First Impressions on a Tour upon the Continent

The country now assumes a totally new character. The hills rise into the dignity of mountains, and are entirely barren, save in the immediate vicinity of a little valley or two which smiles between them, when their rough granite sides are clothed with partial underwood; these valleys have a verdant and cultivated effect, from being well wooded, and also from the unusual practice of inclosing the fields with hedges. Indeed the whole scene for three or four miles before you come to Autun is bold, rich, and beautiful. We were told that the people here and in the South of France were (generally speaking) extremely well-disposed towards the Bourbon government, disliking the remembrance of Bonaparte.

Autun, an ugly town, yet most romantically situated at the foot of three mountains covered with superb woods. Here are some fine gateways of Corinthian architecture, baths, and a cathedral. We went to look at the latter, and saw several women there telling their beads, who cast an eye of curiosity upon us in the midst of their devotions, while their fingers and lips continued to move with great rapidity. I peeped into several vacant confessionals, which resembled little sentry-boxes, partitioned into two apartments, in one of which there is a seat for the priest, and in the other a grated aperture through which the penitent breathes his communications.

The tomb of the president Jennin and his wife is shewn here. It was, I believe, concealed during the fury of the revolution, in common with many similar and sacred curiosities. He was one of Henri quatre's ministers, and a man much esteemed by that sovereign. He cannot have a higher professional eulogium. The costume both of the president and his dame is quaint in the extreme, and the length of her waist is quite ridiculous. Our inn (la poste) was comfortable and reasonable. For five francs a-head, they sent us up for dinner (I will for once say what we had for dinner) some capital soup au ris, a magnificent jack, a duck stewed with pickles, a fowl, white and delicate as those of Dorking, a ragout of sweetbreads in brown sauce, a large dish of craw-fish, potatoes drest à la maître d'hotel, Guyere cheese, and four baskets of fruit. The latter evinced the coldness of the climate here, for the peaches were diminutive, crude, and colourless, the grapes rather sour, and the cherries hard, tough, and not bigger than black currants.

Leaving Autun, we passed over a very steep granite mountain of that name, covered in the most luxuriant profusion with trees of every sort, but chiefly oak: the road wound round the sides till it reached nearly the summit of this mountain in graceful sweeps. It rained during our ascent, and the groups of women emerging at intervals from the woody recesses in the steeps above us, with their gay coloured cotton handkerchiefs held over their white caps, to shelter them from the scudding shower, looked highly picturesque. The male costume here becomes marked; it consists of a very large black hat, (with a low crown and an enormous breadth of brim,) round which is sometimes worn a string of red and white beads; a dark blue linen jacket and trowsers, coloured waistcoat, white shirt, with a square deep collar thrown open at the throat, and sabots. We could plainly hear the babbling of the brook which runs among these sylvan retreats. My husband gathered me some blackberries in the woods, and I longed to accompany him in his rambles, instead of remaining in the carriage. Altogether it was the most romantic scene I had ever beheld, and my exclamations of admiration reaching the ears of the postillion, (who was easing his horses by walking by their side) he came up to the window, to ask me if I had ever seen such a beautiful thing in my own country? I assured him I had not, and he graciously added that he would shew me a very grand plain also in a few minutes. Our Swiss attendant, however, (Christian) did not seem to approve of all these commendations, and could not refrain from throwing out a hint, that we should see much finer things in his country. This mountain is covered with wild strawberries in the season. Bonaparte intended to have made a wider road through it, had not the Fates thought proper to cut short his plans when he least expected it. The view of the promised plain was fertile as that of Canaan; the glimpses of it caught occasionally through the openings of the rocks were charming. I liked the national pride of the postillion; applied thus to the beauties of nature, it had almost a character of refinement: he was a good-humoured, merry-looking, ugly fellow, who seemed as if he had never known a care in his life; but (the truth must be told) he was a great admirer of Bonaparte, and said he should live and die in the hope of his return. He had laid by his green jacket and badge in his box, thinking it not impossible that he might want to wear it again one day; at all events he trusted to see the young son upon the throne, and spoke of him with much affectionate emotion. Bonaparte had been driven by this man (upon his flight from Elba,) and this puts me in mind, that I omitted to mention the circumstance of my having slept in the same bed which he then occupied at Autun; I think he must have left his troubled spirit behind him, for my dreams were perturbed and melancholy in the greatest degree! There are plenty of wolves and wild boars in this neighbourhood; five of the latter were killed the week before. I expected to have met with gipsies, but neither here, nor in any other part of the continent, had we yet encountered one of the race.

At St. Emilan, (a small village) we stopt to breakfast: it was a merry, cheerful meal. We sat round the blazing faggots in the cottage kitchen of la Poste, and boiled our eggs in a vessel which I believe was an old iron shaving pot; the milk (for our coffee) was served up in a large earthen tureen, with a pewter ladle; and the cups were of a dirty yellow cracked ware, that I am sure my cook would not suffer to be exhibited in her scullery. The bread was sour, and so was the fruit, but I never remember to have enjoyed a breakfast more thoroughly; so true is it, that hunger is the best sauce. The host (seeing that we were English) asked if we would not choose our pain to be grillé? and was proceeding to broil it accordingly, instead of toasting it, if we had not preferred the loaf in its natural state. We were somewhat surprised at seeing a print over the chimney of Dr. Nicholas Saunderson, Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. An obscure village kitchen in the heart of France was the last place where one would have expected to have found such a thing. The hostess had bought it many years since at a sale of the property of the celebrated Buffon.

Seeing some cows ploughing in the fields here, which was what we had never before witnessed, our servant Christian gave us an account of the manner of conducting that operation in Switzerland; "de only difference is (said he) dat dere de cows be all oxes." The costume of the paysannes is very picturesque; a straw hat, of the gipsy form, and large as an umbrella, rather short petticoat, gay coloured handkerchief, deep bordered white cap, and sabots. The landscape was rather pretty for some distance beyond St. Emilan.

We now began to meet with vineyards again, as we descended from these bleak and elevated regions. A brook wound through the lowlands, fringed with willows, by means of which we could as usual trace its course for miles. I forgot to mention the cajoleries made use of by a set of little beggar children, the preceding day. The white beaver hats worn by my husband and Mr. W. struck their fancy not a little, and they ran after the carriage with incredible perseverance, calling out, Vivent les chapeaux blancs! Vivent les jolis messieurs! vive la jolie dame! vive le joli carrosse! vive le roi, et vive le bon Dieu! We were engaged in lamenting the drawback of a goître (or swelling in the throat) to the beauty of a very pretty woman, whom we had just seen, when in going down a steep hill we met with an accident, which might have been serious. The harness (made of old ropes) suddenly broke, one of the horses fell down, the postillion was thrown off, and the other horses continuing to trot on without stopping, we felt the carriage go over some soft substance, which we concluded to be the person of their unfortunate driver. Both the gentlemen involuntarily exclaimed "he is killed!" when we were relieved by seeing him running by the side of the animals, very little the worse for his fall. The poor horse was the greatest sufferer, as the wheels went twice over his neck! however, even he was not much hurt, and was able to rise and go on with his work in a few seconds. The great creature in the middle was an old, scrambling, wilful beast, who liked his own way, and I believe he would never have stopt, had not his bridle been seized by a man in the road. I was very much alarmed for the moment, and so I rather suspect was our trusty valet, who presented himself at the door to inquire if "Madame was frighted," with a face as white as his own neckcloth. This contretems would not have occurred had we not changed our horses and postillion a few moments before it happened, with those belonging to another carriage which we met on the way. The country continued rather pretty, and was also inclosed; were it not for the vineyards, it would be like many parts of England. We saw a little insignificant chateau or two, and that reminds me of the very dull effect of all the houses in France when seen from a distance – they have universally the air of being shut up, owing to the jalousies being painted white instead of green.

Chalons sur Saone; rather a pretty town: there is a stone fountain here, with a statue of Neptune, well executed. We stopt at the hotel du Parc, a reasonable and tolerably well appointed inn, though by no means deserving of the pompous commendation bestowed upon it in the printed Tourist's Guide, where it is mentioned as being the best in France. Mr. W. suffered some annoyance from bugs, which I must ever consider as great drawbacks to comfort. We were attended at dinner by the first male waiter we had seen since leaving Paris, from which Chalons is about two hundred miles distant. The people in the town stared at and followed us about in rather a troublesome manner; I believe they were attracted by the white hats, and my travelling cap, so different from any of their own costumes.

People talk a great deal about the warmth of the South of France, but all I can say is, that as soon as we approached it, we ordered fires, while we had left our countrymen in frigid England fainting with heat! I may as well indulge myself in a few more desultory remarks while I am about it, particularly as our narrative just now is rather bare of incident. The first is, the great inferiority of the French cutlery to ours: all their knives are extremely coarse and bad; and with regard to the forks and spoons (both of which, to do them justice, are almost always of silver), they do not seem ever to have come in contact with a bit of whiting or a leather rubber since they were made! Plate-powder of course is an unknown invention here. How would our butlers at home (so scrupulously nice in the arrangement of their sideboard) have stared, could they have beheld these shabby appurtenances of a foreign dinner table! They are not less behind-hand also with respect to the locks of their doors, all of which are wretchedly finished, even in their best houses. Their carriages are generally ugly, shabby, badly built, and inelegant; and they have some domestic customs (existing even in the midst of the utmost splendor and refinement,) which are absolutely revolting to the imagination of an English person, and to which no person who knows what real cleanliness and comfort means, could ever be reconciled; but the French are, beyond all doubt, an innately filthy race, – with them l'apparence is all in all.

Leaving Chalons sur Saone, we observed large fields planted with Turkey wheat, called here Turquie; they mix it with other flour in their bread. There is nothing but barren stubble for a length of way, and we should have found the prospect excessively wearying and tiresome, had not a bold hill or two in the distance afforded a slight degree of relief. We saw a man sowing among the stubble, which they plough up after the seed is sown, thereby saving the labour of the harrow; the practice is not general, however.

About three miles from Tournus, we ascended a very steep hill, covered with underwood and vines, and were refreshed by the sight of a little pasture land. From the summit a surprisingly fine country burst upon us – the river Saone leading its tranquil waters through a rich plain, the town of Tournus with its bridge and spires, and the chain of Alpine mountains bounding the distant horizon, were altogether charming; the latter appeared like a continued ridge of gray clouds, Mont Blanc towering far above them all. We formed some idea of the magnitude of this hoary giant from the circumstance of our being able thus to see him at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles! He looked, however, like a thin white vapour, rising amid the lovely blue of the summer sky.

At Tournus, where we stopt to breakfast, the maîtresse de la maison was a very pretty woman, but I cannot praise her taste in china ware; the cups she set before us were of a most disgusting shape and material, and of enormous proportions; they resembled our coarse red flower-pots glazed, and it was with difficulty that I could prevail upon myself to taste the tea or coffee (I forget which) that they contained. The women in this neighbourhood wear a singular head-dress, a black beaver hat, of the size and form of a small soup plate, placed flat upon the crown of the head, with three long knots of broad black riband, hanging down, one behind, and one on each side the face. They have a little white cap, called la coquette, under this, with a coarse open lace border, standing stiff off the temples, something like that of Mary, Queen of Scots. This place is celebrated for its pretty women, and we remarked many ourselves. I took a hasty sketch of one as we changed horses. There is a great quantity of hemp grown here. The weather now began to be intensely hot; and we did not wonder at this, as we were in the same latitude as that of Verona and Venice. The former chill, which I mentioned upon first approaching the south of France, was quite an accidental circumstance, partly induced by our being at that time upon extremely high ground, whereas the temperature of the valleys is very different.

We saw the peasants making ropes by the side of the road; one man carried a distaff in his hand, much bigger than a large stable broom. I bought of a villageoise at Macon one of the little hats and caps before mentioned. She attempted to impose upon me as to the price; but I do not consider this at all as a national trait. I am afraid an English countrywoman would have been equally anxious to make the best bargain she could, fairly or otherwise! The cap was really very becoming, even to my British features. I saw in one of the cottages a loaf of their bread: it was extremely coarse, and as flat, round, and large as a table. There is a grand chain of mountains on the right, called the Charolais. We again observed cows ploughing in the fields: they had all a curious head-dress, a sort of veil or network, to preserve them from the flies, like the military bridles of our dragoon horses. Most of the cattle hereabouts (and we had seen quantities) were of a cream colour. The country is luxuriant, full of chateaux, fertile, and cultivated, more so than any we had yet observed, and it is allowed to be the finest part of France. Mr. W. examined the nature of the soil, and found it fat and rich in the highest degree. I must once more repeat my admiration of the frequent and great beauty of the young children in this country, more particularly in these parts. I saw several with cheeks like the sunny side of a peach; little, round, plump faces, and delicately chiselled features, with a profusion of luxuriant hair hanging in natural ringlets upon their shoulders: the mere babies also are very interesting. The parents throughout France are remarkable for love of offspring4.

About three or four miles from Macon you enter the department of the Maconnais, and afterwards that of the Jura (so called from the mountains of the same name), but formerly known by that of the Lyonnais. We saw at St. George de Rognains a most beautiful woman, a villageoise; her proportions were fine, and rather full; her face very much in the style of our well-known English belles, Lady O. and Mrs. L.; but she was not so large as either of them. She wore the usual costume of her native place, which was more peculiarly marked in the cap. It is extremely becoming, and pretty in itself. I know not how to describe it exactly; but it is flat upon the crown, with a good deal of coarse transparent lace, like wings, full every where but on the brow, across which it is laid low and plain, in the style of some antique pictures I remember to have seen. This superb woman's fine features set it off amazingly. She also wore a flowered cotton gown (of gay colours upon a dark ground), a crimson apron and bib, with a white handkerchief. What a charming portrait would Sir Thomas Lawrence have made of her, and how she would astonish the amateurs of beauty in England, were she suddenly to appear among them! I am thus particular in describing costume, to please the readers of my own sex. We met here some religieuses walking in the road, belonging to a convent in the distance. Their habit was not very remarkable, except that they wore black veils, with high peaks on the front of the head, and long rosaries by their sides.

Villefranche; a populous old town. It was market day; yet not one instance of intoxication did we see, neither here nor in any other part of France through which we had passed. Certainly drunkenness is not the vice of the nation, although they have a due admiration for strong beer, which is sold under the name of bonne bierre de Mars. There is a fine church here, of Gothic architecture.

We did not reach Lyons until late at night; and, as I was very much fatigued, and longed to get into the hotel, I thought the length of the environs and suburbs endless. However, we arrived at last, and after a refreshing sleep, were awakened the next morning by the firing of cannon close under our windows. It was the fête of St. Louis, which is always celebrated with particular pomp and splendour. It was also the great jubilee of the Lyonese peruquiers, who went in procession to high mass, and from thence to an entertainment prepared for them. The jouteurs (or plungers in water) likewise made a very magnificent appearance. They walked two and two round the town, and after a famous dinner (laid out for them in a lower apartment of our hotel) proceeded to exhibit a sort of aquatic tournament, in boats, upon the river. This is a very ancient festival, and is mentioned (if I recollect right) by Rousseau. The dress of the combatants (among whom were several young boys of eight and five years old) was very handsome and fanciful, entirely composed of white linen, ornamented with knots of dark-blue riband. They had white kid leather shoes, tied with the same colours, caps richly ornamented with gold, and finished with gold tassels. In their hands they carried blue and gold oars, and long poles, and upon their breasts a wooden sort of shield or breastplate, divided into square compartments, and strapped firmly on like armour, or that peculiar ornament, the ephod, worn by the ancient Jewish high priests. Against this they pushed with the poles as hard as possible, endeavouring to jostle and overturn their opponents; the vanquished, falling into the water, save themselves by swimming, while the victors carry off a prize. We went down stairs to see these heroes at dinner, and one of them civilly invited us into the room, to observe every particular at our ease.

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1

I had reason, however, afterwards to doubt the accuracy of the rural dame's assertion.

2

The principal beauty of this cathedral is the choir, and it is also famous for Gobelin tapestry.

3

Vide Southey's Miscellaneous Poems.

4

Vide Spurzheim's Craniology.