Jersey As It Is - Part 9

This Friday is a blog in which I have transcribed a translation of an essay called "Jersey as It Is", published in 1844, as the result of a winning entry by F. Robious de La Trehonnais which won first prize in the competition of the Jersey Emulation Society.

His language is at times perhaps rather too flowery, but there are some wonderful nuggets of phrase - I love this one: "History satisfies the soul, tradition interests and surprises it; but legend charms and enraptures it."

His visit to Faldouet sets of his imagination in fine fettle - of course as most guide books of the time note, it was identified back then not as a Neolithic dolmen but as a much later "Druidic Temple". And his imagination runs riot with blood sacrifice - "harrowing shrieks of human victims"! This never happened at any Neolithic site, and it is even uncertain if the Druids practiced it. He also mentions Mont de La Ville, lost to England by this time, and also a visit to Hougue Bie's Princes Tower and the spectacular view - little realising that another monument lay beneath the artificial mound.

Jersey As It Is - Part 9
On the summit of the hill, which overhangs the castle, has recently been discovered, in a state of perfect preservation, a druidical temple. It consists of rough stones fixed perpendicularly, and covered by one only, which astonishes the beholder by its immense proportions.

When seated beneath this ponderous vault, the mind strives to ascertain the meaning of this assemblage of rocks on which no date, no image, no superscription flings the least glimmering ray ; then is it that the weight of this moor stone covering seems to weigh down the spirit, which it overwhelms with its mystery, and with that thick darkness which settles all around, shrouding every annal of its existence, destroying every remembrance of its history. 

In the dim and cloudy distance, where the imagination seeks to plunge itself, what blood-stained images, what ossianic and gigantic shades, flit hither and thither enwrapped in that profound eternal night which the mind dares not fathom ! And when placing our hand on the stern reality which remains, these rocks which testify of facts of which we are ignorant, we endeavour to take up that chain which by-gone ages have snapped asunder, what an abyss discovers itself to the affrighted vision ! How is the dizzy brain hurried down, as in a fever dream, to the bottom of this boundless immensity which time has hollowed out by utterly destroying the links of that chain of which, so to speak, we have but one end in our possession! 

There is in druidical ruins a charm, an interest, which, ruins whose history is known, do not possess. In the latter, the past satisfies the mind by the positive verdict of facts which history or tradition hands down to us; the imagination, powerfully aided by the knowledge of these truths, launches without difficulty into the expanse of the past, builds again with ease those shattered porticos, those decayed turrets, those grassy mounds, where peacefully the lamb and the kid are browsing together, or sleeping in their ivy bed. This solitude is easily peopled ; history then unfolds itself in living pages along those proud walls, in those chambers with their sculptured rafters and emblazoned heraldry. The change is effected in the twinkling of an eye. 

Doubtless the charm is very great ; but when this powerful, this enchanting fairy queen, Imagination, herself and alone, creates the ever-varying aspects of this magic lantern, oh ! Then, at least for me, the charm is still more sweet. Like a rapid courser, the bridle on his neck, the spur in his flanks, unchecked she rushes into space where no mere fact opposes any obstacle. The terrible images which she calls up around her on this rocky theatre, she loves, they are her creation ! Those gentle figures which smile upon you, those venerable shades of Druids which pass before you, half veiled from sight, and leaning on their long white wands,-the harrowing shrieks of human victims which she brings upon the ear,-this is all her work, she is delighted with it, she admires it. 

Laughing to scorn the uncertain intimations which tradition has handed down to us, as no better than the faint and dying echo of echoes still more remote, she models all things according to the fashion of her own will. In the scene which she displays, Fancy is her only counsellor, and in the wide-spread domain of her thoughts she chooses those only which delight her. Hence doubtless, these stirring and exciting feelings which agitate me in sight of these ancient ruins, on whose origin ignorance slumbers, and on whose history the past is silent as the tomb. 

History satisfies the soul, tradition interests and surprises it; but legend charms and enraptures it. Legend ! It is the ignis-fatuus which oft times, at the dead of night, floats over churchyard graves. This druidic monument is not the only one that has been discovered in the island. When the platform of the Mont de la Ville was cleared for building Fort Regent, the workmen brought to light a beautifully preserved druidic temple ; but with a vandalism almost unparalleled the states made a present of it to marshal Conway, then governor of the island, and this gentleman had it carefully taken down and rebuilt in his park in England.

On your return to St. Helier’s you pass by a tower built on an artificial eminence, and surrounded with lofty trees whose majestic boughs, rivalling in height the tower itself, leave its summit alone visible. Nothing can be more lovely, nothing more charming than this tower, clothed as it is with the ivy-leaf from summit to base. A pathway, edged with odoriferous shrubs, with quick-set hedges, and with flowers, sweeps round the little eminence, and you arrive by a gentle and delightful ascent to the entrance of the tower, to which has been given the name of Hougue-Bie or Prince's Tower. 

From the summit you command nearly the entire island. It is one of the most beautiful views that can be seen. You have at a glance of the eye all those beauties which we have now attempted to describe in detail. The eye surveys at once all the gentle declivities of the sea-shore,-the deep indentation of the bays,-the graceful undulation of the valleys,-the towers and steeples of the parish churches springing up as from a verdurous mantle of sombrous hue flung like a veil of mourning over the tombs of the cemeteries beneath.

Before you Fort-Regent and St. Aubin’s-bay appear mellowed by the softening tints of a golden sky, and beneath your feet rich champaigns, intersected by roads only discoverable by the green arch which bends over them, are spread out even to the ocean sand, and above all, as a setting to this brilliant cameo, the blue horizon of the deep broad sea. 

The building of this tower is only to be traced back and found in the antiquity of legendary lore, and that which is related on this subject is already too well known for us to stop to transcribe it here; suffice it to say, whatever may have been the idea which gave being to this delightful retreat, whatever may have been the remembrance which has been sought to perpetuate by building it, we are not the less put in possession of one of the most delightful spots of which the imagination can conceive: a spot where, unexpectedly, the visitor desires to dwell in, where each leaves his name behind, and bears away a remembrance in return. 

To describe the other parts of the island would be merely to repeat what we have already said. Everywhere the same beauty reigns, although sufficiently varied to exclude all monotony. Everywhere exist that freshness, that richness of vegetation, those unexpectedly-beautiful horizons which burst upon you at every angle of your path. Everywhere you perceive that neatness, that air of comfort, which bespeak the prosperous, the happy country.

The stranger, as he first wanders over this earthly paradise, doubtless questions himself as to the cause of that contentment of mind which sparkles in the countenance of all he meets, from whence springs that prosperity of which everything around exhibits such tokens, and which seems to float in the very air he breathes :-inquires he of history ? She replies it is the reward of loyalty:-does he question the constitution ? She exhibits to his view those special privileges which the past has earned for the island ; She points to commerce, which, freed from every shackle, flies abroad on the pinions of innumerable vessels, and returns, like a bee to her hive, laden with wealth and luxuries.