Part 19 (1/2)

It seemed they had been attending a conference about agriculture. They were all agreed as to the existence of 'an agricultural crisis,' but beyond that they seemed to be at sea. One councillor was quite sure that the thing to be done was to get the farmers to use cattle instead of horses in their work. The cattle cost less, worked as well, and they could be killed for beef. They were also more valuable as fertilisers.

Upon this another councillor, apparently the only agriculturist of the company, went into a disquisition on chemical fertilisers and the scientific applications of them.

'I never believed in these chemicals,' he said, 'till last year. But last year I was in my fields, talking with my neighbour So-and-so, who has spent I know not how much on these chemicals. He went away with his men after a while, and I saw they had been applying their chemicals to a field sown like mine. An idea occurred to me. I went and brought a basket. I stepped across into their field and took a certain quant.i.ty of their chemicals. These I applied in a particular part of my field. Do you know the plants came up there wonderfully--but really quite wonderfully! There is no doubt there is a good deal in these chemicals!

But one should test them first!'

After dinner we sate out in front of the little inn for a time with our coffee. There was a good deal of coming and going, a tremendous clattering about of children in little wooden _sabots_, and much good-natured 'chaff' between the people of the inn, who came out to take the air after their day's work, and the pa.s.sers-by. There seems to be little in the peasants here of that positive _morgue_, not to say arrogance, which marks the demeanour of their cla.s.s in the western parts of France. There are regions in Brittany where the carriage of the peasants towards the 'bourgeois' gives reality and zest to the old story of the _ci-devant_ n.o.ble who called a particularly insolent varlet to order in the days of the first Revolution by saying to him: 'Nay, friend, you will be good enough to remember that we are living in a republic, and that I am your equal!'

There was the most perfect civility and amiableness even in the interchange of not very delicate pleasantries between the people at Coucy. 'Don't go too near the butcher's shop!' called out one of the ostlers to a man with whom he had been talking as the latter drove off in his cart. 'Ah! you won't eat me, if I do,' the other replied; 'it would cost you too much!' An old farmer who sate sipping his _pet.i.t verre_ near me, explained to me that the man was a resident of Barisis, a little village not very far off, the dwellers in which from time immemorial have been known as 'the pigs of Barisis.' 'Try and pick up a husband on the way,' another of the stable lads called out after a pretty girl who paused with a companion, as she went by the place, to chat with him--'try and pick up a husband on the way and we'll keep the wedding feast here!' 'Ah bah!' the damsel rejoined in a merry voice, 'more marryers come your way than ours. Tie up the first one that comes and keep him for me!' This quickness to catch and return the ball certainly shows a greater natural or acquired alertness of mind among these Picard peasants than is commonly found in people of the same condition in rural England.

The country all the way from Coucy to Laon is one continuous garden, and Laon itself is pre-eminently a city set on a hill. The Chateau de Coucy stands upon its pinnacle of rock, like a knight in armour, with folded arms, looking loftily down upon the world, conscious of his strength, and calmly awaiting attack. The fortress-city of Laon, a fortress from the earliest Roman days, looks out from the promontory on which it stands, over the wide expanse of plain beyond and around it, like an advanced sentinel, watchful and alert.

You go up to it by long flights of steps, as in the case of so many high-perched Italian towns, and the fine winding carriage-way which has been constructed around the hill, commands, from beneath the beautiful trees by which it is shaded, a series of the finest imaginable views. It has suffered much, of course, from war, and not a little from the revolutionists. But its magnificent cathedral and the ancient palace of the bishop-dukes, now occupied by the courts of justice, have fared better than many other monuments. For some time past, however, the cathedral has been undergoing repairs, which is as much as to say that the interior is practically hidden from the eye by a maze of scaffolds and h.o.a.rdings and ladders. Mr. Ruskin somewhere complains, not wholly without reason, that 'the French are always doing something to their cathedrals,' and the complaint is in order now both as to Laon and as to Nantes. No one can tell when the fine rec.u.mbent statue of Raoul de Coucy, who fell at Mansourah by the side of St.-Louis, will again be visible at Laon, or the matchless tomb of the d.u.c.h.esse Anne at Nantes.

Here, as in the region around Chauny and Coucy, I was struck with the extreme good-nature and simplicity of the people. Through the narrow, old-fas.h.i.+oned streets went the town-crier with his bell, calling 'Attention! attention! attention!' announcing an auction sale of furniture after the old custom which existed in some old American towns quite down to the middle of the present century.

The people were at their trades in the street, as in the Italian towns, shoemakers hammering at their lasts, ironworkers banging and thumping away. When I had found the house of a gentleman whom I wished to see, in the beautiful old cathedral close, and had rung in vain a dozen times at the bell, a courteous pa.s.ser-by paused, and asked me if I wished to find M.----. 'Eh!' he said, 'the house is shut up because he is in the country for the day. I think he will be here to-morrow; but if you will come with me I will show you a little inn not far from here where I know you will find his coachman, who can tell you exactly when he will return.'

How long would a stranger have to ring at the door of a house in an English cathedral town before it would occur to anybody pa.s.sing to stop and thus enlighten him?

With all their kindness and good-nature, however, the people of Laon are not lukewarm in politics. I found a hairdresser, the local Figaro, a raging Boulangist. 'He had served in Tonkin; he had seen, with his own eyes seen the soldiers robbed and starved and left to die. He had seen, with his own eyes seen the Government people taking huge ”wine-pots”

from the natives. It was _infecte_! And the governor Richaud, whom they called back to France because he wished to expose the way in which his predecessor had taken thousands of francs and a diamond belt from the king of Cambodia, Norodom. I had surely heard of that?'

I certainly had heard of that, for all France rang with the exposure made of it in the Chamber of Deputies--that is to say, all France rang with it for a couple of days.

'Yes! that is true. Paris forgets everything in a day, and Monsieur is speaking of Paris; but here in Laon we do not forget; Monsieur will see.

Was it natural, I ask, Monsieur, that of all the people on board of the s.h.i.+p which was bringing back M. Richaud to France--he, only he, and his valet, his Chinese valet--I ask was it natural only they two should on the ocean have the cholera, and die? Was it natural? And if they died was that a reason why all the effects, all the papers--note that, Monsieur--all the papers of M. Richaud, the papers to prove that corruption exists there in Tonkin, should be thrown overboard, all thrown into the sea? Yes! and on what pretext? To save the rest of the s.h.i.+p from the cholera! Is it transparent, that? No! we must have Boulanger!'

'The light must be let in; we must have the light!'

'Were there many people of Figaro's mind in Laon and in the Department?'

'If there are many? You will see, Monsieur; here in the Aisne we shall elect the greatest friend of General Boulanger. Monsieur does not know him? M. Castelin--Andre Castelin. Ah! he is strong, Castelin! He was in Africa with General Boulanger. He was there with the General when he put his hand on that governor of Tunis, that Cambon, the brother, Monsieur knows, of that Cambon who was a deputy? Castelin saw the General at work in Tunis. He is with him, he will be with him in the new Chamber. We shall elect Castelin, and then--you will see!'

My notes of Figaro's very clear and positive talk in the summer are not without interest to me now when I revise them in the autumn. For Figaro prophesied truly, and the Department of the Aisne certainly did elect M. Andre Castelin to be one of its Deputies at Paris.

Another worthy citizen of Laon with whom I talked in his shop, a shoemaker, while much less confident than Figaro as to the results of the elections, was quite as positive in his hostility to the Government.

It is the tendency of shoemakers all over the world, within my observations, to be extreme Radicals. The shoemakers of Lynn in Ma.s.sachusetts long ago were the advanced guard, I remember, of the Abolitionists. They were the strength of the 'Old Org.--' the 'old organisation'--enemies of slavery, as slavery, without compromise or hesitation. Every man of them was as ready as the Simple Cobbler of Agawam to tackle any problem, terrestrial or celestial, at a moment's notice. It was idle to cite _ne sutor_ to them in matters of art or of politics, of science or of theology. My shoemaker of Laon was less of a fanatic, but not less of a philosopher, than his brethren of Lynn. He was opposed to the Republic, but he was equally opposed to the monarchy.

He had his idea; it was that government must be abolished, and the affairs of the country carried on by committees of experts. He liked the law authorising professional syndicates; there he thought was the germ of the true system. The professional syndicates should nominate the experts, each syndicate the experts in its own business. These should meet, settle the general necessary budget, recommend measures. Then the people, in their communes, should act upon all this. It was his system.

It would be long to develop. He was not a man to write or to speak, but he thought.

As to the present situation he bitterly condemned the Exposition. It was a mistake, for it brought all the world to see the progress of France and to steal the French ideas. It also took too many people to Paris; that was good for the railways. But Proudhon long ago was right; the railways were the new feudal system; they were the enemy more than clericalism. Then see to what corruption this Exposition led. Had I not seen the votes, the credits given to the Ministers for entertaining?

'Ah! it was monstrous!' With this he drew a paper out of his pocket; he had it all there, with the dates and the figures. 'Observe, Monsieur, here, on April 6, the Chamber votes one million of francs--yes, one million of francs to be allowed for dinners, for b.a.l.l.s, for punches, for I know not what, to the Ministers--only to the Ministers! How many are they? Ten! Yes! one hundred thousand francs to each of them for eating and drinking during the famous Exposition! Only there are some who get more, some who get less. That little watchmaker Tirard, they give him 250,000 francs! Did he ever earn 250,000 francs in his life? Never! and will they spend all this money on dinners and punches? No, never in life! It is just simply to pocket a million of the money of the people!'

That the political contest will be sharp in Laon I am a.s.sured by a friend who is thoroughly familiar with the whole machinery of politics in this department of the Aisne. Laon, it seems, is the true headquarters of the freemasonry of this department, and in the Aisne, to use his language, 'the freemasons are the Government.' 'I mean this,' he said, 'in a more extensive sense than you may, perhaps, be disposed to accept. You will find, I think, if the Government secures a majority in the next Chamber, that the Aisne will have a good deal to say in the organisation of the Chamber. Then, perhaps, you will understand the true meaning of that letter of M. Allain-Targe, of which you heard at Chauny.

There is a pretty comedy under it, for M. Allain-Targe, remember, is a freemason!

'It would be very amusing, but we taxpayers have to pay too much for the play. What you were told at Chauny about the freemasons in the department was quite true. Only you did not get the whole of the truth.

Look at the press of the department! You saw at Chauny the building of the local journal there, _La Defense Nationale_'?

Certainly I had seen it, for it is the most conspicuous and the newest edifice in the main street of Chauny, and so glorious with golden letters that I took it for a great insurance office.