Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
ever-changing ocean are about all that most people care to do. The sail
down the harbor that bright, warm evening was beautiful, and, we
lingered on deck in the moonlight until a late hour.
I slept but little, that night, as two cats kept running in and out of
my stateroom, and my berth was so narrow that I could only lie in one
position--as straight as if already in my coffin. Under such
circumstances I spent the night, thinking over everything that was
painful in my whole life, and imagining all the different calamities
that might befall my family in my absence. It was a night of severe
introspection and intense dissatisfaction. I was glad when the morning
dawned and I could go on deck. During the day my couch was widened one
foot, and, at night, the cats relegated to other quarters.
We had a smooth, pleasant, uneventful voyage, until the last night,
when, on nearing the French coast, the weather became dark and stormy.
The next morning our good steamer pushed slowly and carefully up the
broad, muddy Gironde and landed us on the bustling quays of Bordeaux,
where my son Theodore stood waiting to receive us. As we turned to say
farewell to our sturdy ship--gazing up at its black iron sides
besprinkled with salty foam--a feeling of deep thankfulness took
possession of us, for she had been faithful to her trust, and had borne
us safely from the New World to the Old, over thousands of miles of
treacherous sea.
We spent a day in driving about Bordeaux, enjoying the mere fact of
restoration to _terra firma_ after twelve days' imprisonment on the
ocean. Maritime cities are much the same all the world over. The forests
of masts, the heavily laden drays, the lounging sailors, the rough
'longshoremen, and the dirty quays, are no more characteristic of
Bordeaux than New York, London, and Liverpool. But Bordeaux was
interesting as the birthplace of Montesquieu and as the capital of
ancient Guienne and Gascony.
But I must not forget to mention an accident that happened on landing at
Bordeaux. We had innumerable pieces of baggage, a baby carriage, rocking
chair, a box of "The History of Woman Suffrage" for foreign libraries,
besides the usual number of trunks and satchels, and one hamper, in
which were many things we were undecided whether to take or leave. Into
this, a loaded pistol had been carelessly thrown. The hamper being
handled with an emphatic jerk by some jovial French sailor, the pistol
exploded, shooting the bearer through the shoulder. He fell bleeding on
the quay. The dynamite scare being just at its height, the general
consternation was indescribable. Every Frenchman, with vehement
gestures, was chattering to his utmost capacity, but keeping at a
respectful distance from the hamper. No one knew what had caused the
trouble; but Theodore was bound to make an investigation. He proceeded
to untie the ropes and examine the contents, and there he found the
pistol, from which, pointing upward, he fired two other bullets. "Alas!"
said Hattie, "I put that pistol there, never dreaming it was loaded."
The wounded man was taken to the hospital. His injuries were very
slight, but the incident cost us two thousand francs and no end of
annoyance. I was thankful that by some chance the pistol had not gone
off in the hold of the vessel and set the ship on fire, and possibly
sacrificed three hundred lives through one girl's carelessness. Verily
we cannot be too careful in the use of firearms.
Bordeaux is a queer old town, with its innumerable soldiers and priests
perambulating in all directions. The priests, in long black gowns and
large black hats, have a solemn aspect; but the soldiers, walking lazily
along, or guarding buildings that seem in no danger from any living
thing, are useless and ridiculous. The heavy carts and harness move the
unaccustomed observer to constant pity for the horses. Besides
everything that is necessary for locomotion, they have an endless number
of ornaments, rising two or three feet above the horses' heads--horns,
bells, feathers, and tassels. One of their carts would weigh as much as
three of ours, and all their carriages are equally heavy.
It was a bright, cool day on which we took the train for Toulouse, and
we enjoyed the delightful run through the very heart of old Gascony and
Languedoc. It was evident that we were in the South, where the sun is
strong, for, although summer had scarcely begun, the country already
wore a brown hue. But the narrow strips of growing grain, the acres of
grape vines, looking like young currant bushes, and the fig trees
scattered here and there, looked odd to the eye of a native of New York.
We passed many historical spots during that afternoon journey up the
valley of the Garonne. At Portets are the ruins of the Château of
Langoiran, built before America was discovered, and, a few miles farther
on, we came to the region of the famous wines of Sauterne and
Château-Yquem. Saint Macaire is a very ancient Gallo-Roman town, where
they show one churches, walls, and houses built fifteen centuries ago.
One of the largest towns has a history typical of this part of France,
where wars of religion and conquest were once the order of the day. It
was taken and retaken by the Goths, Huns, Burgundians, and Saracens,
nobody knows how many times, and belonged, successively, to the kings of
France, to the dukes of Aquitaine, to the kings of England, and to the
counts of Toulouse. I sometimes wonder whether the inhabitants of our
American towns, whose growth and development have been free and
untrammeled as that of a favorite child, appreciate the blessings that
have been theirs. How true the lines of Goethe: "America, thou art much
happier than our old continent; thou hast no castles in ruins, no
fortresses; no useless remembrances, no vain enemies will interrupt the
inward workings of thy life!"
We passed through Moissac, with its celebrated organ, a gift of Mazarin;
through Castle Sarrazin, founded by the Saracens in the eighth century;
through Montauban, that stronghold of the early Protestants, which
suffered martyrdom for its religious faith; through Grisolles, built on
a Roman highway, and, at last, in the dusk of the evening, we reached
"the Capital of the South," that city of learning--curious, interesting
old Toulouse.
Laura Curtis Bullard, in her sketch of me in "Our Famous Women," says:
"In 1882, Mrs. Stanton went to France, on a visit to her son Theodore,
and spent three months at the convent of La Sagesse, in the city of
Toulouse." This is quite true; but I have sometimes tried to guess what
her readers thought I was doing for three months in a convent. Weary of
the trials and tribulations of this world, had I gone there to prepare
in solitude for the next? Had I taken the veil in my old age? Or, like
high-church Anglicans and Roman Catholics, had I made this my retreat?
Not at all. My daughter wished to study French advantageously, my son
lived in the mountains hard by, and the garden of La Sagesse, with its
big trees, clean gravel paths, and cool shade, was the most delightful
spot.
In this religious retreat I met, from time to time, some of the most
radical and liberal-minded residents of the South. Toulouse is one of
the most important university centers of France, and bears with credit
the proud title of "the learned city." With two distinguished members
of the faculty, the late Dr. Nicholas Joly and Professor Moliner of the
law school, I often had most interesting discussions on all the great
questions of the hour. That three heretics--I should say, six, for my
daughter, son, and his wife often joined the circle--could thus sit in
perfect security, and debate, in the most unorthodox fashion, in these
holy precincts, all the reforms, social, political, and religious, which
the United States and France need in order to be in harmony with the
spirit of the age, was a striking proof of the progress the world has
made in freedom of speech. The time was when such acts would have cost
us our lives, even if we had been caught expressing our heresies in the
seclusion of our own homes. But here, under the oaks of a Catholic
convent, with the gray-robed sisters all around us, we could point out
the fallacies of Romanism itself, without fear or trembling. Glorious
Nineteenth Century, what conquests are thine!
I shall say nothing of the picturesque streets of antique Toulouse;
nothing of the priests, who swarm like children in an English town;
nothing of the beautifully carved stone façades of the ancient mansions,
once inhabited by the nobility of Languedoc, but now given up to trade
and commerce; nothing of the lofty brick cathedrals, whose exteriors
remind one of London and whose interiors transfer you to "the gorgeous
East"; nothing of the Capitol, with its gallery rich in busts of the
celebrated sons of the South; nothing of the museum, the public garden,
and the broad river winding through all. I must leave all these
interesting features of Toulouse and hasten up into the Black
Mountains, a few miles away, where I saw the country life of modern
Languedoc.
At Jacournassy, the country seat of Mme. Berry, whose daughter my son
Theodore married, I spent a month full of surprises. How everything
differed from America, and even from the plain below! The peasants, many
of them at least, can neither speak French nor understand it. Their
language is a patois, resembling both Spanish and Italian, and they
cling to it with astonishing pertinacity. Their agricultural implements
are not less quaint than their speech. The plow is a long beam with a
most primitive share in the middle, a cow at one end, and a boy at the
other. The grain is cut with a sickle and threshed with a flail on the
barn floor, as in Scripture times. Manure is scattered over the fields
with the hands. There was a certain pleasure in studying these old-time
ways. I caught glimpses of the anti-revolutionary epoch, when the king
ruled the state and the nobles held the lands. Here again I saw, as
never before, what vast strides the world has made within one century.
But, indoors, one returns to modern times. The table, beds, rooms of the
château were much the same as those of Toulouse and New York city. The
cooking is not like ours, however, unless Delmonico's skill be supposed
to have extended to all the homes in Manhattan Island, which is,
unfortunately, not the case. What an admirable product of French genius
is the art of cooking! Of incalculable value have been the culinary
teachings of Vatel and his followers.
One of the sources of amusement, during my sojourn at Jacournassy, was
of a literary nature. My son Theodore was then busy collecting the
materials for his book entitled "The Woman Question in Europe," and
every post brought in manuscripts and letters from all parts of the
continent, written in almost every tongue known to Babel. So just what I
came abroad to avoid, I found on the very threshold where I came to
rest. We had good linguists at the château, and every document finally
came forth in English dress, which, however, often needed much altering
and polishing. This was my part of the work. So, away off in the heart
of France, high up in the Black Mountains, surrounded with
French-speaking relatives and patois-speaking peasants, I found myself
once more putting bad English into the best I could command, just as I
had so often done in America, when editor of _The Revolution_, or when
arranging manuscript for "The History of Woman Suffrage." But it was
labor in the cause of my sex; it was aiding in the creation of "The
Woman Question in Europe," and so my pen did not grow slack nor my hand
weary.
The scenery in the Black Mountains is very grand, and reminds one of the
lofty ranges of mountains around the Yosemite Valley in California. In