In the early days of October, when all hands are making ready for the opening of the vintage that is to result in this vast output, the parishioners of Conques assemble in the stately parish church to celebrate the festival of their patron saint, Ste.-Foy, on which occasion, if the fruit of the vine. does not directly figure, except in so far as it necessarily does in the Eucharistic celebration, a magnificent display of floral decoration is presented by the High Altar and its surroundings to the gaze of an admiring peasantry. Scores upon scores of huge pots of carefully tended flowers stand in tiers on the successive steps of a wooden framework rising to a considerable elevation on either side of the altar; while the whole chancel is as redolent of perfume as it is a-blaze with colour. The effect of so large a concentration of flowers artistically arranged is increased by a red curtain suspended from behind, which throws forward the rich mass of variegated tints, to which itself serves as a brilliant background. Yet the contrivers of this ecclesiastical flower show, not content with the profusion of bloom thus brought together, call in the aid of artificial flowers to heighten the glow, and intensify the body of colour; the combination of the two producing a by no means unsatisfactory effect, so much so indeed that it was difficult to detect the presence of manufactured specimens till after a close scrutiny at the end of the ceremony. Thus, if this Church spectacle cannot exactly be called a Feast of Bacchus, it may at any rate be regarded as, in a sense, a Festival of Flora, the celebration of which coincides with, and heralds in, the approaching Vintage. 87 CHAPTER IX. WALKS BY HILL AND DALE. A water-lashed Precipice.-Roque-Prive.-Over the hills with a Swiss Chorister.-A Walk and Talk by the riverside.-Excursion to St.-Projet.The curate of Pomiers. AMONG the excursions made by the writer in the immediate neighbourhood of Conques were some walks with different members of the brotherhood, one of which has been touched upon in a previous chapter. On the day following the Mountain Storm three or four of the brethren, their guest, and a nephew of the Prior made up a party for a second afternoon's walk. The nephew of Prior Thomas d'Aquin was a sprightly young Provençal on a visit to his uncle, who remarked that his kinsman would be pleased to have an opportunity of airing his English, in which language indeed he proved to have already made creditable progress. The friends of the English traveller were kind enough to desire to show him the view from a ledge of rock, which, overlapping the river Dourdou like a balcony, is lashed by the reddish, seething foam of the stream, whose impetuous current runs broad and deep between high rocky sides, the valley being straitened at this point to its shortest span. From the beetling crag you get a good look straight down on to the surging waters beneath, and up at the sheer heights on either side that for a short space almost close them in. A fine prospect truly, which might well recall the very apposite lines of the Iliad: Προβλῆτι σκοπέλῳ τὸν δ ̓ οὔποτε κύματα λείπει, A projecting crag-lashed by ceaseless waves, This view from the precipice over the foam and splash of a rapid stream pent in betwixt rugged boulders, formed at once the object, and the solitary incident, of what was nevertheless a very agreeable stroll, whether regard be had to the scenery or to the unusual company in which it was taken. Two days later he walked with the Père Henri, Père Pierre, Père Fréderic-all Premonstrants-and M. Franck the lay organist, in another and easterly direction, up the valley of the Louche. For the river Dourdou flowing northwards is joined, as we have seen, by the Louche, a torrent coming down with a rush from the east, and emptying itself into the more considerable Dourdou. In the northern angle formed by the junction of the two streams, stands the townlet of Conques, but at an elevation on the hillside far above the torrents thus bounding it west and south. Pursuing, then, their way eastwards, up the narrowing gorge cut for itself by the brawling Louche on the right, and passing some rich meadow land carpeted with purple crocus, the party crossed the brook upon stepping-stones; and soon after began a sharp ascent, first climbing among trees clinging to steep banks, and then, as the wayfarers neared the top of a precipitous hill, clambering up its rough broken sides, some of them on all-fours. The senior member of the party however—a white-frocked Premonstrant canon-preferred sitting quietly at the foot of the crag and awaiting his companions' return to joining in the upward scramble. Reaching the summit one descried, besides a fine panoramic view over hill and dale and winding torrent, clear marks of the hand of man at a far-off epoch in some steps hewn out of the rock, said by tradition to be the remains of a Saracen stronghold, dating as far back as Charles Martel. The English, however, are also somehow credited with being the whilom lords of the place, presumably in connection with the extensive, although shifting, dominion over Guienne exercised by the kings of England during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. |