Four Years in France Part 7

I went up to a man who was cleaning a lantern in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, and made him understand that I wished to be instructed in what manner the popular sentence of condemnation "a la lanterne" was executed in the beginning of the revolution. I had remarked, that he was old enough to have remembered such scenes; when near him, I saw a face that testified that he had in all probability been an agent in them: he told me drily, "On ote la lanterne, et on monte l'homme a sa place."[23]

He spoke in the present tense, be it observed: the recollection of such achievements was fresh in his mind, and he showed no symptom that it was unpleasant to him. These lanterns have a c.u.mbrous and heavy appearance in the day time; and hanging over the middle of the street, they stop all pa.s.sing while they are cleaned or lighted. They have begun to light the streets of Paris with gas: the pipes, I am informed, are not air-tight; but, once undertaken, this enterprise will no doubt be soon brought to perfection, as well as others already in contemplation.

Paris, in the old parts of it, is, as the French express it, _mal percee_. The way to remedy this evil is obvious. I will venture to suggest one improvement,--that the Rue St. Honore be continued, no matter whether in a straight or curved line, through the streets of St.

Denis and St. Martin, by piercing these two streets, to the line of streets which lead to the Place de l'Elephant and the Rue du Fauxbourg St. Antoine.

I will also take the liberty of hinting that a populous city can well afford to keep its streets clean: the streets themselves pay this expense; and the greater the quant.i.ty of dirt, the better they defray it. I have sometimes pa.s.sed into the most thickly-inhabited parts of the city of London, and have been surprised to observe the streets to be cleaner than in Mary-la-bonne and at the west end of the town, where the population is less condensed. The reason is plain: it oftener becomes worth while to carry away the material of the dung-heap from the streets of the city, than from the quarter where they are wider in proportion to the population. But every parish of the English capital receives a sum towards its poor-rate, in exchange for the privilege of cleaning its streets. At Paris nothing is wanting but a reglement de police.

Paris is extending itself, towards the west and the north especially: in time, the Boulevard without the walls may become a second interior Boulevard. While I doubted whether I should continue in Paris, or go to live in a provincial town, I looked at several hotels, houses with a _porte cochere_,[24] in the Fauxbourg St. Germain: the rent demanded for these was three or four thousand francs: at present they are let for ten thousand francs a year. The speculators in building, of course, find their profit in what they undertake so largely.

I congratulated those who had visited Paris in 1814. Many highly estimable works of art of the French school begin however now to supply the place of those taken away by their old owners. English travellers in France, and those with whom they have to do, understand each other better than at the time when I began my journey; and more accommodations to the English taste are provided. The rivalry between France and England will subsist as long as the geographical position of the two countries: but no people are more willing than the French, in ordinary cases, and when not stimulated by strong incitements, to distinguish between the nation and the individual. Thus far we may all be cosmopolites; though nations be divided, let men be united. Indeed, I observed a sensible difference in the behaviour of my neighbours at Avignon, from the day which Louis XVIII. wisely declared to be the happiest of his life,--when no banner but that of France floated within its territory.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Look at that little G.o.d-dem who is drawing.

[21] What is _your_ price, Sir?

[22] They do not say, "G.o.d-dem" any longer; they say "speculation."

[23] They take down the lamp, and mount the man up in its place.

[24] Gate at which a coach can enter.

CHAP. VI.

On the sixteenth of August, at one in the afternoon, the carriage came to the door which was to convey us from Paris. We took a light and hasty lunch, or nuncheon, or noonshine, or meridian repast, while the trunks were tying on; and at two, were ready to depart; when up steps the mistress of the house, requesting me to verify the inventory. "Why did you not come sooner?"--"We were unwilling to disturb you while you were dining."--"Why did not you propose this business to me this morning when I paid my rent?"--"We did not know you were going away." It is very improbable that I should not have made them understand that it was because I was going away that I paid my rent; but it is one disadvantage of being a foreigner, that all, who find it their interest, may choose to misunderstand.

I had taken lodgings for short periods in London, and at what are called watering-places in England, where no inventory was made, consequently none was verified: but here confidence was not so well established, or there were other reasons. It was the usage of the country; it was necessary to submit.

The apartment was furnished with an abundance of mirrors, some handsome pieces of mahogany, a rare wood in France; sofas, and fauteuils, and a most plentiful lack of almost every necessary article. My cook had hardly wherewithal to prepare our meals, and was obliged to sleep in the kitchen: a chamber had been promised; but the key of this chamber was not to be found when the lodging was taken, and the door was never opened afterwards. Kitchen utensils had been promised, and, during the first fortnight, frequently demanded: at last the silence of despair succeeded to hopeless importunity, as a fine writer might perhaps express himself. But, to the inventory.

The grand articles were quickly dispatched: luckily my children had broken no looking-gla.s.ses, though surrounded by them. But when we came to the china and the crockery,--ay, then was the question: after the bona fide broken had been disposed of, about which there could be no dispute, except that some were broken only because they were already cracked,--then was the question whether such or such articles were damaged by us, or before we came to the house. An ornamental china vase had been supplied, and its fellow promised: this fellow jar was now found to have but one ear, whereas its mate had two. The edges of the fracture were rounded by use, and dirt was seen in the interstices. But I paid what was required, for the carriage was at the door.

I have heard of a travelling Englishman, of whom was demanded, on his leaving his apartment, the price of a cracked pane of gla.s.s: his conscience acquitted him of the deed: after having for some time fruitlessly pleaded his innocence, he quietly raised his cane, and broke in pieces the cause of the altercation. "This pane shall be paid for no more," said he, patriotically mindful of the interests of his successors.

At length we were seated in our coach. It was a roomy, handsome berline, holding conveniently six persons: on the outside was a covered seat or cabriolet: the place of the voiturier, conductor, or coachman was between the fore-wheels: the carriage was drawn by three horses. When three horses were proposed to me by the master voiturier, I started with amazement. "Why not four?"--"That would be too many."--"Why not two?"--"That would be too few." He gravely a.s.sured me that such was the practice, and he spoke truth. English travellers and readers of travels are, by this time, well acquainted with voitures drawn by three horses; but in 1818, I believe many of my compatriots shared my surprise at so _odd_ a number.

I engaged this voiture to convey me to Avignon for eight hundred francs.

For forty-eight francs a day, the coachman was to pay my expenses at the inns: the price was rather extravagant, as four of my six children might, as the master himself calculated, be rated as two grown persons: but I insisted on coffee in the morning before we should set off, my family being not yet accustomed to travel till ten or eleven o'clock in the morning without any breakfast, though such is the usual practice on the continent. Besides, this part of the agreement was revocable at my pleasure. I was also at liberty to quit my carriage at Chalons-sur-Saone, paying a proportionate share of the price.

I had seen, at the master's stables, three very good horses which I engaged for my journey. The day before my departure, he told me these horses were gone in another direction, but that I should have three others equally good. As I saw no reason why he should prefer another customer to me, I a.s.sented. He supplied me with two stout horses and a very weakly one. Louis, my coachman, told me, afterwards, that his master had found an opportunity of selling the three horses I had first seen, and to make up my number had been obliged to buy one from a fiacre the very day of my departure. It is impossible to be aware of all the oblique means and motives of men of the character of this voiturier. All the defence that can be prepared against them is, to see every thing, write down every thing, and, above all, to have time at command.

This mode of travelling by the voiturier is now generally adopted by travellers of the first respectability, and where the whole voiture is engaged, differs in no respect from travelling in a private carriage, except that the right of property in the horses and carriage is but temporary, and the coachman does not wear a livery. I am acquainted with persons, who would not choose to be considered otherwise than as persons of distinction, who have travelled in this way. I have seen attestations of the good conduct of the coachman or voiturier signed with names, some of which were known to me, and sealed with armorial bearings, according to the English use abroad. I dwell on this point, because voituriers are unknown in England, and the mode of travelling is in low repute abroad, where, from the way in which it is practised, it is impossible it should be creditable.

In France and Italy there are but few stage-coaches, and no good ones but between the towns on the channel and Paris. The post-houses furnish no carriages, but horses only. In every great town there are persons whose trade is to keep carriages ready for those who want to take journeys, but have no carriage of their own. Two or three places being engaged, the voiturier, now afloat, makes up his cargo as he can: rather than have any vacant s.p.a.ce in his carriage, he will sell it at a low rate to such as can afford to pay but low prices; he then makes up with dead lumber what is wanting in weight of live stock; and the good people, thus a.s.sembled, thus enc.u.mbered, proceed as they can under the auspices of the conductor, who presides at their meals. All this accounts very well for some English making a difficulty in avowing their having travelled by the voiturier, and for the French aubergistes and others confounding, at first, all inmates of carriages of the same denomination. I do not suppose that any respectable English family has travelled in the manner above described. I do not know that any single persons have done so. It is evident that a voiture, engaged for the sole use and service of him who hires it, is "quite another thing."

I would have purchased a berline at Paris, and travelled post,--a plan not more expensive, as I could have gone twice as far in the day as with the same horses it was possible to do,--but the regulations of the post not only require six horses for six persons, but make no provision for any number more than six in the same carriage,--a case as little contemplated as parricide among the ancient Romans. I must therefore have had two carriages, or disputed the question at every post-house.

Add to this, that a travelling carriage is not well-suited for a town, nor a town carriage for travelling.

The places in the cabriolet were a perpetual subject of contest among my children, and I had enough to do to arbitrate who should ride outside.

Louis, the coachman, was very good-natured to them, and never complained of the frequent interruptions and trouble which they caused him. This was the more laudable in him, as he was a Breton; and the Bretons, like those from whom they derive their origin,--the ancient Britons of Wales,--are said to have _la tete chaude_:[25] Louis, on several occasions, was hot-headed enough. He had served, as had almost every man at this time in France, and had been a sous-officier; and, while my eldest son and I walked by his side in mounting the hills, regaled us with accounts of his military exploits, amongst which he seemed to consider his duels as giving the most indisputable proof of personal and individual courage. He said that there had been a great deal of _coquinerie_[26] in the revolution,--an opinion in which he was by no means singular; and that, if it should break out again, there would be more a.s.sa.s.sination than ever. Neither was he singular in his apprehension of new troubles: a priest, whom I met at Paris, told me, "la revolution ne fait que commencer."[27] His wish a.s.suredly was not "father to that thought." All this was pleasant hearing to a man who had embarked his family in an expedition like mine. The event proves the wisdom of the king, whom his party declared not to be a royalist.

The horse, that had pa.s.sed the morning in the streets of Paris in his quality of hackney-coach horse, was in no condition for a journey. Louis said he was tired with waiting so long in the street: he seemed to allude to the time employed in verifying the inventory; he explained afterwards how and why the expression was equivocal. I had made, on this subject, useless because tardy reproaches to the master. The horse had, however, time to recover his strength, as I would not quit Paris till the afternoon of the first day of my journey, it being Sunday, and had planned to pa.s.s the evening of the second, and morning of the third day, at Fontainebleau. We arrived by the light of the full moon at Essonne, where a good supper, with a fine dessert of fruit, and the air of the country, gave us high expectations of the pleasures of a journey to the south of France.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] To be hot-headed.

[26] Roguery.

[27] The revolution is only just beginning.

CHAP. VII.

The son of the aubergiste at Essonne was, as almost every Frenchman is, a conversable man: he talked to me, while I waited to set off in the morning, of the English who lived or had lived near Essonne; among others, of the Duc de Fitzjames, who, if I understood him right, had a country house in the neighbourhood. "Why do you call him English?" said I. "The name is English."--"The family has been French for more than a century." He wished for an explanation. "It is descended from James II.

of England, whom we chased away because he was an honest man, as you put to death Louis XVI. because he was Bienfaisant." He answered, with much discretion, "On s...o...b..ie quelquefois."[28]

The fine old oaks and the green rocks of the forest of Fontainebleau pleased us much: at intervals and openings of the wood we caught very agreeable views of the distant country. We descended into the town, by no means a handsome one; but our business was to see the palace.

It is in a low situation, surrounded by hills, not bold or romantic, but of pleasing forms; at a sufficient distance, so that it is sheltered without being straitly enclosed. It is a convenient and very large house, with ample s.p.a.ce for the display of all the pomp of royalty, The chapel is equal in size, though not in ornament, to that of Versailles.

There is a handsome gallery which Napoleon furnished with busts of great men, whose pretensions to the t.i.tle of "great" are so different, that they certainly would never have met except as busts in a gallery. There is a theatre, a banquetting room, and several suites of fine apartments.

One apartment, or set of rooms, had been inhabited successively by the Comte d'Artois, now King Charles X. by the Pope Pius VII. and by his grace the Duke of Wellington. The Indian fable says, that a palace is a caravansera; but such a succession of guests surpa.s.ses fable in strangeness.

In the chamber of the king was a state bed of suitable magnificence: pa.s.sing into a second chamber, in which was a very low bed, I remarked to our conductor that this bed would be more convenient for his majesty; and the conductor, after a little hesitation, allowed that, as I suspected, the king did, in effect, sleep on this bed. George III.

inhabited the Queen's palace in London, and the lodge near the castle at Windsor: he was said to live always next door to himself. The king of France, at Fontainebleau, sleeps in the next room to his own; at least, Louis XVIII. did so.

A small, ordinary, round table was pointed out as a curiosity: it was that on which Napoleon signed the act of his abdication in favour of Napoleon II. The cession was enforced; the condition was of course neglected. Napoleon retired to Elba, an emperor without empire, a father of a family deprived of the company of his wife and son; too weak to be safe, yet too great not to be feared: disgusted with the anomalies, of his situation, he made an effort that, in its consequences, plunged him into one, in which there were, at least, no inconsistencies to be complained of: all was plain and intelligible: the high blood of Europe avenged itself on the Avocat's son, who, if he had been _Monsieur le Comte de Bonaparte_, would have been treated with more consideration.

The garden of Fontainebleau is handsomely laid out in straight walks, square pieces of water, and abundance of shade, at this season very desirable. As we left the garden, my younger son ran off in pursuit of a water rat, and we followed, in pursuit of him, the course of one of those beautiful fountains from which the place derives its name. As I looked round for him, I observed an elderly man, decorated with one or more orders, who accosted me with much politeness, and asked what I was looking for. Wishing to obtain information respecting any further object of curiosity, I began:--"Monsieur, je suis etranger, et--" He interrupted: "Je le vois bien, Monsieur, et c'est pourquoi je veux vous etre utile."[29] He asked if we had seen the chateau; and, on my replying in the affirmative, expressed his regret that he had not met with us sooner. I learned afterwards that he was the Marechal Duc de Coigny, at that time gouverneur du chateau de Fontainebleau.

He directed me to a treillis which ran the whole length of a garden wall exposed to the south. The situation was even too favourable for the vines that covered the treillis; as, though very fine and healthy, they had pushed out many large branches without fruit. Grapes however, there were in abundance; and, had they been ripe, no doubt M. le Gouverneur would have invited us to eat of them. At any rate, the fox's reasoning had here no place.

The next day we arrived at Sens. In the cathedral of this place is a very fine piece of sculpture, the tomb of the Dauphin son of Louis XV.

It will hardly be believed that, during the revolutionary fury, the populace were only restrained by force from breaking in pieces the statues of this tomb, out of hatred to royalty. I observed to the sacristan:--"Le bon peuple de Sens n'est pas apparemment un peuple de bon sens."[30] In a chapel, under the invocation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, is a painting representing his interview with the pope at this place, to which he retired during his unjust exile. The memory of Thomas a Becket has been unmercifully slandered by our philosophical and protestant historians. It is their way.

At Auxerre we found an inn very pleasantly situated on the banks of the Yonne with the vine-covered hills of Burgundy in full view. It was fortunate that the inn was agreeable, and the people of the house very good-humoured, the chances being very much against both the one and the other; for here we were detained one day by the illness of Mrs. ----. A physician attended, who, on his second visit, recommended the use of the hot bath, which removed the cause of the complaint, and all was well again.

Hot baths are to be found in every great town in France, at a very moderate price,--a circ.u.mstance which proves that they are much in use, as it is the number of customers only that renders the article cheap.

The French are in general cleanly in their persons, whatever their streets may be: they are also cleanly in their houses, though they have not the fastidious and troublesome neatness of the English, nor the perpetual scrubbings and polishings of the Dutch. Household linen, both for bed and table, is plentiful amongst them. I began at Auxerre the use of the hot bath, which I have continued every summer that I have not pa.s.sed on the sea coast. In winter it is too cold,--not to go into hot water, but to come out of it.