A Little Tour In France [36]
showing off; then, as the game went on and he lost, and had to pay the _consomma- tion_, he dropped his amiability, slanged his partner, declared he wouldn't play any more, and went away in a fury. Nothing could be more perfect or more amusing than the contrast. The manner of the whole affair was such as, I apprehend, one would not have seen among our English-speaking people; both the jauntiness of the first phase and the petulance of the second. To hold the balance straight, however, I may remark that if the men were all fearful "cads," they were, with their cigarettes and their inconsistency, less heavy, less brutal, than our dear English-speaking cad; just as the bright little cafe where a robust mater- familias, doling out sugar and darning a stocking, sat in her place under the mirror behind the _comptoir_, was a much more civilized spot than a British public- house, or a "commercial room," with pipes and whiskey, or even than an American saloon.
XIII.
It is very certain that when I left Tours for Le Mans it was a journey and not an excursion; for I had no intention of coming back. The question, in- deed, was to get away, - no easy matter in France, in the early days of October, when the whole _jeunesse_ of the country is going back to school. It is accom- panied, apparently, with parents and grandparents, and it fills the trains with little pale-faced _lyceens_, who gaze out of the windows with a longing, lingering air, not unnatural on the part of small members of a race in which life is intense, who are about to be restored to those big educative barracks that do such violence to our American appreciation of the oppor- tunities of boyhood. The train stopped every five minutes; but, fortunately, the country was charming, - hilly and bosky, eminently good-humored, and dotted here and there with a smart little chateau. The old capital of the province of the Maine, which has given its name to a great American State, is a fairly interest- ing town, but I confess that I found in it less than I expected to admire. My expectations had doubtless been my own fault; there is no particular reason why Le Mans should fascinate. It stands upon a hill, indeed, - a much better hill than the gentle swell of Bourges. This hill, however, is not steep in all direc- tions; from the railway, as I arrived, it was not even perceptible. Since I am making comparisons, I may remark that, on the other hand, the Boule d'Or at Le Mans is an appreciably better inn than the Boule d'Or at Bourges. It looks out upon a small market-place which has a certain amount of character and seems to be slipping down the slope on which it lies, though it has in the middle an ugly _halle_, or circular market- house, to keep it in position. At Le Mans, as at Bourges, my first business was with the cathedral, to which, I lost no time in directing my steps. It suf- fered by juxta-position to the great church I had seen a few days before; yet it has some noble features. It stands on the edge of the eminence of the town, which falls straight away on two sides of it, and makes a striking mass, bristling behind, as you see it from below, with rather small but singularly numerous flying buttresses. On my way to it I happened to walk through the one street which contains a few ancient and curious houses, - a very crooked and untidy lane, of really mediaeval aspect, honored with the denomina- tion of the Grand' Rue. Here is the house of Queen Berengaria, - an absurd name, as the building is of a date some three hundred years later than the wife of Richard Coeur de Lion, who has a sepulchral monu- ment in the south aisle of the cathedral. The structure in question - very sketchable, if the sketcher could get far enough away from it - is an elaborate little dusky facade, overhanging the street, ornamented with panels of stone, which are covered with delicate Renaissance sculpture. A fat old woman, standing in the door of a small grocer's shop next to it, - a most gracious old woman, with a bristling moustache and a charming manner, - told me what
XIII.
It is very certain that when I left Tours for Le Mans it was a journey and not an excursion; for I had no intention of coming back. The question, in- deed, was to get away, - no easy matter in France, in the early days of October, when the whole _jeunesse_ of the country is going back to school. It is accom- panied, apparently, with parents and grandparents, and it fills the trains with little pale-faced _lyceens_, who gaze out of the windows with a longing, lingering air, not unnatural on the part of small members of a race in which life is intense, who are about to be restored to those big educative barracks that do such violence to our American appreciation of the oppor- tunities of boyhood. The train stopped every five minutes; but, fortunately, the country was charming, - hilly and bosky, eminently good-humored, and dotted here and there with a smart little chateau. The old capital of the province of the Maine, which has given its name to a great American State, is a fairly interest- ing town, but I confess that I found in it less than I expected to admire. My expectations had doubtless been my own fault; there is no particular reason why Le Mans should fascinate. It stands upon a hill, indeed, - a much better hill than the gentle swell of Bourges. This hill, however, is not steep in all direc- tions; from the railway, as I arrived, it was not even perceptible. Since I am making comparisons, I may remark that, on the other hand, the Boule d'Or at Le Mans is an appreciably better inn than the Boule d'Or at Bourges. It looks out upon a small market-place which has a certain amount of character and seems to be slipping down the slope on which it lies, though it has in the middle an ugly _halle_, or circular market- house, to keep it in position. At Le Mans, as at Bourges, my first business was with the cathedral, to which, I lost no time in directing my steps. It suf- fered by juxta-position to the great church I had seen a few days before; yet it has some noble features. It stands on the edge of the eminence of the town, which falls straight away on two sides of it, and makes a striking mass, bristling behind, as you see it from below, with rather small but singularly numerous flying buttresses. On my way to it I happened to walk through the one street which contains a few ancient and curious houses, - a very crooked and untidy lane, of really mediaeval aspect, honored with the denomina- tion of the Grand' Rue. Here is the house of Queen Berengaria, - an absurd name, as the building is of a date some three hundred years later than the wife of Richard Coeur de Lion, who has a sepulchral monu- ment in the south aisle of the cathedral. The structure in question - very sketchable, if the sketcher could get far enough away from it - is an elaborate little dusky facade, overhanging the street, ornamented with panels of stone, which are covered with delicate Renaissance sculpture. A fat old woman, standing in the door of a small grocer's shop next to it, - a most gracious old woman, with a bristling moustache and a charming manner, - told me what