Like the Englishman who had no prejudices, I do hate a Frenchman; and
there were many Frenchmen among our passengers on the _Messina_, in
whose company I could hardly have been happy, had I not seen them
horribly sea-sick. After the imprudent old gentleman of the sardines
and fruit-pie, these wretched Gauls were the first to be seized with
the malady, which became epidemic, and were miserable up to the last
moment on board. To the enormity of having been born Frenchmen, they
added the crime of being commercial travellers,--a class of fellow-men
of whom we know little at home, but who are met everywhere in European
travel. They spend more than half their lives in movement from place
to place, and they learn to snatch from every kind of travel its
meagre comforts, with an insolent disregard of the rights and feelings
of other passengers. They excuse an abominable trespass with a cool
"Pardon!" take the best seat everywhere, and especially treat women
with a savage rudeness, to which an American vainly endeavors to
accustom his temper. I have seen commercial travellers of all nations,
and I think I must award the French nation the discredit of producing
the most odious commercial travellers in the world. The Englishman
of this species wraps himself in his rugs, and rolls into his corner,
defiantly, but not aggressively, boorish; the Italian is almost a
gentleman; the German is apt to take sausage out of a newspaper and
eat it with his penknife; the Frenchman aggravates human nature beyond
endurance by his restless ill-breeding, and his evident intention not
only to keep all his own advantages, but to steal some of yours upon
the first occasion. There were three of these monsters on our
steamer: one a slight, bloodless young man, with pale blue eyes and
an incredulous grin; another, a gigantic full-bearded animal in
spectacles; the third an infamous plump little creature, in absurdly
tight pantaloons, with a cast in his eye, and a habit of sucking his
teeth at table. When this wretch was not writhing in the agonies of
sea-sickness, he was on deck with his comrades, lecturing them upon
various things, to which the bloodless young man listened with his
incredulous grin, and the bearded giant in spectacles attended with a
choked look about the eyes, like a suffering ox. They were constantly
staggering in and out of their state-room, which, for my sins, was
also mine; and opening their abominable commodious travelling bags, or
brushing their shaggy heads at the reeling mirror, and since they
were born into the world, I think they had never cleaned their
finger-nails. They wore their hats at dinner, but always went away,
after soup, deadly pale.