The son of the aubergiste at Essonne was, as almost every Frenchman is,
a conversable man: he talked to me, while I waited to set off in the
morning, of the English who lived or had lived near Essonne; among
others, of the Duc de Fitzjames, who, if I understood him right, had a
country house in the neighbourhood. "Why do you call him English?" said
I. "The name is English."--"The family has been French for more than a
century." He wished for an explanation. "It is descended from James II.
of England, whom we chased away because he was an honest man, as you put
to death Louis XVI. because he was Bienfaisant." He answered, with much
discretion, "On s'oublie quelquefois."[28]
The fine old oaks and the green rocks of the forest of Fontainebleau
pleased us much: at intervals and openings of the wood we caught very
agreeable views of the distant country. We descended into the town, by
no means a handsome one; but our business was to see the palace.
It is in a low situation, surrounded by hills, not bold or romantic, but
of pleasing forms; at a sufficient distance, so that it is sheltered
without being straitly enclosed. It is a convenient and very large
house, with ample space for the display of all the pomp of royalty, The
chapel is equal in size, though not in ornament, to that of Versailles.
There is a handsome gallery which Napoleon furnished with busts of great
men, whose pretensions to the title of "great" are so different, that
they certainly would never have met except as busts in a gallery. There
is a theatre, a banquetting room, and several suites of fine apartments.
One apartment, or set of rooms, had been inhabited successively by the
Comte d'Artois, now King Charles X. by the Pope Pius VII. and by his
grace the Duke of Wellington. The Indian fable says, that a palace is a
caravansera; but such a succession of guests surpasses fable in
strangeness.
In the chamber of the king was a state bed of suitable magnificence:
passing into a second chamber, in which was a very low bed, I remarked
to our conductor that this bed would be more convenient for his majesty;
and the conductor, after a little hesitation, allowed that, as I
suspected, the king did, in effect, sleep on this bed. George III.
inhabited the Queen's palace in London, and the lodge near the castle at
Windsor: he was said to live always next door to himself. The king of
France, at Fontainebleau, sleeps in the next room to his own; at least,
Louis XVIII. did so.
A small, ordinary, round table was pointed out as a curiosity: it was
that on which Napoleon signed the act of his abdication in favour of
Napoleon II. The cession was enforced; the condition was of course
neglected. Napoleon retired to Elba, an emperor without empire, a father
of a family deprived of the company of his wife and son; too weak to be
safe, yet too great not to be feared: disgusted with the anomalies, of
his situation, he made an effort that, in its consequences, plunged him
into one, in which there were, at least, no inconsistencies to be
complained of: all was plain and intelligible: the high blood of Europe
avenged itself on the Avocat's son, who, if he had been _Monsieur le
Comte de Bonaparte_, would have been treated with more consideration.
The garden of Fontainebleau is handsomely laid out in straight walks,
square pieces of water, and abundance of shade, at this season very
desirable. As we left the garden, my younger son ran off in pursuit of a
water rat, and we followed, in pursuit of him, the course of one of
those beautiful fountains from which the place derives its name. As I
looked round for him, I observed an elderly man, decorated with one or
more orders, who accosted me with much politeness, and asked what I was
looking for. Wishing to obtain information respecting any further object
of curiosity, I began:--"Monsieur, je suis etranger, et--" He
interrupted: "Je le vois bien, Monsieur, et c'est pourquoi je veux vous
etre utile."[29] He asked if we had seen the chateau; and, on my
replying in the affirmative, expressed his regret that he had not met
with us sooner. I learned afterwards that he was the Marechal Duc de
Coigny, at that time gouverneur du chateau de Fontainebleau.
He directed me to a treillis which ran the whole length of a garden wall
exposed to the south. The situation was even too favourable for the
vines that covered the treillis; as, though very fine and healthy, they
had pushed out many large branches without fruit. Grapes however, there
were in abundance; and, had they been ripe, no doubt M. le Gouverneur
would have invited us to eat of them. At any rate, the fox's reasoning
had here no place.
The next day we arrived at Sens. In the cathedral of this place is a
very fine piece of sculpture, the tomb of the Dauphin son of Louis XV.
It will hardly be believed that, during the revolutionary fury, the
populace were only restrained by force from breaking in pieces the
statues of this tomb, out of hatred to royalty. I observed to the
sacristan:--"Le bon peuple de Sens n'est pas apparemment un peuple de
bon sens."[30] In a chapel, under the invocation of St. Thomas of
Canterbury, is a painting representing his interview with the pope at
this place, to which he retired during his unjust exile. The memory of
Thomas a Becket has been unmercifully slandered by our philosophical and
protestant historians. It is their way.
At Auxerre we found an inn very pleasantly situated on the banks of the
Yonne with the vine-covered hills of Burgundy in full view. It was
fortunate that the inn was agreeable, and the people of the house very
good-humoured, the chances being very much against both the one and the
other; for here we were detained one day by the illness of Mrs. ----. A
physician attended, who, on his second visit, recommended the use of
the hot bath, which removed the cause of the complaint, and all was well
again.
Hot baths are to be found in every great town in France, at a very
moderate price,--a circumstance which proves that they are much in use,
as it is the number of customers only that renders the article cheap.
The French are in general cleanly in their persons, whatever their
streets may be: they are also cleanly in their houses, though they have
not the fastidious and troublesome neatness of the English, nor the
perpetual scrubbings and polishings of the Dutch. Household linen, both
for bed and table, is plentiful amongst them. I began at Auxerre the use
of the hot bath, which I have continued every summer that I have not
passed on the sea coast. In winter it is too cold,--not to go into hot
water, but to come out of it.
As we travelled neither with great speed, nor far in one day, nor in the
heat of the day, the physician, on calling to take leave, said we might
continue our journey without any risk of inconvenience to his patient.
We ascended therefore that range of hills among which are found the
sources of those rivers which flow into the ocean by the Seine and the
Meuse, and of those which, however slowly they glide at first, are
precipitated into the Mediterranean by the Rhone. This tract of country
continued for two days, and is a very interesting one. Let those who
fancy all riches to be derived from commerce only, compare this broad
ridge with the plain on each side of it, and they will perceive that a
fertile soil ought to enter for something into the computation of the
wealth of nations. This mountainous region, in the part where we crossed
it, and, by parity of reasoning, in every part of it, is cultivated with
the greatest care and industry: it produces wine that ranks in the
highest estimation both at home and in foreign countries: yet the
inhabitants seem poor, the towns are large villages, the villages are
collections of ruinous huts. Yet had this poverty not found its way into
the inns, it would have been a most pleasing country to travel through.
The summits of the hills were covered with wood, wherever there was a
sufficient depth of earth to admit a tree to be planted; the sides were
overspread with vines ranged in order, well pruned, and glowing with
fruit now nearly ripe. At the lowest declivities of the hills were corn
fields; in the valleys, through almost every one of which ran a stream
of the purest water, were pastures; and here was seen, what is so much
wanted in southern landscape,--verdure and cattle.
It may be remembered that, in the year 1816, large masses of ice
detached themselves from the coasts of the Arctic regions, where they
had been accumulating for centuries, and that huge mountains of ice were
met with at a very low latitude in the Atlantic, where it finally
thawed, and mingled with the waters of the ocean, but not without having
spread cold and moisture over almost every country of the west of
Europe. I grew my own corn at this time; but was obliged this year to
buy corn of the preceding harvest, as, of my own, could be made nothing
better than an unwholesome paste instead of bread. The three vintages
before this season of fusion of icebergs, and diffusion of humidity, had
been but indifferently good: perhaps the god Mars has been more
worshipped than the god Bacchus, and thence, notwithstanding the
well-known confidence of Napoleon in the principle of population, hands
were wanting to prune and hoe the vines. The vintages of 1816, and of
the following year, had almost entirely failed. France was now
absolutely threatened with a dearth of wine: the stock in hand was
nearly exhausted. But the promise of the present vintage put every one
in high spirits: I was assured by the delighted Burgundians that it
would equal in produce, and far surpass in quality, those of the five
preceding years. In effect, the wine of 1818 was afterwards compared
with that of the year of the comet, still cited at this time in
advertisements of sales of wine.
At every step, we met with long cars laden with barrels or staves of
barrels; the coopers were all in full activity at the doors of their
shops; all the world was in high expectation; and our sympathy with
their pleasure was heightened by the cool refreshing air, bringing with
it cheerfulness, health, and elasticity.
Something in very deed was required to put or keep us in good humour,
for the inns were bad enough to try the patience of that old patriarchal
exemplar of patience more frequently cited than imitated. Of eatables
indeed there was enough, and the beds were not bad; but the wine was
sour; the peaches as hard as those found on the chimney-piece of a
lady's boudoir; and the grapes, though very pretty to look at, wanted a
month's longer exposure to the sun: the apples even were not ripe. When
any thing was asked for beyond objects of the first and most obvious
necessity, the answer, was, "il n'y en a point."[31] I asked for an
extinguisher. "Il n'y en a point."--"How do they put out candles in this
country?"--"Ma foi, Monsieur, mais on les souffle."[32]--"Not always,"
said I, pointing to black and greasy spots on the wall. Of the seven
ways of putting out a candle which Dean Swift has taught, I prefer, in
cases of necessity, that by which the light and the odour are
extinguished at once; and here the floor was the better for it.
To account for the poverty of a country, in which is found, in
abundance, so rich a product as wine, it must be recollected how small a
proportion the land covered with vines bears to the whole tract. This
reasoning may be usefully applied to other countries similarly
circumstanced.
On the third day after leaving Auxerre, we arrived, by a very steep
descent, on the plain of the Saone;--a plain at some time covered with
water, which, depositing a loamy and fertile sediment, retired gradually
into beds of rivers. The surface of the earth clearly indicates that it
has once been sea without shore; the rivers that are still supplied by
perennial sources in the higher elevations, hold on their course; many
are dried up, leaving valleys to be watered by the dews and the clouds
of heaven.
The plain of the Saone continues below Macon: its products are such as
may be expected on strong land in such a climate; among others, bled de
Turquie, as the French call maize or Indian corn. Arthur Young, in his
admirable Tour, divides France into four agricultural regions: in the
first the vine is not; in the second maize is not; in the third the
olive is not; in the fourth, Minerva, Ceres, Bacchus, Pomona, all
conspire and dispense their united gifts. I was pleased to hear some
French speak highly of Young's Tour: they said it had told them many
things they did not know before, and had been of great service to them.
It is thus that, while nation wars against nation, man may communicate
good to man.
The coche d'eau, as it is whimsically called, is a passage-boat which
plies between Chalons and Lyons: places are reserved in it for those who
may arrive by the diligence from Paris. It is roomy enough, but I found
it very dirty: to remain under the deck, at this season of the year,
would have been stifling, and on the deck there was no tent or awning. I
determined to proceed in my berline.
We made our noon-tide repast at Tournus, where I walked into the
church; for in France the churches are open every day, and all day long;
and there I saw an image of the Blessed Virgin in the dress of a lady of
the court of Louis XIV. I talked afterwards with a well-meaning Catholic
on the absurdity of this costume: he observed, that if the Blessed
Virgin were exhibited in the dress of a carpenter's wife, the people
would not respect her. The people are not so silly: they, at least, are
"not ashamed of the cross of Christ," whatever the great may be: why
should the poor be ashamed of the poverty of the mother of the Redeemer?
Macon, where we slept, is a flourishing town: we left it at sun-rise, as
we were to pass a steep and lofty hill in our road to Lyons. From this
height we descried the mountains of Switzerland and Savoy, amongst which
Mont Blanc was seen with his snow-topped summit. The view was
indistinct, but imagination supplied the defects of the "visual nerve."
The Alps are in the domain of history and poetry.
We alighted, or descended as the French say, at Lyons, at the Hotel du
Parc. It was the fete de St. Louis; the city was illuminated: of these
splendors we had a good view, as the Hotel de Ville was opposite our
windows. The people danced in the Place Terreaux all night, and all
night we listened to the sound of their rejoicings, for the bugs
hindered us from sleeping. In the morning I complained of them to the
femme de chambre, who positively denied that there were any in the
house. I showed her five that lay slain on the sheet: she still
positively denied that there were any in the house. A modest assurance
is certainly very becoming. I laughed in anger, which, though not quite
so poetical as laughing in tears, is equally natural, when unqualified
anger avails nothing. I complained to the mistress of the house: she
admitted the fact without requiring ocular demonstration,--a superfluous
motive of credibility; and promised other beds: but, as probably no
change could be made for the better, we changed not.
The cathedral church of Lyons is worthy of the metropolitan see of
France; it is in the style of the florid or latest Gothic, and highly
ornamented: it is very _large_; a word that may be here taken in its
French sense of _broad_; for it is in breadth that it exceeds other
churches equally long. It had been much injured during the revolution;
but what is most beautiful in it could not be destroyed without the
destruction of the building itself. The chapel of St. Louis is superbly
decorated.
Place Bellecour, or Place Louis XIV. or Place Bonaparte, by the
pertinacity of prescription, retains its first name, and is indeed a
square which great men might be ambitious of having named after them. It
is almost too vast: that is, the distance of the sides from each other
destroys its unity: its extent, however, makes it an agreeable
promenade; on the south side are rows of trees. The streets in the
neighbourhood of this square are handsome and well built: the rest of
the town is what an old manufacturing populous city may be supposed to
be: the quay on the majestic Rhone is a striking sight. Following the
course of the river along a raised road or dike, we arrive at the piece
of ground recovered from the river by means of this dike; which ground
was given by the municipal authorities to Napoleon, who intended to
build a palace on this spot, at the junction of the Saone and Rhone. I
talked with a labourer who had been employed in levelling the land:
further than this, the work was not proceeded in. The situation is
admirable: a lofty edifice,--and can one suppose that the palace of
Napoleon would have been any other than a lofty edifice?--would have
commanded a view of Lyons and of the surrounding hills and country:
besides all this, the river presents here the appearance of a large and
beautiful lake, its stream being hidden, at a little distance from the
point of confluence, by intervening ground. Whether Paris, Lyons, or
Constantinople was destined to be the capital of the French empire is a
doubt, for the solution of which we must now interrogate the grave.
The cathedral of Vienne is a very fine church, and the loftiest within
of any I have ever seen, and I have seen all the cathedrals in England.
In the earliest age of Christianity, at Vienne, Lyons, and Tournus,
those whom the church honours under the common name of the martyrs of
Vienne, sealed their faith with their blood.
We passed the Isere by a ferry; the bridge, destroyed four years before,
during the war, not having been yet rebuilt; and this on the high road
from Paris to Marseilles.
Valence was the last prison of Pope Pius VI. for here he died.
Philosophers and protestants flattered themselves that he was the last
of the popes: they forgot the reasoning of Gamaliel.
At an indifferent inn where we rested at mid-day, at the sign of the
Grand Monarque, among other scribblings on the wall of our apartment, I
observed a note to the following effect:--"Englishmen, beware of the
Grand Monarque! I paid five francs for my bed,--a bed in this
chamber!!! I paid seven francs for my supper." The writer states of
what dishes his moderate supper consisted, complains of the wine, and
concludes with some indignant and patriotic effusions.
We were now in the country of the olive, and the flat roofs indicated
that we were to pass a winter very different from any that we had
hitherto experienced; a winter without snow. The whole road from Lyons
to Avignon may be considered as beautiful: we rarely quitted the banks
of the Rhone, and always with regret: on each side of the river are fine
hills, surmounted with chateaus, many of which had the picturesque
advantage of being in ruins.
The heat did not incommode us, except in the beginning of the afternoon
of two days out of the five employed in this journey from Lyons, where,
as an Avignonais observed, the north begins, and where, of course, the
south began to us. Madame de Stael says--"Le vrai midi commence a
Naples."[33] Ask where's the north?
The badness of the inns would have been, at this season of the year, but
a trifling inconvenience, but for the bugs; at the last inn at which we
slept on the road they were in swarms. I complained to the innkeeper: he
said there might, perchance, be one or two, "mais cela doit etre une
espece de miracle."[34] Almost every one has poor relations or friends
of whom he is ashamed, but of whom he cannot get rid without adopting
the ingenious expedient of the Vicar of Wakefield,--an expedient
unfortunately not applicable to bugs, "non missura cutem nisi plena
cruoris;" although their hosts and entertainers are sufficiently
unwilling to acknowledge their presence.
At Orange we passed under a triumphal arch, called of Caius Marius, much
finer and better preserved than any edifice of the same kind at Rome.
Here are also the remains of an amphitheatre encumbered with buildings.
Here we saw the process of winding the silk from the worm: the cocon or
egg is thrown into boiling water to dissolve the gum. At Skegness, on
the Lincolnshire coast, I have seen panier-fulls of living shrimps
treated in the same manner.