Outre-Mer, Volume 1 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Author:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature/Poetry
Publisher: Electronic Text Center. University of Virginia Library.
Published: 2000-08-01T05:00:00+00:00

Nor must I forget to mention the Fête Pa- tronale,--a kind of annual fair, which is held at mid-summer in honor of the patron saint of Auteuil. Then the principal street of the village is filled with booths of every description; strolling players, and rope-dancers, and jugglers, and giants, and dwarfs, and wild beasts, and all kinds of wonderful shows excite the gaping curiosity of the throng, and in dust, crowds, and confusion the village rivals the capital itself. Then the goodly dames of Passy descend into the village of Auteuil;--then the brewers of Billancourt, and the tanners of Sèvres dance lustily under the greenwood tree; --and then, too, the sturdy fish-mongers of Brétigny and Saint-Yon regale their fat wives with an airing in a swing, and their customers with eels and craw-fish;--or as is more poetically set forth in an old Christmas Carol,

Vous eussiez vu venir tous ceux de Saint-Yon,

Et ceux de Brétigny apportant du poisson,

Les barbeaux et gardons, anguilles et carpettes

Etoient à bon marché Croyez, A cette journée-là, La, la, Et aussi les perchettes.

I found another source of amusement in observing the various personages that daily passed and repassed beneath my window. The character, which most of all arrested my attention, was a poor blind fiddler, whom I first saw chaunting a doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern near the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat out at elbows, the fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that had long since seen its best days, set off an open, good-humored countenance, bronzed by sun and wind. He was led about by a brisk middle aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes; and a little bare-footed boy, with clear blue eyes and flaxen hair, held a tattered hat in his hand, in which he collected eleemosynary sous. The old fellow had a favorite song, which he used to sing with great glee to a merry, joyous air, the burden of which ran “chantons l’amour et le plaisir!”--let us sing of love and pleasure. I often thought it would have been a good lesson for the crabbed and discontented rich man, to have heard this remnant of humanity,--poor, blind, and in rags, and dependent upon casual charity for his daily bread, singing, in so cheerful a voice, the charms of existence, and, as it were, fiddling life away to a merry tune.

I was one morning called to my window by the sound of rustic music. I looked out, and beheld a procession of villagers advancing along the road, attired in gay dresses, and marching merrily on in the direction of the church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage festival. The procession was led by a long orang-outang of a man, in a straw hat and white dimity bob-coat, playing on an asthmatic clarionet, from which he contrived to blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon

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