A Little Tour In France [92]
is to-day a hideous little _cafe_, bedizened, like a sign- board, with extracts from the ingenious "Rime." The poet and his lady are, of course, the stock in trade of the little village, which has had for several generations the privilege of attracting young couples engaged in their wedding-tour, and other votaries of the tender passion. The place has long been familiar, on festal Sundays, to the swains of Avignon and their attendant nymphs. The little fish of the Sorgues are much esteemed, and, eaten on the spot, they constitute, for the children of the once Papal city, the classic sub- urban dinner. Vaucluse has been turned to account, however, not only by sentiment, but by industry; the banks of the stream being disfigured by a pair of hideous mills for the manufacture of paper and of wool. In an enterprising and economical age the water-power of the Sorgues was too obvious a motive; and I must say that, as the torrent rushed past them, the wheels of the dirty little factories appeared to turn merrily enough. The footpath on the left bank, of which I just spoke, carries one, fortunately, quite out of sight of them, and out of sound as well, inasmuch as on the day of my visit the stream itself, which was in tremendous force, tended more and more, as one approached the fountain, to fill the valley with its own echoes. Its color was magnificent, and the whole spectacle more like a corner of Switzerland than a nook in Provence. The protrusions of the mountain shut it in, and you penetrate to the bottom of the re- cess which they form. The Sorgues rushes and rushes; it is almost like Niagara after the jump of the cataract. There are dreadful little booths beside the path, for the sale of photographs and _immortelles_, - I don't know what one is to do with the immortelles, - where you are offered a brush dipped in tar to write your name withal on the rocks. Thousands of vulgar persons, of both sexes, and exclusively, it appeared, of the French nationality, had availed themselves of this implement; for every square inch of accessible stone was scored over with some human appellation. It is not only we in America, therefore, who besmirch our scenery; the practice exists, in a more organized form (like every- thing else in France), in the country of good taste. You leave the little booths and stalls behind; but the bescribbled crag, bristling with human vanity, keeps you company even when you stand face to face with the fountain. This happens when you find yourself at the foot of the enormous straight cliff out of which the river gushes. It rears itself to an extraordinary height, - a huge forehead of bare stone, - looking as if it were the half of a tremendous mound, split open by volcanic action. The little valley, seeing it there, at a bend, stops suddenly, and receives in its arms the magical spring. I call it magical on account of the mysterious manner in which it comes into the world, with the huge shoulder of the mountain rising over it, as if to protect the secret. From under the mountain it silently rises, without visible movement, filling a small natural basin with the stillest blue water. The contrast between the stillness of this basin and the agitation of the water directly after it has overflowed, constitutes half the charm of Vaucluse. The violence of the stream when once it has been set loose on the rocks is as fascinating and indescribable as that of other cataracts; and the rocks in the bed of the Sorgues have been arranged by a master-hand. The setting of the phenomenon struck me as so simple and so fine - the vast sad cliff, covered with the after- noon light, still and solid forever, while the liquid ele- ment rages and roars at its base - that I had no diffi- culty in understanding the celebrity of Vaucluse. I understood it, but I will not say that I understood Petrarch. He must have been very self-supporting, and Madonna Laura must indeed have been much to him.
The aridity of the hills that shut in the valley is complete, and the whole impression is best conveyed by that very expressive
The aridity of the hills that shut in the valley is complete, and the whole impression is best conveyed by that very expressive