Pont-Aven

“ Moreover, the scenery about Pont-aven is pleasing, and it serves as a better headquarters than Concarneau, where the smell of the sardine pickling is offensive, and produces in some stomachic trouble. Pont-aven is picturesquely situated on the Aven, the same name as our Affon, Awne, and Avon, and at the foot of two hills crowned with granite rocks that have been rounded by the action of the weather, which dissolves the silicate of potass in it, when the other matters, mica, felspar, hemblend, and quartz fall away in gravel and sand. ”

“ This is the true Bohemian home at Pont-Aven, where living is even more moderate than at the inns. Here the panels of the rooms are also decorated with works of art, and here, in the evening, and in the morning, seated round a table in the road, dressed in the easy bourgeois fashion of the country, may be seen artists whose names we need not print, but many of whose works are known over the world. The resources of these establishments are elastic, accommodation being afforded, if necessary, for fifty or sixty pensionnaires, by providing beds a few yards off in the village. ”

“ Painters are perhaps fewer here to-day than some years ago, and there are more of the questionable pleasures of society, such as bridge and ping-pong, which is a pity.
Another appendage to the Hotel Julia is found at the St. Nicolas Beach on the coast. St. Nicolas is hardly more than a bathing-place, but it is delightfully empty, and altogether Pont Aven, with its environs, is a charming centre from which to make a week’s, a month’s, or a summer’s excursion.
Of the young girls of Pont Aven, Anatole France has uttered many truthful phrases. ”

“ Pont-Aven being set in a valley between two thickly wooded hills, opening out southwards to the sea, the climate is temperate and favourable to outdoor work. In the centre of the village is a little triangular Place, and at the broad end, facing the sun, is the principal inn, the Hôtel des Voyageurs, which, at the time of writing, has an excellent hostess, who takes pensionnaires for about five francs a day, “tout compris,” and where the living is as good and plentiful as can be desired. ”

“ This charming little town is of itself of great importance, as marking the dividing-line between the dialect of Vannes and that of the western peninsula. There is no great difference to be noted by the casual traveller, since all of the younger population speak the French tongue,—sometimes exclusively,—but there is an unmistakable modification of manners and customs toward the more theatrical aspect which one best sees at Pont Aven, Pont l’Abbé, and the little fishing villages around the Bay of Douarnenez. ”

“ A few miles farther, and the landscape is again bare and uncultivated, we see peasants in the fields at rare intervals; flocks of black and brown sheep feeding on the open land. There is a charm of wildness and a peculiar beauty about the scenery here that we who write for artists should insist upon with all the power of the pen. It is the fashion to stay at Douarnenez and at Pont-Aven, but we have few records of the best scenery in Cornouaille. ”

“ Pont-Aven does not have the right atmosphere for the Frenchman: the Bretons and the English are supreme.
Nothing is more delightful than to spend a summer there. You find yourself in a colony of intelligent men, many of them very clever, as well as pretty young English and American girls, and University students on 'cramming' tours. Picnics and river-parties are organized by the inimitable Mdlle. Julia every day during the summer, and in the evening there is always dancing in the big salon. The hotel is full to overflowing from garret to cellar. Within the last few years Mdlle. ”

“ Yvonne, be governed by one vital consideration. Those two men in the cabin must have caught some glimmer of the truth from your mother's ravings. But they are strangers, and their own troubles may have preoccupied their minds to the exclusion of the affairs of others. The only person in Pont Aven who knows something of my sad history is Madame Pitou. She has been aware all these years that my wife was alive, or at any rate that she was living after I came here. She is certainly to be trusted. Take care that none other learns your mother's identity. ”

“ Scrambling down by chance steep pathways among the shrubs—losing my way more than once by following tracks that led to the edge of some miniature precipice—I found myself wondering, in the foolish, insistent way that one does wonder about trivial things, whether our tourist friend had managed to feel as disappointed as he had expected he would be with the Pont du Gard.
It looked absolutely sublime as one retreated from it on the homeward way; its towering arches rearing themselves tier above tier, like some dauntless human life lived steadily for a great purpose. ”

“ Three days after our excursion to Vaucluse, I went with my sons to the Pont du Gard and Nismes. Our coach stopt, for three hours, at Foix; we took our déjeuné, at which we had delicious grapes and execrable wine: one instance amongst a thousand of the ingenuity of man in spoiling the gifts of Providence, and its agent, Nature. We walked to the Pont du Gard, about a mile from our inn. As it is at an equal distance from Avignon and from Nismes, parties, from each of these towns, make it a point of rendezvous, establish a pic-nic, and pass the day together. ”

“ Even if we cannot see all the bends and [120] creeks of the river from Fowey to Lostwithiel, we must at least take our boat between the woods and slopes of Pont Pill, where it is only at the water’s very edge that the ferns and heather yield to rocks and crimson weed. Landing at Pont, we may climb the steep hillside to Lanteglos Church among the orchards, and see the old stone cross beside the porch, and the wonderful bench-ends within, and the elaborately painted shields that bear so many famous arms. ”

“ From the Pont des Arts the river is yellow in colour, and seethes with slush ice. The sun is poised above the Institute, whose dome is black against the sky. The Ile de la Cite is a wedge of high grey houses that seem to pierce the Pont-Neuf bridge, and protrude in a green point, dominated by an enormous tree, through whose branches I can dimly discern the statue of Henri Quatre. ”

“ In the chief place of the arrondissement, and in a rapidly increasing town, containing about six thousand inhabitants; with a reputation for healthiness and cheapness of living, and with a railway from Paris, we must naturally look for changes and modern ways; but Pont Audemer is [Pg 16] still essentially old, and some of its inhabitants wear the caps, as in our illustration, which were sketched only yesterday in the market-place.
If we take up our quarters at the old-fashioned inn called the Pôt d'Étain, we shall find much to remind us of the 15th century. ”

“ Parisians have for the last three centuries regarded the Pont-Neuf as the type of solidity; and a Parisian who does not aspire to originality in conversation will not hesitate, even to this day, when asked how he is, to reply that he is “as strong as the Pont-Neuf.” The first stone of the bridge was laid on Saturday, May 31, 1578, by King Henri III., in presence of his mother, Queen Catherine de Medicis, his wife, Queen Louise, and the principal officials of the kingdom. ”

“ On the right bank of the river stands the old feudal city, with its ancient castle and its irregularly built houses whose slate roofs and pointed gables peep from the groves of trees which clothe the hill. On the left bank the regularly built new town extends far into the plain. The river, here 80 yds. broad, is crossed by the handsome railway viaduct, a beautiful stone bridge called Pont Neuf, and the Pont Vieux with three pointed arches, built in the 16th century. There is communication by steamer as far as Angers. Laval may justly claim to be one of the loveliest of French towns. ”

“ There are several interesting old houses. The town has a communal college and engineering workshops, blast furnaces, and manufactures of lacquered ware, paper, cardboard, cables and iron-ware. Dating from the 9th or 10th century, Pont-à-Mousson constituted a lordship, which was made a marquis ate in 1354. ”

“ At length he mentioned Pont Erwyd, and said: “If you can but get there, you are all right, for from thence there is a very fair road to the bridge of the evil man; though I dare say if you get to Pont Erwyd—and I wish you may get there—you will have had enough of it and will stay there for the night, more especially as there is a good inn.”
Leaving Machynlleth, I ascended a steep hill which rises to the south of it. From the top of this hill there is a fine view of the town, the river, and the whole valley of the Dyfi. ”

“ The profits of this establishment in 1839 to the government were 66,001,841 francs, upwards of 2,500,000£. We will now proceed along the quai, and notice the bridges; first the Pont de Iena, terminated in 1813, it is completely in a horizontal line, and is certainly a perfect structure, uniting elegance, beauty, and simplicity.
The Pont des Invalides is a handsome suspension bridge for carriages as well as foot passengers; a toll is paid in passing over it. ”

“ STATUE OF HENRI IV. ON THE PONT-NEUF.
Mercier, in his “Tableau de Paris,” published at London in 1780 (its publication would not have been permitted at Paris) , gives an interesting account of the Pont-Neuf as it existed in his time. “This,” he says, “is the greatest thoroughfare in Paris. If you are in quest of anyone, native or foreigner, there is a moral certainty of your meeting with him there in the space of two hours, at the outside. The police-runners are convinced of this truth ”

“ All around are rich meadows, and here, away from the hills, was the ideal site for a monastery according to the ancient notion, where the languor of the gentle air prevented the blood flowing with too quick pulse. The Avon, spanned by an old arched bridge, washes one side of the town; the massive abbey-tower rises above a fringe of foliage and orchards, while on the one hand the horizon is bounded by the steep Cotswolds, and on the other by the broken masses of the Malverns. Close to the town, on its western verge, flows the Severn, crossed by a fine modern iron bridge. ”

“ From Bredon we came to Twining Ferry, three miles below Strensham, and the flat meadows beyond it, over which the tower of Tewkesbury Abbey and the tall chimneys of its mills now began to loom through a rainy sky upon which night was fast closing. It is just before the town is reached that the Avon parts to join the Severn in four streams—one over a weir, another through a lock, the remaining two after working mills. ”

“ At our feet, close under the encampment, an antique bridge crosses Avon. Beside it is hollowed a sheep-washing pool, and across the road stands a little church. Tempted by its elaborate window mouldings, we poke our heads in at the door, but at once withdraw them to cough and sneeze. The place is given over to dense smoke and a small decent man, who says that a service will be held in ten minutes, and what to do with the stove he doesn’t know. ”

“ Much of the upper course of the Avon lies across Salisbury Plain, where it cleaves that table-land of the chalk by a valley full of sudden but not ungraceful bends and secluded nooks, each bright and rich with vegetation, and in almost every bend a village and its church, there being twenty of the latter in the same number of miles between the entrance of the Avon into the chalk at Beaching-Stoke and the expansion of its ravine at Salisbury. ”

“ The Avon bounds the churchyard, and by its brink is a terraced walk, beneath a row of fine old elms. On the one hand, through the green screens of summer foliage, or through the chequered lattice-work of winter boughs, we see the grey stones of the church—here the tracery of a window, there a weather-beaten pinnacle—then, through some wider gap, the spire itself. On the other hand, beneath the terrace wall, the Avon slowly and silently glides along by bridge and town, by water-meadows, bright with celandine in spring and thick with lush grass in June. ”

“ A boat from Vallon to the Pont costs 10 frs.; to St. Martin it costs 35 frs., time 7 hrs. St. Martin is 3 m. from the railway station of St. Just, on the railway on the west side of the Rhône (see p. 98) . The landlord of the Louvre can procure either a guide for the Pont, 2 frs., or for the caves, 5 frs., or the boatman for sailing down the Ardèche. The Pont d’Arc is a natural bridge across the Ardèche, composed of a calcareous rock, pierced with a span of 180 ft., through which the river flows majestically. The soffit of the arch is 100 ft. ”

“ But no living man or woman approached us. The village was given up to peace or sleep or death.
Returning, we paused on the brow of the slope above Avon for a longer look. At our feet was spread the vale of Evesham; the river, bordered with meadows as green and flat as billiard-tables; the stream of Arrow to northward, which rises in the Lickey Hills, and comes down through Alcester to join the Avon here; the villages of Salford Priors and Salford Abbots; farther to the west, among its apple-trees, the roofs and gables of Salford Nunnery, the village of Harvington. ”

“ We have told you all about the beautiful scenery of Clifton, and the Hot Wells at this place, and the fine old rooks. Well, now we took passage in a little steamer, and went down the Avon between these lofty rocks, and had a new and enlarged view of this wondrous formation. The boat was well filled with tourists, as this is a fashionable trip. The Avon for four miles is quite Rhenish in its aspect; and one or two old castled towers on its crags afford a sort of reminiscence of what we lately saw on the river of rivers. ”