disquisitions on architecture and on dates. I propose to give you in
this, a little more of what Humboldt would call my personal narrative,
_i. e._ to mention every thing which I think will at all interest you,
but for which I have prepared no other place. I dined every day at
Rheims at the table d’hôte, the time for which was five o’clock, but it
was called half-past four. The company usually assembled a few minutes
before dinner, and consisted in all of about twenty persons; five of
them were members of a Juré, of a sort of court of appeal: who the
others were I cannot tell you: there were some changes every day, but
several were constant attendants. In England we so constantly see fish
at the commencement of the entertainment, that we fancy this to be its
natural place. In France the order of dishes follows rather the mode of
dressing than the substance of the meat, and you have first boiled, then
fried, afterwards stewed, and at last roast. Birds in each mode follow
the more solid food, and here, with the roast meat, we often had plain
boiled fish. The French rarely eat the meat and vegetables together,
each is considered as a distinct dish, and eaten separately; indeed all
the mixtures are made in the kitchen, and you hardly ever see a
Frenchman unite in his plate the contents of two different dishes—that
is the cook’s privilege. Thus you see the spirit of independence
distinguishes us from our neighbours even in these trifles. Last came
cheese, pastry, and fruit. Among the last were always walnuts, and one
of our amusements was to crack them in various modes. The man who bore
the bell in this exercise placed the back of a knife on the nut, and
struck the edge with the naked palm of his hand, so forcibly as not
merely to break the shell, but to smash it completely. French knives are
seldom very sharp, but these were nearly new, and better than common,
and I have often met with blunter at an English table. The conversation,
as you may suppose, was various: politics were sometimes incidentally
mentioned, but never formed the direct subject. The institution of
juries seemed to be considered too good to admit of any question. An
advocate related to us various stories which had occurred to him
professionally; and as they were well told, I was much interested by
them. One was of a Chouan chief, who being accused of rebellion, was
desirous, against the opinion of his advocate, of clearing himself by
certain witnesses of expurgation. I do not recollect the term, but the
fact was, that these witnesses were to give evidence on oath, not merely
as to character, but also to express their full assurance of his
innocence. I do not know if any thing of this sort now exists in France,
or whether it was general at the time the advocate was speaking of, or
confined to some province: you will recollect, that we had such a custom
in the ecclesiastical courts in England. The first witness called, said
that he knew personally nothing about the prisoner, but relying on
common report, he believed him to be a rebel. The poor Chouan fainted on
finding his hopes thus blasted, but the advocate taking advantage of the
name, which was a common one in the country, contrived, by confounding
him with other persons, to get him off.
Some time afterwards, as the lawyer was travelling from Bayonne to
Rochelle, the diligence was attacked by a party of rebels, but he being
asleep, did not at first comprehend what was the matter, till one of his
companions pulling him by the arm, and at the same time calling him by
name, told him he must get out. The chief of the robbers hearing the
name, inquired for further particulars, and on learning who he was,
embraced him eagerly, and though his face was half covered with a mask,
the advocate felt his tears on his own cheeks. There was some money
belonging to government in the carriage; this was taken; but the Chouan
would permit none of the private property to be touched, and gave to the
driver a pass, by means of which they arrived safely at Rochelle,
through three other bands which infested the road. The advocate wrote a
particular account of the whole story and sent it to a gazette, but the
government of the day, unwilling to have it acknowledged that a Chouan
could possess gratitude, or any good feeling, would not permit the
publication.
Just out of Rheims there is a fine public promenade, planted with
several rows of good sized trees, with many diverging paths; it leads
from the highest gate of the town, down to the water-side, and is really
a very pleasant place in itself, and particularly so in a country so
generally bare as this is. No French town of any size seems to be
without an accommodation of this sort, which is alike conducive to the
beauty of the place, to health and pleasure. Why is it that we have so
few examples of the sort in England? Is it that our taste, or our pride,
would not permit us to enjoy it? Or does it proceed from a sort of
stinginess, which so strongly pervades some of our public institutions,
while in others they are characterized by the opposite vice of
profusion? Beyond the promenade is a public garden, called Trianon. Here
a ball was given one evening, the price of admission to which was two
sols, “_une mise decente_” was essential, but a person might be admitted
in jacket and trowsers. Some persons were dancing in a small garden by
the light of a few lamps, and others were looking on, but the company
was not numerous, and my companion complains that dancing is gone out of
fashion in France. Nobody, he says, dances now but old women and
children.
The weather was very cold at Rheims, and one morning (2nd May) even
frosty; the last day of my residence there was wet. The diligence to
Soissons, on Sunday, being full, I hired a _carriole_, which is
something much like a taxed cart, but lined with tapestry. We were
seated on a bundle of straw; there were two horses, one between the
shafts, and one outrigger. The first part of our road lay through an
open common field, as usual, but on looking back, the appearance of the
cathedral was very fine. The two towers, rising at the end of the long
range of building, put me in mind of Westminster Abbey, though nothing
can be more different when the parts are considered separately. The
latter part of our journey seemed somewhat more pleasant, but a mizzling
rain would not permit us to enjoy it.
Before reaching Soissons, our outrigger, which carried the postillion,
became very restive, and we dismounted. As soon as he seemed a little
more quiet we got in again, but were hardly seated, before the horse
began again to kick and twist himself about: in a few moments the
postillion was on the ground. I jumped out, and ran to him, but he had
already disengaged himself. He was entangled in the traces, and seemed
to be among the horses’ feet, so that I expected to have found him with
half his bones broken, but he was not materially hurt. The vicious
animal did not cease kicking till he had thrown himself down and broken
the traces. He was afterwards quiet enough, and we reached Soissons
without farther difficulty at about half-past three. After dinner I
walked out, in spite of the bad weather. The first object was the ruin
of the church of St. John the Baptist. The two western towers only
remain, each crowned with a spire; the rest was destroyed at the
revolution, and some huge masses of masonry lie scattered about, the
remains of the ancient edifice, but no vegetation yet softens the
crudeness of the ruin; no mosses or lichens break the harshness of the
lines, and give richness and variety of colour; no venerable trees
spread their majestic branches around, and by their deep and solemn
shade give spirit and relief to the building. The inhabitants of
Soissons obtained permission for these towers to remain as ornaments to
their city, and even as they are, they are very beautiful, and time will
render them more so. They are of a late Gothic, with the characteristic
compound arch in the details, and enriched points to the trefoils. Each
tower terminates in a small spire, but it preserves, quite to the
bottom, a pyramidal form. I took my course along the rampart, where
there has been a broad walk, but it was cut up by the garrison in order
to raise defences against the Prussians in the last war. The effort was
of little use, and the town suffered much; the greatest scene of ruin
was where a powder magazine blew up; it divided the fortifications quite
to the foundation, destroyed all the houses near it, injured a great
many more, and shattered the windows throughout the place. Repairs are
commenced, but the town in general looks very melancholy and forlorn,
and the windows of the cathedral are still patched with straw. I
continued my walk along the rampart, but the thick weather did not
permit me to see much of the prospect. It looks, in one part, over the
public promenade, but the old trees were destroyed by the Prussians, and
the present are only about six feet high. What a long time it will take
to repair the injury of a few weeks! The rampart here making a sudden
bend, I left it, and passed by what once was a church dedicated to St.
Leger. The southern front is of early Gothic, but I shall leave that for
a comparison with some other Gothic buildings: I could not obtain
admittance. Thence I proceeded through the principal square, where the
town-hall once stood. My next object was the cathedral, which, in
character, is something like that at Rheims, but far inferior in scale
and execution: the south transept finishes in a semicircle, having been
the choir of a more ancient church of the early French Gothic. During my
absence Mr. Le Blanc found out a vault in the convent of St. Medard
which had served as a prison to Louis le Debonnaire, in 833. This day
was observed as the anniversary of the return of Louis XVIII., and two
candles were placed, in the evening, on the outside of one of the
windows of our room, by way of illumination, and a few drunken soldiers
rambled about the streets, crying _vive le roi!_ White flags, or
handkerchiefs, were very generally hung out at the windows during the
day, but I saw nothing which indicated any popular enthusiasm in favour
of the Bourbons. Next day the weather became yet worse, and in the
afternoon, we took our places in the diligence and returned to Paris; my
post, as usual, was in the cabriolet. The conducteur was the son of a
man who had a little property of his own of about thirty acres, but he
had followed the prince of Condé, to whom he was attached, out of the
country, and had lost it all. This story contains nothing improbable,
but it is amusing to hear how constantly those in the lower stations of
life, had been reduced by the revolution. My _blanchisseuse_, who is the
most graceful woman in the world, and speaks the best French, was
obliged to have recourse to washing dirty linen, as the means of gaining
a subsistence, in consequence of that event, and there is scarcely a
cabriolet driver who has not been a man of some importance.
This journey presented some very pleasant scenes; always, I believe, in
valleys among the strata lying above the chalk. The forest of Villars
Coterie, containing sixty thousand arpents, belonging to the duke of
Orleans, makes an agreeable variety, though it is too uniformly a covert
of small trees to be beautiful. Several straight avenues are cut through
it; and when we passed any which looked quite clear and even, and
exhibited the sky at the termination; the conducteur, and a third person
in the cabriolet, never failed to pronounce them _superbes_,
_magnifiques_, or to apply some other epithet equally sounding, and
wondered much I did not join in their admiration. We arrived at Paris
about seven o’clock, on a fine but cold morning.
On the 11th of May, at seven in the morning, I attended M. de Fontaine’s
lecture on botany at the Jardin du Roi. The room is larger than the
lecture room at the Royal Institution in London, but without galleries;
and the entrances are at the top, above the ranges of seats. It had the
appearance of being pretty nearly full, but this could not be the case,
as it is said to hold one thousand two hundred persons, and the number
then present was only estimated at six hundred; this, however, is a good
class. The ascent of the steps is very steep, which gives every possible
advantage of seeing, but the room is too large; and those on the back
can neither hear nor see very distinctly; besides M. de Fontaine’s
manner is not calculated for so large a place. He speaks at times very
rapidly, and seemed rather to pitch his voice to some ladies near him,
than to the remoter part of his audience. The subject was quite
elementary, explaining the different parts of plants, and their uses;
without any thing of the principles of classification and of natural
affinity, the part in which the French school is supposed to excel. The
garden used to be called _des plantes_, but now _du roi_. I do not know
the reason of the change. It is very large, but only a small portion is
appropriated to the science of botany; it is divided into large squares,
by straight and wide walks, which are always open, and form an agreeable
promenade, but you cannot enter into the squares without permission. One
of these is intended to contain a collection of plants arranged
according to the system of Jussieu, but it is very defective, especially
in the plants of France, a sensible proportion of which are under wrong
names. Many parts are much too crowded, as you may easily comprehend,
when I tell you that they allot for each forest tree, a space of about
four feet square; other squares are dedicated to experiments in
horticulture and agriculture. There is one square appropriated entirely
to experiments in standard fruit trees; some of these have a whimsical
appearance, especially those where new roots have been given to old
trees. Two, three, four, or even five young slips are planted near the
tree intended to be so treated, and the heads being cut off at a proper
season, the top of the remaining part is inserted into the old trunk and
grows to it. The slips continue to increase in size, and in two or three
years the old trunk may be cut away. In some instances the reports are
very favourable to this process, and in one case in particular, where
the original wood was sound, the addition of these extra roots had made
the tree increase very much faster than a neighbouring tree, apparently
of equal strength, which had been chosen as an object of comparison. The
department of grafts contains also a number of curious particulars, and
M. Thouin, the professor, was so good as to accompany me, and to explain
the various experiments. Virgil has said, that if you pass a vine
through a walnut-tree, it will bear the most large and beautiful fruit,
but bitter and uneatable. To use M. Thouin’s expression, “_le fait est
faux_,” he made several attempts to conduct a vine through the trunk of
a walnut-tree, but as soon as it began to enlarge sufficiently to feel
the confinement, it uniformly died, and he was never able to procure any
fruit from it. He then passed a vine through a pear-tree, whose wood
being softer, did not compress it so much as entirely to stop its
growth; but the grapes produced above this insertion did not differ in
size or flavour from those below. If then, he reasoned, the grapes are
altered in size or flavour by passing through a walnut-tree, the
converse of the proposition ought to hold good, and we shall alter the
walnuts by passing a branch through a vine; the experiment was tried,
but both grapes and walnuts remained as they were before.
Another graft is called ‘_des charlatans_;’ Pliny says that Lucullus
shewed him a tree producing grapes, apples, pears, cherries, and other
fruit, belonging to trees having no relation to each other, from the
same root; and this, he tells us, was effected by grafting. It has been
a problem ever since, among gardeners, to produce this tree of Lucullus;
M. Thouin has succeeded, not by grafting, but by planting the several
stocks in a hollow trunk.
From the garden I went into the museum of natural history, which is open
to persons with tickets, from eleven to two, three times a week. The
first floor contains a large, but ill-disposed room, for fishes and
reptiles, a library which I did not see, and an extensive suite of rooms
for the collection of minerals. There is an interesting collection of
extraneous fossils, and especially of those of the plaster beds at
Paris, but, altogether, it rather fell short of my expectation, not in
the substances, but in their arrangement. We are told also of a
geological collection, but the specimens are not geologically disposed.
The upper floor is thrown into a single room, divided into several
parts, but the divisions are left open at the middle, so that the whole
is exposed at one view; it is very long, of a moderate width, but low in
proportion; and it is either partially, or entirely in the roof; in
short, it is by no means handsome, and has completely the look of an
enormous garret. I shall give you what I suppose to be the dimensions of
each part; they are wholly from guess, but may help you at least in the
comparative sizes. First part 28 × 24, principally monkeys. Second part
60 × 28, contains an elephant, a rhinoceros, and an hippopotamus, all in
glass cases; it looks rather ridiculous to see these enormous things
taken so much care of, but they are fine animals and well preserved. An
Arabian and Russian horse, the quagga of Vaillant, a zebra, and the
young of each of these stand exposed in the room. Other quadrupeds are
placed in glass cases around it. Third division, 86 × 28, also
quadrupeds. After this is a little space forming the segment of a
circle, which seems awkward, ugly, and useless. Fourth part 108 × 28,
birds all round; the cases are extremely deep, and the birds, except a
few very large ones, are placed on little stands side by side, all
facing the spectator and nearly close together, so that little is seen
either of the side or back of the bird. This might be the more easily
obviated as there are frequently several specimens of the same species.
The plate glass of the cases is magnificent. The subjects are well
preserved and scientifically arranged. Another segment of a circle
follows. Fifth part, 36 × 28, also birds; along the middle of the three
divisions, three, four, and five, runs a stand of two tables united,
[Illustration: Illustration of united tables]
and a part rising above them in the middle; containing a superb
collection of insects, shells, zoophytes, podophthalmata, and eggs of
birds; and, since the light is introduced on both sides of the
apartment, they are very well seen. Sixth, 60 × 28, quadrupeds, mostly
deer and antelopes; in the middle is a great basking shark, a camel,
oxen, and the giraffe killed by Vaillant.
On the 12th of May I walked up Mont Martre. It is a curious looking
place, having apparently been, in its original state, a hill neither so
high nor so steep as Hampstead Heath, but all the sides have been dug
away to procure gypsum, and only the top remains, with the roads leading
up to it, presenting all round either steep banks or perpendicular
faces. The gypsum is dug out of two beds, of which the upper is, I
suppose, twenty-five feet thick; of the lower I did not see the bottom.
It has very much the colour and fracture of coarse lump sugar, but the
grain is rather finer. Between the two courses, and above the upper, are
beds of white clay, at least when dry it appeared quite white; but there
are some intermediate beds of clay and sand of a darker colour, and the
whole is crowned by a thick bed of yellow sand, which forms the soil of
the summit of the hill. This is a very narrow strip, with a row of
windmills, from whence I enjoyed an excellent view. Paris was covered
with a little whitish smoke, at least that was the case over the most
thickly inhabited part, but nothing like the dense yellow fumes of
London. By the appearance of the horizon, I judged my elevation to be
about equal to that of the summit of the Pantheon, and a little above
that of the dome of the Invalides. The cross at the top of the former is
about 280 feet above the pavement, and as this building stands on an
elevated spot, Mont Martre must be more than 300 feet above the Seine.
Below the quarries, and sometimes between them, are vineyards as open as
the corn-fields in England, and mixed with the vines are currant and
gooseberry bushes, and a few larger fruit trees. The vine stumps were
about three feet a part, and the leaves, which had just begun to appear,
were dark and shining. About Chartres the young vine leaf is almost
always covered with thick down. Here and there was a bush of hawthorn
not yet in flower, whence I conclude the Parisian spring is not a great
deal more forward than that of the south of England.
I leave you to conclude that I have seen the elephant, the catacombs,
the observatory, and a hundred other curiosities of this city; they are
too familiar for any novelty of description, yet I ought not entirely to
omit a visit to the Ecole des Mines. Here is a superb collection of
minerals; the objects are very numerous, and the specimens frequently
very beautiful. The arrangement is by provinces, distinguishing those
which are lost to France, from those which still constitute part of the
country. It occupies a range of rooms of about 130 feet in length
towards the garden, and one or two besides, in which the specimens are
arranged mineralogically. There is also on the ground floor a library,
and a further collection of minerals. I was likewise conducted to the
collection of M. de Dré, which, for the beauty of the specimens, is said
to be the finest in Europe. In all these museums, I have been struck
with the arrangement which displays every thing at once; a great deal of
room is necessarily given up to this purpose, but it is well applied,
for the ease which it offers of reference and comparison, as well as for
communicating an air of magnificence which is suitable for public
institutions. Two large paintings of David are at present exhibited, and
I did not fail to visit them. The subject of one is Leonidas about to
attack the Persians, after he found that they had discovered a passage
over the mountains. That of the other, the interposition of the Sabine
women who had been carried away by the Romans, to prevent the battle
between the two people. The drawing is said to be, and I dare say is,
perfectly true to nature, but not to beautiful nature. The stories are
not very well told, nor the figures well disposed or well lighted. The
relief is excellent, and in spite of the harsh colouring, some of the
figures seem quite to stand from the canvass.
I have already anticipated the results of my excursion to Chartres,
Dreux, and Mantes. This journey gave me a better idea than I had before
of French cross road travelling. A cabriolet is an enclosed one horse
chaise. A pot-de-chambre differs from a cabriolet in being deep enough
to admit two seats, one before the other, each seat usually holding
three persons, all looking towards the horses; the back is the seat of
honour, but it is a very unpleasant one. The cabriolets _de poste_ will
rarely hold more than two persons conveniently, and one I had from
Chartres to Dreux, would not even do that. The difference on taking a
voiture or a cabriolet de poste, is, that the former does not change
horses. Travelling post for two or three persons, (independently of food
and lodging) costs just three francs per league. For travelling in
voiture, you make what bargain you can, but to judge from my own
experience, the terms are favourable, when you have to give two francs
per league, and a few sous ‘_pour boire_’ to the postillion. I paid on
the occasion above-mentioned eighteen francs, without understanding
whether the precise distance were nine leagues, or only seven, and that
two more were allowed for the badness of the road: indeed nothing could
be worse. The high roads in France are good, though I am not quite
reconciled to the _pavé_; but the cross roads are very bad, and the
worst points are usually in the villages. There is probably more traffic
at these parts, and as nothing is ever done to them, they are
consequently the worst. The government only takes care of the great
roads; and every thing of public convenience, not done by government, is
either neglected, or if performed at all, it is in a very slovenly
manner. What is more provoking, is, that one sees heaps of gravel by the
road sides, collected from the fields and vineyards, but which it
appears to be nobody’s business to dispose over the road. We had a very
skilful driver, who galloped among the deep ruts, which it seemed
impossible to avoid, and still more impossible to follow. Travelling in
the royal diligences costs about fourteen sous per league, and you give
the postillions two sous each stage, or about one sol per league, and
the conductor, perhaps, twice as much, in all seventeen sous; the league
is about two miles and a half English. You may therefore calculate
French posting, where you have to hire the carriage as well as the
horses, at twenty-four sous, or one shilling per mile; travelling in
voiture at ninepence; by the diligence threepence halfpenny, or for two
people, to keep up the comparison, sevenpence. The scenery on this
excursion was better than on the preceding, without being good, except
on our return through St. Germain en Laye, and Marli, where it is highly
beautiful. The Seine winds under a steep woody bank; the other side of
the river is comparatively flat, but well cultivated and well shaded; I
can think of no nearer resemblance than Richmond Hill. Here is more
hill, and consequently more variety, but it has not the richness of the
English scene; and the banks of the Seine are not to be compared with
those of the Thames, either for natural or artificial ornament.