FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  
the American Republic and all its armaments without any insignia of dignity, without a guard or attendants, in a common office room. And here was a _sous-prefet_ parading the streets in solemn state, in a gilded coat, and with a line of bayonets glittering on either hand. From Avranches it is a pleasant walk (by the country road) to the village of Ducie, where there is good fishing, a nice little village inn, and a deserted chateau in the Louis Quatorze style, and of sumptuous dimensions, which, if it was ever completely finished, is now in a state of great dilapidation. No doubt it shared the fate of its fellows, when the Revolution proclaimed "peace to the cottage, war to the castle." The peasantry almost everywhere rose, like galley-slaves whose chains had been suddenly struck off, and gutted the chateaux, the strongholds of feudal extortion and injustice. How violent and sweeping have been the revolutions of this people compared with those of the stronger and more self-controlled race! In England, the Tudor mansions, and not unfrequently even the feudal castles, are still tenanted by the heirs, or by those who have peacefully purchased from the heirs, of their ancient lords; and the insensible gradations by which the feudal guard-room has softened down into the modern drawing-room, and the feudal moat into the flower-garden, are emblematic of the continuous and comparatively tranquil progress of English history. In France, how different! Scarcely eighty years have passed since the Chateau de Montgomeri was proud and gay; since the village idlers gathered here to see its lord, and his little provincial court, assemble along those mouldering balustrades, and ride through the now deserted gates. But to the grandchildren of those villagers the chateau is a strange, mysterious relic of the times before the flood. A group of peasants tried in vain, when I asked them, to recollect the name of its former proprietors. One of them said that it had been inhabited by a great lord, who shod his horses with shoes of gold,--much the sort of tale that an Irish peasant tells you about the primeval monuments of his country. The mansions of France before the Revolution belong as completely to the past as the tombs of the Pharaohs. The old aristocracy and the old dynasty are no longer hated or regretted. Their names excite no emotion whatever in the French peasant's heart. They are wiped out of the memory of the nation, and their place
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
feudal
 

village

 

peasant

 

country

 

completely

 
deserted
 
chateau
 

France

 
Revolution
 

mansions


strange

 

grandchildren

 
villagers
 

balustrades

 
mouldering
 

assemble

 
provincial
 
Chateau
 

progress

 

tranquil


English

 

history

 

comparatively

 

continuous

 

flower

 

garden

 

emblematic

 

Scarcely

 

idlers

 

gathered


Montgomeri

 
eighty
 

passed

 

mysterious

 

dynasty

 
aristocracy
 

longer

 
regretted
 

Pharaohs

 
primeval

monuments
 

belong

 
memory
 
nation
 

emotion

 

excite

 
French
 

recollect

 
peasants
 

proprietors