In his brilliant and much-abused book, A Rebours, the late J.-K.
Huysmans describes the antics of a feeble-brained young nobleman who,
having saturated himself with Baedeker's London, the novels of Dickens,
English roast beef and ale, came to the comical conclusion that he
might be disappointed if he crossed the Channel, so after a few hours
spent within the hospitable walls of a Parisian English bar he gathered
up his plaids, traps, walking-stick, and calmly returned to his home
near the French capital. He had travelled to England in an easy-chair,
as mentioned by Goldsmith--better after all than not travelling at all.
Circumstances condemn many of us to this mode of motion, which comes
well within the definition of our great-grandfathers, who called it The
Pleasures of the Imagination.
But there are, luckily for them, many who are not compelled to assist
at this intellectual Barmecide's feast. They go and they come, and no
man says them nay. Whether they see as much as those who voyaged in the
more leisurely manner of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
is open to doubt. Europe or Asia through a car-window is only a series
of rapidly dissolving slides, pictures that live for brief seconds.
Modern travel is impressionistic. Nature viewed through a nebulous
blur. Our grandfathers, if they didn't go as far as their descendants,
contrived to see more, to see a lot of delightful little things, note
a myriad of minute traits of the country through which they paced at
such a snail's gait. Nowadays we hurriedly glance at the names of
railroad stations. The ideal method of locomotion is really that of the
pedestrian--shanks'-mare ought to be popular. Vernon Lee spoke thus of
our hero: "'Tis the mode of travelling that constituted the delight and
matured the genius of Stendhal, king of cosmopolitans and grand master
of the psychologic novel."
It is interesting to turn back and flutter the pages of that
perennially delightful book, Promenades dans Rome. Italy may truthfully
be said to have been engraved upon the author's heart. Under the
heading Manner of Travelling From Paris to Rome, dated March 25, 1828,
he tells his readers, few but fit, how he made that wonderful trip.
One of the best ways, writes Stendhal, is to take a post-chaise,
or a _calèche_, light and made in Vienna. Carry little baggage. It
only means vexation at the various custom-houses, bother with the
police--who treat all travellers as spies or suspected persons--and
it will surely attract bandits. Besides, prices are instantly doubled
when a post-chaise arrives. There is the mail-coach. It rolls along
comfortably. In its capacious interior one may sleep, watch the
scenery, converse, or read. You can go to Béfort or Basel if you desire
to pass the north of la Suisse, or to Pontarlier or Ferney, if desirous
of reaching the Simplon. You may take the mail to Lyons or Grenoble,
and pass by Mont Cenis; or until Draguignan if you wish to escape the
mountains and enter Italy by the beautiful highway, the work of M. de
Chabral. You arrive at Nice and pass on to Genoa. This is the ideal
route for scenery.
But, continues Stendhal, the most expeditious and the interesting
way, the one he usually took, begins with a forty-eight hour ride in
the diligence as far as Béfort; a carriage for which you pay a dozen
francs will conduct you to Basel. Once there you may take a diligence
for Lucerne--that singular and dangerous lake, the theatre of William
Tell's exploits, remarks Stendhal impressively (they believed in the
Tell legend, those innocent times)--and attain Altdorf. Here Tell and
the apple will arouse your imagination. Then Italy may be entered by
Saint Gothard, Bellinzona, Como, and Milan. _Via_ the Simplon was
more to the taste of our writer. He often took the diligence, which
at Basel went to Bern; arriving in the Rhône valley by way of Louèche
and Tourtemagne, he would find his baggage, which had gone around by
Lausanne, Saint Maurice, and Sion. He tells us that the conductor of
the excellent diligence plying between Lausanne and Domo d'Ossola was a
superior man; a glimpse of his calm Swiss features drives away all fear
of danger. For ten years three times a week this conductor has passed
the Simplon. He did not encounter avalanches. Anyhow, the Simplon route
is less dangerous than Mont Cenis; there are fewer precipices and the
edge of the road is bordered by trees; if the horses ran away the
coach would not be overturned into the abyss. And since the opening of
the Simplon route, Stendhal gravely notes, only forty travellers have
perished, nine of them unhappy Italian soldiers returning from Russia.
Are not these details of a savoury simplicity, like the faded odour of
sandal-wood which meets your nostrils when you open some old secretary
of your grandparents?
Kept by a man from Lyons was a fine inn on the Simplon route in those
days. Stendhal never failed to record where could be found good
wines, cooking, and clean sheets. He usually paid twelve francs for a
carriage to Domo d'Ossola, Lac Majeur (Lago Maggiore) _vis-à-vis_ to
the Borromean Islands. Four hours in a boat to Sesto Calende, and five
hours in a fast coach--behold, Milan! Or you can reach Milan _via_
Varese. Milan to Mantua in the regular diligence. Thence to Bologna by
a carriage, there the mail-coach. You go to Rome by the superb routes
of Ancona and Loreto. You must pay thirty or thirty-five francs on the
coach between Milan and Bologna. Stendhal assures us that he often
found good company in the carriages that traverse the distance from
Bologna to Florence. It took two days to cover twenty leagues and cost
twenty francs. From Florence to Rome he consumed four or five days,
going by Perugia in preference to Siena. Once he travelled in company
with three priests, of whom he was suspicious until the ice was broken;
then with joyous anecdotes they passed the time, and he is surprised to
find these clerical men, who said their prayers openly three times a
day without being embarrassed by the presence of strangers, were very
human, very companionable. With his accustomed naïve expression of
pleasure, he writes that they saved him considerable annoyance at the
custom-house.
And to-day, eighty years later, we take a train _de luxe_ at Paris
and in thirty hours we are in the Eternal City. It is swifter, more
comfortable, and safer, our way of travelling, than Stendhal's, but
that we see as much as he did we greatly doubt. The motor-car is an
improvement on the mail-coach and the express train; you may, if you
will, travel leisurely and privately from Paris to Rome. Or, why not
hire a stout little carriage and go through Tuscany in an old-fashioned
manner as did the Chevalier de Pensieri-Vani! Few may hope to store as
many memories as Stendhal, yet we should see more than the occupants of
railroad drawing-rooms that whiz by us on the road to Rome.