AT THE CHEVAL BLANC
My journey, even at this distance of time, appears to me like an
enchanted dream. I observed, yet scarcely remembered, the scenes through
which I passed, so divided was I between the novelty of travelling and
the eagerness of anticipation. Provided with my letters of introduction,
the sum of one hundred guineas, English, and the enthusiasm of twenty
years of age, I fancied myself endowed with an immortality of wealth and
happiness.
The Brighton coach passed through our town once a week; so I started for
Paris without having ever visited London, and took the route by Newhaven
and Dieppe. Having left home on Tuesday morning, I reached Rouen in the
course of the next day but one. At Rouen I stayed to dine and sleep, and
so made my way to the _Cheval Blanc_, a grand hotel on the quay, where I
was received by an aristocratic elderly waiter who sauntered out from a
side office, surveyed me patronizingly, entered my name upon a card for
a seat at the _table d'hote_, and, having rung a feeble little bell,
sank exhausted upon a seat in the hall.
"To number seventeen, Marie," said this majestic personage, handing me
over to a pretty little chambermaid who attended the summons. "And,
Marie, on thy return, my child, bring me an absinthe."
We left this gentleman in a condition of ostentatious languor, and Marie
deposited me in a pretty room overlooking an exquisite little garden set
round with beds of verbena and scarlet geranium, with a fountain
sparkling in the midst. This garden was planted in what had once been
the courtyard, of the building. The trees nodded and whispered, and the
windows at the opposite side of the quadrangle glittered like burnished
gold in the sunlight. I threw open the jalousies, plucked one of the
white roses that clustered outside, and drank in with delight the sunny
perfumed air that played among the leaves, and scattered the waters of
the fountain. I could not long rest thus, however. I longed to be out
and about; so, as it was now no more than half-past three o'clock, and
two good hours of the glorious midsummer afternoon yet remained to me
before the hotel dinner-hour, I took my hat, and went out along the
quays and streets of this beautiful and ancient Norman city.
Under the crumbling archways; through narrow alleys where the upper
stories nearly met overhead, leaving only a bright strip of dazzling sky
between; past quaint old mansions, and sculptured fountains, and stately
churches hidden away in all kinds of strange forgotten nooks and
corners, I wandered, wondering and unwearied. I saw the statue of Jeanne
d'Arc; the château of Diane de Poitiers; the archway carved in oak where
the founder of the city still, in rude effigy, presides; the museum
rich in mediæval relics; the market-place crowded with fruit-sellers and
flower-girls in their high Norman caps. Above all, I saw the rare old
Gothic Cathedral, with its wondrous wealth of antique sculpture; its
iron spire, destined, despite its traceried beauty, to everlasting
incompleteness; its grass-grown buttresses, and crumbling pinnacles, and
portals crowded with images of saints and kings. I went in. All was
gray, shadowy, vast; dusk with the rich gloom of painted windows; and so
silent that I scarcely dared disturb the echoes by my footsteps. There
stood in a corner near the door a triangular iron stand stuck full of
votive tapers that flickered and sputtered and guttered dismally,
shedding showers of penitential grease-drops on the paved floor below;
and there was a very old peasant woman on her knees before the altar. I
sat down on a stone bench and fell into a long study of the stained
oriel, the light o'erarching roof, and the long perspective of the
pillared aisles. Presently the verger came out of the vestry-room,
followed by two gentlemen. He was short and plump, with a loose black
gown, slender black legs, and a pointed nose--like a larger species
of raven.
"_Bon jour, M'sieur_" croaked he, laying his head a little on one side,
and surveying me with one glittering eye. "Will M'sieur be pleased to
see the treasury?"
"The treasury!" I repeated. "What is there to be seen in the treasury?"
"Nothing, sir, worth one son of an Englishman's money," said the taller
of the gentlemen. "Tinsel, paste, and dusty bones--all humbug and
extortion."
Something in the scornful accent and the deep voice aroused the
suspicions of the verger, though the words were spoken in English.
"Our treasury, M'sieur," croaked he, more ravenly than ever, "is
rich--rich in episcopal jewels; in relics--inestimable relics. Tickets
two francs each."
Grateful, however, for the timely caution, I acknowledged my
countryman's courtesy by a bow, declined the proffered investment, and
went out again into the sunny streets.
At five o'clock I found myself installed near the head of an immensely
long dinner-table in the _salle à manger_ of the Cheval Blanc. The
_salle à manger_ was a magnificent temple radiant with mirrors, and
lustres, and panels painted in fresco. The dinner was an imposing rite,
served with solemn ceremonies by ministering waiters. There were about
thirty guests seated round, in august silence, most of them very smartly
dressed, and nearly all English. A stout gentleman, with a little knob
on the top of his bald head, a buff waistcoat, and a shirt amply
frilled, sat opposite to me, flanked on either side by an elderly
daughter in green silk. On my left I was supported by a thin young
gentleman with fair hair, and blue glasses. To my right stood a vacant
chair, the occupant of which had not yet arrived; and at the head of the
table sat a spare pale man dressed all in black, who spoke to no one,
kept his eyes fixed upon his plate, and was served by the waiters with
especial servility. The soup came and went in profound silence. Faint
whispers passed to and fro with the fish. It was not till the roast made
its appearance that anything like conversation broke the sacred silence
of the meal. At this point the owner of the vacant chair arrived, and
took his place beside me. I recognised him immediately. It was the
Englishman whom I had met in the Cathedral. We bowed, and presently he
spoke to me. In the meantime, he had every forgone item of the dinner
served to him as exactly as if he had not been late at table, and sipped
his soup with perfect deliberation while others were busy with the
sweets. Our conversation began, of course, with the weather and
the place.
"Your first visit to Rouen, I suppose?" said he. "Beautiful old city, is
it not? _Garçon_, a pint of Bordeaux-Leoville."
I modestly admitted that it was not only my first visit to Rouen, but my
first to the Continent.
"Ah, you may go farther than Rouen, and fare worse," said he. "Do you
sketch? No? That's a pity, for it's deliciously picturesque--though,
for my own part, I am not enthusiastic about gutters and gables, and I
object to a population composed exclusively of old women. I'm glad, by
the way, that I preserved you from wasting your time among the atrocious
lumber of that so-called treasury."
"The treasury!" exclaimed my slim neighbor with the blue glasses. "Beg
your p--p--pardon, sir, but are you speaking of the Cathedral treasury?
Is it worth v--v--visiting?"
"Singularly so," replied he to my right. "One of the rarest collections
of authentic curiosities in France. They have the snuff-box of Clovis,
the great toe of Saint Helena, and the tongs with which St. Dunstan took
the devil by the nose."
"Up--p--pon my word, now, that's curious," ejaculated the thin tourist,
who had an impediment in his speech. "I must p--p--put that down. Dear
me! the snuff-box of King Clovis! I must see these relics to-morrow."
"Be sure you ask for the great toe of St. Helena," said my right hand
companion, proceeding imperturbably with his dinner. "The saint had but
one leg at the period of her martyrdom, and that great toe is unique."
"G--g--good gracious!" exclaimed the tourist, pulling out a gigantic
note-book, and entering the fact upon the spot. "A saint with one
leg--and a lady, too! Wouldn't m--m--miss that for the world!"
I looked round, puzzled by the gravity of my new acquaintance.
"Is this all true?" I whispered. "You told me the treasury was a
humbug."
"And so it is."
"But the snuff-box of Clovis, and...."
"Pure inventions! The man's a muff, and on muffs I have no mercy. Do you
stay long in Rouen?"
"No, I go on to Paris to-morrow. I wish I could remain longer."
"I am not sure that you would gain more from a long visit than from a
short one. Some places are like some women, charming, _en passant_, but
intolerable upon close acquaintance. It is just so with Rouen. The place
contains no fine galleries, and no places of public entertainment; and
though exquisitely picturesque, is nothing more. One cannot always be
looking at old houses, and admiring old churches. You will be delighted
with Paris."
"B--b--beautiful city," interposed the stammerer, eager to join our
conversation, whenever he could catch a word of it. "I'm going to
P--P--Paris myself."
"Then, sir, I don't doubt you will do ample justice to its attractions,"
observed my right-hand neighbor. "From the size of your note-book, and
the industry with which you accumulate useful information, I should
presume that you are a conscientious observer of all that is recondite
and curious."
"I as--p--pire to be so," replied the other, with a blush and a bow. "I
m--m--mean to exhaust P--P--Paris. I'm going to write a b--b--book about
it, when I get home."'
My friend to the right flashed one glance of silent scorn upon the
future author, drained the last glass of his Bordeaux-Leoville, pushed
his chair impatiently back, and said:--"This place smells like a
kitchen. Will you come out, and have a cigar?"
So we rose, took our hats, and in a few moments were strolling under the
lindens on the Quai de Corneille.
I, of course, had never smoked in my life; and, humiliating though it
was, found myself obliged to decline a "prime Havana," proffered in the
daintiest of embroidered cigar-cases. My companion looked as if he
pitied me. "You'll soon learn," said he. "A man can't live in Paris
without tobacco. Do you stay there many weeks?"
"Two years, at least," I replied, registering an inward resolution to
conquer the difficulties of tobacco without delay. "I am going to study
medicine under an eminent French surgeon."
"Indeed! Well, you could not go to a better school, or embrace a nobler
profession. I used to think a soldier's life the grandest under heaven;
but curing is a finer thing than killing, after all! What a delicious
evening, is it not? If one were only in Paris, now, or Vienna,...."
"What, Oscar Dalrymple!" exclaimed a voice close beside us. "I should as
soon have expected to meet the great Panjandrum himself!"
"--With the little round button at top," added my companion, tossing
away the end of his cigar, and shaking hands heartily with the
new-comer. "By Jove, Frank, I'm glad to see you! What brings you here?"
"Business--confound it! And not pleasant business either. _A procés_
which my father has instituted against a great manufacturing firm here
at Rouen, and of which I have to bear the brunt. And you?"
"And I, my dear fellow? Pshaw! what should I be but an idler in search
of amusement?"
"Is it true that you have sold out of the Enniskillens?"
"Unquestionably. Liberty is sweet; and who cares to carry a sword in
time of peace? Not I, at all events."
While this brief greeting was going forward, I hung somewhat in the
rear, and amused myself by comparing the speakers. The new-comer was
rather below than above the middle height, fair-haired and boyish, with
a smile full of mirth and an eye full of mischief. He looked about two
years my senior. The other was much older--two or three and thirty, at
the least--dark, tall, powerful, finely built; his wavy hair clipped
close about his sun-burnt neck; a thick moustache of unusual length; and
a chest that looked as if it would have withstood the shock of a
battering-ram. Without being at all handsome, there was a look of
brightness, and boldness, and gallantry about him that arrested one's
attention at first sight. I think I should have taken him for a soldier,
had I not already gathered it from the last words of their conversation.
"Who is your friend?" I heard the new-comer whisper.
To which the other replied:--"Haven't the ghost of an idea."
Presently he took out his pocket-book, and handing me a card, said:--
"We are under the mutual disadvantage of all chance acquaintances. My
name is Dalrymple--Oscar Dalrymple, late of the Enniskillen Dragoons. My
friend here is unknown to fame as Mr. Frank Sullivan; a young gentleman
who has the good fortune to be younger partner in a firm of merchant
princes, and the bad taste to dislike his occupation."
How I blushed as I took Captain Dalrymple's card, and stammered out my
own name in return! I had never possessed a card in my life, nor needed
one, till this moment. I rather think that Captain Dalrymple guessed
these facts, for he shook hands with me at once, and put an end to my
embarrassment by proposing that we should take a boat, and pull a mile
or two up the river. The thing was no sooner said than done. There were
plenty of boats below the iron bridge; so we chose one of the cleanest,
and jumped into it without any kind of reference to the owner, whoever
he might be.
"_Batelier, Messieurs? Batelier_?" cried a dozen men at once, rushing
down to the water's edge.
But Dalrymple had already thrown off his coat, and seized the oars.
"_Batelier_, indeed!" laughed he, as with two or three powerful strokes
he carried us right into the middle, of the stream. "Trust an Oxford man
for employing any arms but his own, when a pair of sculls are in
question!"
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