This Is Especially The Case With A Really
Beautiful _Grande Salle_, Where, Surrdunded With The
Most Expensive Upholstery, The Mayor Holds His Official
Receptions.
(So at least, said my worthy portress.)
The mayors of La Rochelle appear to have changed a
good deal since the days of the grim Guiton; but
these evidences of municipal splendor are interesting
for the light they throw on French manners.
Imagine
the mayor of an English or an American town of
twenty thousand inhabitants holding magisterial soirees
in the town-hall! The said _grande salle_, which is un-
changed in form and its larger features, is, I believe,
the room in which the Rochelais debated as to whether
they should shut themselves up, and decided in the
affirmative. The table and chair of Jean Guiton have
been restored, Iike everything else, and are very
elegant and coquettish pieces of furniture, - incongruous
relics of a season of starvation and blood. I believe
that Protestantism is somewhat shrunken to-day at La
Rochelle, and has taken refuge mainly in. the _haute
societe_ and in a single place of worship. There was
nothing particular to remind me of its supposed austerity
as, after leaving the hotel de ville, I walked along the
empty portions and cut out of the Tour de l'Horloge,
which I have already mentioned. If I stopped and
looked up at this venerable monument, it was not to
ascertain the hour, for I foresaw that I should have
more time at La Rochelle than I knew what to do
with; but because its high, gray, weather-beaten face
was an obvious subject for a sketch.
The little port, which has two basins, and is ac-
cessible only to vessels of light tonnage, had a certain
gayety and as much local color as you please. Fisher
folk of pictuesque type were strolling about, most
of them Bretons; several of the men with handsome,
simple faces, not at all brutal, and with a splendid
brownness, - the golden-brown color, on cheek and
beard, that you see on an old Venetian sail. It was
a squally, showery day, with sudden drizzles of sun-
shine; rows of rich-toned fishing-smacks were drawn
up along the quays. The harbor is effective to the
eye by reason of three battered old towers which, at
different points, overhang it and look infinitely weather-
washed and sea-silvered. The most striking of these,
the Tour de la Lanterne, is a big gray mass, of the
fifteenth century, flanked with turrets and crowned
with a Gothic steeple. I found it was called by the
people of the place the Tour des Quatre Sergents,
though I know not what connection it has with the
touching history of the four young sergeants of the
garrison of La Rochelle, who were arrested in 1821
as conspirators against the Government of the Bour-
bons, and executed, amid general indignation, in Paris
in the following year. The quaint little walk, with
its label of Rue sur les Murs, to which one ascends
from beside the Grosse Horloge, leads to this curious
Tour de la Lanterne and passes under it.
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