Four Years in France Part 8

As we travelled neither with great speed, nor far in one day, nor in the heat of the day, the physician, on calling to take leave, said we might continue our journey without any risk of inconvenience to his patient.

We ascended therefore that range of hills among which are found the sources of those rivers which flow into the ocean by the Seine and the Meuse, and of those which, however slowly they glide at first, are precipitated into the Mediterranean by the Rhone. This tract of country continued for two days, and is a very interesting one. Let those who fancy all riches to be derived from commerce only, compare this broad ridge with the plain on each side of it, and they will perceive that a fertile soil ought to enter for something into the computation of the wealth of nations. This mountainous region, in the part where we crossed it, and, by parity of reasoning, in every part of it, is cultivated with the greatest care and industry: it produces wine that ranks in the highest estimation both at home and in foreign countries: yet the inhabitants seem poor, the towns are large villages, the villages are collections of ruinous huts. Yet had this poverty not found its way into the inns, it would have been a most pleasing country to travel through.

The summits of the hills were covered with wood, wherever there was a sufficient depth of earth to admit a tree to be planted; the sides were overspread with vines ranged in order, well pruned, and glowing with fruit now nearly ripe. At the lowest declivities of the hills were corn fields; in the valleys, through almost every one of which ran a stream of the purest water, were pastures; and here was seen, what is so much wanted in southern landscape,--verdure and cattle.

It may be remembered that, in the year 1816, large ma.s.ses of ice detached themselves from the coasts of the Arctic regions, where they had been acc.u.mulating for centuries, and that huge mountains of ice were met with at a very low lat.i.tude in the Atlantic, where it finally thawed, and mingled with the waters of the ocean, but not without having spread cold and moisture over almost every country of the west of Europe. I grew my own corn at this time; but was obliged this year to buy corn of the preceding harvest, as, of my own, could be made nothing better than an unwholesome paste instead of bread. The three vintages before this season of fusion of icebergs, and diffusion of humidity, had been but indifferently good: perhaps the G.o.d Mars has been more wors.h.i.+pped than the G.o.d Bacchus, and thence, notwithstanding the well-known confidence of Napoleon in the principle of population, hands were wanting to prune and hoe the vines. The vintages of 1816, and of the following year, had almost entirely failed. France was now absolutely threatened with a dearth of wine: the stock in hand was nearly exhausted. But the promise of the present vintage put every one in high spirits: I was a.s.sured by the delighted Burgundians that it would equal in produce, and far surpa.s.s in quality, those of the five preceding years. In effect, the wine of 1818 was afterwards compared with that of the year of the comet, still cited at this time in advertis.e.m.e.nts of sales of wine.

At every step, we met with long cars laden with barrels or staves of barrels; the coopers were all in full activity at the doors of their shops; all the world was in high expectation; and our sympathy with their pleasure was heightened by the cool refres.h.i.+ng air, bringing with it cheerfulness, health, and elasticity.

Something in very deed was required to put or keep us in good humour, for the inns were bad enough to try the patience of that old patriarchal exemplar of patience more frequently cited than imitated. Of eatables indeed there was enough, and the beds were not bad; but the wine was sour; the peaches as hard as those found on the chimney-piece of a lady's boudoir; and the grapes, though very pretty to look at, wanted a month's longer exposure to the sun: the apples even were not ripe. When any thing was asked for beyond objects of the first and most obvious necessity, the answer, was, "il n'y en a point."[31] I asked for an extinguisher. "Il n'y en a point."--"How do they put out candles in this country?"--"Ma foi, Monsieur, mais on les souffle."[32]--"Not always,"

said I, pointing to black and greasy spots on the wall. Of the seven ways of putting out a candle which Dean Swift has taught, I prefer, in cases of necessity, that by which the light and the odour are extinguished at once; and here the floor was the better for it.

To account for the poverty of a country, in which is found, in abundance, so rich a product as wine, it must be recollected how small a proportion the land covered with vines bears to the whole tract. This reasoning may be usefully applied to other countries similarly circ.u.mstanced.

On the third day after leaving Auxerre, we arrived, by a very steep descent, on the plain of the Saone;--a plain at some time covered with water, which, depositing a loamy and fertile sediment, retired gradually into beds of rivers. The surface of the earth clearly indicates that it has once been sea without sh.o.r.e; the rivers that are still supplied by perennial sources in the higher elevations, hold on their course; many are dried up, leaving valleys to be watered by the dews and the clouds of heaven.

The plain of the Saone continues below Macon: its products are such as may be expected on strong land in such a climate; among others, bled de Turquie, as the French call maize or Indian corn. Arthur Young, in his admirable Tour, divides France into four agricultural regions: in the first the vine is not; in the second maize is not; in the third the olive is not; in the fourth, Minerva, Ceres, Bacchus, Pomona, all conspire and dispense their united gifts. I was pleased to hear some French speak highly of Young's Tour: they said it had told them many things they did not know before, and had been of great service to them.

It is thus that, while nation wars against nation, man may communicate good to man.

The coche d'eau, as it is whimsically called, is a pa.s.sage-boat which plies between Chalons and Lyons: places are reserved in it for those who may arrive by the diligence from Paris. It is roomy enough, but I found it very dirty: to remain under the deck, at this season of the year, would have been stifling, and on the deck there was no tent or awning. I determined to proceed in my berline.

We made our noon-tide repast at Tournus, where I walked into the church; for in France the churches are open every day, and all day long; and there I saw an image of the Blessed Virgin in the dress of a lady of the court of Louis XIV. I talked afterwards with a well-meaning Catholic on the absurdity of this costume: he observed, that if the Blessed Virgin were exhibited in the dress of a carpenter's wife, the people would not respect her. The people are not so silly: they, at least, are "not ashamed of the cross of Christ," whatever the great may be: why should the poor be ashamed of the poverty of the mother of the Redeemer?

Macon, where we slept, is a flouris.h.i.+ng town: we left it at sun-rise, as we were to pa.s.s a steep and lofty hill in our road to Lyons. From this height we descried the mountains of Switzerland and Savoy, amongst which Mont Blanc was seen with his snow-topped summit. The view was indistinct, but imagination supplied the defects of the "visual nerve."

The Alps are in the domain of history and poetry.

We alighted, or descended as the French say, at Lyons, at the Hotel du Parc. It was the fete de St. Louis; the city was illuminated: of these splendors we had a good view, as the Hotel de Ville was opposite our windows. The people danced in the Place Terreaux all night, and all night we listened to the sound of their rejoicings, for the bugs hindered us from sleeping. In the morning I complained of them to the femme de chambre, who positively denied that there were any in the house. I showed her five that lay slain on the sheet: she still positively denied that there were any in the house. A modest a.s.surance is certainly very becoming. I laughed in anger, which, though not quite so poetical as laughing in tears, is equally natural, when unqualified anger avails nothing. I complained to the mistress of the house: she admitted the fact without requiring ocular demonstration,--a superfluous motive of credibility; and promised other beds: but, as probably no change could be made for the better, we changed not.

The cathedral church of Lyons is worthy of the metropolitan see of France; it is in the style of the florid or latest Gothic, and highly ornamented: it is very _large_; a word that may be here taken in its French sense of _broad_; for it is in breadth that it exceeds other churches equally long. It had been much injured during the revolution; but what is most beautiful in it could not be destroyed without the destruction of the building itself. The chapel of St. Louis is superbly decorated.

Place Bellecour, or Place Louis XIV. or Place Bonaparte, by the pertinacity of prescription, retains its first name, and is indeed a square which great men might be ambitious of having named after them. It is almost too vast: that is, the distance of the sides from each other destroys its unity: its extent, however, makes it an agreeable promenade; on the south side are rows of trees. The streets in the neighbourhood of this square are handsome and well built: the rest of the town is what an old manufacturing populous city may be supposed to be: the quay on the majestic Rhone is a striking sight. Following the course of the river along a raised road or dike, we arrive at the piece of ground recovered from the river by means of this dike; which ground was given by the munic.i.p.al authorities to Napoleon, who intended to build a palace on this spot, at the junction of the Saone and Rhone. I talked with a labourer who had been employed in levelling the land: further than this, the work was not proceeded in. The situation is admirable: a lofty edifice,--and can one suppose that the palace of Napoleon would have been any other than a lofty edifice?--would have commanded a view of Lyons and of the surrounding hills and country: besides all this, the river presents here the appearance of a large and beautiful lake, its stream being hidden, at a little distance from the point of confluence, by intervening ground. Whether Paris, Lyons, or Constantinople was destined to be the capital of the French empire is a doubt, for the solution of which we must now interrogate the grave.

The cathedral of Vienne is a very fine church, and the loftiest within of any I have ever seen, and I have seen all the cathedrals in England.

In the earliest age of Christianity, at Vienne, Lyons, and Tournus, those whom the church honours under the common name of the martyrs of Vienne, sealed their faith with their blood.

We pa.s.sed the Isere by a ferry; the bridge, destroyed four years before, during the war, not having been yet rebuilt; and this on the high road from Paris to Ma.r.s.eilles.

Valence was the last prison of Pope Pius VI. for here he died.

Philosophers and protestants flattered themselves that he was the last of the popes: they forgot the reasoning of Gamaliel.

At an indifferent inn where we rested at mid-day, at the sign of the Grand Monarque, among other scribblings on the wall of our apartment, I observed a note to the following effect:--"Englishmen, beware of the Grand Monarque! I paid five francs for my bed,--a bed in this chamber!!! I paid seven francs for my supper." The writer states of what dishes his moderate supper consisted, complains of the wine, and concludes with some indignant and patriotic effusions.

We were now in the country of the olive, and the flat roofs indicated that we were to pa.s.s a winter very different from any that we had hitherto experienced; a winter without snow. The whole road from Lyons to Avignon may be considered as beautiful: we rarely quitted the banks of the Rhone, and always with regret: on each side of the river are fine hills, surmounted with chateaus, many of which had the picturesque advantage of being in ruins.

The heat did not incommode us, except in the beginning of the afternoon of two days out of the five employed in this journey from Lyons, where, as an Avignonais observed, the north begins, and where, of course, the south began to us. Madame de Stael says--"Le vrai midi commence a Naples."[33] Ask where's the north?

The badness of the inns would have been, at this season of the year, but a trifling inconvenience, but for the bugs; at the last inn at which we slept on the road they were in swarms. I complained to the innkeeper: he said there might, perchance, be one or two, "mais cela doit etre une espece de miracle."[34] Almost every one has poor relations or friends of whom he is ashamed, but of whom he cannot get rid without adopting the ingenious expedient of the Vicar of Wakefield,--an expedient unfortunately not applicable to bugs, "non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris;" although their hosts and entertainers are sufficiently unwilling to acknowledge their presence.

At Orange we pa.s.sed under a triumphal arch, called of Caius Marius, much finer and better preserved than any edifice of the same kind at Rome.

Here are also the remains of an amphitheatre enc.u.mbered with buildings.

Here we saw the process of winding the silk from the worm: the cocon or egg is thrown into boiling water to dissolve the gum. At Skegness, on the Lincolns.h.i.+re coast, I have seen panier-fulls of living shrimps treated in the same manner.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] People forget themselves sometimes.

[29] "Sir, I am a stranger."--"So I perceive, Sir, and for that reason I wish to be of service to you."

[30] The good people of Sens are, apparently, not a people of good sense.

[31] There is none.

[32] Faith, Sir, they blow them out.

[33] The true south begins at Naples.

[34] That must be a sort of miracle.

CHAP. VIII.

The entrance into Avignon prepossesses a stranger in its favour: he pa.s.ses through a gate of modern construction into a square in which are several well-grown trees; in front is the theatre, on each side a large inn and other houses: this is called the _Place de la Comedie_. We were set down at the Palais Royal, where we found good chambers and beds. Hot baths, _a l'instar de Paris_, as the sign expressed it, were opposite our inn, and the next morning some of the family took advantage of them.

I paid Louis, my coachman, the balance of his account, for I had advanced him money on the road; and gave him such a generous bonne main, that he was, I saw, ashamed of having once or twice made us fare ill on the road. The sum of the expenses of my journey from Paris, not including the bonne main, was a little more than sixteen hundred francs.

A banker, or dealer in money only, is not to be found, except in the largest commercial towns of France, and provincial notes are unknown.

The Parisian banker had referred me to a _negociant_ and manufacturer of silk, who, during my stay at Avignon, supplied the absence of a regular priest of Plutus; loading me, at my pleasure, with heavy five-franc pieces, for which he required only good bills on Paris, or on London, where also he had a correspondence. I am obliged to call him a _negociant_, as _marchand_ means a shop-keeper; nay, a dealer in the pettiest wares is called a merchant: a seller of milk is a _marchand de lait_. As for shops, they have disappeared: every shop is a _magasin_, so that France is not a _nation boutiquiere_, whatever England may be. I called on my banker this morning, and consulted him on my establishment.

We retired to rest early in the evening, but were soon after disturbed by the noise of loud voices below: it ceased after a short hubbub. On inquiring the cause next day, the waiter told us that the English prince had descended at the Palais Royal, but that the authorities had presented themselves, and had engaged him to pa.s.s to the Hotel d'Europe, where they had prepared for his reception; and that the noise was caused by the pa.s.sage of the prince and his suite, attended by the authorities.

This was a very prudent, but rather an imperfect statement: it was the truth, but not the whole truth. The fact was that the Duke of Gloucester, in his tour through France, arrived at Avignon: he had sent forward a courier, who had given orders for his reception at our inn, where he was set down; but, while he was taking tea, the prefect of the department and the mayor of the city waited on him to request that he would accept of the hospitality of the town, and representing that preparations had been made accordingly at the Hotel d'Europe. His Royal Highness thought proper to accede to this polite invitation. Madame Moulin, the mistress of our inn, enraged at the loss of the honour and profit of the prince's company, and transported beyond the bounds of discretion, broke out into violent invectives against M. le Prefet and M. le Maire, who, to punish an insult offered to them in the presence of the English prince, committed Madame Moulin to prison. Moulin told me this story, adding, "Ma femme est tres sensible."[35] If her sensibility provoked her to make all the clamour we heard at ten o'clock the evening before, she certainly merited, and was probably benefited by, the restraint imposed on her, which, by the intercession of the prince, lasted only twenty hours.

Moulin has as much the appearance of a _bon vivant_ as if he were an English landlord, but with a cast of French manners. A very pretty young English lady (so she was described to me,) admired his great Newfoundland dog, but said, "M. Moulin, I am afraid of him: will he bite me?"--"Non, Mademoiselle; mon chien ne vous mordera pas: fut il un tigre, il lecheroit une si belle main."[36]

I called on the Prefet, who received me with much politeness; and, when I announced my intention of settling at Avignon, felicitated the city on the acquisition it was about to make. It is regulated that no one shall be prefect of a department of which he is a native, or to which his family belongs. This rule proceeds on the principle, recognised amongst us by the circuits of the twelve judges, which supposes that justice will be more impartially administered by strangers than by those who may be liable to the influence of local connexions. The prefect of Vaucluse was of the department of the Rhone, and member of the chamber of Deputies for that department.

I called on the Mayor, and was much surprised to find, invested with that office, not a man resembling an English alderman or a good bourgeois, but a meagre, old n.o.ble, adorned with the croix de St. Louis, and with the manners of his caste. In the American war he had been captain of a s.h.i.+p of the line; he had emigrated, and been despoiled of his property during the revolution; had pa.s.sed three years of his emigration in London, where he had learned to admire tea and _tost_. On his return, he had married a rich wife who had just left him a widower; he showed me the weepers on his coat sleeves as an excuse for not returning my visit. He had recovered some of the wrecks of his fortune, and had repurchased his house; part of which had been pulled down by him who had bought it as national property, that, when compelled to rest.i.tution, as was expected, on the return of the king, he might secure at least the price of the materials. M. le Maire had built a house for himself on the ruins of the part pulled down: of the part left standing he had already made a detached house, which he offered to me. I promised to look at it.

And now began my search for a house, which I conducted according to my English notions and prepossessions. In the south of France, or in Italy, a man of twenty thousand francs a year lives in a larger house than a man of an income of as many pounds sterling inhabits in London. In England, a nine months winter, an enormous tax on windows, a duty on bricks, timber, and gla.s.s, reduce us to content ourselves with small houses; but in these countries, large rooms, lofty ceilings, wide staircases, are required by the climate, and by no means astonish the minds of those who are used to them. Things on this scale of vastness I had frequently seen in England, particularly in country-houses, but had not been, as yet, familiarized with them.

I visited an hotel in which Charles IV. of Spain had been lodged on his journey from Paris to Rome, after his abdication at Bayonne. I was desired, by the man of affairs, to determine what apartments I should want, and then the rent might be fixed. The house was an agreeable one, but appeared in too grand a style for me: I told the man of business it might do very well for a prince, or, par occasion, for a king of Spain, and declined all further treaty. I have no doubt, I might have been as cheaply lodged here as I was in the house I afterwards rented. There occurred besides another English prejudice: I was to have but a part of the house: who might they be who should inhabit the other part? An Englishman likes to have his house to himself; it is his castle: a privilege, by the by, which the present chancellor of the exchequer has restored to him, by taking off the tax on internal windows. Another apartment I visited; but here the proprietor, who lived on the rez-de-chaussee, or ground floor, had, as well as myself, a family of young children: besides, he refused me the privilege of walking in his garden. From this refusal, and from the intercourse of the children, I antic.i.p.ated future misunderstandings. The use of a garden in this climate is, that, in the shade, or after sunset, it serves as an additional room, loftier than any in the house. In winter, a town garden, surrounded by high walls, or houses, is absolutely useless.

At length I took the house of M. le Maire. It consisted of a vestibule, a small dining-room, servants hall, kitchen, and offices: on the first floor was a salon, twenty-four feet square; on one side of this salon was a s.p.a.ce part.i.tioned off, about six feet wide: at half the height of this room, a floor had been laid, and thus two cabinets were procured: there was a second salon twenty-one feet by fifteen; there were three chambers with two cabinets, three servants rooms, and on the second floor two chambers for my sons. I had besides a small stable, and coach-house for a cabriolet, but no garden. The house was built on three sides of a small court. My lease was for four years, at a thousand francs a year, determinable by me at the end of each year on two months notice, determinable also on payment of a quarter's rent in case of war, or any event of a public nature that might affect my personal security.

This last clause I copied from a lease I had seen at Paris; a prudent, and, at that time, no one could say, a superfluous caution. I paid no taxes.

This house I furnished, as one furnishes a house which he is to quit in three or four years. It was curious to observe how, from want of money or of confidence, some of the tradesmen followed their goods to my house, and required payment on delivery. I had even a sort of _run_ upon me one morning, performed by some one who had not taken the above-mentioned precaution. The run was probably caused by some silly report. I have known a run on a country bank to originate with a farmer's declaration that such run existed; the question then being only who should run fastest. I dissipated the alarm by giving, with great tranquillity, _bons_ on my banker: yet some tradesmen were careful to give a receipt, not for the amount of the bill, but for the _bon_: this, indeed, I suggested.