The Boulders Are Some Of Them Upright And
Dead Like Monolithic Castles, Some Of Them Prone Like Sleeping
Cattle.
The junipers - looking, in their soiled and ragged
mourning, like some funeral procession that has gone seeking the
place
Of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and rain -
are daubed in forcibly against the glowing ferns and heather.
Every tassel of their rusty foliage is defined with pre-Raphaelite
minuteness. And a sorry figure they make out there in the sun,
like misbegotten yew-trees! The scene is all pitched in a key of
colour so peculiar, and lit up with such a discharge of violent
sunlight, as a man might live fifty years in England and not see.
Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a song, words of Ronsard
to a pathetic tremulous air, of how the poet loved his mistress
long ago, and pressed on her the flight of time, and told her how
white and quiet the dead lay under the stones, and how the boat
dipped and pitched as the shades embarked for the passionless land.
Yet a little while, sang the poet, and there shall be no more love;
only to sit and remember loves that might have been. There is a
falling flourish in the air that remains in the memory and comes
back in incongruous places, on the seat of hansoms or in the warm
bed at night, with something of a forest savour.
'You can get up now,' says the painter; 'I'm at the background.'
And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your way into the
wood, the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and the shadows
stretching farther into the open. A cool air comes along the
highways, and the scents awaken. The fir-trees breathe abroad
their ozone. Out of unknown thickets comes forth the soft, secret,
aromatic odour of the woods, not like a smell of the free heaven,
but as though court ladies, who had known these paths in ages long
gone by, still walked in the summer evenings, and shed from their
brocades a breath of musk or bergamot upon the woodland winds. One
side of the long avenues is still kindled with the sun, the other
is plunged in transparent shadow. Over the trees the west begins
to burn like a furnace; and the painters gather up their chattels,
and go down, by avenue or footpath, to the plain.
A PLEASURE-PARTY
As this excursion is a matter of some length, and, moreover, we go
in force, we have set aside our usual vehicle, the pony-cart, and
ordered a large wagonette from Lejosne's. It has been waiting for
near an hour, while one went to pack a knapsack, and t'other
hurried over his toilette and coffee; but now it is filled from end
to end with merry folk in summer attire, the coachman cracks his
whip, and amid much applause from round the inn door off we rattle
at a spanking trot. The way lies through the forest, up hill and
down dale, and by beech and pine wood, in the cheerful morning
sunshine. The English get down at all the ascents and walk on
ahead for exercise; the French are mightily entertained at this,
and keep coyly underneath the tilt. As we go we carry with us a
pleasant noise of laughter and light speech, and some one will be
always breaking out into a bar or two of opera bouffe. Before we
get to the Route Ronde here comes Desprez, the colourman from
Fontainebleau, trudging across on his weekly peddle with a case of
merchandise; and it is 'Desprez, leave me some malachite green';
'Desprez, leave me so much canvas'; 'Desprez, leave me this, or
leave me that'; M. Desprez standing the while in the sunlight with
grave face and many salutations. The next interruption is more
important. For some time back we have had the sound of cannon in
our ears; and now, a little past Franchard, we find a mounted
trooper holding a led horse, who brings the wagonette to a stand.
The artillery is practising in the Quadrilateral, it appears;
passage along the Route Ronde formally interdicted for the moment.
There is nothing for it but to draw up at the glaring cross-roads
and get down to make fun with the notorious Cocardon, the most
ungainly and ill-bred dog of all the ungainly and ill-bred dogs of
Barbizon, or clamber about the sandy banks. And meanwhile the
doctor, with sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal beard, is
busy wheedling and (for aught the rest of us know) bribing the too
facile sentry. His speech is smooth and dulcet, his manner
dignified and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the Doctor
has voyaged all the world over, and speaks all languages from
French to Patagonian. He has not come borne from perilous journeys
to be thwarted by a corporal of horse. And so we soon see the
soldier's mouth relax, and his shoulders imitate a relenting heart.
'En voiture, Messieurs, Mesdames,' sings the Doctor; and on we go
again at a good round pace, for black care follows hard after us,
and discretion prevails not a little over valour in some timorous
spirits of the party. At any moment we may meet the sergeant, who
will send us back. At any moment we may encounter a flying shell,
which will send us somewhere farther off than Grez.
Grez - for that is our destination - has been highly recommended for
its beauty. 'Il y a de l'eau,' people have said, with an emphasis,
as if that settled the question, which, for a French mind, I am
rather led to think it does. And Grez, when we get there, is
indeed a place worthy of some praise. It lies out of the forest, a
cluster of houses, with an old bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a
quaint old church.
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