Tuesday, June 26, 1838

1838

June

Tuesday 26

5 3/4

10 20/..

Fine morning.  Fahrenheit 67 1/2° at 6 3/4 – Our Hotel de France very good – the best we have been at yet since Paris –

Off from Poitiers at 7 5/.. – through narrow but better streets than last night, and pretty level –

Passed the grille barrier gate at 7 10/.. – Fine extensive plane all around Poitiers – One might very well make headquarters à l’hotel de France à Portiers for a week or 10 days, if one had so much time at disposal –

{(Wednesday morning à Ruffec, 27 June 1838) and see the old Roman aqueduct 1/4 lieue South près d’une maison nommée l’Armitage – and at 1/4 lieue North Pierre levée monument celtique – and 1 lieue distant between old abbey of Noaillé and village of Beauvoir le Champ de Maupertuis où se donna la bataille de Maupertuis ou de Poitiers 1356, at which John King of France was taken prisoner – Another Pierre levée near the village of Bellefaye sur l’ancien chemin de Pierre à Mirebeau – See also at 8 lieue from Poitiers Montmorrillon, and curious mass of old masonry (‘immense étendue de terrain couvert de plusieurs couche de pierre’) near the town of Civeau d’ l’arrondissement of Montmorillon and see Civray again  – du la Charente river in the most fertile part of the department – Church dedicated au vrai Dieu sous Charlemagne – vide Ann’s nouvelle Guide voyageur en France curious old temple monument at Montmorillon – }

Croutelle, picturesque village, at 7 28/.. and a little damp and small rain spite of the cool breeze or wind –

Asleep –

Vivonne, ill built village –

Alight to breakfast, at the far end of the village aux trois Piliers at 8 1/2 by my watch.  The people said it was only 8 10/.. – Dirty noisy house – Waited 1/2 hour and wrote out 1/2 of yesterday – Breakfast sans nappe – Good milk in very dirty white jug, and good butter and café, and 1/2 toasted bread and a long roll, of yesterday at least, for which changed 4/. instead of 3/., so would only give la fille ./20 – She had burst open the door into the room where we were after breakfast – and in another were a fille and a postillon – Riot and noises in all directions –

Ann and I did job in one room –

Off from Vivonne at 10 18/.. Red, sandy road – hilly – wood, and grass and corn – oat and barley, very short and thin –

What will Ann become.  She is very little companionable, always poorly or out of sorts some way – Wants to be quiet – She is like a millstone round my neck.

Les Minières at 10 50/.., poor village – small, drizzling rain  – Walnut and cherry trees along the road sides – Goodish oak wood, and, parkwise, some magnificent Spanish chestnuts, the 1st I have observed, and green hedges here and there – Red, sandy, marly? land, and now 11 25/.., 1st plants I have observed of bled de Turquie – Nice, well wooded, fine, comfortable looking country, but ‘sol calcaire et peu fertile.’

At 11 1/2, good stone bridge over Dive river, a broad shallow brook, and good little village Couhé-Verac at 11.  Tolerable little bourg – Nice large old marché – Heavy round tiled roof on heavy stone piliers – Fine avenue of Spanish chestnuts and walnuts along from Couhé-Verac – and fine, wide, extensive wooded country – Red, sandy, stony land – Very little depth of soil – not more than 2 or 3 inches apparently, and that full of calcareous stone –

Chaunoy at 12 40/.., picturesque straggling village –

Maisons Blanches at 1 18/.., small, good, straggling village –

At 1 35/.. leaving the two servants with the carriage, Ann and I off to Civray in crazy old chaise de poste with postillon and 2 horses, tout compris for 20/. there and back as agreed with the old postmaster (né 1766 ætatis 72 and his wife 76) – 3 lieues, but the road newly made, a great high road (route départementale), therefore would charge 2 postes there and 2 ditto back – Would take us 1 1/2 hour  to go and the same to return –

I had told Ann that I feared we should not be repaid and that if we went on without this delay, we might sleep at Angoulême – However, she preferred going, and going in the Chaise de Poste – Bon!  Off we were, and such a bonny jolting I had never had in my life – to be sure we went there in 3/4 hour (about 7 miles English not more certainly) and returned in the same –but how anything hung on springs could knock about so terribly, I could not imagine, for the road was actually good and smooth – no ruts – Occasionally newly but well and small broken flints – Nothing to jolt one in anything even as good as a Russian Telega? I thought of poor Cochrane so jolted on his return to Moscow that he spat blood for some time afterwards –

I soon found sitting intolerable, so made my legs carry me and leaned against the seat stooping my head, which saved me from the shock of the jolting, and merely heated me by the uncomfortableness of the position (there and back).  I never spoke nor looked at Ann, who, however, sat and bore it, and landed at Civray looking as if she had come unhurt –

Market day – Our hotel (Trois Piliers) alive with country people – We had a large 2 or 3 bedded chamber on premier – Very old house like all the rest in the grande Place – Our windows faced the very curious old church – Ordered an omelette for Ann, to be ready when we came in, and then off to the church –

Ann sat within, sketching the interior – Not worth it, but I said nothing, fearing the heat of the sun outside – The oldest tomb inscription (one of the floor-flags, all much worn) I could find was 1427 – No inscriptions save on the floor-flags, and these much worn –

The interior evidently added long after the old front towards the grande Place – This, I should suppose to be du temps des Empereurs Romains – An old 3 arch gateway or façade of Basilica or what – Very interesting – The middle arch-way considerably larger than the 2 side archways – All rich in sculpture – The side archways – 3 mouldings, each of leafwork and a cockatrice border?  But the middle arch very rich – 4 mouldings – leaves, figures – cockatrices – lotus?  

I cannot tell the order of them but the top moulding, though a good deal mutilated, evidently an old very curious representation of the Zodiac – As I stood facing the door – beginning at the left was:

1. Aquarius, a man sitting in a chair and another astride of his head pouring out a pitcher of water.

2. Pisces, a man sitting (with his shoes off – placed at his right foot and looking like strong 1/4 boots of the present day) and two fishes over his head.

3.    .  . a man standing at something, the branchy trunk of a tree, and a goat over his head.

4.    .  . a human figure and leaves and a bird on one stone

5.    .  . and 2 animals on 2 stones above no. number 4.

6. Gemini

7.    .  .1 stone leafy

8.    .  .virgo

9.    .  .Cancer forming the crown stone of the arch. (a sound arch).

10. .   .then 8 stones, on the 1st. a human head with short horns, on the other, stone figures and indistinct –

11. .   .one man with a basket on his shoulders (of grapes?) and another standing in a round tub behind him, (wine press?) and

12. Scorpio (Scorpion) underneath

13. two stones

14. Archer, 1/2 beast, the upper 1/2 man with bow (and arrow?)

15. Indistinct stone

16. 2 oxen eating out of one oblong trough

17. 2 stones indistinct

Over the 3 arches is a broad entablature with large figures and left side (facing the arches)

a large horse, much mutilated.  Our hostess said there used to be a prince on his back but at the grande revolution, he was destroyed – The Sculpture altogether good – The figures round the lowest moulding of the great …consists of well done figures in basso relievo – Roman Costume? –

Above the entablature is a moulding along the whole front, as if forming the top finish – Very curious remain, see it again and have more time and less jolting –

The church is built up on all sides save to the grande Place with stables and houses –

The clocher has been recently repaired and several other little repairs have been done –

One descends into the church by 4 or 5 steps –

Went along the left side the church (supposing one standing facing the west end) along narrow dirty passage the way to stables, – and stood sketching an old gothic round headed (but not of the date of the west front) –

Struck with the window head formed of 9 stones about 3 1/2 to 4 inches broad inside circumference – Each stone rounded or fluted in 4 flutes and the convex of one stone put against the concave of its neighbour so as to form

these dots, 14 on each side the middle dot, – like nail-heads finished to a point in light 3 sided (prismatic) rays

a  b  2 Elephants with saddle like that and girth all  round (across the chest of  the animal) on the opposite capital merely foliage the trunks of the 2 animals mutilated but ancient and as the building was consecrated au vrai Dieu sous Charlemagne, may date from this period ? 

[margin note:] Fine country to Civray but red soil not more than 3 or 4 inches deep to the calcareous rock – Good road – Fine well-wooded country.] 

Went in with Ann about 3 to see that her omelette was ready, then left her for about 1/2 hour to take another look at the curious west front of the church , and made the tour of the grande Place and its old round tile-covered, wood-pilier-supported, rough-paved marché full of little peasant traders and their stalls with coarse cloths, woollen and linen, and pots and pans and bled (corn) etc.

The mistress of the house tells me the country has no commerce but in bled, and a large family has hard to do to live – The new road will do them good and several gentlemen have already come to her house to sketch the church  – Building a new hotel de ville, Civray being the Chef lieue d’l’arrondissement – The old castle (Chateau fort) destroyed during la grand revolution – Ann took a little sketch of the curious façade from our windows –

Off home again at 4 25/.. and at Maisons Blanches at 5 7/.. Jolted as before – Ann began to look a little dismal, but I said nothing – She had a little noyau in the carriage, leaned back, lay down on reaching Ruffec till dinner, and seemed even better than usual afterwards – Herself proposed walking in the garden – and the little tour in the town afterwards –

Stood talking to the maitre de poste at Maisons Blanches till off again from there at 5 20/.. – He said the 2 hotels at Ruffec were both good – (Les Ambassadeurs and la Poste – glad to have come to the latter).  He mentioned the hotel des Ambassadeurs at Bordeaux and hotel des Ministres, but on my naming the hotel de Rouen, said it was quite new – Very good – But being quite new, one could hardly say if it was well monté – Not much company had passed this way yet –

Just out of Maisons Blanches, 2 mares with a young mule each – Beautiful road shaded by walnut and Spanish Chestnut trees, and through forest, chiefly of the latter and oak – Hilly road – At 6 p.m. meet Paysanne on horseback, astride as at the Pyrenees –

At Ruffec at 6 10/.. – Dinner at 7 downstairs – Out at 8 in the garden, then sauntering about in the old narrow-streeted, boulderstone-paved town – No idea the town had been so large – Building a nice hotel de ville near in the little grande Place –

Luckily found the church – Several steps (8? + 4 down to the church door from the street) down into it – Very ancient west front in the style of that at Civray, but less rich and rather smaller altogether – However very interesting and apparently of the same period –

Home at 9 1/4 –

Fahrenheit 67° at 9 3/4 p.m. – Small drizzling rain in the morning.  Fine from about 1 p.m. for the rest of the day –

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/21/0129,  SH:7/ML/E/21/0130, and SH:7/ML/E/21/0131