Produced by Carlo Traverso, Chuck Greif and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://dp.rastko.net
(Produced from images of the Bibliotheque nationale de
France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr)
Hughes
South of France
ONLY TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES PRINTED.
"----I informed my friend that I had just received from England a
journal of a tour made in the South of France by a young Oxonian friend
of mine, a poet, a draughtsman, and a scholar--in which he gives such an
animated and interesting description of the Chateau Grignan, the
dwelling of Madame de Sevigne's beloved daughter, and frequently the
place of her own residence, that no one who ever read the book would be
within forty miles of the same without going a pilgrimage to the spot.
The Marquis smiled, seemed very much pleased, and asked the title at
length of the work in question; and writing down to my dictation, 'An
Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone made during the year 1819, by John
Hughes, A.M. of Oriel College, Oxford,'--observed, that he could now
purchase no books for the Chateau, but would recommend that the
Itineraire should be commissioned for the Library to which he was abonne
in the neighbouring town,"--_Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Durward_.
Thomas White, Printer, Johnson's Court.
* * *
ITINERARY
OF
PROVENCE & THE RHONE,
MADE DURING THE YEAR 1819.
BY JOHN HUGHES, M.A.
OF ORIEL COLLEGE OXFORD.
[Illustration: J. Hughes Esq. del. W. Woolnoth, SG.
ISLE OF ST. MARGUERITE NEAR CANNES AND PRISON OF MASQUE DE FER.]
SECOND EDITION.
LONDON:
JAMES CAWTHORN.
MD.CCCXXIX.
PREFACE.
IT has been the Author's object to render the following volume a
companion to persons visiting the country described. He has therefore
not so much studied to compile from known books of historical reference,
as to answer those plain and practical questions which suggest
themselves during an actual journey, and to enable those whose time is
limited, and who wish to employ it actively, to form the necessary
calculations as to what is to be seen and done. The best points of view,
and the parts which may be passed over rapidly, are therefore specified,
as well as the places where good accommodation are to be expected, or
imposition to be guarded against.
The subjects of the Illustrations will be mentioned in the course of the
Itinerary, for the information of collectors, of whose notice it is
trusted they will be rendered worthy by the well-known talents of Mr.
Dewint and the Messrs. Cookes.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. I.--Paris to Rochepot
CHAP. II.--Rochepot to Lyons
CHAP. III.--Lyons
CHAP. IV.--Lyons to Montelimart
CHAP. V.--Chateau Grignan
CHAP. VI.--Orange--Avignon
CHAP. VII.--Avignon--Murder of Brune--Hopital des Fous--Mission of 1819
CHAP. VIII.--Pont du Gard--Nismes--Montpelier--Cette
CHAP. IX.--Tarascon--Beaucaire--St. Remy--Orgon--Lambesc
CHAP. X.--Aix--Marseilles
CHAP. XI.--Ollioules--Toulon
CHAP. XII.--Frejus--Cannes--Isle of St. Marguerite--Antibes
CHAP. XIII.--Nice--Col di Tende--Conclusion
* * *
AN
ITINERARY,
&c.
* * *
CHAP. I.
PARIS TO ROCHEPOT.
NO one, I imagine, ever yet left an hotel in a central and bustling part
of Paris, without feeling the faculty of observation strained to the
utmost, and experiencing a whirl and jumble of recollections as little
in unison with each other as the well known signs of that whimsical
city, the _Boeuf a-la-mode_, (with his cachemire shawl and his ostrich
feathers) and the _Mort d'Henri Quartre_. The contrasts and varieties of
the grave and gay, the affecting and the burlesque, the magnificent and
the paltry, which exist and may be sought out in abundance in every
great capital, are perhaps more vividly concentrated at Paris than any
where else, and brought with less trouble under the eye of those whose
spirits or leisure may not allow them to mix in society. In London
every thing wears a busy uniform exterior, varied only by the apparition
of a Turk, a Lascar, or a Highlander; and home appears to be the place
reserved for the development of character: but in Paris, from the
fashion of living almost in public, and the freedom which every one
enjoys of following his own taste in dress or amusement without notice,
the history of most individuals appears to a certain degree written on
their exterior; and a morning's walk brings you in contact with all the
diversities of character which rapidly succeeding events have created.
The old beau, with the identical toupet of 1770; the musty, moth-eaten
nondescripts sometimes seen at the mass of Notre Dame, which remind you
of a still earlier period; the faded royalist, with a countenance
saddened by the recollection of former days; the ex-militaires, whose
looks own no friendship with "the world or the world's law;" the old
bourgeois riding in the same roundabout with his grandchildren, and
enjoying the _jeu de bague_ as cordially,--revolve in succession like
the different figures in a magic lantern, while the place of Punch and
Pierrot is supplied by a host of laborious drolls and _gens a
l'incroyable_. The various members of this motley assemblage appear also
more distinct from each other, as connected in the recollection with
places so strongly marked by historical events, or bearing in themselves
so peculiar a character:--the place Louis Quinze, the grim old
Conciergerie, the deserted Fauxbourg St. Germain, with the grass
growing in its streets; the Place de Carousel, the Boulevards, and the
Catacombs, the Palais Royal and the Morgue.
To attempt, however, to say any thing new of a place so well known and
so fully described as Paris, would be as superfluous as to write the
natural history of the dog or cat. The peculiarities of such animals are
continually striking one in new and amusing points of view; but verbal
delineation has already done its utmost in acquainting us with them. In
like manner, every thing relating to Paris, and illustrative of it at a
period of interest which probably will not arise again for centuries,
has been already made known in Paul's admirable letters, in poor Scott's
powerful but unmerciful satire, and finally in a host of books,
booklings, and bookatees, teaching us how to spend any period of time at
Paris from three to three hundred and sixty-five days; how to enjoy it,
how to eat, drink, see, hear, feel, think, and economise in it. Kotzebue
has devoted sixty pages to its bon bons and savories; others more
modestly give you only a diary of their own fricasseed chicken and
champagne, and information of a still lower sort is supplied by the
delectable Mr. Hone, for the instruction of our Jerries and Corinthian
Toms. I shall commence dates, therefore, from the 26th of April, on
which day we quitted the Hotel de l'Europe, Rue Valois, not sorry to
obtain a respite from sounds and sights.
Though in such a country as Tuscany, where every furlong of ground
affords a new and rich subject for the pencil, the voiture mode of
travelling is preferable to posting; yet no one, I think, would
recommend it in traversing the tedious interval which separates Paris
from the southern provinces. We had adopted this species of conveyance
from the idea that it would afford more leisure for observation to those
of the party to whom France was new; but we found in reality that by
subjecting us to a dependence on hours, it diverted our attention from
those places where we might have spent half a day to advantage, and
familiarized us only with one branch of knowledge,--the merit and
demerit of most of the inns on the roads, whose characters I shall not
fail to give as we found them. Homely as this species of information may
be, I have often regretted the want of it beforehand; and concluding
that others may be of the same opinion, I shall therefore afford it as
far as I am able: premising, that it is as well not to vary, on this or
any other road, from the practice of ascertaining beforehand the rate of
the aubergiste's charges. The traveller's first impulse certainly is to
save himself trouble, by paying whatever is demanded, and not to expend
time and attention on a series of petty disputes, which make no great
difference in his travelling expenses. There is, however, in all or most
of those who are fitted to conduct the business of life, a feeling of
shame at being outwitted even in trifles, which naturally rebels
against this easy mode of proceeding, and inclines one rather to take
the trouble of asking a few questions, than to be laughed at as a _grand
seigneur_ by a cunning landlord. This trouble after all may be taken by
a servant, and need not subject the master to the necessity of entering
every inn like an angry terrier, with his bristles up and ready for
battle; and the settlement of preliminaries does not lead to any want of
attention on the part of the people of the inn.
We neglected this precaution at Essonne, where we breakfasted on leaving
Paris, and where accordingly we paid about double the charge which
Tortoni or the Cafe Hardy would have made. It appears, in truth, that at
the Croissant d'Or, as at the Emperor Joseph's memorable German inn,
"though eggs are not scarce, yet gentry are."
The distance from Paris to this place is about 24 miles: the road of
course excellent, as is uniformly the case in the route to Chalons; but
the only thing during the stage which remains on my recollection, is an
obelisk inscribed, "Dieu, le Roi, et les dames;" a melange perhaps
compounded in compliment to Louis XV. who greatly improved a part of
this road, which was once nearly impassable. Corbeil, a neat flourishing
town within half a mile of Essonne, and possessing large cotton
manufactories, derives some interest from the celebrated siege it
sustained during the war of the league. Two miles beyond Essonne we
remarked, at a short distance to the right, Chateau Moncey, once the
seat of the gay and brilliant Duke de Villeroi and his descendants; and
on a hill to the left, Chateau Coudray, the former residence of the
Prince de Chalot. Both the possessors of these estates were guillotined
during the reign of terror, and their places are filled by Marechal
Jourdan, and some _nouveau riche_, whose very name the peasants seemed
never to have heard, or to have forgotten from want of interest.
We found the Hotel de la Ville de Lyon at Fontainebleau a good inn, and
fair in its charges. The old palace, though not intrinsically worth a
visit in point of architecture, yet conveys one of those "sermons in
stones," in which the Fauxbourg de St. Germain so much abounds; and
presents also more pleasing recollections of Louis Quatorze (a prince
possessing many of the good points of the _bon Henri_) than the
bombastic personification of him as Jupiter Tonans, in the palace of
Versailles, which is on a par as a painting with Tom Thumb as a tragedy.
April 27.--To Fossard, eighteen miles: the first six through the forest,
just sufficiently sylvan to suffer by a comparison with that of Windsor.
At the end of two more miles we crossed the valley, in which is situated
the town of Moret, to which is attached a history equally curious, as
Anquetil observes, with that of the Iron Mask. The following is the
extract from the Duke de St. Simon's Memoirs, which he introduces as
relative to it.
"Il y avoit a Moret, petite ville aupres de Fontainebleau, un petit
couvent, ou etoit professe une Mauresse inconnue, et qu'on ne montroit a
personne. Bontemps, Gouverneur de Versailles, par qui passoient les
choses du secret domestique du roi, l'y avoit mise toute jeune, avoit
paye une dot assez considerable, et continuoit a lui payer une grosse
pension tous les ans. Il avoit attention qu'elle eut son necessaire, que
tout ce qu'elle pouvoit desirer en agremens et douceurs, et qui peut
passer pour abondance pour une religieuse, lui fut fourni. La reine y
alloit souvent de Fontainebleau, et prenoit grand soin du bien-etre du
couvent; et Mad. de Maintenon apres elle. Ni l'une ni l'autre ne prenoit
de cette Mauresse un soin direct, et qui peut se remarquer. Elles ne la
voyoient meme toutes les fois qu'elles alloient au couvent, mais elles
s'informoient curieusement de sa sante, de sa conduite, et de celle de
la superieure a son egard. Quoiqu'il n'y eut dans cette maison personne
d'un nom connu, Monseigneur (le Dauphin) y a ete quelquefois; les
princes, ses enfans, aussi; et tous demandoient et voyoient la Mauresse.
Elle etoit dans un couvent avec plus de consideration que les autres, et
se prevaloit fort des soins qu'on prenoit d'elle, et du mystere qu'on en
faisoit. Quoiqu'elle vecut tres-religieusement, on s'appercevoit bien
que sa vocation avoit ete aidee. Il lui echappoit une fois, entendant
Monseigneur chasser dans le foret, de dire negligemment, 'c'est mon
frere qui chasse.' On dit qu'elle avoit quelquefois des hauteurs, que
sur les plaintes de la superieure, Mad. de Maintenon alla un jour expres
pour tacher de lui inculquer des sentimens plus conformes a l'humilite
religieuse; que lui ayant voulu insinuer qu'elle n'etoit pas ce qu'elle
croyoit, elle lui repondit, 'Si cela n'etoit pas, Madame, vous ne
prendriez pas la peine de venir me le dire!' Ces indices ont fait
conjectures qu'elle etoit fille du roi et de la reine, et que sa couleur
l'avoit fait sequestrer, en publiant que la reine avoit fait une fausse
couche."
In addition to this extract, Anquetil adds, "En effet, la fantaisie de
garder devant ses yeux une naine monstreuse (her favourite negress
mentioned previously), peut faire conjecturer que Marie Therese n'aura
pas ete assez exacte a detourner ses regards d'objets qu'une femme
prudente doit s'interdire; qu'elle les aura fixes sur les negres que le
progres du commerce maritime commencoit de rendre communs en France; et
que de la sera venue la couleur de cette infortunee, qu'il aura fallu
cacher dans un cloitre. Cette Mauresse et l'homme au masque de fer sont
les deux mysteres du regne de Louis XIV. Le redacteur des Memoires de
St. Simon dit qu'elle est morte a Moret en 1732, et que son portrait
etoit encore en 1779 dans le cabinet de l'abbesse, d'ou, quand cette
maison a ete reunie ou Prieure de Champ Benoit a Provins, il a passe
dans le cabinet des antiques et curiosites de l'abbaye de St. Genevieve
du Mont a Paris, ou il est encore. On lit au bas de ce portrait, ces
mots, Religieuse de Moret." Such are the words of the extract relative
to this singular person.
The Hotel de Poste, (as it chooses to style itself) at Fossard, is a
dismal pot-house; and the people possess none of that good humour and
alacrity which cover a multitude of faults. Having swallowed some of
their gritty coffee, which might have been very delectable to the palate
of a Turk, we walked about a mile and a half to the bridge[1] of
Montereau-sur-Yonne, on which John Duke of Burgundy was murdered by
Tannegui de Chastel, in the presence, and probably with the connivance
of the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. Near this spot we remarked a
small mass of ruins, the only remains of the once magnificent Chateau
Varennes. Its former owner, the Duke de Chatelet, as we were informed by
some market-people, resided for six months in the year at this seat,
maintaining or employing most of the poor within his reach, and
entertaining his peasantry with a weekly dance at the Chateau. Like many
others, he fell a victim to the guillotine during the reign of terror;
his lands, with the exception of a portion recovered by his heirs, were
alienated, and the fragment which we observed was the only part of his
residence left standing. From the tone and manner in which the French
peasantry appear to speak of these very common occurrences, I should
judge that the effects of the revolution have not yet eradicated that
"subordination of the heart," which is natural among a simple and
industrious people, and which nothing but very gross neglect or
misconduct on the part of their superiors, or the unchecked licence of
political quacks, can destroy. Most of the ravages in question might no
doubt be traced to bands of plunderers, organized from the most
desperate and notorious characters in many different parishes, and
sufficiently countenanced by the revolutionary tribunals to overawe the
peaceable and unarmed mass of the population, whom it would be hardly
fair to confound with them. Let us fancy for a moment, how quickly,
under similar political circumstances, a moveable Spencean brigade
might be collected in any district of England from poachers,
sheep-stealers, gypsies, incendiaries, and those whose latent love of
mischief might be drawn out by proper encouragement, and we may find
reason not to condemn the French peasantry in general, as sharers in the
outrages which they probably abominated, but could not prevent.
[Footnote 1: In 1419, John Duke of Burgundy, and the Dauphin, against
whom he had taken part during the troubles of France, agreed to a
reconciliation. "An interview was fixed to take place on the bridge of
Montereau-sur-Yonne, where a total amnesty was to be concluded, to be
followed by an union of arms and interests. Every precaution was taken
by the duke for his safety; a barrier was erected on the bridge; he
placed his own guard at one end, and advancing with only ten attendants,
threw himself on his knees before the Dauphin. At this instant Tannegui
de Chastel, making the signal, leaped the barrier with some others, and
giving him the first blow, he was almost immediately despatched. Though
the Dauphin was in appearance only a passive spectator of this
assassination, there can be no doubt that he was privy to its
commission."--_Wraxall's Valois_.]
From Fossard to Sens, 21 miles: the country uninteresting as far as
Pont-sur-Yonne. Chapelle de Champigny affords a tolerably exact idea of
a Spanish village; each farm-house and its premises forming a square,
inclosed in blank walls, and opening into the street by folding gates,
with hardly a window to be seen. From Pont-sur-Yonne to Sens, the road
becomes more cheerful; and its fine old cathedral forms a good central
object in the valley, along which the Yonne is seen winding. The
principal inn at Sens being full for the night, we found neat and
comfortable accommodations, with great civility, at the Bouteille.
Whether there be any object worthy of notice in this cheerful little
city, besides its cathedral, I do not know; but the latter possesses
works of art which deserve an early and attentive visit. Nothing can be
more minutely beautiful than the small figures and ornaments on the tomb
of the Cardinal du Prat, which is sufficient in itself to give a
character to any one church. But the grand object of interest is a large
sepulchral group in the centre of the choir, to the memory of the
Dauphin and his consort, the parents of Louis XVI. The grace and
classical contour of this monument, which is executed by the well-known
Nicholas Coustou, would excite admiration even in the studio of Canova,
while the deep tone of genuine feeling displayed, particularly in the
figure of Hymen quenching his torch, is worthy of the chisel of our own
Chantry. Somewhat might perhaps be owing to an evening light, which cast
strong mellow shades on the figures, and gave an effect of reality to
the fine white marble of which they are composed; but their merits are
very striking, and are quite unalloyed by the graphic bombast of which
the most able French artists have been with too much truth accused. The
character of the Dauphin, whose exemplary life in the midst of a corrupt
court, was a tacit reproof which his haughty father could ill brook, is
well known.
Ostendunt terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra
Esse sinunt.
He was snatched in the flower of his age, in the year 1765, from an evil
which was even then brooding, and which might have brought his grey
hairs to a bloody end at a more advanced period: and his consort
survived him about a year and a half. "They were lovely and pleasant in
their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided." The latter
monument, as well as others of inferior merit, owed its preservation
from revolutionary fury to the conduct and firmness of Mons. Menestrier,
an avocat, and mayor of Auxerre during the reign of terror. _Ce brave
homme_ (I like the old sacristan's term of _brave homme_, as it is one
of the few untranslateable French words) flew to the cathedral at the
moment that a horde of brigands had entered it to commence the work of
mutilation; and, seconded by nothing but his known character for
resolution, and an athletic person, fairly intimidated and turned them
out for the time. Losing not a moment, he removed to a place of safety
the Dauphin's monument, the avowed object of their vengeance, before a
second visit took place; and desirous also to preserve a fine bas relief
which stands in another part of the church, representing St. Nicholas
portioning three orphan girls, he engraved on the wall under it an
inscription to Benevolence in the republican style, which produced the
desired effect. Not very long afterwards he fell a victim to a fever
caught by over-exertion in advocating the cause of a poor family; and
his wife survived him only a few days, exhibiting an humble copy of the
conjugal affection of those whose memorials her husband had so loyally
preserved. Whether to give full credit or not to the old sacristan's
narration, I do not know; but it appears more probable that even so
large a monument was removed piecemeal at short notice, than that the
malice of the brigands would have allowed it to stand unhurt; and there
is besides an ingenuity and presence of mind shown in the preservation
of St. Nicholas, quite consistent with the character of M. Menestrier,
as described by the old man. Had the latter felt that inclination to
romance, which is not uncommon among his brethren, he would probably
have adopted the hacknied legend, that both monuments were miraculously
secreted from the eyes of the marauders.
April 28.--To Joigny, where we breakfasted, twenty-one miles. Passed
through Villeneuve, a decayed old town, with two singular gateways. Even
this place emulates Paris in the possession of a Tivoli, which, in the
present instance, consisted of a walled square of court-yard (for garden
it could not be called), measuring about thirty yards by twenty, and
overshadowed by poplars from three to four feet high: a most pleasant
representative, in truth, of the wild olive woods, the sequestered
waterfalls, and the classical ruins of the original Tivoli.
Domus Albunese resonantis,
Et praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus.
On leaving Joigny, a neat pleasant town, extending in one wide street
along the Yonne, and crowned by a handsome chateau, left unfinished by
the Due de Villeroi, we reached the heart of the wine district of
Burgundy. The country here assumes the appearance of a garden, both from
the steep and regular form of the hills, which exactly resemble the
Dutch slopes in old-fashioned gardens, and from the high state of
culture to which their thin gravelly soil is brought. The hoe and the
pruning-knife seem never at rest, and not a weed is to be seen; while
the slightest portion of manure dropt on the high road becomes a prize,
if not an object of contention, to the nearest vignerons. The air of
cheerfulness and beauty, however, which we annex to our notions of high
cultivation, is wholly wanting. The appearance of the vines was that of
sapless black stumps, about thirty inches high, and pruned so as to
leave only four or five eyes; and though the subject of poverty is too
serious to joke on, the withered and stunted appearance of the country
people exactly corresponded to that of these dry pollards. I trust that
we were in some degree deceived by their natural ugliness, and that hard
labour and scanty profits are not the only reasons which render their
_tout ensemble_ such a contrast to the healthy robust looks of the
Normans and Picards, whose very horses show the effects of their
abundant corn harvests.
From Joigny to Auxerre, twenty-one miles. We arrived too late to visit
the interior of the cathedral, which was not mentioned to us as
containing any thing remarkable. Its exterior, however, is fine and
venerable, and affords a beautiful evening study, viewed from the
opposite bank of the Yonne, about half a mile on the Vermanton road. The
rest of the town, seen from this point, is broken into fine masses of
conventual and other old buildings; and the river and bridge complete a
landscape very well worthy of an accurate sketch.
The excellence of the Hotel de Beaune, at Auxerre, "tenu par Boillet,
gendre Mineau," as his cards inform us, deserves notice. This is one of
those palm-islands among a desert of dirty pothouses, most treacherously
adapted to lure onward a certain class of fair weather pilgrims, whom
one wonders to meet with beyond Paris, and whose dolorous complaints of
thin milk and large coffee-spoons, have afforded me no small amusement
in casual rencounters. The most fastidious, however, of this class of
smelfungi, would find but little to carp at under the roof the civil Mr.
Boillet; and would do well to lay in a stock of comfortable
recollections in this place, on which to feast as far as Chalons; for
the interval between Auxerre and the latter city will prove but a dreary
one to a traveller of the gastronomic school.
The general air of Auxerre is ancient and respectable; but conveys no
ideas of populousness or commerce. In the opinion, however, of an old
sub-matron of the Enfans Trouvees (who looked over my shoulder while
sketching, and whom, by way of something to say, I ignorantly
complimented on her fine family of grandchildren), there is nothing, or,
according to Malthus, much to complain of in the former respect. "Ah,
Monsieur, que voulez vous? ce sont les militaires, ils vont par ci, ils
vont par la, et puis--voila des enfans, et ou chercher les peres?"
April 29.--To Vermanton, our first stage, eighteen miles: a succession
of fine vineyards and square steep hills, such as Uncle Toby might have
constructed for his amusement, with Gargantua for an assistant instead
of the corporal. About six miles short of Vermanton, at the bottom of a
long descent, we remarked Cravant, a little town to the right, fortified
in an ancient and picturesque manner, and which, the peasants said, had
been the seat of much fighting in days of old. Our informant was
ploughing in a fierce cocked hat, with a team composed of a cow and an
ass. Query, might not cocked hats, which appear to our ideas an
exclusively military costume, have originated in such countries as
these, among the vine-dressers? who flap down the sides alternately, in
a manner that shows they understood the true use of them as a parasol.
Vermanton is a small obscure place, affording an inn slovenly enough,
though not glaringly bad.
From hence to Lucy le Bois, where the horses were baited, fifteen miles.
A pretty sequestered valley occurs about three miles beyond Vermanton;
but the whole of the road, like that of the day before, may be travelled
in the dark without any loss: the best part of it consists of a distant
view of the vale and town of Avalon, backed by the Nivernois hills. In
the old French Fablieux, the valley of Avalon is selected as the spot
where a fairy confined Sir Lanval, her mortal lover; but whether the
French Avalon, or the beautiful vale of Glastonbury was meant, appears
doubtful, as the latter formerly bore the same name. There is a
resemblance between the two districts, which amounts to an odd
coincidence, particularly with regard to one of the Nivernois hills in
the back ground, which presents a strong likeness of Glastonbury Tor. We
should have passed through Avalon, but for a trick of the voiturier, who
took a cross road to avoid paying the post duty there, and save his
money at the expense of our bones. For this manoeuvre he might have been
severely punished, had we chosen to interfere.
From Lucy le Bois to Rouvray, where we slept, the level of the country
becomes gradually more elevated, and its general features much more
English, consisting of corn, woody copses, and pastures full of
cowslips. I cannot say, however, that we found any thing to remind us of
England at the detestable inn where we were quartered for the night, and
have no doubt but that Lucy le Bois or Avalon would have afforded
somewhat much better. The only civilized person was a large black
baker's dog, who, like Gil Blas's first travelling acquaintance, seemed
free of the house, and did the honours of the supper to us with an
assiduity as disinterested, "Ah, messieurs," said his civil master, when
we stept across the street in the morning, to return the dog's visit in
form, "je suis charme que vous trouvez l'Abri si beau; je suis au
desespoir qu'il ne soit pas chez lui a present, mais je vais le chercher
partout afin qu'il vous fasse ses hommages." The good man could not have
spoken of a favourite son with more unsuspecting complacency.
April 30.--To Saulieu, where we breakfasted at a tolerably good inn,
fifteen miles: the morning intensely cold, and one of those white frosts
on the ground, which so much endanger the vintage at this season. We
observed, however, no vineyards on the elevated ridge of country along
which we were travelling, and which was perfectly English. A respectable
old chateau, with a rookery, quick hedges, and extensive woods, thick
enough for a fox covert, kept up the illusion agreeably. This style of
ground continues beyond Saulieu; and between the latter place and Arnay
le Duc, eighteen miles farther, its features are not unromantic. One or
two castles of a very baronial air occur; the first of which, reduced to
ruins, is visible at about a mile beyond Saulieu, occupying an insulated
hill at some distance from the road, and much resembling the remains of
an Italian freebooter's stronghold. Another, situated at the head of a
glen, about six miles farther on, and overlooking a small village, is
more perfect and striking in its appearance. It is the property, as we
were informed, of the widow of M. Fenou, a royalist, who, during the
revolution, stood a siege within its walls equal to that of
Tillietudlem, repulsing a strong body of republicans with considerable
loss. Buonaparte subsequently recalled M. Fenou, with the grant of a
free pardon; and the estate was, in the course of things, restored to
his widow. Such, as far as we could collect from the account of our
informant, was the history belonging to Chateau Torcy la Vachere, which
bears some resemblance, in situation and general outline, to Eastnor
Castle, the seat of the Earl of Somers, at the foot of the Malvern
hills.
Arnay le Duc, a town situated on commanding ground, where we slept,
boasts of an earlier celebrity, having been the scene of one of Admiral
de Coligni's victories. It possesses several convents, now private
property, and one or two fragments of building of a peculiarly
antiquated style. Among these I particularly remarked an old iron-shop,
supposed, as a bourgeois informed me, to be more than seven hundred
years old, and which seems to have communicated with the ancient walls
as a guard-house. While busied in sketching this singular relic, we were
saluted gracefully by an old chevalier de St. Louis, who was passing,
and whose distinguished air would have become the person of Coligni
himself. On casually inquiring the name of this gentleman, we learnt
that he had been one among the many imprisoned during the reign of
terror, and would have fallen by the guillotine, had the fall of
Robespierre happened four-and-twenty hours later. This, it must be
owned, is a trite and common story; but it is, perhaps, by the very
triteness and frequency of such hair-breadth escapes, more than by any
other circumstance, that the extent and ferocity of the revolutionary
massacres are brought home to the imagination. The appointed victims,
whom the delay of a day or an hour preserved from destruction at this
crisis, still survive in all parts of France, like widely-scattered
land-marks, to remind one of the numbers swept away in the previous
deluge of murder.
May 1.--To Rochepot twenty-one miles. We were not sorry to leave the
Hotel de Poste, at Arnay le Duc, which, with higher pretensions than the
inn at Rouvray, only differs from it in the ratio of "dear and nasty" to
"cheap and nasty;" and to commence a stage which promised more to the
eye than any part of our former route. The country still continues to
rise in this direction, and soon assumes the air of an extensive forest
or chase, enlivened by half-wild herds of cattle, and opening into green
glades and vistas of distant ranges of hills. At Ivry, we wound up a
steep hill; the summit of which, a wide naked common, might match most
parts of Dartmoor in height and bleakness. I had observed heaps of
granite and micaceous stone at a much lower elevation in the course of
the day before; and conclude that we were now on one of the highest
inhabited points which occur in the interior of France. We had not
leisure to walk to a telegraph on the right, which, to judge from the
occasional glimpses which we had, must command a splendid map of the
country near Autun. It had been recommended to us to take the route to
Chalons through the latter town, as affording the most objects of
interest; but, on the whole, I doubt whether that which we had adopted
as the least circuitous, be not also preferable, as possessing the
striking panoramic point to which we had climbed. After two or three
more miles over an expanse of parched turf, we reached what geologists
would call the bluff escarpment of the stratum. The descent before us
was so precipitous, as to leave us at first at a loss to make out how
the road could be conducted down it: and the prospect which burst upon
us in front, had apparently no limit but the power of human vision.
Beyond the foreground, which was formed by a series of rocky glens
diverging from below the point on which we stood, the immense vale of
the Saone extended like a bird's-eye view of the ocean, its relative
distances marked by towns and villages glittering like white sails.
Above the flat line of haze, which, at the first glance, appears to
terminate the prospect at the distance of sixty miles, or more, we
distinguished a faint blue outline of lofty mountains, which must have
been the barrier separating France from Switzerland; and, as occasional
gleams of sunshine broke out, the glittering and jagged lines of a
barrier still more distant, and apparently hanging in mid air, became
distinctly visible. Among these I recognised, at last, the features of
Mont Blanc, in whose peculiar outline I could not be mistaken, and
which, according to the map, cannot be less than 110 or 120 miles
distant, in a direct line from the Montagne de Rochepot. It is, perhaps,
not necessary to be a mountaineer, like Jean Jacques, by birth and
education, in order to feel the peculiar expansion of mind, which he
describes as caused by breathing mountain-air, and contemplating
prospects like this of which I speak.[2] A boundless plain, and enormous
mountains, such as the Alps, whether viewed individually, or contrasted
with each other, are objects not physically grand alone, but affording
also food for deep and enlarged reflection. The mind, while expatiating
over the mass of feelings and projects, of hopes and fears, which are
passing within the limits of the wide map below, feels the nothingness
of the atom which it animates, and the comparative insignificance of its
own joys and griefs in the scale of creation, and retires at last into
itself, sobered into that calm state which is so favourable to the
formation of any momentous decision, or the prosecution of a train of
deep thought. A moment's glance changes the scene from culture and
population to the silence and solitude of a dead icy desert; from the
redundancy of animal and vegetable life to its "solemn syncope and
pause." The ideas of obscurity, danger, and infinity, all powerful and
acknowledged sources of the sublime, are excited at the view of a range
of frozen summits, cold, fixed, and everlasting as the imaginary nature
of those destinies, with whom a noble bard has peopled them; alternately
glittering in sunshine, and enveloped in clouds, and from the well-known
effects of haze and distance, appearing suspended in the air in their
full dimensions and relative proportions. The imagination dwells upon
the appalling hazards peculiar to their few accessible parts, and on the
almost total extinction of life and animal powers, which is the penalty
of a few hours sojourn there. And here again, too, the mind is forcibly
impressed with the utter helplessness of the speck of dust which it
inhabits, and that momentary dependence on Providence, which must be so
convincingly felt in traversing such regions. Ascending in the scale of
comparison, it may reflect, that these gigantic forms, which fill the
eye at a distance at which cities and pyramids would fade into
imperceptible specks, are but excrescences on the face of that earth,
which itself is but an atom in the map of the universe. But I am
wandering from my subject, and from the route, which, in this quarter,
is somewhat precipitous. I shall, therefore, only remark what has
frequently struck me as not an improbable conjecture, that Milton might
have formed his splendid conception of the icy region of Pandaemonium
from some of these colossal ranges of Alps with which his eye must have
been familiar, seen through the vistas of a stormy sky. In the
well-known passage which I shall take the liberty of quoting, one seems
to recognise the deep drifts of snow, and the blue crevasses which
abound in such a spot as the Mer de Glace, as well as the castellated
peaks and glaciers which border on it, and the biting atmosphere which
prevails among their summits.
[Footnote 2: The Welsh proverb, that a man who sleeps on the top of
Snowdon, must awake either a fool or a poet, refers as probably to the
effect produced on the mind by the prodigious mountain panorama
discernible from thence, as to any fancied influence of the genius
loci.]
"Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile; or else deep snow and ice,
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
'Twixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire."
CHAP. II.
ROCHEPOT TO LYONS.
"MON Dieu, ma fille," says Madame de Sevigne in one of her letters to
Mad. de Grignan, "que vous avez raison d'etre fatiguee de cette Montagne
de Rochepot! je la hais comme la mort; que de cahots, et quelle cruaute
qu'au mois de Janvier les chemins de Bourgogne soient impracticables!"
Allowing this to have been the case in her days, I can hardly wonder
that even Mad. de Sevigne was insensible to the magnificence of the
prospect from this elevated point; and thought only of the safety of her
neck. No danger however exists at present, as the road descending to
Rochepot is good, and judiciously conducted down the brow of the hill;
though the nature of the ground gives no very pleasing idea of what it
must have been as a cross-country track. The inn also at Rochepot,
situated at the junction of four roads, is clean and comfortable. A
household loaf, weighing not less than thirty pounds, stood on the table
to welcome us on our arrival, and we saw for the first time straw hats
bearing a full proportion to it, the rim of which equalled in size a
moderate umbrella.
After breakfast we visited the ruined castle of Rochepot,[3] on which we
had at first looked down, but which, seen from the village, bears a
strong resemblance to Harlech Castle in North Wales, both in its form,
and its position upon a commanding rock. We found upon inquiry that it
had been tenanted at a much later period than its appearance would have
led us to suppose. M. Blancheton, the proprietor, had made it his chief
residence some thirty years ago, and kept it up in a style imitating as
nearly as possible its ancient feudal grandeur. At the Revolution
however it was forfeited, and has since been sold twice; but though each
purchaser has pulled down a part, and sold the materials, enough still
remains to give a perfect idea of its former strength and massiveness.
M. Blancheton now resides, as we were informed, near Beaune, regretted
as a _bon seigneur_ by his poorer neighbours, whom he has not visited
since the demolition of his paternal seat. "It would break his heart,"
said a poor old woman, "to see it as it now is." I could not help
thinking of Campbell's "Lines on visiting a spot in Argyleshire," which
bear the impress of a real occasion of this sort.
[Footnote 3: Vide Cooke's View.]
From Rochepot to Chalons-sur-Saone, eighteen miles; commencing with a
steep hill, to the left of which winds a rocky valley of a singular
description, cultivated to the very top of the abrupt heights which
surround it, and so bare of soil, that the eye is surprised by the
flourishing state of its corn and fruit-trees. The heat reflected from
the rocks upon the thin gravel which supports its vineyards, must boil
their juices to a liqueur; at least such was its effect on ourselves,
while winding along a series of these natural forcing-houses, through
which the road is conducted into the great plain of Chalons. From the
ridges which border these valleys, the wide extent of the latter, and
its border of Alps, are visible, though not so finely as from the
elevation which we had descended. "Mont Blanc, the monarch of
mountains," was however more plainly discernible than before, like a
thin distinct fabric of vapour, with his "diadem of snow faintly lighted
up by the sun;" and I never recollect to have seen this white-headed
patriarch of the Alps before in any position which gave so fully the
effect of his enormous height, I will not even except the spot near
Merges, where from a gap in the intervening mountains, he appears almost
to rest his base upon the lake of Geneva.
On emerging from the hilly country near Rochepot, the road to Chalons
passes along a dead flat, cheerful from its richness, but rather
monotonous. To the right, we looked back upon a semicircular range of
well wooded hills, in front of which, on an eminence, stands a stately
old chateau belonging to the Count de Rouilly. It answers very much to
the beau ideal of what a French chateau ought to be, but seldom is. I
say "ought to be," premising that most of us have formed our first ideas
of French chateaux, from those works of imagination which endow such
places so liberally with gothic architecture and haunted woods. The
mansion of the Count de Rouilly would not greatly disappoint a reader of
Mrs. Ratcliffe's romances; and bears a strong resemblance to Westwood,
near Ombersley, in Worcestershire, the seat of Sir John Packington,
which is said to have been once a conventual building.
With no small pleasure did we arrive at the handsome town of Chalons,
our patience being nearly exhausted by the tiresome running base with
which our Noah's ark accompanied the driver's abuse of his clumsy grey
mares. _Grand chameau, sacre vache_, and _canaille_, where the most
genteel and decent terms with which he favoured them, and his
perverseness was in proportion. For this precious commodity, selected I
should conceive from the most consummate ragamuffins on the road, we
were indebted to Mons. Picon, a master voiturier at Paris, who imposed
on us both as to the number of horses, and the length of time in which
we were to be conveyed to Chalons.
"Hic niger est; hunc tu, Romane, caveto."
Having met with a respectable voiturier, named Veroux, who conveyed us
admirably from Calais to Paris, my habitual distrust of this class of
gentry had relaxed just at the wrong time, for the benefit of M. Picon.
If cities are to be estimated by their appearance of neatness and
opulence, Chalons deserves to be marked on the map in more capital
letters than the imposing names of Sens or Auxerre. To no town indeed
does it bear a greater resemblance than to Tours, both from the modern
air of its houses, and from its noble river, adapted for every purpose
of internal commerce. The Hotel des Trois Faisans is also an excellent
inn, and, like that at Auxerre, sufficiently well frequented to find no
account in these little beggarly impositions which are practised at
inferior places.
May 2.--We walked before breakfast to St. Marcel, a village about a mile
from Chalons, to visit the church and monastery where Abelard, after his
removal from Cluni, died and was buried. Our excursion however only
answered in affording us an hour's healthy exercise; for the monastery
has been destroyed, and the church stript of what ornaments it
possessed, during the time of the Revolution; and the monument of
Abelard is removed to Paris. Nor does the town of Chalons itself,
handsome and cheerful as it is, present any food for the pencil, the
more particularly as its flat situation offers no favourable point of
perspective. The spot from which its stately quay, and its stone bridge
ornamented with obelisks, are seen to the most advantage, is about a
mile down the river;--in fact from the deck of the coche d'eau, in which
we embarked at noon for Lyons. This excellent conveyance is a large
covered boat, towed at the rate of six miles an hour by four
post-horses, or, when necessary, by six; and performs the journey from
Chalons to Lyons, a distance of about ninety miles, in twenty-eight or
thirty hours, affording ample time for rest and refreshment at a line of
inns of a superior description. The reasonable amount of the fare paid
by each person at the bureau des diligences, (nine francs fourteen sous)
might induce a fastidious or inexperienced traveller to form an
indifferent idea both of the company and accommodations of the coche
d'eau. Both however appear unexceptionable in their way, as this is the
mode of conveyance adopted for the royal mail, and as generally
preferred for the sake of comfort and expedition, as the Margate or
Glasgow steam-boats. It affords the range of a tolerably spacious deck,
and a couple of cabins, to which the passengers may retire in inclement
weather. Had it indeed been less convenient or agreeable, we should have
found it a blessed respite after the rumbling tub of penance in which we
had been cooped. Indeed, the abuse which our voiturier had vented on the
_desagremens et disgraces_ of the coche d'eau, in order to secure
himself our company to Lyons, had determined us on trying this
conveyance; for the habit of lying is so constant and inveterate in this
class of fellows, as to possess all the advantages of truth; inasmuch as
you have only to believe the direct contrary of what they say. The only
inconvenient and perplexing liars are those who sometimes speak truth by
accident; and their fictions moreover are seldom extravagant enough to
afford the amusement created by romancers of the former class; among
whom I may reckon a beggar, who beset us on the quay of Chalons,
maintaining in a strong French accent, that he was the son of a carman
of Thames-street, in the parish of St. George Hanovre, and had only been
a few months in France.