II—By the Dordogne
By FREDA WHITE OVERS of France must be river-lovers. Rivers are her chief beauty and her very life. Each of them has nourished, upon its water, soil, and sun, a different civilisation, so that river-addicts have their favourites. Let others seek the conquering Seine, the classic Rh6ne, the princely Loire. I shall return to the Dordogne, loved with the passion of a late finding.
From its source in the Monts Dore to the Atlantic, the Dordogne runs three hundred miles; and with its system of tributaries it falls into three divisions. In the Auvergne and Limousin they flow through ancient volcanic hills. Then they reach the Causses, the limestone belt that 'Was once a sea-bed. Last they quieten to a level course between mild vine-grown slopes to the sea.
The mountainous country of the upper river has the Monts Dore and the Cantal range. The spas of Mont-Dore and la Bourboule are too crowded for my taste, but the hills are good walking—especially the great jagged crater of the Cantal, if only it were not rather poor in places to stay. There are old towns to see, like Ussel in the Limousin Montagne, or Mauriac and Salers in Auvergne. Salers is like Solomon's love, black but comely, for its towered Renaissance houses are carved from volcanic tufa. The river-gorges are dominated by legendary ruined keeps, such as Ventadour and the Tours de Merle. But the gorges of the Dordogne itself, from Bort- les-Orgues to Argentat, have been deformed by hydro-electric barrages, and much of their beauty is lost for ever.
The limestone plateau of the Causses cracked under the volcanic stresses that made modern Europe. The faults are narrow canyons where they join the Central Massif, but their perpendicular cliffs stand wider apart as they sink towards the West. Between them the rivers meander in curves or cingles from one cliff to the other. Rain on the Causses .sinks down through the porous limestone to burst in strong cold springs at the level of the river-beds, and keeps the streams clear as glass.
To enjoy it all you must have a car or a bicycle. The roads are excellent. But the trains, except on the Paris-Toulouse line, are almost non-existent. And the buses madden the visitor with unjust resentment of their rule of serving the farmers by bringing them in to market at the hour when he wants to go out to the castle he has set his heart upon. Tho train-traveller need not despair, however. He can choose a centre such as Sarlat, Beynac, Domme, Souillac, Martel, Beaulieu, and range around it.
This region too, holds the great wonder of the Dordogne, the painted cave of Lascaux. The Causses are riddled with caves, some of them like Padirac, organised as sights. But it is the shelters of prehistoric man, carved or painted with beasts, that draw the studious traveller; and the les Eyzies group, familiar to pre-historians, are far surpassed by Lascaux.
After the astonishment of Lascaux, there are other delights. " Through what wild centuries roves back the rose ? " Till mid-June the flowers of this country are a changing miracle. Even the buildings are old enough for most of us. They grow out of the rock of which they are made like natural things. Is your choice Romanesque ? There are the great abbeys of Souillac and Beaulieu with its carven door. Or scores of village churches with domed roofs that recall Byzantium. Or Angevin fortified churches, notable in the fortress towns, the bastides; built by the kings of England and Acquitaine to hold the line against the Capets.
The little cities are honey-walled and red-roofed. I list BrantOme, Sarlat, Domme, Turenne, Collonges, Martel, because I love them; but each stranger must find his own. My passion for castles is unfashionable, but shameless. In most lands they are like mushrooms, never plentiful enough. Here at last there are too many to reckon. This broken country of little valleys meant small demesnes and small nobles. They fought with each other; they fought for and against the Plantagenets and the Capets; fighting was their pride and joy. And they all built castles to fight from. Some of the great keeps of the Hundred Years' War remain; Bourdeilles on the Dronne, Beynac, Castelnaud, Montfort glowering at each other across the Dordogne. But most of the castles data from the Renaissance, when the seigneurs built them for show and pleasure, with turrets merely to contain stairs, and windows with elaborate carved gables. Such are the series strung on the Vezere; Mirandes, now owned by Josephine Baker, and Montal, the choicest of them all. Those pleasure- castles were never built for war, yet they were used for it. The Wars of Religion rent this country from end to end, and set town against town, castle against castle. If you read Froissart for his accounts of the wars of Edward III here, you read Sully for Henri de Navarre, and Monluc, the brutal Catholic leader who wrote his Commentaires to glorify massacre as much as the valour of " the most bellicose nobility on earth " as he called the Gascon lords. Yet the ravaged cities grew again; and hundreds of the castles, considerably patched, are still inhabited; some of them even by the descen- dants of these same bellicose seigneurs.
Since the Revolution, however, it is not the seigneurs who matter in the South-West, but the proprietaires, the peasant land-owners who till the acres where their ancestors were serfs long ago. They are rarely large farmers, in our sense, but they are free-holders. It is their meticulous cultivation that raises the crops and the fruit-trees and the vines. It is their houses, usually of great beauty, that make the villages of Perigord and Quercy so dignified. They are a great people.
There are castles too, and old churches, in the lower Dordogne reaches from Tremolat to the sea. Some will look fondly at the only remaining tower of Montaigne's castle. But the most interesting place in"that part is St.-Emilion; and not only for its famous wines. It has old churches, one hewn from a cave, queer and unbeautiful; old houses within the walls, and renowned vineyards right up to them; and a mediaeval fortreSs called the Cluiteau du Roi, with no mention that the king was Henry III of England. The visitor who chooses from the ample wine-lists of Dordogne inns may rightly remember that the whole region of Bordeaux wines owed its profitable trade to that early union of England and Acquitaine. Wines : I am unworthy to write of them, except to say that of the Dordogne wines Monbazillac, grown round a fine castle, ranks high. The " little hill-side wines " of the country are often very pleasant, and they are cheap. I only found one—a rather dear Vieux Cahors—rough and fiery. As for food, I have no space, save to say that it is usually very good; Perigourdin cookery is one of the great schools of French gourmandise. Eat pâté de foie gras once at least; and omelette aux truffes often. Inns are plentiful, but you must engage months beforehand to get in between mid-June and mid-August, for they are crowded then by discriminating French holiday-makers, especially anglers. They are not dear, except the few luxury hotels frequented by rich French and foreign people. But best go for spring and the flowers, or autumn and the vintage. Sanitation is, with honourable ex- ceptions, but so-so. Beds are clean and comfortable.
You may go for the buildings, or for the people—packed with character that varies between the sharp Auvergnat and the Gascon as gay and stimulating as his wine. Or for the rivers; the gentle Dronne, the silent Vezere between its haunted cliffs, the tumbling Correze. Or the Dordogne, wide and sinuous, wild in the gorges, rippling over the white pebbles Of the tingles between tall poplars; a river to dream of. Greet it for me and tell it that I am coming back soon.
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