ROYAT-LES-BAINS..
I SUPPOSE there never was a garden since Eden (unless, per- haps, in the early days of the Jesuit settlements in the Paraguay) in which the devil has not had a tree or a corner somewhere ; and it would he well for us all if he were no more in evidence in other health and holiday resorts than he is here in the Parc. His booth is at the end of the middle terrace, a small pavilion, well shaded by tall acacias, in which in the afternoons you can risk a franc, occasionally two, every minute on the course des petits chevaux. The course is a round table, with eight or ten concentric grooves, in each of which a small horse and jockey runs. Outside this course, with room for a page boy to move round between the two, there is a slight railing with a flat top, at which the players sit round and post their stakes. These are collected by the page, who lets each player draw a number in exchange for the francs. As soon as he has made his circuit, the croupier gives a turn to a handle which works the machinery. The first turn brings all the horses into line, and the next starts them round the course, each in his own groove. After another turn or two, the croupier lets go the handle, and the puppets begin to scatter, the winner being the one which passes the post last before the machine stops, and they all come to a standstill. Then the croupier calls out the winning number, and the owner gets all the stakes, except one, which goes to the table. Beyond this, the Company has no interest whatever, so it is said. Of course one looks with jealousy at every such game of chance, and I was inclined to think at first that the croupier was in league with two women, one spectacled, who sat steadily at one end of the players, playing in partnership, and seeming to win oftener than any of the others ; but the longer I watched, the weaker grew my suspicions. Most of the players, by-the-way, are women, though there are a few men who come and sit for hours, playing and smoking cigarettes. Besides the sitters many strollers come up, stake their francs for a course or two, and then move on, not unfrequently with a handful of silver. On the whole, if play is to be allowed at all, it can Scarcely take a more harmless form, if only the good-natured French papa could be kept from letting his children play for him. He comes up with a child of ten or twelve years, lets them sit down, and supplies them from behind with the necessary francs, and after a round or two the little faces flush and bands shake, especially if they be girls, in a way which is painful to see. A child gambling is as sad a sight, for every one but the devil and his elect, as this old world can show.
Next to the courses des petits chevaux, at some thirty yards' distance, comes the large pavilion in which the excellent band sit and play for an hour in the forenoon and afternoon, and again at 8 p.m. Round the pavilion is a broad space, gravelled and well shaded, and furnished with chairs which are occupied all the afternoon by baigneurs and visitors, mostly in family groups, the women knitting or sewing, and the children playing about in the intervals of the music, and before and after the regular concerts. Occasionally they have a bal d'enfants in this space, controlled by a master of the cere- monies, a dancing-master, I am told. Under him the children, boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen, down to little trots who can scarcely toddle, may enjoy polkas, galops, and the tarantal.e des postilions, as well as the gravel allows ; and now and again comes a dgfi/e, in which, in couples carefully graduated according to size and age, the children march round the walks, and in and out amongst the approving sitters. A very pretty, and to me rather a curious sight, as I much doubt if the English boy could be induced to perform such a march, even in the hope of small packets of bonbons at the end, which are distributed to the best performers.
The big orchestral platform in this pavilion is often occu- pied, when the band is not playing, by itinerant performers, who (I suppose) hire it from the Company in the hope of getting a few francs out of the sitting and circulating crowd. The performances are poor, so far as I have seen, though one conjurer certainly played a trick which entirely beat me at the time, and for which I am still quite unable to account. He produced what he called a garotte, made of two stout planks which shut one upon another (like our old stocks), and in which was a central hole for the neck, and two smaller ones for the wrists. This garotte he handed round, and though I did not get hold of it, I inspected it in the hands of a youth who was standing just in front of me, and satisfied myself that the planks were solid wood. Then he placed it on a stand, and called up a stout damsel in the flesh-coloured tights which seem to be de rigueur for all female performers, who knelt down and laid her neck in the big hole, and a wrist in each of the smaller ones. The conjurer then let down the upper plank upon her, and having borrowed a signet-ring from an elderly decore Frenchman who was sitting near the platform, proceeded to encircle the two planks with strips of stout paper or tape, which he sealed with the ring. Then he held up a screen for the space of twenty seconds, and on lowering it the damsel was posturing in her tights, while the garotte remained in situ, with the tapes still there and the seals unbroken. By what trick she got her head and bands out I was utterly unable to guess, and strolled away with the rather provoking sense of having been fooled through my eyes. I hope a green parrot who flew down and sat on the railing close to the- garotte, with his head wisely on one side, flew off better satisfied.
Below, on the lowest terrace, at the end of the gtablissemene buildings, is the salle d'escrime, which is open daily in the after- noons, when you may see through the big windows the "Maitre d'Escrime, professeur de S.A.R. le Prince des Galles," sitting ready to instruct pupils, or (so it seemed) to try a friendly bout with all comers. The former were generally too much of mere beginners to make any show worth seeing, but on one day an awkward customer turned up who ran the pro- fessor, so far as I could judge, very hard. Indeed, I am by no means sure that he acknowledged several shrewd hits, but my- knowledge of fencing is too small to make my judgment worth much. Le bore is also announced to go on here, but r have never seen the gloves put on yet. Indeed, I much doubt whether young Frenchmen really like having their heads-. punched for love. It is an eccentricity which does not seem to spread out of the British Isles. There was a tempting- assaut d'armes last Sunday, presided over by General- Paquette, at which eleven maitres d'escrime of regiments in this department and one professor from Paris were to fence._ I was sorely tempted to go, but as the thermometer stood at 80° in the shade, and so reinforced my insular prejudices as to the day, abstained.
Again, beyond the Casino, on the upper terrace, is a good' croquet-ground on the broad gravel space at the lower end of the Parc. I should think it a difficult ground to play on, but as a rule the French boys are decidedly good players, and seem to enjoy the game thoroughly, and to get round the hoops quicker than any of ours could do on a lawn like a billiard- table. The Casino, besides a restaurant and reading-room, contains a theatre, at which there are performances five nights in the week, and generally a ball on the off-nights. These are often fancy-balls, and always, I hear, very lively; but I cannot speak from experience, never having as yet descended either• to them or to the plays and operettas. When one can sit out on a terrace and see the lights coming out in the valley, and the Milky Way and all the stars in the heaven shining as they only do down South, even the artists of the Theatre Francais,. and the other theatrical stars who visit the Casino in the- season, cannot get me indoors o' nights, even at Casino prices. These are very reasonable, the abonnement for a seat being only 1 fr. a night, or 2 fr. for a fauteuil. Your readers may perhaps be able to judge of the kind of entertainment given by a specimen. To-night there are two operettas, Violon- naux, music by Offenbach ; and Les Charbonneurs, music by G. Coste. I own I never heard of either of the pieces.
I think, Sir, you will allow that there are attractions enough of all kinds provided by the Compagnie Anonyme des Eaux Minerales de Royat, who own the Parc and run the business. They can well afford it, as every visitor pays 10 fr., as an abonnement for drinking the waters, and the charges for baths are high, e.g., 2.50 fr. for a separate bath, and 2 fr. for the swimming-bath, decidedly more than any of our English watering-places, not excepting Bath ; but one has so much more fun (if one wants it) for the money. And then there is this immense thing to be said for this Royat Company,—their- park is entirely free and open to any one who cares to walk through it. I have seen scores of peasants in blouses, and' their wives, sitting about during the concerts, not on the same terrace with the band, where a sou is charged for chairs, but near enough to hear the music perfectly ; and one meets them all- about the garden, walking and chatting amongst the—I was going to write "well-dressed," but that they are not, but eminently respectable, if rather dowdy—crowds of bathers and visitors. I do not, of course, mean that there are no exceptions, either in the case of dowdiness or respectability, but they are rare enough to prove the rule. On the other- hand, the number of religious of both sexes is remarkable who come to use the waters, principally for throat ailments.. Sisters of several kinds, some wearing black hoods with white, breastplates, others in large white head-dresses, with long- flaps, like a bird's wings, which flap as they walk, are frequent in the early mornings and other quiet times ; and besides the regular clergy, there are three monkish
orders represented. Of these the most striking are two Franciscans (I believe), clad in rough, ruddy-brown flannel gowns, reaching to the ground, with large roseries hanging before and cowls behind, and girt with knotted ropes. Peter the Hermit preached the first crusade in the neigh- bouring Church of St. Mary of the port at Clermont, assisted doubtless by many a friar, clad precisely as these are, except that the modern monk or friar (as I was disappointed to note, at any rate in one case) does not go bare-footed, or even in sandals, but in substantial shoes, and trousers ! I was much struck by the quiet, patient, and reverent expression on all the faces, very different from what I remember in past years. Persecution may very well account, however, for this. There is no branch, I take it, of the Church Universal which does not thrive under it, in the best sense.—I am, Sir, &c.,
VACIIIIS VIATOR.
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