Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone. Angus B. Reach

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       Angus B. Reach

      Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone

      Notes, social, picturesque, and legendary, by the way

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664561114

Table of Contents

       CHAPTER I. The Diligence—Old Guienne and the English in France—Bordeaux and a Suburban Vintaging.

       CHAPTER II. Claret—and the Claret Country.

       CHAPTER III. The Vintage and the Vintagers.

       CHAPTER IV. The Landes—The Bordeaux and Teste Railway—Niniche—The Landscape of the Landes—The People Of the Landes—How they walk on Stilts, and Gamble.

       CHAPTER V. The Landes—The Bay of Arcachon and its Fishers—The Legend of Chatel-Morant—The Pine-woods—The Resin-gatherer—The Wild Horses—The Surf of the Bay of Biscay—The Witches of the Landes—Popular Beliefs, and Popular Customs.

       CHAPTER VI. Up the Garonne—The old Wars on its Banks—Its Boats and its Scenery—Agen—Jasmin, the last of the Troubadours—Southern Cookery and Garlic—The Black Prince in a New Light—A Dreary Pilgrimage to Pau.

       CHAPTER VII. Pau—The English in Pau—English and Russians—The View of the Pyrenees—The Castle—The Statue of Henri Quatre—His Birth—A Vision of his Life—Rochelle—St. Bartholemew—Ivry—Henri and Sully—Henri and Gabrielle—Henri and Henriette D'Entragues—Ravaillac.

       CHAPTER VIII. The Val d'Ossau—The Vin de Jurancon—The old Bearne Costume—The Devil and the Basque Language—Pyrenean Scenery—The Wolf—The Bear—A Pyrenean Auberge—The Fountain of Laruns, and the Evening Song.

       CHAPTER IX. Rainy Weather in the Pyrenees—Eaux Chaudes out of Season, and in the Rain—Plucking the Indian Corn at the Auberge at Laruns—The Legend of the Wehrwolf, and the Baron who was changed into a Bear.

       CHAPTER X. Tarbes—Bagnerre de Bigorre—Pigeon-catching—French Commis Voyageurs—The King of the Pyrenean Dogs—The Legend of Orthon, who haunted the Baron of Corasse.

       CHAPTER XI. Languedoc—The "Austere South"—Beziers and the Albigenses—The Fountain of the Greve and Pierre Paul Riquet—Anticipations of the Mediterranean—The Mistral—The Olive Country about Beziers—The Peasants of the South—Rural Billiard-playing.

       CHAPTER XII. The Track-boat on the Canal du Midi—Approach to the Mediterranean—Salt-marshes and Salt-works—A Circus Thrashing-machine—The Mediterranean and its Craft—Cette and its Manufactured Wines, with a Priest's Views on Gourmandise.

       CHAPTER XIII. More about the Olive-tree—The Gathering of the Olives—Lunel—A Night with a Score of Mosquitoes—Aigues-Mortes—The Dead Landscape—The Marsh Fever—A Strange Cicerone—The last Crusading King—The Salted Burgundians—The Poisoned Camisards—The Mediterranean.

       CHAPTER XIV. Flat Marsh Scenery, treated by Poets and Painters—Tavern Allegories—Nismes—The Amphitheatre and the Maison Carrée—Protestant and Catholic—The old Religious Wars alive still—The Silk Weaver of Nismes and the Dragonnædes.

       CHAPTER THE LAST. Agriculture in France—Its Backward State—Centralising Tendency—Subdivision of Property—Its Effects—French "Encumbered Estates.

      CLARET AND OLIVES.

CHAPTER I.

       The Diligence—Old Guienne and the English in France—Bordeaux and a Suburban Vintaging.

       Table of Contents

      "Voila la voila! La ville de Bordeaux!"

      The conductor's voice roused me from the dreamy state of dose in which I lay, luxuriously stretched back amid cloaks and old English railway-wrappers, in the roomy banquette of one of the biggest diligences which ever rumbled out of Caillard and Lafitte's yard.

      "Voila! la Voila!" The bloused peasant who drove the six stout nags therewith stirred in his place; his long whip whistled and cracked; the horses flung up their heads as they broke into a canter, and their bells rang like a joy peal; while Niniche, the conductor's white poodle, which maintained a perilous footing in the leathern hood of the banquette, pattered and scratched above our heads, and barked in recognition of his master's voice.

      I rubbed my eyes and looked. We were on the ridge of a wooded hill. Below us lay a flat green plain, carpetted with vines. Right across it ran the broad, white, chalky highway, powdering with dust the double avenue of chestnuts which lined it. Beyond the plain glittered a great river, crowded with shipping, and beyond the river rose stretching, apparently for miles, a magnificent façade of high white buildings, broken here and there by the foliage of public gardens, and the dark embouchures of streets; while, behind the range of quays, and golden in the sunrise, rose high into the clear morning air, a goodly array of towering Gothic steeples, fretted and pinnacled up to the glancing weather-cocks. It was, indeed, Bordeaux.

      The long journey from Paris was all but over, yet though I had been tired enough of the way, I felt as if I could brave it again, rather than make the exertion of encountering octroi officers, and plunging into strange hotels. For after all, comfortable Diligence travelling makes a man lazy. It is slow, but you get accustomed to the slowness; in the banquette, too, you are never cramped; there is luxurious roominess behind, and you plunge your legs in straw up to the knees. Then leaning supinely back, you indulge a serene passiveness, rolling lazily on with the rumbling mountain of a vehicle. The thunder of the heavy wheels, and the low monotonous clash, clash, clash, of the hundred grelots, form a soothing atmosphere of sound about you, and musingly, and dreamingly you watch the action of the team—these half dozen little but stout tough work-a-day horses, trotting manfully in their rough harness, while the driver—oh, how different from our old coaching dandies!—a clumsy peasant, in sabots, and a stable-smelling blouse, sits slouched, and round-shouldered like a sack before you, incessantly flourishing that whistling whip, and shouting in the uncouth jargon of his province, to the jingling team below. And next you watch the country or the road. A French road, like a mathematical line, on, and on, and on, straight, straight, mournfully, dismally, straight, running like a tape laid across the bleak bare country, till it fades, and fades, and seems