London was represented by Paolo Lucchese, and four Englishmen were also present, the four who saw most of foreigners who had been to England and of Englishmen who had been abroad: namely, William Cooke of Douay, the host of the "Golden Head" at Calais, another of Dieppe whose name and whose sign are alike illegible, and lastly the notorious Zacharias of Genoa, who told how he had been wrecked in West Indian seas and had swum twenty-two leagues with the ship's carpenter, pushing the latter's tool-chest before him, and how the tinder-box which he put in his hair did not even get wet; all just as he told it to Evelyn years afterwards, until every one got tired of him. The only Scot was Miltoun of the "Croix de Fer" at Paris (Rue St. Martin).

From France the delegates were Robert Buquet of Rouen, Du Peyrat of Loudun, Parracan of Arles, whose inn had no sign because his wine was so good that it needed none, Christopher Prezel of the "Lion d'Or de la Lanterne" of Lyons—but a full list is, after all, of no great interest. It is sufficient to say, to give some idea of the value that attaches to the report of the proceedings, that almost every delegate was a host in himself. For the rest, genealogists in the employ of American millionaires can have access direct to the manuscript; such things are best left in private hands.

The ladies, however, must not be omitted. Old Donna Justina of Venice was there, in spite of its being as much as thirty years earlier that De Thou had been recommended to her as the only innkeeper of the city in whose house none but respectable women were to be found. Berenguela de Rebolledo likewise attended, lady-in-waiting at an inn at Madrid, cheerful, inquisitive, and a flirt, just as Pablos de Segovia knew her, with a bit of a lisp, scared of mice, vain of her hands, and a blush-rose and gloire-de-Dijon complexion. Then there was Marie Beltram, who ran the "venta" the other side of Yrun, and the girl harpist who played at the inns at Brussels, of whom the appropriate remark to make was to quote,—

Two elderly parties were likewise present who, thirty years earlier, had been the two pretty daughters of the one-eyed host of the "Red Lion" at Dordrecht, the same host who warned Van Buchell, the antiquary, when a youngster, against French girls. They were given, he said, to making advances; once one kissed him, and for a long time afterwards he did not think he could live without her.

But the belle of the congress seems to have been the daughter of the innkeeper at Bourgoin, the second post-house this side of Chambéry, since there is a marginal note against her name, evidently retained from the original, "Ista capit biscottum." This confirms the account given of her by Lord Herbert of Cherbury in his autobiography; his friends had told him she was the most beautiful girl they had ever seen, so he rode over from Lyons to see her, "and after about an hour's stay departed thence without offering so much as the least incivility." Finally there was a widow from Tours; the one from the "Three Kings," known as "La Gogueline"; the other widow of Tours, of the "Three Moors," stayed at home, fearing to endanger her reputation as the "mother of the Germans" by so long an absence. Widow Gogueline, however, told the writer that the other was better known as their stepmother and that there was a rhyme which ran:—

It was taken for granted that the president must be an Italian; and Francisco Marco of Venice was chosen for that geniality of his that in years to come was to charm James Howell. He opened the proceedings with some graceful presidential irrelevancies, commenting on the antiquity and fame of Rothenburg and so forth, and then explained the purposes of this Innkeepers' Congress as twofold. Its primary object, he said, was the advancement of God's glory; secondly, the furtherance of the interests of innkeepers and their customers, which, he added, were at bottom identical. The committee had invited certain of the delegates who were especially well acquainted with foreigners to explain, or refute, what visitors found objectionable. The assembled innkeepers could then return able to inform, each one his own countrymen, before the latter's departure, what must be looked for in the parts he was travelling towards, and how unavoidable, and even desirable, those characteristics were. The president therefore called upon Messer Bevigliano ("Chiavi d'Oro," Florence) to speak for Italy.

Three things, said Messer Bevigliano, hinder us Italians from doing our best for the community: the licensing system, 'tied-houses,' and labour difficulties. I should be the last to suggest the abolition of our picturesque custom in use when an inn is to be let. At the auction a candle is lighted: the highest bid before the candle goes out wins the business. But the periods of tenancy, one and six years, alternately, in Florentine territory, are inconvenient. Far worse, however, are the prices extorted, especially from those who keep inns outside the gates of towns, the use of which is so necessary to such as are compelled to arrive late, or wish to leave early. Even apart from these, the majority pay 100-150 crowns (£150-£225 present value) for their licenses; some 500 or 600. At Venice wine-shops and inns pay 1000 crowns. The proportion this bears to the rent may be judged from the case of an old widow I know 8 miles from Florence whose rent was 23 crowns and whose license was 56. Another inn, kept by a shoemaker, a freehold house worth 6 crowns a year, pays 20 crowns for license, while the other license, for shoemaking, only costs a Giulio and a half.

What I mean by a 'tied' house is one which belongs to the owner of a large estate who allows nothing to be sold there except the produce of that estate.

Lastly, as to labour, the custom of the country is against the use of women-servants, against even the host's wife and daughter assisting him. What, Messer Bevigliano concluded, apart from ordinary routine-work, would happen to your Fair at Mülhausen if there were no girls to serve the drinks?

Next came Francisco Marques of Alicante, well known to sailors of every nationality. What he laid most stress on has in the main been anticipated by Charles II and Lady Fanshawe, but he supplemented it as follows: In the towns clean and comfortable beds were to be had, with meals ready. Many posadas, he admitted, provided nothing but utensils, table-linen, oil, salt, vinegar; yet travellers were then neither better nor worse off than in Poland, Bohemia, and Picardy, where the custom was likewise. As for the wayside inns which gave nothing but a roof and horse-provender, they barely existed outside Castile and Aragon, and there the wayfarer should prepare accordingly, as the Spaniard did, who journeyed with a bag full of provisions on each side of the saddle and a bottle of wine to each bag. As to the supposed lack of meat, he went on, most Spaniards are vegetarians; and considering the achievements of the Spanish infantry, I do not think any one can find fault with the principle. Neither does this apply to the lower classes only, for we have a rhyme which says:—

and so far from altering our ways, the ancient rule that a gentleman who has partaken of onions shall absent himself from court for eight days has fallen into abeyance. For those who prefer meat, there is plenty. Fowls, I know, are scarce, and you are so used to fowls that you think "no fowls, no meat"; and yet, I remember when I was a small boy and Queen Anne arrived at Santander to marry good King Philip II, she was presented there with two hundred fowls and a calf. As to sheep, ask the eight Germans who recently ate a whole one between them; besides, does not the famous Lazarillo de Tormes tell us that it is the regular thing at Maqueda to eat sheep's heads on Saturdays at three maravedis apiece? and on fast days we have special permission to eat cow-heels and sucking pigs. Now, how can these things be if we have no sheep nor cows nor little pigs? On the contrary, you Germans, who take so well justified a pride in your bacon at home, how is it you say nothing about it after a week or so with us? Why, we have an author, Lope da Vega Carpio, who will soon be recognised as the greatest writer since Seneca, who always takes a rasher of our bacon before starting to write, as a stimulant!

But I can quote something better than your own experience—the words of the King and of St. Michael. Charles V advised the great Alonzo de Guzman against going to Italy, "Better stay at home and kill rabbits on your own hills and eat them than be killed by the sea and be eaten by the fishes": and when the said Alonzo dreamed that he was dead, St. Michael appeared and sentenced him to return to earth for his misdeeds and eat roast meat and be content; and Alonzo found himself able to arrange for roast duck in summertime and an "olla" keeping hot in the chimney in winter. If I say nothing as to wild boar and partridge, it is merely because it is getting late. But I will just add this in confidence, that people, we find, pay more willingly when the bill is accompanied by a cheerful "Y haga les buen provecho."

The Muscovy delegate, "Cologne Jimmy" of Nerva, had drawn the third place; but being temporarily bereft of his faculties by the number of drinks new to him, a discussion was substituted at the instance of M. Petit, who enjoyed most of the French custom at Rome, on the evil of free board and lodging which various institutions provided, a most demoralising custom and very hard on those who wished to gain an honest living. At Seville and Montserrat, he had heard, things had come to well-to-do people being given fish as well as bread, and at Amsterdam foundations were even being instituted on a secular basis. That they might be in a better position to take action, it was proposed to form an Innkeepers' Association, but when an Irish waiter from Madrid suggested as a motto, "Pediculus pro comite jucundo," recriminations ensued which soon rendered adjournment necessary.

Nevertheless, at the banquet in the evening all passed off happily in the traditional way.

The next day began well too, with the speech of Jean Busson ("Le Fardeau" Dieppe), who excused the faults of the French host as attributable to the civil wars, and said that whether or no religion was "reformed," cookery certainly was, and that in future the traditions of Guillot's of Amiens would be upheld. At the same time he felt he would be next door to a traitor if he owned to any serious faults, for supposing that such were imagined, French chambermaids could be trusted to keep the visitors happy (great applause). But he had a proposal to bring forward. He found they had a custom in Germany, which was also used at Bourges, which deserved extension. He referred to the watchmen who lived at the top of the town belfry and signalled the approach of travellers to those below by means of flags; at Ferrara and Bruges and elsewhere, the signalling was done with bells. Now this ought to be customary everywhere, and whereas here in Germany the watchmen descended at meal-times and made a collection at the inns, surely the municipal authorities ought to pay them. A resolution to this effect was passed unanimously.

The Low Country delegates caused considerable dissatisfaction by their memorial insisting that nobody had complaints to make of their inns, nor would there be any anywhere if pains were taken to be up-to-date and, above all things, clean. But their brethren were grateful for the warning that it was becoming the custom with travellers to slip leaden bullets into the cheese, where they found the custom in vogue of charging for it according to the difference in weight before and after it was set on the table; and agreed with them when they pointed out that the system of putting up a list of things customers might not do and fining them when these rules were transgressed, was breaking down. An innkeeper from Augsburg gave an instance; his request, he said, not to foul the walls was so far from being heeded that he kept one man at work cleaning them.

It was this member from Augsburg who brought about the unhappy ending of the Congress, for, in commenting on the Low Countrymen's strictures, he tactlessly quoted the Italian proverb "Dal hoste nuovo e dalla putana vecchia, Dio ci guarda," and then went on to lay it down as irrefutable that nobody grumbled unless he thought he had been done. This was easily avoided, he said; treat all alike; no man ever grumbled in Germany except new-comers and unreasonable people. Why? because Germans had fixed prices; the only system which was conformable with God's law. By this time the interpreters fairly trembled as they translated, but when, speaking as he did in Latin, he went on to apply to the system of variable charges the adjectives that were in daily use in theological controversy, the others understood without help and a battle ensued. First in words, beginning with shouts of "Pese al diablo," "Voto á Dios," and other Spanish expressions, of which, together with all the Italian, not even the initial letters could be printed, answered with "Bey Gott den Herrn," "Meine Seele," "Der Teufel hole dich," "Gottes Kranckheit," without, curiously enough, the use of a single one of those employed by historical novelists. To words succeeded blows; and there the Congress ended.