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
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 Tarn at
Pont de Montvert of bloody memory.
PONT DE MONTVERT
One of the first things I encountered in Pont de Montvert was, if I
remember rightly, the Protestant 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 the 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 Langogne, 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 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, questioned
and answered me with a degree of intelligence which excelled all that I
had met, except among the railway folk at Chasserades. 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 Monastier, and there but one. Now of the three who
sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly not beautiful - a poor timid
thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring table d'hote, whom I
squired and helped to wine, and pledged and tried generally to encourage,
with quite a contrary 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 grey 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
sentiment. 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 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
embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her great
eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion. If 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 perhaps grow better
as she gets up in years.
Pont de Montvert, 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 Covenanters slew their Archbishop
Sharp. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile enthusiasm on the
other, are almost equally difficult to understand in these quiet modern
days, and 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
possessed 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. Stalwart 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 unsurpassed in violence had lasted near a
score of years, and this was the result upon the persecuted; hanging,
burning, breaking on the wheel, had been in vain; the dragoons had left
their hoof-marks over all the countryside; 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 persecution - after Lamoignon de
Bavile - Francois de Langlade du Chayla (pronounce Cheila), Archpriest of
the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions in the same country, had a house
in which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Montvert.
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