having run foul of the Duchess of Kent while she was in stays, the
Duchess had missed Deal. By which I conclude it was a dispute at
cards--however, I want to know nothing of state secrets, or I might
have heard a great deal more, because it appeared that the Duchess's
head was considerably injured in the scuffle.
"I was very much distressed to see that a fat gentleman who was
in the ship, had fallen into a fit of perplexity by over-reaching
himself--he lay prostituted upon the floor, and if it had not
been that we had a doctor in the ship, who immediately opened his
temporary artery and his jocular vein, with a lancelot which he had
in his pocket, I think we should have seen his end.
"It was altogether a most moving spectacle--he thought himself dying,
and all his anxiety in the midst of his distress was to be able to
add a crocodile to his will, in favour of his niece, about whom he
appeared very sanguinary.
"It was quite curious to see the doctor fleabottomize the patient,
which he did without any accident, although it blew a perfect harrico
at the time. I noticed two little children, who came out of the boat,
with hardly any clothes on them, speaking French like anything--a
proof of the superior education given to the poor in France, to that
which they get in England from Dr. Bell of Lancaster.
"When we landed at Callous, we were extremely well received, and I
should have enjoyed the sight very much, but Mr. Fulmer, and another
gentleman in the batto, kept talking of nothing but how turkey and
grease disagreed with each other, which, in the then state of my
stomach, was far from agreeable.
"We saw the print of the foot of Louis Desweet, the French King,
where he first stopped when he returned to his country--he must be a
prodigious heavy man to have left such a deep mark in the stone--we
were surrounded by Commissioners, who were so hospitable as to press
us to go to their houses without any ceremony. Mr. Fulmer showed our
pass-ports to a poor old man, with a bit of red ribband tied to his
button-hole, and we went before the Mayor, who is no more like a
Mayor than my foot-boy.
"Here they took a subscription of our persons, and one of the men
said that Lavinia had a jolly manton, at which the clerks laughed,
and several of them said she was a jolly feel, which I afterwards
understood meant a pretty girl--I misunderstood it for fee, which,
being in a public office, was a very natural mistake.
"We went then to a place they call the Do-Anne, where they took away
the pole of my baruch--I was very angry at this, but they told me we
were to travel in Lemonade with a biddy, which I did not understand,
but Mr. Fulmer was kind enough to explain it to me as we went to
the hotel, which is in a narrow street, and contains a garden and
court-yard.
"I left it to Mr. Fulmer to order dinner, for I felt extremely
piquant, as the French call it, and a very nice dinner it was--we had
a purey, which tasted very like soup--one of the men said it was made
from leather, at least so I understood, but it had quite the flavour
of hare; I think it right here to caution travellers against the fish
at this place, which looks very good, but which I have reason to
believe is very unwholesome, for one of the waiters called it poison
while speaking to the other--the fish was called marine salmon, but
it looked like veal cutlets.
"They are so fond of Buonaparte still that they call the table-cloths
Naps, in compliment to him--this I remarked to myself, but said
nothing about it to anybody else, for fear of consequences.
"One of the waiters, who spoke English, asked me if I would have a
little Bergami, which surprised me, till Mr. Fulmer said it was the
wine he was handing about, when I refused it, preferring to take a
glass of Bucephalus.
"When we had dined we had some coffee, which is here called
cabriolet; after which Mr. Fulmer asked if we would have a chasse,
which I thought meant a hunting party, and said I was afraid of going
out into the fields at that time of night--but I found chasse was a
lickure called _cure a sore_ (from its healing qualities, I suppose),
and very nice it was--after we had taken this, Mr. Fulmer went out
to look at the jolly feels in the shops of Callous, which I thought
indiscreet in the cold air; however, I am one as always overlooks
the little piccadillies of youth.
"When we went to accoucher at night, I was quite surprised in not
having a man for a chambermaid; and if it had not been for the entire
difference of the style of furniture, the appearance of the place,
and the language and dress of the attendants, I never should have
discovered that we had changed our country in the course of the day.
"In the morning early we left Callous with the Lemonade, which is
Shafts, with a very tall post-boy, in a violet-coloured jacket,
trimmed with silver; he rode a little horse, which is called a biddy,
and wore a nobbed tail, which thumped against his back like a patent
self-acting knocker. We saw, near Bullion, Buonaparte's conservatory,
out of which he used to look at England in former days.
"Nothing remarkable occurred till we met a courier a travelling,
Mr. Fulmer said, with despatches; these men were called couriers
immediately after the return of the Bonbons, in compliment to the
London newspaper, which always wrote in their favour. At Montrule,
Mr. Fulmer shewed me Sterne's Inn, and there I saw Mr. Sterne
himself, a standing at the door, with a French cocked hat upon his
head, over a white night-cap. Mr. Fulmer asked if he had any becauses
in his house; but he said no: what they were I do not know to this
moment.
"It is no use describing the different places on our rout, because
Paris is the great object of all travellers, and therefore I shall
come to it at once--it is reproached by a revenue of trees; on the
right of which you see a dome, like that of St. Paul's, but not so
large. Mr. Fulmer told me it was an invalid, and it did certainly
look very yellow in the distance; on the left you perceive Mont
Martyr, so called from the number of windmills upon it.
"I was very much surprised at the height of the houses, and the noise
of the carriages in Paris: and was delighted when we got to our
hotel, which is Wag Ram; why I did not like to enquire; it is just
opposite the Royal Timber-yard, which is a fine building, the name of
which is cut in stone.--_Timbre Royal._
"The hotel which I have mentioned is in the Rue de la Pay, so called
from its being the dearest part of the town. At one end of it is the
place Fumdum, where there is a pillow as high as the Trojan's Pillow
at Rome, or the pompous pillow in Egypt; this is a beautiful object,
and is made of all the guns, coats, waistcoats, hats, boots and
belts, which belonged to the French who were killed by the cold in
Prussia at the fire of Moscow.
"At the top of the pillow is a small apartment, which they call
a pavillion, and over that a white flag, which I concluded to
be hoisted as a remembrance of Buonaparte, being very like the
table-cloths I noticed at Callous.
"We lost no time in going into the gardens of the Tooleries, where we
saw the statutes at large in marvel--here we saw Mr. Backhouse and
Harry Edney, whoever they might be, and a beautiful grope of Cupid
and Physic, together with several of the busks which Lavy has copied,
the original of which is in the Vacuum at Rome, which was formerly an
office for government thunder, but is now reduced to a stable where
the Pope keeps his bulls.
"Travellers like us, who are mere birds of prey, have no time to
waste, and therefore we determined to see all we could in each day,
so we went to the great church, which is called Naughty Dam, where
we saw a priest doing something at an altar. Mr. Fulmer begged me
to observe the knave of the church, but I thought it too hard to
call the man names in his own country, although Mr. Fulmer said he
believed he was exercising the evil spirits in an old lady in a black
cloak.
"It was a great day at this church, and we staid for mass, so called
from the crowd of people who attend it--the priest was very much
incensed--we waited out the whole ceremony, and heard Tedium sung,
which occupied three hours.
"We returned over the Pont Neuf, so called from being the north
bridge in Paris, and here we saw a beautiful image of Henry Carter;
it is extremely handsome, and quite green--I fancied I saw a likeness
to the Carters of Portsmouth, but if it is one of his family, his
posteriors are very much diminished in size and figure.
"Mr. Fulmer proposed that we should go and dine at a tavern called
Very--because every thing is very good there; and accordingly we
went, and I never was so malapropos in my life--there were two or
three ladies quite in nubibus; but when I came to look at the bill of
fare, I was quite anileated, for I perceived that Charlotte de Pommes
might be sent for for one shilling and twopence, and Patty de Veau
for half-a-crown. I desired Mr. Fulmer to let us go; but he convinced
me there was no harm in the place, by shewing me a dignified
clergyman of the Church of England and his wife, a eating away like
any thing.
"We had a voulez vous of fowl, and some sailor's eels, which were
very nice, and some pieces of crape, so disguised by the sauce that
nobody who had not been told what it was would have distinguished
them from pancakes--after the sailor's eels we had some pantaloon
cutlets, which were savoury--but I did not like the writing
paper--however, as it was a French custom, I eat every bit of
it--they call sparrow-grass here asperge, I could not find out why.
"If I had not seen what wonderful men the French cooks are, who
actually stew up shoes with partridges, and make very nice dishes
too, I never could have believed the influence they have in the
politics of the country--everything is now decided by the cooks, who
make no secret of their feelings, and the party who are still for
Buonaparte call themselves traitors, while those who are partizans of
the Bonbons are termed Restaurateurs, or friends of the Restoration.
"After dinner a French monsheur, who I thought was a waiter, for he
had a bit of red ribbon at his button-hole, just the same as one of
the waiters had, began to talk to Mr. Fulmer, and it was agreed we
should go to the play--they talked of Racing and Cornhill, which
made me think the mounsheur had been in England--however, it was
arranged that we were to go and see Andrew Mackay at the Francay, or
Jem Narse, or the Bullvards; but at last it was decided unanimously,
crim. con. that we should go to see Jem Narse, and so we went--but I
never saw the man himself after all.
"A very droll person, with long legs and a queer face, sung a song
which pleased me very much, because I understood the end of it
perfectly--it was 'tal de lal de lal de lal,' and sounded quite like
English--after he had done, although every body laughed, the whole
house called out 'beast, beast,' and the man, notwithstanding, was
foolish enough to sing it over again."
VI.
ADVENTURES AT PARIS.
TO MR. BULL.
Paris, January 28, 1824.
SIR,--As my daughter Lavy, who acts as my amaranthus, is ill-disposed
with a cold and guittar, contracted by visiting the Hecatombs last
week, I send this without her little billy which she usually sends;
my second daughter has sprained her tender hercules in crossing
one of the roues, and my third daughter has got a military fever,
which, however, I hope, by putting her through a regiment, and giving
her a few subterfuges, will soon abate. I am, however, a good deal
_embracée_, as the French say, with so many invalids.
Since I wrote last, I have visited the Hullaballoo, or cornmarket,
so called from the noise made in it; Mr. Fulmer told me I should see
the flower of the French nation there, but I only saw a crowd of old
men and old women; here is a pillow made for judicious astronomy, but
which looks like a sun-dial.
We went, on Tuesday, to the symetery of the Chaise-and-pair, as they
call it, where the French and English are miscellaneously interred,
and I amused myself by copying the epigrams on the tombstones--one of
them, which looked like a large bath, Mr. Fulmer told me was a sark
of a goose, which I had previously heard my friend Mr. Rogers call
Mr. Hume's shirt.
In the afternoon we went to dine at Beau Villiers's--not the Mr.
Villiers who owes our Government so much money--but the smell of
the postillions which were burning in the rooms quite overpowered
me. I got better in the evening, and as the girls were not with us,
Mr. Fulmer took me round the Palais Royal, which is a curious place
indeed. We saw several Russian war houses, and went into the "Caffee
de Milk alone," so called because, when Bonypart confisticated the
cargoes from the West Indies, and propagated the use of coffee,
the lady who kept this place made a mixture with milk alone, which
answered all the purpose of coffee. The room is surrounded by
looking-glasses, so that the people are always multiplying who go
there: the lady herself was very beautiful, but Mr. Fulmer told me
she was constantly reflected upon. Mr. F. took some melted glass,
upon which I did not like to venture, but contented myself with a
tumbler of caterpillar and water.
Wednesday we went to the Shampdemars (which is opposite to the Pere
Elisée), and saw a review of the Queerasses of the Royal Guard. The
sister of the late Dolphin was present--the Dolphin of France is the
same as the Prince of Whales in England. The Duke of Anglehome came
by, from hunting, just at the time; I am told he is quite a Ramrod
in the chace. The troops performed their revolutions with decision,
and having manured all over the ground, fired a fille de joy, and
returned to their quarters.
We went yesterday to what is their Parliament House, and while were a
waiting in the antic-room, I saw a picture of Lewes de Sweet himself,
in a large purple robe, lined with vermin and covered with fleur de
lice. Being a stranger, I was allowed to look into the chamber; it
is not quite what I expected: there seemed to be a man in a bar, with
a bell before him, and the men who were speaking spoke all in French,
and looked very shabby and mean; to be sure, they were only the
deputies--it would have been more lucky if we had seen the members
themselves.
Lavy, I think, has got a puncheon for Mr. Fulmer, and I am afraid is
a fretting about it, but this is quite cet a dire between us, Mr. B.
He says her figure is like the Venus de Medicine, which is no doubt
owing to the pulling down she has had of late. We are going next
week to Sanclew again, but we travel in such an odd carriage, that I
cannot prevail upon myself to mention its name.
You must excuse a short letter to-day. I was determined to write,
else I thought our friends in Westminster might be disappointed. You
shall hear more at large by the next opportunity.
Always yours,
D. J. RAMSBOTTOM.
If you see Mr. R., tell him Mr. Fulmer has bought him two pictures;
one of Ten Years, the other of Old Beans; I am no judge, but they are
very black, and shine beautifully--they are considered shift doovers
in these parts.
VII.
FURTHER ADVENTURES AT PARIS.
Paris, March 15, 1824.
MY DEAR BULL,--I believe I shall soon have to announce that Mr.
Fulmer has led my Lavy to the halter--but I am unwilling to be too
sanguinary; should that happen, however, we shall extend our tower,
and proceed to the Pay de Veau and finally to Room, where Mr. Fulmer
is to explain all the antics, what you so well know are collected
there.
We have been to-day to see the Hotel de Veal, so called, I believe,
from being situated in the Calf-market; it is now styled the Place de
Grave, because all the malefactors who are decimated by the gulleting
(an instrument so called from its cutting the sufferer's throat) are
buried there. We crossed over the Pont Neuf, in order to go again to
see the Mass. As we went along, I purchased two beautiful sieve jars,
with covers, on purpose to keep Popery in.
I believe I forgot to say that we went one morning to an expedition
of pictures at the Looksombre palace, so called from its dull
situation. It was very fine: one particularly struck my fancy.
It was Phœbe offering Hector to the Gods. There was another of
Morpheus charming the Beasts, which was extremely moving; there was
also a beautiful portrait of a lady, and Mr. Fulmer said she was
in excellent keeping. I did not, of course, ask who she was, and I
wonder how they can admit likenesses of that class of people into
such a place. Mr. Fulmer shewed me a large picture, painted by David,
which is wonderfully fresh, considering its vast age. I knew David
was the greatest musician of his time, but I did not know that he was
a painter into the bargain. These genuses are always gifted creturs.
We have been to the Jardin des Plantes, or place for wild beasts,
where we saw some lepers and tygers--and two birds called carraways,
from India; there is also an oliphant, which contradicts the absurd
story that these animals carry their trunks about with them--this
great creature had nothing but a long snout, which made him look to
me as if his tail had been misplaced--it was intended by Bonypart to
put the statute of one of these animals up, for a fountain on the
Bullwards, indeed the impediment is already constructed.
I was very much delighted with the place Louis Quinzy--so called from
his having died of a sore throat--the Admiralty is situated here,
with a dollygraph on the top--Mr. Fulmer introduced me to one of the
officers in the naval department, who was a very favourable specimen
of the French moreen.
We went to the Odium, a favourite playhouse of Bonypart's, on purpose
to see the Civil Barber, a play written by one Beau Marchy--but
we were disappointed, for the house was not open, so by way of a
pease-alley, as Mr. Fulmer calls it, we went to the Fait d'Eau, a
kind of French uproar, where we paid very dear for tickets, and
got no places after all. I was quite sick and tired of the affair
altogether, and if Mr. Fulmer had not got me a caffé au lait to carry
me home, I think I should have perspired from fatigue.
I had almost forgot to tell you that we went to the palace at
Marselles, distant from this about ten miles--it is indeed a
beautiful place. There we saw the great Owes playing, which is
water-works, and represents water coming out of the tails of Lions,
and out of the ears and noses of frogs and goddesses, as natural
as the life. Here is a wonderful fine chapel, all of marvel, and a
strait canal which has no end--I forget how much it cost the nation
to make all this water, but I am sure it is cheap at the money
whatever it may be--though by the name it seems to be still owing.
Mr. Fulmer called such an expense an easy mode of liquidating a
national debt--but really I don't know why.
I have little time for more at present, because two of the doctors
from the Sore-bone are coming to see my daughter's sprained ancle
to-night; but it is curious to remark how foolish the people are,
when one has not a gentleman with one, for Mr. Fulmer being out
to-day, I sent to the Traitors for the bill of fare, and the man
talked of sending the dinner in a cart, which I thought was useless,
it being only just over the way. So they sent the bill, and I not
being particular, and not understanding the names of the things,
ordered the first four dishes in the list, and they sent me four
different sorts of soup, and when I complained of the cook, the
garkon or waiter talked of quizzing and quizzing her, (doubtlessly
meaning me) as if I had been a person of no consequence--indeed he
once or twice went so far as to swear at me, and say dam when he
spoke to me, but I had nobody at home to take my part, and therefore
I eat the four soups and said nothing about it.
The daughter of Mr. Ratschild is going to be married--they call him
Creases, but he is a Jew. He gives her a dot the day of her wedding,
of five millions of franks; but for all he is so rich, they say he
is quite circumsized in his affairs compared with his brother in
London--his daughter will be made a barrenness when she is married.
Mr. Cambray Serres is more--which here means no more. I suppose, by
his name, that he is related to our royal family at home.
Do you know, Mr. Bull, that I have found out one very surprising
thing, the French ridicule the English in everything; they have
got a farce which they call "Anglase poor rear," which is quite
scandalous, and every thing they have, they nick-name after us; they
call a note Billy, and a book Tom; a pie they have christened Patty;
they call the mob a fool; any thing that is very shameful they call
Hunt, but whether they mean John, Henry, Joseph, or Leigh, I cannot
discover--they call the winter a heaver--the autumn Old Tom, and the
summer they call Letty.
I think the French must have been originally Irish, for they say
crame for cream, and suprame for supreme, and so on: but I will
endeavour to find out more about this.
I went to see a vealyard (that is, an old man), who had been a sort
of anchor-wright or hermit many years ago; he had been put into the
dungeons of the Inquisition in furs, and suffered what they call the
piano-forte and door of that terrible place--if we go to Room we
shall see the buildings in which he was confined, and I dare say we
shall go there, and from that to Naples, and into the Gulp of Venus,
and so to Cecily, which I shall very much like whoever she may be,
because I knew a namesake of her's down in Dorsetshire.
I must, however, conclude my letter, for I am hurried for Tim--Lavy
begs her best love, and says in case she is married you must write
her epitaph. Why do you not call upon Mr. R.? he will be very glad
to see you, and now that he is alone he lives, in compliment to me,
entirely upon turtle.
DOROTHEA J. RAMSBOTTOM.
VIII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM BACK IN LONDON.
TO JOHN BULL.
Montague Place, Friday, April 23, 1824.
MY DEAR MR. BULL,--I think you will be surprized at the prescription
of this letter with the P.P. mark of the two-penny post; but poor Mr.
Ramsbottom being seriously ill-disposed, we were off from Paris at a
moment's notice, for as good fortune would have it, my embargo which
I wrote about was quite removed by the use of Steers's hopalittledog
and bang shows every night.
Mr. R. is a little better, and has lost a good deal of what the
French call song; indeed our medical man relies very much on the
use of his lancaulet. The fact is, that the turtles is come over
from the West Hinges, and Mr. R. committed a fox paw at the King's
Head, in the Poultry, which caused our doctor (who lives in this
neighbourhood, and is lively as he is kind) to say that as Mr.
Ramsbottom nearly died by Bleaden, so bleeding must restore him.
Bleaden is the name of the gentleman who keeps the King's Head, and
bleeding, as you know, is the vulgar term for flea-bottomizing.
I fear you have not received my journal regular, nor do I think I
have told you of our seeing the Louver, which we did the very day
before we left Paris. I own, amongst the statutes, the Fighting
Alligator pleased me most. As for Rubens's pictures, I could not look
at them; for though Mr. Fulmer kept talking of the drapery, I saw no
drapery at all; and in one, which is of Adonass preventing Venice
from being chaste, the lady is sitting on a gold striped jacket.
Mr. Fulmer said she had got an enormous anacreonism, at which Lavy
laughed; so I suppose it had some allusion to her favourite writer,
Mr. Moore, who is called Anacreon--why, I never could understand,
unless it refers to the fashionable Maladies which he has introduced
into the best society.
A beautiful statute of Apollo with the Hypocrite pleased me very
much, and a Fawn which looks like a woman done by Mons. Praxytail, a
French stone-mason, is really curious.
A picture of The Bicknells is I suppose a family grope, but the young
women appeared tipsy, which is an odd state to be drawn in--the
statute of Manylaws is very fine, and so is Cupid and Physic,
different from the one which I noticed before.
Mr. Fulmer shewed us some small old black pictures, which I did not
look at much, because he told us they were Remnants, and of course
very inferior. A fine painting by Carlo my Hearty pleased me, and we
saw also something by Sall Vataraso, a lady who was somehow concerned
with the little woman I have seen at Peckham Fair in former days,
called Lady Morgan.