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OUR
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
_By the same Author and Artist._
PLAY IN PROVENCE.
With nearly 100 Illustrations.
THE STREAM OF PLEASURE:
A NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ON THE THAMES FROM OXFORD TO LONDON.
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
OUR
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
THROUGH
FRANCE AND ITALY
BY
JOSEPH & ELIZABETH ROBINS
PENNELL
_A NEW EDITION_
WITH APPENDIX
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1893
[Illustration]
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Our great ambition when we first set out on our tricycle, three years
ago, was to ride from London to Rome. We did not then know exactly why
we wanted to do this, nor do we now. The third part of the journey was
“ridden, written, and wrought into a work” before the second part was
begun; and, moreover, when and where we could not ride with ease--across
the Channel and over the Alps, for example--we went by boat and train.
In our simplicity we thought by publishing the story of our journey, we
could show the world at large, and perhaps Mr. Ruskin in particular,
that the oft-regretted delights of travelling in days of coach and
post-chaise, destroyed on the coming of the railroad, were once more to
be had by means of tricycle or bicycle. We can only hope that critic and
reader are not, like Mr. Ruskin, prepared to spend all their best “bad
language” “in reprobation of bi-tri-and-4-5-6 or 7-cycles,” and that
the riding we found so beautiful will not to them, as to him, be but a
vain wriggling on wheels. We also thought we might prove to the average
cycler how much better it is to spend spare time and money in making
Pilgrims’ Progresses and Sentimental Journeys than in hanging around
racetracks. However that may be, we have at length accomplished the
object of our riding, and that is the great matter after all. As to
future rides and records, if we make any, it is our intention to for
ever keep them to ourselves, and so--spare the public.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.
Tandem tricycling, like Mr. Laurence Sterne’s graveyard, has virtually
disappeared. But the pleasures of cycling are so all-enduring that we
venture to issue a new edition of Our Sentimental Journey.
J. & E. R. P.
14 BUCKINGHAM ST., STRAND,
_March 27, 1893_.
Dedication.
TO
_LAURENCE STERNE, ESQ._,
&c. &c. &c.
LONDON, _Jan. 2^d, 1888_.
DEAR SIR,--
We never should have ventured to address you, had we not noticed of late
that Mr. Andrew Lang has been writing to Dead Authors, not one of
whom--to our knowledge--has taken offence at this liberty. Encouraged by
his example, we beg leave to dedicate to you this history of our
journey, laying it with the most respectful humility before your
sentimental shade, and regretting it is without that charm of style
which alone could make it worthy.
And as, in our modesty, we would indeed be unwilling to trouble you a
second time, we must take advantage of this unhoped-for opportunity to
add a few words of explanation about our journey in your honour. It is
because of the conscientious fidelity with which we rode over the route
made ever famous by you, that we have included ourselves in the class of
Sentimental Travellers, of which you must ever be the incomparable head.
To other sentiment, dear Sir, whatever we may have thought in the
enthusiasm of setting out, we now know we can lay no claim. Experience
has taught us that it depends upon the man himself, and not upon his
circumstances or surroundings. Nowadays the manner of travelling through
France and Italy is by rail, and mostly on Cook’s tickets, and chaises
have become a luxury which we at least cannot afford. The only vehicle
by which we could follow your wheel-tracks along the old post roads was
our tricycle, an ingenious machine of modern invention, endeared to us,
because without it Our Sentimental Journey would have been an
impossibility. In these degenerate days, you, Sir, we are sure, would
prefer it to a railway carriage, as little suited to your purposes as to
those of Mr. Ruskin--an author whose rare and racy sayings you would no
doubt admire were you still interested in earthly literature. Besides,
in a tandem, with its two seats, there would be nothing to stir up a
disagreeable sensation within you. You would still have a place for “the
lady.”
Because it was not possible to follow you in many ways, we have spared
no effort to be faithful in others. We left out not one city which you
visited, and it was a pleasure to learn that the world is still as
beautiful as you found it, though to-day most men of culture care so
little for what is about them, they would have us believe all beauty
belongs to the past. However, it will be gratifying to you, who did not
despise fame during your lifetime, to know that you are one of the men
of that past who have not wholly died.--And again, dear Sir, as it was
your invariable custom to borrow the thoughts and words of any writer
who particularly pleased you--a custom your enemies have made the most
of--we have not hesitated to use any pictures of other men, or any
descriptions and expressions in your works, that seemed appropriate to
the record of our journey. More honest than you, Sir, we have given
credit to the artists, that their names may enhance the value of our
modest offering. But as you will recognise your own words without our
pointing them out, we have not even put them into quotation marks, an
omission which you of all men can best appreciate.
In conclusion: we think you may be pleased to hear something of your
last earthly resting-place in the burying-ground belonging to St.
George’s, Hanover Square. We made a pilgrimage to it but a few Sundays
ago. Though your grave was neglected until the exact spot is no longer
known, the stone, since raised _near the place_, is so often visited
that, though it stands far from the path, a way to it has been worn in
the grass by the feet of the many, who have come to breathe a sigh or
drop a tear for poor Yorick. We scarce know if it will be any comfort to
you in your present life, to learn that this cemetery is a quiet,
restful enclosure, near as it is to the carriages and ’busses about
Marble Arch and the Socialist and Salvationist gatherings in Hyde Park.
In the spring it is pretty as well, laburnums shading the doorway of the
little chapel, through which one can see from the street the grey
gravestones that dot the grass, and seem no less peaceful than the sheep
in the broad fields of the park opposite.
We have the honour to be, dear Sir, your most obedient and most devoted
and most humble servants,
JOSEPH PENNELL.
ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
OUR SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 15
CALAIS 19
BY A FAIR RIVER AND OVER TERRIBLE MOUNTAINS 28
THE BOARDING-HOUSE OF NEUCHÂTEL 42
THE SOUTH WIND 46
MONTREUIL 52
NAMPONT 54
A CITY IN MOURNING 57
FAITHFUL ABBEVILLE 67
CRUSHED AGAIN 69
A BY-ROAD 70
AMIENS 77
WIND, POPLARS, AND PLAINS 84
THE COMMERCIAL GENTLEMEN OF ST. JUST 91
THROUGH THE RAIN 100
AN ENGLISH LANDLADY 107
OVER THE _PAVÉ_ 112
PARIS 115
A TALK ABOUT M. MILLET AND MR. STEVENSON,
AND FROM MR. PENNELL 120
IN THE FOREST 135
FONTAINEBLEAU 140
THROUGH A FAIR COUNTRY 143
MONTARGIS 149
HOW WE FOUGHT THE WIND FROM MONTARGIS
TO COSNE 154
A GOOD SAMARITAN 163
BY THE LOIRE 170
THE BOURBONNAIS 180
MOULINS 186
THE BOURBONNAIS AGAIN 189
WITH THE WIND 197
LYONS 209
THE AUTUMN MANŒUVRES 213
VIENNE 218
THE FEAST OF APPLES 222
RIVES 232
APPENDIX 235
[Illustration]
OUR
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY,
&c. &c.
--“The roads,” said I, “are better in France.”
“You have ridden in France?” said J----, turning quick upon me with the
most civil sarcasm in the world.
“Strange!” quoth I, arguing the matter with him, “you have so little
faith in cyclers that you cannot take their word for it.”
“’Tis but a three hours’ journey to Calais and French roads,” said
J----; “why not ride over them ourselves?”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
--So, giving up the argument, not many days later we put up our flannels
and our ulsters, our “Sterne” and our “Baedeker,” a box of etching
plates, and a couple of note-books--“Our old cycling suits,” said I,
darning a few rents, “will do”--took our seats in a third-class railway
carriage at Holborn Viaduct; and the _Calais-Douvres_ sailing at
half-past twelve that same morning, by two we were so incontestably in
France, that a crowd of shouting, laughing, jesting, noisy Frenchmen in
blue blouses were struggling up the gang-plank with the tricycle, which
at Dover half the number of stolid Englishmen in green velveteen had
delivered into the hands of the sailors.--But before we had set foot in
the French dominions we had been treated by the French with an
inhospitality which, had it not been for the sentiment of our proposed
ride, would have made us forget the excellence of the roads beckoning us
to its coast, and have sent us back in hot haste to England.----
[Illustration]
“To pay a shilling tax for the privilege of landing in France,” cried
J----, fresh from his “Sterne,” “by heavens, gentlemen, it is not well
done! And much does it grieve me ’tis the lawgivers and taxmakers of a
sister Republic whose people are renowned for courtesy and politeness,
that I have thus to reason with.”
--But I confess we were much worse treated by the English, who seemed as
unwilling to lose our tricycle as the French were to receive us.----
“Eight shillings to carry it from London to Dover; ’tis no small price,”
said J----, putting the change in his purse. “But fifteen from Dover to
Calais, as much as we pay for our two tickets, tax and all, I tell you
’tis monstrous! To seize upon an unwary cycler going forth in search of
good roads, and make him pay thus dearly for sport taken away from
England----ungenerous!”
--But we had scarce begun our sentimental journey.
[Illustration]
CALAIS.
Now, before I quit Calais, a travel-writer would say, it would not be
amiss to give some account of it.--But while we were there we were more
concerned in seeking the time and occasion for sentiment than in
studying the history and monuments of the town. If you would have a
short description of it, I know of none better than that of Mr. Tristram
Shandy, who wrote without even having seen by daylight the places he
described.--The church with the steeple, the great Square, the
town-house, the Courgain, are all there still, and I fancy have changed
but little in a hundred years.
To travellers eager for sentiment, nothing could have been more
vexatious than the delay at the Custom-House, where the tandem was
weighed, its wheels measured, and its number taken; and we were made to
deposit fifty francs, three-fourths of which sum would be returned if we
carried the machine out of France within three months, the remaining
fourth going to pay the Government for our wear and tear of French
roads.--There was another delay at the Hôtel Meurice while a room was
found for us, and a _femme-de-chambre_ insisted upon _Madame’s_ going to
bed at once, because of the terrible wind that had prostrated two
English ladies. But, finally rid of officials and _femmes-de-chambre_,
we walked out on the street.
Now was the moment for an occasion for sentiment to present itself.
[Illustration]
It is a rude world, I think, when the wearer of a cycling suit (even if
it be old and worn) cannot go forth to see the town but instantly he is
stared at and ridiculed by the townspeople. For our part,
[Illustration]
being but modest folk, we keenly felt the glances and smiles of the
well-dressed men and women on the Rue Royale. To find a quiet place we
walked from one end of the town to the other; through the Square where
Mr. Shandy would have put up his fountain, and where a man at an upper
window yelled in derision, and a woman in a doorway below answered----
“What wouldst thou have? ’Tis the English fashion.”
--Down a narrow street, where, “For example!” cried a little young lady
in blue, laughing in J----’s very face--for we had turned full in front
on a group of girls--while a child clapped her hands at sight of him,
and a black dog snapped at his stockings. And then up a second street,
that led to the barracks, where two soldiers on duty put down their guns
and fairly shrieked. Into the Cathedral children followed us, begging,
“Won sous, sare! won sous, sare!” until we longed to conceal our
nationality. At its door a poor wretch of a fisherman, who had looked
upon the wine when it was red, came to our side to tell us in very bad
English that he could speak French.--There was no peace to be had in the
town.
If there was one thing we hoped for more than another, it was to see a
monk, the first object of
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
our master’s sentiment in France; and, strange as it may seem, our hope
was actually fulfilled before the afternoon was over.--On the outskirts
of the city, where we had taken refuge from ridicule, we saw a brown
hooded and cloaked Franciscan, and in our joy started to overtake him.
But he walked quite as fast across the yellow-flowered sand-dunes
towards St. Pierre. Had he known what was in our hearts, I think he too
would have introduced himself with a little story of the wants of his
convent and the poverty of his order.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
We soon discovered that it was a _fête_ day in Calais, and that a
regatta was being held down by the pier.--When we were there three
Frenchmen in jockey-caps were pulling long out-riggers against the wind
over a chopping sea. Looking on was a great crowd, sad-coloured in the
grey afternoon light, for all its holiday dress, but touched here and
there with white by the caps--their wide fluted borders blowing back on
the breeze--of the peasant women.
[Illustration]
As every one who has passed in the Paris train knows, at the entrance of
the town is the town-gate, a heavy grey pile, with high-gabled roof and
drawbridge, the chains of which hang on either side the archway. Now
that Dessein’s was gone, J---- declared that it interested him more than
anything else in Calais, since Hogarth had painted it; and he began an
elaborate study. It was not easy work. To the people in their holiday
humour the combination of knee-breeches and sketch-book was irresistibly
comic. But he went bravely on. I have rarely seen him more conscientious
over a sketch. Indeed he was so pleased with this gate that later, when,
at the end of a street, we came to another, under a tall turreted
house, and leading into a large courtyard, nothing would do but he must
have that as well.--In a word, he was in a mood to draw as many gates as
he could find; but by this time at the Hôtel Meurice dinner was on the
table.
It was not until many weeks after, when we were back in London, that, on
looking into the matter, J---- discovered that Hogarth painted, not the
gate facing the sea, but that at the other end of the town--I verily
believe the only gate in all Calais of which he did not get a sketch.
On the whole the afternoon was a disappointment. In little more than a
single hour our Master had grasped seventeen chapters of adventures. In
thrice that time we, with hearts interested in everything, and eyes to
see, had met with a paltry few, easily disposed of in as many lines.--To
add vexation to vexation, at the _table d’hôte_ we learned from the
waiter, that though the old inn had long since ceased to exist, there
was a new Dessein’s in the town, where, for the name’s sake, it would
have been more appropriate to begin our journey. Had we carried a
“Baedeker” for Northern as well as Central France, we should have been
less ignorant.
We left the champions of the regatta toasting each other at the next
table, and went into the _salon_ to study a chapter of our sentimental
guide-book in preparation for the first day’s ride. But an American was
there before us, and began, instead, a talk about Wall Street and
business, Blaine and torchlight processions. As Americans do not travel
to see Americans, we retired to our room.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BY A FAIR RIVER AND OVER TERRIBLE MOUNTAINS.
[Illustration]
The milkman, followed by his goats, was piping through the town, and the
clock over the geraniums in the court was just striking eight, as we
disposed of our bill--not without numerous complaints, in which every
one but some English tourists joined--and wheeled the tricycle out to
the street.--Though the old motherly _femme-de-chambre_ had come to see
us ride, and stopped a friend to share this pleasure, and though there
were many faces at the dining-room windows, the sight of the _pavé_, or
French paving, kept us from mounting. We walked, J---- pushing the
tricycle, to the _Place_, past the grey town-hall, into the Rue Royale.
We had been told that where La Fleur’s hotel once stood a museum was
being built. To sentimental travellers, perhaps, this destruction of old
landmarks was as worthy of tears as a dead donkey.--But it is easier to
weep in a private post-chaise than in the open streets.
We got through the town without trouble, but we could not ride even
after we went round the city-gate which Hogarth did paint, and to which
we gave but a passing glance. It was only beyond the long, commonplace,
busy suburb of St. Pierre that the _pavé_ ended and the good road began.
The morning was cool, the sky grey with heavy clouds, and the south wind
we were soon to dread was blowing softly. It seemed a matter of course,
since we were in France, that we should come out almost at once on a
little river. It ran in a long line between reeds, towards a cluster of
red-roofed cottages, and here and there fishermen sat, or stood, on the
banks. When it forsook its straight course, the road and the street-car
track from
[Illustration]
Calais went winding with it,--grassy plains, where cows and horses
wandered, stretching seaward on the right. In front we looked to a low
range of blue hills, that gradually took more definite shape and colour
as we rode. They were very near when we came to Guignes, a silent,
modest little village, for all its royal associations and memories of
the “Field of the Cloth of Gold.” On its outskirts old yellow houses
rose right on the river’s edge; and when we passed, a girl in blue skirt
stood in one doorway, sending a bright reflection into the grey water,
and in another an old man peacefully smoked his pipe, taking it from his
mouth to beg we would carry packets for him to Paris. Behind one
cottage, in the garden among the apple-trees, was a large canal boat,
like a French Rudder Grange. Beyond, high steep-roofed houses faced upon
the street, and the stream was lined with many barges.--But just here
we turned from river and street-car track to walk to the other end of
the town, over _pavé_ and up a steep hill, where we were told by a
blushing young man, in foreign English, that we had but to follow the
diligence then behind us if we would reach Marquise.
[Illustration]
Though we thought this a rare jest at the time, we carried his advice
out almost to the letter.--We had come to the _terrible mountains_ for
which we had been prepared in Calais. It is at this point, according to
Mr. Ruskin, that France really begins, the level stretch we first
crossed being virtually but part of Flanders. ’Tis a bad beginning, from
a cycler’s ideal. For many miles I walked--and even J---- at
times--along the white road, barren of the poplars one always expects in
France, over the rolling treeless moors, where we were watched out of
sight by gleaners, their white caps and dull blue skirts and sacks in
pale relief against a grey blue-streaked sky; and by ploughmen, whose
horses, happier than they, ate their dinners as they worked.--Always to
the north of the moorland was the grey sea-line, and farther still the
white cliffs of England.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Sometimes I rode, for each tiny village nestled in a valley of its own,
giving us a hill to coast as well as to climb. There were occasional
windmills in the distance; and close to the road large farm-houses and
barns, with high sloping red roofs and huge troughs in front, where we
knew cattle would come in the twilight and horses would be watered in
the morning. And when Calais, with smoking chimneys, was far behind and
below, we came to black crosses by the wayside and better manners among
the people. The peasants now wished us good day.
[Illustration]
At this early stage there was nothing we looked for less than trouble
with the tricycle. It had been carefully put in order by the
manufacturers before we left London. But now already the luggage-carrier
loosened, and swung around on the backbone of the machine. Do what we
would, we could not keep it straight again. In Marquise we bought a
leather strap, in hopes to right it, and there also ate our lunch.--From
the window of the _estaminet_ we could see that the men and boys who
came up to examine the tricycle never once touched it, while a man with
a cart of casks, though it was in his way, rather than disturb it,
stopped a little farther down the street, and rolled the casks along the
pavement. Inside the _estaminet_, the brisk, tidy woman who cooked and
served our coffee and omelette, kept talking of the weather and France
and the tricycle, and what a wise manner of travelling was ours. My
faith! from the railway one sees nothing.
But, indeed, for hours afterwards we saw as little as if we had been in
a railroad train. We were conscious only of the great hills to be
climbed, and of our incessant trouble with the luggage-carrier. The new
strap did not mend matters. Every few minutes the carrier with the bag
took an ugly swing to one side.--We never began to enjoy a coast, we
never got fairly started on an up-grade, that it did not force us to
stop and push it straight. And then the lamp in its turn loosened, and
every few kilometres had to be hammered into place.
The other incidents of that long afternoon I remember merely because of
their association with hills. It was at the top of one, where I arrived
breathless, we had our first view of the dome and monument of Boulogne;
it was at the bottom of another that we came to the _pavé_ of Wimille;
it was half-way on a third, up which J---- worked slowly, standing up on
the pedals and leaning far over to grasp the front handle bars, while I
walked, that I was stopped by an Englishman and Englishwoman.----
[Illustration]
“Oh,” said the man, as he watched J----, “you’re making a walking tour
together, I suppose?”
“We’re riding!” cried I, aghast.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “I see; you ride by turns.”
--I was so stupefied by his impudence or ignorance that at first I could
say nothing. Then,----
“We ride together,” said I; “and we’ve come from England, and we’re
going to Paris and Lyons, into Savoy, and over the Mont Cenis pass.”
--And with that I turned my back and left them, open-mouthed, in the
middle of the road.
But their unconscious sarcasm had its sting. The thought that, if these
hills went on, I might really have to walk half-way to Italy almost
brought sentiment to an end.----
“Boulogne! and ’tis but half-past three. We’ll go on,” said J----.
--As we did not even enter the town, I cannot of my own knowledge say if
there is anything in it worth seeing. But from the outside we learned
that it has a picturesque old city-gate under the shadow of the dome;
that the people are polite, and some of the men wear baggy blue
breeches; and that close to the grim grey walls is an unpaved tree-lined
boulevard which is very good riding. It led to a down-grade which a
woman called a _terrible mountain_, though she thought it might be
“_good for you others_.”
Only the highest ranges are mountains to an Italian, but to a Frenchman
the merest hillock is _une montagne terrible_.--The hill outside of
Boulogne
[Illustration]
was steep, but unrideable only on account of the _pavé_. And, oh! the
_pavé_ that afternoon! We went up _pavé_ and down _pavé_, and over long
level stretches of _pavé_, until, if any one were to ask me what there
is between Boulogne and Pont-de-Brique, my only answer would be _pavé_!
We had heard of it before ever we landed in France, but its vileness
went beyond our expectation. The worst of it was, that for the rest of
our journey we were never quite rid of it. To be sure it was only once
in a long while we actually rode over it, but then we had always to be
on the look-out. We came to it in every town and village; we found bits
of it in lonely country districts; it lay in wait for us on hillsides.
The French roads without the _pavé_ are the marvels of symmetry,
cleanliness, and order Mark Twain calls them. If they are not
jack-planed and sand-papered, they are at least swept every day. With
the _pavé_, they are the ruin of a good machine and a better temper. And
yet, all things considered, France is the cycler’s promised land.
By the time we reached Pont-de-Brique the luggage-carrier hung on by one
screw. Fortunately we found a carpenter in a _café_, and he and
J----went to work.--In the meantime I saw, under the shade of a clump of
trees, a green cart with windows and chimney, a horse grazing near by,
and a man and woman sitting in front of a fire kindled on the grass. I
walked towards the cart.----
“_Kushto divvus, Pal te Pen_” (“Good-day, brother and sister”), said I.
“What?” asked the woman, without looking up from the tin-pan she was
mending.
“_Kushto divvus_,” said I, louder; adding, “_Me shom une Romany chi_”
(“I’m a Gipsy”).
[Illustration]
“_Comment?_” she repeated peevishly. “I do not understand you.”
--The man still tinkered at his pots.
I chaffed them in my best Romany, but they took no further heed. I tried
French. I said I was a Gipsy come from over the seas, with news of their
brothers in America.----
“But we’re not Gipsies,” said they; “we live in Boulogne, and we’re
busy.”
--I declare I never was so snubbed in my life!
’Twas but six quarters of an hour on foot to Neuchâtel, the carpenter
told us.--The road in the late afternoon was full of fine carriages and
shabby carts; and in sight of Neuchâtel we passed men and women going
home from work. We asked one man if there was an inn in the town.----
“_Il-y-a-douze_,” he answered, with great effort, and hurried on, so
that we had not time to tell him we too could speak English.
We wondered so small a town should be so rich in inns. But _douze_, it
seemed, was the English way of saying _deux_. A woman standing in the
first doorway assured us there were but two--one opposite the church,
and another, the _Pas de Cœur_--we understood her to say, around the
corner.--At the foot of the hill we found the first, with
_Boarding-House_ in large black letters on its newly whitewashed walls.
As there never was any sentiment in a Boarding-House except in Dr.
Holmes’ books, or any cheapness in a foreign hotel with an English sign,
we looked for the other inn. But when we had wheeled up the street and
down the street, until its want of heart became ours, we gave up the
search and returned to the _Boarding-House_.
[Illustration]
THE BOARDING-HOUSE OF NEUCHÂTEL.
A fat old landlady received us, after a glance at the tricycle had
reassured her that to take us in did not mean to be taken in herself.
She promised us dinner at six, and a room in the course of the evening.
In the _café_, or outer kitchen, where she gave us chairs, an elderly
Cinderella was blacking boots and peeling potatoes in the fireplace; a
pretty girl was carrying tumblers and clean linen to a near room;
another, with a big baby in her arms, gossiped with neighbours on the
front steps. The landlady hurried back to the small kitchen, through the
open door of which we could see her bustling about among the pots and
pans.
Presently a little man, in white trousers and brown velveteen waistcoat,
wandered in from the stable-yard to clink glasses with a friend at the
bar, and drink without pause two mugs of beer and one glass of brandy.
Then he gave us a dance and a song.
And then there came trooping into the room huntsmen with dogs and guns,
and servants bearing long poles strung with rabbits, and three ladies in
silks and gold chains and ribbons, and a small boy. The huntsmen were
given cognac and absinthe; the ladies were led away through a narrow
passage, but they returned in a minute, with pitchers which they
themselves filled from a barrel near the kitchen-door.
These were people of quality, it was plain. They had come in a carriage,
and a private dressing-room was found for them. But for us, who had
arrived on a machine we worked ourselves, a basin was set in the
fireplace, where we too made a toilet as best we could.--At seven the
landlady, with upraised hands, rushed from the kitchen to say that----
“_Mon Dieu!_ the mutton cutlets _Monsieur_ and _Madame_ ordered have
gone like a dream. What is to be done?”
--What, indeed? And all the time we had supposed her preparations were
for us.
A little later, when dinner still seemed a remote possibility, in
searching for our bag which had been carried off, I came by chance upon
a dining-room where the cloth was laid and the table was gay with
lights and flowers. But when I hurried back with the good news to J----
he was less hopeful.----
“We had to wash in the fireplace,” said he.
--We were not long in doubt. The ladies and the huntsmen were ushered
into the dining-room. The pretty girl in her neat apron carried in the
soup, the fish, the cutlets. We could hear a pleasant clattering of
plates and the sound of laughter. But still we sat in our humble
corner.--Seldom have we felt class distinctions so bitterly. At last the
landlady, very warm and red from the kitchen fire, with the baby in her
arms, bade us follow her into a large dark room on the farther side of
the _café_-kitchen. There she laid a modest omelette on a rough wooden
table guiltless of cloth, and we ate it by the light of one candle. The
huntsmen’s servants packed the rabbits and drank coffee on our left; on
our right a little tailor stitched away at brown velveteens. Villagers
strolled in and out, or played billiards; and a stray dog, unbidden, sat
upright and begged at our side.--We cut but a poor figure in the
Boarding-House of Neuchâtel.
We should have gone to bed at once, so tired were we after the _pavé_
and the hills, but the sheets were not yet ironed. It was not until the
kitchen clock struck ten that we were shown into a small closet where
there was a bed, and promised a towel in the morning.--Before we went to
sleep we heard, between the screams of the baby, the rain falling softly
on the roof, to fill us with fears for the morrow’s ride.
THE SOUTH WIND.
The next day began well. Without, the rain had stopped, and the morning
was bright and clear. Within, unfavourable social distinctions had
ceased, since we were the only guests. If we were slighted at dinner, we
were overwhelmed with attention at breakfast. The interest of the
household centred upon us. Nothing was talked of but our journey. Every
one was eager to advise. We must go here, we must go there; we must keep
by the sea, we must turn inland; and, above all, declared the little
tailor, who still stitched away, we must not rest until we rode into
Paris. Ah, what a city it was! He knew it well; but, my faith! a man
must work to pay for life in the capital. He could see by the portfolio
that _Monsieur_ was an artist; no doubt he was on his way there to make
great pictures.--We thought we could not please him better than to tell
him in our country Paris was called the Paradise of good Americans. We
were right. He made us a low bow, as if the compliment had been
personal.
It was easy not to be bewildered by conflicting directions, since we
were predetermined not to be influenced by them. The fairest promise of
good roads, enchanting country, and picturesque towns could not have
turned us a hair’s breadth from the route we had settled upon. The fact
is, the question was one of sentiment, and at that stage of our
enthusiasm where sentiment was concerned we were inflexible.--Mr.
Sterne, on his way to Amiens and Paris, passed by Montreuil. To
Montreuil, therefore, we must go.
A good strong breeze blew from the south. Out at sea it swept the white
foam before it, and above, it lashed the clouds into fantastic shapes.
It caught the skirts of the gleaners on their way to the yellow fields,
and of the women going towards Neuchâtel, and held them back at every
step. But we were saved the struggle while we rode eastward. Now we were
on a level with the sea, looking at it across grassy plains and sandy
stretches; and now it lay far below, and we saw it over the tree-tops on
the hillside; again it was hidden by high dunes and dense pine-groves.
Little villages lay in our way: Dannes, with pretty, shady road leading
into it and out of it; another, for us nameless, with thatched white
cottages, standing in a dreary waste, a broad inlet to one side. And at
last a short ride between young green trees brought us to Etaples, a
town of low white houses built close to the shore, and at the same time
to the end of the day’s easy riding.
[Illustration]
Our only memories of Etaples are unpleasant. We there bought a bottle of
bad oil for a good price. When we left Neuchâtel the machine needed
oiling; but the top of our oil-can had not been made to fit, and when we
opened the tool-bag the can was in the oil instead of the oil in the
can.--After using the poor stuff sold us by a shoemaker, the tricycle
ran even more heavily. This was unfortunate, for after Etaples the road
left the sea and started for the south. There was nothing to be done but
to put our heads down and to work as if we were record-making.--I do
[Illustration]
not think it wrong, merely because the wind blew in our faces almost
every day of our sentimental journey, therefore to say the prevalent
winds in France are from the south; but indeed all the trees thereabouts
bend low towards the north, to confirm this assertion.
Thus we rode on between fields bare as the moors; through lovely
park-like country; by little shady rivers, where ducks were swimming in
the deep-green water; by tiny villages; by little churches, grey and
old; by crosses, some split and decaying; through long avenues, with
poplars on either side; by hills, the ploughman on the top strongly
marked against the blue sky; and all the way the road was only a little
worse than asphalt.
[Illustration]
It was noon, and school-children were running home to dinner when we
reached Montreuil. There were no less than three kilometres of _pavé_ to
be walked before we came into the town. We were further prepossessed
against it because it has just enough character to stand upon a hill,
instead of nestling in a hollow, as is the way with towns and villages
in this part of the country. What with the wind and the _pavé_ and the
climb, we were so cast down that when by the city-gate, almost at the
top of the hill, we saw a stone bearing the legend, “Two hundred
kilometres to Paris,” we wondered if sentiment would carry us that far.
MONTREUIL.
There is not a town in all France which, in my opinion, looks better in
the map than Montreuil. I own it does not look so well in the
guide-book, but when you come to see it, to be sure it looks most
pitifully.
There is promise of picturesqueness in a group of tumbled-down gabled
houses at its entrance, and in a fine church doorway at one end of the
_Place_ where we lunched. But gables and doorway have been spared, I
think, but to mislead the visitor with false hopes. The streets are
lined with modern houses monstrously alike. The _Grande Place_ is large
enough to deserve its name, but as we saw it, it was forlornly empty,
silent, and dull. The gaiety of Montreuil has gone with the fiddling and
drum-beating of La Fleur.
Despite its disadvantages, however, in the town where our Master
compounded that little matter with the sons and daughters of poverty it
was our duty to be sentimental. There was no question of travellers of
our means and vehicle engaging a servant to fiddle and make
splatter-dashes for us, even if another La Fleur could be produced. But
if beggars sent in their claims, we could at least find in them the
occasion of the first public act of our charity in France. Beggars,
after a fashion, we did meet; for at once an old woman--a poor tattered
soul--begged we would let her grandson Jules show us the way to a
restaurant; and next a hatless man followed us around the _Place_ to
implore a visit to his hotel, where his wife could “spik Inglis”--a
sound perhaps as worth money as the “My Lord Angolis” that won Mr.
Sterne’s last sous. But our hearts were hardened against them, as his,
too, might have been against those other miserables, had he not slept
off the ill-humours of his journey to Montreuil.
I think it was at Montreuil it first occurred to us that sentiment does
not depend upon man’s will alone.--And so we got on our tricycle with no
more ease than usual, but less, as the wind came howling over the plain
to meet us.
_Note_.--J---- was too lazy, and said the morning was too hot to do
anything but work the tricycle.
NAMPONT.
[Illustration]
The road between Montreuil and Nampont was for us classic ground.
Breathlessness, because of the wind, before we had got a league, brought
our career--like La Fleur’s--to a sudden stop. We then had time to see
that the deathbed of the famous donkey lay in fair country. Near by two
windmills turned their long arms swiftly. A sportsman banged away in the
fields, and, to bring good-luck, two crows flew overhead. When we went
on, the wind began to moderate, and by the time we reached Nampont it
was making but a little noiseless noise among the leaves.
[Illustration]
We thought Nampont a pretty village, with its poplared canal flowing
without turn or twist to the far horizon, and its long, wide street
lined with low houses. The first we came to, that had a stone bench by
the door and an adjoining court, we decided to be the post-house, in
front of which the donkey’s master told his pathetic tale. We appealed
to an old man just then passing. But he knew nothing of it, and there
were so many other houses with stone seats and courts that we could not
settle the matter to our satisfaction.--We were only certain of the
_pavé_ over which Mr. Sterne’s postillion set out in a full gallop that
put him out of temper. Instead of galloping, we walked, first refreshing
ourselves with _groseille_, a harmless syrup, in a brand-new _café_ at
the end of the village street, the one sign of modern enterprise in
Nampont.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
After this town, there was no sense of sentimental duty to oppress us,
since a little beyond, it Mr. Sterne went to sleep, a sweet lenitive for
evils, which Nature does not hold out to the cycler.
A CITY IN MOURNING.
[Illustration]
The straight, poplared road to Abbeville still lay across a golden
plain, with no interest save its beauty, here and there bounded by a row
of trees, yellow haystacks standing out in bold relief against them; and
here and there narrowed by dark woods, in front of which an old
white-haired shepherd or little white-capped girl watched newly sheared
sheep. Now and then the way led through small blue villages. There was
Airon, where a large party of gleaners, old and young men, women, boys,
and girls, sitting by the wayside, jumped up of one accord and walked
with us up the hill. And then came Nouvion, where we saw a fine old
rambling yellow farm-house, over whose disreputably tilted front-door
peered two grotesque heads, and where we had coffee in the village inn,
sitting on the one dry spot in the flooded floor, and just escaping the
mops and buckets of two women who had raised the deluge.
[Illustration]
The hills we still had. To read the “Emblems of the Frontispiece” in
“Coryate’s Crudities,” one would imagine that from Montreuil to
Abbeville was one long endless descent.
“Here, not up Holdbourne, but down a steepe hill,
Hee’s carried ’twixt Montrell and Abbeville.”
But I remember many steep up-grades to be climbed beside that of Airon.
[Illustration]
Just about Nouvion the road was bad, because, so a friendly _cantonnier_
said, there had been no rain for more than two months. He promised it
would improve seven or eight kilometres farther on, and prepared us for
a crowd in Abbeville, whither _all the world_ had gone to take part in
the funeral celebrations of Admiral Courbet, who by this hour of the
afternoon was no doubt already buried.--A little later _all the world_
seemed on its way home, and the road was full of carts, carriages, and
pedestrians. It was no easy matter to steer between the groups on foot
and the waggons driving sociably side by side. The crowd kept
increasing, once in its midst a bicycler wheeling by to throw us a
haughty stare. There were as many people on another straight
poplar-lined road that crossed the _Route Nationale_. At this rate it
was possible we should find no one left in the town, and the hotels,
therefore, not more crowded than usual. So there was as much cheerful,
unalloyed pleasure as Mr. Ruskin himself experienced--which he believes
is not to be had from railway trains or cycles--in our getting into
sight of Abbeville far below in the valley of the Somme, two square
towers dominant over the clustered house-roofs.
On the outskirts of the city we saw the cemetery, a little to our right.
The funeral procession, with flags, banners, and crosses borne aloft,
was about to return from the grave. We felt so out of keeping with its
solemnity that, rather than wait on the sidewalk as it passed, we
hurried on at once.--But there was no going fast. In a minute we were
jolting on the _pavé_ again, and the street was more crowded than the
road. _All the world_ had but begun to go home. People walked on the
pavement and in the street. Windows were filled with eager faces;
benches and platforms in front of shops were still occupied. Houses were
draped in black, flags hung here, there, and everywhere, and funeral
arches were set up at short distances.
Our position was embarrassing. Try our best, we could not, unnoticed,
make our way through the crowd. Every minute we had to call out to
citizens or peasants in front to let us by. The people at the windows
and on the benches, waiting idly to see the end of the day’s solemn
show, at once caught sight of the tricycle. Do what we would, all eyes
were turned towards it. And, to our horror, the funeral procession
gained upon us. The chants of priests and acolytes were in our very
ears. We jumped down and walked. But it was no use. In a few minutes we
were on a line with the cross-bearer, leading the way for clergy and
mourners through the streets. There was no escape. We could not turn
back; we could not out-distance them. But, fortunately, before an
archway at the entrance to a large _Place_ the procession was disbanded.
Without further ceremony, priests, stole and surplice under their arms,
stray bishops in purple robes, naval and army officers, gentlemen in
dress-coats and many medals, school-boys in uniform, peasants in caps,
townspeople in ordinary clothes, walked home-or hotel-wards, we pushing
the tricycle in their midst.
At the Hôtel de France we found confusion. Waiters tore in and out of
the kitchen; maids flew up and down the court-yard. Frantic men and
women surrounded, and together asked a hundred questions of a poor
waiter in the centre of the court; an English family clamoured for a
private dining-room.--During a momentary lull we stepped forward and
told this waiter, who seemed a person of authority, we should like a
room for the night.
There was not one to be had, he said. If we would wait two or three
hours, it was just _very possible_ some of these _Messieurs_ might go
back to Paris. If not, we must travel into another country; he knew we
should fare no better in any hotel in Abbeville. Last night he had
turned away fifty people.----
Where was the next country, asked I, for in his disappointment J---- had
lost all his French.
It was only seven kilometres off. But, he added, we could dine in the
hotel.
--Our choice lay between a certain good dinner at once and a mere
possibility later in a far-off town. We were both tired and hungry.----
“It will be dark in half an hour,” said I.
“We can never work after eating heartily,” said J----, and, our
objections thus disposed of, we decided for immediate dinner, and to
risk the consequences.
--We wheeled the machine into the stable, conveniently adjoining the
dining-room. We were
[Illustration]
not very fresh after a day’s ride through the wind, over dry and dusty
roads, and as we were to dine in company with dignitaries of State and
Church, I said that first we should like to make our toilet. “Oh,
certainly,” said the waiter, “_Voilà!_” and he pointed to a small
spicket and a handkerchief of a towel at the dining-room door.--With no
more elaborate preparation than these permitted, we went in and took our
seats at table with bishops, officers, and statesmen in full dress.
[Illustration]
It was as we expected. When we had eaten a dinner worthy of the company,
we were unwilling to ride farther. We could and would not leave
Abbeville that night.--J---- was silent over his sponge-cakes and wine,
speaking only once, to consult me about the future tense of French
verbs. Then he called the waiter.----
“Is there a room yet?” I asked.
“Not yet, _Madame_,” and he bowed his regrets.
“Well, then,” said J----, turning full upon him with the speech he had
been ten minutes in composing, “_nous partirons pas si nous dormirons
sur la table_!”
--Hitherto I had been his spokeswoman. The consequence of his sudden
outburst in French was the waiter’s hearty assurance that the first
room at his disposal was ours, but we must not look for it until nine or
ten. It was then a little after seven.
[Illustration]
This interval was spent in wandering about the town. The wind and the
_pavé_ together had again made me very tired. I remember as a restless
dream our walk up and down the streets; into the great _Place_, a sombre
black catafalque on one side, lights burning around it, tall houses back
of it, the still taller Church of St. Wulfran rising above the high
gables; and next into the church itself, where the columns and arches
and altars, draped in black, and the people kneeling at prayer, or
coming and going in the aisles, were but dimly seen by the light of a
few candles. I remember speculating on the chance of shelter there, if
at the eleventh hour the hotel failed us. And then we were shut out by
the sacristan, to wander again through narrow, twisting streets;
through brighter, livelier thoroughfares, the shops open, citizens and
peasants laughing and talking; and so back to the _Place_, roofs and
towers now but a black shadow on the dark blue of the evening sky; and
at last to the hotel, where the good waiter met us with smiles.--A room
at last! It was not very commodious, but it was the best he could do.
There followed a melancholy quarter of an hour, during which we sat on a
heap of blankets in a dark passage while the _garçon_ laid the
sheets.--The waiter was right; the room was not the most commodious. It
was directly over the stable, and not larger than an old-fashioned
closet. But it was better than church or dining-room; and though the
_garçon_ kept passing on the balcony without, and there was a ceaseless
clatter in the court below, I was soon asleep.
[Illustration]
FAITHFUL ABBEVILLE.
It is a pity that most tourists go straight from Calais to Amiens,
satisfied to know Abbeville as a station by the way. The fault, I
suppose, lies with “Murray” and “Baedeker,” who are almost as curt with
it as with Montreuil, giving but a few words to its Church of St.
Wulfran, and even fewer to its quaint old houses. But the truth is,
Abbeville is better worth a visit than many towns they praise. And
though Mr. Tristram Shandy objected to one of its inns as unpleasant to
die in, I can recommend another as excellent to live in, which, after
all, is of more importance to the ordinary tourist.
We remained in Abbeville the next day until noon. We went again to the
church. We saw the house of Francis I. We found our way into alleys and
courtyards, where grotesques were grinning and winking, as if they
thought it an exquisite joke at last to be taken seriously by the few
art and architectural critics, who now come to look at them.
[Illustration]
CRUSHED AGAIN.