Haworth

After two and a half hours of lovely countryside, we arrived in Haworth, the home of the Brontes.



Looking at the Parsonage and its surroundings is a bit misleading, as now it is surrounded by trees, and the graveyard comes up to the parsonage garden like a moat. At the time the Brontes lived there, the churchyard was much smaller, and there were no trees. Rather the Parsonage was stuck up alone on the hill above the church, bare to the elements.



The church currently in Haworth is more recent than the Bronte's, although it sits in the same location. You can see in the picture above the series of gravestones set flat in the ground, which was the custom at the time. This was part of the problem.

By 1850, the general health of the population of Haworth was deplorable, with child mortality rates and life expectancies as poor as the worst areas of London. Life expectancy was a mere 24 years. The practice of recumbent tombstones prevented the interred corpses from decomposing properly, and the toxic run-off infected the water supply. After 1850 the tomb stones were placed upright, and trees were planted to aid in the decomposition as well. Measures were taken to improve the water, and the placement and quantity of privies. Too late for the Brontes--by then, only Charlotte and her father were left.



View from the church to the Parsonage. Notice the different stone placements.

Photographs are not permitted inside the Bronte Parsonage Museum, so we don't have any of those, only the sign in front.



And the former gateway:



The house itself is small, almost like a small ship, where everything is in its place. The best part are the artifacts, books, clothing, furniture, etc. that were the property of the Brontes. At first I was surprised that anything had survived--and then I realized I'd been looking at medieval architecture for the past week, and things that were only 150 years old shouldn't be rare.

Some of my favorites were watercolors of roses by Charlotte, and a head portrait by Emily of her dog, Keeper.



He was a very large mastiff which Emily dominated by the force of her personality. There is a famous story of Keeper in a vicious dog fight--so fierce that several men were afraid to intervene. Emily waded into the fight, put an arm around Keeper's neck and dredged pepper into both dogs' noses. She then drove Keeper home before her.

Keeper's collar is on display at the museum. Seriously, it's as big around as a dinner plate. That was a BIG dog.

Also on display at the time was a collection of Branwell Bronte's oil paintings. Branwell lived a rather tragic life, although among book lovers he's generally blamed for causing Anne and Emily's deaths. The popular understanding when I was in college was that the two sisters caught colds at Branwell's funeral and died within a few months. The story presented at Haworth was the Emily already had TB, but had refused to let on until she was too sick to hide it any longer.

Branwell is the painter of the famous portrait of the three sisters, and was supposed by them to be the "real genius" of the family. Looking at the portraits he painted, however, one has to wonder: was he really so talented, or was he the male? Realize that when the family moved to Haworth in 1820, there were six girls and one boy, and their situation depended entirely on their father. If anything happened to him, they would lose their home--it was, after all, the Parsonage, and if Patrick was no longer the pastor, they would have to turn the house over to his successor.

Thus Branwell was the logical "back-up" breadwinner for the family. The girls worked as governesses, and tried to start a school, but none of those efforts worked. They were simply not financially independent. Look at the situation as if it were "Pride and Prejudice" and think about the pressure Branwell must have felt to perform.

He also fell in love with a young married woman, which was bad enough, but when her husband died, she refused to marry him which seems to have broken his heart. It is from there that his drinking and opium use seemed to get out of hand. Although one only has to walk through Haworth to realize how easy it would be to do so. The church is only steps from the Parsonage, the pub is only steps from the church,






and the apothecary's is only across the narrow street.




Now it sells bath salts and retro and novelty gifts.

The Brontes themselves are buried under the church. There are a couple of markers.



Anne is not buried here, because after Emily died, it was decided to try a sea air cure for her. She traveled to Scarborough, died four days later, and was buried there.



The site of so much tragedy, Haworth today is undeniably charming.

The Sunday School building where Charlotte taught:



The view down the main road:



Charming stone houses:






And out behind the Parsonage are still the moors.



Given the poverty and miasma of ill health that pervaded Haworth in their time, it's not surprising that the girls preferred to head out over the moors for their exercise.



Although the land just behind the Parsonage is divided by dry stone walls into sheep pastures, walking paths remain that go out to a small waterfall, and the sites popularly supposed to be the inspirations for the houses of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. We would have taken at least part of those walks, but we had a date with a Ghost Tour back in York, and reluctantly had to skip that part of the visit.



A close-up of the stone wall.

Instead, we had tea in a lovely tea room just a few doors up from the Apothecary's house, that had a gorgeous sweeping view down into the valley. Since none of us managed to take a picture of that, here is a picture of some more sheep.

Yorkshire

We took a number of "Literary Pilgrimages" while on this trip--and one was to Bronte country, the town of Haworth. Cris rented a car, and we drove the two hours west from York on a misty day.



The car.

Cris found driving on the wrong side of the road was not as much of a problem as he thought it would be. The official explanation is "the boat has its helm on the right side, so he's had some practice." I kept trying to get in the wrong side of the car, but Cris handled things wonderfully. American's aren't really very good at roundabouts, as we don't have many, but other than that, Cris might have been driving in England his entire life.

Emily got hungry, as usual, so we stopped at a lay-by that promised breakfast. It turned out to be barely more than a caravan, that served traditional English cuisine--beans on toast, bacon sandwiches.




The kitchen is located behind the Jacquelines sign, and the squared off shanty with the Open sign held seating for about 8 people. We got our food to go.

While the food operation was quaint and rustic, the location was beautiful. Several people were fishing in the small creek from a bridge that looked like a Roman acquaduct.



With medieval turrets.

Bushes were in bloom, and several horses were pastured in an open field next to the creek.



A view toward the bridge.




A mare and foal.



Wildflowers



Wild strawberries

We drove west, and the scenery was just amazing. And for some reason, the beauty of the moors and the fact of being on the way to see where Charlotte, Emily and Anne lived just hit me, and I started crying. I can't explain why, and it was rather embarrassing, but I couldn't stop.




These pictures were taken from the car by Emily, because I couldn't see through the tears well enough to operate the camera.






Achingly lovely.

Traveling by Eurostar

These are just pictures of us on the train from Paris to London.




Eurostar travel is lovely--the seats are comfortable, the train itself is wicked fast, and there is no "click-clack" as it travels over the rails. Traveling under the Channel is uneventful--it's a long tunnel, very dark, nothing to see, no landmark entry or exit, and over in about 20 minutes.


We got a table with four seats, and read and chatted and listened to music for about two and a quarter hours before arriving at King's Cross station in London, where we switched to a different train for the trip to York.



The northern French countryside was mostly agricultural and not particularly charming. Cris claimed it was "like driving through Wisconsin"--farms, and inevitably a large and unattractive agri-industrial type building.



Still, lovely enough, and a nice break after days of running around--a chance to sit and have the scenery come to us.

June 29--Travel from Paris, York

Q: Since 1066, every British monarch has crossed the English Channel to France except one. Can you name that monarch?

A: Queen Elizabeth II--because she went by Chunnel.

And so did we! Because we wanted to see the countryside, and because Emily is a train fan, we took the Eurostar from Paris to London.

Eurostar rocks.

It could not have been more comfortable, more quiet, or a better experience, and beats the hassle of airplane travel all to hell. The trip took two hours and fifteen minutes, arriving in the heart of London at St. Pancras/King's Cross. By way of comparison, by air the trip takes an hour, so it's very efficient as well.

Less efficient was our transfer from Eurostar to Northern Express for the trip to York. London was hot and muggy, and the station is under major renovation so we banged around a bit before finding our train. Once on board, though, it was another lovely and civilized trip, and the train even had wi-fi! So we blogged on the way.

Why don't we have that kind of decent train service here? Oh, maybe it has to do with the fact that England is about 8 times more densely populated? And the whole country is about the size of Minnesota? Oh well, we enjoyed it while it was available to us in Europe.

We stayed in a nifty hotel that evoked the glamor of the 1930s, sleek and spare--Churchill Hotel. The room was small and mostly unadorned, which was kind of a visual relief after all we had been seeing. Once in the room, it was still daylight, so we took off to the place Cris was looking forward to seeing--York Minster.

A "minster" is apparently the term for a church that was in use during Saxon times, so very few "minsters" even exist any more. The York Minster is lovely, and superlative, with the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. It's also the third building in that spot--restoration work decades ago uncovered evidence of Roman barracks, as well as the foundations of earlier, smaller churches.

The church that stands there now may be the newest, but it still dates from about 1220. It's constantly being repaired, and there's a story about that. The tales goes: Around 1539, when Henry VIII was dissolving the monasteries and acquiring the riches of the Catholic churches, the Catholics reluctantly turned over control of York Minster. Officially, the King's men were going to strip it of its offending idolatry, and when they were done the Catholics were going to get it back.

That's right--once they were finished with all the reconstructions work. Yeeaah. Scaffolding hasn't been down in nearly 500 years. They ain't NEVER going to be "finished."

(We were told this story in all earnestness, and we haven't checked it out on Snopes.)

My favorite was the 13th century chapterhouse, where monks would gather daily to hear a chapter of the Bible read out. It's a large octagonal room, with stone bench seats around the perimeter. Each of the seats has a sort of canopy over it, made of stone, and each ends in a unique carving. Most are faces, and the first half dozen or so that I looked at were serious medieval burgher type faces. Then they started to vary, some laughing, some angry, a dog or two, and a couple where the figure uses its fingers to make a silly face. Yes, you can buy copies of some of these, and yes, we bought the one with the silly face.

The day we were there was a day special to St. Peter, who is the patron saint of the minster, so we were treated to a solid quarter hour of bell ringing. It was AWESOME!

Outside the church itself is a statue dedicated to Constantine, who was declared "Caesar" while at York. It just boggles the mind to realize that even that long ago, someone like Constantine could travel from Rome to York and back again in months rather than in years--or a lifetime.

Oddly, it appears that we have no photos of York Minster, or even the city generally. Perhaps we were simply enjoying ourselves too much. York was a definite high point of the trip.

The Secret of Timing

There is an old joke that goes something like this:

Thing One: Ask me "what's the secret of great comedy?"
Thing Two: Okay. What's the secret of gr--
Thing One: Timing!

Great timing is not something I associate with French history--and may explain why the French love mimes and Jerry Louis. Timing is not one of their cultural strengths.

Just off the top of my head, here is my list of Top French Timing Disasters:

1. L'Arc de Triomphe.

Commissioned by Napoleon to commemorate his army's victory in 1804, Napoleon went on to numerous other victories, followed by defeat and exile, escape, the Hundred Days, final defeat at Waterloo. . .and the Arc was still under construction.

Subsequently, the Bourbons were "restored" to the throne. Charles X, Louis XVIII and Louis-Philippe ruled France before the Arc was finally finished in 1836.

Way to commemorate Napoleon, guys.

2. Petit Trianon

As mentioned below--commissioned by Louis 15 for his mistress Madame de Pompadour. Who died before it was finished. I suppose he just used it for his next mistress?

3. The Affair of the Necklace

Again, Louis 15 commissioned an incredible gift for his mistress--at this time Madame du Barry. Designed to be more spectacular than any other jewelry then in existence, it took many years for the jewelers to collect the stones necessary for its construction.



Meanwhile, Louis 15 died of smallpox, and du Barry was sent from court.

But the jewelers finished it anyway, and tried to get Marie-Antoinette to buy it. She refused, and ultimately it was the subject of a scam in which a prostitute fooled a gullible clergyman into thinking she was the queen and wanted him to buy it for her. Sadly, he was taken in, and the rest of the nation believed M-A to have been capable of such greed, so the whole thing backfired onto her--and she had literally nothing to do with it.

4. The Grand Complication

This may or may not be true, but once again an eminent jeweler was commissioned to create a fabulous watch for Marie-Antoinette. It was referred to as "The Grand Complication" because of all the various items it was supposed to keep track of--time, phases of the moon, astrological signs, probably even tides and mood swings. It was completed in the 1830s. For those of you not keeping track of exact dates--Marie-Antoinette lost her head in 1793.

5. The Opera Garnier

Begun in 1861, this was designed to be a theater for the pageant of society, built for Napoleon III. Both lavish and theatrical, Garnier was also required to build a private, secure, entrance for Napoleon III, who was skittish following an assassination attempt at another public building. As construction dragged on, and costs mounted, Garnier began to reach the limit of what he could accomplish. The opera building opened in 1875.

The secure entrace had been built, but by that time it was merely dressed stone. Or, as our tour guide put it "No money. No time. No Napoleon III. Who cares?" The whole elaborate security system--designed to move up to 50 horses with carriages into the building, to the private entrace to the Emperor's box--remains dressed stone to this day.

I love the French!

Petit Trianon

Where does one go to "get away from it all?"

When you are Louis 14, you abandon Paris for Versailles, make it the new capital of the country, build a massive Rococo palace entirely to your specifications. . . .

. . .and then you build another one to get away from Versailles.

Apparently, even Louis 14 got tired of the pomp and crush. So, he created his getaway at "Trianon." Formerly the site of the village of Trianon, Louis 14 created a second palace, which is only informal in comparison to Versailles. We didn't manage to see it, because one can only inhale so much of France in four days, but there is a great virtual tour here.

But when you are a King of France, is one get-away ever enough? Of course not--so Louis 15 built another little house for his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.




However, in classic French fashion, Pompadour died before the house was finished. Typical.

That was "Petit Trianon." Ultimately, Louis 16 gave it to his wife, and it is now inextricably linked to Marie-Antoinette. Frankly, I'd live here too.



Petit Trianon is the exact opposite of the overwhelming opulence of Versailles, and being there made Marie-Antoinette seem very understandable, as a young woman rather than as a queen. Knowing she loved Petit Trianon makes me think I would have liked her.



Petit Trianon is set off to one side from the enormous gardens of Versailles, about a half-hour's walk from the chateau. It's the perfect distance away for a golf cart ride (we took the little tram).

The house itself is small, only about eight rooms total, and they are all fairly small even by modern middle-class standards. Maybe 20' x 20', although they are taller than they are wide, so there is no sense that they are cramped. Not by any means.

We apparently didn't take many pictures of the building itself--mostly because the scale is both too small and too big. It's hard to get a picture that captures the scale of the room, because you can't stand far enough back to get a shot. At least I couldn't.

But really, the thing to love about Petit Trianon is outside.



Could the contrast be any greater? The rigid protocol and formality of Versailles, with its relentless obligation to live in the public's eye vs. this!

She also built a series of small playhouses, really, which I think acted as mini-farm buildings as well as guest houses for her closest companions--the Queen's Hamlet:




The Queen's House:



The mill:



The buildings are not open to the public, and apparently are in need of some serious restoration work, but you can wander round them, and the gardens are maintained, and on a lovely summer's day there is no way you would ever want to leave.



Marie-Antoinette was savaged in her time for being a spend-thrift, and Petit Trianon was one of the flashpoints for that anger. I have no way of knowing how much this cost, obviously, and in a France ravaged by crop failure, it is hard to be sympathetic to someone who already lives in an incredible palace "needing" something like this. Still, on a human, emotional, level, it's understandable.



There is a nearby farm which was apparently doing agricultural research into improving farming methods, and the Hamlet included some practical outbuildings for that work. And compared to the cost of even maintaining Versailles, this had to be just a drop in the bucket. I have read estimates that the cost of running Versailles in Louis 14's day cost up to 32% of all the government revenue of the time.

Marie-Antoinette was caught in the pincers of irreconcilable demands. Married to cement an alliance between traditional enemies France and Austria, she was suspected and disliked for her nationality and never accepted as "French." After a fairly casual upbringing, she was thrust into the demanding formality of a place that had operated on that protocol for over 100 years. Expected to live her life in public, she longed for private time--a wish that was interpreted as suspicious secrecy. What was she hiding?

She was too informal for the French aristocracy, and a symbol of royal excess to the common people. Versailles was opulent, and she was expected to live to its standards, while at the same time she was excoriated in the press for doing so. She was a convenient focus for an increasingly desperate population--she was Austrian--which allowed them to avoid blaming their own king.
Maybe she deserved some of the abuse that was heaped on her, although she was not to be blamed for the hysteria that escalated even after her death and turned the Revolution into the Terror.

Looking at where she prefered to spend her time--in the intimate and lovely settings of Petit Trianon--it is hard to hate her.

A Short History of Versailles

Built by Louis XIII as a hunting lodge, it was significantly altered and expanded by Louis XIV--who ultimately abandoned the Louvre to make Versailles his center of court.

Louis XIV became king in 1661 and declared Versailles to be the official capital of government (and thus of France) in 1682. It remained the capital until 1789--the French Revolution.

Who were the kings during that time? It misses the scope of the rule to just say "Louis 14, Louis 15, and Louis 16," because they were not immediate descendants.

Louis 14
Son--predeceased his father
Grandson--predeceased his grandfather
Great-grandson--became Louis 15
Son--predeceased his father
Grandson--became Louis 16.

So, sure, Marie-Antoinette was living in a palace, but it must have been like living in your grandmother's house. With the added drawback of not being able to replace anything. No painting over that hopelessly "last century" tapestry wallpaper, for example.

On the other hand--it beat being a peasant and starving.