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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
order or view to effect. In one of the little fortresses - for so these antique farmhouses may be called - we
saw a rustic piazza, pillars and roof of rude unhewn stone blazing with petunias, no attempt whatever at
making the structure whole, symmetrical or graceful to the eye. It seems as if these homely though rich
farmers, or rather farmers' wives, could not do without flowers, above the street jutting many aerial
gardens, the only touch of beauty in the work-a-day picture. These interiors would supply artists with the
most captivating subjects. The women, their skins brown and wrinkled as ripe, shelled walnuts, their
head-dress a blue and white kerchief neatly folded and knotted, the expression of their faces shrewd and
kindly, all contribute to the charm of the scene.
Here as elsewhere the young women and girls affect a little fashion and finery on Sundays.
We should not know unless we were told that Recloses was one of the richest villages in these parts. On
this Sunday, September 1st, 1901, in one place a steam thresher was at work, although for the most part
folks seemed to be taking their ease in their holiday garb. Perhaps the difficulty of procuring the machine
accounted for the fact of seeing it on a Sunday.
One of the farm-yards showed a charming menagerie of poultry and the prettiest rabbits in the world, all
disporting themselves in most amicable fashion. Here, as elsewhere, when we stopped to admire, the
housewife came out, pleased to interchange a few words with us. The sight of Recloses is not, however,
its long line of little walled-in farm-houses, but the curious rocky platform at the end of the village,
perforated with holes always full of water, and the stupendous view thence obtained - an ocean of sombre
green unrelieved by a single sail.
Already the vast panorama of forest shows signs of autumn, light touches of yellow relieving the depths
of solemn green. On such a day of varied cloudland the perspective must be quite different, and perhaps
even more beautiful than under a burning cloudless sky, no soft gradations between the greens and the
blues. The little pools or perforations breaking the surface of the broad platform, acres of rocks, are, I
believe, unexplained phenomena. In the driest season these openings contain water, presumably forced
upwards from hidden springs. The pools, just now covered with green slime, curiously spot the grey
surface of the rocks.
If, leaving the world of forest to our right, we continue our journey in the direction of Chapelle la Reine,
we overlook a vast plain the population of which is very different from that of the smiling fertile
prosperous valley of the Loing. This plain, extending to Etampes and Pithiviers, might, I am told,
possibly have suggested to Zola some scenes and characters of "La Terre." A French friend of mine, well
acquainted with these parts, tells me that at any rate there, if anywhere, the great novelist might have
found suggestions for such a work. The soil is arid, the cultivation is primitive in the extreme and the
people are rough and uncouth. The other day an English resident at Marlotte, when cycling among these
villages of the plain inquired his way of a countryman.
"You are not a Frenchman?" quoth the latter before giving the desired information.
"No I am not" was the reply.
"You are not an American?"
"No, I am an Englishman."
"Ah!" was the answer, "I smelt you out sure enough" (Je vous ai bien senti). Whereupon he
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