ABOUT THE HAGUE

Severe Beauties !

Would I have slandered the Hague? I had, in a recent column, attempted a description of this region of the Cotentin, where Mr. Ernest Tisserand placed the action of his interesting novel Antoine and Ada. Wild region, whose approaches, by land and by sea, are forbidding. Virtually ignored by tourists, because it is not praised by guides, it only reveals its charms and beauties to those who take the trouble to discover them. These are rare, because most visitors are quickly put off by the arid aspect of its moors, the wild character of its reefs. They therefore do not stay in this country. they leave it as quickly as possible for more cheerful corners. In giving these details, would I have slandered La Hague? Mr. Ernest Tisserand, the author of the novel which had provided me with the opportunity and the pretext to describe this wild point, seemed saddened by the picture I drew of it, the Hague is his country. And isn't every country the most beautiful, the most moving, the most evocative in the eyes of its sons? We must pity the people who can see again, without being embraced by the sweetest and most powerful of emotions, the village where they were born and from which they were kept away for a long time by the hazards of life...

" My country! With what an accent of nostalgia the uprooted pronounce these two words! And these two words uttered are enough to make them see again the steeple of the city or the native town, the landscapes which surround it, the sites where the first curiosities of childhood awoke and where adolescence experienced its first surprises.

My country! This is the very title that M. Ernest Tisserand gave to a little book, published in a limited number of copies, and of which the author is willing to send me one of the last that remains to him. It is a series of sketches, impressions, notations, anecdotes, memories, daydreams, the merit, sincerity and accuracy of which cannot be fully appreciated unless one knows the country depicted by the author, and especially if you like this region.

the Hague? I believe I am one of those, and the brochure of Mr. Ernest Tisserand, who joined me at the bottom of the Vosges mountains, delighted me. I have just savored the brief chapters, so complete in their conciseness: they have paraded before my eyes the paintings of this distant and fierce Hague, so particular, so special, unique even, as much by the aspect of its landscapes, the nature of its coasts than by the character of its inhabitants, intrepid fishermen, for the most part, descendants of Northman pirates, many of whom have retained the type.

The history of this corner of the earth is also one of the most curious. A lawyer from Cherbourg, now dead, Madame Jules Lucas, had undertaken to write it. He only outlined his task. But the brochure he wrote, The Hague, from its origins to William the Conqueror, is already a valuable document. The book was of great interest to the "horzain" that I am and certainly contributed to making me understand and love the country for which Mr. Ernest Tisserand feels a tender love of son.

We guess, by saying his little book, My country, the intoxicating joy that the writer feels to find himself in the hollow roads or on the steep cliffs that his young years traversed. We can imagine the childlike pleasure he feels in looking in the pastures for "the dew mushrooms which embroider the grass of the meadows like flowers"—or even in walking on the shore when the terrible wind from the sea obliges the men to bend down and sometimes throws them aside, so violent are its gusts; we can guess that he lingers with satisfaction to contemplate the fishermen busy "baiting their lines at the edge of the old pier, in their boats tightly packed side by side", or that he listens with delight to a sailor recounting, in patois " haguard”, an adventure which happened to him, “eun sai d'hiver”, when the suroît was blowing.

O miracle! It seemed to me that Tisserand's book carried me to the depths of the Vosges, the damp freshness of the sea spray, the strong smell of kelp, and the appetizing scent of a good "fat soup", the dish National of the Hague!

Paul Mathiex.