Notes of a Journey through France and Italy, By W. Hazlitt, was published in 1826, in an 8vo. volume (9 × 5¼ inches). Printed for Hunt and Clarke, Tavistock-Street, Covent-Garden. The printer’s name is given behind the title-page as ‘William Clowes, Northumberland-court,’ and the following lines from Cymbeline (Act III. 4.) appear underneath the author’s name on the title-page:—

As stated in the Advertisement, the Notes were reprinted from the Morning Chronicle, to which they had been contributed in 1824 and 1825. They are now reprinted for the first time since the publication of the volume of 1826, and as they appeared in that volume. A few passages which appeared in the papers as they came out in the Morning Chronicle, and were omitted when Hazlitt collected the letters in book-form, will be found among the notes at the end of the volume.

The following Notes of a Journey through France and Italy are reprinted from the columns of the Morning Chronicle. The favourable reception they met with there suggested the idea of the present work. My object has been to describe what I saw or remarked myself; or to give the reader some notion of what he might expect to find in travelling the same road. There is little of history or antiquities or statistics; nor do I regret the want of them, as it may be abundantly supplied from other sources. The only thing I could have wished to expatiate upon more at large is the manners of the country: but to do justice to this, a greater length of time and a more intimate acquaintance with society and the language would be necessary. Perhaps, at some future opportunity, this defect may be remedied.

CHAPTER I

The rule for travelling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind us. The object of travelling is to see and learn; but such is our impatience of ignorance, or the jealousy of our self-love, that we generally set up a certain preconception beforehand (in self-defence, or as a barrier against the lessons of experience,) and are surprised at or quarrel with all that does not conform to it. Let us think what we please of what we really find, but prejudge nothing. The English, in particular, carry out their own defects as a standard for general imitation; and think the virtues of others (that are not their vices) good for nothing. Thus they find fault with the gaiety of the French as impertinence, with their politeness as grimace. This repulsive system of carping and contradiction can extract neither use nor meaning from any thing, and only tends to make those who give way to it uncomfortable and ridiculous. On the contrary, we should be as seldom shocked or annoyed as possible, (it is our vanity or ignorance that is mortified much oftener than our reason!) and contrive to see the favourable side of things. This will turn both to profit and pleasure. The intellectual, like the physical, is best kept up by an exchange of commodities, instead of an ill-natured and idle search after grievances. The first thing an Englishman does on going abroad is to find fault with what is French, because it is not English. If he is determined to confine all excellence to his own country, he had better stay at home.

On arriving at Brighton (in the full season,) a lad offered to conduct us to an inn. ‘Did he think there was room?’ He was sure of it. ‘Did he belong to the inn?’ No, he was from London. In fact, he was a young gentleman from town, who had been stopping some time at the White-Horse Hotel, and who wished to employ his spare time (when he was not riding out on a blood-horse) in serving the house, and relieving the perplexities of his fellow-travellers. No one but a Londoner would volunteer his assistance in this way. Amiable land of Cockayne, happy in itself, and in making others happy! Blest exuberance of self-satisfaction, that overflows upon others! Delightful impertinence, that is forward to oblige them!

There is something in being near the sea, like the confines of eternity. It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that which is endless, and forever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea—I wonder at the sea itself, that vast Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops—Whence is it, whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing? Strange, ponderous riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension, ebbing and flowing like human life, and swallowing it up in thy remorseless womb,—what art thou? What is there in common between thy life and ours, who gaze at thee? Blind, deaf and old, thou seest not, hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and listen to thee! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness, unwieldy, enormous, preposterous twin-birth of matter, rest in thy dark, unfathomed cave of mystery, mocking human pride and weakness. Still is it given to the mind of man to wonder at thee, to confess its ignorance, and to stand in awe of thy stupendous might and majesty, and of its own being, that can question thine! But a truce with reflections.

The Pavilion at Brighton is like a collection of stone pumpkins and pepper-boxes. It seems as if the genius of architecture had at once the dropsy and the megrims. Any thing more fantastical, with a greater dearth of invention, was never seen. The King’s stud (if they were horses of taste) would petition against so irrational a lodging.

Brighton stands facing the sea, on the bare cliffs, with glazed windows to reflect the glaring sun, and black pitchy bricks shining like the scales of fishes. The town is however gay with the influx of London visitors—happy as the conscious abode of its sovereign! Every thing here appears in motion—coming or going. People at a watering-place may be compared to the flies of a summer; or to fashionable dresses, or suits of clothes walking about the streets. The only idea you gain is, of finery and motion. The road between London and Brighton presents some very charming scenery; Reigate is a prettier English country-town than is to be found anywhere—out of England! As we entered Brighton in the evening, a Frenchman was playing and singing to a guitar. It was a relief to the conversation in the coach, which had been chiefly supported in a nasal tone by a disciple of Mrs. Fry and amanuensis of philanthropy in general. As we heard the lively musician warble, we forgot the land of Sunday-schools and spinning-jennies. The genius of the South had come out to meet us.

We left Brighton in the steam-packet, and soon saw the shores of Albion recede from us. Out of sight, out of mind. How poor a geographer is the human mind! How small a space does the imagination take in at once! In travelling, our ideas change like the scenes of a pantomime, displacing each other as completely and rapidly. Long before we touched on French ground, the English coast was lost in distance, and nothing remained of it but a dim mist; it hardly seemed ‘in a great pool a swan’s nest.’ So shall its glory vanish like a vapour, its liberty like a dream!

We had a fine passage in the steam-boat (Sept. 1, 1824). Not a cloud, scarce a breath of air; a moon, and then star-light, till the dawn, with rosy fingers, ushered us into Dieppe. Our fellow-passengers were pleasant and unobtrusive, an English party of the better sort: a Member of Parliament, delighted to escape from ‘late hours and bad company;’ an English General, proud of his bad French; a Captain in the Navy, glad to enter a French harbour peaceably; a Country Squire, extending his inquiries beyond his paternal acres; the younger sons of wealthy citizens, refined through the strainers of a University-education and finishing off with foreign travel; a young Lawyer, quoting Peregrine Pickle, and divided between his last circuit and projected tour. There was also a young Dutchman, looking mild through his mustachios, and a new-married couple (a French Jew and Jewess) who grew uxorious from the effects of sea-sickness, and took refuge from the qualms of the disorder in paroxysms of tenderness. We had some difficulty in getting into the harbour, and had to wait till morning for the tide. I grew very tired, and laid the blame on the time lost in getting some restive horses on board, but found that if we had set out two hours sooner, we should only have had to wait two hours longer. The doctrine of Optimism is a very good and often a very true one in travelling. In advancing up the steps to give the officers our passport, I was prevented by a young man and woman, who said they were before me, and on making a second attempt, an elderly gentleman and lady set up the same claim, because they stood behind me. It seemed that a servant was waiting with passports for four. Persons in a certain class of life are so full of their own business and importance, that they imagine every one else must be aware of it—I hope this is the last specimen I shall for some time meet with of city-manners. After a formal custom-house search, we procured admittance at Pratt’s Hotel, where they said they had reserved a bed for a Lady. France is a country where they give honneur aux Dames. The window looked out on the bridge and on the river, which reflected the shipping and the houses; and we should have thought ourselves luckily off, but that the bed, which occupied a niche in the sitting-room, had that kind of odour which could not be mistaken for otto of roses.

Dieppe.—This town presents a very agreeable and romantic appearance to strangers. It is cut up into a number of distinct divisions by canals, drawbridges, and bastions, as if to intercept the progress of an enemy. The best houses, too, are shut up in close courts and high walls on the same principle, that is, to stand a further siege in the good old times. There are rows of lime-trees on the quay, and some of the narrow streets running from it look like wells. This town is a picture to look at; it is a pity that it is not a nosegay, and that the passenger who ventures to explore its nooks and alleys is driven back again by ‘a compound of villainous smells,’ which seem to grow out of the ground. In walking the streets, one must take one’s nose with one, and that sense is apt to be offended in France as well as in Scotland. Is it hence called in French the organ of sense? The houses and the dresses are equally old-fashioned. In France one lives in the imagination of the past; in England every thing is new and on an improved plan. Such is the progress of mechanical invention! In Dieppe there is one huge, misshapen, but venerable-looking Gothic Church (a theological fixture,) instead of twenty new-fangled erections, Egyptian, Greek or Coptic. The head-dresses of the women are much the same as those which the Spectator laughed out of countenance a hundred years ago in England, with high plaited crowns, and lappets hanging down over the shoulders. The shape and colours of the bodice and petticoat are what we see in Dutch pictures; the faces of the common people we are familiarized with in Mieris and Jan Steen. They are full and fair like the Germans, and have not the minced and peaked character we attribute to the French. They are not handsome, but good-natured, expressive, placid. They retain the look of peasants more than the town’s-people with us, whether from living more in the open air, or from greater health and temperance, I cannot say. What I like in their expression (so far) is not the vivacity, but the goodness, the simplicity, the thoughtful resignation. The French are full of gesticulation when they speak; they have at other times an equal appearance of repose and content. You see the figure of a girl sitting in the sun, so still that her dress seems like streaks of red and black chalk against the wall; a soldier reading; a group of old women (with skins as tough, yellow, and wrinkled as those of a tortoise) chatting in a corner and laughing till their sides are ready to split; or a string of children tugging a fishing-boat out of the harbour as evening goes down, and making the air ring with their songs and shouts of merriment (a sight to make Mr. Malthus shudder!). Life here glows, or spins carelessly round on its soft axle. The same animal spirits that supply a fund of cheerful thoughts, break out into all the extravagance of mirth and social glee. The air is a cordial to them, and they drink drams of sunshine. My particular liking to the French is, however, confined to their natural and unsophisticated character. The good spirits ‘with which they are clothed and fed,’ and which eke out the deficiencies of fortune or good government, are perhaps too much for them, when joined with external advantages, or artificial pretensions. Their vivacity becomes insolence in office; their success, presumption; their gentility, affectation and grimace. But the national physiognomy (taken at large) is the reflection of good temper and humanity. One thing is evident, and decisive in their favour—they do not insult or point at strangers, but smile on them good-humouredly, and answer them civilly.

Nothing shews the contented soul within, so much as our not seeking for amusement in the mortifications of others: we only envy their advantages, or sneer at their defects, when we are conscious of wanting something ourselves. The customs and employments of the people here have a more primitive and picturesque appearance than in England. Is it that with us every thing is made domestic and commodious, instead of being practised in the open air, and subject to the casualties of the elements? For instance, you see the women washing clothes in the river, with their red petticoats and bare feet, instead of standing over a washing-tub. Human life with us is framed and set in comforts: but it wants the vivid colouring, the glowing expression that we meet elsewhere. After all, is not the romantic effect produced partly owing to the novelty of the scene; or do we not attribute to a superiority in others what is merely a greater liveliness of impression in ourselves, arising from curiosity and contrast? If this were all, foreigners ought to be as much delighted with us, but they are not. A man and woman came and sung ‘God save the King,’ before the windows of the Hotel, as if the French had so much loyalty at present that they can spare us some of it. What an opinion must they have formed of the absurd nationality of the English, to suppose that we can expect them to feel this sort of mock-sentiment towards our King! What English ballad-singer would dream of flattering the French visitors by a song in praise of Louis le Desiré before a Brighton or a Dover Hotel?

As the door opened just now, I saw the lad or garçon, who waits on us, going up stairs with a looking-glass, and admiring himself in it. If he is pleased with himself, he is no less satisfied with us, and with every thing else.

CHAPTER II

The road from Dieppe to Rouen is highly interesting. You at first ascend a straight steep hill, which commands a view of the town and harbour behind you, with villas on each side, something between modern cottages and antique castles; and afterwards, from the top of the hill, the prospect spreads out over endless plains, richly cultivated. It has been conjectured that the English borrowed their implements and modes of husbandry from their Norman Conquerors; the resemblance is, indeed, complete to a deception. You might suppose one side of the channel was transported to the other, from the general aspect of the country, from the neatness of the orchard-plots, the gardens, and farm-yards. Every thing has a look of the greatest industry and plenty. There is a scanty proportion of common pasturage; but rich fields of clover, oats, barley, and vetches, with luxuriant crops ready to cut, are presented to the eye in uninterrupted succession; there are no wastes, no barren, thankless enclosures; every foot of ground seems to be cultivated with the utmost success. It is in vain after this to talk of English agriculture, as if no such thing existed anywhere else. Agriculture can do no more than make provision that every part of the soil is carefully tilled, and raise the finest crops from it. The only distinctive feature is, that there are here no hedges along the road-side, their place being supplied by rows of apple-trees or groves of elm and poplar, which stretch out before you in lengthened vistas, as far as the eye can reach. We like this, whatever Mr. Mac-Adam may object; and moreover, the roads here are as good as his. To be sure, they are much broader, and admit of this collateral improvement. Shady plantations open their arms to meet you, closing in a point, or terminated by a turn in the road; and then you enter upon another long hospitable avenue,

the smiling landscape waves on either side to a considerable extent; you pass a shepherd tending his flock, or a number of peasants returning from market in a light long waggon, like a hen-coop; the bells of the horses jingle, the postilion cracks his whip, or speaks to them with a friendly voice, and the Diligence rolls on, at the rate of six miles an hour towards Paris!—Travelling is much cheaper in France than in England. The distance from Dieppe to Rouen is thirty-six miles, and we only paid eight francs, that is, six shillings and eight pence a-piece, with two francs more to the guide and postilion, which is not fourpence a mile, including all expenses. On the other hand, you have not the advantage of taking an outside place at half-price, as a very trifling difference is made in this respect.

The Diligence itself cuts a very awkward figure, compared with our stage-coaches. There is much the same difference as between a barge and a pleasure-boat; but then it is roomy and airy, and remarkably easy in its motion. In the common mechanic arts the French attend to the essential only; we are so fond of elegance and compactness, that we sacrifice ease to show and finish. The harness of the horses is made of ropes or rusty leather, and it is wonderful how they get along so well as they do, three, or sometimes four a-breast. The apples of the orchards hang over the road-side, which speaks well for the honesty of the inhabitants, or the plenty of the country. The women appear to work a good deal out of doors. Some of the older ones have strangely distorted visages, and those horrid Albert-Durer chins and noses, that have been coming together for half a century. The younger ones are handsome, healthy-looking, animated; a better sort of English country girls. The character of French coquetry prevails even here, and you see a young peasant-girl, broiling in the sun, with a blue paper cap on her head, that glitters like the smoothest satin, and that answers the purpose of finery just as well. I observed that one man frequently holds the plough and guides the horses without any one else to assist him, as they do in Scotland, and which in England they hold to be an agricultural heresy. In Surrey, where an English gentleman had hired a Scotch servant to try this method, the boors actually collected round the man in the church-yard on Sunday, and pointed at him, crying, ‘That’s he who ploughs and drives the horses himself!’ Our prejudices are no less on the alert, and quite as obstinate against what is right as what is wrong. I cannot say I was quite pleased with my barber at Dieppe, who inserted a drop of citron juice in the lather I was to shave with, and converted it into a most agreeable perfume. It was an association of ideas, a false refinement, to which I had not been accustomed, and to which I was averse. The best excuse I could find for my reluctance to be pleased, was that at the next place where the same thing was attempted, the operator, by some villainous mixture, almost stunk me to death!

The entrance into Rouen, through extensive archways of tall trees, planted along the margin of the Seine, is certainly delectable. Here the genius of civilized France first began to display itself. Companies of men and women were sitting in the open air, enjoying the cool of the evening, and the serene moonlight, under Chinese lamps, with fruit and confectionery. We arrived rather late, but were well received and accommodated at the Hotel Vatel. My bad French by no means, however, conciliates the regard or increases the civility of the people on the road. They pay particular attention, and are particularly delighted with the English, who speak French well, or with tolerable fluency and correctness, for they think it a compliment to themselves and to the language; whereas, besides their dislike to all difficulty and uncertainty of communication, they resent an obvious neglect on this point as an affront, and an unwarrantable assumption of superiority, as if it were enough for an Englishman to shew himself among them to be well received, without so much as deigning to make himself intelligible. A person, who passes through a country in sullen silence, must appear very much in the character of a spy. Many things (a native is conscious) will seem strange to a foreigner, who can neither ask the meaning, nor understand the explanation of them; and on the other hand, if in these circumstances you are loquacious and inquisitive, you become proportionably troublesome. It would have been better (such is the natural feeling, the dictate at once of self-love and common sense) to have learned the language before you visited the country. An accent, an occasional blunder, a certain degree of hesitation are amusing, and indirectly flatter the pride of foreigners; but a total ignorance or wilful reluctance in speaking shews both a contempt for the people, and an inattention to good manners. To neglect to make one’s self master of a language tacitly implies, that in travelling through a country we have neither wants nor wishes to gratify; that we are quite independent, and have no ambition to give pleasure, or to receive instruction.

At Rouen the walls of our apartment were bare, being mere lath and plaster, a huge cobweb hung in the window, the curtains were shabby and dirty, and the floor without carpeting or matting; but our table was well-furnished, and in the English taste. French cooking comprehends English, and easily condescends to it; so that an Englishman finds himself better off in France than a Frenchman does in England. They complain that our cookery is dry, and our solid, unsavoury morsels, beef-steaks, and mutton chops, must stick in their throats as well as be repulsive to their imaginations; nor can we supply the additional sauces or disguises which are necessary to set them off. On the other hand, we had a dinner at the Hotel Vatel, a roast fowl, greens, and bacon, as plain, as sweet, and wholesome, as we could get at an English farm-house. We had also pigeons, partridges, and other game, in excellent preservation, and kept quite clear of French receipts and odious ragouts. Game or poultry is the half-way house, a sort of middle point, between French and English cookery. The bread here is excellent, the butter admirable, the milk and coffee superior to what we meet with at home. The wine and fruit, too, are delightful, but real French dishes are an abomination to an English palate. Unless a man means to stay all his life abroad, let him beware of making the experiment, or get near enough to the door to make his exit suddenly. The common charges at the inns are much the same as in England; we paid twenty-pence for breakfast, and half a crown, or three shillings, for dinner. The best Burgundy is only three shillings and fourpence a bottle. A green parrot hung in a cage, in a small court under our window, and received the compliments and caresses of every one who passed. It is wonderful how fond the French are of holding conversation with animals of all descriptions, parrots, dogs, monkeys. Is it that they choose to have all the talk to themselves, to make propositions, and fancy the answers; that they like this discourse by signs, by jabbering, and gesticulation, or that the manifestation of the principle of life without thought delights them above all things? The sociableness of the French seems to expand itself beyond the level of humanity, and to be unconscious of any descent. Two boys in the kitchen appeared to have nothing to do but to beat up the white of eggs into froth for salads. The labour of the French costs them nothing, so that they readily throw it away in doing nothing or the merest trifles. A nice-looking girl who officiated as chamber-maid, brought in a ripe melon after dinner, and offering it with much grace and good humour as ‘un petit cadeau’ (a trifling present) was rather hurt we did not accept of it. Indeed it was wrong. A Mr. James Williams acted as our English interpreter while we staid, and procured us places in the Paris Diligence, though it was said to be quite full. We here also heard that the packet we came over in, blew up two days after, and that the passengers escaped in fishing-boats. This has completed my distaste to steam-boats.

The city of Rouen is one of the oldest and finest in France. It contains about a hundred thousand inhabitants, two noble churches; a handsome quay is embosomed in a range of lofty hills, and watered by the Seine, which, proud of its willowy banks and tufted islands, winds along by it. The ascent up the rising grounds behind it, is magnificent beyond description. The town is spread out at your feet (an immense, stately mass of dark grey stone), the double towers of the old Gothic Cathedral, and of the beautiful Church of St. Antoine, rise above it in their majestic proportions, overlooking the rich sunny valleys which stretch away in the distance; you gradually climb an amphitheatre of hills, sprinkled with gardens and villas to the very top, and the walk on Sunday afternoon is crowded with people enjoying the scene, adding to its animation by their intelligent, varying looks, and adorning it by their picturesque and richly-coloured dresses. There is no town in England at the same time so fine, and so finely situated. Oxford is as fine in its buildings and associations, but it has not the same advantages of situation: Bristol is as fine a mass of buildings, but without the same striking accompaniments—

Edinburgh alone is as splendid in its situation and buildings, and would have even a more imposing and delightful effect if Arthur’s Seat were crowned with thick woods, if the Pentland-hills could be converted into green pastures, if the Scotch people were French, and Leith-walk planted with vineyards! The only blot in this fair scene was the meeting with a number of cripples, whose hideous cries attracted and alarmed attention before their formidable mutilations became visible, and who extorted charity rather from terror than pity. Such objects abound in France and on the Continent. Is it from the want of hospitals, or from the bad care taken of the young and necessitous, to whom some dreadful accident has happened?—The hill that commands this beautiful prospect, and seems the resort of health, of life, of pleasure, is called (as I found on inquiry) Mont des Malades! Would any people but the French think of giving it so inauspicious a title? To the English such a name would spoil the view, and infect the imagination with the recollections of pain and sickness. But a Frenchman’s imagination is proof against such weaknesses; he has no sympathy except with the pleasurable; and provided a hill presents an agreeable prospect, never troubles his head whether the inhabitants are sick or well. The streets of Rouen, like those of other towns in France, are dirty for the same reason. A Frenchman’s senses and understanding are alike inaccessible to pain—he recognises (happily for himself) the existence only of that which adds to his importance or his satisfaction. He is delighted with perfumes, but passes over the most offensive smells,^[12] and will not lift up his little finger to remove a general nuisance, for it is none to him. He leaves the walls of his houses unfinished, dilapidated, almost uninhabitable, because his thoughts are bent on adorning his own person—on jewels, trinkets, pomade divine! He is elaborate in his cookery and his dress, because the one flatters his vanity, the other his appetite; and he is licentious in his pleasures, nay gross in his manners, because in the first he consults only his immediate gratification, and in the last annoys others continually, from having no conception that any thing he (a Frenchman) can do can possibly annoy them. He is sure to offend, because he takes it for granted he must please. A great deal of ordinary French conversation might be spared before foreigners, if they knew the pain it gives. Virtue is not only put out of countenance by it, but vice becomes an indifferent common-place in their mouths. The last stage of human depravity is, when vice ceases to shock—or to please. A Frenchman’s candour and indifference to what must be thought of him (combined with his inordinate desire to shine) are curious. The hero of his own little tale carries a load of crimes and misfortunes at his back like a lead of band-boxes, and (light-hearted wretch) sings and dances as he goes! The inconsequentiality in the French character, from extreme facility and buoyancy of impression, is a matter of astonishment to the English. A young man at Rouen was walking briskly along the street to church, all the way tossing his prayer-book into the air, when suddenly on reaching the entrance a priest appeared coming from church, and he fell on his knees on the steps. No wonder the Popish clergy stand up for their religion, when it makes others fall on their knees before them, and worship their appearance as the shadow of the Almighty! The clergy in France present an agreeable and almost necessary foil to the foibles of the national character, with their sombre dress, their gravity, their simplicity, their sanctity. It is not strange they exert such an influence there: their professional pretensions to learning and piety must have a double weight, from having nothing to oppose to them but frivolity and the impulse of the moment. The entering the Cathedral here after the bustle and confusion of the streets, is like entering a vault—a tomb of worldly thoughts and pleasures, pointing to the skies. The slow and solemn movements of the Priests, as grave as they are unmeaning, resemble the spells of necromancers; the pictures and statues of the dead contrast strangely with the faces of the living; the chaunt of the Priests sounds differently from the jargon of the common people; the little oratories and cells, with some lone mourner kneeling before a crucifix, every thing leads the thoughts to another world, to death, the resurrection, and a judgment to come. The walls and ornaments of this noble pile are left in a state of the most lamentable neglect, and the infinite number of paltry, rush-bottomed chairs, huddled together in the aisle, are just like the rubbish of a broker’s shop. The great bell of the Cathedral is the most deep-mouthed I ever heard, ‘swinging slow with sullen roar,’ rich and sonorous, and hoarse with counting the flight of a thousand years. It is worth while to visit France, were it only to see Rouen.

CHAPTER III

The Road to Paris.—They vaunt much of the Lower Road from Rouen to Paris; but it is not so fine as that from Dieppe to Rouen. You have comparatively few trees, the soil is less fertile, and you are (nearly the whole way) tantalized with the vast, marshy-looking plains of Normandy, with the Seine glittering through them like a snake, and a chain of abrupt chalky hills, like a wall or barrier bounding them. There is nothing I hate like a distant prospect without any thing interesting in it—it is continually dragging the eye a wearisome journey, and repaying it with barrenness and deformity. Yet a Frenchman contrived to make a panegyric on this scene, after the fashion of his countrymen, and with that sort of tripping jerk which is peculiar to their minds and bodies—‘Il y a de l’eau, il y a des bois, il y a des montagnes, il y a de la verdure,’ &c. It is true, there were all these things in the abstract, or as so many detached particulars to make a speech about, which was all that he wanted. A Frenchman’s eye for nature is merely nominal. I find that with the novelty, or on farther experience my enthusiasm for the country and the people, palls a little. During a long day’s march (for I was too late, or rather too ill to go by the six o’clock morning Diligence,) I got as tired of toiling on under a scorching sun and over a dusty road, as if I had been in England. Indeed, I could almost have fancied myself there, for I scarcely met with a human being to remind me of the difference. I at one time encountered a horseman mounted on a demipique saddle, in a half military uniform, who seemed determined to make me turn out of the foot-path,^[13] or to ride over me. This looked a little English, though the man did not. I should take him for an Exciseman. I suppose in all countries people on horseback give themselves airs of superiority over those who are on foot. The French character is not altogether compounded of the amiable, any more than the English is of the respectable. In judging of nations, it will not do to deal in mere abstractions. In countries, as well as individuals, there is a mixture of good and bad qualities; yet we may attempt to strike a general balance, and compare the rules with the exceptions. Soon after my equestrian adventure (or escape,) I met with another pleasanter one; a little girl, with regular features and dark eyes, dressed in white, and with a large straw bonnet flapping over her face, was mounted behind a youth who seemed to be a relation, on an ass—a common mode of conveyance in this country. The young lad was trying to frighten her, by forcing the animal out of its usual easy pace into a canter, while she, holding fast, and between laughing and crying, called out in a voice of great sweetness and naïveté—‘Il n’est pas bon trotter, il n’est pas bon trotter.’ There was a playfulness in the expression of her terrors quite charming, and quite French. They turned down an avenue to a villa a little way out of the road. I could not help looking after them, and thinking what a delightful welcome must await such innocence, such cheerfulness, and such dark sparkling eyes! Mais allons. These reflections are perhaps misplaced: France is not at present altogether the land of gallantry or sentiment, were one ever so much disposed to them.

Within half a mile of Louviers (which is seven leagues from Rouen) a Diligence passed me on the road at the full speed of a French Diligence, rolling and rumbling on its way over a paved road, with five clumsy-looking horses, and loaded to the top like a Plymouth van. I was to stop at Louviers, at the Hotel de Mouton, and to proceed to Paris by the coach the next day; for I was told there was no conveyance onwards that day, and I own that this apparition of a Diligence in full sail, and in broad day (when I had understood there were none but night coaches) surprised me. I was going to set it down in ‘my tables,’ that there is no faith to be placed in what they say at French inns. I quickened my pace in hopes of overtaking it while it changed horses. The main street of Louviers appeared to me very long and uneven. On turning a corner, the Hotel de Mouton opened its gates to receive me, the Diligence was a little farther on, with fresh horses just put to and ready to start (a critical and provoking dilemma;) I hesitated a moment, and at last resolved to take my chance in the Diligence, and seeing Paris written on the outside, and being informed by Monsieur le Conducteur, that I could stop at Evreux for the night, I took the rest for granted, and mounted in the cabriolet, where sat an English gentleman (one of those with whom I had come over in the steam-boat,) solitary and silent. My seating myself in the opposite corner of the cabriolet (which is that part of a French Diligence which is placed in front, and resembles a post-chaise in form and ease,) did not break the solitude or the silence. In company, two negatives do not make an affirmative. I know few things more delightful than for two Englishmen to loll in a post-chaise in this manner, taking no notice of each other, preserving an obstinate silence, and determined to send their country to Coventry.^[14] We pretended not to recognise each other, and yet our saying nothing proved every instant that we were not French. At length, about half way, my companion opened his lips, and asked in thick, broken French, ‘How far it was to Evreux?’ I looked at him, and said in English, ‘I did not know.’ Not another word passed, yet, I dare say, both of us had a very agreeable time of it, as the Diligence moved on to Evreux, making reflections on the national character, and each thinking himself an exception to its absurdities, an instance of its virtues; so easy is it always (and more particularly abroad) to fancy ourselves free from the errors we witness in our neighbours. It is this, indeed, which makes us so eager to detect them, as if to see what is wrong was the same thing as being in the right!

At Evreux, I found I had gone quite out of my road, and that there was no conveyance to Paris till the same hour the next night. I was a good deal mortified and perplexed at this intelligence, but found some consolation at the Office where I obtained it, from casually hearing the name of my companion, which is a great point gained in travelling. Of course, the discovery is pleasant, if it is a name you are acquainted with; or if not, at least you have the satisfaction of knowing it is some one you do not know, and so are made easy on that head. I bespoke a bed, and was shown into the common room, where I took coffee, and had what the Scotch call a brandered fowl for supper. The room was papered with marine landscapes, so that you seemed sitting in the open air with boats and trees and the sea-shore all round you, and Telemachus and Calypso, figures landing or embarking on halcyon seas. Even a country-inn in France is classical. It is a pity that the English are so dull and sluggish, ‘like the fat weed that roots itself at ease on Lethe’s wharf,’ that they cannot lend themselves to these airy fictions, always staring them in the face, but rather turn away from them with an impatience and disgust proportioned to the elegance of the design and the tax levied on their taste. A Frenchman’s imagination, on the contrary, is always at the call of his senses. The latter have but to give the hint, and the former is glad to take it! I tired every one out by inquiring my best mode of getting on to Paris next day; and being slow to believe that my only way was to go back to Louviers, like a fool as I had come, a young Frenchman took compassion on my embarrassment, and offered to be my interpreter, ‘as he spoke both languages.’ He said, ‘I must feel great pain in not being able to express myself.’ I said ‘None but in giving others the trouble to understand me.’ He shook his head, I spoke much too fast for him; he apologized for not being able to follow me from want of habit, though he said, ‘he belonged to a society of twelve at Paris, where they spoke English every evening generally.’ I said, ‘we were well matched,’ and when this was explained to him, he repeated the word ‘matched,’ with a ludicrous air of distress, at finding that there was an English phrase which was not familiarised to him in ‘the society of twelve, where they spoke the English language generally every evening.’ We soon came to a dead stand, and he turned to my English companion in the cabriolet, on whom he bestowed, for the rest of the evening, the tediousness of any ‘society of twelve.’ I could not help laughing to see my luckless fellow-countryman, after one or two attempts to rally and exchange remarks, reduced to the incessant repetition of his melancholy ‘oui,’ and my lively Parisian rioting in the advantage he had obtained over a straggling Englishman, gliding from topic to topic without contradiction or control, passing from the population of Paris to the Beaux-Arts, from the Belles-Lettres to politics, running the circle of knowledge, and finding himself still at home, faltering at the mention of the Allies and the Bourbons, and rising with outstretched arm and continuous voice at the name of Buonopar-r (like the eagle soaring on level wing)—getting nearer and nearer the victim of his volubility, seizing my poor friend by the button, and at last retiring abruptly, as if afraid of a re-action, and wishing him ‘good repose’ for the evening. Happy member of a ‘society of twelve!’ Apt representative of thirty millions of people, who build their self-esteem on the basis of vanity, and weave happiness out of breath, which costs them nothing! Why envy, why wish to interrupt them, like a mischievous school-boy, who throws a great stone into a pond full of frogs, who croak their delights ‘generally every evening,’ and who, the instant the chasm is closed, return to the charge with unabated glee and joyous dissonance!

I must not forget to mention a favourable trait in the common French character. I asked to speak to the Conducteur, and something like a charge of deception was brought, from which he defended himself strenuously. The whole kitchen and stable-yard gathered round to hear a dispute, which was by no means waged with equal war of words. They understood that I was disappointed, and had made a ridiculous mistake. Not a word or look of derision was observable in the whole group; but rather a rising smile, suppressed for fear of giving pain, and a wish to suggest some expedient on the occasion. In England, I will venture to say, that a Frenchman, in similar circumstances, stammering out a grave charge of imposition against a coachman, and evidently at a loss how to proceed, would have been hooted out of the place, and it would have been well for him if he had escaped without broken bones. If the French have the vices of artificial refinement and effeminacy, the English still retain too many of those which belong to a barbarous and savage state.

I returned to Louviers the next morning under the safe conduct of my former guide, where I arrived half an hour before the necessary time, found myself regularly booked for Paris, with five francs paid on account; and after a very comfortable breakfast, where I was waited on by a pretty, modest-looking brunette (for the French country-girls are in general modest-looking,) I took my seat in the fourth place of the Diligence. Here I met with every thing to annoy an Englishman. There was a Frenchman in the coach, who had a dog and a little boy with him, the last having a doll in his hands, which he insisted on playing with; or cried and screamed furiously if it was taken from him. It was a true French child; that is, a little old man, like Leonardo da Vinci’s Laughing Boy, with eyes glittering like the glass ones of his favourite doll, with flaxen ringlets like hers, with cheeks as smooth and unhealthy, and a premature expression of cunning and self-complacency. A disagreeable or ill-behaved child in a stage coach is a common accident, and to be endured. But who but a Frenchman would think of carrying his dog? He might as well drag his horse into the coach after him. A Frenchman (with leave be it spoken) has no need to take a dog with him to ventilate the air of a coach, in which there are three other Frenchmen. It was impossible to suffer more from heat, from pressure, or from the periodical ‘exhalation of rich-distilled perfumes.’ If the French have lost the sense of smell, they should reflect (as they are a reflecting people) that others have not. Really, I do not see how they have a right in a public vehicle to assault one in this way by proxy, any more than to take one literally by the nose. One does not expect from the most refined and polished people in Europe grossnesses that an Esquimaux Indian would have too much sense and modesty to be guilty of. If the presence of their dogs is a nuisance, the conversation of their masters is often no less offensive to another sense—both are suffocating to every body but themselves, and worthy of each other. Midas whispered his secret to the reeds, that whispered it again. The French, if they are wise, ought not to commit the national character on certain delicate points in the manner they do. While they were triumphant, less caution might be necessary: but no people can afford at the same time to be odious as well as contemptible in the eyes of their enemies. We dined at Mantes, where the ordinary was plentiful and excellent, and where a gentleman of a very prepossessing appearance took up the conversation (descanting on the adventures of a shooting-party the day before) in that gay, graceful, and animated tone, which I conceive to be characteristic of the best French society. In talking and laughing, he discovered (though a young man) the inroads which hot soups and high-seasoned ragouts had made in his mouth, with the same alacrity and good-humour as if he had to shew a complete set of the whitest teeth. We passed an interesting village, situated on the slope of a hill, with a quaint old tower projecting above it, and over-hanging the Seine. Not far from the high road stands Rosny, once the seat of the celebrated Sully. The approach to the capital on the side of St. Germain’s is one continued succession of imposing beauty and artificial splendour, of groves, of avenues, of bridges, of palaces, and of towns like palaces, all the way to Paris, where the sight of the Thuilleries completes the triumph of external magnificence, and oppresses the soul with recollections not to be borne or to be expressed!—Of them, perhaps, hereafter.

In the coach coming along, a Frenchman was curious to learn of a Scotch gentleman, who spoke very respectable French, whether Lord Byron was much regretted in England? He said there was much beauty in his writings, but too much straining after effect. He added, that there was no attempt at effect in Racine. This with the French is a final appeal in matters of poetry and taste. A translation of Lord Byron’s Works complete is common in all the shops here. I am not sure whether an English Poet ought to be proud of this circumstance or not. I also saw an Elegy on his Death advertised, said to be written by his friend, Sir Thomas More. How oddly the French combine things! There is a Sir Thomas More in English History and Letters; but that Sir Thomas More is not this Mr. Thomas Moore—‘let their discreet hearts believe it!’

CHAPTER IV

The first thing I did when I got to Paris was to go to the Louvre. It was indeed ‘first and last and midst’ in my thoughts. Well might it be so, for it had never been absent from them for twenty years. I had gazed myself almost blind in looking at the precious works of art it then contained—should I not weep myself blind in looking at them again, after a lapse of half a life—or on finding them gone, and with them gone all that I had once believed and hoped of human kind? What could ever fill up that blank in my heart, fearful to think upon—fearful to look upon? I was no longer young; and he who had collected them, and ‘worn them as a rich jewel in his Iron Crown,’ was dead, a captive and vanquished; and with him all we who remained were ‘thrown into the pit,’ the lifeless bodies of men, and wore round our necks the collar of servitude, and on our foreheads the brand, and in our flesh and in our souls the stain of thraldom and of the born slaves of Kings. Yet thus far had I come once more ‘to dream and be an Emperour!’ Thou sacred shrine of God-like magnificence, must not my heart fail and my feet stumble, as I approach thee? How gladly would I kneel down and kiss thy threshold; and crawl into thy presence, like an Eastern slave! For here still linger the broken remains and the faded splendour of that proud monument of the triumphs of art and of the majesty of man’s nature over the mock-majesty of thrones! Here Genius and Fame dwell together; ‘School calleth unto School,’ and mighty names answer to each other; that old gallery points to the long, dim perspective of waning years, and the shadow of Glory and of Liberty is seen afar off. In pacing its echoing floors, I hear the sound of the footsteps of my youth, and the dead start from their slumbers!... In all the time that I had been away from thee, and amidst all the changes that had happened in it, did I ever forget, did I ever profane thee? Never for a moment or in thought have I swerved from thee, or from the cause of which thou wert the pledge and crown. Often have I sought thee in sleep, and cried myself awake to find thee, with the heart-felt yearnings of intolerable affection. Still didst thou haunt me, like a passionate dream—like some proud beauty, the queen and mistress of my thoughts. Neither pain nor sickness could wean me from thee—