Chapter XV: Part 15

No one can dislike more than I the habit which has become so common of late years amongst us--thanks, or rather no thanks, to Mr. Gladstone--of running down our own English ways of dealing with all creation, from Irishmen to black-beetles. I believe, on the contrary, that on the whole there is not, nor ever was, a nation that kept a more active conscience, or tried more honestly to do the right thing all round according to its lights. Nevertheless, I am bound to admit that our methods don’t always succeed, as, for instance, with our treatment of our “submerged tenth,” if that is the accepted name for the section of our people which Mr. G. Booth, in his excellent _Life and Labour in London_, places in his A and B classes (and which, by the way, are only 8.2, and not 10 per cent), or with our seagulls. Some years ago I called your readers’ attention to the rapid demoralisation of these beautiful birds at one of our northern watering-places; how they just floated past the pier-heads hour after hour, waiting for the doles which the holiday folk and their children brought down for them in paper-bags. Our sea-going gulls, I regret to note, are now similarly affected. At any rate, some forty of them diligently followed the steamer in which I sailed for my Easter holiday, from the Liverpool docks till we dropped our pilot and, turned due south off Holyhead. By that time our last meal had been eaten and the remains cast into the sea. The gulls seemed to be quite aware of this; and we left them squabbling over the last scraps of fish and potatoes, or loafing slowly back to Liverpool. Thirty-six hours later we entered the Garonne, and steamed sixty miles up it to Bordeaux. For all that distance there were plenty of French gulls on the water or in the air, but, so far from following us, not one of them seemed to take the least notice of us, but all went on quietly with their fishing or courting; and yet our cook’s mate must have thrown out as much broken victuals after breakfast in the Garonne as he did after luncheon or dinner on the Welsh coast. It cannot be because the French gulls are Republicans, for the Republic has, if anything, increased the national appetite for unearned loaves and fishes. It is certainly very odd; but, anyhow, I hope our gulls will not take to more self-respecting ways of life, for it is a real treat to watch them in the ship’s wake, without effort, often without perceptible motion of the wings, keeping up the fourteen knots an hour. The Captain and I fraternised over the gulls, whom he loves, and will not allow to be shot at from his ship. “I’ll shoot whether you like it or not,” insisted a sporting gent on a recent voyage. “If you do, I’ll put you in irons,” retorted the Captain; whereupon the sporting gent collapsed--a pity, I think, for an action for false imprisonment would have been interesting under the circumstances. I fancy the Captain is right, but must look up the law after Easter.

I am surprised that this route is not more popular with the increasing numbers of our people who like a short run to the south of France in our hard spring weather. You can get by this way to Bordeaux quicker than you can by Dover or Folkestone from any place north of Trent, unless you travel day and night, and sleep on the trains, and for about half the money. The packets are cargo-boats, but with excellent cabins and sleeping accommodation for twelve or fourteen passengers, including as good a bath as on a Cunard or White Star liner. And yet I was the only passenger last week. There can scarcely be a more interesting short voyage for any one who is a decent sailor; but I suppose the fourteen or sixteen hours “in the Bay of Biscay, oh!” scares people. As far as my experience goes, the Atlantic roars like a sucking-dove in the Channel and the Bay at Easter-time. There was not wind enough to dimple the ocean surface, and until we passed Milford Haven, no perceptible motion on the ship. Then, as we crossed the opening of the Bristol Channel, she began to roll--quite unaccountably, as it seemed at first; but on watching carefully, one became aware that, though the surface was motionless, the great deep beneath was heaving with long pulsations from the west, which lifted us in regular cadence every thirty or forty seconds. I have often crossed the Atlantic, but never seen the like, as always before there has been a ripple on the calmest day, which gave the effect, at any rate, of surface motion. The best idea I can give of it is, if on a long stretch of our South Downs the successive turf slopes took to rising and falling perpendicularly every minute. The Captain said there must have been wild weather out west, and these were the rollers. It was a grand sight to watch the great heave pass on till it reached the Land’s End, and ran up the cliffs there. We passed near enough to see the mining works, close to the level of high-tide, and the villages on the cliff-tops above, or clinging on to the slopes wherever these were not too precipitous. One can realise what manner of men and sailors this Ear West has bred of old, and, I hope, still breeds. I pity the Englishman whose pulse does not quicken as he sails by the Land’s End, and can see with a glass some of the small harbours out of which Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins sailed, and drew the crews that followed and fought the Armada right away to the Straits of Dover.

As the Land’s End light receded, we became aware of another light away some twenty miles to the south-west. It is on a rock not fifty yards across, the Captain says, at high tide, and often unapproachable for weeks together--“The Hawk,” by name, on which are kept four lighthouse-men, who spend there alternate months, weather permitting. I was glad to hear that there are four at a time, as the sight of “The Hawk” brought vividly to my mind the gruesome story of fifty years back, when there were only two men, who were known not to be good friends. One died, and his companion had to wait with the dead body for weeks before his relief came.

I noticed, before we were two hours out, that there was something unusually smart about the crew, quite what one would look for on the _Umbria_ or _Germanic_, but scarcely on a 700-tons cargo-boat plying to Bordeaux. Several of the young hands were fine British tars, with the splendid throats and great muscular hands and wrists which stand out so well from the blue woollen jerseys; but the one who struck me most was the ship’s carpenter, a gray, weather-beaten old salt, who was going round quietly, but all the time with his broad-headed hammer, setting little things straight, helping to straighten the tarpaulins over the hatches and deck-cargo, and sounding the well. I caught him now and then for a few words, as he passed my deck-chair, and got the clue. Most of the crew were Naval Reserve men, and followed the Captain, a lieutenant in the R.N.R., who could fly the blue ensign in foreign ports, which they liked. Besides, he was a skipper who cared for his men, looked after their mess and berths, and never wanted to make anything out of them; charged them only a shilling a pound for their baccy, the price at which he could get it out of bond, while most skippers charged 2s. 6d., the shop price. He had come to this boat while his big ship was laid up in dock, to oblige the owners, so they had followed him. Besides, he never put them to any work he wouldn’t bear a hand in; had stood for hours up to his waist last year in the hold when they were bringing five hundred cattle and seven hundred hogs from Canada, running before a heavy gale. The water they shipped was putting out the engine fires, and the pumps wouldn’t work till they had bailed for ten hours. However, they got in all right, and never lost a beast. Of course I was keen to hear the Captain on this subject, and so broached it at his table. Yes, it was quite true; they had run before a heavy gale from off Newfoundland, and the pumps gave out off the Irish coast. They got the sludge bailed out enough for all the fires to get to work just about in time, or would have drifted on the rocks and gone all to pieces in a few minutes. Yes, it was about the nastiest piece of work he had ever had to do; the sludge, for it was only half water, was above his waist, and had quite spoiled his uniform. The deck engineer--a light-haired man, all big bones and muscle, whom he pointed out to me--was in the deepest part of the hold up to his arm-pits, and had worked there for ten hours without coming up! He was a R.N.R. man, like the old carpenter and most of the rest. The old fellow was one of the staunchest and best followers, probably because he was tired of going aground. He had been aground seventeen times! for the Captain in his last ship had a way of charging shoals, merely saying, “Oh, she’ll jump it!” which she generally declined to do. The Captain is a strong Churchman, but shares the prejudice against carrying ministers. “The devil always has a show” when you’re carrying a minister. The first time he tried it, he was taking out his own brother, and they were twenty-two days late at Montreal. It was an awful crossing, a gale in their teeth all the way; most of the ships that started with them had to put back. I suggested that if he hadn’t had his brother on board, he mightn’t have got over at all; but he wouldn’t see it. Next time, a man fell from the mast-head and was killed; and the next, a man jumped overboard. He would never carry a minister again if he could help it.

One pilot took us out to Holyhead, but it took three French ones to take us up to Bordeaux. The Garonne banks are only picturesque here and there; but the flat banks have their own interest, for do we not see the choicest vineyards of the claret country as we run up? There was the Chateau Lafitte and the Chateau Margaux. I suppose one ought within one’s heart, or rather, within one’s palate perhaps, “to have felt a stir”--

As though one looked upon the sheath

Which once had clasped Excalibur.

But I could not tell the difference between Margaux and any decent claret with my eyes shut, so I did not feel any stir--unless, perhaps, as a patriot, when we passed much the most imposing establishment, and the Captain said, “That is Chateau Gilbey”! I looked with silent wonder, for did I not remember years ago, when the Gladstone Grocers’ Licences Bill was young, and the Christie Minstrels sung scoffingly--

Ten little niggers going out to dine,

One drank Gilbey, and then there were nine?

And here was Gilbey with the finest “caves” and the choicest vineyard in the Bordelaise! Who can measure the competitive energy of the British business-man?

I must end as I set out, with the birds. As we neared the mouth of the Garonne, sixteen miles from land, the Captain said, two little water-wagtails flitted into the rigging. There they rested a few minutes, and then, to my grief, started off out to sea, but again and again came hack to the ship. At last a sailor caught one, and the Captain secured it and took it to his cabin, but thought it would be sure to die. It was the hen-bird. She did not die, but flitted away cheerfully when he brought her out and let her fly on the quay of Bordeaux. But I fear she will never find her mate.

Lourdes, 15th April 1893.

The farthest point south in our Easter scamper was Lourdes, to which I found that my companions were more bent on going than to any other possible place within our range. The attractions even of the Pass of Ronces-valles, of St. Sebastian, and the Pyrenean battle-fields of 1814, faded with them before those of the nineteenth-century Port Royal. At first I said I would not go. The fact is, I am one of the old-fashioned folk who hold that some day the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of Christ, and that all peoples are to be gathered “in one fold under one Shepherd.” It has always seemed to me that one of the surest ways of postponing that good time is to be suspicious of other faiths than our own; to accuse them of blind superstition and deliberate imposture; even to walk round their churches as if they were museums or picture-galleries, while people are kneeling in prayer. So I said “No”; I would stop on the terrace at Pau, with one of the most glorious views in the world to look at, and carefully examine Henry IV.’s château, or go and get a round of golf with my hibernating fellow-countrymen. I thought that the probable result of visiting Lourdes might be to make me more inclined to think a large section of my fellow-mortals dupes, and their priests humbugs--conclusions I was anxious to avoid. However, I changed my mind at the last moment, and am heartily glad I did. It is an easy twenty miles (about) from Pau, from which you run straight to the Pyrenees, and pull up in a green nook of the outlying lower mountains, where two valleys meet, which run back towards the higher snow-capped range. They looked so tempting to explore, as did also the grim old keep on the high rock which divides them and completely dominates the little town, that twenty years ago I couldn’t have resisted, and should have gone for an afternoon’s climb. But I am grown less lissom, if not wiser, and so took my place meekly in the fly which my companions had chartered for the grotto. We were through the little town in a few minutes, the only noteworthy thing being the number of women who offered us candles of all sizes to burn before the Madonna’s statue in the grotto, and the number of relic-shops. Emerging from the street, we found ourselves in front of a green lawn, at the other end of which was a fine white marble church, almost square, with a dome--more like a mosque, I thought, than a Western church; and up above this another tall Gothic church, with a fine spire, to which the pilgrims ascend by two splendid semi-circular flights of easy, broad steps, one on each side of the lower church, and holding it, as it were, in their arms. We, however, drove up the steep ascent outside the left or southern staircase, and got down at the door of the higher church, which is built on the rock at the bottom of which is the famous spring and grotto. We entered by a spacious porch, where my attention was at once arrested by the mural tablets of white marble, each of which commemorated the cure of some sufferer: “Reconnaissance pour la guérison de mon fils,” “de ma fille,” etc., being at least as frequent as those for the cure of the person who put up the tablet. I thought at first I would count them, but soon gave it up, as not only this big vestibule, but the walls of all the chapels, and of the big church below (built, I was told, and hope, by the Duke of Norfolk at his own cost), are just covered with them. This upper church was a perfect blaze of light and colour, much too gorgeous for my taste; but what the decorations were which gave this effect I cannot say, as I was entirely absorbed in noting the votive offerings of all kinds which were hung round each of the shrines, both here and in the lower church. The most noteworthy of these, to my mind, are the number of swords, epaulettes, and military decorations, which their owners have hung up as thank offerings. I do not suppose that French officers and privates differ much from ours, and I am bold to assert that Tommy Atkins would not part with his cross or medal, or his captain, for that matter, with his epaulettes or sword, if they had gone away from Lourdes no better in body than when they went there hobbling from wounds, or tottering from fever or ague.

When we had seen the upper church we went down a long flight of circular stairs, and came out in the lower (Duke of Norfolk’s) church,--much more interesting, I think, architecturally, and decorated in better, because quieter, taste than the upper one. From this we went round to the grotto in the rock, on which the upper church stands, and in which the famous spring rises, and over it a not unpleasant (I cannot say more) statue of the Madonna; and all round candles alight of all sizes, from farthing-dips to colossal moulds, many of which had been burning, they said, for a week. A single, quiet old priest sat near the entrance reading his Missal, but only speaking when spoken to. In front were ranged long rows of chairs, on which sat or knelt some dozen pilgrims with wistful faces, waiting, perhaps for the troubling of the waters. These are carried from the grotto to a series of basins along the rock outside, at one of which two poor old crones with sore eyes were bathing them, and talking Basque (I believe)--at any rate some unknown tongue to me. I should have liked to hear their experiences, but they couldn’t understand a word of my Anglican French. Here, again, the most striking object is the mass of crutches of all shapes and sizes, and fearsome-looking bandages, which literally cover the rock on each side of the entrance to the grotto, for the space (I should guess) of fourteen or fifteen feet on one side, and ten or twelve on the other.

And so we finished our inspection, and went back to our fly, which we had ordered to meet us at the end of the lawn above mentioned, which lies between the churches and the town; and so to the railway station, and back to Biarritz by Pau. I daresay that people who go there at the times when the great bodies of pilgrims come, may carry away a very different impression from mine. All I can say is, that I never was in a place where there was less concealment of any kind; and there was no attempt whatever to influence you in any way by priest or attendant. There were all the buildings and the grotto open, and you could examine them and their contents undisturbed for any time you chose to give to them, and draw from your examination whatever conclusions you pleased. So I, for one, can only repeat that I am heartily glad that I went; and shall think better of my Roman Catholic brethren as the result of my visit for the rest of my life.

Of course, the main interest of Lourdes lies in the world-old controversy between the men of science and the men of faith, as to the reality of the alleged facts--miracles, as many folk call them--of the healing properties which the waters of this famous spring, or the air of Lourdes, or the Madonna, or some other unknown influence, are alleged to possess, and to be freely available for invalid pilgrims who care to make trial of them. Every one in those parts that I met, at Lourdes itself, at Pau, Biarritz, Bayonne, is interested in the question and ready to discuss it. Perhaps I can best indicate the points of the debate by formulating the arguments on each side which I heard, putting them into the mouths of representative men--a doctor and a priest. I was lucky enough to fall in with an excellent representative of the scientific side, an able and open-minded M.D. on his travels. I had no opportunity of speaking to one of the priests; but their side of the argument is stoutly upheld by at least half of the people one meets.

_Dr._--They are nothing but what are called faith-cures, akin to those which the Yankee Sequah effects when he goes round our northern towns in his huge car, with his brass band and attendant Indian Sachems in the costume of the prairie. Of course, here the surroundings are far more impressive and serious; but the cures are the same for all that--some action of the nerves which makes patients believe they are cured, when they are not really. Probably nine-tenths are just as bad again in a few months.

_Priest_.--Well, don’t we say they are faith-cures? We don’t pretend that we can do them, as this Sequah you talk about does. You allow that great numbers _think_ they are cured, and walk about without crutches or bandages, or pains in their bodies, and enjoy life again for a time at any rate; which is more than you can do for them, or they wouldn’t come here to be healed.

_Dr_.--How long do they walk about without crutches or pains in their limbs? Why don’t you take us behind the scenes, and let us test and follow up some of these cures?

_Priest_.--We can’t take you behind the scenes, for there are no scenes to go behind. We tell you _we_ don’t do the cures, or know precisely how they are done. We can’t hinder your inquiries, and don’t want to hinder them if we could. There are the tablets of “reconnaissance,” with names and addresses; you can go to these, if you like, or talk to the patients whom you see at the spring or in the chapels.

_Dr_.--Come, now! You don’t really mean to say you believe that our Lord’s Mother appeared to this girl on 23rd March 1858, and told her that this Lourdes was a specially favourite place with her; and that she has since that time given these special healing qualities to the water or air of Lourdes, or whatever it is that causes these effects at this place?

_Priest_.--We mean to say that the girl thoroughly believed it, and we hold that her impression--her certainty--didn’t come from the devil, as it must if it was a lie; that it wasn’t the mere dream of a hysterical girl, and was not given her for nothing. Else, how can one account for these buildings, costing, perhaps, as much as one of your finest cathedrals, all put up in thirty-five years?

_Dr_.--Yes; but that doesn’t answer my question. Did the Mother of our Lord appear to this girl, and is it she who works the cures.

_Priest_.--If you mean by “appear,” “come visibly,” we don’t know. But you should remember always that the French have a very different feeling about the Madonna from you English. Perhaps you can’t help connecting her with another French girl, Joan of Arc, who believed the Madonna had appeared to her and told her she should turn you English out of France, which she did--a more difficult and costly job even than building these churches.

_Dr_.--Well, we won’t argue about the Madonna, and I am quite ready to admit that the evidence you have here, in the tablets and votive offerings, the crutches and bandages, are _primâ-facie_ proof that numbers of pilgrims have gone away from Lourdes under the impression that they were cured. What I maintain is, that you have not shown, and cannot show, that your cures are not merely due to the absorption of diseased tissue as the result of strong excitement--an effect not at all common, but quite recognised as not unfrequent by some of the highest authorities in medical science.

There the controversy rests, I think; at any rate, so far as I heard it debated; and I must own that the scientific explanation does not seem to me to hold water. To take one instance, would the absorption of diseased tissue drive a piece of cloth out of a soldier’s leg or body? Perhaps yes, for what I know; but would the excitement of a mother cure the disease of her child? These two classes of cures (of which there are a great number) struck me, perhaps, more than any of the rest. But I must not take up more of your space, and can only advise all your readers who are really interested in this problem to take the first opportunity they can of going to Lourdes, and, if possible, as we did, at a time when the great bodies of pilgrims are not there, and they can quietly examine the facts there, for--_pace_ the doctors and men of science--these tablets, swords, crutches, etc., are facts which they are bound to acknowledge and investigate. I shall be surprised if they do not come away, as I did, with a feeling that they have seen a deeply interesting sight for which it is well worth while to come from England, and that there are two sides to this question of the Lourdes miracles (so-called), either of which any reverent student of the world in which he is living may conscientiously hold.

Fontarabia, 22nd April 1893.

Every year the truth of Burns’s “the best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley,” comes more home to me. From the time I was ten the Pass of Roncesvalles has had a fascination for me. Then the habit of ballad-singing was popular, and a relative of mine had a well-deserved repute in that line. Amongst her old-world favourites were “Boland the Brave” and “Durandarté.” The first told how Boland left his castle on the Rhine, where he used to listen to the chanting in the opposite convent, in which his lady-love had taken the veil on the false report of his death, and “think she blessed him in her prayer when the hallelujah rose”; and followed Charlemagne in his Spanish raid, till “he fell and wished to fall” at Boncesvalles. The second, how Durandarté, dying in the fatal pass, sent his last message to his mistress by his cousin Montesinos. In those days I never could hear the last lines without feeling gulpy in the throat:--

Kind in manners, fair in favour,

Mild in temper, fierce in fight,--

Warrior purer, gentler, braver,

Never shall behold the light.

They may not be good poetry, but Monk Lewis, the author, never wrote any others as good. Then Lockhart’s _Spanish Ballads_ were given me, and in one of the best of those stirring rhymes, Bernardo del Carpio’s bearding of his King, I read--

The life of King Alphonso I saved at Roncesval,

Your word, Lord King, was recompense abundant for it all;

Your horse was down, your hope was flown; I saw the falchion

shine

That soon had drunk thy royal blood had I not ventured mine, etc.

Then, a little later, a family friend who had been an ensign in the Light Division in July 1813, used to make our boyish pulses dance with his tales of the week’s fighting in and round Roncesvalles, when Soult was driven over the Pyrenees and Spain was freed. And again, later, came the tale of Taillefer, the Conqueror’s minstrel, riding before the line at the battle of Hastings, tossing his sword in the air, and chanting the “Song of Roland,” and of the “Peers who fell at Roncesvalles.” So you will believe, sir, that my first thought when I got to Biarritz, with the Pyrenees in full view less than twenty miles off, was, “Now I shall see the pass where Charlemagne’s peers, and five hundred British soldiers as brave as any paladin of them all, had fought and died.” The holidays galloped, and one day only was left, when at our morning conference I found that my companions were bent on Fontarabia and San Sebastian, and assured me we could combine the three, as Roncesvalles, they heard, was close to Fontarabia. Then my faith in Sir Walter--combined, I fear, with my defective training in geography--led me astray, for had he not written in the battle-canto of Marmion:--

Oh, for one blast of that dread horn,

On Fontarabian echoes borne,

That to King Charles did come,

When Roland brave, and Oliver,

And every Paladin and Peer,

At Roncesvalles died, etc.

Now, of course, if Charlemagne could hear the horn of Roland on the top of the pass where he turned back, “borne on Fontarabian echoes,” then Fontarabia must be at the foot of the pass, where Roland and the rear-guard were surrounded and fighting for their lives. In a weak moment I agreed to Fontarabia and San Sebastian, and so shall most likely never see Roncesvalles. It is fourteen miles distant as the crow flies, or thereabouts; and I warn your readers that the three can’t be done in one long day from Biarritz.

However, I am bound to admit that Fontarabia and San Sebastian make a most interesting day’s work. I had never been in Spain before, and so was well on the alert when a fellow-passenger, as we slowed on approaching the station, pointed across the sands below us and said, “There’s Fontarabia!” There, perhaps two miles off, lay a small gray town on a low hill with castle and church at the top, and gateway and dilapidated walls on the side towards*us, looking as though it might have gone off to sleep in the seventeenth century--a really curious contrast to bustling Biarritz from which we had just come. We went down to the ferry and took a punt to cross the river, which threaded the broad sands left by the tide. It was full ebb; so our man had to take us a long round, giving us welcome time for the view, which, when the tide is up, must be glorious. Our bare-footed boatman, though Basque or Spaniard, was quite “up to date,” and handled his punt pole in a style which would make him a formidable rival of the Oxford watermen in the punt race by Christ Church meadow, which, I suppose, is still held at the end of the summer term. A narrow, rough causeway led us from the landing-place to the town-gate in the old wall, where an artist who had joined the party was so taken with the view up the main street that he sat down at once to about as difficult a sketch as he will meet in a year’s rambles. For from the gateway the main street runs straight up the hill to the ruined castle and church at the top. It is narrow, steep, and there are not two houses alike all the way up. They vary from what must have been palaces of the grandees--with dim coats-of-arms still visible over the doorways, and elaborately carved, deep eaves, almost meeting those of their opposite neighbours across the street--to poor, almost squalid houses, reaching to the second story of their aristocratic neighbours’, but all with deep, overhanging, though uncarved eaves, showing, I take it, how the Spaniard values his shade. Up we went to the church and castle, the ladies looking wistfully into such shops as there were, to find something to buy; but I fancy in vain. Not a tout appeared to offer his services; or a shopkeeper, male or female, to sell us anything. Such of the Fontarabians as we saw looked at us with friendly enough brown eyes, which, however, seemed to say, “Silly souls! Why can’t you stop at home and mind your own business?” Even at the end of our inspection, when we spread our lunch on a broad stone slab near the gate--the tombstone once, I should think, of a paladin--there being no houses of entertainment visible to us, we had almost a difficulty in attracting three or four children and a stray dog to share our relics.

The old castle is of no special interest, though there were a few rusty old iron tubes lying about, said to have once been guns, which I should doubt; and Charles V. is said to have often lived there during his French wars. The church is very interesting, from its strong contrast with those over the border--square, massive, sombre, with no attempt at decoration or ornament round the high brass altars, except here and there a picture, and small square windows quite high up in the walls, through which the quiet, subdued light comes. The pictures, with one exception, were of no interest; but that one exception startled and fascinated me. The subject is the “Mater Dolorosa,” a full-length figure standing, the breast bare, and seven knives plunged in the heart,--a coarse and repulsive painting, but entirely redeemed by the intense expression of the love, the agony, grid the sorely shaken faith which are contending for mastery in the face. The painter must have been suddenly inspired, or some great master must have stepped in to finish the work. San Sebastian does not do after Fontarabia; a fine modern town, with some large churches and a big new bull-ring, but of little interest except for the fort which dominates the town on the sea-front. How that fort was stormed, after one repulse and a long siege of sixty-three days; how, in the two assaults and siege, more than four thousand gallant soldiers of the British and allied army fell; and the fearful story of the sack and burning of the old town by the maddened soldiers, is to me almost the saddest episode in our military history. I was glad when we had made our cursory inspection and got back to the station on our return to Biarritz. That brightest and most bustling of health resorts was our head-quarters, and I should think for young English folk must be about the most enjoyable above ground. I knew that it was becoming a formidable rival of the Riviera for spring quarters, but was not at all prepared for the facts. Almost the first thing I saw was a group of young Englishmen in faultless breeches and gaiters, just come back from a meet of the pack of hounds; next came along some fine strapping girls in walking costume, bent, I should think, on exploring the neighbouring battlegrounds; next, men and youths in flannels, bound for the golf links, where a handicap is going on (I wonder what a French caddie is like?); then I heard of, but did not see, the start of the English coach for Pau (it runs daily); and then youths on bicycles, unmistakable Britons,--though the French youth have taken kindly, I hear, to this pastime. There are four gigantic hotels at which friends told me that nothing is heard but English at their _tables d’hôte_; and in the quiet and excellent small “Hôtel de Bayonne,” at which we stayed, having heard that it was a favourite with the French, out of the forty guests or thereabouts, certainly three-fourths were English, and the other one-fourth mostly Americans. On Easter Monday there was a procession of cars, with children in fancy dresses representing the local industries; but the biggest was that over which the Union Jack waved, and a small and dainty damsel sat on the throne surrounded by boys in the orthodox rig of a man-of-war’s-man and Tommy Atkins. In fact, a vast stream of very solvent English seem to have fairly stormed and occupied the place, to the great delight of the native car-drivers and shopkeepers; and so grotesque was it that Byron’s cynical doggerel kept sounding in my head as, at any rate, appropriate to Biarritz:

The world is a bundle of hay,

Mankind are the asses that pull;

Each tugs in a different way,

And the greatest of all is John Bull.

But, apart from all the high jinks and festive goings-on, there is one spot in Biarritz which may well prove a magnet to us, and before which we should stand with uncovered heads and sorrowfully proud hearts; and that is the fine porch of the English church. One whole side of it is filled by a tablet, at the head of which one reads: “_Pristinæ virtutis memor_. This porch, dedicated to the memory of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the British army, who fell in the south-west of France from 7th October 1813 to 14th April 1814, was erected by their fellow-soldiers and compatriots, 1882.” Then come the names of forty-eight Line regiments, and the German Legion, followed in each case by the death-roll, the officers’ names given in full. Let me end with a few examples. The 42nd lost ten officers--two at Nive, one at Orthez, and seven at Toulouse; the 43rd--five at Nivelle and Bayonne; the 57th--six at Nivelle and Nive; the 79th--five at Toulouse, of whom three bore the name of Cameron; the 95th--six at the Bidassoa, Nivelle, and Nive. Such a record, I think, brings home to one even more vividly than Napier’s pages the cost to England of her share in the uprising of Europe against Napoleon; and it only covers six months of a seven years’ struggle in the Peninsula! At the bottom of the tablet are the simple words:--

Give peace in our time, oh Lord!

Echoes from Auvergne, La Bourboule, 2nd July 1893.

We had heard through telegrams and short paragraphs in the French papers of the sinking of the _Victoria_ before the _Spectator_ of 1st July came to us here, in these far-away highlands of Auvergne; but yours was the first trustworthy account in any detail which reached us. I am sure that others must have felt as thankful to you as I did, for your word was worthy the occasion, and told as it should be told, one of the stories which ennoble a nation, and remain a [Greek phrase] for all time. The lonely figure on the bridge is truly, as you say, a subject for a great pictorial artist, and belongs “rather to the poet than the journalist”; and one trusts that Sir George Tryon’s may stand out hereafter in worthy verse as one of “the few clarion names” in our annals. But it was surely the noble steadfastness of all, from admiral to stoker, which has once more given us all “that leap of heart whereby a people rise” to a keener consciousness of the meaning of national life. I think one feels it even more out here amongst strangers than one would have felt it at home, and can give God thanks that the old ideal has come out again in the sinking of the _Victoria_ as it did in that of the _Birkenhead_ forty years ago, when the ship’s boats took off all the women and children, and the big ship went down at last “still under steadfast men.”

Those are, as you know, the words of Sir Francis Doyle, who gave voice to the mixed anguish and triumph of the nation in worthy verse. I heard the great story from the lips of one of the simplest of men, Colonel Wright, who as a subaltern had formed the men up on the deck of the _Birkenhead_ under Colonel Seton, and stood at his place on the right of the line when she broke in two. He was entangled for some moments in the sinking wreck, but managed to free himself, and, being a famous swimmer, rose to the surface, and struck out for the shore amongst a number of the men. It must have been one of the most trying half hours that men ever went through; for, as they swam and cheered one another, now and again a comrade would suddenly disappear, and they knew that one of the huge sharks they had seen from the deck, passing backwards and forwards under the doomed ship, was amongst them. When they had all but reached the shore the man who swam by Wright’s side was taken. When I heard the tale he was Assistant-Inspector of Volunteers under Colonel M’Murdo, and going faithfully through his daily work. Strange to say, neither Horse Guards nor War Office had taken any note of that unique deck-parade and swim for life, and Ensign Wright had risen slowly to be Major and Sub-Inspector of Volunteers. Stranger still, he seemed to think it all right, and there was no trace of resentment or jealousy in his plain statement of the facts--which, indeed, I had to draw out by cross-questioning on our march from the Regent’s Park to our headquarters in Bloomsbury. I was so moved by the story that I wrote it all to Mr. Cardwell, then at the War Office, and had the pleasure of seeing Major Wright’s name in the next _Gazette_ amongst the new C.B.’s.

Well, well! It does one good now and then to breathe for a little in a rarer and nobler atmosphere than that of everyday, into which we must after all sink, and live there for nine-tenths of our time,--like the old fish-wife, Mucklebackit, going back to mending the old nets and chaffering over the price of herrings which have been bought by men’s lives. And here we have great placards just out, announcing “Fêtes de jour et de nuit,” with donkey-races and all manner of games, and fireworks, including an “embrasement général,” whatever that may forebode. “This life would be quite endurable but for its amusements,” said Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, a wise man and excellent Minister of the Crown.

Our first Sunday at La Bourboule has been edifying from the Sabbatarian point of view, and I shouldn’t wonder if the good little parson who is taking the duty here during the bathing-season holds it up to us for instruction next Sunday, if he can get a room for service, and a congregation. There is no English church, and from what I hear not much prospect of an arrangement for joint worship in the French Protestant church, which was almost concluded, being carried out. Unfortunately, a succession of young Ritualists have managed to alarm the French Protestant pastor and his small flock, by treating them as Dissenters, and making friends ostentatiously with the Roman Catholic priests. However, happily the present incumbent (or whatever he should be called) is a sensible moderately broad Churchman, who it may be hoped will bring things straight again. But to return to my Sabbatarian story. An English lady fond of equestrian exercise hired horses for herself and a friend, and invited the able and pleasant young Irishman who doctors us all, and is also churchwarden, to accompany them for a ride in these lovely mountains. They started from this hotel, and, as it happened, just as the parson was coming by; so, not being quite easy in their consciences (I suppose), asked him if he saw any harm in it. To this he replied, sensibly enough, that it was their fight, not his; and if they saw none, he had nothing to say. So off they rode, meaning certainly to be back by 8 P.M. for supper. I was about till nearly nine, when they had not turned up; and next morning I heard the conclusion of the whole matter. The doctor’s horse cast a shoe, and had to be led home, limping slightly; while the lady’s horse came back dead-lame, and her companion’s steed with both knees broken! Judging by the unmistakable talent of these good Bourboulais for appreciating the value to their guests of their water and other possessions, I should say that this Sunday ride will prove a costly indulgence to the excursionists.

La Bourboule, 10th July 1893.

Currency questions are surely amongst the things “which no fellow can understand,”--a truth for which. I think, sir, I may even claim you as a witness, after reading your cautious handling of the silver question in recent numbers. But so far as my experience goes, there are no questions as to which it is more difficult to shake convictions than those which have been arrived at by unscientific persons. For instance, in this very charming health-resort, the authorities at the Établissement des Bains, where one buys bath-tickets, are under the delusion that 20 fr. (French money) are the proper equivalent for the English sovereign. On my first purchase of six tickets, amounting to 15 fr. (each bath costs 2 fr. 50 c., or 50 c. more than at Royat), the otherwise intelligent person who presided at the _caisse d’établissement_, tendered me a single 5 fr. piece; and on my calling his attention to the mistake, as I supposed it to be, and demanding a second 5 fr., calmly informed me that 20 fr. was the change they always gave, and he could give no other. Whereupon, I carried off my sovereign in high dudgeon, and--there being neither bank nor money-changer’s office in this place, though more than twenty large hotels!--applied to two of the larger shops only to find the same delusion in force. In short, I only succeeded in getting 25 fr. in exchange for my sovereign as a favour from our kind hostess at this hotel. Wherefore, as I hear that a great crowd of English are looked for next month, I should like to warn them to bring French money with them. This experience reminded me of a good story which I heard Thackeray tell thirty years ago. (If it is in _The Kicklebury’s on the Rhine_, or printed elsewhere, you will suppress it). Either he himself or a friend, I forget which, changed a sovereign on landing in Holland, put the change in one particular pocket, and on crossing each frontier on his way to the South of Italy, before that country or Germany had been consolidated, again exchanged the contents of that pocket for the current coin of the Kingdom, Duchy, or Republic he was entering. On turning out the contents at Naples he found them equivalent to something under 5s. of English money.

Before I forget it, let me modify what I said last week as to the ecclesiastical position of the Protestants here.

The Anglicans are now represented by the “Colonial and Continental Society.” They sent a clergyman, who has managed so well that we are now on excellent terms with our French Protestant brethren, though we have as yet no joint place of worship. This, however, both congregations hope to secure shortly,--indeed, as soon as they can collect £400, half of which is already in hand. Then the municipality, or the “Compagnie d’Établissement des Bains,” I am not sure which, give a site, and another £400, which will be enough to pay for a small church sufficient for the present congregations. These will hold the building in common, and, let us hope, will adjust the hours for the services amicably. At present, the French Protestants worship in the _buvette_, where we all drink our waters; and we Anglicans in an annex of the establishment--a large room devoted during the week to Punch and Judy and the marionettes. This rather scandalises some of our compatriots; I cannot for the life of me see why. Indeed, it seems to me a very healthy lesson to most of us, who are accustomed to the ritual which prevails in so many of our restored, or recently built, English churches,--the lesson which Jacob learnt on his flight from his father’s tents, when he slept in the desert with a stone for pillow, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” Our congregation yesterday was something over thirty. I believe it rises to one hundred, or more, next month. The service was thoroughly hearty, and I really think every one must have come meaning to say their prayers. I felt a slight qualm as to how we should get on with the singing, and could not think why the parson should choose about the longest hymn in the book, for there was no organ, harmonium, or other musical instrument, and no apparent singing-men or singing-women. However, my qualms vanished when our pastor led off with a well-trained tenor voice which put us all at our ease.

The rest of our Sunday was by no means so successful, for the _fête du jour et du soir_ began soon after our 11 A.M. _déjeûner_, and lasted till about 10 P.M., when the lights in most of the paper-lanterns had burnt out, and people had gone home from the Casino and the promenade to their hotels or lodgings. I am old-fashioned enough to like a quiet Sunday; but here, when the place is _en fête_, that is out of the question,--at any rate, if you are a guest at one of the hotels which, as they almost all do, faces on the “Avenue Gueneau de Mussy.” That name will probably remind some of your readers of the able and popular doctor of the Orleans family, who accompanied their exile, lived in England during the Empire in Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, and was popular in London society. After 1870 he returned to France, and, it seems, rediscovered these waters, or, at any rate, made them the fashionable resort of patients in need of arsenical treatment. In gratitude, his name has been given to this main avenue of La Bourboule, which runs the whole length of the town, parallel to the River Dordogne, which comes rushing down the valley from Mont Dore at a pace which I have never seen water attain except in the rapids below Niagara, in which that strongest and rashest of swimmers, Captain Webb, lost his life. The Avenue, though parallel with, is some fifty yards from the river, and the intervening space is planted with rows of trees, under which many donkeys and hacks stand for the convenience of visitors. The opposite bank of the Dordogne, which is crossed by two bridges, rises abruptly, and is crowned by the two rival casinos, with the most imposing hotel of the place between them, where (I am told) you pay 5 fr. a day extra for the convenience of the only lift in La Bourboule! The fête of last Sunday was given by the old Casino, and commenced directly after _déjeûner_ with a gathering in the rooms and in front of the Casino on the terrace, where the guests sat at small tables consuming black coffee, absinthe, and other drinks, and strolling now and then into the billiard-room, or the room in which the _jeu aux petits chevaux_, and some other game of chance which I did not recognise, were in full swing. There is an inner room where baccarat and roulette are going on, supposed to be only open to tickets bought from the^ authorities, but which a young Englishman, my neighbour at the _table d’hôte_, tells me he found no difficulty in entering without a ticket. The rest of the fête, consisting chiefly of donkey-races, climbing greasy poles, and fishing half-francs out of meal tubs with the mouth, came off in a small park and plateau on the hillside above the Casino.

I used to enjoy donkey-races as a boy, when at our country feasts each boy rode his neighbour’s donkey, and the last past the post was the winner, and should probably have gone up the hill to witness a French race, but that I found that here each boy rides his own donkey, and the first past the post wins. This takes all the fun out of the race, so I abstained. There were a few second-rate fireworks after dark, and the Casino and most of the hotels were prettily lighted, and the trees hung with yellow paper lanterns which looked like big oranges, but to the Englishman, more or less accustomed to the great Brock’s performances, the illumination business was very flat.

Comité des Fêtes. 17th July 1893.