The Toilers of the Sea (6 page)

XIV

PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION IN THE ARCHIPELAGO

Jersey is the seventh largest English port. In 1845 the archipelago possessed 440 ships with a total burden of forty-two thousand tons, and its harbors handled an incoming traffic of sixty thousand tons and an outgoing traffic of fifty-four thousand tons, carried in 1,265 vessels of all nations, including 142 steamers. These figures have more than tripled in twenty years.

Paper money is used on a large scale in the islands, and with excellent results. On Jersey anyone who wishes can issue banknotes; and if the notes are honored when they fall due the bank is established. Banknotes in the archipelago are invariably for a pound sterling. If and when the idea of bills is understood by the Anglo-Normans, they will undoubtedly adopt them; and we should then have the curious spectacle of the same thing as a Utopian vision in Europe and as an accomplished fact in the Channel Islands. A financial revolution would have been achieved, though on a microscopic scale, in this small corner of the world. The people of Jersey are characterized by a firm, lively, alert, and rapid intelligence that would make them admirable Frenchmen if they so desired. The people of Guernsey, though just as penetrating and just as solid, are slower. These are strong and valiant people, more enlightened than is generally supposed, who afford not a few surprises. They are well supplied with newspapers in both English and French, six on Jersey and four on Guernsey—excellent, high-class papers. Such is the powerful and irreducible English instinct. Imagine a desert island: the day after his arrival Robinson Crusoe will publish a newspaper, and Man Friday will become a subscriber. To complement the newspapers there are the advertisements: advertising on a colossal, limitless scale, posters of all colors and all sizes, capital letters, pictures, illustrated texts displayed in the open air. On all the walls of Guernsey is displayed a huge picture of a man, six feet tall, holding a bell and sounding the alarm to call attention to an advertisement. Guernsey has more posters than the whole of France. This publicity promotes life; frequently the life of the mind, with unexpected results, leveling the population by the habit of reading, which produces dignity of manner. On the road to St. Helier or St. Peter Port you may fall into conversation with a passerby of unexceptionable aspect, wearing a black coat, severely buttoned up, and the whitest of linen, who talks of John Brown
⁴²
and asks about Garibaldi. Is he a minister of the church? Not at all: he is a cattle drover. A contemporary writer comes to Jersey, goes into a grocer's shop,
¹
and sees, in a magnificent drawing room attached to the shop, his complete works, bound, in a tall glass-fronted bookcase topped by a bust of Homer.

XV

OTHER PECULIARITIES

The various islands fraternize with one another; they also make fun of each other, gently. Alderney, which is subordinate to Guernsey, is sometimes vexed by this, and would like to become the seat of the bailiff and make Guernsey its satellite. Guernsey ripostes, goodhumoredly, with this popular jest:

Hale, Pier', hale, Jean,
L'Guernesey vian.

Pull (the oar), Pierre, pull, Jean:
Guernsey's coming!

These islanders, being a sea family, are sometimes cross with one another, but never feel rancor. Anyone who thinks they utter coarse insults misunderstands them. We do not believe in the proverbial exchange that is said to have taken place between Jersey and Guernsey: “You are a lot of donkeys,” with the retort: “You are a lot of toads.” This is a form of salutation of which the Norman archipelago is incapable. We cannot accept that two islands in the ocean play the parts of Vadius and Trissotin.
⁴³

In any case Alderney has its relative importance: for the Casquets it is London. The daughter of a lighthouse keeper named Houguer, who had been born on the Casquets, traveled to Alderney for the first time at the age of twenty. She was overwhelmed by the tumult and longed to get back to her rock. She had never seen cattle before; and, seeing a horse, exclaimed: “What a big dog!”

On these Norman islands people age early. Two islanders meet and chat: “The old fellow who used to pass this way is dead.”—“How old was he?”—“All of thirty-six.”

The women of this insular Normandy do not like to be servants: are they to be criticized or praised for this? Two servants in the same house find it difficult to agree. They make no concessions to each other: hence their service is awkward, intermittent, and spasmodic.

They have little care for the well-being of their master, though without bearing him any ill will: he must get along as best he can. In 1852 a French family who had come to Jersey as a result of events in their country took into their service a cook who came from St. Brelade and a chambermaid who came from Boulay Bay. One morning in December the master of the house, having risen early, found the front door, which opened on to the main road, standing wide open, and no sign of the servants. The two women had been unable to get on together, and after a quarrel—no doubt feeling that they had fully earned their wages—had bundled up their belongings and gone their separate ways in the middle of the night, leaving their master and mistress in bed and the front door open. One had said to the other: “I can't stay in the house with a drunkard,” and the other had retorted: “I can't stay in the house with a thief.”

“Always the two on the ten” is an old local proverb. What does it mean? It means that if you employ a laborer or a female servant your two eyes must never leave their ten fingers. It is the advice of a miserly employer: ancient mistrust denouncing ancient idleness. Diderot tells us how five men came to mend a broken pane of glass in his window in Holland: one was carrying the new pane, one the putty, one a bucket of water, one the trowel, and another the sponge. It took two days for the five of them to replace the pane.

These are, of course, ancient Gothic habits of idleness born of serfdom, just as Creole indolence is born of slavery, which nowadays are disappearing everywhere under the friction of progress, in the Channel Islands as in other countries, but perhaps more rapidly there than elsewhere. In these industrious island communities active work, which is an essential element of honesty, is increasingly becoming the law of labor.

In the archipelago of the Channel certain things belonging to the past can still be seen. This, for example: “Fief court held in the parish of St. Ouen, in Monsieur Malzard's house, on Monday, May 22, 1854, at noon. Presided over by the seneschal, with the provost on his right and the serjeant on his left. Also present the noble squire, seigneur of Morville and other places, who possesses part of the parish in vassalage. The seneschal called on the provost to take the oath, in these terms: ‘You swear and promise, by your faith in God, that you will well and faithfully perform the duties of provost of the fief and seigneurie of Morville and preserve the rights of the seigneur.' And the said provost, having raised his hand and bowed to the seigneur, said: ‘I swear so to do.' ”

The Norman archipelago speaks French, but with some variants, as we shall see.
Paroisse
(parish) is pronounced
paresse.
You may have
un mâ à la gambe qui n'est pas commun
(“a sore leg, which doesn't often happen”). “How are you?” “
Petitement. Moyennement. Tout à l'aisi
”: that is to say, poorly, fairly well, well. To be sad is to “have low spirits”; to smell bad is to have a
mauvais sent;
to cause damage is
faire du ménage;
to sweep your room, wash the dishes, etc., is
picher son fait;
a bucket, which is often filled with refuse, is a
bouquet.
A man is not drunk, he is
bragi.
You are not wet, you are
mucre.
To be a hypochondriac is
avoir
des fixes.
A girl is a
hardelle;
an apron is a
tablier;
a tablecloth is a
doublier;
a dress is
un dress;
a pocket is a
pouque;
a drawer is an
haleur;
a cabbage is a
caboche;
a cupboard is a
presse;
a coffin is a
co fret à mort;
New Year gifts are
irvières;
the roadway is the
cauchie;
a mask is a
visagier;
pills are
boulets.
“Soon” is
bien dupartant.
If stocks are low in the market hall and there is little on sale they say that fish and vegetables are
écarts
(scarce). Early potatoes are
temprunes
on Guernsey and
heurives
on Jersey. Going to law, building, traveling, running a house, having people to dinner, entertaining friends are all
coûtageux
(costly; in Belgium and French Flanders they say
frayeux
). A girl does not allow a young man to kiss her for fear of coming home
bouquie,
with her hair disarranged.
Noble
is one of the words most frequently heard in this local variant of French. Anything that has been successfully achieved is a
noble train.
A cook brings back from the market a
noble quartier de veau.
A plump duck is a
noble pirot.
A fat goose is a
noble picot.
The language of justice and the law also has a Norman flavor. Case papers, petitions, and draft laws are “lodged with the clerk of court.” A father whose daughter marries is no longer responsible for her while she is
couverte de mari.

In accordance with Norman custom, an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant indicates the father of her child. She sometimes makes her own choice, and this may have inconvenient consequences.

The French spoken by the older inhabitants of the archipelago is not perhaps entirely their fault. Some fifteen years ago a number of Frenchmen arrived in Jersey, as we have already noted. (We may remark in passing that people could not understand why they had left their country: some of the inhabitants called them
ces biaux révoltés,
these handsome rebels). One of these Frenchmen was visited by a former teacher of French who had lived in the country, he said, for many years. He was an Alsatian, and was accompanied by his wife. He had little respect for the Norman French that is the language of the Channel. He once remarked, on entering a room:
“J'ai pien de la beine à leur
abrendre le vranzais. On barle ici badois.”
(“I have great difficulty in teaching them French. Here they speak a patois.”)

“Comment badois?”
(“What do you mean,
badois
?”), said someone.

“Oui, badois.”

“Ah! Patois?”

“C'est ça, badois.”

The professor continued his complaints about the Norman
badois.
When his wife spoke to him he turned to her, saying:
“Ne me vaites bas
ici te zènes gonchigales.” (“Don't let us have any conjugal scenes here.”)
⁴⁴

XVI

ANTIQUITIES AND ANTIQUES; CUSTOMS, LAWS, AND MANNERS

Nowadays, let us remark at the outset, the Norman islands, which have each their college and numerous schools, have excellent teachers, some of them French, others natives of Guernsey and Jersey.

As for the patois denounced by the Alsatian professor, it is a true language and by no means to be despised. This patois is a complete idiom, extremely rich and very distinctive. It throws an obscure but profound light on the origins of the French language. A number of scholars have devoted themselves to the patois, among them the translator of the Bible into the language of Guernsey, Monsieur Métivier, who is to the Celto-Norman language what Abbé Eliçagaray was to the Hispano-Basque language. On the island of Guernsey there are a stone-roofed chapel of the eighth century and a Gallic statue of the sixth century, now serving as a jamb to the gateway of a cemetery; both are probably unique. Another unique specimen is a descendant of Rollo, a very worthy gentleman of whom we have already spoken. He consents to regard Queen Victoria as his cousin. His pedigree seems to be proven, and it is not at all improbable.

In the islands, as we have said, people are much attached to their coats of arms. We once heard a lady of the M family complaining about the Gs: “They have taken our coat of arms to put it on their tombs.”

Fleurs-de-lys abound. England likes to take over fashions that France has discarded. Few members of the middle class with handsome houses and gardens are without railings ornamented with fleursde-lys.

People are very touchy, too, about misalliances. On one of the islands—Alderney, I think—when the son of a very ancient dynasty of wine merchants misallied himself with the daughter of a hatter of recent origin, there was universal indignation. The whole island cried out against the son, and a venerable dame exclaimed: “What a cup for parents to sup!” The Princess Palatine was not more tragically vexed when she reproached a cousin of hers who had married Prince de Tingry with lowering herself to wed a Montmorency.
⁴⁵

On Guernsey if a man offers his arm to a woman it indicates that they are engaged. A new bride does not leave her house for a week after her marriage except to go to church: a taste of prison adds spice to the honeymoon. Besides, a certain modesty is in order. Marriage involves so few formalities that it is easily concealed. Cahaigne,
⁴⁶
on Jersey, once heard this exchange of question and answer between a mother, an old woman, and her daughter, a girl of fourteen: “Why do you not marry this Stevens?”—“Do you want me to get married twice, then, Mother?”—“What do you mean?”—“We were married four months ago.”

On Guernsey, in October 1863, a girl was sentenced to six weeks in prison “for annoying her father.”

XVII

PECULIARITIES (CONTINUED)

The Channel Islands have as yet only two statues, one on Guernsey of the Prince Consort and one on Jersey known as the Golden King, though no one knows what personage it represents and whom it immortalizes.
⁴⁷
It stands in the center of the main square in St. Helier. An anonymous statue is still a statue: it flatters the self-esteem of the local people and probably celebrates the glory of someone. Nothing emerges more slowly from the earth than a statue, and nothing grows faster. When it is not an oak it is a mushroom. Shakespeare is still waiting for his statue in England; Beccaria is still waiting for his statue in Italy; but it seems that Monsieur Dupin is going to have his in France.
⁴⁸
It is gratifying to see such public homage being rendered to men who have been an honor to a country, as in London, for example, where emotion, admiration, regret, and the crowds of mourners reached successive crescendos at the funerals of Wellington, Palmerston, and the boxer Tom Sayers.

Jersey has a Hangman's Hill, which Guernsey lacks. Sixty years ago a man was hanged on Jersey for taking twelve sous from a drawer— though it must be said that about the same time in England a child of thirteen was hanged for stealing cakes and in France an innocent man, Lesurques, was guillotined. Such are the beauties of the death penalty.

Nowadays Jersey, more progressive than London, would not tolerate the gallows. The death penalty has been tacitly abolished.

In prison the inmates' reading is carefully watched. A prisoner has the right to read only the Bible. In 1830 a Frenchman condemned to death, named Béasse, was allowed to read the tragedies of Voltaire while waiting for the gallows. Such an enormity would not be tolerated nowadays. This Béasse was the second-last man to be hanged on Guernsey. Tapner
⁴⁹
is, and will be, let us hope, the last.

Until 1825 the salary of the bailiff of Guernsey was thirty
livres
tournois,
or about fifty francs—the same as in the time of Edward III. Now he gets three hundred pounds sterling. On Jersey the royal court is called the Cohue. A woman who goes to law is called the
actrice.
On Guernsey criminals are sentenced to be flogged; on Jersey the accused is put in an iron cage.

People laugh at the relics of saints, but venerate Charles II's old boots, which are respectfully preserved in St. Ouen's Manor. Tithes are still collected: as you go about the island you will come across the tithe-collectors' stores.
Jambage
seems to have been abolished, but
poulage
50 is still strictly enforced. The author of these lines pays two hens a year to the queen of England.

Taxes, curiously, are assessed on the total fortune, actual or surmised, of the taxpayer. This has the disadvantage of not attracting great consumers to the island. Monsieur de Rothschild, if he owned a pretty cottage on Guernsey that had cost some 20,000 francs, would pay an annual 1.5 million francs in tax. It must be added that if he lived there only five months in the year he would pay nothing. It is the sixth month that is to be dreaded.

The climate is an extended spring. Winter there may be, and of course summer, but not in excess: never Senegal, never Siberia. The Channel Islands are England's Îles d'Hyères. Albion's delicate chests are sent there. Such a Guernsey parish as St. Martin's, for example, ranks as a minor Nice. No Vale of Tempe, no Gémenos, no Val Suzon surpasses the Vallée des Vaux on Jersey or the Vallée des Talbots on Guernsey. On the southern slopes at least nothing can be greener, milder, and fresher than this archipelago.

High life is possible here; for these small islands have their own great world, their high society. They speak French, as we have noted; the best people say, for example:
“Elle a-z-une rose à son chapeau”
(“She has a rose in her hat”).
⁵¹
Apart from that their conversation is charming.

Jersey admires General Don; Guernsey admires General Doyle. These were governors in the early part of this century. Jersey has a Don Street, Guernsey a Doyle Road. In addition, Guernsey dedicated to its general a tall column standing above the sea that can be seen from the Casquets, while Jersey presented its general with a cromlech. It originally stood in St. Helier, on the hill now occupied by Fort Regent. General Don accepted the cromlech, had it carted, block by block, down to the shore and loaded onto a frigate, and carried it off. This monument was the marvel of the Channel Islands: it was the only round cromlech on the islands; it had seen the Cimmerians, who remembered Tubal Cain, just as the Eskimos remember Frobisher
⁵²
; it had seen the Celts, whose brain, compared with the brain of the present day, was in the proportion of thirteen to eighteen; it had seen those strange timber towers (
donjons
) whose carcasses are found in sepulchral mounds, and make one hesitate between Du Cange's etymology, deriving the term from
domgio,
and Barleycourt's, deriving it from
domijunctae;
it had seen clubs made from flint and the axes of the druids; it had seen the great wickerwork figure of Teutatès;
⁵³
it existed before the Roman wall; it contained four thousand years of history. At night sailors had seen from afar in the moonlight this huge crown of standing stones on the high cliffs of Jersey: now it is a pile of stones in some corner of Yorkshire.