Honey dear: -
This has certainly been a great day. We've been to Chartres and I never expect to see a more beautiful place than that cathedral. I knew it would be beautiful - I knew there was glass, but I didn't expect to see a place, nearly all of about the same time, and that pretty early Gothic, and with its windows nearly all there! We got there about 10 and left about 5, so we had a nice long time to sit around. Also it was peaceful. Why the hordes weren't there I can't see - the place is no secret - but there were only a few about. This morning there was a nice little wedding. The boy and girl came along on foot through the market with their families & friends two by two, to about 25-30, behind 'em. They sat a spell in front of two tall candles in a chapel, and the assembling friends all kissed the bride & often the groom on both cheeks before sitting down. The bride's tulle veil was carefully draped by a friend over the back of her chair. Both fathers stood with them during the ceremony. Then they sat & I suppose there was a mass, something at the altar by the priest, but we drifted away then. The decorations were those glorious windows up above them.
The town is like Jena in size, and like it, local. The market was on, we first saw a live goose stuffed in a carpet bag, then a large white rabbit held by its ears, so we chased the market! The head gears are three, white caps with little pokes & frills, on the peasant women who bring their vegetables in little handcarts and lay them on the pavement - no tables or racks at all in most of the market; then woolen or lace or best of all black silk chenille caps whose tabs hang down long enough to tie and sometimes are tied. These are worn by graded degrees of elegance. The place is so black, for so many, both merchants and customers wear that color. They can't all be widows! The children of course wear it. And the market is very gloomy because of it. But these folks are so much more human than the snapping, crafty Parisian merchant class! They seemed friendly and honest and not artificial. I'd like to see some Parisians of our own group, to see if it is possible to get over this impression I have. A boy right under my eyes sold me 4 rotten pears and 2 good ones yesterday! It's such a petty cheating! "Oui, madame" - and then do nothing or the wrong thing - no, I don't like Paris to do our kind of deeds in. We get on to some of the tricks, of course - but I just don't want to stay or to buy. The shows are great, pictures, buildings, opera and all that - but the feeling is so unpleasant. Now this may be unfair, for we have met some nice folks along our path, but I can't feel secure with these folks, somehow. In Chartres it was nice, though the verger wouldn't let us go to the triforium.
We went up the transept tower and along a piece of the roof line to the main north tower, where we arrived in time to hear the bell perform at 12 o'clock. The man first strikes the quarters, I guess - but 'twas 3 x 3 strokes - this with a hand hammer. Then he came up to where the bell was hung, and by stepping with one foot on a board balanced on the bell's support, tilted it more and more until ithad one of those spells the Catholic churches revel in! Maybe 100 strokes or so. The bell weighs some tons, about 5 tons and this tilting is no mean exercise! Board was perhaps 5 feet long, worn in centre by this dailly exercise. One of the man's feet stayed on the shore of the scaffolding, but he sure rode up and down a lot on that board. And all this is up some 250 feet or more, with only scaffolding around - solid, but not much obstacle to falling! 'Twas quite exciting.
Couldn't get any good postcards at all. I took a few pictures, but needed to be in the triforium gallery, and could not get there. One buys the right to use a camera for a day for 5 francs.
But no more tonight. Oh, the town has amazing old timbered houses, especially Queen Berthe's staircase, and one o the old gates by the river. It's a fine place.
I'm going to put a package of Gentian seeds in this [no longer with the letter] - Alice says theya re not to be imported, but I think she's wrong! I have a few more gathered by hand which -
Aug.27 Brussels. This is another nice town - I like it better than Paris though it is not so grand. But it's grand enough, particularly in the past of the Grand Place, with that lovely Hotel de Ville. I never realized how exquisite that is!
We had Sunday forenoon in Paris, and drove around with a taxi to see the flags on the Quai d'Orsay and to get more of the "lay of the land." I'll send in this the chief article in yesterday's Observer - which seems to us most thrilling. I don't know whether the U.S. has to be ahead as the writer says or not - we seem so unready and so incompetent - but so is everybody, and yet we have to try. As far as we have read the French papers, they are favorable to Kellogg - and the Chicago Tribune continental edition, is vastly beyond belief - such a subtly horrid leading article yesterday! "They say" it is fighting the ratification of the pact as hard as it can, darn it. The London Times and Observer are fine - and the N.Y. Herald is much better than when I saw it often in 1922. The distinction the Observer makes between the publicity of this and old secret diplomacy is most striking.
In Paris, too, I got around to the Pantheon to see those big pictures, and to St. Etienne du Mont, which I missed before, such an interestingly different church, with its exqisitely carvedspiral staircases to the jube around the choir.
We left about one and travelled in a full train with four Amer. & two French. The latter scarce looked at us, not to say spoke! They seemed scornful, but perhaps not. One Amer. was a telephone operator (?) who had been in Czechoslovakia for 8 mos. with her mother's folks (?) and she was such a mixture of crudeness and sophistication, but rather attractive even if she had no knowledge of the Peace Pact! The lady from Texas had been with a party for 30 days, and had left them in Munich, sacrificing 27 days already paid for, because she couldn't stand any longer being told when to get her bag and when to eat! She had come alone to Paris and revelled in her freedom! Age about 60 - very nice!
Today we have rambled in Brussels, and seen a very pretty, even quite elegant wedding in the cathedral, with red velvet, no Brussels carpet, organ and choir, lots of tall candles, palms and such. The bride's train was descending over about three broad steps as she stood in the choir! There were a little boy & girl to carry it, coming out, and grandma, fussy, in black, trotted along to keep the boy on his job! About 8 pairs of men & girls, but not in grand clothes. A most elegant flunky with a broad, red, diagonal sash managed affairs. White stockings, knee breeches, plumed hat, mace (?) &c. He kept folks off the carpet, headed the procession out, &c. The music was lovely.
The art gallery we liked, too - such nice Flemish things. We have a new friend in Pieter Brueghel, the elder! And there's a Franz Hals new to the museum, which is lovely - three smiling children. And several of Nicholas Macs. I'm looking forward to the Antwerp museum, and to Ghent & Bruges tomorrow.
We had a grand lunch. Went to a little, old, 1600 place near the Grand Place. They bring you the sole before they serve it to you - and 'twas a work of art - with a wonderful sauce, with musrooms & frilled potato and tomatoes, all put in the oven to crisp the potato just before we saw it. Also artichokes! I've been pining for them. The man dissected out that troublesom hairy section very deftly! I know how now. And rapberry ice, of a flavor. It took two hours and some money - but it was the most elegant meal since the lobster at the Krogh restaurant in Copenhagen. Alice had a "crêpe," a pancake with a sauce made of whipped cream and a liqueur - again an addition to our knowledge. The hotel to which Lenette Rogers sent us is a small one, but very good.
Tonight we've been out by a bum motorcar to Malines to hear the carillon. After we got around away from the trolley cars, and heels clicking on the pavement, 'twas lovely. The car nearly fell to pieces on the way, the conductor was a hardened villain - and on the way back told us the war tales. He was a machine gunner on the road here as the Germans came in - and he's looking forward to another war when he can "get 'em" from the air! I didn't ask him his views on the peace pact - they seemed obvious, but I felt he'd just as soon fight one crowd as another! He's ready to sell his life, but wants to sell it high. His toll of Germans he put at maybe 40,000, modestly! Of course one has no idea of his truth, but the spirit for the fight was not gone by any means, though he was glad when he was wounded because he could quit for a while.
I'll mail this and maybe one short note more - but 'tis a mere moment until we sail! Last night I dreamed you came over - appeared in our hotel lobby, and I was most glad to see you! You'd decided to spend this year over here - but I didn't learn any more! 'Twas very convincingly natural. I'll be glad to see you - but I could bear it to stay over here a while longer.
Good night - and much love -
Abby
The woman from Texas said her sons sent her a clipping about a man who was asked if he'd seen a certain thing in Europe. "Well, it was there and I was there, so I suppose I saw it!"
The Observer said at one time only 4 men knew the Czech language. They were together. One said, "If the roof should fall, the Czech language would be lost from the earth." - And we think it's a pity the roof didn't fall!