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Matilda Betham-Edwards - East of Paris
were included in the purchase money. But the country was already in a ferment, and had our countryman
struck a bargain then and there, the last-named extras would have proved a dead letter. Seigneurial rights
were being abolished, or rather surrendered, at the very time that this transaction was under
consideration. As Arthur Young tells us, he might as well have asked for an elephant at Moulins as for a
newspaper. No one knew, or apparently cared to know, what was taking place in Paris. On asking his
landlady for a newspaper, she replied she had none, they were too dear. Whereupon the irate traveller
wrote down in his diary: "it is a great pity that there is not a camp of brigands in your coffee
room, Madame Bourgeau."
This part of France is not a region of prosperous peasant farmers, nor is it a chess-board of tiny crops, the
four or five acre freeholds of small owners cut up into miniature fields. I had a long talk with a
countryman, and he informed me that, as in Arthur Young's time, the land belongs to large owners, and is
still, as in his time, cultivated by metayers on the half-profit system. At the present day, however,
another class has sprung up, that of tenant farmers on a considerable scale; these, in their turn, sublet to
peasants who give their labour and with whom they divide the profits. Now, the half-profit system does
certainly answer elsewhere; in the Indre, for example, it has proved a stepping-stone to the position of
small capitalist. Here I learned, with regret, that such is not the case. Land, even in the highly-favoured
Allier, cannot afford a triple revenue. In the Indre, on the contrary, there is no intermediary between
land-owners and metayers, the former even selling small holdings to their labourers as soon as
they have saved a little capital.
"No; folks are not prosperous hereabouts," said my informant. "There are no manufacturers at Moulins to
enrich the people, and, what with high rents and low prices, the half-profit system does not pay. If money
is made, it is by the tenant-farmer, not by the metayer." Curious and instructive is the fact that the
most Catholic and aristocratic centres in France should often be the poorest; Moulins and the Allier
afford but one example out of many.
A beautiful drive of an hour and a quarter brought us within sight of Souvigny. Towering above the
bright landscape rose the Abbey Church, its sober dun, red and brown hues, the quaint houses of similar
colour huddled around it, contrasted with the dazzling brightness of sky and verdure.
Still more striking the contrast between the pile so majestic and surroundings so homely! Here, as at La
Charite, nothing is in keeping with the mass of architecture, which, in its apogee, stood for the town
itself, what of town, indeed, there was being the merest accessory, inevitable but unimposing entourage,
growing up bit by bit. The present population of Souvigny is something over three thousand, doubtless,
as in the case of La Charite, less than that of its former monastery and dependencies. As we wind
upwards, thus flanking the town and abbey, we realise the superb position of this cradle and mausoleum
of the Bourbons. For Souvigny was both. Two thousand and odd years ago, here, in the very heart of
France, Adhemar, a brave soldier, nothing more, became the first "Sire de Bourbon," Charles le Simple
having given him the fief of Bourbon as a reward for military services, its chief establishing himself at
Souvigny, and of course founding a religious house. The Benedictine abbey, being enriched with the
bones of two saints, former Abbots of Cluny, became a famous pilgrimage. Adhemar's successors
transferred their seat of seigneurial government to Bourbon l'Archimbault, but for centuries here they
found their last resting-place, and here they are commemorated in marble.
Indescribably picturesque is this whilom capital of the tiny feudal kingdom; topsy-turvy,
higgledy-piggledy, coated of many colours are its zig-zag little streets, one house tumbling on the back of
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