We good Americans - I say it without presumption
- are too apt to think that France is Paris, just as we
are accused of being too apt to think that Paris is the
celestial city. This is by no means the case, fortun-
ately for those persons who take an interest in modern
Gaul, and yet are still left vaguely unsatisfied by that
epitome of civilization which stretches from the Arc
de Triomphe to the Gymnase theatre. It had already
been intimated to the author of these light pages that
there are many good things in the _doux pays de France_
of which you get no hint in a walk between those
ornaments of the capital; but the truth had been re-
vealed only in quick-flashing glimpses, and he was
conscious of a desire to look it well in the face. To
this end he started, one rainy morning in mid-Septem-
ber, for the charming little city of Tours, from which
point it seemed possible to make a variety of fruitful
excursions. His excursions resolved themselves ulti-
mately into a journey through several provinces, - a
journey which had its dull moments (as one may defy
any journey not to have), but which enabled him to feel
that his proposition was demonstrated. France may
be Paris, but Paris is not France; that was perfectly
evident on the return to the capital.
I must not speak, however, as if I had discovered
the provinces. They were discovered, or at least re-
vealed by BaIzac, if by any one, and are now easily
accessible to visitors. It is true, I met no visitors, or
only one or two, whom it was pleasant to meet.
Throughout my little tour I was almost the only tourist.
That is perhaps one reason why it was so successful.
I.
I am ashamed to begin with saying that Touraine
is the garden of France; that remark has long ago lost
its bloom. The town of Tours, however, has some
thing sweet and bright, which suggests that it is sur-
rounded by a land of fruits. It is a very agreeable
little city; few towns of its size are more ripe, more
complete, or, I should suppose, in better humor with
themselves and less disposed to envy the responsibili-
ties of bigger places. It is truly the capital of its smil-
ing province; a region of easy abundance, of good
living, of genial, comfortable, optimistic, rather indolent
opinions. Balzac says in one of his tales that the real
Tourangeau will not make an effort, or displace him-
self even, to go in search of a pleasure; and it is not
difficult to understand the sources of this amiable
cynicism. He must have a vague conviction that he
can only lose by almost any change. Fortune has
been kind to him: he lives in a temperate, reasonable,
sociable climate, on the banks, of a river which, it is
true, sometimes floods the country around it, but of
which the ravages appear to be so easily repaired that
its aggressions may perhaps be regarded (in a region
where so many good things are certain) merely as an
occasion for healthy suspense. He is surrounded by
fine old traditions, religious, social, architectural, culi-
nary; and he may have the satisfaction of feeling that
he is French to the core. No part of his admirable
country is more characteristically national. Normandy
is Normandy, Burgundy is Burgundy, Provence is Pro-
vence; but Touraine is essentially France. It is the
land of Rabelais, of Descartes, of Balzac, of good
books and good company, as well as good dinners and
good houses. George Sand has somewhere a charm-
ing passage about the mildness, the convenient quality,
of the physical conditions of central France, - "son
climat souple et chaud, ses pluies abondantes et courtes."
In the autumn of 1882 the rains perhaps were less
short than abundant; but when the days were fine it
was impossible that anything in the way of weather
could be more charming. The vineyards and orchards
looked rich in the fresh, gay light; cultivation was
everywhere, but everywhere it seemed to be easy.
There was no visible poverty; thrift and success pre-
sented themselves as matters of good taste. The white
caps of the women glittered in the sunshire, and their
well-made sabots clicked cheerfully on the hard, clean
roads. Touraine is a land of old chateaux, - a gallery
of architectural specimens and of large hereditary pro-
perties. The peasantry have less of the luxury of
ownership than in most other parts of France; though
they have enough of it to give them quite their share
of that shrewdly conservative look which, in the little,
chaffering, _place_ of the market-town, the stranger ob-
serves so often in the wrinkled brown masks that sur-
mount the agricultural blouse. This is, moreover, the
heart of the old French monarchy; and as that monarchy
was splendid and picturesque, a reflection of the splen-
dor still glitters in the current of the Loire. Some of
the most striking events of French history have occurred
on the banks of that river, and the soil it waters
bloomed for a while with the flowering of the Renais-
sance. The Loire gives a great "style" to a landscape
of which the features are not, as the phrase is, promi-
nent, and carries the eye to distances even more poetic
than the green horizons of Touraine. It is a very fit-
ful stream, and is sometimes observed to run thin and
expose all the crudities of its channel, - a great defect
certainly in a river which is so much depended upon
to give an air to the places it waters. But I speak of
it as I saw it last; full, tranquil, powerful, bending in
large slow curves, and sending back half the light of
the sky. Nothing can be finer than the view of its
course which you get from the battlements and ter-
races of Amboise.
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