Chateau and Country Life in France | Page 9

braconniers (poachers) had been caught, how long they were to
stay in prison, how some of the farmers' sheep had disappeared, no one
knew how exactly--there were no more robbers. One day two of them
passed, dragging a man between them who had evidently been
struggling and fighting. His blouse was torn, and there was a great gash
on his face. We were wildly excited, of course. They told us he was an
old sinner, a poacher who had been in prison various times, but these
last days, not contented with setting traps for the rabbits, he had set fire
to some of the hay-stacks, and they had been hunting for him for some

time. He looked a rough customer, had an ugly scowl on his face. One
of the little hamlets near the château, on the canal, was a perfect nest of
poachers, and I had continual struggles with the keepers when I gave
clothes or blankets to the women and children. They said some of the
women were as bad as the men, and that I ought not to encourage them
to come up to the house and beg for food and clothing; that they sold
all the little jackets and petticoats we gave them to the canal hands
(also a bad lot) for brandy. I believe it was true in some cases, but in
the middle of winter, with snow on the ground (we were hardly warm
in the house with big fires everywhere), I couldn't send away women
with four or five children, all insufficiently clothed and fed, most of
them in cotton frocks with an old worn knit shawl around their
shoulders, legs and arms bare and chapped, half frozen. Some of them
lived in caverns or great holes in the rocks, really like beasts. On the
road to La Ferté there was a big hole (there is no other word for it) in
the bank where a whole family lived. The man was always in prison for
something, and his wife, a tall, gaunt figure, with wild hair and eyes,
spent most of her time in the woods teaching her boys to set traps for
the game. The curé told us that one of the children was ill, and that
there was literally nothing in the house, so I took one of my cousins
with me, and we climbed up the bank, leaving the carriage with Hubert,
the coachman, expostulating seriously below. We came to a rickety old
door which practically consisted of two rotten planks nailed together. It
was ajar; clouds of black smoke poured out as we opened it, and it was
some time before we could see anything. We finally made out a heap of
filthy rags in one corner near a sort of fire made of charred pieces of
black peat. Two children, one a boy about twelve years old, was lying
on the heap of rags, coughing his heart out. He hardly raised his head
when we came in. Another child, a girl, some two years younger, was
lying beside him, both of them frightfully thin and white; one saw
nothing but great dark eyes in their faces. The mother was crouched on
the floor close to the children. She hardly moved at first, and was really
a terrifying object when she got up; half savage, scarcely clothed--a
short petticoat in holes and a ragged bodice gaping open over her bare
skin, no shoes or stockings; big black eyes set deep in her head, and a
quantity of unkempt black hair. She looked enormous when she stood
up, her head nearly touching the roof. I didn't feel very comfortable, but

we were two, and the carriage and Hubert within call. The woman was
civil enough when she saw I had not come empty-handed. We took her
some soup, bread, and milk. The children pounced upon the bread like
little wild animals. The mother didn't touch anything while we were
there--said she was glad to have the milk for the boy. I never saw
human beings living in such utter filth and poverty. A crofter's cottage
in Scotland, or an Irish hovel with the pigs and children all living
together, was a palace compared to that awful hole. I remonstrated
vigorously with W. and the Mayor of La Ferté for allowing people to
live in that way, like beasts, upon the highroad, close to a perfectly
prosperous country town. However, they were vagrants, couldn't live
anywhere, for when we passed again, some days later, there was no one
in the hole. The door had fallen down, there was no smoke coming out,
and the neighbours told us the family had suddenly disappeared. The
authorities then took up the matter--the holes were filled up, and no one
was allowed to live in them.