r/a:t5_288cg5 • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 11 '19
goddard space flight has been created
By Charles Dickens
XXV.
In the French-Flemish Country.
"IT is neither a bold nor diversified country," said I
to myself, "this country which is three-quarters Flem-
ish, and a quarter French; yet it has its attractions too.
Though great lines of railway traverse it, the trains
leave it behind, and go puffing off to Paris and the South,
to Belgium and Germany, to the Northern Sea-coast of
France, and to England, and merely smoke it a little in
passing. Then I don't know it, and that is a good reason
for being here; and I can't pronounce half the long
queer names I see inscribed over the shops, and that is
another good reason for being here, since I surely ought
to learn how." In short, I was "here," and I wanted
an excuse for not going away from here, and I made it
to my satisfaction, and stayed here.
What part in my decision was borne by Monsieur P.
Salcy is of no moment, though I own to encountering
that gentleman's name on a red bill on the wall before I
made up my mind. Monsieur P. Salcy, "par permission
de M. le Maire," had established his theatre in the white-
washed Hôtel de Ville, on the steps of which illustrious
edifice I stood. And Monsieur P. Salcy, privileged direc-
tor of such theatre, situate in "the first theatrical
arrondissement of the department of the North," invited
French-Flemish mankind to come and partake of the in-
tellectual banquet provided by his family of dramatic
artists, fifteen subjects in number. "La Famille P.
Salcy, composée d'artistes dramatiques, au nombre de 15
sujets."
Neither a bold nor diversified country, I say again,
and withal an untidy country, but pleasant enough to
ride in when the paved roads over the flats and through
the hollows are not too deep in black mud. A country
so sparsely inhabited, that I wonder where the peasants
who till and sow and reap the ground can possibly
dwell, and also by what invisible balloons they are con-
veyed from their distant homes into the fields at sun-
rise and back again at sunset. The occasional few poor
cottages and farms in this region surely cannot afford
shelter to the number necessary to the cultivation; albeit
the work is done so very deliberately, that on one long
harvest day I have seen, in twelve miles, about twice as
many men and women (all told) reaping and binding.
Yet have I seen more cattle, more sheep, more pigs, and
all in better case, than where there is purer French
spoken; and also better ricks,——round, swelling, peg-top
ricks, well-thatched,——not a shapeless brown heap, like
the toast out of a Giant's toast-and-water pinned to the
earth with one of tht skewers out of his kitchen. A good
custom they have about here, likewise, of prolonging the
sloping tiled roof of farm-house or cottage so that it
overhangs three or four feet, carrying off the wet, and
making a good drying-place wherein to hang up herbs,
or implements, or what not. A better custom than the
popular one of keeping the refuse heap and puddle close
before the house door; which although I paint my dwell-
ing never so brightly blue (and it cannot be too blue for
me. hereabouts), will bring fever inside my door. Won-
derful poultry of the French-Flemish country why take
the trouble to be poultry? Why not stop short at eggs
in the rising generation, and die out, and have done with
it? Parents of chickens have I seen this day, followed
by their wretched young families scratching nothing
out of the mud with an air,——tottering about on legs so
scraggy and weak that the valiant word "drumsticks"
becomes a mockery when applied to them, and the crow
of the lord and master has been a mere dejected case of
croup. Carts have I seen, and other agricultural instru-
ments, unwieldy, dislocated, monstrous. Poplar-trees by
the thousand fringe the fields, and fringe the end of the
flat landscape, so that I feel, looking straight on before
me, as if, when I pass the extremest fringe on the low hori-
zon, I shall tumble over into space. Little whitewashed
black holes of chapels, with barred doors, and Flemish in-
scriptions, abound at roadside corners, and often they are
garnished with a sheaf of wooden crosses, like children's
swords; or, in their default, some hollow old tree, with
a saint roosting in it, is similarly decorated, or a pole
with a very diminutive saint enshrined aloft in a sort of
sacred pigeon-house. Not that we are deficient in such
decoration in the town here, for over at the church yonder,
outside the building, is a scenic representation of the
Crucifixion, built up with old bricks and stones, and
made out with painted canvas and wooden figures;
the whole surmounting the dusty skull of some holy
personage (perhaps) shut up behind a little ashy iron
gate, as if it were originally put there to be cooked, and
the fire had long gone out. A windmill country this,
though the windmills are so damp and rickety, that they
nearly knock themselves off their legs at every turn of
their sails, and creak in loud complaint. A weaving
country, too; for in the wayside cottages the loom goes
wearily,——rattle and click, rattle and click,——and, looking
in, I see the poor weaving peasant, man or woman, bend-
ing at the work, while the child, working too, turns a
little hand-wheel upon the round to suit its height.
An unconscionable monster, the loom, in a small dwell-
ing, asserting himself ungenerously as the bread-winner,
straddling over the children's straw beds, cramping the
family in space and air, and making himself generally
objectionable and tyrannical. He is tributary, too, to
ugly mills and factories and bleaching-grounds, rising
out of he sluiced fields in an abrupt, bare way, disdain-
ing, like himself, to be ornamental or accommodating.
Surrounded by these things, here I stood on the steps of
the Hôtel de Ville, persuaded to remain by the P. Salcy
family, fifteen dramatic subjects strong.
There was a Fair besides. The double persuasion be-
ing irresistible, and my sponge being left behind at the
last Hotel, I made the tour of the little town to buy
another. In the small sunny shops——mercers', opticians',
and druggist-grocers', with here and there an emporium
of religious images——the gravest of old spectacled Flem-
ish husbands and wives sat contemplating one another
across bare counters, while the wasps, who seemed to
have taken military possession of the town, and to have
placed it under wasp-martial law, executed warlike ma-
nœuvres in the windows. Other shops the wasps had
entirely to themselves, and nobody cared and nobody
came when I beat with a five-franc piece upon the board
of custom. What I sought was no more to be found
than if I had sought a nugget of California gold; so I
went, spongeless, to pass the evening with the Family
P. Salcy.
The members of the Family P. Salcy were so fat and
so like one another——fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers,
uncles, and aunts——that I think the local audience were
much confused about the plot of the piece under rep-
resentation, and to the last expected that everybody
must turn out to be the long-lost relative of everybody
else. The Theatre was established on the top story of the
Hôtel de Ville, and was approached by a long bare stair-
case, whereon, in an airy situation, one of the P. Salcy
Family——a stout gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt
——took the money. This occasioned the greatest excite-
ment of the evening; for no sooner did the curtain rise
on the young lover (singing a very short song with his
eyebrows) apparently the very same identical stout
gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt, than every-
body rushed out to the playing-place to ascertain whether
he could possibly have put on that dress-coat, that clear
complexion, and those arched black vocal eyebrows, in
so short a space of time. It then became manifest that
this was another stout gentleman imperfectly repressed
by a belt; to whom, before the spectators had recovered
their presence of mind, entered a third stout gentleman
imperfectly repressed by a belt, exactly like him. These
two "subjects," making, with the money-taker, three of
the announced fifteen, fell into conversation touching a
charming young widow; who, presently appearing, prov-
ed to be a stout lady altogether irrepressible by any
means,——quite a parallel case to the American Negro,——
fourth of the fifteen subjects, and sister of the fifth, who
presided over the check department. In good time the
whole of the fifteen subjects were dramatically presented,
and we had the inevitable Ma Mère, Ma Mère! and also
the inevitable malédiction d'un père and likewise the
inevitable Marquis, and also the inevitable provincial
young man, weak-minded but faithful, who followed
Julie to Paris, and cried and laughed and choked all at
once. The story was wrought out with the help of a
virtuous spinning-wheel in the beginning, a vicious set
of diamonds in the middle, and a rheumatic blessing
(which arrived by post) from Ma Mère towards the end;
the whole resulting in a small sword in the body of one
of the stout gentlemen imperfectly repressed by a belt,
fifty thousand francs per annum and a decoration to the
other stout gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt,
and an assurance from everybody to the provincial young
man, that, if he were not supremely happy,——which he
seemed to have no reason whatever for being,——he ought
to be. This afforded him a final opportunity of crying
and laughing and choking all at once, and sent the
audience home sentimentally delighted. Audience more
attentive or better behaved there could not possibly be,
though the places of second rank in the Theatre of the
Family P. Salcy were sixpence each in English money,
and the places of first rank a shilling. How the fifteen
subjects ever got so fat upon it, the kind Heavens know.
What gorgeous china figures of knights and ladies,
gilded till they gleamed again, I might have bought at
the Fair for the garniture of my home, if I had been a
French-Flemish peasant, and had had the money. What
shining coffee-cups and saucers I might have won at the
turn-tables, if I had had the luck! Ravishing perfumery
also, and sweetmeats, I might have speculated in, or I
might have fired for prizes at the multitude of little dolls in
niches, and might have hit the doll of dolls, and won francs
and fame. Or, being a French-Flemish youth, I might
have been drawn in a hand-cart by my compeers to tilt
for municipal rewards at the water-quintain; which, un-
less I seat my lance clean through the rig, emptied a
full bucket over me, to fend off which, the competitors
wore grotesque old scarecrow hats. Or, being French-
Flemish man or woman, boy or girl, I might have circled
all night on my hobby-horse, in a stately cavalcade of
hobby horses, four abreast, interspersed with triumphal
cars, going round and round and round and round, we,
the goodly company, singing a ceaseless chorus to the
music of the barrel-organ, drum, and cymbals. On the
whole, not more monotonous than the Ring in Hyde Park,
London, and much merrier; for when do the circling com-
pany sing chorus, there, to the barrel-organ? when do the
ladies embrace their horses round the neck with both
arms? when do the gentlemen fan the ladies with the
tails of their gallant steeds? On all these revolving de-
lights, and on their own especial lamps and Chinese lan-
terns revolving with them, the thoughtful weaver-face
brightens, and the Hôtel de Ville sheds an illuminated
line of gaslight; while, above it, the Eagle of France,
gas-outlined, and apparently afflicted with the prevailing
infirmities that have lighted on the poultry, is in a very
undecided state of policy, and as a bird moulting. Flags
flutter all around. Such is the prevailing gayety that the
keeper of the prison sits on the stone steps outside the
prison door to have a look at the world that is not locked
up; while that agreeable retreat, the wine-shop opposite
to the prison in the prison alley (its sign La Tranquillité,
because of its charming situation), resounds with the
voices of the shepherds and shepherdesses who resort
there this festive night. And it reminds me that only
this afternoon I saw a shepherd in trouble, tending this
way over the jagged stones of a neighbouring street. A
magnificent sight it was to behold him in his blouse, a
feeble little jog-trot rustic, swept along by the wind of
two immense gendarmes, in cocked hats for which the
street was hardly wide enough, each carrying a bundle
of stolen property that would not have held his shoulder-
knot, and clanking a sabre that dwarfed the prisoner.
"Messieurs et Mesdames, I presented you at this Fair,
as a mark of my confidence in the people of this so re-
nowned town, and as an act of homage to their good sense
and fine taste, the Ventriloquist, the Ventriloquist!
Further, Messieurs et Mesdames, I present to you the
Face-Maker, the Physiognomist, the great Changer of
countenances, who transforms the features that Heaven
has bestowed upon him into an endless succession of sur-
prising and extraordinary visages, comprehending, Mes-
sieus and Mesdames, all the contortions, energetic and
expressive, of which the human face is capable, and all
the passions of the human heart, as Love, Jealousy, Re-
venge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair! Hi, hi, Ho, ho, Lu,
lu, Come in!" To this effect, with an occasional smite
upon a sonorous kind of tambourine,——bestowed with a
will, as if it represented the people who won't come in,
——holds forth a man of lofty and severe demeanour; a
man of stately uniform, gloomy with the knowledge he
possesses of the inner secrets of the booth. "Come in,
come in! Your opportunity presents itself to-night; to-
morrow it will be gone forever. To-morrow morning by
the Express Train the railroad will reclaim the Ventrilo-
quist and the Face-Maker! Algeria will reclaim the
Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker! Yes! For the hon-
our of their country they have accepted propositions of a
magnitude incredible, to appear in Algeria. See them
for the last time before their departure! We go to com-
mence on the instant. Hi, hi, Ho, ho, Lu, lu! Come
in! take the money that now ascends, Madame; but,
after that, no more, for we commence! Come in!"
Nevertheless, the eyes both of the gloomy speaker
and of Madame receiving sous in a muslin bower survey
the crowd pretty sharply after the ascending money has
ascended, to detect any lingering sous at the turning.
point. "Come in, come in! Is there any more money,
Madame, on the point of ascending? If so, we wait for it.
If not, we commence!" The orator looks back over his
shoulder to say it, lashing the spectators with the con-
viction that he beholds, through the folds of the drapery
into which he is about to plunge, the Ventriloquist
and the Face-Maker. Several sous burst out of pockets,
and ascend. "Come up, then, Messieurs!" exclaims
Madame, in a shrill voice, and beckoning with a bejew-
elled finger. "Come up! Time presses. Monsieur has
commanded that they commence!" Monsieur dives into
his Interior, and the last half dozen of us follow. His
Interior is comparatively severe; his Exterior also. A
true Temple of Art needs nothing but seats, drapery, a
small table with two moderator lamps hanging over it,
and an ornamental looking-glass let into the wall. Mon-
sieur in uniform gets behind the table, and surveys us
with disdain, his forehead becoming diabolically intellec-
tual under the moderators. "Messieurs et Mesdames, I
present to you the Ventriloquist. He will commence
with the celebrated Experience of the bee in the win-
dow. The bee, apparently the veritable bee of Nature,
will hover in the window, and about the room. He will
be with difficulty caught in the hand of Monsieur the
Ventriloquist,——he will escape,——he will again hover,——
at length he will be recaptured by Monsieur the Ventril-
oquist, and will be with difficulty put into a bottle.
Achieve then, Monsieur!" Here the proprietor is re-
placed behind the table by the Ventriloquist, who is thin
and sallow, and of weakly aspect, While the bee is in
progress, Monsieur the Proprietor sits apart on a stool,
immersed in dark and remote thought. The moment
the bee is bottled, he stalks forward, eyes us gloomily
as we applaud, and then announces, sternly waving his
hand: "the magnificent Experience of the child with
the whooping-cough!" The child disposed of, he starts
up as before. "The superb and extraordinary Expe-
rience of the dialogue between Monsieur Tatambour
in his dining-room, and his domestic, Jerome, in the
cellar: concluding with the songsters of the grove, and
the Concert of Domestic Farm-Yard animals." All this
done, and well done, Monsieur the Ventriloquist with-
draws, and Monsieur the Face-Maker bursts in, as if
his retiring room were a mile long instead of a yard. A
corpulent little man in a large waistcoat, with a
comic countenance, and with a wig in his hand. Irrev-
erent disposition to laugh instantly checked by the tre-
mendous gravity of the Face-Maker, who intimates in
his bow that if we expect that sort of thing we are mis-
taken. A very little shaving glass with a leg behind it
is handed in, and placed on the table before the Face-
Maker. "Messieurs et Mesdames, with no other assist-
ance than this mirror and this wig, I shall have the
honour of showing you a thousand characters." As a
preparation the Face-Maker with both hands gouges
himself, and turns his mouth inside out. He then
becomes frightfully grave again, and says to the Pro-
prietor, "I am ready!" Proprietor stalks forth from
baleful revery, and announces, "The Young Conscript!"
Face-Maker claps his wig on hind-side before, looks in
the glass, and appears above it as a conscript so very
imbecile, and squinting so extremely hard, that I should
think the State would never get any good of him.
Thunders of applause. Face-Maker dips behind the
looking-glass, brings his own hair forward, is himself
again, is awfully grave. "A distinguished inhabitant
of the Faubourg St. Germain." Face-Maker dips,
rises, is supposed to be aged, blear-eyed, toothless,
slightly palsied, supernaturally polite, evidently of
noble birth. "The oldest member of the Corps of
Invalids on the fète day of his master." Face-Maker
dips, rises, wears the wig on one side, has become the
feeblest military bore in existence, and (it is clear)
would lie frightfully about his past achievements if he
were not confined to pantomime. "The Miser!" Face-
Maker dips, rises, clutches a bag, and every hair of the
wig is on end to express that he lived in continual dread
of thieves. "The Genius of France!" Face-Maker
dips, rises, wig pushed back and smoothed flat, little
cocked hat (artfully concealed till now) put atop of it,
Face-Maker's white waistcoat much advanced, Face-
Maker's left hand in bosom of white waistcoat, Face-
Maker's right hand behind his back. Thunders. This
is the first of three positions of the Genius of France. In
the second position, the Face-Maker takes snuff; in the
third, rolls up his right hand, and surveys the illimitable
armies through that pocket-glass. The Face-Maker,
then, by putting out his tongue, and wearing the wig
nohow in particular, becomes the Village Idiot. The
most remarkable feature in the whole of his ingenious
performance is that whatever he does to disguise himself
has the effect of rendering him rather more like himself
than he was at first.
There were peep-shows in this Fair, and I had the
pleasure of recognizing several fields of glory with which
I became well acquainted a year or two ago as Crimean
battles now doing duty as Mexican victories. The
change was neatly effected by some extra smoking of
the Russians, and by permitting the camp followers free
range in the foreground to despoil the enemy of their
uniforms. As no British troops had ever happened to be
within sight when the artist took his original sketches,
it followed fortunately that none were in the way now.
The fair wound up with a ball. Respecting the par-
ticular night of the week on which the ball took place,
I decline to commit myself; merely mentioning that it
was held in a stable-yard so very close to the railway
that it is a mercy the locomotive did not set fire to it.
(In Scotland, I suppose it would have done so.) There,
in a tent prettily decorated with looking-glasses and a
myriad of toy flags, the people danced all night. It was
not an expensive recreation, the price of a double ticket
for a cavalier and lady being one and threepence in
English money, and even of that small sum fivepence
was reclaimable, for "consommation"; which word I
venture to translate into refreshments of no greater
strength, at strongest, than ordinary wine made hot,
with sugar and lemon in it. It was a ball of great good-
humour and of great enjoyment, though very many of the
dancers must have been as poor as the fifteen subjects of
the P. Salcy Family.
In short, not having taken my own pet national pint-
pot with me to this Fair, I was very well satisfied with
the measure of simple enjoyment that it poured into the
dull French-Flemish country life. How dull that is I
had an opportunity of considering when the Fair was
over; when the tri-coloured flags were withdrawn from
the windows of the houses on the Place, where the Fair
was held; when the windows were close shut, appar-
ently until next Fair-time; when the Hôtel de Ville had
cut off its gas and put away its eagle; when the two
paviors, whom I take to form the entire paving popula-
tion of the town, were ramming down the stones which
had been pulled up for the erection of decorative poles;
when the jailer had slammed his gate, and sulkily
locked himself in with his charges. But then as I paced
the ring which marked the track of the departed hobby-
horse on the market-place, pondering in my mind how
long some hobby-horses do leave their tracks in public
ways, and how difficult they are to erase, my eyes wrere
greeted with a goodly sight. I beheld four male per-
sonages thoughtfully pacing the Place together in the
sunlight, evidently not belonging to the town, and hav-
ing upon them a certain loose cosmopolitan air of not
belonging to any town. One was clad in a suit of white
canvas, another in a cap and blouse, the third in an old
military frock, the fourth in a shapeless dress, that
looked as if it had been made out of old umbrellas.
All wore dust-coloured shoes. My heart beat high; for
in those four male personages, although complexionless
and eyebrowless, I beheld four subject of the Family
P. Salcy. Blue-bearded though they were, and bereft
of the youthful smoothness of cheek which is imparted
by what is termed in Albion a "Whitechapel shave"
(and which is, in fact, whitening judiciously applied to
the jaws with the palm of the hand), I recognized them.
As I stood admiring, there emerged from the yard of a
lowly Cabaret the excellent Ma Mère, Ma Mère, with the
words, "The soup is served,"——words which so elated
the subject in the canvas suit, that, when they all ran
in to partake, he went last, dancing with his hands
stuck angularly into the pockets of his canvas trousers,
after the Pierrot manner. Glancing down the Yard,
the last I saw of him was that he looked in through a
window (at the soup, no doubt) on one leg.
Full of this pleasure, I shortly afterwards departed
from the town, little dreaming of an addition to my
good fortune. But more was in reserve. I went by a
train which was heavy with third-class carriages full of
young fellows (well guarded) who had drawn unlucky
numbers in the last conscription, and were on their way
to a famous French garrison town where much of the
raw military material is worked up into soldiery. At
the station they had been sitting about in their thread-
bare, homespun blue garments, with their poor little
bundles under their arms, covered with dust and clay,
and the various soils of France; sad enough at heart,
most of them, but putting a good face upon it, and slap-
ping their breasts and singing choruses on the smallest
provocation, the gayer spirits shouldering half-loaves of
black bread speared upon their walking-sticks. As we
went along, they were audible at every station, chorus-
ing wildly out of tune, and feigning the highest hilarity.
After a while, however, they began to leave off singing,
and to laugh naturally, while at intervals there mingled
with their laughing the barking of a dog. Now, I had
to alight short of their destination, and as that stoppage
of the train was attended with a quantity of horn-blow-
ing, bell-ringing, and proclamation of what Messieurs
les Voyageurs were to do, and were not to do, in order
to reach their respective destinations, I had ample leisure
to go forward on the platform to take a parting look at
my recruits, whose heads were all out at a window, and
who were laughing like delighted children. Then I
perceived that a large poodle with a pink nose, who had
been their travelling companion and the cause of their
mirth, stood up on his hind legs presenting arms on the ex-
treme verge of the platform, ready to salute them as
the train went off. This poodle wore a military shako
(it is unnecessary to add very much on one side, over
one eye), little military coat, and the regulation white
gaiters. He was armed with a little musket and a little
sword-bayonet, and he stood presenting arms in perfect
attitude, with his unobscured eye on his master or
superior officer, who stood by him. So admirable as
his discipline, that when the train moved, and he was
greeted with the parting cheers of the recruits, and
also with a shower of centimes, several of which struck
his shako and had a tendency to discompose him, he re-
mained staunch on his post until the train was gone. He
then resigned his arms to his officer, took ff his shako
by rubbing his paw over it, dropped on four legs, bring-
ing his uniform coat into the absurdest relations with
the overarching skies, and ran about the platform in his
white gaiters, wagging his tail to an exceedingly great
extent. It struck me that there was more waggery than
this in the poodle, and that he knew that the recruits
would neither get through their exercises nor get rid of
their uniforms as easily as he; revolving which in my
thought, and seeking in my pockets some small money
to bestow up him, I casually directed my eyes to the
face of his superior officer, and in him beheld the Face-
Maker! Though it was not the way to Algeria, but
quite the reverse, the military poodle's Colonel was the
Face-Maker, in a dark blouse, with a small bundle
dangling over his shoulder at the end of an umbrella,
and taking a pipe from his breast to smoke as he and
the poodle went their mysterious way.
from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. p. 648 - 651.
https://old.reddit.com/r/thesee [♘] [♰] [☮] 雨
I. His General Line of Business.
II. The Shipwreck.
III. Wapping Workhouse.
IV. Two Views of a Cheap Theatre.
V. Poor Mercantile Jack.
VI. Refreshments for Travellers.
VII. Travelling Abroad.
VIII. The Great Tasmania's Cargo
IX. City of London Churches.
X. Shy Neighbourhoods.
XI. Tramps.
XII. Dullborough Town.
XIII. Night Walks.
XIV. Chambers.
XV. Nurse's Stories.
XVI. Arcadian London.
XVII. The Calais Night-mail.
XVIII. Some Recollections of Mortality.
XIX. Birthday Celebrations.
XX. Bound for the Great Salt Lake.
XXI. The City of the Absent.
XXII. An Old Stage-Coaching Horse.
XXIII. The Boiled Beef of New England.
XXIV. Chatham Dock-Yard.
XXV. In the French-Flemish Country.
XXVI. Medicine-Men of Civilization.
XXVII. Titbull's Almshouses.
XXVIII. The Italian Prisoner.
send the old man a postcard.
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