Oct. 3, 1863.]
ONCE A WEEK.
415
which I always keep filled with fresh flowers. I can buy a large bouquet for a sou. There are none of the vulgar little trumpery china baskets, dogs with three legs, glass ships, and other horrors, which make lodgings in England seem so vulgar. On each side the chimney-piece are two large cupboards in the wainscot, for wood and coals in winter, or clothes in summer. The paper is of French grey and white, relieved by a dead gold-brown border, and both rooms are carpeted with what we should call a stair-carpet, which is a marvel in itself for the manner in which it has been mended in the stitch. I pay at the rate of thirty-five francs a month to Madame Bayot and Je m’y trouve bien. But it must be understood French landladies do not cook for lodgers. They “mount” my café, and keep my rooms in order, that is all. Red coats and green coats, dark blue coats and light blue coats, laced with silver and gold, gleam beneath the trees like fire-flies, and loom from every balcony and window. I have two officiers for my left-hand neighbours, one on my right, and half-a-dozen en face. In fact, les officiers are the life of Saumur.
But for the École de Cavalerie, the few dear, bad shops might shut up; and instead of there being as now, “à vendre à l’aimable,” or “à louer présentement,” posted on one-fifth of the houses in the town, one large affiche, “Saumur to be sold or let,” might be put up. There is no life in the streets. Nobody ever seems to enter those dreary, miserable-looking shops—and indeed I do not wonder. The people of Saumur generally seem to look upon a stray visitor as a gold-mine to be exploitée to their profit; and if you demand the price of any article, calculate how much you may be fool enough to give. Yesterday I was asked eight sous (fourpence) for a ball of cotton, its real price being three at most. The people here have a way of their own—neither like English life, nor that of any other French towns—owing, it is said, to the officers living chiefly en pension, eight or ten taking their meals together in a house, where no other person is admitted. There are no restaurants where one can get a cheap and good dinner. When the editor of the “Times” said, during the Crimean war, that the French were “born cooks,” he could never have heard of Saumur. I wish he had had my goose for dinner, that’s all. I was tired of dining on melons, peaches, bread, and sour wine; and seeing an old woman under a tree at Pont Fouchard, with geese and half-geese and quarter-geese to sell, I desired Madame Bayot to buy me half a goose. She came, exultant to show me what a fine one she had got, soon afterwards. I looked at it in horror. It was not half picked; large downy feathers and multitudes of pens were sticking in it; nor could it now be picked, inasmuch as it was jointed across the back and breast bone in five or six places, so that it more resembled a neck of mutton covered with flue, than anything birdlike. The bones and shank of the legs, and the pinions, had been cut off to be sold separately; so that, in fact, I had half a breast, half a back, and half of each limb only. Its price was twenty-six sous, and in the state described it was sent to a little woman next door,—who keeps a pension for soldiers, and who has twice made me very good omelettes with meat in them,—to be cooked, with strong injunctions as to plucking it free of feathers. In about half an hour it returned, surrounded by potatoes, and swimming in a sea of melted lard. It had been sent to the four and baked, and it tasted of grease and fish, and oil and burnt feathers, and was as hard as if it had been part of an antediluvian goose that had been in the Ark; impossible to masticate or eat it; and even Keeper despised it, and played at ball with the bits given him, which he threw up in the air, and then caught as he lay on his back rolling about, which is his way of signifying supreme contempt for any food that does not happen to please him. Talk of all the French being “born cooks,” indeed? Why, everybody nearly (except the rich folks and the hotels), cooks his meat in the bakers’ ovens! I poured off the oleaginous matter; I skinned what remained, and gave the skin to Keeper, who ate it disdainfully; and next day I requested it might be stewed as a ragout with a teacupful of water. In half an hour the petite femme brought it back, assuring me it was quite hot, and well done, as it had been well boiled. Of course it was only half warm, and as hard, or harder, than ever. Who ever heard of letting a stew boil? I gave it up in despair, and somehow managed to eat it; but let nobody ever tell me again that the French are all “born cooks”! The fact is, cooking is a very difficult affair in a Saumur house. There is neither stove, nor range; nothing but a few sticks placed on a hearth, gipsey fashion, and not the gipsey’s covered kettle to cook with. Wood is very dear, and the ménagère calculates the cost of every stick she burns. Even if one paid her, she could not find in her heart to consume wood enough to cook any dish properly,—she would consider it a sinful waste. No doubt in the houses ou l’on tient pension pour les officiers, it is different. I speak of the mode of life among the bourgeoisie, or middling class, and of the inconveniences any one living in lodgings, and unable from want of means to dine at the hotels, where there is a table d’hôte, must expect to meet. A French ménage seems very simple; and in very truth I believe there is no sort of necessity for the innumerable kitchen articles we have in England. Half a dozen knives and forks, a covered casserole to make the indispensable soup in, a few pots and dishes of various sizes, and six dessert spoons, seem all that is necessary. I do not think there are above a dozen plates in this house, for I find great difficulty in getting a sufficient number at breakfast and tea-time. The boiled milk comes up in a tin saucepan, and they seem to wonder I insist on a plate to rest it on, instead of dirtying my breakfast napkin by placing the smoky pan upon it. However, both here and at Tours I have been fortunate in my landladies: I ask for everything civilly, and I get all I want. It would be a great saving of expense to all these householders, if the cuisine customary in Paris were adopted. There, there is in every kitchen an iron stove, with a small square grating in the midst for fire, which is rarely used; and round it six or eight little hollows, varying from the size of a wine-glass top to a saucer, in which a little lighted