August 14. 
COUNTBY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
350 
i 
I 
! 
I never benefited very much, however, by these listenings. 
It was my bad luck to bear recounted neither tale nor 
legend,—to pick up, at the hands of my compotatorcs, neither 
local trait nor anecdote. The conversation was as small as 
the wine. The gossip of the place; the prospects of the 
vintage; elaborate comparisons of it with other vintages; 
hirths, marriages, ancl deaths ; a minute list of scandal, 
more or less intelligible when conveyed in hints and allu¬ 
sions ; were the staple topics, mixed up, however, once or ' 
twice with general denunciations of the niggardly conduct of 
certain neighbouring proprietors to their vintagers,—giving 
them for breakfast nothing but coarse bread, lard, and not 
even piquette to wash it down with, and for dinner not much 
more tempting dishes. 
In Medoc, there are two classes of vintagers—the fixed 
and the floating population; and the latter, which makes an 
annual inroad into the district just as the Irish harvesters 
do into England and Scotland, comprising a goodly popula¬ 
tion of very dubious and suspicious-looking characters. The 
gen-d’armcric have a busy time of it when these gentry are 
collected in numbers in the district. Poultry disappear 
with the most miraculous promptitude ; small linen articles 
hung out to dry have no more chance than if Falstatf’s 
regiment were passing by; and garden fruit and vegetables, j 
of course, share the same results produced by a rigid appli- I 
cation of the maxim that In propricte e’est. Ic vol. "Where 
these persons come from is a puzzle. There will be vagrants 
and strollers among them from all parts of France—from 
the Pyrenees and the Alps—from the pine-woods of the 
Landes and the moors of Brittany. They unite in bands of i 
a dozen or a score men and women, appointing a chief, who 1 
bargains with the vine-proprietor for the services of the 
company, and keeps up some degree of order and subordina- j 
tion, principally by means of the unconstitutional applica¬ 
tion of a good thick stick. I frequently encountered these 
bands, making their way from one district to another; and 
better samples of “ the dangerous classes” were never col¬ 
lected. They looked vicious and abandoned, as well as 
miserably poor. The worneu, in particular, were as brazen¬ 
faced a set of slatterns as could be conceived; and the 
majority of the men—tattered, strapping-looking fellows, 
with torn slouched hats, and tremendous cudgels—were 
exactly the sort of persons a nervous gentleman would have 
scruples about meeting at dusk in a long lane. It is when 
thus on the tramp that the petty pilfering and picking and 
stealing to which I have alluded goes on. "When actually 
at work, they have no time for picking up unconsidered 
trifles. Sometimes these people pass the night—all together, 
of course—in out-houses or barns, when the chef can strike I 
a good bargain; at other times they bivouac on the lee-side | 
of a wood or wall, in genuine gipsy fashion. You may often 
see their watchfires glimmering in the night; and be sure J 
that were you do, there are twisted necks and vacant nests I 
in many a neighbouring hen-roost. One evening I was 
sauntering along the beach at Paulliac—a little town on the 
river’s bank, about a dozen of miles from the mouth of the 
Gironde, and holding precisely the same relation to Bor¬ 
deaux as Gravesend does to London—when a band of 
vintagers, men, women, and children, came up. They were 
bound to some village on the opposite side of the Gironde, ! 
and wanted to get ferried across. A long parley accordingly 
ensued between the chief and a group of boatmen. The 
commander of the vintage forces offered four sous per head 
as the passage-money. The bargemen would hear of 
nothing under five; and after a tremendous verbal battle, 
the vintagers announced that they were not going to be 
cheated, and that if they could not cross the water, they 
could stay where they were. Accordingly, a bivouac was 
soon formed. Creeping under the lee of a row of casks, on 
the shingle of the bare beach, the women were placed, 
leaning against the somewhat hard and large pillows in 
question ; the children were nestled at their feet and in their 
laps; and the men fomed the outermost ranks. A supply 
of loaves was sent for and obtained. The chief tore the 
bread up into huge junks, which he distributed to his de¬ 
pendents ; and upon this supper the whole party went coolly 
to sleep—more coolly, iudeed, than agreeably; for a keen 
north wind was whistling along the sedgy banks of the river, 
and the red blaze of high-piled faggots was streaming from 
the houses across the black, cold, turbid waters. At length, 
however, some arrangement was come to; for, on visiting 
the spot a couple of hours afterwards, I found the party 
rather more comfortably ensconced under the ample sails of 
the barge which was to bear them the next morning to their 
destination. 
The dinner-party formed every day, when the process of 
stripping the vines is going on, is, particularly in the cases 
in which the people are treated well by the proprietor, fre¬ 
quently a very pretty and very picturesque spectacle. It 
always takes place in the open air, amongst the bushes, or 
under some neighbouring walnut-tree. Sometimes long 
tables are spread upon trestles ; but in general no such 
formality is deemed requisite. The guests fling themselves 
in groups upon the ground—men and women picturesquely 
huddled together—the former bloused and bearded person¬ 
ages—the latter showy, in their bright short petticoats of 
home spun and dyed cloth, with glaring handkerchiefs 
twisted like turbans round their heads—each man and 
woman with a deep plate in his or her lap. Then the people 
of the house bustle about, distributing huge brown loaves, 
which are torn asunder, and the fragments chucked from 
hand to hand. Next a vast cauldron of soup, smoking like 
a volcano, is painfully lifted out from the kitchen, and dealt 
about with mighty ladlefuls; while the founder of the feast 
takes care that the tough, thready bouilli —like lumps of 
boiled-down hemp—shall be fairly apportioned among his 
guests. Piquette is the general beverage. A barrel is set 
abroach, and every species of mug, glass, cup, and jug 
about the establishment is called in to aid in its consump¬ 
tion. A short rest, devoted to chatting, or very often sleeping 
in the shade, over, the signal is given, and the work recom¬ 
mences. 
“ You have seen our suite a manger ,” said one of my 
courteous entertainers—he of the broad-brimmed straw hat; 
“ and now you shall see our chamhrc a coucher." Accord¬ 
ingly, he led me to a barn close to his wine-cellars. The 
place was littered deep with clean, fresh straw. Here and 
there rolled-up blankets were laid against the wall; while 
all around, from nails stuck in between the bare bricks, 
hung by straps and strings the little bundles, knapsacks, and 
other baggage of the labourers. On one side, two or three 
swarthy young women were playfully pushing each other 
aside, so as to get at a morsel of cracked mirror stuck 
against the wall—their long hair hanging down in black elf- 
locks, in the preliminary stage of its arrangement. 
“ That is the ladies’ side,” said my cicerone, pointing to 
the girls; “ and that”—extending his other hand—“ is the 
gentlemen's side.” 
“ And so they all sleep here together ?" 
“Every night. I find shelter and straw; any other 
accommodation they must procure for themselves.” 
“ Bather unruly, I should suppose ?” 
“Not a bit. They are too tired to do anything but sleep. 
They go off, sir, like dormice.” 
“ Oh, sil plait a Mossieu!” put in one of the damsels. 
“ The chief of the band does the police.” ( Fait la gen¬ 
ii' armerie.') 
“ Certainly—certainly,” said the proprietor ; “ the gentle¬ 
men lie here, with their heads to the wall; the ladies there; 
and the chef dc la bande stretches himself all along between 
them.” 
“ A sort of living frontier?” 
“ Truly; and he allows no nonsense.” 
“ II est meme excessivement severe," interpolated the same 
young lady. 
“ He need be,” replied her employer. “ He allow's no 
loud speaking—no joking ; and as there are no candles, no 
light, why, they can do nothing better than go quietly to 
sleep, if it were only in self-defence.” 
One word more about the vintage. The reader will easily 
conceive that it is on the smaller properties, where the wine 
is intended not so much for commerce as for household use, 
that the vintage partakes most of the festival nature. In 
the large and first-class vineyards the process goes on under 
rigid superintendence, and is as much as possible made a 
cold matter of business. He who wishes to see the vintages 
of books and poems—the laughing, joking, singing festivals 
amid the vines, which we are accustomed to consider the 
harvests of the grape—must betake him to the multitudinous 
patches of peasant property, in which neighbour helps 
