Elizabeth Robins Pennell

“ I remember speculating on the chance of shelter there, if at the eleventh hour the hotel failed us. And then we were shut out by the sacristan, to wander again [66] through narrow, twisting streets; through brighter, livelier thoroughfares, the shops open, citizens and peasants laughing and talking; and so back to the Place, roofs and towers now but a black shadow on the dark blue of the evening sky; and at last to the hotel, where the good waiter met us with smiles.—A room at last! ”

“ From Moulins to La Palisse, and indeed to La Pacaudière, we saw not one. Instead there was a rich green meadowland, or a desolate plain, with here and there a lonely pool. Under the hedges women knit as they watched their pigs. [190] Donkey-carts rattled by, huge hay-carts lumbered along at snail’s pace, and from the fields came voices of peasants at work.—“Sacred name of Thomas!” we heard one call to his oxen.—Now and then the Allier, with its poplars, showed itself in the distance. Far in front were low green hills, and beyond them rose the pale blue range of the Cevennes. ”

“ Everything was a pleasure, from the clouds chasing each other lazily above the Loire and occasionally uncovering the sun, showing us how hot the day might be, to the old women and little girls in blue skirts and sabots, each watching one cow or a couple of white turkeys or geese, whom we met at intervals all day long; from the seemingly endless kilometres of level white road between poplars to the too short down-grade between vineyards into Pouilly. ”

“ TO those who call vexations vexations, as knowing what they are, there could not be a greater than to be the best part of a day at Lyons, the most opulent and flourishing city in France. It has an old cathedral, a castle on a hillside, ruins if I be not mistaken, two rivers, and I know not what besides. Baedeker devotes pages to it. Moreover, there is associated with it a story, that, to quote Mr. Tristram Shandy, who tells it, affords more pabulum to the brain than all the Frusts and Crusts and Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it. ”

“ We had thought to find a true artists’ inn, like certain Venetian and Florentine dens we knew of;—we had come instead to a show for the tourist.—And indeed all Barbizon, with its picture galleries and studios to let, and posing peasants, seemed no better than a convenient stopping-place, to which drivers from Fontainebleau could bring travellers, and allow them to spend their francs for the benefit of Barbizonians.—Thus, from Millet’s misery the people have reaped a golden harvest. ”

“ But if beggars sent in their claims, we could at least find in them the occasion of the first public act of our charity in France. Beggars, after a fashion, we did meet; for at once an old woman—a poor tattered soul—begged we would let her grandson Jules show us the way to a restaurant; and next a hatless man followed us around the Place to implore a visit to his hotel, where his wife could “spik Inglis”—a sound perhaps as worth money as the “My Lord Angolis” that won Mr. Sterne’s last sous. ”

“ Sterne’s postillion set out in a full gallop that put him out of temper. Instead of galloping, we walked, first refreshing ourselves with groseille, a harmless syrup, in a brand-new café at the end of the village street, the one sign of modern enterprise in Nampont.
After this town, there was no sense of sentimental duty to oppress us, since a little beyond, it Mr. Sterne went to sleep, a sweet lenitive for evils, which Nature does not hold out to the cycler. ”

“ For many miles I walked—and even J—— at times—along the white road, barren of the poplars one always expects in France, over the rolling treeless moors, where we were watched [32] out of sight by gleaners, their white caps and dull blue skirts and sacks in pale relief against a grey blue-streaked sky; and by ploughmen, whose horses, happier than they, ate their dinners as they worked.—Always to the north of the moorland was the grey sea-line, and farther still the white cliffs of England. ”

“ Suggestions as to distances to be ridden, clothes to be worn, and so on, are quite unnecessary, since any one who has toured at all is usually a law unto himself in these matters, and will accept no advice.
But as the roads are the best in the world, the people the most polite, unless a head wind catches him, the tourist should have a delightful time if he keeps to the right of the road, and provides himself with a lamp and a bell. ”

“ One led us to a blank wall, another to a stone pile; and when we consulted passers-by they sent us back towards the town, and into a broad street running through endless ugly suburbs, and far out of sight of the Rhône.—So much for a fellow-cycler’s directions.
In the open country the national road was bad and full of stones. It is only fair to add that the agent in Lyons had said we should find little good riding between Lyons and Vienne. The wind, tired with its efforts of yesterday, had died away, and it was warm and close on level and hill.—And we were as changed as the country and weather! ”

“ Often enough at Siron’s, as at the Maison Millet, there has been the difficulty of making both ends meet. But at the inn it has been turned into comedy rather than tragedy, and if money has not been forthcoming at once, Siron has been willing to wait, knowing that it would in the end.—Men of other professions, if they lived together in communities, as artists often do, could hardly show so fair a record. For all the talk and definitions of so-called Bohemianism, an artist is never in debt longer than he can help.—It would be fortunate for tradespeople if the same could be said of all men. ”

“ I think it was at Montreuil it first occurred to us that sentiment does not depend upon man’s will alone.—And so we got on our tricycle with no more ease than usual, but less, as the wind came howling over the plain to meet us. ”

“ The ladies and the huntsmen were ushered into the dining-room. The pretty girl in her neat apron carried in the soup, the fish, the cutlets. We could hear a pleasant clattering of plates and the sound of laughter. But still we sat in our humble corner.—Seldom have we felt class distinctions so bitterly. At last the landlady, very warm and red from the kitchen fire, with the baby in her arms, bade us follow her into a large dark room on the farther side of the café-kitchen. ”

“ Experience has taught us that it depends upon the man himself, and not upon his circumstances or surroundings. Nowadays the manner of travelling through France and Italy is by rail, and mostly on Cook’s tickets, and chaises have become a luxury which we at least cannot afford. The only vehicle by which we could follow your wheel-tracks along the old post roads was our tricycle, an ingenious machine of modern invention, endeared to us, because without it Our Sentimental Journey would have been an impossibility. ”

“ WIND, POPLARS, AND PLAINS. THERE is nothing more pleasing to a traveller, or more terrible to travel-writers, than a large rich plain, unless it be a straight white poplar-lined road, good as asphalt. After Amiens, as after Abbeville and Neuchâtel, there was a poplared avenue over a breezy upland to carry us to the next town, that town little more but a new place to start from to the next plain and poplars, and so on. ”

“ But the men of the commune stood around a café door. They assured us, we were on the wrong [224] road, and had come kilometres out of our way, but that all we could do was to go on to a place called Lafayette. There we should find a highway that would eventually lead us into the Route Nationale.—This was not encouraging. It was oppressively hot in the shadeless valley. The road was bad, full of stones and ugly ruts and ridges, and before long degenerated into a mere unused cow-path, overgrown with grass, crossing the fields. We tried to ride; we tried to walk, pushing the machine. ”

“ Therefore, it seemed, it was our looks, and not the tricycle, that shut the door of the café in our faces, and I began to wonder how we should fare in Lyons.—The landlady, with an eye to profit, thought we ate too little, but her daughter understood: it was not good to eat too much in the middle of the day when you were taking exercise. A gentleman on a walking tour once came to their hotel for his midday meal, but would have only bread and cheese. ”

“ The rain, the mud, and the luggage-carrier had it their own way the rest of the afternoon. When we could we rode as if for our lives.—But every now and again we had to stop, that J—— might unlace his boots, take them off, and let the water run out of them. Of course no one was abroad. What sane men would have dared such weather? We met but one small boy driving a big cart in a zig-zag course, particularly aggravating because we were just then on a down-grade. This was the last affront that made the rest unbearable. J—— is not a man patient of injuries. ”

“ There is only one portion of the country which every one who cares for the pleasures of cycling should be advised to avoid, and that is the vast and dreary plain stretching from Paris to Le Mans, and from Rouen to Orléans. In planning a tour through France by routes other than those here given or suggested, Baedeker’s or Murray’s guide-books should be used for general information, supplemented, for road information, by the Géographie Joanne for each department through which one is passing. They can be purchased for 50 centimes, or 1 franc 25 centimes, in every bookshop in France. ”

“ Like Christian, we were tempted to desert the straight course, and, like him, we yielded. We turned out of our sentimental way to see M. Millet’s house for pleasure.—To be strictly truthful, I must add that another good reason for going by Barbizon was the knowledge that the pavé of the national road only comes to an end at Fontainebleau, together with our eagerness to be out of the train and riding again as soon as possible.—By following the Chailly and Barbizon road to the Forest we could have our desire and spare the tricycle. ”

“ In half-an-hour we were uncomfortably conscious that our only dry clothes were in the bag. As misfortunes never come singly, the luggage-carrier loosened and swung around to the left of the backbone. Every few minutes J—— was down in the mud setting it straight again. The water poured in streams from our hats. With each turn of the wheels we were covered with mud.
It was in this condition we rode into the streets of Neuilly. Men and women came to their doors and laughed as we passed.—This decided us. There is nothing that chills sentiment as quickly as a drenching and ridicule. ”

“ The road crossed the Loire, and went straight through the valley to the Cevennes.—The peasants we met were blown about by the wind, turning their backs to each strong gust, that almost blinded them, but drove us on the faster.—At the very foot of Mt. Tarare, closed in with high hills, was an old posting village, with four or five large hotels falling to ruin. It was hereabouts a shoe came loose from the fore-foot of Mr. Sterne’s thill-horse. But we met with no accident, nor, for the sake of sentiment, could we invent one.—The road began to go over the mountain ”

“ It is for just such happy intervals the cycler braves wild winds and high hills. The day, it is true, was from beginning to end uneventful. [90] But we had not looked or hoped for adventures.—Of his journey between Amiens and Paris our Master says not a word. Mr. Tristram Shandy recalls his but to regret that he was then prevented, by troublesome postillions, from gratifying his kindly propensity to sleep. Therefore we felt, that to-day at least, we had no sentimental shortcomings with which to reproach ourselves. ”

“ The thought that, if these hills went on, I might really have to walk half-way to Italy almost brought sentiment to an end.——
“Boulogne! and ’tis but half-past three. We’ll go on,” said J——.
—As we did not even enter the town, I cannot of my own knowledge say if there is anything in it worth seeing. But from the outside we learned that it has a picturesque old city-gate under the shadow of the dome; that the people are polite, and some of the men wear baggy blue breeches; and that close to the grim grey walls is an unpaved tree-lined boulevard which is very good riding. ”

“ From what we saw in Barbizon, I do not think it improbable that in another generation there will not be an artist in the village, and that Millet will have been forgotten by the villagers.—Though his family still live there, the children of the place seem to know nothing of his greatness. ”

“ However, it will be gratifying to you, who did not despise fame during your lifetime, to know that you are one of the men of that past who have not wholly died.—And again, dear Sir, as it was your invariable custom to borrow the thoughts and words of any writer who particularly pleased you—a custom your enemies have made the most of—we have not hesitated to use any pictures of other men, or any descriptions and expressions in your works, that seemed appropriate to the record of our journey. ”

“ In our simplicity we thought by publishing the story of our journey, we could show the world at large, and perhaps Mr. Ruskin in particular, that the oft-regretted delights of travelling in days of coach and post-chaise, destroyed on the coming of the railroad, were once more to be had by means of tricycle or bicycle. We can only hope that critic and reader are not, like Mr. Ruskin, prepared to spend all their best “bad language” “in reprobation of bi-tri-and-4-5-6 or 7-cycles,” and that the [vi] riding we found so beautiful will not to them, as to him, be but a vain wriggling on wheels. ”

“ But good roads exist all over the south. For instance, from Bordeaux, the road up the Garonne to Toulouse, 250 kilometres, is excellent, though quite flat; but in the summer time it is apt to be very hot, and the surface loose and sandy.
From this road excursions may be made all through the Pyrenees, which can be entered either at Luchon or at Pau. It is preferable, however, when touring through the Pyrenees, to train to St. Gaudens, from which place Bagnières de Luchon (Hotel de France) is 48 kilometres distant. ”

“ If they are not jack-planed and sand-papered, they are at least swept every day. With the pavé, they are the ruin of a good machine and a better temper. And yet, all things considered, France is the cycler’s promised land.
By the time we reached Pont-de-Brique the luggage-carrier hung on by one screw. Fortunately we found a carpenter in a café, and he and J——went to work.—In the meantime I saw, under the shade of a clump of trees, a green cart with windows and chimney, a horse grazing near by, and a man and woman sitting in front of a fire kindled on the grass. ”

“ To the north and east of Paris some good riding is to be had, and the scenery is almost always delightful, but there is a vast amount of pavé. This may be usually avoided by taking to the byroads, information about which, now that cycling has become so popular, can often be had from cycle agents, or efficient repairers, who are to be found in every town. ”

“ There was Airon, where a large party of gleaners, old and [58] young men, women, boys, and girls, sitting by the wayside, jumped up of one accord and walked with us up the hill. And then came Nouvion, where we saw a fine old rambling yellow farm-house, over whose disreputably tilted front-door peered two grotesque heads, and where we had coffee in the village inn, sitting on the one dry spot in the flooded floor, and just escaping the mops and buckets of two women who had raised the deluge. ”

“ THE BOURBONNAIS. THE next morning when we awoke it was pouring; but, the shower moderating into a drizzle, we made an early start after breakfast.—Monsieur, the landlord, was distressed when he saw both lamp and little wheel tied on with pink string. He hoped the velocipede had not been injured in his stables.—Madame, in white cap and blue ribbons, with her babies at her side, was so sorry for me when she heard we were to ride all the way to Moulins that day—fifty-three kilometres, Mon Dieu! ”

“ The fairest promise of good roads, enchanting country, and picturesque towns could not have turned us a hair’s breadth from the route we had settled upon. The fact is, the question was one of sentiment, and at that stage of our enthusiasm where sentiment was concerned we were inflexible.—Mr. Sterne, on his way to Amiens and Paris, passed by Montreuil. ”