On the sixteenth of August, at one in the afternoon, the carriage came
to the door which was to convey us from Paris. We took a light and hasty
lunch, or nuncheon, or noonshine, or meridian repast, while the trunks
were tying on; and at two, were ready to depart; when up steps the
mistress of the house, requesting me to verify the inventory. "Why did
you not come sooner?"--"We were unwilling to disturb you while you were
dining."--"Why did not you propose this business to me this morning when
I paid my rent?"--"We did not know you were going away." It is very
improbable that I should not have made them understand that it was
because I was going away that I paid my rent; but it is one disadvantage
of being a foreigner, that all, who find it their interest, may choose
to misunderstand.
I had taken lodgings for short periods in London, and at what are called
watering-places in England, where no inventory was made, consequently
none was verified: but here confidence was not so well established, or
there were other reasons. It was the usage of the country; it was
necessary to submit.
The apartment was furnished with an abundance of mirrors, some handsome
pieces of mahogany, a rare wood in France; sofas, and fauteuils, and a
most plentiful lack of almost every necessary article. My cook had
hardly wherewithal to prepare our meals, and was obliged to sleep in the
kitchen: a chamber had been promised; but the key of this chamber was
not to be found when the lodging was taken, and the door was never
opened afterwards. Kitchen utensils had been promised, and, during the
first fortnight, frequently demanded: at last the silence of despair
succeeded to hopeless importunity, as a fine writer might perhaps
express himself. But, to the inventory.
The grand articles were quickly dispatched: luckily my children had
broken no looking-glasses, though surrounded by them. But when we came
to the china and the crockery,--ay, then was the question: after the
bona fide broken had been disposed of, about which there could be no
dispute, except that some were broken only because they were already
cracked,--then was the question whether such or such articles were
damaged by us, or before we came to the house. An ornamental china vase
had been supplied, and its fellow promised: this fellow jar was now
found to have but one ear, whereas its mate had two. The edges of the
fracture were rounded by use, and dirt was seen in the interstices. But
I paid what was required, for the carriage was at the door.
I have heard of a travelling Englishman, of whom was demanded, on his
leaving his apartment, the price of a cracked pane of glass: his
conscience acquitted him of the deed: after having for some time
fruitlessly pleaded his innocence, he quietly raised his cane, and broke
in pieces the cause of the altercation. "This pane shall be paid for no
more," said he, patriotically mindful of the interests of his
successors.
At length we were seated in our coach. It was a roomy, handsome berline,
holding conveniently six persons: on the outside was a covered seat or
cabriolet: the place of the voiturier, conductor, or coachman was
between the fore-wheels: the carriage was drawn by three horses. When
three horses were proposed to me by the master voiturier, I started with
amazement. "Why not four?"--"That would be too many."--"Why not
two?"--"That would be too few." He gravely assured me that such was the
practice, and he spoke truth. English travellers and readers of travels
are, by this time, well acquainted with voitures drawn by three horses;
but in 1818, I believe many of my compatriots shared my surprise at so
_odd_ a number.
I engaged this voiture to convey me to Avignon for eight hundred francs.
For forty-eight francs a day, the coachman was to pay my expenses at the
inns: the price was rather extravagant, as four of my six children
might, as the master himself calculated, be rated as two grown persons:
but I insisted on coffee in the morning before we should set off, my
family being not yet accustomed to travel till ten or eleven o'clock
in the morning without any breakfast, though such is the usual practice
on the continent. Besides, this part of the agreement was revocable
at my pleasure. I was also at liberty to quit my carriage at
Chalons-sur-Saone, paying a proportionate share of the price.
I had seen, at the master's stables, three very good horses which I
engaged for my journey. The day before my departure, he told me these
horses were gone in another direction, but that I should have three
others equally good. As I saw no reason why he should prefer another
customer to me, I assented. He supplied me with two stout horses and a
very weakly one. Louis, my coachman, told me, afterwards, that his
master had found an opportunity of selling the three horses I had first
seen, and to make up my number had been obliged to buy one from a fiacre
the very day of my departure. It is impossible to be aware of all the
oblique means and motives of men of the character of this voiturier. All
the defence that can be prepared against them is, to see every thing,
write down every thing, and, above all, to have time at command.
This mode of travelling by the voiturier is now generally adopted by
travellers of the first respectability, and where the whole voiture is
engaged, differs in no respect from travelling in a private carriage,
except that the right of property in the horses and carriage is but
temporary, and the coachman does not wear a livery. I am acquainted with
persons, who would not choose to be considered otherwise than as persons
of distinction, who have travelled in this way. I have seen attestations
of the good conduct of the coachman or voiturier signed with names, some
of which were known to me, and sealed with armorial bearings, according
to the English use abroad. I dwell on this point, because voituriers are
unknown in England, and the mode of travelling is in low repute abroad,
where, from the way in which it is practised, it is impossible it should
be creditable.
In France and Italy there are but few stage-coaches, and no good ones
but between the towns on the channel and Paris. The post-houses furnish
no carriages, but horses only. In every great town there are persons
whose trade is to keep carriages ready for those who want to take
journeys, but have no carriage of their own. Two or three places being
engaged, the voiturier, now afloat, makes up his cargo as he can: rather
than have any vacant space in his carriage, he will sell it at a low
rate to such as can afford to pay but low prices; he then makes up with
dead lumber what is wanting in weight of live stock; and the good
people, thus assembled, thus encumbered, proceed as they can under the
auspices of the conductor, who presides at their meals. All this
accounts very well for some English making a difficulty in avowing their
having travelled by the voiturier, and for the French aubergistes and
others confounding, at first, all inmates of carriages of the same
denomination. I do not suppose that any respectable English family has
travelled in the manner above described. I do not know that any single
persons have done so. It is evident that a voiture, engaged for the sole
use and service of him who hires it, is "quite another thing."
I would have purchased a berline at Paris, and travelled post,--a plan
not more expensive, as I could have gone twice as far in the day as with
the same horses it was possible to do,--but the regulations of the post
not only require six horses for six persons, but make no provision for
any number more than six in the same carriage,--a case as little
contemplated as parricide among the ancient Romans. I must therefore
have had two carriages, or disputed the question at every post-house.
Add to this, that a travelling carriage is not well-suited for a town,
nor a town carriage for travelling.
The places in the cabriolet were a perpetual subject of contest among my
children, and I had enough to do to arbitrate who should ride outside.
Louis, the coachman, was very good-natured to them, and never complained
of the frequent interruptions and trouble which they caused him. This
was the more laudable in him, as he was a Breton; and the Bretons, like
those from whom they derive their origin,--the ancient Britons of
Wales,--are said to have _la tete chaude_:[25] Louis, on several
occasions, was hot-headed enough. He had served, as had almost every man
at this time in France, and had been a sous-officier; and, while my
eldest son and I walked by his side in mounting the hills, regaled us
with accounts of his military exploits, amongst which he seemed to
consider his duels as giving the most indisputable proof of personal and
individual courage. He said that there had been a great deal of
_coquinerie_[26] in the revolution,--an opinion in which he was by no
means singular; and that, if it should break out again, there would be
more assassination than ever. Neither was he singular in his
apprehension of new troubles: a priest, whom I met at Paris, told me,
"la revolution ne fait que commencer."[27] His wish assuredly was not
"father to that thought." All this was pleasant hearing to a man who had
embarked his family in an expedition like mine. The event proves the
wisdom of the king, whom his party declared not to be a royalist.
The horse, that had passed the morning in the streets of Paris in his
quality of hackney-coach horse, was in no condition for a journey. Louis
said he was tired with waiting so long in the street: he seemed to allude
to the time employed in verifying the inventory; he explained afterwards
how and why the expression was equivocal. I had made, on this subject,
useless because tardy reproaches to the master. The horse had, however,
time to recover his strength, as I would not quit Paris till the
afternoon of the first day of my journey, it being Sunday, and had
planned to pass the evening of the second, and morning of the third day,
at Fontainebleau. We arrived by the light of the full moon at Essonne,
where a good supper, with a fine dessert of fruit, and the air of the
country, gave us high expectations of the pleasures of a journey to
the south of France.