool between them. Above and 
 below, you may hear it wimpling over the stones, 
 an amiable stripling of a river, which it seems 
 absurd to call the Loire, On all sides, Goudet 
 is shut in by mountains ; rocky footpaths, prac- 
 ticable at best for donkeys, join it to the outer 
 world of France; and the men and women 
 
28 Velay. 
 
 drink and swear, in their green corner, or look 
 up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the 
 threshold of their homes, in an isolation, you 
 would think, like that of Homer s Cyclops. But 
 it is not so ; the postman reaches Goudet with 
 the letter-bag ; the aspiring youth of Goudet 
 are within a day's walk of the railway at Le 
 Puy ; and here in the inn you may find an 
 engraved portrait of the host's nephew. Regis 
 SeitaCy * Professor of Fencing and Champion of 
 the two Americas^ a distinction gained by him, 
 along with the sum of five hundred dollars, at 
 Tammany Hall, New York, on the loth April, 
 1876. 
 
 I hurried over my midday meal, and was 
 early forth again. But, alas, as we climbed the 
 interminable hill upon the other side, * Proot ! ' 
 seemed to have lost its virtue. I prooted Hke 
 a lion, I prooted melHfluously like a sucking- 
 dove ; but Modestine would be neither softened 
 nor intimidated. She held doggedly to her 
 
The Green Donkey-Driver. ' 29 
 
 pace ; nothing but a blow would move her, and 
 that only for a second. I must follow at her 
 heels, incessantly belaboring. A moment's 
 pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed into 
 her own private gait. I think I never heard of 
 any one in as mean a situation. I must reach 
 the lake of Bouchet^ where I meant to camp, 
 before sundown, and, to have even a hope of 
 this, I must instantly maltreat this uncomplain- 
 ing animal. The sound of my own blows 
 sickened me. Once, when I looked at her, 
 she had a faint resemblance to a lady of my 
 acquaintance who formerly loaded me with 
 kindness ; and this increased my horror of my 
 cruelty. 
 
 To make matters worse, we encountered 
 another donkey, ranging at will upon the road- 
 side ; and this other donkey chanced to be a 
 gentleman. He and Modestine met nickering 
 for joy, and I had to separate the pair and beat 
 down their young romance with a renewed and 
 
30 Velay. 
 
 feverish bastinado. If the other donkey had 
 had the heart of a male under his hide, he 
 would have fallen upon me tooth and hoof ; 
 and this was a kind of consolation — he was 
 plainly unworthy of Modestine s affection. But 
 the incident saddened me, as did everything 
 that spoke of my donkey's sex. 
 
 It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, 
 with vehement sun upon my shoulders ; and I 
 had to labor so consistently with my stick 
 that the sweat ran into my eyes. Every five 
 minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and the 
 pilot-coat would take an ugly slew to one side 
 or the other; and I had to stop Modestine^ just 
 when I had got her to a tolerable pace of about 
 two miles an hour, to tug, push, shoulder, and 
 readjust the load. And at last, in the village of 
 Ussely saddle and all, the whole hypothec turned 
 round and grovelled in the dust below the don- 
 key's belly. She, none better pleased, incon- 
 tinently drew up and seemed to smile ; and a 
 
^ The Green Donkey-Driver. 3 1 
 
 party of one man, two women, and two children 
 came up, and, standing round me in a half-circle, 
 encouraged her by their example. 
 
 I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing 
 righted ; and the instant I had done so, with- 
 out hesitation, it toppled and fell down upon 
 the other side. Judge if I was hot ! And yet 
 not a hand was offered to assist me. The man, 
 indeed, told me I ought to have a package of a 
 different shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing 
 better to the point in my predicament, he might 
 hold his tongue. And the good-natured dog 
 <» agreed with me smilingly. It was the most 
 despicable fix. I must plainly content myself 
 with the pack for Modestine, and take the fol- 
 lowing items for my own share of the portage : 
 a cane, a quart flask, a pilot-jacket heavily 
 weighted in the pockets, two pounds of black 
 bread, and an open basket full of meats and 
 bottles. I believe I may say I am not devoid 
 of greatness of soul ; for I did not recoil from 
 
32 Velay. 
 
 this infamous burden. I disposed it, Heaven 
 knows how, so as to be mildly portable, and 
 then proceeded to steer Modestine through the 
 village. She tried, as was indeed her invariable 
 habit, to enter every house and every courtyard 
 in the whole length ; and, encumbered as I was, 
 without a hand to help myself, no words can 
 render an idea of my difficulties. A priest, with 
 six or seven others, was examining a church 
 in process of repair, and he and his acolytes 
 laughed loudly as they saw my plight. I re- 
 membered having laughed myself when I had 
 seen good men struggling with adversity in the 
 person of a jackass, and the recollection filled 
 me with penitence. That was in my old light 
 days, before this trouble came upon me. God 
 knows at least that I shall never laugh again, 
 thought I. But O, what a cruel thing is a farce 
 to those engaged in it ! 
 
 A little out of the village, Modestine^ filled 
 with the demon, set her heart upon a by-road, 
 
The Green Donkey-Driver. 33 
 
 and positively refused to leave it. I dropped all 
 my bundles, and, I am ashamed to say, struck 
 the poor sinner twice across the face. It was 
 pitiful to see her lift up her head with shut 
 eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came 
 very near crying ; but I did a wiser thing than 
 that, and sat squarely down by the roadside to 
 consider my situation under the cheerful influ- 
 ence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. Modestine^ 
 in the mean while, munched some black bread 
 with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain 
 that I must make a sacrifice to the gods of 
 shipwreck. I threw away the empty bottle 
 destined to carry milk ; I threw away my own 
 white bread, and, disdaining to act by general 
 average, kept the black bread for Modestine ; 
 lastly, I threw away the cold leg of mutton and 
 the egg-whisk, although this last was dear to 
 rny heart. Thus I found room for everything 
 in the basket, and even stowed the boating-coat 
 on the top. By means of an end of cord I 
 
 3 
 
34 Velay. 
 
 slung it under one arm ; and although the cord 
 cut my shoulder, and the jacket hung almost 
 to the ground, it was with a heart greatly light- 
 ened that I set forth again. 
 
 I had now an arm free to thrash Modestiney 
 * 
 and cruelly I chastised her. If I were to reach 
 
 the lakeside before dark, she must bestir her 
 little shanks to some tune. Already the sun 
 had gone down into a windy-looking mist ; and 
 although there were still a few streaks of gold 
 far off to the east on the hills and ihe black fir- 
 woods, all was cold and gray about our onward 
 path. An infinity of little country by-roads led 
 hither and thither among the fields. It was the 
 most pointless labyrinth. I could see my desti- 
 nation overhead, or rather the peak that domi- 
 nates it; but choose as I pleased, the roads 
 always ended by turning away from it, and 
 sneaking back towards the valley, or northward 
 along the margin of the hills. The failing light, 
 the waning color, the naked, unhomely, stony 
 
The Green Donkey-Driver. 35 
 
 country through which I was travelling, threw 
 me into some despondency. I promise you, the 
 stick was not idle ; I think every decent step 
 that Modestme took must have cost me at least 
 two emphatic blows. There was not another 
 sound in the neighborhood but that of my un- 
 wearying bastinado. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load 
 once more bit the dust, and, as by enchantment, 
 all the cords were simultaneously loosened, and 
 the road scattered with my dear possessions. 
 The packing was to begin again from the begin- 
 ning ; and as I had to invent a new and better 
 system, I do not doubt but I lost half an hour. 
 It began to be dusk in earnest as I reached a 
 wilderness of turf and stones. It had the air of 
 being a road which should lead everywhere at 
 the same time ; and I was falling into something 
 not unlike despair when I saw two figures stalk- 
 ing towards me over the stones. They walked 
 one behind the other like tramps, but their 
 
36 Velay. 
 
 pace was remarkable. The son led the way, a 
 tall, ill-made, sombre, Scotch-looking man ; the 
 mother followed, all in her Sunday's best, with 
 an elegantly- embroidered ribbon to her cap, and 
 a new felt hat atop, and proffering, as she strode 
 along with kilted petticoats, a string of obscene 
 and blasphemous oaths. 
 
 I hailed the son and asked him my direction. 
 He pointed loosely west and north-west, mut- 
 tered an inaudible comment, and, without slack- 
 ing his pace for an instant, stalked on, as he was 
 going, right athwart my path. The mother fol- 
 lowed without so much as raising her head. I 
 shouted and shouted after them, but they con- 
 tinued to scale the hillside, and turned a deaf 
 ear to my outcries. At last, leaving Modestine 
 by herself, I was constrained to run after them, 
 hailing the while. They stopped as I drew near, 
 the mother still cursing ; and I could see she 
 was a handsome, motherly, respectable-looking 
 woman. The son once more answered me 
 
The Green Donkey-Driver. 37 
 
 roughly and inaudibly, and was for setting out 
 again. But this time I simply collared the 
 mother, who was nearest me, and, apologizing 
 for my violence, declared that I could not let 
 them go until they had put me on my road. 
 They were neither of them offended — rather 
 mollified than otherwise ; told me I had only to 
 follow them ; and then the mother asked me 
 what I wanted by the lake at such an hour. I 
 replied, in the Scotch manner, by inquiring if 
 she had far to go herself. She told me, with 
 another oath, that she had an hour and a half s 
 road before her. And then, without salutation, 
 the pair strode forward again up the hillside in 
 the gathering dusk. 
 
 I returned for Modestiney pushed her briskly 
 forward, and, after a sharp ascent of twenty 
 minutes, reached the edge of a plateau. The 
 view, looking back on my day's journey, was 
 both wild and sad. Mount Mhenc and the 
 peaks beyond St, ytilien stood out in trenchant 
 
38 Velay. 
 
 gloom against a cold glitter in the east ; and 
 the intervening field of hills had fallen together 
 into one broad wash of shadow, except here and 
 there the outline of a wooded sugar-loaf in black, 
 here and there a white irregular patch to repre- 
 sent a cultivated farm, and here and there a blot 
 where the Loire, the Gazeille, or the Lausonne 
 wandered in a gorge. 
 
 Soon we were on a high-road, and surprise 
 seized on my mind as I beheld a village of some 
 magnitude close at hand ; for I had been told 
 that the neighborhood of the lake was unin- 
 habited except by trout. The road smoked in 
 the twilight with children driving home cattle 
 from the fields ; and a pair of mounted stride- 
 legged women, hat and cap and all, dashed past 
 me at a hammering trot from the canton where 
 they had been to church and market. I asked 
 one of the children where I was. At Bouchet 
 St. NicolaSy he told me. Thither, about a mile 
 south of my destination, and on the other side 
 
The Green Donkey-Driver. 39 
 
 of a respectable summit, had these confused 
 roads and treacherous peasantry conducted me. 
 My shoulder was cut, so that it hurt sharply ; 
 my arm ached like toothache from perpetual 
 beating ; I gave up the lake and my design to 
 camp, and asked for the auberge. 
 
I HAVE A GOAD. 
 
 The auberge of Botichet St, Nicolas was among 
 the least pretentious I have ever visited ; but I 
 saw many more of the like upon my journey. 
 Indeed, it was typical of these French highlands. 
 Imagine a cottage of two stories, with a bench 
 before the door ; the stable and kitchen in a 
 suite^ so that Modestiiie and I could hear each 
 other dining ; furniture of the plainest, earthen 
 floors, a single bedchamber for travellers, and 
 that without any convenience but beds. In the 
 kitchen cooking and eating go forward side by 
 side, and the family sleep at night. Any one 
 who has a fancy to wash must do so in public 
 at the common table. The food is sometimes 
 spare; hard fish and omelette have been my 
 
/ have a Goad. 41 
 
 portion more than once ; the wine is of the 
 smallest, the brandy abominable to man ; and 
 the visit of a fat sow, grouting under the table 
 and rubbing against your legs, is no impossible 
 accompaniment to dinner. 
 
 But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of 
 
 ten, show themselves friendly and considerate. 
 
 •ft 
 
 As soon as you cross the doors you cease to 
 be a stranger ; and although this peasantry 
 are rude and forbidding on the highway, they 
 show a tincture of kind breeding when you 
 share their hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I 
 uncorked my bottle .of Beaujolais, and asked the 
 host to join me. He would take but little. 
 
 * I am an amateur of such wine, do you see t * 
 he said, 'and I am capable of leaving you not 
 enough.* 
 
 In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected 
 to eat with his Own knife ; unless he ask, no 
 other will be supplied : with a glass, a whang of 
 bread, and an iron fork, the table is completely 
 
42 Velay. 
 
 laid. My knife was cordially admired by the 
 landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled him 
 with wonder. 
 
 *I should never have guessed that,\he said. 
 ' I would bet/ he added, weighing it in his hand, 
 * that this cost you not less than five francs.' 
 
 When I told him it had cost me twenty, his 
 jaw dropped. 
 
 He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly 
 old man, astonishingly ignorant. His wife, who 
 was not so pleasant in her manners, knew how 
 to read, although I do not suppose she ever did 
 so. She had a share of brains and spoke with a 
 cutting emphasis, like one who ruled the roast. 
 
 ^My man knows nothing,' she said, with an 
 angry nod ; 'he is like the beasts.' 
 
 And the old gentleman signified acquiescence 
 with his head. There was no contempt on her 
 part, and no shame on his ; the facts were 
 accepted loyally, and no more about the matter. 
 
 I was tightly cross-examined about my jour- 
 
/ have a Goad. 43 
 
 ney ; and the lady understood in a moment, and 
 sketched out what I should put into my book 
 when I got home. * Whether people harvest or 
 not in such or such a place ; if there were for- 
 ests ; studies of manners ; what, for example, I 
 and the master of the house say to you ; the 
 beauties of Nature, and all that/ And she 
 interrogated me with a look. 
 
 'It is just that,' said I. 
 
 ' You see,' she added to her husband, ' I un- 
 derstood that' 
 
 They were both much interested by the story 
 of my misadventures. 
 
 ' In the morning/ said the husband, ' I will 
 make you something better than your cane. 
 Such a beast as that feels nothing ; it is in the 
 proverb — dur comme un dne ; you might beat 
 her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you would 
 arrive nowhere.' 
 
 Something better ! I little knew what he 
 was offering. 
 
44 Velay. 
 
 The sleeping-room was furnished with two 
 beds. I had one ; and I will own I was a little 
 abashed to find a young man and his wife and 
 child in the act of mounting into the other. This 
 was my first experience of the sort ; and if I am 
 always to feel equally silly and extraneous, I 
 pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes 
 to myself, and know nothing of the woman 
 except that she had beautiful arms, and seemed 
 no whit abashed by my appearance. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, the situation was more trying to me 
 than to the pair. A pair keep each other in 
 countenance ; it is the single gentleman who has 
 to blush. But I could not help attributing my 
 sentiments to the husband, and sought to con- 
 ciliate his tolerance with a cup of brahdy froni 
 my flask. He told me that he was a cooper 
 of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in search of 
 work, and that in his spare moments he followed 
 the fatal calling of a maker of matches. Me he 
 readily enough divined to be a brandy merchant. 
 
/ have a Goad. 45 
 
 I was up first in the morning {Monday^ Sep- 
 tember 2'^d)y and hastened my toilet guiltily, so 
 as to leave a clear field for madam, the cooper's 
 wife. I drank a bowl of milk, and set off to 
 explore the neighborhood of Bouchet, It was 
 perishing cold, a gray, windy, wintry morning ; 
 misty clouds flew fast and low ; the wind piped 
 over the naked platform ; and the only speck of 
 color was away behind Mount Mezenc and the 
 eastern hills, where the sky still wore the orange 
 of the dawn. 
 
 It was five in the morning, and four thousand 
 feet above the sea ; and I had to bury my 
 hands in my pockets and trot. People were 
 trooping out to the labors of the field by twos 
 and threes, and all turned round to stare upon 
 the stranger. I had seen them coming back 
 last night, I saw them going afield again ; and 
 there was the life of Bouchet in a nutshell. 
 
 When I came back to the inn for a bit of 
 breakfast, the landlady was in the kitchen 
 
46 Velay. 
 
 combing out her daughter's hair ; and I made 
 her my compliments upon its beauty. 
 
 * O no/ said the mother ; * it is not so beauti- 
 ful as it ought to be. Look, it is too fine/ 
 
 Thus does a wise peasantry console itself 
 under adverse physical circumstances, and, by a 
 startling democratic process, the defects 'of the 
 majority decide the type of beauty. 
 
 ' And where,' said I, ' is monsieur } ' 
 
 ' The master of the house is up-stairs/ she 
 answered, ' making you a goad.' 
 
 Blessed be the man who invented goads! 
 Blessed the innkeeper of BoucJiet St, Nicolas^ 
 who introduced me to their use! This plain 
 wand, with an eighth of an inch of pin, was in- 
 deed a sceptre when he put it in my hands. 
 Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A 
 prick, and she passed the most inviting stable- 
 door. A prick, and she broke forth into a gallant 
 little trotlet that devoured the miles. It was not 
 a remarkable speed, when all was said ; and we 
 
/ have a Goad. 47 
 
 took four hours to cover ten miles at the best of 
 it. But what a heavenly change since yester- 
 day ! No more wielding of the ugly cudgel ; no 
 more flailing with an aching arm ; no more 
 broadsword exercise, but a discreet and gentle- 
 manly fence. And what although now and then 
 a drop of blood should appear on Modestine s 
 mouse-colored wedge-like rump ? I should have 
 preferred it otherwise, indeed ; but yesterday's 
 exploits had purged my heart of all humanity. 
 The perverse little devil, since she would not 
 be taken with kindness, must even go with 
 pricking. 
 
 It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a 
 cavalcade of stride-legged ladies and a pair of 
 post-runners, the road was dead solitary all the 
 way to Pradelles, I scarce remember an incident 
 but one. A handsome foal with a bell about his 
 neck came charging up to us upon a stretch of 
 common, sniffed the air martially as one about 
 to do great deeds, and, suddenly thinking other- 
 
48 Velay. 
 
 wise in his green young heart, put about and 
 galloped off as he had come, the bell tinkling 
 in the wind. For a long while afterwards I saw 
 his noble attitude as he drew up, and heard the 
 note of his bell ; and when I struck the high- 
 road, the song of the telegraph-wires seemed to 
 continue the same music. 
 
 Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the 
 Allier, surrounded by rich meadows. They were 
 cutting aftermath on all sides, which gave the 
 neighborhood, this gusty autumn morning, an 
 untimely smell of hay. On the opposite bank 
 of the Allier the land kept mounting for miles 
 to the horizon : a tanned and sallow autumn 
 landscape, with black blots of fir-wood and white 
 roads wandering through the hills. Over all 
 this the clouds shed a uniform and purplish 
 shadow, sad and somewhat menacing, exagger- 
 ating height and distance, and throwing into 
 still higher relief the twisted ribbons of the 
 highway. It was a cheerless prospect, but one 
 
* / have a Goad. 49 
 
 stimulating to a traveller. For I was now upon 
 the limit of Velay, and all that I beheld lay in 
 another county — wild Gevatcda^ty mountainous, 
 uncultivated, and but recently disforested from 
 terror of the wolves. 
 
 Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the 
 traveller s advance; and you may trudge through 
 all our comfortable Europe, and not meet with 
 an adventure worth the name. But here, if 
 anywhere, a man was on the frontiers of hope. 
 For this was the land of the ever-memorable 
 Beast, the Napoleon Btconaparte of wolves. What 
 a career w^as his ! He lived ten months at free 
 quarters in Gevaudan and Vivarais ; he ate 
 women and children and * shepherdesses cele- 
 brated for their beauty ; ' he pursued armed 
 horsemen ; he has been seen at broad noonday 
 chasing a post-chaise and outrider along the 
 king's high-road, and chaise and outrider fleeing 
 before him at the gallop. He was placarded 
 like a political offender, and ten thousand francs 
 
 4 
 
50 Velay. ^ 
 
 were offered for his head. And yet, when he 
 was shot and sent to Versailles, behold ! a com- 
 mon wolf, and even small for that. * Though I 
 could reach from pole to pole,' sang Alexander 
 Pope; the little corporal ^hodk Europe ; and if 
 all wolves had been as this wolf, they would have 
 changed the history of man. M, Elie Berthet 
 has made him the hero of a novel, which I have 
 read, and do not wish to read again. 
 
 I hurried over my lunch, and was proof 
 against the landlady's desire that I should 
 visit our Lady of PradelleSy 'who performed 
 many miracles, although she was of wood ; ' and 
 before three quarters of an hour I was goading 
 Modestine down the steep descent that leads to 
 Langogne on the Allier. On both sides of the 
 road, in big dusty fields, farmers were preparing 
 for next spring. Every fifty yards a yoke of 
 great-necked stolid oxen were patiently haling 
 at the plough. I saw one of these mild, formi- 
 dable servants of the glebe, who took a sudden 
 
/ have a Goad. 5 1 
 
 interest in Modestine and me. The furrow down 
 which he was journeying lay at an angle to the 
 road, and his head was solidly fixed to the yoke 
 like those of caryatides below a ponderous cor- 
 nice ; but he screwed round his big honest eyes 
 and followed us with a ruminating look, until his 
 master bade him turn the plough and proceed* 
 to reascend the field. From all these furrowing 
 ploughshares, from the feet of oxen, from a 
 laborer here and there who was breaking the 
 dry clods with a hoe, the wind carried away a 
 thin dust like so much smoke. It was a fine, 
 busy, breathing, rustic landscape ; and as I con- 
 tinued to descend, the highlands of Gevaudan 
 kept mounting in front of me against the sky. 
 I had crossed the Loire the day before ; now 
 I was to cross the A liter ; so near are these two 
 confluents in their youth. Just at the bridge of 
 Langogney as the long-promised rain was begin- 
 ning to fall, a lassie of some seven or eight ad- 
 dressed me in the sacramental phrase, ^ Dciist 
 
52 Velay. 
 
 que vous venezf She did it with so high an 
 air that she set me laughing; and this cut her to 
 the quick. She was evidently one who reckoned 
 on respect, and stood looking after me in silent 
 dudgeon, as I crossed the bridge and entered 
 the county of Gevaudaii. 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN. 
 
 * The way also here was very weari- 
 some through dirt and slabbi- 
 ness ; nor was there on all this 
 ground so much as one inn or 
 victualling-house wherein to re- 
 fresh the feebler sort,^ — Pil- 
 grim's Progress. 
 

UPPER GEVAUDAN. 
 
 A CAMP IN THE DARK. 
 
 The next day {Tuesday, September 24th) , it was 
 two o'clock in the afternoon before I got my 
 journal written up and my knapsack repaired, 
 for I was determined to carry my knapsack in 
 the future and have no more ado with baskets ; 
 and half an hour afterwards I set out for Le 
 Cheylard V Eveque, a place on the borders of the 
 forest of Mereoire, A man, I was told, should 
 walk there in an hour and a half ; and I thought 
 it scarce too ambitious to suppose that a man 
 encumbered with a cjonkey might cover the same 
 distance in four hours. 
 
 All the way up the long hill from Langogne 
 it rained and hailed alternately ; the wind kept 
 freshening steadily, although slowly ; plentiful 
 
56 upper Gevaudan. 
 
 hurrying clouds — some dragging veils of straight 
 rain-shower, others massed and luminous, as 
 though promising snow — careered out of the 
 north and followed me along my way. I ''was 
 soon out of the cultivated basin of the Allier^ 
 and away from the ploughing oxen, and such- 
 like sights of the country. Moor, heathery 
 marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of birch 
 all jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and 
 there a few naked cottages and bleak fields, — 
 these were the characters of the country. Hill 
 and valley followed valley and hill ; the little 
 green and stony cattle-tracks wandered in and 
 out of one another, split into three or four, died 
 away in marshy hollows, and began again 
 sporadically on hillsides or at the borders of 
 a wood. 
 
 There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it 
 was no easy affair to make a passage in this 
 uneven country and through this intermittent 
 labyrinth of tracks. It must have been about 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 57 
 
 four when I struck SagneroussCy and went on my 
 way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. Two 
 hours afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a 
 lull of the wind, I issued from a fir-wood where 
 I had long been wandering, and found, not the 
 looked-for village, but another marish bottom 
 among rough-and-tumble hills. For some time 
 past I had heard the ringing of cattle-bells 
 ahead ; and now, as I came out of the skirts of 
 the wood, I saw near upon a dozen cows and 
 perhaps as many more black figures, which 
 I conjectured to be children, although the mist 
 had almost unrecognizably exaggerated their 
 forms. These were all silently following each 
 other round and round in a circle, now taking 
 hands, now breaking up with chains and rev- 
 erences. A dance of children appeals to very 
 innocent and lively thoughts ; but, at nightfall 
 on the marshes, the thing was eerie and fan- 
 tastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough 
 read in Herbert Spencer^ felt a sort of silence fall 
 
58 upper Gevaudan. 
 
 for an instant on my mind. The next, I was 
 pricking Modestine forward, and guiding her like 
 an unruly ship through the open. In a path, 
 she went doggedly ahead of her own accord, as 
 before a fair wind ; but once on the turf or 
 among heather, and the brute became demented. 
 The tendency of lost travellers to go round in 
 a circle was developed in her to the degree of 
 passion, and it took all the steering I had in me 
 to keep even a decently straight course through 
 a single field. 
 
 While I was thus desperately tacking through 
 the bog, children and cattle began to disperse, 
 until only a pair of girls remained behind. 
 From these I sought direction on my path. 
 The peasantry in general were but little disposed 
 to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply 
 retired into his house, and barricaded the door 
 on my approach ; and I might beat and shout 
 myself hoarse, he turned a deaf ear. Another, 
 having given me a direction which, as I found 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 59 
 
 afterwards, I had misunderstood, complacently 
 watched me going wrong without adding a sign. 
 He did not care a stalk of parsley if I wandered 
 all night upon the hills ! As for these two girls, 
 they were a pair of impudent sly sluts, with not 
 a thought but mischief. One put out her tongue 
 at me, the other bade me follow the cows ; 
 and they both giggled and jogged each other s 
 elbows. The Beast of Gevaudan ate about a 
 hundred children of this district ; I began to 
 think of him with sympathy. 
 
 Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the 
 bog, and got into another wood and upon a 
 well-marked road. It grew darker and darker. 
 Modestine, suddenly beginning to smell mischief, 
 bettered the pace of her own accord, and from 
 that time forward gave me no trouble. It was 
 the first sign of intelligence I had occasion to 
 remark in her. At the same time, the wind 
 freshened into half a gale, and another heavy 
 discharge of rain came flying up out of th^ 
 
6o Upper Gevaudan. 
 
 north. At the other side of the wood I sighted 
 some red windows in the dusk. This was the 
 hamlet of Fotczilhic ; three houses on a hillside, 
 near a wood of birches. Here I found a dehght- 
 ful old man, who came a little way with me in 
 the rain to put me safely on the road for Chey- 
 lard. He would hear of no reward ; but shook 
 his hands above his head almost as if in menace, 
 and refused volubly and shrilly, in unmitigated 
 patois. 
 
 All seemed right at last. My thoughts began 
 to turn upon dinner and a fireside, and my heart 
 was agreeably softened in my bosom. Alas, and 
 I was on the brink of new and greater miseries ! 
 Suddenly, at a single swoop, the night fell. I 
 have been abroad in many a black night, but never 
 in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a glimmer of 
 the track where it was well beaten, a certain fleecy 
 density, or night within night, for a tree, — this 
 was all that I could discriminate. The sky was 
 simply darkness overhead ; even the flying clouds 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 6i 
 
 pursued their way invisibly to human eyesight. 
 I could not distinguish my hand at arm's length 
 from the track, nor my goad, at the same 
 distance, from the meadows or the sky. 
 
 Soon the road that I was following split, 
 after the fashion of the country, into three or 
 four in a piece of rocky meadow. Since Modes- 
 tine had shown such a fancy for beaten roads, I 
 tried her instinct in this predicament. But the * 
 instinct of an ass is what might be expected 
 from the name ; in half a minute she was 
 clambering round and round among some 
 boulders, as lost a donkey as you would wish to 
 see. I should have camped long before had I 
 been properly provided ; but as this was to be 
 so short a stage, I had brought no wine, no 
 bread for myself, and a little over a pound for my 
 lady-friend. Add to this, that I and Modestme 
 were both handsomely wetted by the showers. 
 But now, if I could have found some water, I 
 should have camped at once in spite of all. 
 
62 upper Gevaudan. 
 
 Water, however, being entirely absent, except in 
 the form of rain, I determined to return to 
 Fouzilhicy and ask a guide a little further on my 
 way — ' a little farther lend thy guiding hand/ 
 
 The thing was easy to decide, hard to 
 accomplish. In this sensible roaring blackness 
 I was sure of nothing but the direction of the 
 wind. To this I set my face ; the road had 
 disappeared, and I went across country, now in 
 marshy opens, now baffled by walls unscalable 
 to Mo destine, until I came once more in sight of 
 some red windows. This time they were differ- 
 ently disposed. It was not Fouzilhic, but Fou- 
 zilkaCy a hamlet little distant from the other in 
 space, but worlds away in the spirit of its 
 inhabitants. I tied Modestine to a gate, and 
 groped forward, stumbling among rocks, plun- 
 ging mid-leg in bog, until I gained the entrance 
 of the village. In the first lighted house there 
 was a woman who would not open to me. She 
 could do nothing, she cried to me through the 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 6 2^ 
 
 door, being alone and lame ; but if I would 
 apply at the next house, there was a man who 
 could help me if he had a mind. 
 
 They came to the next door in force, a man, 
 two women, and a girl, and brought a pair of 
 lanterns to examine the wayfarer. The man 
 was not ill-looking, but had a shifty smile. He 
 leaned against the doorpost, and heard me state 
 my case. All I asked was a guide as far as 
 Cheylard, 
 
 * Cest quCy voyez-vouSy ilfait noir' said he. 
 
 I told him that was just my reason for re- 
 quiring help. 
 
 'I understand that,' said he, looking uncom- 
 fortable ; * mais — cest — de la peine! 
 
 I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his 
 head. I rose as high as ten francs ; but he con- 
 tinued to shake his head. * Name your own 
 price, then,' said I. 
 
 * Ce nest pas qa' he said at length, and 
 with evident difficulty ; * but I am not going 
 
64 upper Gevaudan. ^^ 
 
 to cross the door — mais je ne sortirai pas de 
 la ported 
 
 I grew a little warm, and asked him what he 
 proposed that I should do. 
 
 'Where are you going beyond Ckeylard?' he 
 asked by way of answer. 
 
 ' That is no affair of yours/ I returned, for 
 I was not going to indulge his bestial curi- 
 osity ; * it changes nothing in my present pre- 
 dicament.' 
 
 ' C'est vraiy ga^ he acknowledged, with a laugh ; 
 ^ ouiy cest vrai, Et d'ou venez-vous V 
 
 A better man than I might have felt nettled. 
 
 ' 01 said I, * I am not going to answer any 
 of your questions, so you may spare yourself 
 the trouble of putting them. I am late enough 
 already ; I want help. If you will not guide me 
 yourself, at least help me to find some one else 
 who will.' 
 
 'Hold on,' he cried suddenly. 'Was it not 
 you who passed in the meadow while it was 
 still day } ' 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 65 
 
 * Yes, yes/ said the girl, whom I had not 
 hitherto recognized ; ' it was monsieur ; I told 
 him to follow the cow/ 
 
 *As for you, mademoiselle,' said I, *you are 
 'difarceMse! 
 
 'And,* added the man, 'what the devil have 
 you done to be still here ? ' 
 
 What the devil, indeed ! But there I was. 
 * The great thing,' said I, * is to make an end of 
 it ; ' and once more proposed that he should help 
 me to find a guide. 
 
 ^C est quel he said again, ^cest que — il fait 
 noir^ 
 
 ' Very well,' said I ; * take one of your lan- 
 terns.' 
 
 / No,' he cried, drawing a thought backward, 
 and again intrenching himself behind one of his 
 former phrases ; ' I will not cross the door.' 
 
 I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror 
 struggling on his face with unaffected shame ; 
 he was smiling pitifully and wetting his lip with 
 - 5 
 
66 Upper Gevaudan. 
 
 his tongue, like a detected school-boy. I drew a 
 brief picture of my state, and asked him what I 
 was to do. 
 
 ' I don't know,' he said ; ' I will not cross the 
 door.' t 
 
 Here was the Beast of GevaudaUy and no 
 
 » 
 
 mistake. 
 
 * Sir,' said I, with my most commanding man- 
 ners, ' you are a coward.' 
 
 And with that I turned my back upon the 
 family party, who hastened to retire within their 
 fortifications ; and the famous door was closed 
 again, but not till I had overheard the sound of 
 laughter. Filia barbara pater barbarior. Let 
 me say it in the plural : the Beasts of Givaudan. 
 
 The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and 
 I ploughed distressfully among stones and rub- 
 *bish-heaps. All the other houses in the village 
 were both dark and silent ; and though I knocked 
 at here and there a door, my knocking was un- 
 answered. It was a bad business ; I gave up 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 67 
 
 Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, 
 and the wind, which. still kept rising, began to 
 dry my coat and trousers. * Very well,' thought 
 I, ' water or no water, I must camp.' But the 
 first thing was to return to Modestine, I am 
 pretty sure I was twenty minutes groping for 
 my lady in the dark ; and if it had not been for 
 the unkindly services of the bog, into which 
 I once more stumbled, I might have still been 
 groping for her at the dawn. My next business 
 was to gain the shelter of a wood, for the wind 
 was cold as well as boisterous. How, in this 
 well-wooded district, I should have been so 
 long in finding one, is another of the insoluble 
 mysteries of this day's adventures ; but I will 
 take my oath that I put near an hour to the 
 discovery. 
 
 At last black trees began to show upon my 
 left, and, suddenly crossing the road, made a 
 cave of unmitigated blackness right in front. I 
 call it a cave without exaggeration ; to pass 
 
€6 Upper Gevaudan. 
 
 below that arch of leaves was like entering a 
 dungeon. I felt about until my hand encoun- 
 tered a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestiney 
 a haggard, drenched, desponding donkey. Then 
 I lowered my pack, laid it along the wall on the 
 margin of the road, and unbuckled the straps. 
 I knew well enough where the lantern was ; but 
 where were the candles } I groped and groped 
 among the tumbled articles, and, while I was 
 thus groping, suddenly I touched the spirit- 
 lamp. Salvation ! This would serve my turn 
 as well. The wind roared unwearyingly among 
 the trees ; I could hear the boughs tossing and 
 the leaves churning through half a mile of forest ; 
 yet the scene of my encampment was not only 
 as black as the pit, but admirably sheltered. At 
 the second match the wick caught flame. The 
 light was both livid and shifting ; but it cut me 
 off from the universe, and doubled the darkness 
 of the surrounding night. 
 
 I tied Alodestiite more conveniently for herself, 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 69 
 
 and broke up half the black bread for her supper, 
 reserving the other half against the morning. 
 Then I gathered what I should want within 
 reach, took off my wet boots and gaiters, which 
 I wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my knap- 
 sack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping- 
 bag, insinuated my limbs into the interior, and 
 buckled myself in like a bambino. I opened a 
 tin of Bologna sausage and broke a cake of 
 chocolate, and that was all I had to eat. It 
 may sound offensive, but I ate them together, 
 bite by bite, by way of bread and meat. All I 
 had to wash down this revolting mixture was 
 neat brandy : a revolting beverage in itself. But 
 I was rare and hungry; ate well, and smoked 
 one of the best cigarettes in my experience. 
 Then I put a stone in my straw hat, pulled the 
 flap of my fur cap over my neck and eyes, put 
 my revolver ready to my hand, and snuggled 
 well down among the sheepskins. 
 
 I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt 
 
JO upper Gevaudan. 
 
 my heart beating faster than usual, as if with an 
 agreeable excitement to which my mind remained 
 a stranger. But as soon as my eyelids touched, 
 that subtle glue leaped between them, and they 
 would no more come separate. The wind among 
 the trees was my lullaby. Sometimes it sounded 
 for minutes together with a steady even rush, 
 not rising nor abating ; and again it would swell 
 and burst like a great crashing breaker, and the 
 trees would patter me all over with big drops 
 from the rain of the afternoon. Night after 
 night, in my own bedroom in the country, I 
 have given ear to this perturbing concert of the 
 wind among the woods; but whether it was a 
 difference in the trees, or the lie of the ground, 
 or because I was myself outside and in the midst 
 of it, the fact remains that the wind sang to a 
 different tune among these woods of Givaudan. 
 I hearkened and hearkened ; and meanwhile 
 sleep took gradual possession of my body and 
 subdued my thoughts and senses ; but still 
 
A Camp in the Dark, 71 
 
 my last waking effort was to listen and distin- 
 guish, and my last conscious state was one of 
 wonder at the foreign clamor in my ears. 
 
 Twice in the course of the dark hours — once 
 when a stone galled me underneath the sack, 
 and again when the poor patient Modestiney 
 growing angry, pawed and stamped upon the 
 road — I was recalled for a brief while to con- 
 sciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, and 
 the lace-like edge of the foliage against the sky. 
 When I awoke for the third time {Wednesday ^ 
 September 2^tk)y the world was flooded with a 
 blue light, the mother of the dawn. I saw the 
 leaves laboring in the wind and the ribbon of 
 the road ; and, on turning my head, there was 
 Modestine tied to a beech, and standing half 
 across the path in an attitude of inimitable 
 patience. I closed my eyes again, and set to 
 thinking over the experience of the night. I 
 was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it 
 had been, even in this tempestuous weather. 
 
72 upper Gevaudan. 
 
 The stone which annoyed me would not have 
 been there, had I not been forced to camp blind- 
 fold in the opaque night; and I had felt no 
 other inconvenience, except when my feet en- 
 countered the lantern or the second volume of 
 Peyrafs Pastors of the Desert among the mixed 
 contents of my sleeping-bag ; nay more, I had 
 felt not a touch of cold, and awakened with 
 unusually lightsome and clear sensations. 
 
 With that, I shook myself, got once more into 
 my boots and gaiters, and, breaking up the rest 
 of the bread for Modes tiney strolled about to see 
 in what part of the world I had awakened. 
 UlysseSy left on Ithaca^ and with a mind unsettled 
 by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray. 
 I have been after an adventure all my life, 
 a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell 
 early and heroic voyagers ; and thus to be found 
 by morning in a random woodside nook in Ge- 
 vaudan — not knowing north from south, as 
 strange to my surroundings as the first man 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 73 
 
 upon the earth, an inland castaway — was to 
 find a fraction of my day-dreams realized. I 
 was on the skirts of a little wood of birch, 
 sprinkled with a few beeches ; behind, it ad- 
 joined another wood of fir ; and in front, it 
 broke up and went down in open order into a 
 shallow and meadowy dale. All around there 
 were bare hill-tops, some near, some far away, as 
 the perspective closed or opened, but none ap- 
 parently much higher than the rest. The wind 
 huddled the trees. The golden specks of au- 
 tumn in the birches tossed shiveringly. Over- 
 head the sky was full of strings and shreds of 
 vapor, flying, vanishing, reappearing, and turn- 
 ing about an axis like tumblers, as the wind 
 hounded them through heaven. It was wild 
 weather and famishing cold. I ate some choco- 
 late, swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and smoked 
 a cigarette before the cold should have time to 
 disable my fingers. And by the time I had got 
 all this done, and had made my pack and bound 
 
74 Upper Gevaudan. 
 
 it on the pack-saddle, the day was tiptoe on the * 
 threshold of the east. We had not gone many 
 steps along the lane, before the sun, still invisible 
 to me, sent a glow of gold over some cloud moun- 
 tains that lay ranged along the eastern sky. 
 
 The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us 
 bitingly forward. I buttoned myself into my 
 coat, and walked on in a pleasant frame of mind 
 with all men, when suddenly, at a corner, there 
 was Fouzilhic once more in front of me. Nor 
 only that, but there was the old gentleman who 
 had escorted me so far the night before, running 
 out of his house at sight of me, with hands 
 upraised in horror. 
 
 * My poor boy ! ' he cried, ' what does this 
 mean .? ' 
 
 I told him what had happened. He beat his 
 old hands like clappers in a mill, to think how 
 lightly he had let me go ; but when he heard 
 of the man of FouzilhaCy anger and depression 
 seized upon his mind. 
 
A Camp in the Dark. 75 
 
 * This time, at least/ said he, ' there shall be 
 no mistake.* 
 
 And he limped along, for he was very rheu- 
 matic, for about half a mile, and until I was 
 almost within sight of Cheylardy the destination 
 I had hunted for so long. 
 
CHEYLARD AND LUC 
 
 Candidly, it seemed little worthy of all this 
 searching. A few broken ends of village, with 
 no particular street, but a succession of open 
 places heaped with logs and fagots ; a couple 
 of tilted crosses, a shrine to our Lady of all 
 Graces on the summit of a little hill ; and all 
 this, upon a rattling highland river, in the corner 
 of a naked valley. What went ye out for to see ? 
 thought I to myself. But the place had a life 
 of its own. I found a board commemorating 
 the liberalities of Cheylard for the past year, 
 hung up, like a banner, in the diminutive and 
 tottering church. In 1877, it appeared, the 
 inhabitants subscribed forty-eight francs ten 
 centimes for the 'Work of the Propagation of 
 
C hey lard and Luc. 77 
 
 the Faith/ Some of this, I could not help 
 hoping, would be applied to my native land. 
 Cheylard scrapes together halfpence for the 
 darkened souls in Edinburgh ; while Balquidder 
 and Dunrossness bemoan the ignorance of Rome, 
 Thus, to the high entertainment of the angels, 
 do we pelt each other with evangelists, like 
 school-boys bickering in the snow. 
 
 The inn was again singularly unpretentious. 
 The whole furniture of a not ill-to-do family was 
 in the kitchen : the beds, the cradle, the clothes, 
 the plate-rack, the meal-chest, and the photo- 
 graph of the parish priest. There were five 
 children, one of whom was set to its morning 
 prayers at the stair-foot soon after my arrival, 
 and a sixth would erelong be forthcoming. I was 
 kindly received by these good folk. They were 
 much interested in my misadventure. The wood 
 in which I had slept belonged to them ; the man 
 of Fouzilhac they thought a monster of iniquity, 
 and counselled me warmly to summon him at 
 
78 upper Gevaudan. 
 
 law — ' because I might have died.' The good 
 wife was horror-stricken to see me drink over a 
 pint of uncreamed milk. 
 
 * You will do yourself an evil/ she said. ' Per- 
 mit me to boil it for you.' 
 
 After I had begun the morning on this de- 
 lightful liquor, she having an infinity of things 
 to arrange, I was permitted, nay requested, to 
 make a bowl of chocolate for myself. My boots 
 and gaiters were hung up to dry, and, seeing me 
 trying to write my journal on my knee, the 
 eldest daughter let down a hinged table in the 
 chimney-corner for my convenience. Here I 
 wrote, drank my chocolate, and finally ate an 
 omelette before I left. The table was thick with 
 dust; for, as they explained, it was not used 
 except in winter weather. I had a clear look up 
 the vent, through brown agglomerations of soot 
 and blue vapor, to the sky ; and whenever a 
 handful of twigs was thrown on to the fire, my 
 legs were scorched by the blaze. 
 
Cheylard and Luc. 79 
 
 The husband had begun life as a muleteer, 
 and when I came to charge Modestine showed 
 himself full of the prudence of his art. ' You 
 will have to change this package/ said he ; * it 
 ought to be in two parts, and then you might 
 have double the weight.' 
 
 I explained that I wanted no more weight ; 
 and for no donkey hitherto created would I cut 
 my sleeping-bag in two. 
 
 ' It fatigues her, however,' said the innkeeper ; 
 ' it fatigues her greatly on the march. Look.' 
 
 Alas, there were her two forelegs no better than 
 raw beef on the inside, and blood was running 
 from under her tail. They told me when I left, 
 and I was ready to believe it, that before a few 
 days I should come to love Modestine like a dog. 
 Three days had passed, we had shared some mis- 
 adventures, and my heart was still as cold as a 
 potato towards my beast of burden. She was 
 pretty enough to look at ; but then she had 
 given proof of dead stupidity, redeemed indeed 
 
8o Upper Gevaudan. 
 
 by patience, but aggravated by flashes of sorry 
 and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own 
 this new discovery seemed another point against 
 her. What the devil was the good of a she-ass 
 if she could not carry a sleeping-bag and a few 
 necessaries ? I saw the end of the fable rapidly 
 approaching, when I should have to carry Modes- 
 tine, ^sop was the man to know the world ! 
 I assure you I set out with heavy thoughts upon 
 my short day's march. 
 
 It was not only heavy thoughts about Modes- 
 tine that weighted me upon the way ; it was a 
 leaden business altogether. For first, the wind 
 blew so rudely that I had to hold on the pack 
 with one hand from Cheylard to Luc ; and sec- 
 ond, my road lay through one of the most beg- 
 garly countries in the world. It was like the 
 worst of the Scotch Highlands, only worse ; 
 cold, naked, and ignoble, scant of wood, scant 
 of heather, scant of life. A road and some 
 fences broke the unvarying waste, and the line 
 
Cheylard and Luc. 8i 
 
 of the road was marked by upright pillars, to 
 serve in time of snow. 
 
 Why any one should desire to visit either 
 Luc or Cheylard is more than my much-inventing 
 spirit can suppose. For my part, I travel not 
 to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's 
 sake. The great affair is to move ; to feel the 
 needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to 
 come down off this feather-bed of civilization, 
 and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn 
 with cutting flints. Alas, as we get up in life, 
 and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a 
 holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To 
 hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale 
 out of the freezing north is no high industry, 
 but it is one that serves to occupy and compose 
 the mind. And when the present is so exacting, 
 who can annoy himself about the future "i 
 
 I came out at length above the Allien A 
 more unsightly prospect at this season of the 
 year it would be hard to fancy. Shelving hills 
 
82 upper Gevaudan. 
 
 rose round it on all sides, here dabbled with 
 wood and fields, there rising to peaks alternately 
 naked and hairy with pines. The color through- 
 out was black or ashen, and came to a point in 
 the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up 
 impudently from below my feet, carrying on a 
 pinnacle a tall white statue of our Lady, which, 
 I heard with interest, weighed fifty quintals, 
 and was to be dedicated on the 6th of October. 
 Through this sorry landscape trickled the Allier 
 and a tributary of nearly equal size, which came 
 down to join it through a broad nude valley in 
 Vivarais, The weather had somewhat light- 
 ened, and the clouds massed in squadron ; but 
 the fierce wind still hunted them through heaven, 
 and cast great ungainly splashes of shadow and 
 sunlight over the scene. 
 
 Luc itself was a straggling double file of 
 houses wedged between hill and river. It had 
 no beauty, nor was there any notable feature, 
 save the old castle overhead with its fifty quin- 
 
Cheylard and Luc. 83 
 
 tals of brand-new Madonna. But the inn was 
 clean and large. The kitchen, with its two box- 
 beds hung with clean check curtains, with its 
 wide stone chimney, its chimney-shelf four yards 
 long and garnished with lanterns and religious 
 statuettes, its array of chests and pair of ticking 
 clocks, was the very model of what a kitchen 
 ought to be ; a melodrama kitchen, suitable for 
 bandits or noblemen in disguise. Nor was the 
 scene disgraced by the landlady, a handsome, 
 silent, dark old woman, clothed and hooded in 
 black like a nun. Even the public bedroom had 
 a character of its own, with the long deal tables 
 and benches, where fifty might have dined, set 
 out as for a harvest-home, and the three box- 
 beds along the wall. In one of these, lying oA 
 straw and covered with a pair of table-napkins, 
 did I do penance all night long in goose-flesh 
 and chattering teeth, and sigh from time to time 
 as I awakened for my sheepskin sack and the 
 lee of some great wood. 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS. 
 
 'I behold 
 The House ^ the Brotherhood austere — 
 And what am /, that I am here ? * 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS. 
 
 FATHER APOLLINARIS. 
 
 Next morning (Thursday^ 20th September) I took 
 the. road in a new order. The sack was no 
 longer doubled, but hung at full length across 
 the saddle, a green sausage six feet long with a 
 tuft of blue wool hanging out of either end. It 
 was more picturesque, it spared the donkey, and, 
 as I began to see, it would insure stability, blow 
 high, blow low. But it was not without a pang 
 that I had so decided. For although I had pur- 
 chased a new cord, and made all as fast as I was 
 able, I was yet jealously uneasy lest the flaps 
 should tumble out and scatter my effects along 
 the line of march. 
 
 My way lay up the bald valley of the river, 
 along the march of Vivarais and Givaudan, The 
 
88 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 hills of Gevaudan on the right were a little more 
 naked, if anything, than those of Vivarais upon 
 the left, and the former had a monopoly of a 
 low dotty underwood that grew thickly in the 
 gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the 
 shoulders and the summits. Black bricks of fir- 
 wood were plastered here and there upon both 
 sides, and here and there were cultivated fields. 
 A railway ran beside the river ; the only bit of 
 railway in Gevaudan^ although there are many 
 proposals afoot and surveys being made, and 
 even, as they tell me, a station standing ready- 
 built in Mende. A year or two hence and this 
 may be another world. The desert is beleaguered. 
 Now may some Languedocian Wordsworth turn 
 the sonnet into patois: * Mountains and vales 
 and floods, heard ye that whistle ? ' 
 
 At a place called La Bastide I was directed 
 to leave the river, and follow a road that 
 mounted on the left among the hills of Vivarais^ 
 the modern Ardeche ; for I was now come within 
 
Father Apollinaris. 89 
 
 a little way of my strange destination, the Trap- 
 pist monastery of our Lady of the Snows, The 
 sun came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, 
 and I beheld suddenly a fine wild landscape to 
 the south. High rocky hills, as blue as sapphire, 
 closed the view, and between these lay ridge 
 upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun glittering 
 on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in 
 the hollows, as rude as God made them at the 
 first. There was not a sign of man's hand in all 
 the prospect; and indeed not a trace of his 
 passage, save where generation after generation 
 had walked in twisted footpaths, in and out 
 among the beeches, and up and down upon 
 the channelled slopes. The mists, which had 
 hitherto beset me, were now broken into clouds, 
 and fled swiftly and shone brightly in the sun. 
 I drew a long breath. It was grateful to come, 
 after so long, upon a scene of some attraction 
 for the human heart. I own I like definite form 
 in what my eyes are to rest upon ; and if land- 
 
90 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 scapes wisre sold, like the sheets of characters of 
 my boyhood, one penny plain and twopence 
 colored, I should go the length of twopence 
 every day of my life. 
 
 But if things had grown better to the south, 
 it was still desolate and inclement near at hand. 
 J^ spidery cross on every hill-top marked the 
 neighborhood of a religious house ; and a quarter 
 of a mile beyond, the outlook southward open- 
 ing out and growing bolder with every step, 
 a white statue of the Virgin at tfie corner of a 
 young plantation directed the traveller to our 
 Lady of the Snows, Here, then, I struck left- 
 ward, and pursued my way, driving my secular 
 donkey before me, and creaking in my secular 
 boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of silence. 
 
 I had not gone very far ere the wind brought 
 to me the clanging of a bell, and somehow, I 
 can scarce tell why, my heart sank within me at 
 the sound. I have rarely approached anything 
 with more unaffected terror than the monastery 
 
Father Apollinaris. 91 
 
 of our Lady of the Snows, This it is to have 
 had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on 
 turning a corner, fear took hold on me from 
 head to foot — slavish superstitious fear ; and 
 though I did not stop in my advance, yet I 
 went on slowly, like a man who should have 
 passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into' 
 the country of the dead. For there upon the 
 narrow new-made road, between the stripling 
 pines, was a mediaeval friar, fighting with a 
 barrowful of turfs. Evfery Stmday of my child- 
 hood I used to study the Hermits of Marco 
 Sadeler — enchanting prints, full of wood and 
 field and mediaeval landscapes, as large as a 
 county, for the imagination to go a travelling 
 in ; and here, sure enough, was one of Marco 
 Sadeler s heroes. He was robed in white like 
 any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the 
 instancy of his contention with the barrow, 
 disclosed a pate as bald and yellow as a skull. 
 He might have been buried any time these 
 
92 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 thousand years, and all the lively parts of him 
 resolved into earth and broken up with the 
 farmer's harrow. 
 
 I was troubled besides in my mind as to 
 etiquette. Durst I address a person who was 
 under a vow of silence ? Clearly not. But 
 drawing near, I doffed my cap to him with a far- 
 away superstitious reverence. He nodded back, 
 and cheerfully addressed me. Was I going to 
 the monastery } Who was I ^ An Englishman 'i 
 Ah, an Irishman, then 1 
 
 ^ No,* I said, * a Scotsman.' 
 
 A Scotsman } Ah, he had never seen a 
 Scotsman before. And he looked me all over, 
 his good, honest, brawny countenance shining 
 with interest, as a boy might look upon a lion 
 or an alligator. From him I learned with dis- 
 gust that I could not be received at our Lady of 
 the Snows ; I might get a meal, perhaps, but 
 that was all. And then, as our talk ran on, and 
 it turned out that I was not a pedler, but a 
 
Father Apollinaris. 93 
 
 literary man, who drew landscapes and was 
 going to write a book, he changed his manner 
 of thinking as to my reception (for I fear they 
 respect persons even in a Trappist monastery), 
 and told me I must be sure to ask for the Father 
 Prior, and state my case to him in full. On 
 second thoughts he determined to go down with 
 me himself ; he thought he could manage for me 
 better. Might he say that I was a geographer ? 
 
 No ; I thought, in the interests of truth, he 
 positively might not. 
 
 * Very well, then ' (with disappointment), * an 
 author.* 
 
 It appeared he had been in a seminary with 
 six young Irishmen, all priests long since, who 
 had received newspapers and kept him informed 
 of the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England. 
 And he asked me eagerly after Dr. Pusey^ for 
 whose conversion the good man had continued 
 ever since to pray night and morning. 
 
 ' I thought he was very near the truth,' he 
 
94 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 said ; ^ and he will reach it yet ; there is so much 
 virtue in prayer/ * 
 
 He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who 
 can take anything but pleasure in this kind and 
 hopeful story. While he was thus near the sub- 
 ject, the good father asked me if I were a Chris- 
 tian ; and when he found I was not, or not after 
 his way, he glossed it over with great good-will. 
 
 The road which we were following, and 
 which this stalwart father had made with his 
 own two hands within the space of a year, came 
 to a corner, and showed us some white buildings 
 a little further on beyond the wood. At the 
 same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. 
 We were hard upon the monastery. Father 
 Apollinaris (for that was my companion's name) 
 stopped me. 
 
 ' I must not speak to you down there,' he 
 said. * Ask for the Brother Porter, and all will 
 be well. But try to see me as you go out 
 again through the wood, where I may speak to 
 
Father Apollinaris. 95 
 
 you. I am charmed to have made your acquaint- 
 ance.* 
 
 And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping 
 his fingers, and crying out twice, * I must not 
 speak, I must not speak ! ' he ran away in front 
 of me, and disappeared into the monastery-door. 
 
 I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity 
 went a good way to revive my terrors. But 
 where one was so good and simple, why should 
 not all be alike } I took heart of grace, ^nd 
 went forward to the gate as fast as Modestiney 
 who seemed to have a disaffection for monas- 
 teries, would permit. It was the first door, in 
 my acquaintance of her, which she had not 
 shown an indecent haste to enter. I summoned 
 the place in form, though with a quaking heart. 
 Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a 
 pair of brown-robed brothers came to the gate 
 and spoke with me awhile. I think my sack 
 was the great attraction ; it had already beguiled 
 the heart of poor Apollinaris^ who had charged 
 
96 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 me on my life to show it to the Father Prior. 
 But whether it was my address, or the sack, or 
 the idea speedily published among that part of 
 the brotherhood who attend on strangers that I 
 was not a pedler after all, I found no difficulty 
 as to my reception. Modesti7ie was led away by 
 a layman to the stables, and I and my pack 
 were received into our Lady of the Snows, 
 
THE MONKS. 
 
 Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smil- 
 ing man, perhaps of thirty-five, took me to 
 the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to 
 stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or 
 rather I should say he listened to my prattle 
 indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, 
 like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly 
 when I remember that I descanted principally 
 on my appetite, and that it must have been 
 by that time more than eighteen hours since 
 Father Michael had so much as broken bread, 
 I can well understand that he would find an 
 earthly savor in my conversation. But^ his 
 manner, though superior, was exquisitely gra- 
 
 7 
 
98 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 cious ; and I find I have a lurking curiosity as 
 to Father MichaeVs past. 
 
 The whet administered, I was left alone 
 for a little in the monastery garden. This is 
 no more than the main court, laid out in sandy 
 paths and beds of party-colored dahlias, and 
 with a fountain and a black statue of the Virgin 
 in the centre. The buildings stand around it 
 four-square, bleak, as yet unseasoned by the 
 years and weather, and with no other features 
 than a belfry and a pair of slated gables. 
 Brothers in white, brothers in brown, passed 
 silently along the sanded alleys ; and when I 
 first came out, three hooded monks were kneel- 
 ing on the terrace at their prayers. A naked 
 hill commands the monastery upon one side, 
 and the wood commands it on the other. It 
 lies exposed to wind ; the snow falls off and on 
 from October to May, and sometimes lies six 
 weeks on end ; but if they stood in Eden, with 
 a climate like heaven's, the buildings themselves 
 
The Monks. 99 
 
 would offer the same wintry and cheerless 
 aspect ; and for my part, on this wild September 
 day, before I was called to dinner, I felt chilly 
 in and out. 
 
 When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother 
 Ambrose^ a hearty conversable Frenchman (for 
 all those who wait on strangers have the liberty 
 to speak), led me to a little room in that part 
 of the building which is set apart for MM, les 
 retraitants. It was clean and whitewashed, 
 and furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, 
 a bust of the late Pope, the Imitation in French, 
 a book of religious meditations, and the life of 
 Elizabeth SetoUy evangelist, it would appear, 
 of North America and of New England in par- 
 ticular. As far as my experience goes, there 
 is a fair field for some more evangelization in 
 these quarters ; but think of Cotton Mather ! 
 I should like to give him a reading of this 
 little work in heaven, where I hope he dwells ; 
 but perhaps he knows all that already, and 
 
 LOfC. 
 
100 Otir Lady of the Snows. 
 
 much more ; and perhaps he and Mrs, Seton 
 are the dearest friends, and gladly unite their 
 voices in the everlasting psalm. Over the table, 
 to conclude the inventory of the room, hung a 
 set of regulations for MM, les retraitants : what 
 services they should attend, when they were to 
 tell their beads or meditate, and when they were 
 to rise and go to rest. At the foot was a notable 
 N. B. : * Le temps libre est employe a Vexamen de 
 conscience, a la co7zfessio7ty a faire de bonnes rise- 
 lutio7tSy &c. To make good resolutions, indeed ! 
 You might talk as fruitfully of making the hair 
 grow on your head. 
 
 I had scarce explored my niche when Brother 
 Ambrose returned. An English boarder, it ap- 
 peared, would like to speak with me. I professed 
 my willingness, and the friar ushered in a fresh, 
 young little Irishman of fifty, a deacon of the 
 Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and wear- 
 ing on his head what, in default of knowledge, 
 I can only call the ecclesiastical shako. He 
 
The Monks. loi 
 
 had lived seven years in retreat at a convent of 
 nuns in Belgitimy and now five at our Lady of 
 the Snows ; he never saw an English news- 
 paper; he spoke prench imperfectly, and had 
 he spoken it like a native, there was not much 
 chance of conversation where he dwelt. With 
 this, he was a man eminently sociable, greedy of 
 news, and simple-minded like a child. If I was 
 pleased to have a guide about the monastery, he 
 was no less delighted to see. an Enghsh face and 
 hear an English tongue. 
 
 He showed me his own room, where he passed 
 his time among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and 
 the Waverley novels. Thence he led me to 
 the cloisters, into the chapter-house, through 
 the vestry, where the brothers' gowns and broad 
 straw hats were hanging up, each with his 
 religious name .upon a board, — names full 
 of legendary suavity and interest, such as 
 Easily Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique ; into the 
 library, where were all the works of Veuillot 
 
 ■ 
 
I02 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 ir 
 
 and Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades^ 
 if you please, and even Molihe, to say nothing of 
 innumerable fathers and a great variety of local 
 and general historians. Thence my good Irish- 
 man took me round the workshops, where broth- 
 ers bake bread, and make cartwheels, and take 
 photographs ; where one superintends a collec- 
 tion of curiosities, and another a gallery of rab- 
 bits. For in a Trappist monastery each monk 
 has an occupation of his own choice, apart from 
 his religious duties and the general labors of 
 the house. Each must sing in the choir, if he 
 has a voice and ear, and join in the haymaking 
 if he has a hand to stir ; but in his private 
 hours, although he must be occupied, he may be 
 occupied on what he likes. Thus I was told 
 that one brother was engaged with litepature; 
 while Father Apollinaris busies himself in mak- 
 ing roads, and the Abbot employs himself in 
 binding books. It is not so long since this 
 Abbot was consecrated, by the way ; and on 
 
The Monks. 103 
 
 that occasion, by a special grace, his mother 
 was permitted to enter the chapel and witness 
 the ceremony of consecration. A proud day 
 for her to have a son a mitred abbot ; it makes 
 you glad to think they let her in. 
 
 In all these journeyings to and fro, many 
 silent fathers and brethren fell in our way. 
 Usually they paid no more regard to our passage 
 than if we had been a cloud ; but sometimes the 
 good deacon had a permission to ask of them, 
 and it was granted by a peculiar movement of 
 the hands, almost like that of a dog's paws in 
 swimming, or refused by the usual negative 
 signs, and in either case with lowered eyelids 
 and a certain air of contrition, as of a man who 
 was steering very close to evil. 
 
 The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, 
 were still taking two meals a day ; but it was 
 already time for their grand fast, which begins 
 somewhere in September and lasts till Easter^ 
 and during which they eat but once in the 
 
I04 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 twenty-four hours, and that at two in the after- 
 noon, twelve hours after they have begun the 
 toil and vigil of the day. Their meals are scanty, 
 but even of these they eat sparingly ; and 
 though each is allowed a small carafe of wine, 
 many refrain from this indulgence. Without 
 doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat 
 themselves ; our meals serve not only for sup- 
 port, but as a hearty and natural diversion from 
 the labor of life. Although excess may be hurt- 
 ful, I should have thought this Trappist regimen 
 defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, 
 at the freshness of face and cheerfulness of 
 manner of all whom I beheld. A happier nor a 
 healthier company I should scarce suppose that 
 , I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this 
 bleak upland, and with the incessant occupation 
 of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and 
 death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of the 
 Snows, This, at least, was what was told me. 
 But if they die easily, they must live healthily 
 
The Monks. 105 
 
 in the mean time, for they seemed all firm of 
 flesh and high in color ; and the only mor- 
 bid sign that I could observe, an unusual brill- 
 iancy of eye, was one that served rather to 
 increase the general impression of vivacity and 
 strength. 
 
 Those with whom I spoke were singularly 
 sweet-tempered, with what I can only call a holy 
 cheerfulness in air and conversation. There is 
 a note, in the direction to visitors, telling them 
 not to be offended at the curt speech of those 
 who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks 
 to speak little. The note might have been 
 spared ; to a man the hospitallers were all brim- 
 ming with innocent talk, and, in my experience 
 of the monastery, it was easier to begin than to 
 break off a conversation. With the exception 
 of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, 
 they showed themselves full of kind and healthy 
 interest in all sorts of subjects — in politics, in 
 voyages, in my sleeping-sack — and not without 
 
io6 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 a certain pleasure in the sound of their own 
 voices. 
 
 As for those who are restricted to silence, I 
 can only wonder how they bear their solemn 
 and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart from 
 any view of mortification, I can see a certain 
 policy, not only in the exclusion of women, but 
 in this vow of silence. I have had some experi- 
 ence of lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to 
 say a bacchanalian, character ; and seen more 
 than one association easily formed and yet more 
 easily dispersed. With a Cistercian rule, per- 
 haps they might have lasted longer. In the 
 neighborhood of women it is but a touch-and-go 
 association that can be formed among defence- 
 less men ; the stronger electricity is sure to 
 triumph; the dreams of boyhood, the schemes 
 of youth, are abandoned after an interview 
 of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, 
 and professional male jollity, deserted at once 
 for two sweet eyes and a caressing accent 
 
The Monks. 107 
 
 And next after this, the tongue is the great 
 divider. 
 
 I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly 
 criticism of a religious rule ; but there is yet an- 
 other point in which the Trappist order appeals 
 to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the 
 morning the clapper goes upon the bell, and so 
 on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by 
 quarter, till eight, the hour of rest ; so infinitesi- 
 mally is the day divided among different occupa- 
 tions. The man who keeps rabbits, for example, 
 hurries from his hutches to the chapel, the 
 chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long : 
 every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to 
 perform ; from two, when he rises in the dark, 
 till eight, when he returns to receive the com- 
 fortable gift of sleep, he is upon his feet and 
 occupied with manifold and changing business. 
 I know many persons, worth several thousands 
 in the year, who are not so fortunate in the dis- 
 posal of their lives. Into how many houses 
 
io8 ^ Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 would not the note of the monastery-bell, 
 dividing the day into manageable portions, 
 bring peace of mind and healthful activity 
 of body ? We speak of hardships, but the 
 true hardship is to be a dull fool, and per- 
 mitted to mismanage life in our own dull and 
 foolish manner. 
 
 From this point of view, we may perhaps 
 better understand the monk's existence. A 
 long novitiate, and every proof of constancy of 
 mind and strength of body is required before 
 admission to the order; but I could not find that 
 many were discouraged. In the photographer s 
 studio, which figures so strangely among the 
 outbuildings, my eye was attracted by the por- 
 trait of a young fellow in the uniform of a private 
 of foot. This was one of the novices, who came 
 of the age for service, and marched and drilled 
 and mounted guard for the proper time among 
 the garrison of Algiers, Here was a man who 
 had surely seen both sides of life before decid- 
 
The Monks. 109 
 
 ing ; yet as soon as he was set free from service 
 he returned to finish his novitiate. 
 
 This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as 
 by right. When the Trappist sickens, he quits 
 not his habit ; he lies in the bed of death as he 
 has prayed and labored in his frugal and silent 
 existence ; and when the Liberator comes, at the 
 very moment, even before they have carried him 
 in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel 
 among continual chantings, joy-bells break forth, 
 as if for a marriage, from the slated belfry, and 
 proclaim throughout the neighborhood that an- 
 other soul has gone to God. 
 
 At night, under the conduct of my kind Irish- 
 man, I took my place in the gallery to hear 
 compline and Salve Regina, with which the Cis- 
 tercians bring every day to a conclusion. There 
 were none of those circumstances which strike 
 the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in the 
 public offices of Rome. A stern simplicity, 
 heightened by the romance of the surroundings, 
 
no Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 spoke directly to the heart. I recall the white- 
 washed chapel, the hooded figures in the choir, 
 the lights alternately occluded and revealed, the 
 strong manly singing, the silence that ensued, 
 the sight of cowled heads bowed in prayer, and 
 then the clear trenchant beating of the bell, 
 ^ breaking in to show that the last office was over 
 and the hour of sleep had come ; and when I 
 remember, I am not surprised that I made my 
 escape into the court with somewhat whirling 
 fancies, and stood like a man bewildered in the 
 windy starry night. 
 
 But I was weary ; and when I had quieted 
 my spirits with Elizabeth Setons memoirs — a 
 dull work — the cold and the raving of the wind 
 among the pines — for my room was on that side 
 of the monastery which adjoins the woods — 
 disposed me readily to slumber. I was wakened 
 at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was 
 really two in the morning, by the first stroke 
 upon the bell. All the brothers were then hur- 
 
The Monks. 1 1 1 
 
 rying to the chapel ; the dead in life, at this 
 untimely hour, were already beginning the un- 
 comforted labors of their day. The dead in life 
 — there was a chill reflection. And the words 
 of a French song came back into my memory, 
 telling of the best of our mixed existence : — 
 
 *Que t'as de belles filles, 
 
 Girofle ! 
 
 Girofla ! 
 Que t'as de belles filles, 
 L * Amour les coinptera ! ' 
 
 And I blessed God that I was free to wander, 
 free to hope, and free to love. 
 
THE BOARDERS. 
 
 But there was another side to my residence at 
 our Lady of the Snows, At this late season 
 there were not many boarders ; and yet I was 
 not alone in the public part of the monastery. 
 This itself is hard by the gate, with a small 
 dining-room on the ground-floor, and a whole 
 corridor of cells similar to mine up-stairs. I have 
 stupidly forgotten the board for a regular re- 
 traitant ; but it was somewhere between three 
 and five francs a day, and I think most probably 
 the first. Chance visitors like myself might 
 give what they chose as a free-will offering, but 
 nothing was demanded. I may mention that 
 when I was going away, Father Michael refused 
 twenty francs as excessive. I explained the rea- 
 
The Boarders. 113 
 
 soning which led me to offer him so much ; but 
 even then, from a curious point of honor, he 
 would not accept it with his own hand. * I have 
 no right to refuse for the monastery,' he ex- 
 plained, * but I should prefer if you would give 
 it to one of the brothers.' 
 
 I had dined alone, because I arrived late ; but 
 at supper I found two other guests. One was a 
 country parish priest, who had walked over that 
 morning from the seat of his cure near Meiide 
 to enjoy four days of solitude and prayer. He 
 was a grenadier in person, with the hale color 
 and circular wrinkles of a peasant ; and as he 
 complained much of how he had been impeded 
 by his skirts upon the march, I have a vivid 
 fancy portrait of him, striding along, upright, 
 big-boned, with kilted cassock, through the bleak 
 hills of Gevaudan. The other was a short, 
 grizzling, thick-set man, from forty-five to fifty, 
 dressed in tweed with a knitted spencer, and the 
 red ribbon of a decoration in his buttonhole. 
 
 8 
 
114 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 This last was a hard person to classify. He 
 was an old soldier, who had seen service and 
 risen to the rank of commandant ; and he re- 
 tained some of the brisk decisive manners of 
 the camp. On the other hand, as soon as his 
 resignation was accepted, he had come to our 
 Lady of the Snows as a boarder, and, after a 
 brief experience of its ways, had decided to 
 remain as a novice. Already the new life was 
 beginning to modify his appearance ; already he 
 had acquired somewhat of the quiet and smiling 
 air of the brethren ; and he was as yet neither 
 an officer nor a Trappist, but partook of the 
 character of each. And certainly here was a man 
 in an interesting nick of life. Out of the noise 
 of cannon and trumpets, he was in the act of pass- 
 ing into this still country bordering on the grave, 
 where men sleep nightly in their grave-clothes, 
 and, like phantoms, communicate by signs. 
 
 At supper we talked politics. I make it my 
 business, when I am in Fra7ice, to preach political 
 
The Boarders. 115 
 
 good-will and moderation, and to dwell on the 
 example of Poland^ much as some alarmists in 
 England dwell on the example of Carthage, 
 The priest and the Commandant assured me of 
 their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy 
 sighing over: the bitterness of contemporary 
 feeling. 
 
 'Why, you cannot say anything to a man 
 with which he does not absolutely agree,' said I, 
 ' but he flies up at you in a temper/ 
 
 They both declared that such a state of things 
 was antichristian. 
 
 While we were thus agreeing, what should 
 my tongue stumble upon but a word in praise of 
 Gambettds moderation. The old soldier's coun- 
 tenance was instantly suffused with blood ; with 
 the palms of his hands he beat the table like a 
 naughty child. 
 
 * Commenty monsieur ? ' he shouted. ' Com- 
 ment ? Gambetta moderate t Will you dare to 
 justify these words?' 
 
'1 1 6 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of 
 our talk. And suddenly, in the height of his 
 fury, the old soldier found a warning look di- 
 rected on his face ; the absurdity of his behavior 
 was brought home to him in a flash ; and the 
 storm came to an abrupt end, without another 
 word. 
 
 It was only in the morning, over our coffee 
 (Friday, September 27/^), that this couple found 
 out I was a heretic. I suppose I had misled 
 them by some admiring expressions as to the 
 monastic life around us ; and it was only by a 
 point-blank question that the truth came out. 
 I had been tolerantly used, both by simple Father 
 Apollinaris and astute Father Michael ; and the 
 good Irish deacon, when he heard of my religious 
 weakness, had only patted me upon the shoulder 
 and said, * You must be a Catholic and come to 
 heaven.' But I was now among a different sect 
 of orthodox. These two men were bitter and 
 upright and narrow, like the worst of Scotsmen, 
 
The Boarders. 117 
 
 and indeed, upon my heart, I fancy they were 
 worse. The priest snorted aloud like a battle- 
 horse. 
 
 ^ Et vous pritendez moiirir dans cette espke 
 de croyance ? ' he demanded ; and there is no 
 type used by mortal printers large enough to 
 qualify his accent. 
 
 I humbly indicated that I had no design of 
 changing. 
 
 But he could not away with such a monstrous 
 attitude. ' No, no,' he cried ; * you must change. 
 You have come here, God has led you here, and 
 you must embrace the opportunity.' 
 
 I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the 
 family afltections, though I was speaking to a 
 priest and a soldier, two classes of men circum- 
 stantially divorced from the kind and homely 
 ties of life. 
 
 'Your father and mother?' cried the priest. 
 * Very well ; you will convert them in their turn 
 when you go home.' 
 
1 1 8 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 I think I see my fathers face! I would 
 rather tackle the Gaetulian lion in his den than 
 embark on such an enterprise against the family 
 theologian. 
 
 • But now the hunt was up ; priest and soldier 
 were in full cry for my conversion ; and the 
 Work of the Propagation of the Faith, for which 
 the people of Cheylard subscribed forty-eight 
 francs ten centimes during 1877, was being gal- 
 lantly pursued against myself. It was an odd 
 but most effective proselytizing. They never 
 sought to convince me in argument, where I 
 might have attempted some defence ; but took 
 it for granted that I was both ashamed and ter- 
 rified at my position, and urged me solely on the 
 point of time. Now, they said, when God had 
 led me to our Lady of the Snows^ now was the 
 appointed hour. 
 
 ' Do not be withheld by false shame,' observed 
 the priest, for my encouragement. 
 
 For one who feels very similarly to all sects 
 
The Boarders. 119 
 
 of religion, and who has never been able, even 
 for a moment, to weigh seriously the merit of 
 this or that creed on the eternal side of things, 
 however much he may see to praise or blame 
 upon the secular and temporal side, the situation 
 thus created was both unfair and painful. I 
 committed my second fault in tact, and tried to 
 plead that it was all the same thing in the end, 
 and we were all drawing near by different sides 
 to the same kind and undiscriminating Friend 
 and Father. That, as it seems to lay-spirits, 
 would be the only gospel worthy of the name. 
 But different men think differently ; and this 
 revolutionary aspiration brought down the priest 
 with all the terrors of the law. He launched 
 into harrowing details of hell. The damned, he 
 said — on the authority of a little book which he 
 had read not a week before, and which, to add 
 conviction to conviction, he had fully intended 
 to bring along with him in his pocket — were to 
 occupy the same attitude through all eternity 
 
1 20 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 in the midst of dismal tortures. And as he 
 thus expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect 
 with his enthusiasm. 
 
 As a result the pair concluded that I should 
 seek out the Prior, since the Abbot was from 
 home, and lay my case immediately before him. 
 
 * C'est mon conseil comme ancien militairey 
 observed the Commandant ; ' et cehd de mon- 
 sieitr comme pritre! 
 
 ' Ouiy added the cure^ sententiously nodding ; 
 * comme ancien inilitaire — et comme pritre^. 
 
 At this moment, whilst I was somewhat em- 
 barrassed how to answer, in came one of the 
 monks, a little brown fellow, as lively as a grig, 
 and with an Italian accent, who threw himself at 
 once into the contention, but in a milder and 
 more persuasive vein, as befitted one of these 
 pleasant brethren. Look at him, he said. The 
 rule was very hard ; he would have dearly liked 
 to stay in his own country, Italy — it was well 
 known how beautiful it was, the beautiful Italy ; 
 
The Boarders. 121 
 
 but then there were no Trappists in Italy ; and 
 he had a soul to save ; and here he was. 
 
 I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a 
 cheerful Indian critic has dubbed me, * a fad- 
 dling hedonist ; ' for this description of the broth- 
 er s motives gave me somewhat of a shock. I 
 should have preferred to think he had chosen 
 the life for its own sake, and not for ulterior 
 purposes ; and this shows how profoundly I was 
 out of sympathy with these good Trappists, 
 even when I was doing my best to sympathize. 
 But to the cure the argument seemed decisive. 
 
 ' Hear that ! ' he cried. ' And I have seen a 
 marquis here, a marquis, a marquis ' — he repeated 
 the holy word three times over — ' and other per- 
 sons high in society ; and generals. And here, 
 at your side, is this gentleman, who has been so 
 many years in armies — decorated, an old war- 
 rior. And here he is, ready to dedicate himself 
 to God.' 
 
 I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed 
 
122 Our Lady of the Snows. 
 
 that I pleaded cold feet, and made my escape 
 from the apartment. It was a furious windy 
 morning, with a sky much cleared, and long and 
 potent intervals of sunshine ; and I wandered 
 until dinner in the wild country towards the east, 
 sorely staggered and beaten upon by the gale, 
 but rewarded with some striking views. 
 
 At dinner the Work of the Propagation of 
 the Faith was recommenced, and on this occasion 
 still more distastefully to me. The priest asked 
 me many questions as to the contemptible faith 
 of my fathers, and received my replies with a 
 kind of ecclesiastical titter. 
 
 * Your sect,' he said once ; ' for I think you 
 will admit it would be doing it too much honor 
 to call it a religion.* 
 
 ' As you please, monsieur,* said I. ^ La parole 
 est a votes' 
 
 At length I grew annoyed beyond endur- 
 ance ; and although he was on his own ground, 
 and, what is more to the purpose, an old man, 
 
The Boarders. 123 
 
 and so holding a claim upon my toleration, I 
 could not avoid a protest against this uncivil 
 usage. He was sadly discountenanced. 
 
 ' I assure you/ he said, ' I have no inclination 
 to laugh in my heart. I have no other feeling 
 but interest in your soul.' 
 
 And there ended my conversion. Honest 
 man ! he was no dangerous deceiver ; but a 
 country parson, full of zeal and faith. Long 
 may he tread G^vaudan with his kilted skirts — 
 a man strong to walk and strong to comfort his 
 parishioners in death ! I dare say he would beat 
 bravely through a snow-storm where his duty 
 called him ; and it is not always the most faith- 
 ful believer who makes the cunningest apostle. 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 
 
 {continued^. 
 
 * The bed was made, the room was fit, 
 By punctual eve the stars were lit ; 
 The air was sweety the water ran ; 
 No need was there for maid or man, 
 When we put up, my ass and I, 
 At God^s green carava7iserai.^ 
 
 Old Play. 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 
 
 {continued^. 
 
 ACROSS THE GOULET. 
 
 The wind fell during dinner, and the sky re- 
 mained clear ; so it was under better auspices 
 that I loaded Modestme before the monastery- 
 gate. My Irish friend accompanied me so far 
 on the way. As we came through the wood, 
 there was P^re Apollinaire hauling his barrow ; 
 and he too quitted his labors to go with me for 
 perhaps a hundred yards, holding my hand be- 
 tween both of his in front of him. I parted first 
 from one and then from the other with unfeigned 
 regret, but yet with the glee of the traveller who 
 shakes off the dust of one stage before hurrying 
 forth upon another. Then Modestine and I 
 mounted the course of the Allier, which here led 
 
128 upper Gevaudan {continued). 
 
 us back into Gevaudan towards its sources in 
 the forest of Mercoire. It was but an inconsider- 
 able burn before we left its guidance. Thence, 
 over a hill, our way lay through a naked plateau, 
 until we reached Chasseradh at sundown. 
 
 The company in the inn-kitchen that night 
 were all men employed in survey for one of the 
 projected railways. They were intelligent and 
 conversable, and we decided the future of France 
 over hot wine, until the state of the clock fright- 
 ened us to rest. There were four beds in the 
 little up-stairs room ; and we slept six. But I 
 had a bed to myself, and persuaded them to 
 leave the window open. 
 
 * Hcy bourgeois ; il est cinq heures ! ' was the 
 cry that wakened me in the morning (Saturday, 
 September 28//^). The room was full of a trans- 
 parent darkness, which dimly showed me the 
 other three beds and the five different nightcaps 
 on the pillows. But out of the window the dawn 
 was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill- 
 
Across the Goulel. 129 
 
 * 
 tops, and day was about to flood the plateau. 
 
 The hour was inspiriting ; and there seemed a 
 
 promise of calm weather, which was perfectly 
 
 fulfilled. I was soon under way with Modestine, 
 
 The road lay for a while over the plateau, and 
 
 then descended through a precipitous village 
 
 into the valley of the Chassezac, This stream 
 
 ran among green meadows, well hidden from 
 
 the world by its steep banks ; the broom was in 
 
 flower, and here and there was a hamlet sending 
 
 up its smoke. 
 
 At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon 
 
 a bridge, and, forsaking this deep hollow, set 
 
 itself to cross the mountain of La Goulet, It 
 
 wound up through Lestampes by upland fields 
 
 and woods of beech and birch, and with every 
 
 corner brought me into an acquaintance with 
 
 some new interest. Even in the gully of the 
 
 . Chassezac my ear had been struck by a noise 
 
 like that of a great bass bell ringing at the 
 
 distance of many miles ; but this, as I continued 
 
 9 
 
130 upper Gevaudan {continued). 
 
 to mount and draw nearer to it, seemed to 
 change in character, and I found at length that 
 it came from some one leading flocks afield to 
 the note of a rural horn. The narrow street of 
 Lestampes stood full of sheep, from wall to wall 
 — black sheep and white, bleating like the birds 
 in spring, and each one accompanying himself 
 upon the sheep-bell round his neck. It made a 
 pathetic concert, all in treble. A little higher, 
 and I passed a pair of men in a tree with prun- 
 ing-hooks, and one of them was singing the 
 music of a bourree. Still further, and when I 
 was already threading the birches, the crowing 
 of cocks came cheerfully up to my ears, and 
 along with that the voice of a flute discoursing 
 a deliberate and plaintive air from one of the 
 upland villages. I pictured to myself some 
 grizzled, apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster 
 fluting in his bit of a garden in the clear autumn 
 sunshine. All these beautiful and interesting 
 sounds filled my heart with an unwonted expec- 
 
Across the Goulet. 131 
 
 tation ; and it appeared to me that, once past 
 this range which I was mounting, I should 
 descend into the garden of the world. Nor was 
 I deceived, for I was now done with rains and 
 winds and a bleak country. The first part of 
 my journey ended here ; and this was like an 
 induction of sweet sounds into the other and 
 more beautiful. 
 
 There are other degrees of j%/ness, as of 
 punishment, besides the capital ; and I was now 
 led by my good spirits into an adventure which 
 I relate in the interest of future donkey-drivers. 
 The road zigzagged so widely on the hillside 
 that I chose a short cut by map and compass, 
 and struck through the dwarf woods to catch the 
 road again upon a higher level. It was my one 
 serious conflict with Modestine, She would none 
 of my short cut ; she turned in my face, she 
 backed, she reared ; she, whom I had hitherto 
 imagined to be dumb, actually • brayed with a 
 loud hoarse flourish, like a cock crowing for the 
 
132 upper Gevaudan [continued). 
 
 dawn. I plied the goad with one hand ; with 
 the other, so steep was the ascent, I had to hold 
 on the pack-saddle. Half a dozen times she was 
 nearly over backwards on the top of me ; half a 
 dozen times, from sheer weariness of spirit, I 
 was nearly giving it up, and leading her down 
 again to follow the road. But I took the thing 
 as a wager, and fought it through. I was sur- 
 prised, as I went on my way again, by what 
 appeared to be chill rain-drops falling on my 
 hand, and more than once looked up in wonder 
 at the cloudless sky. But it was only sweat 
 which came dropping from my brow. 
 
 Over the summit of the Goulet there was no 
 marked road — only upright stones posted from 
 space to space to guide the drovers. The turf 
 underfoot was springy and well scented. Ihad 
 no company but a lark or two, and met but one 
 bullock-cart between Lestampes and Bleyinard, 
 In front of nie I saw a shallow valley, and 
 beyond that the range of the Lozhe, sparsely 
 
Across the Goulet. 133 
 
 wooded and well enough modelled in the flanks, 
 but straight and dull in outline. There was 
 scarce a sign of culture ; only about Bleymardy 
 the white high-road from Villefort to Mende 
 traversed a range of meadows, set with spiry 
 poplars, and sounding from side to side with 
 the bells of flocks and herds. 
 
A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES. 
 
 From Bleymard after dinner, although it was 
 already late, I set out to scale a portion of the 
 Lozhe, An ill-marked stony drove-road guided 
 me forward ; and I met nearly half a dozen 
 bullock-carts descending from the woods, each 
 laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's 
 firing. At the top of the woods, which do not 
 climb very high upon this cold ridge, I struck 
 leftward by a path among the pines, until I hit 
 on a dell of green turf, where a streamlet made 
 a little spout over some stones to serve me for 
 a water-tap. ' In a more sacred or sequestered 
 bower — nor nymph nor faunus haunted.' The 
 trees were not old, but they grew thickly round 
 the glade : there was no outlook, except north- 
 
A Night among the Pines. 135 
 
 eastward upon distant hill-tops, or straight up- 
 ward to the sky ; and the encampment felt 
 secure and private like a room. By the time 
 I had made my arrangements and fed Modestiney 
 the day was already beginning to decline. I 
 buckled myself to the knees into my sack and 
 made a hearty meal ; and as soon as the sun 
 went down, I pulled my cap over my ^y^^ and 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Night is a dead monotonous period under a 
 roof ; but in the open world it passes lightly, 
 with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the 
 hours are marked by changes in the face of 
 Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death 
 to people choked between walls and curtains, is 
 only a light and living slumber to the man w^ho 
 sleeps afield. All night long he can hear Nature 
 breathing deeply and freely ; even as she takes 
 her rest she turns and smiles ; and there is one 
 stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in 
 houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad 
 
136 upper Gevaudan {continued). 
 
 over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the out- 
 door world are on their feet. It is then that the 
 cock first crows, not this time to announce the 
 dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding 
 the course of night. Cattle awake on the mead- 
 ows ; sheep break their fast on dewy hillsides, 
 and change to a new lair among the ferns ; and 
 houseless men, who have lain down with the 
 fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty 
 of the -night. 
 
 At what inaudible summons, at what gentle 
 touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus re- 
 called in the same hour to life t Do the stars 
 rain down an influence, or do we share some 
 thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies } 
 Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are 
 the deepest read in these arcana, have not a 
 guess as to the means or purpose of this nightly 
 resurrection. Towards two in the morning they 
 declare the thing takes place ; and neither know 
 nor inquire further. And at least it is a pleasant 
 
A Night among the Pines. 137 
 
 incident. We are disturbed in our slumber only, 
 like the luxurious Montaigne^ ' that we may the 
 better and more sensibly relish it/ We have a 
 moment to look upon the stars, and there is a 
 special pleasure for some minds in the reflection 
 that we sh^re the impulse with all out-door crea- 
 tures in our neighborhood, that we have escaped 
 out of the Bastille of civilization, and are become, 
 for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a 
 sheep of Nature's flock. 
 
 When that hour came to me among the pines, 
 I wakened thirsty. My tin was standing by me 
 half full of water. I emptied it at a draught ; 
 and feeling broad awake after this internal cold 
 aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. The 
 stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not 
 frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the 
 Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points 
 stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness 
 of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walk- 
 ing round and round at the length of her tether ; 
 
138 upper Gevaudan {continued). 
 
 I could hear her steadily munching at the sward ; 
 but there was not another sound, save the in- 
 describable quiet talk of the runnel over the 
 stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the 
 color of the sky, as we call the void of space, 
 from where it showed a reddish gray behind 
 the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black 
 between the stars. As if to be more like a 
 pedler, I wear a silver ring. This I could see 
 faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigar- 
 ette ; and at each whiff the inside of my hand 
 was illuminated, and became for a second the 
 highest light in the landscape. 
 
 A faint wind, more like a moving coolness 
 than a stream of air, passed down the glade 
 from time to time ; so that even in my great 
 chamber the air was being renewed all night 
 long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chas- 
 seradh and the congregated nightcaps ; with 
 horror of the nocturnal prowesses of clerks and 
 students, of hot theatres and pass-keys and close 
 
A Night among the Pines. 139 
 
 rooms. I have not often enjoyed a more serene 
 possession of myself, nor felt more independent 
 of material aids. The outer world, from which 
 we cower into our houses, seemed after all a 
 gentle habitable place ; and night after night a 
 man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for 
 him in the fields, where God keeps an open 
 house. I thought I had rediscovered one of 
 those truths which are revealed to savages and 
 hid from political economists : at the least, I had 
 discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet 
 even while I was exulting in my solitude I be- 
 came aware of a strange lack. I wished a com- 
 panion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and 
 not moving, but ever within touch. For there 
 is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, 
 and which, rightly understood, is solitude made 
 perfect. And to live out of doors with the 
 woman a man loves is of all lives the most 
 complete and free. 
 
 As I thus lay, between content and longing. 
 
140 upper Gevaudaii {continued). 
 
 a faint noise stole towards me through the 
 pines. I thought, at first, it was the crowing 
 of cocks or the barking of dogs at some very 
 distant farm ; but steadily and gradually it took 
 articulate shape in my ears, until I became 
 aware that a passenger was going by upon the 
 high-road in the valley, and singing loudly as he 
 went. There was more of good-will than grace 
 in his performance ; but he trolled with ample 
 lungs ; and the sound of his voice took hold 
 upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the 
 leafy glens. I have heard people passing by 
 night in sleeping cities ; some of them sang ; 
 one, I remember, played loudly on the bagpipes. 
 I have heard the rattle of a cart or carriage 
 spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and 
 pass, for some minutes, within the range of my 
 hearing as I lay abed. There is a romance 
 about all who are abroad in the black hours, and 
 with something of a thrill we try to guess their 
 business. But here the romance was double : 
 
A Night among the Pines. 141 
 
 first, this glad passenger, lit internally with 
 wine, who sent up his voice in music through 
 the night ; and then I, on the other hand, 
 buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in 
 the pine-woods between four and five thousand 
 feet towards the stars. 
 
 When I awoke again {Sunday^ 2^tk Sep- 
 tember), many of the stars had disappe^ared ; 
 only the stronger companions of the night still 
 burned visibly overhead ; and away towards the 
 east I saw a faint haze of light upon the 
 horizon, such as had been the Milky Way when 
 I was last awake. Day was at hand. I lit my 
 lantern, and by its glowworm light put on my 
 boots and gaiters ; then I broke up some bread 
 for Modesti7tey filled my can at the water-tap, 
 and lit my spirit-lamp to boil myself some 
 chocolate. The blue darkness lay long in the 
 glade where I had so sweetly slumbered ; but 
 soon there was a broad streak of orange melting 
 into gold along the mountain-tops of Vivarais, 
 
142 upper Gevaudan {coniimced). 
 
 A solemn glee possessed my mind at this 
 gradual and lovely coming in of day. I heard 
 the runnel with delight ; I looked round me for 
 something beautiful and unexpected ; but the 
 still black pine-trees, the hollow glade, the 
 munching ass, remained unchanged in figure. 
 Nothing had altered but the light, and that, 
 indeed, shed over all a spirit of life and of 
 breathing peace, and moved me to a strange 
 exhilaration. 
 
 I drank my water chocolate, which was hot 
 if it was not rich, and strolled here and there, 
 and up and down about the glade. While I 
 was thus delaying, a gush of steady wind, as 
 long as a heavy sigh, poured direct out of the 
 quarter of the morning. It was cold, and set 
 me sneezing. The trees near at hand tossed 
 their black plumes in its passage ; and I could 
 see the thin distant spires of pine along the 
 edge of the hill rock slightly to and fro against 
 the golden east. Ten minutes after, the sun- 
 
A Night among the Pines. 143 
 
 light spread at a gallop along the hillside, scat- 
 tering shadows and sparkles, and the day had 
 come completely. 
 
 I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle 
 the steep ascent that lay before me ; but I had 
 something on my mind. It was only a fancy ; 
 yet a fancy will sometimes be importunate. I 
 had been most hospitably received and punc- 
 tually served in my green caravanserai. The 
 room was airy, the water excellent, and the 
 dawn had called me to a moment. I say 
 nothing of the tapestries or the inimitable 
 ceiling, nor yet of the view which I commanded 
 from the windows ; but I felt I was in some 
 one's debt for all this liberal entertainment. 
 And so it pleased me, in a half -laughing way, 
 to leave pieces of money on the turf as I went 
 along, until I had left enough for my night's 
 lodging. I trust they did not fall to some rich 
 and churlish drover. 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS. 
 
 * We travelled in the print of olden wars ; 
 Yet all the laftd was green ; 
 And love we found ^ and peace ^ 
 Where fire and war had bee7t. 
 They f ass and smile^ the children of the sword — 
 No more the sword they wield ; 
 Afid (9, how deep the corn 
 Alo7ig the battlefield ! ' 
 
 W. P. Bannatyne. 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS. 
 
 ACROSS THE LOZERE. 
 
 The track that I had followed in the evening^ 
 soon died out, and I continued to follow over a 
 bald turf ascent a row of stone pillars, such as 
 had conducted me across the Goulet, It was 
 already warm. I tied my jacket on the pack, 
 and walked in my knitted waistcoat. Modestine 
 herself was in high spirits, and broke of her 
 own accord, for the first time in my experi- 
 ence, into a jolting trot that sent the oats 
 swashing in the pocket of my coat. The view, 
 back upon the northern Gevaudan^ extended 
 with every step ; scarce a tree, scarce a house, 
 appeared upon the fields of wild hill that ran 
 north, east, and west, all blue and gold in the 
 haze and sunHght of the morning. A multitude 
 
1 4-8 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 of little birds kept sweeping and twittering 
 about my path ; they perched on the stone 
 pillars, they pecked and^strutted on the turf, and 
 I saw them circle in volleys in the blue air, and 
 show, from time to time, translucent flickering 
 wings between the sun and me. 
 
 Almost from the first moment of my march, 
 a faint large noise, like a distant surf, had filled 
 my ears. Sometimes I was tempted to think it 
 the voice of a neighboring waterfall, and some- 
 times a subjective result of the utter stillness of 
 the hill. But as I continued to advance, the 
 noise increased and became like the hissing of 
 an enormous tea-urn, and at the same time 
 breaths of cool air began to reach me from the 
 direction of the summit. At length I under- 
 stood. It was blowing stiffly from the south 
 upon the other slope of the Lozhe, and every 
 step that I took I was drawing nearer to the 
 wind. 
 
 Although it had been long desired, it was 
 
Across the Lozere. * 149 
 
 quite unexpectedly at last that my eyes rose- 
 above the summit. A step that seemed no way 
 more decisive than many other steps that had 
 preceded it — and, ' like stout Cortez when, with 
 eagle eyes, he stared on the Pacificl I took 
 possession, in my own name, of a new quarter 
 of the world. For behold, instead of the gross 
 turf rampart I had been mounting for so long, 
 a view into the hazy air of heaven, and a land 
 of intricate blue hills below my feet. 
 
 The Lozhe lies nearly east and west, cutting 
 Gevaudan into two unequal parts ; its highest 
 point, this Pic de FinielSy on which I was then 
 standing, risesw upwards of five thousand six 
 hundred feet above the sea, and in clear 
 weather commands a view over all lower 
 Languedoc to the Mediterranean Sea, I have 
 spoken with people who either pretended, or 
 believed that they had seen, from the Pic de 
 Finiels, white ships sailing by Montpellier and 
 Cette, Behind was the upland northern coun- 
 
1 50 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 try through which my way had lain, peopled 
 by a dull race, without wood, without much 
 grandeur of hill-form, and famous in the past 
 for little beside wolves. But in front of me, 
 half-veiled in sunny haze, lay a new GevaudaUy 
 rich, picturesque, illustrious for stirring events. 
 Speaking largely, I was in the Ceve^tnes at 
 Monastier, and during all my journey ; but there 
 is a strict and local sense in which only this 
 confused and shaggy country at my feet has 
 any title to the name, and in this sense the 
 peasantry employ the word. These are the 
 Cevennes with an emphasis : the Cevennes of the 
 Cevennes. In that undecipherable labyrinth of 
 hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, 
 raged for two years between the Grand Mon- 
 arch with all his troops and marshals on the 
 one hand, and a few thousand Protestant moun- 
 taineers upon the other. A hundred and eighty 
 years ago, the Camisards held a station even 
 on the Lozhey where I stood ; they had an 
 
Across the Lozere. 151 
 
 organization, arsenals, a military and religious 
 hierarchy ; their affairs were ^ the discourse of 
 every coffee-house ' in London ; England sent 
 fleets in their support ; their leaders prophesied 
 and murdered ; with colors and drums, and the 
 singing of old French psalms, their bands some- 
 times affronted daylight, marched before walled 
 cities, and dispersed the generals of the king ; 
 and sometimes at night, or in masquerade, pos- 
 sessed themselves of strong castles, and avenged 
 treachery upon their allies and cruelty upon 
 their foes. There, a hundred and eighty years 
 ago, was the chivalrous Roland, * Count and 
 Lord Roland, generalissimo of the Protestants 
 in France, grave, silent, imperious, pock-marked 
 ex-dragoon, whom a lady followed in his wan- 
 derings out of love. There was Cavalier, a 
 baker's apprentice with a genius for war, elected 
 brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to die 
 at fifty-five the English governor of Jersey. 
 There again was Castanet, a partisan leader 
 
152 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 in a voluminous peruke and with a taste for 
 controversial divinity. Strange generals, who 
 moved apart to take counsel with the God 
 of Hosts, and fled or offered battle, set sen- 
 tinels or slept in an unguarded camp, as the 
 Spirit whispered to their hearts ! And there, 
 to follow these and other leaders, was the rank 
 and file of prophets and disciples, bold, patient, 
 indefatigable, hardy to run upon the mountains, 
 cheering their rough life with psalms, eager 
 to fight, eager to pray, listening devoutly to 
 the oracles of brainsick children, and mys- 
 tically putting a grain of wheat among the 
 pewter balls with which they charged their 
 muskets. 
 
 I had travelled hitherto through a dull dis- 
 ^ trict, and in the track of nothing more notable 
 than the child-eating Beast of Gevaudatiy the 
 Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. But now I 
 was to go down into the scene of a romantic 
 chapter ^^ or, better, a romantic foot-note — in 
 
Across the Lozere. 153 
 
 the history of ^he world. What was. left of 
 all this bygone dust and heroism ? I was told 
 that Protestantism still survived in this head 
 seat of Protestant resistance; so much the 
 priest himself had told me in the monastery 
 parlor. But I had yet to learn if it were a 
 bare survival, or a lively and generous tradi- 
 tion. Again, if in the northern Cevennes ' the 
 people are narrow in religious judgments, and 
 more filled with zeal than charity, what was 
 I to look for in this land of persecution and 
 reprisal — in a land where the tyranny of the 
 Church produced the Camisard rebellion, and 
 the terror of the Camisards threw the Cath- 
 olic peasantry into legalized revolt upon the 
 other side, so that Camisard and Florentin 
 skulked for each other s lives among the moun- 
 tains } 
 
 Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused 
 to look before me, the series of stone pillars 
 came abruptly to an end ; and only a little 
 
154 ^'^^ Country of the Camisards. 
 
 below, a sort of track appeared , and began to go 
 down a breakneck slope, turning like a cork- 
 screw as it went. It led into a valley between 
 falling hills, stubbly with rocks like a reaped 
 field of corn, and floored further down with 
 green meadows. I followed the track with pre- 
 cipitation ; the steepness of the slope, the con- 
 tinual agile turning of the line of descent, and 
 the old unwearied hope of finding something 
 new in a new country, all conspired to lend me 
 wings. Yet a little lower and a stream began, 
 collecting itself together out of many fountains, 
 and soon making a glad noise among the hills. 
 Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of 
 waterfall, with a pool, in which Modestine re- 
 freshed her feet. 
 
 The whole descent is like a dream to me, 
 so rapidly was it accomplished. I had scarcely 
 left the summit ere the valley had closed round 
 my path, and the sun beat upon me, walking 
 in a stagnant lowland atmosphere. The track 
 
Across the Lozere. 155 
 
 became a road, and went up and down in easy 
 undulations. I passed cabin after cabin, but 
 all seemed deserted ; and I saw not a human 
 creature, nor heard any sound except that of 
 the stream. I was, however, in a different 
 country from the day before. The stony skele- 
 ton of the world was here vigorously displayed 
 to sun and air. The slopes were steep and 
 changeful. Oak-trees clung along the hills, 
 well grown, wealthy in leaf, and touched by 
 the autumn with strong and luminous colors. 
 Here and there another stream would fall in 
 from the right or the left, down a gorge of 
 snow-white and tumultuary boulders. The river 
 in the bottom (for it was rapidly growing a 
 river, collecting on all hands as it trotted on 
 its way) here foamed awhile in desperate rapids, 
 and there lay in pools of the most enchanting 
 sea-green shot with watery browns. As far as 
 I have gone, I have never seen a river of so 
 changeful and delicate a hue ; crystal was not 
 
156 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 more clear, the meadows were not by half so 
 green ; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill 
 of longing to be out of- these hot, dusty, and 
 material garments, and bathe my naked body in 
 the mountain air and water. All the time as 
 I went on I never forgot it was the Sabbath ; 
 the stillness was a perpetual reminder ; and 
 I heard in spirit the church-bells clamoring all 
 over Europe, and the psalms of a thousand 
 churches. 
 
 At length a human sound struck upon my 
 ear — a cry strangely modulated between pathos 
 and derision ; and looking across the valley, I 
 saw a little urchin sitting in a meadow, with his 
 hands about his knees, and dwarfed to almost 
 comical smallness by the distance. But the 
 rogue had picked me out as I went down the 
 road, from oak-wood on to oak-wood, driving 
 Modestine ; and he made me the compliments of 
 the new country in this tremulous high-pitched 
 salutation. And as all noises are lovely and 
 
Across the Lozere. 157 
 
 natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming 
 through so much clean hill air and crossing all 
 the green valley, sounded pleasant to my ear, 
 and seemed a thing rustic, like the oaks or the 
 river. 
 
 A little after, the stream that I was following 
 fell into the TarUy at Pont de Montvert oi bloody 
 memory. 
 
PONT DE MONTVERT. 
 
 One of the first things I encountered in Pont de 
 Montvert was, if I rememfeer rightly, the Protes- 
 tant temple ; but this was but the type of other 
 novelties. A subtle atmosphere distinguishes a 
 town in England from a town in France, or even 
 in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see you are in 
 one country ; at Dumfries^ thirty miles away, 
 you are as sure that you are in the other. I 
 should find it difficult to tell in what particulars 
 Pont de Montvert differed from Monastier or 
 LangognCy or even Bleymard; but the difference 
 existed, and spoke eloquently to the eyes. The 
 place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring river- 
 bed, wore an indescribable air of the South. 
 All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in 
 
 V. 
 
Pont de Montvert. 159 
 
 the public-house, as all had been Sabbath peace 
 among the mountains. There must have been 
 near a score of us at dinner by eleven before 
 noon ; and after I had eaten and drunken, and 
 sat writing up my journal, I suppose as many 
 more came dropping in one after another, or by 
 twos and threes. In crossing the Lozere I had 
 not only come among new natural features, but 
 moved into the territory of a different race. 
 These people, as they hurriedly despatched their 
 viands in an intricate sword-play of knives, ques- 
 tioned and answered me with a degree of intelli- 
 gence which excelled all that I had met, except 
 among the railway folk at Ckasserades. They 
 had open telling faces, and were lively both in 
 speech and manner. They not only entered 
 thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, but 
 more than one declared, if he were rich enough, 
 he would like to set forth on such another. 
 
 Even physically there was a pleasant change. 
 I had not seen a pretty woman since I left 
 
i6o The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 Monastiery and there but one. Now of the three 
 who sat down with me to dinner, one was cer- 
 tainly not beautiful — a poor timid thing of forty, 
 quite troubled at this roaring table d'hote, whom 
 1 squired and helped to wine, and pledged and 
 tried generally to encourage, with quite a con- 
 trary effect ; but the other two, both married, 
 were both more handsome than the average of 
 women. And Clarisse? What shall I say of 
 Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy 
 placable nonchalance, like a performing cow ; 
 her great gray eyes were steeped in amorous 
 languor ; her features, although fleshy, were of 
 an original and accurate design ; her mouth had 
 a curl ; her nostril spoke of dainty pride ; her 
 cheek fell into strange and interesting lines. It 
 was a face capable of strong emotion, and, with 
 training, it offered the promise of delicate senti- 
 ment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a model 
 left to country admirers and a country way of 
 thought." Beauty should at least have touched 
 
Pont de MontverL i6i 
 
 society ; then, in a moment, it throws off a 
 weight that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of 
 itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a 
 carriage of the head, and, in a moment, patet dea. 
 Before I left I assured Clarisse of my hearty 
 admiration. She took it like milk, without em- 
 barrassment or wonder, merely looking at me 
 steadily with her great eyes ; and I own the 
 result upon myself was some confusion. I£ 
 Clarisse could read English, I should not dare 
 to add that her figure was unworthy of her face. 
 Hers was a case for stays ; but that may per- 
 haps grow better as she gets up in years. 
 
 Pont de Montverty or Greenhill Bridge^ as we 
 might say at home, is a place memorable in the 
 story of the Camisards. It was here that the 
 war broke out; here that those southern Cov- 
 enanters slew their Archbishop Sharpe. The 
 persecution on the one hand, the febrile enthu- 
 siasm on the other, are almost equally difficult 
 to understand in these quiet modern days, and 
 
1 62 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 with our easy modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The 
 Protestants were one and all beside their right 
 minds with zeal and sorrow. They were all 
 prophets and prophetesses. Children at the 
 breast would exhort their parents to good works. 
 ^ A child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke from 
 its mother's arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly 
 and with a loud voice.* Marshal Villars has 
 seen a town where all the women ' seemed pos- 
 sessed by the devil,' and had trembling fits, and 
 uttered prophecies publicly upon the streets. A 
 prophetess of Vivarais was hanged at Montpellier 
 because blood flowed from her eyes and nose, 
 and she declared that she was weeping tears of 
 blood for the misfortunes of the Protestants. 
 And it was not only women and children. Stal- 
 wart dangerous fellows, used to swing the sickle 
 or to wield the forest axe, were likewise shaken 
 with strange paroxysms, and spoke oracles with 
 sobs and streaming tears. A persecution unsur- 
 passed in violence had lasted near a score of 
 
Pont de Monivert. 163 
 
 years, and this was the result upon the perse- 
 cuted ; hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel, 
 had been vain ; the dragoons had left their 
 hoof-marks over all the country-side ; there 
 were men rowing in the galleys, and women 
 pining in the prisons of the Church ; and not a 
 thought was changed in the heart of any upright 
 Protestant.^ 
 
 Now the head and forefront of the persecu- 
 tion — after Lamoignon de Bavile — Franqois de 
 Langlade dtp Chayla (pronounced Cheild), Arch- 
 priest of the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions 
 in the same country, had a house in which he 
 sometimes dwelt in the town of Portt de Mojit- 
 vert. He was a conscientious person, who seems 
 to have been intended by nature for a pirate, and 
 now fifty-five, an age by which a man has learned 
 all the moderation of which he is capable. A 
 missionary in his youth in CJiijia, he there suf- 
 fered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only 
 succored and brought back to life by the charity 
 
164 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 -»» 
 
 of a pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid 
 
 of second sight, and not purposely malicious 
 
 in this act. Such an experience, it might be 
 
 thought, would have cured a man of the desire 
 
 to persecute ; but the human spirit is a thing 
 
 strangely put together ; and, having been a 
 
 Christian martyr, Du Chayla became a Christian 
 
 persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of 
 
 the Faith went roundly forward in his hands. 
 
 His house in Pont de Montvert served him as a 
 
 prison. There he plucked out the hairs of the 
 
 beard, and closed the hands of his prisoners 
 
 upon live coals, to convince them that they were 
 
 deceived in their opinions. And yet had not he 
 
 himself tried and proved the inefficacy of these 
 
 carnal arguments among the Boodhists in China ? 
 
 Not only was life made intolerable in Lan- 
 
 guedoCy but flight was rigidly forbidden. One 
 
 Massip, a muleteer, and well acquainted with 
 
 the mountain-paths, had already guided several 
 
 troops of fugitives in safety to Geneva ; and on 
 
Pont de Montvert. 165 
 
 him, with another convoy, consisting mostly of 
 women dressed as men, Dii Chayluy in an evil 
 hour for himself, laid his hands. The Simday 
 following, there was a conventicle of Protestants 
 in the ^woods of Alt ef age upon Motmt Bough ; 
 where there stood up one Seguicr — Spirit Se- 
 guier, as his companions called him — a wool- 
 carder, tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man 
 full of prophecy. He declared, in the name of 
 God, that the time for submission had gone by, 
 and they must betake themselves to arms for the 
 deliverance of their brethren and the destruction 
 of the priests. 
 
 The next night, 24th yufyy 1702, a sound 
 disturbed the Inspector of Missions as he sat in 
 his prison-house at Pont de Mo7itvert ; the voices 
 of many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer 
 and nearer through the town. It was ten at 
 night ; he had his court about him, priests, sol- 
 diers, and servants, to the number of twelve or 
 fifteen ; and now dreading the insolence of a 
 
1 66 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 conventicle below his very windows, he ordered 
 forth his soldiers to report. But the psalm- 
 singers were already at his door, fifty strong, led 
 by the inspired Segtder, and breathing death. 
 To their summons, the archpriest made answer 
 like a stout old persecutor, and bade his garrison 
 fire upon the mob. One Camisard (for, accord- 
 ing to some, it was in this night's work that 
 they came by the name) fell at this discharge ; 
 his comrades burst in the door with hatchets 
 and a beam of wood, overran the lower story 
 of the house, set free the prisoners, and finding 
 one of them in the vine^ a sort of Scavenger s 
 Daughter of the place and period, redoubled in 
 fury against Du Chaylay and sought by repeated 
 assaults to carry the upper floors. But he, on 
 his side, had given absolution to his men, and 
 they bravely held the staircase. 
 
 * Children of God,' cried the prophet, * hold 
 your hands. Let us burn the house, with the 
 priest and the satellites of Baal! 
 
Pont de Monfvert. 167 
 
 The fire caught readily. Out of an upper 
 window DtL Chayla and his men lowered them- 
 selves into the garden by means of knotted 
 sheets ; some escaped across the river under the 
 bullets of the insurgents ; but the archpriest 
 himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only 
 crawl into the hedge. What were his reflections 
 as this second martyrdom drew near } A poor, 
 brave, besotted, hateful man, who had done his 
 duty resolutely according to his light both in 
 the Cevennes and Chi7ta. He found at least one 
 telling word to say in his defence ; for when the 
 roof fell in and the upbursting flames discovered 
 his retreat, and they cam.e and dragged him to 
 the public place of the town, raging and calling 
 him damned — * If I be darrined,' said he, * why 
 should you also damn yourselves "t ' 
 
 Here was a good reason for the last ; but in 
 the course of his inspectorship he had given 
 many stronger which all told in a contrary direc- 
 tion ; and these he was now to hear. One by 
 
1 68 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 one, Seguier first, the Camisards drew near and 
 stabbed him. * This/ they said, * is for my father 
 broken on the wheel. This for my brother in 
 the galleys. That for my mother or my sister 
 imprisoned in your cursed convents.' Each gave 
 his blow and his reason ; and then all kneeled 
 and sang psalms around the body till the dawn. 
 With the dawn, still singing, they defiled away 
 towards Frughes, further up the Tarn, to pursue 
 the work of vengeance, leaving Du Chaylds 
 prison-house in ruins, and his body pierced with 
 two-and-fifty wounds upon the public place. 
 
 'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompani- 
 ment of psalms ; and it seems as if a psalm must 
 always have a sound of threatening in that town 
 upon the Tarn, But the story does not end, 
 even so far as concerns Pont de Montverty with 
 the departure of the Camisards. The career of 
 Seguier v7?iS brief and bloody. Two more priests 
 and a whole family at Ladeveze, from the father 
 to the servants, fell by his hand or by his orders ; 
 
Pont de Montvert. 169 
 
 and yet he was but a day or two at large, and 
 restrained all the time by the presence of the 
 soldiery. Taken at length by a famous soldier 
 of fortune, Captain Pouly he appeared unmoved 
 before his judges. 
 
 * Your name "i ' they asked. 
 ' Pierre Seguier! 
 
 ' Why are you called Spirit ? * 
 
 * Because, the Spirit of the Lord is with 
 me/ 
 
 'Your domicile.?' 
 
 * Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven.' 
 ' Have you no remorse for your crimes ? ' 
 
 'I have corAmitted none. My soul is like a 
 garden full of shelter and of fountains^. 
 
 At Pont de Montverty on the 12th of August^ 
 he had his right hand stricken from his body, 
 and was burned alive. And his soul was like a 
 garden } So perhaps was the soul of Du Chayla, 
 the Christian martyr. And perhaps if you 
 could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, 
 
170 The Country of the Camtsards. 
 
 our own composure might seem little less sur- 
 prising. 
 
 Du Chaylds house still stands, with a new 
 roof, beside one of the bridges of the town ; 
 and if you are curious you may see the terrace- 
 garden into which he dropped. 
 
IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN. 
 
 A NEW road leads from Pont de Montvert to 
 Florae by the valley of the Tarn ; a smooth 
 sandy ledge, it runs about half-way between the 
 summit of the cliffs and the river in the bottom 
 of the valley; and I went in and out, as I fol- 
 lowed it, from bays of shadow into promontories 
 of afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of 
 Killiecrankie ; a deep turning gully in the hills, 
 with the Tarn making a wonderful hoarse uproar 
 far below, and craggy summits standing in the 
 sunshine high above. A thin fringe of ash-trees 
 ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a ruin ; but 
 on the lower slopes, and far up every glen the 
 Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four-square 
 to heaven under its tented foliage. Some were 
 
172 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 planted each on its own terrace, no larger than 
 a bed; some, trusting in their roots, found 
 strength to grow and prosper and be straight 
 and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley ; 
 others, where there was a margin to the river, 
 stood marshalled in a line and mighty like 
 cedars of Lebanon, Yet even where they grew 
 most thickly they were not to be thought of as 
 a wood, but as a herd of stalwart individuals ; 
 and the dome of each tree stood forth separate 
 and large, and as it were a little hill, from among 
 the domes of its companions. They gave forth 
 a faint sweet perfume which pervaded the air of 
 the afternoon ; autumn had put tints of gold 
 and tarnish in the green ; and the sun so shone 
 through and kindled the broad foliage, that each 
 chestnut was relieved against another, not in 
 shadow, but in light. A humble sketcher here 
 laid down his pencil in despair. 
 
 I wish I could convey a notion of the growth 
 of these noble trees ; of how they strike out 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn. 173 
 
 boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of droop- 
 ing foliage like the willow ; of how they stand 
 on upright fluted columns like the pillars of a 
 church ; or like the olive, from the most shat- 
 tered bole can put out smooth and youthful 
 shoots, and begin a new life upon the ruins of 
 the old. Thus they partake of the nature of 
 many different trees ; and even their prickly 
 top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, 
 have a certain palm-like air that impresses the 
 imagination. But their individuality, although 
 compounded of so many elements, is but the 
 richer and the more original. And to look down 
 upon a level filled with these knolls of foliage, 
 or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts 
 cluster * like herded elephants ' upon the spur of 
 a mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the 
 powers that are in Nature. 
 
 Between Modestines laggard humor and the 
 beauty of the scene, we made little progress all 
 that afternoon; and at last finding the sun, 
 
1 74 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 although still far from setting, was already begin- 
 ning to desert the narrow valley of the Tartly I 
 began to cast about for a place to camp in. This 
 was not easy to find ; the terraces were too nar- 
 row, and the ground, where it was unterraced, 
 was usually too steep for a man to lie upon. I 
 should have slipped all night, and awakened 
 towards morning with my feet or my head in the 
 river. 
 
 After perhaps a mile,^ I saw, some sixty feet 
 above the road, a little plateau large enough 
 to hold my sack, and securely parapeted by 
 the trunk of an aged and enormous chestnut. 
 Thither, with infinite trouble, I goaded and 
 kicked the reluctant Modestiney and there I 
 hastened to unload her. There was only room 
 for myself upon the plateau, and I had to go 
 nearly as high again before I found so much as 
 standing room for the ass. It was on a heap of 
 rolling stones, on an artificial terrace, certainly 
 not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn. 175 
 
 chestnut, and having given her corn and bread 
 and made a pile of chestnut-leaves, of which I 
 found her greedy, I descended once more to my 
 own encampment. 
 
 The position was unpleasantly exposed. One 
 or two carts went by upon the road ; and as 
 long as daylight lasted I concealed myself, for all 
 the world like a hunted Camisard, behind my 
 fortification of vast chestnut trunk ; for I was 
 passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of 
 jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw 
 that I must be early awake ; for these chestnut 
 gardens had been the scene of industry no 
 farther gone than on the day before. The slope 
 was strewn with lopped branches, and here and 
 there a great package of leaves was propped 
 against a trunk ; for even the leaves are service- 
 able, and the peasants use them in winter by 
 way of fodder for their animals. I picked a 
 meal in fear and trembling, half lying down to 
 hide myself from the road ; and I daresay I was 
 
176 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 as much concerned as if I had been a scout 
 from Joaitis band above upon the Loz^re or 
 from Salomon s across the Tarn in the old times 
 of psalm-singing and blood. Or, indeed, perhaps 
 more ; for the Camisards had a remarkable con- 
 fidence in God ; and a tale comes back into my 
 memory of how the Count of Gevaudan^ riding 
 with a party of dragoons and a notary at his 
 saddlebow to enforce the oath of fidelity in all 
 the country hamlets, entered a valley in the 
 woods, and found Cavalier and his men at 
 dinner, gayly seated on the grass, and their hats 
 crowned with box-tree garlands, while fifteen 
 women washed their linen in the stream. Such 
 was a field festival in 1703 ; at that date Antony 
 Watteatc would be painting similar subjects. 
 
 This was a very different camp from that of 
 the night before in the cool and silent pine- 
 woods. It was warm and even stifling in the 
 valley. The shrill song of frogs, like the tremolo 
 note of a whistle with a pea in it, rang up from 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn. 177 
 
 the riverside before the sun was down. In the 
 growing dusk, faint rustUngs began to run to 
 and fro among the fallen leaves-; from time to 
 time a faint chirping or cheeping noise would 
 fall upon my ear ; and from time to time I 
 thought I could see the movement of something 
 swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A 
 profusion of large ants swarmed upon the 
 ground ; bats whisked by, and mosquitoes 
 droned overhead. The long boughs with their 
 bunches of leaves hung against the sky like 
 garlands ; and those immediately above and 
 around me had somewhat the air of a trellis 
 which should have been wrecked and half over- 
 thrown in a gale of wind. 
 
 Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids ; and 
 just as I was beginning to feel quiet stealing 
 over my limbs, and settling densely on my 
 mind, a noise at my head startled me broad 
 awake again, and, I will frankly confess it, 
 brought my heart into my mouth. It was such 
 
178 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 a noise as a person would make scratching 
 loudly with a finger-nail, it came from under 
 the knapsack which served me for a pillow, and 
 it was thrice repeated before I had time to sit 
 up and turn about. Nothing was to be seen, 
 nothing more was to be heard, but a few of 
 these mysterious rustlings far and near, and the 
 ceaseless accompaniment of the river and the 
 frogs. I learned next day that the chestnut 
 gardens are infested by rats ; rustling, chirping, 
 and scraping were probably all due to these; 
 but the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, 
 and I had to compose myself for sleep, as best 
 I could, in wondering uncertainty about my 
 neighbors. 
 
 I was wakened in the gray of the morning 
 {Monday, ^oth Septe7nber) by the sound of foot- 
 steps not far off upon the stones, and opening 
 my eyes, I beheld a peasant going by among 
 the chestnuts by a footpath that I had not 
 hitherto observed. He turned his head neither 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn, 1 79 
 
 to the right nor to the left, and disappeared in 
 a few strides among the fohage. Here was an 
 escape ! But it was plainly more than time 
 to be moving. The peasantry were abroad ; 
 scarce less terrible to me in my nondescript 
 position than the soldiers of Captain Pout to 
 an undaunted Camisard. I fed Modestme with 
 what haste I could ; but as I was returning to 
 my sack, I saw a man and a boy come down 
 the hillside in a direction crossing mine. They 
 unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with inar- 
 ticulate but cheerful sounds, and hurried for- 
 ward to get into my gaiters. 
 
 The pair, who seemed to be father and son, 
 came slowly up to the plateau, and stood close 
 beside me for some time in silence. The bed 
 was open, and I saw with regret my revolver 
 lying patently disclosed on the blue wool. At 
 last, after they had looked me all over, and the 
 silence had grown laughably embarrassing, the 
 man demanded in what seemed unfriendly 
 tones : — 
 
1 80 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 * You have slept here ? ' 
 
 ' Yes/ said I. ' As you see/ 
 
 ' Why ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' My faith/ I answered Hghtly, ^ I was tired/ 
 
 He next inquired where I was going and what 
 I had had for dinner ; and then, without the 
 least transition, ^C'est bieUy he added. 'Come 
 along/ And he and his son, without another 
 word, turned off to the next chestnut-tree but 
 one, which they set to pruning. The thing had 
 passed off more simply than I hoped. He was 
 a grave, respectable man ; and his unfriendly 
 voice did not imply that he thought he was 
 speaking to a criminal, but merely to an inferior. 
 
 I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of 
 chocolate and seriously occupied with a case of 
 conscience. Was I to pay for my night's lodg- 
 ing ? I had slept ill, the bed was full of fleas 
 in the shape of ants, there was no water in the 
 room, the very dawn had neglected to call me 
 in the morning. I might have missed a train, 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn, i8i 
 
 had there been any in the neighborhood to 
 catch. Clearly, I was dissatisfied with my en- 
 tertainment ; and I decided I should not pay 
 unless I met a beggar. 
 
 The valley looked even lovelier by morning ; 
 and soon the road descended to the level of the 
 river. Here, in a place where many straight 
 and prosperous chestnuts stood together, making 
 an aisle upon a swarded terrace, I made my 
 morning toilette in the water of the Tarn, It 
 was marvellously clear, thrillingly cool ; the 
 soap-suds disappeared as if by magic in the 
 swift current, and the white boulders gave one a 
 model for cleanliness. To wash in one of God's 
 rivers in the open air seems to me a sort of 
 cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. 
 To dabble among dishes in a bedroom may per- 
 haps make clean the body ; but the imagination 
 takes no share in such a cleansing. I went on 
 with a light and peaceful heart, and sang psalms 
 to the spiritual ear as I advanced. 
 
1 82 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 Suddenly up came an old woman, who point- 
 blank demanded alms. 
 
 ' Good ! ' thought I ; * here comes the waiter 
 with the bill/ 
 
 And I paid for my night's lodging on the 
 spot. Take it how you please, but this was the 
 first and the last beggar that I met with during 
 all my tour. 
 
 A step or two farther I was overtaken by an 
 old man in a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather- 
 beaten, with a faint, excited smile. A little girl 
 followed him, driving two sheep and a goat ; 
 but she kept in our wake, while the old man 
 walked beside me and talked about the morning 
 and the valley. It was not much past six ; and 
 for healthy people who have slept enough, that 
 is an hour of expansion and of open and trustful 
 talk. 
 
 * Connaissez-vous le Seigneur V he said at 
 length. 
 
 I asked him what Seigneur he meant ; but he 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn. 183 
 
 only repeated the question with more emphasis 
 and a look in his eyes denoting hope and in- 
 terest. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said I, pointing upwards, * I under- 
 stand you now. Yes, I know Him ; He is the 
 best of acquaintances/ 
 
 The old man said he was delighted. ' Hold,' 
 he added, striking his bosom ; * it makes me 
 happy here,' There were a few who knew the 
 Lord in these valleys, he went on to tell me ; 
 not many, but a few. * Many are called,' he 
 quoted, ' and few chosen.' 
 
 * My father,' said I, ' it is not easy to say who 
 know the Lord ; and it is none of our business. 
 Protestants and Catholics, and even those who 
 worship stones, may know Him and be known 
 by Him ; for He has made all.' 
 
 I did not know I was so good a preacher. 
 
 The old man assured me he thought as I did, 
 and repeated his expressions of pleasure at meet- 
 ing me. ' We are so few,' he said. ' They call 
 
184 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 us Moravians here ; but down in the department 
 of Ga7'dy where there are also a good number, 
 they are called Derbists, after an English pastor/ 
 I began to understand that I was figuring, in 
 questionable taste, as a member of some sect 
 to me unknown ; but I was more pleased with 
 the pleasure of my companion than embarrassed 
 by my own equivocal position. Indeed I can 
 see no dishonesty in not avowing a difference ; 
 and especially in these high matters, where we 
 have all a sufficient assurance that, whoever may 
 be in the wrong, we ourselves are not completely 
 in the right. The truth is much talked about ; 
 but this old man in a brown nightcap showed 
 himself so simple, sweet, and friendly that I am 
 not unwilling to profess myself his convert. He 
 was, as a matter of fact, a Plymouth Brother. 
 Of what that involves in the way of doctrine I 
 have no idea nor the time to inform myself ; but 
 I know right well that we are all embarked upon 
 a troublesome world, the children of one Father, 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn. 185 
 
 striving in many essential points tp do and to 
 become the same. And although it was some- 
 what in a mistake that he shook hands with me 
 so often and showed himself so ready to receive 
 my words, that was a mistake of the truth-find- 
 ing sort. For charity begins blindfold ; and only 
 through a series of similar misapprehensions 
 rises, at length into a settled principle of love and 
 patience, and a firm belief in all our fellow-men. 
 If I deceived this good old man, in the like man- 
 ner I would willingly go on to deceive others. 
 And if ever at length, out of our separate and 
 sad ways, we should all come together into one 
 common house, I have a hope, to which I cling 
 dearly, that my mountain Plymouth Brother will 
 hasten to shake hands with me again. 
 
 Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by 
 the way, he and I came down upon a hamlet by 
 the Tarn, It was but a humble place, called 
 La VernMe, with less than a dozen houses, and 
 a Protestant chapel on a knoll. Here he dwelt ; 
 
1 86 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 and here, at, the inn, I ordered my breakfast. 
 The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, 
 a stone-breaker on the road, and his sister, a 
 pretty and engaging girl. The village school- 
 master dropped in to speak with the stranger. 
 And these were all Protestants — a fact which 
 pleased me more than I should have expected ; 
 and, what pleased me still more, they seemed 
 all upright and simple people. The Plymouth 
 Brother hung round me with a sort of yearning 
 interest, and returned at least thrice to make 
 sure I was enjoying my meal. His behavior 
 touched me deeply at the time, and even now 
 moves me in recollection. He feared to intrude, 
 but he would not willingly forego one moment 
 of my society ; and he seemed never weary of 
 shaking me by the hand. 
 
 When all the rest had drifted off to their 
 day's work, I sat for near half an hour with the 
 young mistress of the house, who talked pleas- 
 antly over her seam of the chestnut harvest, 
 
 \ 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn. 187 
 
 and the beauties of the Tarn^ and old family 
 affections, broken up when young folk go from 
 home, yet still subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was 
 a sweet nature, with a country plainness and 
 much delicacy underneath ; and he who takes 
 her to his heart will doubtless be a fortunate 
 young man. 
 
 The valley below La Vernkde pleased me 
 more and more as I went forward. Now the 
 hills approached from either hand, naked and 
 crumbling, and walled in the river between 
 cliffs ; and now the valley widened and became 
 green. The road led me past the old castle of 
 Miral on a steep ; past a battlemented monas- 
 tery, long since broken up and turned into a 
 church and parsonage ; and past a cluster of 
 black roofs, the village of Cocurhy sitting among 
 vineyards and meadows and orchards thick with 
 red apples, and where, along the highway, they 
 were knocking down walnuts from the roadside 
 trees, and gathering them in sacks and baskets. 
 
1 88 The Cx)untry of the Camisards. 
 
 The hills, however much the vale might open, 
 were still tall and bare, with cliffy battlements 
 and here and there a pointed summit ; and the 
 Tarn still rattled through the stones with a 
 mountain noise. I had been led, by bagmen of 
 a picturesque turn of mind, to expect a horrific 
 country after the heart of Byron; but to my 
 Scotch eyes it seemed smiling and plentiful,, 
 as the weather still gave an impression of high 
 summer to my Scotch body ; although the chest- 
 nuts were already picked ojiit by the autumn, 
 and the poplars, that here began to mingle with 
 them, had turned into pale gold against the ap- 
 proach of winter. 
 
 There was something in this landscape, smil- 
 ing although wild, that explained to me the spirit 
 of the Southern Covenanters. Those who took 
 to the hills for conscience' sake in Scotlmtd had 
 all gloomy and bedevilled thoughts ; for once 
 that they received God's comfort they would be 
 twice engaged with Satan ; but the Camisards 
 
In the Valley of the Tarn. 189 
 
 had only bright and supporting visions. They 
 dealt much more in blood, both given and taken ; 
 yet I find no obsession of the Evil One in their 
 records. With a light conscience, they pursued 
 their life in these rough times and circumstances. 
 The soul of Seguier, let us not forget, was like 
 a garden. They knew they were on God's side, 
 with a knowledge that has no parallel among the 
 Scots ; for the Scots, although they might be 
 certain of the cause, could never rest confident 
 of the person. 
 
 ' We flew,' says one old Camisard, ' when we 
 heard the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if 
 with wings. We felt within us an animating 
 ardor, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot 
 be expressed in words. It is a thing that must 
 have been experienced to be understood. How- 
 ever weary we might be, we thought no more 
 of our weariness and grew light, so soon as the 
 psalms fell upon our ears.' 
 
 The valley of the Tarn and the people whom 
 
IQO The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 I met at La Vernede not only explain to me this 
 passage, but the twenty years of suffering which 
 those, who were so stiff and so bloody when 
 once they betook themselves to war, endured 
 with the meekness of children and the constancy 
 of saints and peasants. 
 
FLORAC. 
 
 On a branch of the Tarn stands Florae, the 
 seat of a subprefecture, with an old castle, an 
 alley of planes, many quaint street-corners, and 
 a live fountain welling from the hill. It is nota- 
 ble, besides, for handsome women, and as one 
 of the two capitals, Alais being the other, of the 
 country of the Camisards. 
 
 The landlord of the inn took me, after I had 
 eaten, to an adjoining caf^, where I, or rather 
 my journey, became the topic of the afternoon. 
 Every one had some suggestion for my guid- 
 ance ; and the subprefectorial map was fetched 
 from the subprefecture itself, and much thumbed 
 among coffee-cups and glasses of liqueur. Most 
 of these kind advisers were Protestant, though 
 
192 The Country of the Camtsards. 
 
 I observed that Protestant and Catholic inter- 
 mingled in a very easy manner; and it sur- 
 prised me to see what a lively memory still 
 subsisted of the'religious war. Among the hills 
 of the south-west, by Mauchline, Cumnocky or 
 Carsphairn, in isolated farms or in the manse, 
 serious Presbyterian people still recall the days 
 of the great persecution, and the graves of local 
 martyrs are still piously regarded. But in towns 
 and among the so-called better classes, I fear 
 that these old doings have become an idle tale. 
 If you met a mixed company in the King's 
 Arms at Wigtoivn^ it is not likely that the talk 
 would run on Covenanters. Nay, at Muirkirk of 
 Glenlucey I found the beadle's wife had not so 
 much as heard of Pi^ophet Peden, But these 
 Cevenols were proud of their ancestors in quite 
 another sense ; the war was their chosen topic ; 
 its exploits were their own patent of nobility ; 
 and where a man or a race has had but one 
 adventure, and that heroic, we must expect and 
 
Florae. 193 
 
 pardon some prolixity of reference. They told 
 me the country was still full of legends hitherto 
 uncollected ; I heard from them about Cavalier s 
 descendants — not direct descendants, be it 
 understood, but only cousins or nephews — who 
 were still prosperous people in the scene of the 
 boy-general's exploits ; and one farmer had seen 
 the bones of old combatants dug up into the 
 air of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in 
 a field where the ancestors had fought, and the 
 great-grandchildren were peaceably ditching. 
 
 Later in the day one of the Protestant pas- 
 tors was so good as to visit me : a young man, 
 intelligent and polite, with whom I passed an 
 hour or two in talk. Florae^ he told me, is part 
 Protestant, part Catholic ; and the difference in 
 religion is usually doubled by a difference in 
 politics. You may judge of my surprise, com- 
 ing as I did from such a babbling purgatorial 
 Poland of a place as Monastiery when I learned 
 that the population lived together on very quiet 
 
 13 
 
194 ^'^^ Country of the Camisards. 
 
 terms; and there was even an exchange of 
 hospitalities between households thus doubly 
 separated. Black Camisard and White Cami- 
 sard, militiaman and Miquelet and dragoon, 
 Protestant prophet and Catholic cadet of the 
 White Cross, they had all been sabring and 
 shooting, burning, pillaging and murdering, their 
 hearts hot with indignant passion ; and here, 
 after a hundred and seventy years, Protestant 
 is still Protestant, Catholic still Catholic, in 
 mutual toleration and mild amity of life. But 
 the race of man, like that indomitable nature 
 whence it sprang, has medicating virtues of its 
 own ; the years and seasons bring various 
 harvests ; the sun returns after the rain ; and 
 mankind outlives secular animosities, as a single 
 man awakens from the passions of a day. We 
 judge our ancestors from a more divine position ; 
 and the dust being a little laid with several 
 centuries, we can see both sides adorned with 
 human virtues and fighting with a show of right. 
 
Florae. 195 
 
 I have jiever thought it easy to be just, and 
 find it daily even harder than I thought. I own 
 I met these Protestants with dehght and a sense 
 of coming home. I was accustomed to speak 
 their language, in another and deeper sense of 
 the word than that which distinguishes between 
 French and English ; for the true babel is a 
 divergence upon morals. And hence I could hold 
 more free communication with the Protestants, 
 and judge them more justly, than the Catholics. 
 Father Apollinaris may pair off with my moun- 
 tain Plymouth Brother as two guileless and 
 devout old men ; yet I ask myself if I had as 
 ready a feeling for the virtues of the Trappist ; 
 or had I been a Catholic, if I should have felt so 
 warmly to the dissenter of La Vernede, With 
 the first I was on terms of mere forbearance; 
 but with the other, although only on a misunder- 
 standing and by keeping on selected points, it 
 was still possible to hold converse and exchange 
 some honest thoughts. In this world of imper- 
 
196 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 fection we gladly welcome even partial inti- 
 macies. If we find but one to whom we can 
 speak out of our heart freely, with whom we can 
 walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, 
 we have no ground of quarrel with the world or 
 God. 
 
IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE. 
 
 On Tuesday^ \st October ^ we left Florae late in 
 the afternoon, a tired donkey and tired donkey- 
 driver. A little way up the Tarnon, a covered 
 bridge of wood introduced us into the valley of 
 the Mhnente. Steep rocky red mountains over- 
 hung the stream ; great oaks and chestnuts 
 grew upon the slopes or in stony terraces ; here 
 and there was a red field of millet or a few 
 apple-trees studded with red apples ; and the 
 road passed hard by two black hamlets, one 
 with an old castle atop to please the heart of 
 the tourist. 
 
 It was difficult here again to find a spot fit 
 for my encampment. Even under the oaks and 
 
198 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 chestnuts the ground had not only a very rapid 
 slope, but was heaped with loose stones ; and 
 where there was no timber the hills descended 
 to the stream in a red precipice tufted with 
 heather. The sun had left the highest peak 
 in front of me, and the valley was full of the 
 lowing sound of herdsmen's horns as they re- 
 called the flocks into the stable, when I spied a 
 bight of meadow some way below the roadway 
 in an angle of the river. Thither I descended, 
 and, tying Modestine provisionally to a tree, pro- 
 ceeded to investigate the neighborhood. A gray 
 pearly evening shadow filled the glen ; objects 
 at a little distance grew indistinct and melted 
 bafflingly into each other ; and the darkness was 
 rising steadily like an exhalation. I approached 
 a great oak which grew in the meadow, hard by 
 the river's brink ; when to my disgust the voices 
 of children fell upon my ear, and I beheld a 
 house round the angle on the other bank. I 
 had half a mind to pack and be gone again, but 
 
In the Valley of the Mimente. 1 99 
 
 the growing darkness moved me to remain. 
 I had only to make no noise until the night 
 was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to 
 call me early in the morning. But it was 
 hard to be annoyed by neighbors in such a 
 great hotel. 
 
 A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. 
 Before I had fed Modestine and arranged my 
 sack, three stars were already brightly shining, 
 and the others were beginning dimly to appear. 
 I slipped down to the river, which looked very 
 black among its rocks, to fill my can ; and dined 
 with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled 
 to light a lantern while so near a house. The 
 moon, which I had seen, a pallid crescent, all 
 afternoon, faintly illuminated the summit of the 
 hills, but not a ray fell into the bottom of the 
 glen where I was lying. The oak rose before 
 me like a pillar of darkness ; and overhead the 
 heartsome stars were set in the face of the night. 
 No one know^s the stars who has not slept, as the 
 
200 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 French happily put it, a la belle etoile. He may 
 know all their names and distances and magni- 
 tudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone concerns 
 mankind, their serene and gladsome influence on 
 the mind. The greater part of poetry is about 
 the stars; and very justly, for they are them- 
 selves the most classical of poets. These same 
 far-away worlds, sprinkled like tapers or shaken 
 together like a diamond dust upon the sky, had 
 looked not otherwise to Roland or Cavalier, 
 when, in the words of the latter, they had * no 
 other tent but the sky, and no other bed than 
 my mother earth/ 
 
 " All night a strong wind blew up the valley, 
 and the acorns fell pattering over me from the 
 oak. Yet, on this first night of October, the air 
 was as mild as May, and I slept with the fur 
 thrown back. 
 
 I was much disturbed by the barking of a 
 dog, an animal that I fear more than any wolf. 
 A dog is vastly braver, and is besides supported 
 
In the Valley of the Mimente. 201 
 
 by the sense of duty. If you kill a wolf, you 
 meet with encouragement and praise ; but if you 
 kill a dog, the sacred rights of property and the 
 domestic affections come clamoring round you 
 for redress. At the end of a fagging day, the 
 sharp, cruel note of a dog's bark is in itself a 
 keen annoyance ; and to a tramp like myself, 
 he represents the sedentary and respectable 
 world in its most hostile form. There is some- 
 thing of the clergyman or the lawyer about this 
 engaging animal ; and if he were not amenable 
 to stones, the boldest man would shrink from 
 travelling afoot. I respect dogs much in the 
 domestic circle ; but on the highway or sleeping 
 afield, I both detest and fear them. 
 
 I was wakened next morning {Wednesday, 
 October 2d) by the same dog — for I knew his 
 bark — making a charge down the bank, and 
 then, seeing me sit up, retreating again with 
 great alacrity. The stars were not yet quite ex- 
 tinguished. The heaven was of that enchanting 
 
202 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 mild gray-blue of the early morn. A still clear 
 light began to fall, and the trees on the hillside 
 were outlined sharply against the sky. The 
 wind had veered more to the north, and no 
 longer reached me in the glen ; but as I was go- 
 ing on with my preparations, it drove a white 
 cloud very swiftly over the hill-top ; and looking 
 up, I was surprised to see the cloud dyed with 
 gold. In these high regions of the air, the sun 
 was already shining as at noon. If only the 
 clouds travelled high enough, we should see the 
 same thing all night long. For it is always day- 
 light in the fields of space. 
 
 As I began to go up the valley, a draught of 
 wind came down it out of the seat of the sunrise, 
 although the clouds continued to run overhead 
 in an almost contrary direction. A few steps 
 farther, and I saw a whole hillside gilded with 
 the sun ; and still a little beyond, between two 
 peaks, a centre of dazzling brilliancy appeared 
 floating in the sky, and I was once more face to 
 
In the Valley of the Mimente. 203 
 
 face with the big bonfire that occupies the kernel 
 of our system. 
 
 I met but one human being that forenoon, a 
 dark military-looking wayfarer, who carried a 
 game-bag on a baldric ; but he made a remark 
 that seems worthy of record. For when I asked 
 him if he were Protestant or Catholic — 
 
 ' 01 said he, * I make no shame of my religion. 
 I am a Catholic' 
 
 He made no shame of it ! The phrase is a 
 piece of natural statistics ; for it is the language 
 of one in a minority. I thought with a smile of 
 Bavile and his dragoons, and how you may ride 
 rough-shod over a religion for a century, and 
 leave it only the more lively for the friction. 
 Ireland is still Catholic ; the Cevejines still 
 Protestant. It is not a basketful of law-papers, 
 nor the hoofs and pistol-butts of a regiment of 
 horse, that can change one tittle of a plough- 
 man's thoughts. Outdoor rustic people have 
 not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy 
 
204 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 plants and thrive flourishingly in persecution. 
 One who has grown a long while in the sweat of 
 laborious noons, and under the stars at night, 
 a frequenter of hills and forests, an old honest 
 countryman, has, in the end, a sense of com- 
 munion with the powers of the universe, and 
 amicable relations towards his God. Like my 
 mountain Plymouth Brother, he knows the Lord. 
 His religion does not repose upon a choice of 
 logic ; it is the poetry of the man's experience, 
 the philosophy of the history of his life. God, 
 like a great power, like a great shining sun, has 
 appeared to this simple fellow in the course of 
 years, and become the ground and essence of 
 his least reflections ; and you may change creeds 
 and dogmas by authority, or proclaim a new 
 religion with the sound of trumpets, if you will ; 
 but here is a man who has his own thoughts, 
 and will stubbornly adhere to them in good and 
 evil. He is a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Plym- 
 outh Brother, in the same indefeasible sense 
 
In the Valley of the Mimente. 205 
 
 that a man is not a woman, or a woman not a 
 man. For he could not vary from his faith, 
 unless he could eradicate all memory of the past, 
 and, in a strict and not a conventional meaning, 
 change his mind. 
 
THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 I WAS now drawing near to CassagnaSy a cluster 
 of black roofs upon the hillside, in this wild 
 valley, among chestnut gardens, and looked 
 upon in the clear air by many rocky peaks. 
 The road along the Mimente is yet new, nor 
 have the mountaineers recovered their surprise 
 when the first cart arrived at Cassagnas, But 
 although it lay thus apart from the current of 
 men*s business, this hamlet had already made 
 a figure in the history of France, Hard by, 
 in caverns of the mountain, was one of the five 
 arsenals of the Camisards ; where they laid up 
 clothes and corn and arms against necessity, 
 forged bayonets and sabres, and made them- 
 selves gunpowder with willow charcoal and salt- 
 
The Heart of the Country. 207 
 
 petre boiled in kettles. To the same caves, 
 amid this multifarious industry, the sick and 
 wounded were brought up to heal ; and there 
 they were visited by the two surgeons, Chabrier 
 and TavaUy and secretly nursed by women of 
 the neighborhood. 
 
 Of the five legions into which the Camisards 
 were divided, it was the oldest and the most 
 obscure that had its magazines by Cassagnas. 
 This was the band of Spirit Seguier ; men who 
 had joined their voices with his in the 68th 
 Psalm as they marched down by night on the 
 archpriest of the Cevennes. Seguier^ promoted 
 to heaven, was succeeded by Salomon CouderCy 
 whom Cavalier treats in his memoirs as chaplain- 
 general to the whole army of the Camisards. 
 He was a prophet ; a great reader of the heart, 
 who admitted people to the sacrament or refused 
 them by ' intentively viewing every man ' be- 
 tween the eyes ; and had the most of the Scrip- 
 tures off by rote. And this was surely happy ; 
 
2o8 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 since in a surprise in August, 1703, he lost his 
 mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It is only 
 strange that they were not surprised more often 
 and more effectually ; for this legion of Cassagitas 
 was truly patriarchal in its theory of war, and 
 camped without sentries, leaving that duty to 
 the angels of the God for whom they fought. 
 This is a token, not only of their faith, but of the 
 trackless country where they harbored. M. de 
 Caladon, taking a stroll one fine day, walked 
 without warning into their midst, as he might 
 have walked into ^a flock of sheep in a plain,' 
 and found some asleep and some awake and 
 psalm-singing. A traitor had need of no recom- 
 mendation to insinuate himself among their 
 ranks, beyond 'his faculty of singing psalms;' 
 and even the prophet Salomon ' took him into a 
 particular friendship.' Thus, among their intri- 
 cate hills, the rustic troop subsisted ; and history 
 can attribute few exploits to them but sacraments 
 and ecstasies. 
 
The Heart of the Country. 209 
 
 People of this tough and simple stock will 
 not, as I have just been saying, prove variable 
 in religion ; nor will they get nearer to apostasy 
 than a mere external conformity like that of 
 Naaina7i in the house of Rimmon. When Louis 
 XVL, in the words of the edict, * convinced by 
 the uselessness of a century of persecutions, and 
 rather from necessity than sympathy,' granted 
 at last a royal grace of toleration, Cassagnas 
 was still Protestant ; and to a man, it is so 
 to this day. There is, indeed, one family that is 
 not Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is 
 that of a Catholic ctir^ in revolt, who has taken 
 to his bosom a schoolmistress. And his con- 
 duct, it 's worth noting, is disapproved by the 
 Protestant villagers. 
 
 'It is a bad idea for a man,' said one, * to go 
 back from his engagements.' 
 
 The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent 
 after a countrified fashion, and were all plain 
 and dignified in manner. As a Protestant my- 
 
 14 
 
210 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 self, I was well looked upon, and my acquaint- 
 ance with history gained me farther respect. 
 For we had something not unlike a religious 
 controversy at table, a gendarme and a mer- 
 chant with whom I dined being both strangers to 
 the place and Catholics. The young men of the 
 house stood round and supported me; and the 
 whole discussion was tolerantly conducted, and 
 surprised a man brought up among the infini- 
 tesimal and contentious differences of Scotland, 
 The merchant, indeed, grew a little warm, and 
 was far less pleased than some others with my 
 historical acquirements. But the gendarme was 
 mighty easy over it all. 
 
 * It 's a bad idea for a man to change,' said 
 he ; and the remark was generally applauded. 
 
 That was not the opinion of the priest and 
 soldier at our Lady of the Snows, But this 
 is a different race ; and perhaps the same great- 
 heartedness that upheld them to resist, now 
 enables them to differ in a kind spirit. For 
 
The Heart of the Country. 2 1 1 
 
 courage respects courage ; but where a faith has 
 been trodden out, we may look for a mean and 
 narrow population. The true work of Bruce 
 and Wallace was the union of the nations ; not 
 that they should stand apart a while longer, 
 skirmishing upon their borders ; but that, when 
 the time came, they might unite with self- 
 respect. 
 
 The merchant was much interested in my 
 journey, and thought it dangerous to sleep 
 afield. 
 
 ' There are the wolves,' said he ; * and then it 
 is known you are an Englishman. The English 
 have always long purses, and it might very well 
 enter into some one's head to deal you an ill 
 blow some night.' 
 
 I told him I was not much afraid of such 
 accidents ; and at any rate judged it unwise to 
 dwell upon alarms or consider small perils in 
 the arrangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, 
 was a far too risky business as a whole to make 
 
212 The Gauntry of the Camisards. 
 
 each additional particular of danger worth regard. 
 ' Something/ said I, \ might burst in your inside 
 any day of the week, and there would be an end 
 of you, if you were locked into your room with 
 three turns of the key/ 
 
 * Cependanty said he, ' coucher dehors ! ' 
 
 * God,' said I, ^ is everywhere/ 
 
 * Cependant, coucher dehors ! ' he repeated, and 
 his voice was eloquent of terror. 
 
 He was the only person, in all my voyage, 
 who saw anything hardy in so simple a proceed- 
 ing ; although many considered it superfluous. 
 Only one, on the other hand, professed much 
 delight in the idea ; and that was my Plymouth 
 Brother, who cried out, when I told him I 
 sometimes preferred sleeping under the stars to 
 a close and noisy alehouse, * Now I see that you 
 know the Lord ! ' 
 
 The merchant asked me for one of my cards 
 as I was leaving, for he said I should be some- 
 thing to talk of in the future, and desired me to 
 
The Heart of the Country. 213 
 
 make a note of his request and reason ; a desire 
 with which I have thus complied. 
 
 A Uttle after two I struck across the Mimente^ 
 and took a rugged path southward up a hillside 
 covered with loose stones and tufts of heather. 
 At the top, as is the habit of the country, the 
 path disappeared ; and I left my she-ass munch- 
 ing heather, and went forward alone to seek a 
 road. 
 
 I was now on the separation of two vast 
 watersheds ; behind me all the streams were 
 bound for the Garo7tne and the Western Ocean ; 
 before me was the basin of the Rhone. Hence, 
 as from the Lozere, you can see in clear weather 
 the shining of the Gulf of Lyons ; and perhaps 
 from here the soldiers of Salomon may have 
 watched for the topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 
 and the long-promised aid from England, You 
 may take this ridge as lying in the heart of the 
 country of the Camisards ; four of the five legions 
 camped all round it and almost within view — 
 
214 ^^^ Country of the Camisards. 
 
 Salomon and Joani to the north, Castanet and 
 Roland to the south ; and when yulien had 
 finished his famous work, the devastation of the 
 High CevenneSy which lasted all through October 
 and Nov ember y 1703, and during which four 
 hundred and sixty villages and hamlets were, 
 with fire and pickaxe, utterly subverted, a man 
 standing on this eminence would have looked 
 forth upon a silent, smokeless, and dispeopled 
 land. Time and man's activity have now 
 repaired these ruins ; Cassagnas is once more 
 roofed and sending up domestic smoke ; and in 
 the chestnut gardens, in low and leafy corners, 
 many a prosperous farmer returns, when the 
 day's work is done, to his children and bright 
 hearth. And still it was perhaps the wildest 
 view of all my journey. Peak upon peak, chain 
 upon chain of hills ran surging southward, chan- 
 nelled and sculptured by the winter streams, 
 feathered from head to foot with chestnuts, and 
 here and there breaking out into a coronal of 
 
The Heart of the Country. 215 
 
 cliffs. The sun, which was still far from setting, 
 sent a drift of misty gold across the hill-tops, but 
 the valleys were already plunged in a profound 
 and quiet shadow. 
 
 A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of 
 sticks, and wearing a black cap of hberty, as if 
 in honor of his nearness to the grave, directed 
 me to the road for St, Germain de Calberte, 
 There was something solemn in the isolation of 
 this infirm and ancient creature. Where he 
 dwelt, how he got upon this high ridge, or how 
 he proposed to get down again, were more than 
 I could fancy. Not far off upon my right was 
 the famous Plan de Font Morte, where Paid 
 with his Armenian sabre slashed down the 
 Camisards of Seguier. This, methought, might 
 be some Rip vaji Winkle of the war, who had 
 lost his comrades, fleeing before Poiily and wan- 
 dered ever since upon the mountains. It might 
 be news to him that Cavalier had surrendered, 
 or Roland had fallen fighting with his back 
 
2i6 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 against an olive. And while I was thus work- 
 ing on my fancy, I heard him hailing in broken 
 tones, and saw him waving me to come back 
 with one of his *^^wo sticks. I had already got 
 some way past him ; but, leaving Modestme once 
 more, retraced my steps. 
 
 Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The 
 old gentleman had forgot to ask the pedler what 
 he sold, and wished to remedy this neglect. 
 
 I told him sternly, 'Nothing.' 
 
 ' Nothing } ' cried he. 
 
 I repeated * Nothing,' and made off. 
 
 It 's odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became 
 as inexplicable to the old man as he had been 
 to me. 
 
 The road lay under chestnuts, and though I 
 saw a hamlet or two below me in the vale, and 
 many lone houses of the chestnut farmers, it 
 was a very solitary march all afternoon ; and the 
 evening began early underneath the trees. But 
 I heard the voice of a woman singing some sad, 
 
The Heart of the Country. 2 1 7 
 
 old, endless ballad not far off. It. seemed to be 
 about love and a bel amoureiix, her handsome 
 sweetheart ; and I wished I could have taken up 
 the strain and answered her, as I went on upon 
 my invisible woodland way, weaving, like Pippa 
 in the poem, my own thoughts with hers. What 
 could I have told her } Little enough ; and yet 
 all the heart requires. How the world gives 
 and takes away, and brings sweethearts near, 
 only to separate them again into distant and 
 strange lands ; but to love is the great amulet 
 which makes the world a garden ; and ' hope, 
 which comes to all,' outwears the accidents of 
 life, and reaches with tremulous hand beyond 
 the grave and death. Easy to say: yea, but 
 also, by God's mercy, both easy and grateful to 
 believe ! 
 
 We struck at last into a wide white high-road, 
 carpeted with noiseless dust. The night had 
 come; the moon had been shining for a long 
 while upon the opposite mountain ; when on 
 
2 1 8 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 turning a corner my donkey and I issued our- 
 selves into her light. I had emptied out my 
 brandy at Florae, for I could bear the stuff no 
 longer, and replaced it with some generous and 
 scented Volnay ; and now I drank to the moon's 
 sacred majesty upon the road. It was but a 
 couple of mouthfuls ; yet I became thenceforth 
 unconscious of my limbs, and my blood flowed 
 with luxury. Even Modestine was inspired by 
 this purified nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred 
 her little hoofs as to a livelier measure. The 
 road wound and descended swiftly among masses 
 of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet and 
 flowed away. Our two shadows — mine deformed 
 with the knapsack, hers comically bestridden by 
 the pack — now lay before us clearly outlined on 
 the road, an'd now, as we turned a corner, went 
 off into the ghostly distance, and sailed along 
 the mountainlike clouds. From time to time a 
 warm wind rustled down the valley, and set all 
 the chestnuts dangling their bunches of foliage 
 
The Heart of the Country. 219 
 
 and fruit ; the ear was filled with whispering 
 music, and the shadows danced in tune. And 
 next moment the breeze had gone by, and in all 
 the valley nothing moved except our travelling 
 feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous ribs 
 and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed 
 in the moonshine ; and high overhead, in some 
 lone house, there burned one lighted window, 
 one square spark of red in the huge field of sad 
 nocturnal coloring. 
 
 At a certain point, as I went downward, turn- 
 ing many acute angles, the moon disappeared 
 behind the hill ; and I pursued my way in great 
 darkness, until another turning shot me with- 
 out preparation into St, Germain de Calberte, 
 The place was asleep and silent, and buried in 
 opaque night. Only from a single open door, 
 some lamplight escaped upon the road to 
 show me I was come among men's habitations. 
 The two last gossips of the evening, still 
 talking by a garden wall, directed me to the 
 
2 20 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 inn. The landlady was getting her chicks to 
 bed; the fire was already out, and had, not 
 without grumbling, to be rekindled ; half an 
 hour later, and I must have gone supperless to 
 roost. 
 
THE LAST DAY. 
 
 When I awoke {Thursday ^ 2d October), and, 
 hearing a great flourishing of cocks and chuck- 
 ling of contented hens, betook me to the window 
 of the clean and comfortable room where I had 
 slept the night, I looked forth on a sunshiny 
 morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. It 
 was still early, and the cockcrows, and the slant- 
 ing lights, and the long shadows encouraged me 
 to be out and look round me. 
 
 St, Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine 
 leagues round about. At the period of the wars, 
 and immediately before the devastation, it was 
 inhabited by two hundred and seventy-five fami- 
 lies, of which only nine were Catholic ; and it 
 took the cure seventeen September days to go 
 
222 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 from house to house on horseback for a census. 
 But the place itself, although capital of a canton, 
 is scarce larger than a hamlet. It lies terraced 
 across a steep slope in the midst of mighty 
 chestnuts. The Protestant chapel stands below 
 upon a shoulder ; in the midst of the town is the 
 quaint old Catholic church. 
 
 It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Chris- 
 tian martyr, kept his library and held a court of 
 missionaries ; here he had built his tomb, think- 
 ing to lie among a grateful population whom he 
 had redeemed from error ; and hither on the 
 morrow of his death they brought the body, 
 pierced with two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. 
 Clad in his priestly robes, he was laid out in 
 state in the church. The cur^y taking his text 
 from Second Samuel, twentieth chapter and 
 twelfth verse, ' And Amasa wallowed in his 
 blood in the highway,' preached a rousing ser- 
 mon, and exhorted his brethren to die each at 
 his post, like their unhappy and illustrious su- 
 
The Last Day. 223 
 
 perior. In the midst of this eloquence there 
 came a breeze that Spirit Seguier was near at 
 hand ; and behold ! all the assembly took to 
 their horses* heels, some east, some west, and 
 the cure himself as far as Alais, 
 
 Strange was the position of this little Catho- 
 lic metropolis, a thimbleful of Rome^ in such a 
 wild and contrary neighborhood. On the one 
 hand, the legion of Salomon overlooked it from 
 Cassagnas ; on the other, it was cut off from 
 assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. 
 The curcy Loiivrelenily although he took a panic 
 at the archpriest's funeral, and so hurriedly 
 decamped to AlaiSy stood well by his isolated 
 pulpit, and thence uttered fulminations against 
 the crimes of the Protestants. Salomon be- 
 sieged the village for an hour and a half, but was 
 beat back. The militiamen, on guard before the 
 
 ■r 
 
 cure's door, could be heard, in the black hours, 
 singing Protestant psalms and holding friendly 
 talk with the insurgents. And in the morning, 
 
2 24 ^^^ Country of the Camisards. 
 
 although not a shot had been fired, there would 
 not be a round of powder in their flasks. Where 
 was it gone ? All handed over to the Camisards 
 for a consideration. Untrusty guardians for an 
 isolated priest ! 
 
 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 cam? out of their houses, as I went by. My 
 passage was the first event, you would have fan- 
 cied, 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 
 
The Last Day. 225 
 
 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 ap- 
 proaching 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 em- 
 braced 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 ope 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 
 
 15 
 
226 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 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 forever. Was it Apollo, 
 or Mercury y 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. 
 
The Last Day. 227 
 
 It may have been accidental, but you see how 
 this phrase pursued me ; and for myself, I be- 
 lieve 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 hair's-breadth to the eyes of God. Honor 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, em- 
 brace it in spirit and truth, and find wrong as 
 wrong for me as for the best of other com- 
 munions. 
 
228 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 The phylloxera was in the neighborhood ; and 
 instead of wine we drank at dinner a more 
 economical juice of the grape — la Parisienney 
 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 anti- 
 cipate, 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 Gar don of Mialet, a great 
 glaring watercourse devoid of water, and through 
 St, Etienne de Vallee Frangaise, or Val Fran- 
 cesque, 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 
 
The Last Day. 229 
 
 empty carriage returning to St, yean 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 pedler ; but, unlike oth- 
 ers, 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 de- 
 cided, 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 
 Modestineyiov 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 gray 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 out- 
 line of the hills was sharp against the sky. 
 There was Mount Aigoaly the stronghold of Cas- 
 tanet. And Castanetf not only as an active 
 
230 The Country of the Camisards. 
 
 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 bride- 
 groom released five-and-twenty prisoners in 
 honor of the glad event. Seven months after- 
 wards Mariette^ the Princess of the C^venneSy 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 exe- 
 cution, and loved his wife. He fell on Val- 
 lei'augucy 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 Aigoaly 
 has left descendants to this day. 
 
 Modestine and I — it was our last meal to- 
 gether — had a snack upon the top of St. Pierre^ 
 
The Last Day. 231 
 
 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. yean du Gardy 
 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 Httle 
 beyond six hours ! 
 
FAREWELL, MODESTINE ! 
 
 On examination, on the morning of October '^dy 
 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 civilized 
 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 favorable 
 notion of my donkey's capabilities. Intending 
 purchasers were aware of an unrivalled oppor- 
 tunity. Before ten I had an offer of twenty-five 
 francs ; and before noon, after a desperate en- 
 gagement, I sold her, saddle and all, for five-and- 
 
Farewell, Modes tine I 233 
 
 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 mah^e, 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 vol- 
 unteered some advice, which struck me as being 
 excellent. 
 
 One thing more I note. The phylloxera has 
 ravaged the vineyards in this neighborhood ; 
 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. 
 
234 T^^^ Country of the Camisards. 
 
 * Making cider/ he said. ^ Oui^ c'est comme ga. 
 Co7nme 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 bereave- 
 ment. I had lost Modestine, Up to that moment 
 I had thought I hated her; but now she was 
 gone, 
 
 * And, O, 
 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 
 
i Farewell^ Modestine ! 235 
 
 my hand. She was patient, elegant in form, the 
 color of an ideal mouse, and inimitably small. 
 Her faults were those of her race and sex ; her 
 virtues were her own. Farewell, and if forever — 
 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 3^oung 
 men, I did not hesitate to yield to my emotion. 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 What Is thought of the Initial Volume 
 of the Series, 
 
 "MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE." 
 
 ** ' Mercy Philbrick's Choice' reads rather like a record than a storjr. Its per- 
 sonages are few in number ; there is no ' sensation,' almost no plot, yet it is highly 
 interesting. In saying this, we indicate a remarkable story. The stage properties of 
 a novel — events, situations, surprises — are cheap, and easy to come by. It is the 
 higher art which discards these, and trusts for e£Eect to truth and subtlety of character 
 drawing." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 " A novel wholly out of the common course, both in plot and style. . . . The moral 
 of the book is wholesome, — that no good can come from deceit, and that the relations 
 of life and innocent love should be fiank and without concealment. Morbidness works 
 only for misery, and it is the sane and sunny and sound people who get the best out of 
 this life.' ' — Boston Daily A dvertiser. 
 
 *' ' Mercy Philbrick's Choice ' is a storj' of great power, great depth of thought and 
 feelins:, great tenderness and reverence for the truthfulness of truth, and great insight 
 into life. . . . We dare place it alongside George Eliot's latest in point of poetic in- 
 sight, vigor, and knowledge of life, and to say that it is superior to ' Daniel Deronda ' 
 in style, and informed by a purer and deeper philosophy." — Charles D. Warner^ in 
 the Hartford C our ant. 
 
 " It is a pleasure, in these days, to get hold of a new American novel which mani- 
 fests both culture and literary skill. The author of * Mercy Philbrick's Choice' is 
 evidently a woman who looks upon authorship as something more than a pastime, — 
 a woman of clear intelligent tastes and distinct aspirations. The refined quality of 
 her intellect impresses itself upon the story from first to last." — Neiv York Tribune, 
 
 "There are many things to be admired in this novel. The artistic delineation of 
 character and the subtle rendering of the human atmosphere show a keen appreciation 
 of the delicate shades which make personality and influence the life of ourselves and 
 others." — The Liberal Christian, 
 
 " It is a striking and touching story, — this new one, — and will be greatly read and 
 admired, as it deserves to be. There is even genius in some of its touches, which 
 remind one of a feminine counterpart to Hav^'thorne. " — Springfield Republican. 
 
 *' The volume is interspersed with some of the sweetest poems to which these latter 
 days have given birth, showing that the author is a master of poesy as well as of fas- 
 cinating fiction." — Hartford Post. 
 
 " It is a story of the simplest motives, but as lovely and heart-holding as a sweet 
 folk-song. Every page is endearingly true to the innermost part of humanity, and the 
 author transcribes the workings of hearts and minds with no less faithfulness than she 
 (we insist that it is a 'she' ) gives exquisite pictures of nature and the handiwork 
 which ' fashions in silence.' The story is from the pen of a poet, and the inter-current 
 verses are each and all gems of * ray serene,' not too flashing, but very, very appreciable 
 to eyes which have learned how to weep." — Boston Traveller. 
 
 *' Read the book, which is fascinating. The author is certainly a woman. And 
 she is a poet, too, of no mean powers, as is proved by the half dozen short poems 
 in the book. The sonnet engraved on Mercy's tombstone is not surpassed by any of 
 Wordsworth." — Troy Whig, 
 
 *' This book is a novel only in the sense that George Eliot's books are novels. The 
 story is subordinated to showing the inevitable working out of opposing moral forces. 
 The characters, well drawn as some of them are, are hardly more than dial-pointers on 
 the clock of fate. Of dramatic motive there is more than enough." — The Unitarian 
 Review- 
 
 In one volume, 16mo. Cloth. Gilt and red-lettered, $1.00. 
 
 • 
 
 Our publications are to be had of Booksellers. When not to be 
 found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 "IS THAT ALL?" 
 
 ** In some respects, this is the best of the three vohimes yet published of 
 this series. For, though it does not go so deep as * Mercy Philbrick,^ nor 
 deal in poetic fancies like *Deirdrfe,' it is better sustained on its own surface- 
 level than either of those romances. It is not a romance at all in fact, but 
 a pleasing sketch, somewhat too warmly colored, of New England social life 
 in the well-bred circle of a small city, — say Hartford. The plot is simple and 
 direct, and the story closes before it has time to become tiresome in any 
 particular. . . . The book is all it professes to be, and something more, and 
 will certainly be popular." — Springfield Republican. 
 
 " The new novel of the * No Name Series ' belongs of right to the class of 
 stories which men and women take with them on vacation journeys. It has 
 little plot, and what little there is is of the slightest kind. It is meant to be 
 light and amusing, and is so in a high degree. The picture it gives of high 
 life in a provincial city is very fine, and a spirit of bantering which runs 
 through it makes it extremely piquant. As to the authorship it is idle to 
 guess. We leave the solution of the question to the reader's own skill in 
 reading riddles, and commend the anonymous book to his attention as one 
 which will entertain him greatly, whether or not he can guess its origin." 
 — New York Evening Post. 
 
 " * Is That All ? * third in order of the conundrums at which the Messrs. 
 Roberts have set the world a-guessing, perplexes conjecture in a greater degree 
 than its predecessors. Its style recalls none of our better-known wTiters ; and, 
 in spite of the assurance of the publishers, we should be disposed to set it 
 down as the work of a fresh hand, were it not for the practice and finish which 
 it evinces. It is, to use its own words, a *ver> meringue of a story,' light, 
 crisp, delicately flavored ; but, for all this sketchiness, it is full of real character 
 and individuality. . . . There is a great deal of bright, natural conversation, 
 some capital love-making, and both humor and good-humor in the pithy, half- 
 sarcastic touches which glance here and there on the page like a smile out of 
 quizzical, friendly eyes." — Boston Transcript, 
 
 " It is cleverly constructed in plot, and has the rare merit ot seemmg too 
 short. The style is bright and animated, the characters are evidently drawn 
 from life, and spiritedly drawn at that. The conversations are sparkling and 
 witty, and the work is unmistakably from the hand of one thoroug-hly ac- 
 quainted with the world and with good society. It is the best book of the 
 series, thus far, though, as the author says, * a very meringue of a story.* Its 
 naturalness is not the least of its charms. We have been thoroughly delighted 
 with it, and we assure our readers that they will derive equal pleasure and satis- 
 faction from its perusal. The name of the author has not yet transpired, but 
 we hazard the guess that it is a woman, — not owing to any effeminacy or 
 weakness in the style, but from the fact that no one but a woman would write 
 so saucily about the gentler sex. We advise everybody to read this clever little 
 story." — Saturday Gazette, 
 
 In one Tolume, 16nio. Cloth. Gilt and red-lottered. 81*00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When not to 
 be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 KISMET. A Nile TToveL 
 
 Opinions, g^enerons tributes to grenins, by well-known authors 
 whose names are withheld. 
 
 " Well, I have read * Kismet,' and it is certainly very remarkable. The 
 story is interesting, — any well-told love story is, you know, — bat the book itself is 
 a great deal more so. Descriptively and sentimentally, — I use the word with 
 entire respect, — it is, in spots, fairly exquisite. It seems to me all glowing and 
 overflowing with what the French call beauU du diable. . . . The conversa- 
 tions are very clever, and the wit is often astonishingly like the wit of an accom- 
 plished man of the world. One thing which seems to me to show promise — 
 great promise, il you will — for the future is that the author can not only repro- 
 duce the conversation of one brilliant man, but can make two men talk together as 
 if they were men, — not women in manly clothes." 
 
 "It is a charming book. I have read it twice, and looked it over again, and 
 I wish I had it all new to sit up with to-night. It is so fresh and sweet and inno- 
 cent and joyous, the dialogue is so natural and bright, the characters so keenly 
 edged, and the descriptions so poetic. I don't know when I have enjoyed 
 any thing more, — never since I went sailing up the Nile with Harriet Martineau, 
 • • . You must give the author love and greeting from one of the fraternity. 
 The hand that gives us this pleasure will give us plenty more ol an improving 
 quality every year, I think.' ' 
 
 ** * Kismet ' is indeed a delightful story, the best of the series imdoubtedly." 
 
 *• If * Kismet' is the first work of a young lady, as reported, it shows a great 
 gift of language, and powers of description and of insight into character and life 
 quite uncommon. ... Of the whole series so far, I think * Mercy Philbrick's 
 Choice ' is the best, because it has, beside literar>' merit, some moral tone and 
 Nagor. Still there are capabilities in the writer of * Kismet ' even higher than in 
 that of the writer of * Mercy Philbrick's Choice.* " 
 
 " I liked it extremely. It is the best in the series so far, except in con- 
 struction, in which *ls That All?* slight as it is, seems to me superior. 
 ' Kismet ' is winning golden opinions everywhere. I have nothing but praisea 
 for it, and have nothing but praise to give it." 
 
 ** I have read * Kismet * once, and mean to read it again. It is thoroughly 
 charming, and will be a success." 
 
 One Tolnme, bound in cardinal red and black. Price S1*00* 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. When not 
 to be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston, 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 THE GREAT MATCH. 
 
 ** Tlie * No Name Senes,' in course of publication by Roberts Brothers, Boston, 
 has been a success from the beginning. * Kismet,* a Nile Novel, is not alone a charm- 
 ing love story, but one of the best-written travel-fictions in our language ; and 
 
 * Dierdr^,* the longest and best-sustained narrative poem that has been published for 
 a long, long time, also has added greatly to the popularity of the * No Name Series.' 
 We now have * The Great Match,' another volume, to be characterized rather as a 
 thorough New England story than classed among American novels, very few of which 
 are worth reading. The author has shown no small ingenuity in making a great match 
 of base ball the foundation of this pleasant and effective narrative. Base ball (fa- 
 cetiously called * Our National Game,* albeit only an adaptation of the English 
 
 * rounders*) is elevated in this story into an active element of amusement, connected 
 with which are the incidents which, adroitly worked up, complete the plot. If any 
 one wishes to witness a well-foughten game of base ball, without the crushing, the dust, 
 even the danger (for the ball sometimes hits the spectators and damages their features), 
 let him read ' The Great Match,' and he will learn all about it. This is a hearty, 
 lively, simply told story, another decided hit in the * No Name Series.*" — Phila* 
 delphia Press, 
 
 ** Is a satire on the small interests, great excitements, and petty jealousies of small 
 towns, typified by Domfield and Milltown, easily recognized by the reader as two of 
 the pretty towns on the Connecticut River. The event of the book, the only event, 
 is a base-ball match, but out of it grow several love affairs. Summer visitors, the 
 affected youth spoiled by European travel, and the thin, learned Boston girl, come in 
 for a share of the author's overflowing and good-natured satire. There are touches 
 of real wit, of artistic taste, and of a genuine love for nature and all true and sweet 
 things scattered through the story, which has strong internal evidence of being written 
 by * P. Thorne.* ** — Boston Daily Advertiser, 
 
 ** We have derived as much amusement from this novel as from any that has as 
 yet appeared in the series. The humor is exceedingly clean-cut, and is, moreover, 
 without exaggeration. The satire is keen, but good-natured, and the tone is healthy. 
 If we are not mistaken, this book will enjoy as large a popularity and as wide an 
 appreciation as have attended any of its * No Name* predecessors." — Boston Saiur- 
 day Evening Gazette, 
 
 One Tolnme, bound in cardinal red and black* 
 Price $1.00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. When not to 
 be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 A MODERN MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 " It is decidedly the best novel of the series, thus far. . • . The leading idea of • A 
 Modem Mephistopheles * is ingenious. The characters are skilfully chosen to repre- 
 sent it : the one secret in the story is beyond the guessing of most readers, and 
 admirably concealed until the true moment for its disclosure ; and the denouement is 
 as satisfactory as we could expect. Helwyze, like Goethe's Mephistopheles, wills the 
 bad and works the good : the justice of Fate falls upon hira, and not upon his victim. 
 But this is the only point of resemblance. Gladys, although occupying the place of 
 Margaret, is an entirely different creature, and it is the best success of the author's 
 art that she is more real to us than the other three characters. The work belongs to 
 the class of imaginative fiction which claims its right to dispense with probability or 
 even strict dramatic consistency. It cannot be measured by the standard which wa 
 apply to novels of society or of ordinary human interests, but rather by that which 
 belongs to poetry.' ' — New York Tribune, 
 
 *' The latest issue of the ' No Name * Series claims precedence not only because it 
 is the freshest novelty, but through an excellence that places it readily first. Consid- 
 ered alike for its interest as a tale and for its elegance of literary art, it is a work that 
 alone will give distinction to the series. The plot is peculiarly novel in its details if not 
 in its general conception ; and tliroughout the story the most pervading impression is 
 that of the freshness — not crudeness, but the freshness of mature thought — which 
 it everywhere carries. . . . The title is but a hint. It is no revamping of Goethe's 
 story of Faust, nor a plagiarism of ideas in any form ; unless the central thought, of 
 the * woman-soul that leads us upward and on,' which is common to romantic as to 
 psychological fiction, may be considered such. The characters are drawn with a 
 sharp outline, standing forth as distinctly individual as the etchings of Retzsch ; and 
 for symmetry and consistency, in every word and every action which the author makes 
 them think, speak, or do, they are thoroughly admirable creations. Four figures only 
 appear in the action on this little stage ; and the story, when analyzed, shows a strange 
 absence of what is usually considered the dramatic element. Yet such is the skill of 
 the author that the reader is led on as by the most vivid material tragedy, compelled 
 by the development of thought and feeling. . . . More than this, the book is a constant 
 intellectual delight. The grace of the author's style is equalled by its finish. De" 
 scription and conversation are like a fine mosaic, in which the delicate art of the 
 workmanship passes imseen, and the eye catches only the perfect picture until a close 
 examination reveals the method of its structure.' ' — Boston Post, 
 
 " This series, so far, has brought us no prose work equal in depth and dramatic 
 design to this one. ... It is unquestionably the work of genius, powerful in concep- 
 tion, elegant in construction, lofty in tone, proving, as few books do, the power of one 
 clean, white soul, to cope with evil in its most insidious forms, while preserving its 
 wn * crystal clarity.' . . . But who wrote this story ? Whose hand painted these 
 marvellous pictures of the angel and the demon striving for the mastery in every 
 human soul ? " — The New Age. 
 
 Our publications are to he had of all booksellers* When not 
 to befoundy send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 Boston. 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 AFTERGLOW. 
 
 "The seventh of the * No Name Series,' 'Afterglow,' is a strong novel, and, in 
 many respects, a remarkable one. . . . The style is easy, and that of an accomplished 
 writer ; the tone, through most of the book, cool, satirical, with more than a touch of 
 mockery, and sparkling with unexpected wit, touches of exquisite drollery, and ingen- 
 ious lancies. Although each character is by itself unattractive, and its faulty side 
 carefully displayed, tne complications and social plots are so easy and admirably 
 handled that, mean as they are, they become of great interest, and the matter of per- 
 sonal mutual influence is so prominent that it gives the story a philosophical air, and 
 the dignity that it needs. . . . For three-quarters of the book the reader admires the 
 cleverness, the capital workmanship only : he closes it with the verdict that the story 
 is not only clever, but that it is far more and far better than clever." — Boston Daily 
 A dvertiser, 
 
 , " With the exception of the delicately written sketch, * Is That All?' none of the 
 * No Name' books have been so good literature as * Afterglow,' the latest on the list ; 
 and the qualities of this story stand in an order which ought to gain it the favor of the 
 best readers. ... In fact, the simple and direct narration, and the treatment of inci- 
 dents and characters, more than once recall the master of modem fiction." — The 
 A tlantic Monthly. 
 
 " It is so seldom that one finds in a recent American novel a positive addition to 
 literature that the issue of a work like * Afterglow,' the latest volume of the * No 
 Name' Series of Messrs. Roberts Brothers, merits cordial recognition. The book is 
 the production of no ordinary mind. . . • Those inclined to guess the authorship need 
 not go beyond the men who are known in literature. There are some sketchy features 
 in the story, but there is a firm grasp in the narrative which proves the hand that 
 weaves it to be that of a master. It is thoroughly polished in its satire, and the wit 
 in which it abounds is of the keenest character. ... It is, it may safely be said, the 
 production of one of the * Atlantic Monthly ' school of writers. * Afterglow ' is not the 
 kind of novel that is generally designated as popular, but it is a work displaying more 
 talent and more originality than any of its predecessors in the * No Name Series,' and 
 will be a standard favorite with thoughtful and cultivated people. " — Boston Saturday 
 Gazette' 
 
 " Whether or not * Afterglow,' which is the latest, is also the best of the * No 
 Name' novels, is a question upon which the faithful readers of that excellent series 
 will probably differ, but there will be no hesitation on the part of any of them to accord 
 it a place as at least one of the best." — N. Y, Evening Post* 
 
 One volume. Bound in cardinal red and black. Price 81.00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When not to 
 be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 
 
NO NAME SERIES. 
 
 HETTY'S Strange History. 
 
 By the Author of "Mercy Philbrick's Choice." 
 
 " The critic whom I have already quoted — one whom long residence in a 
 foreign country has made a more dispassionate judge of American literature 
 than most of us can be — declared it as his judgment that * Hetty's Strange 
 History ' is the most remarkable of recent American fictions. Such is my own 
 opinion, so far as I am competent to judge. . . . The field of great fiction 
 must always be, after all, in profound emotions and strange histories." — 
 T. W. Higginson^ in the Womait^s Journal, 
 
 **The sterling merit of the author of * Hetty's Strange History* is her 
 hearty strength. . . . The atmosphere of this book is regal ; it is a moral tonic 
 of the wholesomest sort. To walk with Hetty is to breathe imperial air, to 
 don the royal purple, and to take up the sceptre of the world; only for a few 
 bright liours, but it is a noble illusion while it lasts. 
 
 " The superiority of this story to the author's first, * Mercy Philbrick's Choice,* 
 is very marked. . . . Hetty is very human, and makes her great mistake easily 
 enough, in a most natural and human way, and cures it at the right time, with- 
 out any foolish ado ; but from first to last her masterful pulse beats to a noble 
 rhythm; whatever she does, she does worthily, and we praise her at every 
 step. 
 
 " This book is sure to be liked, because it brings the best of what every 
 aspiring mind — no matter how weak now — reaches after with intense desire ; 
 and it is impossible to go through it, and not feel at the end that its society has 
 greatly cheered and ennobled one's o\vn life. It is by far the best of the * No 
 Name Series.* ** — " Richntond^''^ N, Y, Correspondent of the Chicago yournaL 
 
 One volume, i6mo, bound in cloth, cardinal red and black. Price ^i.oo. 
 
 Ozcr Publications are to he had of all bookseller s* When net to be found^ 
 send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 Boston, 
 
''NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 WILL DENBIGH, Nobleman. 
 
 " The latest of the * No Name Series * is a simple, lovely Devonshire story, 
 exquisitely told. Will Denbigh, whose name is the title of the book, is a 
 noble hero ; the little heroine wins and keeps his heart ; but the great charm of 
 the tale is not in its love stories, hearty and direct as those are, but in its pict- 
 ures of country life and country curates, — the curates who must be scattered 
 all over England, of whom Charles Kingsley was one, gentlemen and scholars, 
 who devote all they are and all they have to the cause of Christianity, and whose 
 lives of service in the little parishes of farmers or fishermen are a close following 
 of the Master whom they worship. The author does not preach, but tells these 
 beautiful things and paints these noble and tender pictures as if he or she had 
 always known them, had alwa3's been familiar with such characters, and talks 
 about them with a tenderness and direct simplicity that makes them alive and 
 real to the reader. The book is thoroughly sweet, sound and hopeful in 
 spirit ; the style has the strength and simplicity of an accomphshed writer." — 
 Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " This charming and clever story we are disposed to regard as the best tale 
 yet produced in the ' No Name Series.' '' — The Philadelphia Press, 
 
 " Inferior to none of them in point of interest. ... Its perusal will be a 
 source of delight to every reader, and will add greatly to the reputation of a 
 most deservedly popular series.'' — New Bedford Mercury. 
 
 " The novels in the ' No Name Series ' seem to take on a more ambitious 
 character as their number increases, and the one here before us ( * Will Den- 
 bigh ' ) ranks higher up in the scale of Uterary merit than most of its prede- 
 cessors." — Boston Post. 
 
 "The story admirably maintains the reputation of the series." — Boston 
 Common wealth. 
 
 " * Will Denbigh ' is the best of the novels that have as yet appeared in 
 the * No Name Series. * It is a fresh, wholesome, and thoroughly agreeable 
 story. ' ' — Portland Press. 
 
 " * No Name ' is considered a perfect guarantee of excellence. The last 
 issue, * Will Denbigh ' will not detract from the conceded excellence of the 
 series." — Albany Evening yournal, 
 
 " On the whole, * Will Denbigh * continues the series well, and is still 
 another kind of link in this chain, unlike in form and ring of metal to any of 
 its predecessors." — Boston Traveller. 
 
 One Tolume, bouud in Cardinal red and black. Price $1.00. 
 
 Our Publications are to be had of all booksellers. When not to be found^ 
 send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 Boston. 
 
"NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 THE WOLF AT THE DOOR. 
 
 From the ProvidcTice JournaL 
 
 A fresh member of the "No Name" series is as welcome as a sight of the dan- 
 delions and pansies that have greeted admiring eyes in this exceptionally mild winter. 
 *'The Wolf at the Door" is the name of the new-comer; and, though usually sug- 
 gestive of misfortune and suffering, readers will find that when the wolf knocks at the 
 door Cupid finds entrance at the window, which is by no means disagreeable. The 
 story is eminently readable, and is written in an attractive style, happily blending 
 satire and cultivation. Some phases of Boston fashionable life are capitally carica- 
 tured, the charitable-society mania is admirably portrayed, and the description of the 
 Boston Bazaar is drawn to the life. . . -^ "The Wolf at the Door" will sustain the 
 reputation of the anonymous family to which it belongs. The plot is slight, but spir- 
 ited ; the conversations are bright and sparkling, and the hand that holds the wires 
 knows the world, and is at home in good society ; while good humor, sarcasm, and a 
 pervading refinement give a piquant and delicate flavor to the attractive pen-pictures 
 that bear the impress of being drawn from life. 
 
 Front the N. V, Commercial Advertiser, 
 
 "The Wolf at the Door" is intended for light reading; but notwithstanding this 
 fact, and although it does not come up in interest to " Mercy Philbrick's Choice," the 
 first of the series, it serves a good purpose, and represents a class of literature morally 
 and xsthetically far above the common level of the popular writings of the day, and 
 for that reason we commend it. 
 
 Front the Boston Courier, 
 
 The whole atmosphere of this story breathes refinement and a knowledge of what 
 is called the best society. It is an unambitious and unforced attempt to paint the 
 social life of some of the representative families of Boston, in their daily pursuits and 
 recreations. The plot is very slight, but the characters introduced are plainly drawn 
 from life ; and their conversation, without being astonishingly brilliant, is that of 
 educated people who have travelled much with observant eyes. It thus has a flavor of 
 " culture " without being pedantic, and the story unfolds itself without a sensational 
 contortion. . . , The story, as one of the famous "No Name Series," does no 
 discredit to the volumes which have preceded it. Certainly those who are most 
 pleased with its unaffected portrayal of characters and events that are in no sense 
 unreal or far-fetched can award it no warmer praise. 
 
 From the Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 This is a capital story, bright, gossipy, and pleasant. The characters are Bosto- 
 nian, without the starch. The heroine is a charming and natural character, who is 
 cheated out of her fortune, yet wins a deserved prize in the matrimonial lottery, 
 -^ a husband that will be able to keep the wolf from the door. Messrs. Roberts have 
 neglected nothing in the book to add to its luck. While they keep to the title of 
 *'No Name Series," they are entitled to the name of "Lucky Series," from the suc- 
 cess of the books, and from the symbols of horseshoe and four-leaved clover that 
 ornament the cover. The book is anonymous, but the author might be proud to own 
 it. Possibly the author of "The Queen of Sheba" may know something of it. 
 
 In one volnme, 16nio. Cloth. Gilt and red-lettered* S1«00. 
 # 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When 
 not to be found, send directly to the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 
 
"NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 MARMORNE, 
 
 ** It is not, however, merely on account of outward characteristics that we have 
 called * Marmorne' a remarkable book. It is also one of the most powerful novels 
 of the narrative, as opposed to the analytical, class, that has appeared for a long time," 
 says the London Athe7t£Bum, 
 
 ** * Marmome' makes its appearance anonymously ; but we are persuaded that the 
 author is no novice, and are inclined to fancy that' we recognize the hand, . . . which 
 reminds us not a little of * Round my House.' . . . He has written a novel which is 
 extremely fascinating and eminently picturesque," says the Saturday Review. 
 
 "This can only be characterized as a masterpiece of extraordinary artistic sim- 
 plicity. ... In other words, it is a plain narrative of events, written with a skill and 
 a power that are truly admirable," says the London World. 
 
 ** As a whole, it is one of the best of the series in which it appears," says the 
 Boston Daily Advertiser, 
 
 "We think no reader of * Around my House' and *The Unknown River* will 
 hesitate long as to where to fix the authorship of * Marmome,' " says the Boston Traft- 
 script. 
 
 ** The descriptive passages in this book entitle it to the first rank in the * No Name 
 Series,' but there have been so many good novels included under that title that we are 
 not quite prepared to say it is the best. It is, however, good enough to-be included 
 among the most successful stories of the year," says the Boston Courier. 
 
 " We will not call this the best story of the * No Name Series,' because some one 
 else is sure to do it, each volume having received that praise as it appeared. Cer- 
 tainly there has been nothing better in the series : and, if it is written by an American, 
 it is a clever performance, for it has a thoroughly foreign air," says the New York 
 Herald, 
 
 *' * Marmome,* the latest of the * No Name Series,* and by far the best of those 
 recently issued under the title. It is attributed, and we think \vithout mistake, to 
 the accomplished English painter and art critic, Philip Gilbert Hamerton. It is a 
 clever book," says the Hart/ord Courant. 
 
 *'The * No Name Series' has had a large reputation : the present volume will add 
 new admirers, as it is the best of the series," says the Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 ** One of the best of the * No Name Series ' which has been thus far issued it the 
 number now before us. From the very outset it yields the comfort afforded by the 
 touch of a strong hand. ... It is, in any event, a book which Hamerton cannot 
 regret to have ascribed to him, as it is full worthy of his genius and reputation," says 
 the Chicago Tribune. 
 
 In one volume, 16nio. Cloth. Gilt and red-lettered. 81.00, 
 
 ♦ 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When 
 not to be found, send directly to the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 
 
"NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 MIRAGE, 
 
 ** Is in many respects superior to * Kismet.* The story is told with great care, the 
 style is more earnest and more vigorous than that of * Kismet,' the feeling is deeper, 
 the tone higher, the execution smoother, the author more confident of herself, and 
 apparently conscious of increasing strength," says the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " The author is to be congratulated on having made progress in novel-wTiting, for 
 
 * Mirage ' is certainly an improvement on * Kismet,' and, above all, it is a work sui 
 generisV says the London Athenceunu 
 
 " It was only to be expected, and even more to be hoped, that the author of 
 
 * Kismet ' would make a second attempt in a field similar to that in which his first 
 laurels were won. We are happy to say that fresh ground has been broken with 
 remarkable success, and that * Mirage ' may fairly rank beside its fascinating prede- 
 cessor," says the London Court your7iaL 
 
 " Here, too, we have a group of Americans who * do * Syria instead of Egypt. 
 Those readers — and their number has been many — who found a charm in * Kismet ' 
 may take up * Mirage' without fear of disappointment," says the London Graphic, 
 
 ** * Mirage* is by the author of ' Kismet,' so, of course, we are spared the trouble 
 of guessing. It may be set beside the latter work, as the two best novels of the 
 
 * No Name Series.' . . . The work, in some essential particulars, shows an advance 
 on ' Kismet.' The style is firmer and more assured, and the characters exhibit a 
 better subordination to the author's design. These will not be the last works from 
 the same pen: the author is not mistaken in her vocation," says the New York 
 Tribune, 
 
 *' We had occasion, some months since, to speak of * Kismet' as a clever and 
 promising novel ; and we are happy to be able to say that the author of * Kismet' has 
 redeemed the pledge of that work with even greater promptness than was to be 
 expected. * Mirage ' strikes us as very clever indeed, and as a decided advance upon 
 its predecessor. . . . Great charm of description, a great deal of fineness of observation, 
 a great deal of wit in the conversations, a constant facility and grace of style, — these 
 good points are decidedly more noticeable. . . . The present book is infinitely fresher 
 and wittier than ninety-nine hundredths of the novels periodically emitted by the 
 regular group of English fiction-mongers," says the New York Nation* 
 
 In one volume, 16mo. Clotli. Gilt and red-lettered. 81.00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When 
 not to be found, send directly to the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES. 
 
 ** * Deirdr^ * is a remarkable poem, written in ten -syllable lines, with almost 
 perfect ease of versification. . . . The author has an enthusiastic and delicate 
 love of nature in all her moods. His battle scenes are all «tt in glowing land- 
 scapes ; he sings the glories of the earth and of the skies, as well as the 
 achievements of his heroes ; he makes yoM feel the weather and the landscape, 
 the sharpness of. late autumn, the life and sweetness of spring. The fault of 
 the poem is an excess of its beauties (?)." — Boston Daily Advertiser, 
 
 ** Such is the story of Deirdre ; a story of extraordinar>' power and pathos, 
 and one which, though dealing with remote times and barbarous characters, 
 awakens a strong sympathy in the breast of the reader. Some of the passages 
 of the poem are absolutely Homeric, particularly the descriptions of the battles ; 
 while there are here and there subtle touches of nature, all the more potent 
 because of their savage setting. Altogether it is the poem of this day and 
 generation, and worthy a place beside the best work of the best living poets of 
 England or America. '^ — Boston Transcript, 
 
 ** One's first thought on reading the last line of this poem is of its absolute 
 integrity of excellence. Not a faulty line mars its expansive beauty ; not a 
 commonplace sentiment degrades it. . . . We have never read a poem whose 
 perfection is so steadfastly sustained ; from the first line to the last there is no 
 descent from the original nobility of thought and style. ... Its atmosphere 
 is strangely high and healthful. Honor rules almost every act in the eventful 
 drama. . . . The most exigent sense of duty seems to animate every person in 
 the poem ; and the episode of their deaths illustrates the noblest qualities of 
 human nature. . . . Over the whole sky of his poem there broods an atmos- 
 phere of the most exquisite refinement. . . . But words cannot do justice to 
 the grandeur and beauty of *Deirdrb; ' it is the poem of the century." — 
 Literary World, 
 
 " Thus * Deirdrfe * comes forth a grand epic, a poem of which America can 
 be proud as the country from which it issues, and all other reading lands glad 
 and satisfied. There is in it the grandeur and magnificence of the Greek of the 
 Iliad and Odyssey ; the beauty and grace, the rich imagery of the iEneid, and 
 the rythmic flow of Dante's writings. The power of the poem is not spasmo- 
 dic, the genius of the writer is not fitful, and the beauty of the verse is nowhere 
 hampered by artifice or lessened by signs of relapsing from the highest standard. 
 On the contrary, steadily, firmly, grandly the story progresses, with a rich fer- 
 tility of poetic skill and rare picturing, to its closing page. The poem is des- 
 tined to live and rank among modem classics." — Boston Traveller, 
 
 " * Deirdre * would have attracted attention without the adjunct of mystery 
 (No Name ?). It is a narrative poem, original in its material, boldly conceived, 
 and written with suflficient poetic skill and feeling to separate it wholly from the 
 crowd of crude and ambitious attempts which are constantly issuing from the 
 press." — New York Tribune, 
 
 " The reader easily discovers that it is a poem of very rare quality, a great 
 poem, we may say, without misusing the adjective *, but precisely how great it 
 is, precisely how it compares with other works of a like kind, it is not easy to 
 determine while the glamour of a first reading is upon us. For the present it 
 is enough that we shall read it and enjoy it, recognizing its richness in all tliat 
 makes poetry good, and learning to know its spirit and its significance." — New 
 York Evening Post, 
 
 In one Tolume« 16nio. Cloth. Gilt and red-lettered. SI. 00* 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When not to 
 be found, send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 
 
*'NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 The First Series, cofnpleted^ 
 
 COMPRISES TWELVE NOVELS, VIZ., 
 
 MERCY PHILBRICK»S CHOICE. HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY. 
 
 IS THAT ALL] WILL DENBIGH, Noblehan. 
 
 KISMET. THE WOLF AT THE DOOR. 
 
 THE GREAT MATCH. MARMORNE. 
 
 A MODERN MEPHISTOPHELES. MIRAGE. 
 
 AFTERGLOW. GEMINI. 
 
 AND TWO POETICAL VOLUMES I 
 
 DEIRDR6. A Novel in Verse. 
 
 A MASQUE OF POETS. Original Poems, by Fifty Poets, written spe- 
 cially for this book ; including " Guy Vernon," an entire Novelette in 
 verse. 
 Fourteen volumes in all, uniformly bound in black cloth, red 
 
 and gilt lettered. Price $i.oo each. 
 
 NO NAME [SECOND] SERIES. 
 
 The new series will retain all the peculiar features which 
 made the first so popular, differing from it only in the style 
 of binding. The first volume, 
 
 SIGNOR MONALDINPS NIECE, 
 
 Is an Italian story, written by an American author, with the 
 experience of a long residence in Italy. In one volume, i6mo. 
 Cloth. Price $i.oo. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. When 
 not to be fou?td send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Pnblishers, 
 
 Boston. 
 
PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 From the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 "Leigh Hunt, hi his ^ Indicator ^^ has a pleasant chapter 
 on the difficulty he encountered in seeking a suitable and fresh 
 title for a collection of his miscellaneous writings, Messrs. 
 Roberts Brothers have just overcome a similar difficulty in 
 the simplest mafiner. In selecting "No Name,'^ they have 
 selected the very best title possible for a series of Original 
 American Novels and Tales^ to be published Ano?tymously, 
 These novels are to be written by eminent authors^ and in 
 each case the authorship of the work is to remaifi an inviolable 
 secret, " No Na?ne " describes the Series perfectly. No name 
 will help the novels or the story ^ to success. Its success will 
 depeitd solely on the writer's ability to catch and retain the 
 reader's interest. Several of the most disti?iguished writers 
 of American Jiction have agreed to contribute to the Series^ 
 the initial volu?ne of which is ?iow in press. Its appearance 
 will certainly be awaited with curiosity." 
 
 <f 
 
 The plan thus happily foreshadowed will be immediately 
 inaugurated by the publication of " Mercy Philbrick's 
 Choice," from the pen of a well-known and successful writer 
 of fiction. 
 
 It is intended to include in the Series a volume of anonymous 
 poems from famous hands, to be written especially for it. 
 
 The " No Name Series " will be issued at convenient inter- 
 vals, in handsome library form, i6mo, cloth, price $i.oo each. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers. 
 
 Boston, Midsummer, 1876. 
 
Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications, 
 
 THE NO NAME (SECOND) SERIES. 
 
 SiGNOR MONALDINFS NiECE. 
 
 Extracts from some Opinions by well-known Authors, 
 
 ** We have read ' Signer Monaldini's Niece * with intensest 
 interest and deh'ght. The style is finished and elegant, the at- 
 mosphere of the book is enchanting. We seem to have lived in 
 Italy while we were reading it. The author has delineated with a 
 hand as steady as it is powerful and skilful some phases of human 
 life and experience that authors rarely dare attempt, and with 
 marvellous success. We think this volume by far the finest of 
 the No Name Series." 
 
 " It is a delicious story. I feel as if I had been to Italy and 
 knew all the people. . . . Miss Conroy is a strong character, and 
 her tragedy is a fine background for the brightness of the other 
 and higher natures. It is all so dramatic and full of color it goes 
 on like a lovely play and leaves one out of breath when the cur- 
 tain falls.** 
 
 " I have re-read it with great interest, and think as highly of it 
 as ever. . . . The characterization in it is capital, and the talk 
 wonderfully well done from first to last." 
 
 *' The new No Name is enchanting. It transcends the ordinary 
 novel just as much as a true poem by a true poet transcends the 
 thousand and one imitations. . . . It is the episode, however, of 
 Miss Conroy and Mrs. Brandon that is really of most importance 
 in this book. ... I hope every woman who reads this will be 
 tempted to read the book, and that she will in her turn bring it to 
 the reading of other women, especially if she can find any Mrs. 
 Brandon in her circle." 
 
 In one volume, i6mo, bound in green cloth, black and gilt let- 
 tered. Price $1.00. 
 
 % — 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers, When 
 not to be founds send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 
 
Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
 
 By the Author of *^ The Gamekeeper at Home." 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.25. 
 
 From the London Atkencewnt^ March i, 1879. 
 
 " The author of ' The Gamekeeper at Home ' has given us a volume which is 
 worthy of a place beside White's ' Selborne.' Not, of course, that his style is 
 equal to that of his fascinating prototype (to say the truth, the Gamekeeper's style 
 is the least noticeable feature of his book) ; but in the essentials of a book of 
 this kind — in that closeness of observation which is born of the loving eye; in 
 the power of giving, by an instinctive selection of physiognomic details, a picture 
 far beyond the efforts of the mere word-painter, who has to rely solely upon the 
 cumulative process so much now in vogue — he is the equal of the Selborne rector, 
 perhaps his superior. The author's observation of man is as close and as true as 
 his observation of the lower animals. For instance, he describes the farmers 
 driving to market, and as they go along the high-road, glancing up the furrows to 
 note how they are ploughed, and to look for game, ' You may tell from a distance 
 if they espy a hare, by the check of the rein, and the extended hand pointing.* 
 Yet his deepest affection is for the lower animals, as is mostly the case with those 
 who know them best. 
 
 ** To those who love Nature in her sweetest moods, — that is to say, basking on 
 soft hills, and slumbering in the green valleys of England, — this is a book to read 
 and to treasure." 
 
 Frotn the London Saturday Review, 
 
 ** * Wild Life in a Southern County ' is perhaps even a more delightful book 
 than *The Gamekeeper at Home.' The author is at once the closest and the 
 most catholic of observers. It seems evident that he must have been bred up as 
 a boy in that out-of-the-world neighborhood which he describes so vividly. He 
 must surely have lived the life of the farm-house, and mixed with the easy famil- 
 iarity of boyhood among the farmers and their shepherds and laborers. . . . It is 
 difficult to give more than the vaguest idea of a volume so full of entertaining mat- 
 ter. It might be defined as a rjtultunt in parvo Encyclopaedia of country sights 
 and country matters. . . . Open the book where you may, you cannot fail to find 
 something attractive ; and as it is impossible to do it reasonable justice in a review, 
 we can only recommend our readers to procure it." 
 
 Sold by all Booksellers. M ailed y postpaid^ by the Pub- 
 lisficrs 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 
 
ROBERTS BROTHERS' 
 
 Catalogue of Books, 
 
 SPRING^ OF 1879. 
 
 ANNOUUOEMEUTS AND LATEST PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 BV THE AUTHOR OF '' ECCE HOMOr 
 
 LIFE AND TIMES OF STEIN: 
 
 Or, Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age. By J. R. 
 Seeley, M.A., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of 
 Cambridge (Eng.). 2 vols. 8vo. With Portrait and Maps. Price $7.50. 
 
 SIGNOR MONALDINI'S NIECE. 
 
 A Novel. Being the first volume in the No-Name (second) 
 Series. Bound in green cloth, black and gold. Price Ji.oo. 
 
 THE LIFE OF J. M. W. TURNER, R. A. 
 
 By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. With nine Illustrations after 
 the Master's Sketches, and four Woodcuts. Square i2mo. Cloth. Uni- 
 form with "The Intellectual Life," &c. Price $2.50. 
 
 THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG, AND THE 
 FALL OF THE NIBLUNGS. 
 
 By William Morris, author of '*The Earthly Paradise." Crown 
 8vo. Cloth. Price $2.50. 
 
 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME: 
 
 Sketches of Natural History and Rural Life. i2mo. Cloth. 
 Price $1.50. 
 
 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 
 
 By the author of "The Gamekeeper at Home." i6mo. Cloth. 
 Price $1.25. 
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 In Three Books. From the seventh London edition i6mo. 
 Cloth. Price $1.50. 
 
 GWEN:^ 
 
 A Drama in Monologue. By the author of "The Epic of Hades." 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. 
 
 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ERNST MORITZ 
 ARNDT, 
 
 The Singer of the German Fatherland. With a Preface by the 
 author of " Ecce Homo." Crown 8vo., Cloth. Price $2.25. 
 
Latest Publications. 
 
 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT'S LETTERS TO IMLAY, 
 
 With Prefatory Memoir by C. Kegan Paul. Two Portraits after 
 Opie. i2mo. Cloth. Price $2.00. 
 
 CANTERBURY CHIMES: 
 
 Or, Chaucer's Tales Retold for Children. By Francis Storr and 
 Hawes Turner. With Illustrations from the EUesmere MS. i6mo. 
 Cloth. Price $1.00. 
 
 THE DRAMATIC LIST: 
 
 A Record of the Principal Performances of Living Actors and 
 Actresses of the British Stage. Compiled and edited by Charles Eyre 
 Pascoe. Crown 8vo. Morocco, gilt top. Price $5. 00. 
 
 READING AS A FINE ART. 
 
 By Ernest Legouve. Translated from the ninth edition. i6mo. 
 Cloth. Price 50 cents. 
 
 HEBREW MEN AND TIMES, 
 
 P>om the Patriarchs to the Messiah. By Joseph Henry Allen, 
 Lecturer on Ecclesiastical History in Harvard University. A new, re- 
 vised edition. i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. 
 
 UNDER THE LILACS. 
 
 By Louisa M. Alcott, author of "Little Women." With 
 Illustrations. Uniform with Miss Alcott's other famous books. i6mo. 
 Cloth. Price ^1.50. 
 
 NELLY'S SILVER MINE. ' 
 
 A Story of Colorado Life. By H. H., author of "Bits of Travel," 
 " Bits of Talk about Home Matters," &c. With Illustrations. i6mo. 
 Cloth. Price $1.50. 
 
 MODERN FRENCHMEN. 
 
 Five Biographies : Victor Jacquemont, Traveller and Naturalist ; 
 Henri Perreyve, Ecclesiastic and Orator ; Francois Rude, Sculptor ; 
 Jean Jacques Ampere, Historian, Archaeologist, and Traveller ; Henri 
 Regnault, Painter and Patriot. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. 
 Square i2mo. Uniform with "The Intellectual Life," &c. Price $2.00. 
 
 A STORY OR TWO FROM AN OLD DUTCH TOWN. 
 
 I. Abram Van Zandt, the Man in the Picture. 2. Mr. Schermer- 
 horn*s Marriage and Widowhood. 3. Master Vorhagen*s Wife. By 
 Robert Lowell, author of "The New Priest in Conception Bay," 
 " Antony Brade," &c. i6mo. Price $1.25. 
 
 SONGS OF ITALY. 
 
 By Joaquin Miller, author of "Songs of the Sierras," &c, 
 i6mo. Price $1.25. 
 
 A MASQUE OF POETS. 
 
 A collection of anonymous poems, written specially for this book. 
 The volume includes an entire Novelette in verse, by one of our most 
 popular poets. i6mo. No-Name style. Price ^i.op; red line, holiday 
 edition, price $1.50. 
 
THE "NO NAME SERIES." 
 
 GEMINI. 
 
 It has been rumored that the present volume of the " No Name Series" is 
 from the pen of Louisa M. Aleott. After reading it, we are fully convinced that 
 the surmise is correct. It is written in the truly delighful vein of her former 
 works, is full of bits of pathos that suddenly move one to tears, and also of inci- 
 dents and character-studies that are irresistibly amusing. — Si. Louis Evening 
 Post. 
 
 The lover of a sterling work of fiction will read *' Gemini" with a sentiment 
 of gratitude, it is so genuine, honest, serious, and unpretending in its character. 
 There is little room for doubt that it is by one of our most popular and prolific 
 authors, who has given us a long series of brilliant and fascinating stories, that 
 have charmed equally the old and the young. Her books have generally more 
 gayety and buoyant sprightliness than the present one, which keeps to the minor 
 key throughout ; but there are none among them all that will be more universally 
 liked. Its subdued, even pensive, tone exercises a strong power, stirring and 
 exciting to active sympathy the deeper feelings of our nature. — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 ** Gemini " is a genuine New-England idyl, pure and sweet, and as natural as 
 it is delightful. The breath of the country blows through it, and the thrice-blessed 
 reader whose childhood was passed among green fields, and who remembers the 
 scent of the woods, the song of the birds, and the feel of the wind, will welcome 
 it as a remembrancer of all of them. It is not a novel. It is a narrative, so sim- 
 ply and plainly told, that one almost feels it to be real. There is in it no straining 
 for effect, no attempt at the construction of a plot. The whole interest is centred 
 in a single family of a little out-of-the-way mountain community ; and so intense 
 does that interest become, that, when the book is finished and laid aside, the 
 characters follow the reader like people he has met and known. The story is not 
 so brilliant as " Kismet," nor so deeply analytical as " Mercy Philbrick ; " but as 
 a study of real life, and as an excitant of human sympathy, it is better and more 
 powerful than eiiher. — Boston Transcript. 
 
 One volume, IGmo, cloth. Price $1.00. 
 
 Otir publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When 
 not to be founds send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
THE ''NO NAME SERIESr 
 
 A MASQUE OF POETS. 
 
 Curiosity is a trait of human nature on which it is always safe to count. It 
 would, perhaps, be no difficult task to show that it is the only trait universal to 
 our race. Do not both theolc^ and science date their schemes and their theories 
 from its subtle and instructive workings? Were not Eve and Sir Isaac Newton 
 alike resolute inquirers into the properties of apples? 
 
 The Messrs. Roberts Brothers were very safe in their venture of the " No 
 Name Series," which appealed directly to this master-passion of the mind. 
 Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would be more interested in wondering and 
 finding out who wrote any given story, if the authorship were concealed, than they 
 would in the story itself, and thus every volume in the *' No Name Series " had a 
 double chance of being read. 
 
 The last volume of the series, **A Masque of Poets,*' just published, is a fit- 
 ting climax to the long succession of puzzles, being itself simply a whole volume 
 full of puzzles. It is a book of tantalizing interest. If any one had told us 
 beforehand that in a volume containing poems from nearly all the well-known 
 American and many of the well known English poets of to-day, it would be next 
 to impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy the authorship of the 
 poems, the statement would have seemed preposterous; but such is the fact. 
 Here are seventy-five poems, all of them printed now for the first time. . . . 
 
 The extracts we have quoted are amply sufficient to show the interesting vari- 
 ety of this volume, and the stimulus to curiosity which it affords. There could 
 hardly be a pleasanter amusement for a knot of friends on a winter evening than 
 to compare guesses as to the authorship of these seventy-five anonymous poems. 
 
 "H. H." in De7tver Tribune. 
 
 *'A Masque of Poets" includes an entire novelette in verse, — 
 
 "aUY VERNON," 
 
 by CHie of our most popular writers, of which the Hartford Courant says : ** It is 
 a very clever performance, a good story, witty and satirical by turns, flowing along 
 easily in fine description and argument, with pleasing surprises in nearly every 
 stanza. * Guy Vernon ' is sufficient to float the book buoyantly." 
 
 One volume, 16nio, cloth. Price $1.00. 
 
 Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers, When 
 not to be founds send directly to 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
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