Records of a Run through Continental Countries, embracing Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Savoy, and France

Preface

. I had thought that the days of my authorship were done. I did not expect that I should ever make any addition to the Thirty "Volumes of the same size as the present, which had previously proceeded from my pen. The arduous duties which devolve upon me as the Editor of a Morning Journal, preclude, under ordinary chcumstances, the pos sibdity of devoting any portion of my time to those purely literary pursuits

PREFACE.

. IV in which, for so many years, I felt so great a pleasure. Having, however, recently sought what I felt to be most needful — a brief period of respite from my anxious and unceasing editorial labours, — I repaired to the Continent, in quest of recreation and repose. Whde there, the scenes which passed before me, and the incidents which came under my observation, made so vivid an impression on my mind, that I could not resist the desire which I felt to commit my impressions to paper, while yet in aU then original freshness. This I did at the close of each day, and forthwith transmitted them to the Morning Advertiser, whose edi torial management is confided to my care. The appearance of this series of

PREFACE.

. V papers, in two volumes, is entirely to be ascribed to the great interest which they excited, and the very gratifying reception they met with, as they were day by day brought before the British pubhc, under the title of " Records of a Run through Continental Countries." London, October, 1853. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. London To Calais

The bow cannot be always bent. The mind cannot be ever on the stretch. Its tension may be carried too far. Repose is as necessary to the mental as to the physical nature of man. Seasons of ces sation from intellectual labour are indis pensable to the health of the mind, just as periods of rest are necessary for the health of the body. To one, therefore, who, Uke mysefi, is engaged aU the year round in the dis charge of duties of a very onerous VOL. I. B nature, it may well be imagined with what delight I escaped from the atmo sphere and occupations of London life, to seek for recreation and repose on the shores and in the interior of other lands. I left the metropolis on the day on which the Legislature closed its session, — the day on which it ceased from its arduous and responsible labours — labours not more arduous or responsible than those in which I am engaged.

Not more arduous or responsible than mine ? Possibly, were the truth told, a great deal less so. But let that pass. The matter perhaps partakes more of private than of public interest. We started for Dover from the London Bridge station, at ten minutes past eight in the morning, and reached the former place at a quarter-past eleven. Erom London to Dover — a distance of nearly ninety miles— in little more than three hours ! What rapid travelling ! Many of us remember when it was quite a feat to accompfish the journey in twelve hours. And but few constitutions were able to endure the fatigue of performing the journey in one day. Outside the coach, the fatigue could only be borne by per sons of the most robust frame. If in summer, the heat was intolerable ; if in winter, the cold, the rain, and the snow were no less formidable.

But, thanks to ihe greatest of modern inventions — the invention of travelling by raUway and steam, the journey from London to Dover can now be performed with ease, certainty, and comfort, in Uttle more than three hours by the express train, — the train by which we proceeded on this occasion. Within a quarter of an hour, or little more, of our leaving the terminus, we found ourselves not only on board the steamer appointed to carry us across the Channel, but actuaUy quitting the har bour of Dover on our way to Calais. At first, all went merry as a marriage bell. B Every one seemed more delighted than another. A smfie played on every countenance, and happiness, if there be truth in physiognomy, beamed in every eye. But we had not proceeded far on our voyage before a change came o'er the spirit of the dreams of many on board.

A sickly hue stole over the faces of several of the passengers, and it was but too plain that the ocean malady had already been doing its work. About half an hour after we had quitted the shores of Albion, a goodly number of those on board suffered severely from sea-sickness. Among the victims was a distinguished Member of ParUament — the possessor of a title, and an important man in the greatest company which ever existed. He and I got on, the first six or seven miles of the journey, uncommonly weU together, and it looked as if we were among the happy number destined to escape. Not so as regarded the honourable baronet. All of a sudden, literally in a moment, he was completely mastered by the malady incident to motion on the sea. He stopped in the middle of a very interesting sentence ; nor was he, during the remainder of the voyage able to complete it.

He continued ill, and when we parted on reaching the shore, it was with mutual regret that so untoward an occurrence should have thus suddenly and abruptly terminated the interesting conversation in which we were engaged. Probably we may hereafter resume it, and the honourable baronet complete the sentence which he left unfinished when suddenly prostrated by an assad ant which is no respecter of persons. What made the sea-sickness of the honourable gentleman, before we had got many mdes from the shore, the more surprising was, that he had performed the voyage to and from India without having had the slightest attack. On a former occasion, when crossing from Dover to Ostend, I met with an Ameri can gentleman who suffered fearfully from this most distressing of aU iUnesses — so much so, as almost to inspire appre hensions for the result ; yet he had crossed the Atlantic five times — more than once in the heaviest weather, when its waters roUed mountains high — and entirely escaped the evd.

To me, who did not once feel what, in steamboat phraseology, is called " squeamish," the air of the sea, and the fine fresh breezes which blew from the balmy south, were the source of an enjoyment which it would not be easy to describe. Let those who, like myself, are unceasingly engaged in intellectual toU, in the heart of the metropolis, from one year's end to the other, only imagine the contrast, and they wdi be able to form some idea of the enjoyment afforded by the chcum stances in which I was then placed. I could, for the moment, fancy I was another being, and imagine myself translated to some other world than that in which I live and move when occupied, without a day's intermission, with my London labours. We landed. The first impressions of an Englishman as he puts his foot on a foreign shore, are not only vivid, but lasting : he never forgets them.

Who does not remember, as distinctly as if it were but yesterday, the emotions which passed through his mind, though many years may have elapsed in the interval, when he first arrived in some strange country ? It is an era in one's existence. He feels as if he had performed some great achievement. The pleasing consciousness takes possession of his mind, that in breathing the atmosphere of another land, he has the advantage of the great bulk of the friends he has left at home ; and that when he returns, he wiU be able to talk of places and things which they have never seen, and of feelings to which they are strangers. I had been several times to Erance and other foreign countries before, and there forethese sensations were not experienced by me on this occasion ; but there were several persons among those that crossed the Channel on the day in question, who had never been out of England, and you could easily see by their countenances and manner, that, in their owti view, a cubit had been added to then stature.

Those, however, who arrive in Calais on their first visit to Erance — and the observation apphes more or less to aU other towns on the Erench coast — are very speeddy reduced to smaUer dimensions. A few minutes suffice for the purpose. You have but to walk twenty or thirty yards, before you reach the Custom-house and Passport-office — both of which are under one roof — and by the time they have done with you there, you are not only the same humble man you were in your own country, but you are made to look upon yourself in a much more lowly light than you ever did before. The painful conviction comes over you — a conviction produced by a very disagreeable experience — that you are no longer in a free country. You are now the temporary subject of a des potic government. You are in Erance, and must resign yourself to all the an noyances, and all the abridgment of personal Uberty, to which Erenchmen themselves have to submit.

Your passport is demanded. You produce it. It is as rigidly examined as if you were a criminal of the first magnitude. Your boxes, portmanteaus, carpet-bags, or any other thing you may make the receptacle of your indispen sables, is carefuUy searched on the complimentary assumption that you are a smuggler. Then you are marched about in the most uncere monious manner possible, from one official Monsieur to another, wdide you are in the Passport-office. Nor are the discomforts on your arrival hmited to those which result from the way in which you are knocked about by the officials in these places. I ought to have mentioned before — at least it would have been more in the order of time to have done so — that short as is the dis tance between the landing-place and the Custom-house, you receive a very decided taste of the difference between your own country and Erance through the importunities of a set of persons, young and old, who literally besiege you to allow them to carry your luggage.

There is another set not less clamorous in then entreaties to go with them to some hotel for which they are touters. Punch very graphicaUy described, some time ago, the perplexities and miseries of the " Unprotected Eemale," when seized simultaneously by two rival omnibus conductors, each vying with the other for the honour of conducting the future Mrs. Jones to the place of her destina tion. Any Englishman who may choose LONDON TO CALAIS. to visit Calais will there find abundant reason why his compassion should be moved and his indignation aroused at the treatment to which his fellow British subjects are exposed. A half-dozen fellows, of aU ages, are tugging and pulling at your luggage, and as many more are imploring you to patronize the hotels in whose service they are. You are afraid of being torn to pieces by the one class, and yet that would hardly be a less happy doom than to be obliged to listen to the clamorous importunities of the other.

And here I ought to mention that these Erench vamphes — vampires, I mean, as regards their propensity for sucking the life-blood of the pocket — display a singular facdity, indeed, I may say, a species of intuition, for singling out Englishmen from the people of other nations. You will say, perhaps, that we are known by pur language. Not so. Language has nothing to do with the matter. Enghshmen are identified with then country the moment they set foot in Erance, before they have uttered a single word. Let Germans, Dutch, Ita lians, or well-shaved Erenchmen, land together with a certain number of Eng lishmen, and by a glance, with unerring certainty, the latter will to a man be distinguished from aU the others. AU the attention of these persecutors wid be bestowed upon them. The others wdi be permitted to pass on without molesta tion of any kind.

The secret of the whole matter lies in this, that these persons are taught by experience that the English alone are worth looking after, for they only can be made to bleed. Incredible as it may seem, some of these tormentors look on Englishmen as such legitimate subjects for their exactions, that a gentleman positively and seriously assured me, as I traveUed from Calais to Ghent with him, that one person actually de manded a franc for having followed him LONDON TO CALAIS. to the Custom-house, and offering to facditate the operations which all Eng hshmen must there go through. But I was not quite done with the Passport-office when I quitted the sub ject, a few minutes ago. It is an in tolerable nuisance, so great, indeed, that its non-existence among us, had we no other advantages over continental na tions, ought to lead us to set a higher value on our own country than ever.

There you are free as the ah to go where and when you please ; on the Continent, this odious passport system prevents your taking a single step untd you have com plied with its vexatious requirements. On the day I had last to pass through the ordeal at Calais, the annoyances to which we were subjected were peculiarly great. There was a large number of us, and we had but httle time to get through the necessary forms before the train was to start for Brussels. After we had aU got into the outer room, the door was shut ; and, as there was no ventilation of any kind, and as there was, besides, a profusion of glass, through which a burning hot sun shot his rays, the sensation became exceedingly unpleasant, and must have engendered in other minds, as it did in my own, recollections of what we had read about the Black-hole in Calcutta.

It is true there was this dif ference between the latter and the Pass port-office in Calais, that the Black-hole in Calcutta was pitchy dark, wdide the other place, as I have just said, was too much favomed with the hght of day. But, then, what signifies it, if men are to be suffocated, whether it be hi dense darkness or in the blaze of the meridian sun? Here let me do the two officials who had to vise our passports the justice to say, that they did everything they could to abridge the duration of our miseries, by going through their duties with all practicable expedition. You may guess how laboriously they worked, when I mention that a third official actuaUy perspired at every pore, though he had nothing to do but to look on and watch the operations of the others. This may be set down as an Americanism.

I can not help if it should, nor wiU the fact be thereby affected. Whether the weather had anything to do with this official's copious perspiration, is not for me to say. I simply report what I witnessed. He looked on at what his colleagues wrere doing, with an intense fixedness of gaze, and as he looked, the perspiration dropped in copious quantities from his brow. A little incident occurred in the Pass port-room of Calais on the day in question, which is worthy of being noted. Two sisters, both of whom, I should say, were characters in their way, met, after a long absence. But a partition, with a glass window in it, divided them; the one having come to meet the other, but being too late, did not get into the same room. The breast of each, as ought to be the case with aU sisters, was fuU to overflowing with affection.

But the cir cumstance of then being separated by this unfeeling partition, prevented then shaking hands or throwing themselves into each other's arms. Resigning themselves to the impulses of then ardent sisterly regard, and setting at nought all the conventionahsms of so ciety, they most energeticaUy kissed, or rather attempted to kiss, each other through the panes of glass, and addressed each other in the endearing accents which were natural on the occasion, with sufficient loudness of voice to be heard by aU who were present. Perhaps there are few events in life which are more calculated to try a man's patience or ruffle his temper than the ordeal of going through a Passport office, if in danger of being too late for the train. The person, whether man or woman, who comes unscathed through that ordeal, may with all safety be set down as a person possessing a singularly excellent temper.

There was one Erench lady on this occasion — fat, fair, and forty — who convinced every one present that she did not belong to this category. She had the gift of speech in rare abundance, and certainly, if loquacity of the abusive kind be a talent which ought not, any more than any other talents, to be hid under a bushel, she literaUy obeyed the Scripture injunction. She was at war with everything : she quarrelled with and abused everybody, because she did not get her passport vised with the promptitude which she thought she had a right to expect ; and when at last she got the necessary indorsation, she sarcasticaUy remarked that it was high time, for that she had waited a year in that room. She did not say that the time looked like a year, but that she had actuaUy been vol. i. c wraiting a year in that apartment before she got the vise.

The crowding and scrambhng in the Passport-office, to get through the requi site forms, are oftentimes so great as not to admit of description. I should not like to say or do anything that could be construed into an intention, or could have a tendency, to promote immoraUty of any kind, or in any shape ; therefore, in this instance, I make no suggestion. But I may be aUowed to record my sur prise that the sweU-mob of London have never tried their hand at their trade in the Passport-office in Calais. With or dinary tact — with, indeed, half the inge nuity they often show at home — they wrould reap a rich harvest. In the first place, it is to be remembered, that per sons setting out on their travels have usually well-plenished pockets. In the second place, the chances of escaping de tection would be unprecedentedly great, because the excitement, and bustle, and anxiety consequent on the forms they have to go through are such, that if they actuaUy saw the hand of an "appro priator" in their pockets, they would scarcely be conscious of the fact ; whUe, even if they were, their own hands are so fud of portmanteaus, carpet-bags, or other things, that they would be unable to seize the offender.

" But," say you, " could they not caU to the Erench officials to take them into custody?" They might, I admit, caU, but would they come when you caUed them ? I am supposing the English man cannot speak Erench, and it is cer tain a Erench policeman does not under stand English. The chances of escape, consequently, are decidedly great. The sweU mob of London are an enterprising, as weU as clever set of persons ; I wonder, therefore, that the idea of practising then profession in the Passport-office of Calais has never occurred to them. I have said that the Passport-office c and Custom-house are under the same roof. But these are not the only places important to the Enghsh traveller which are so. The RaUway-office for Brussels and Paris, and aU the intermediate towns, is also in the same building.

There you have to take your tickets. You pay the money demanded for your fare, and think you have done with the radway officials. Not so. When they give you your ticket for your fare, you find, unlike the English system, that you have only paid for your own transit, not for that of your luggage. A demand is made, aud must be acceded to, for the latter, otherwise not a particle of your luggage will be permitted to accompany you. In this way, radway traveUing in France is not, after aU, so much cheaper, though generaUy supposed to be so, than in England. But under the same roof in Calais as these three places, there is yet another which ought to be a great public convenience, and would be so were it conducted properly ; I allude to the restaurant. Un fortunately, however, for the public, and no less so, I should suppose, for the pro prietors, matters are managed in a very indifferent way.

Eirst of aU, a person is charged three francs for any little things he can hastdy snatch up ; and this is dignified with the name of dinner. That, at least, was what a friend of mine had to pay, though he declares he got nothing to eat ; and certainly the voracity with which, in my presence, be devoured a succession of sandwiches within an hour after he was, by a fiction, supposed to have dined at this Calais restaurant, afforded presumptive evidence of the truthfulness of his statement. I myself was too late to dream of dining, even had the dinner been the best ever served up in Erance or anywhere else; and therefore I have had no opportunity of speaking from experience. But I did order something which I fancied could be got in a moment, and might be swal lowed in a little less time. I found, however, that what I ordered was always coming, but never came.

At last, just as the train was about to start, something was brought, but too late to admit of its being delibe rately eaten, or, indeed, eaten at aU. But though there was no time to eat, there was time to receive payment for what was ordered. Others were in the same predicament as myself. They kept calling and scolding the waiters for then slowness and negligence, in wretched Erench, and the garcons were equaUy indefatigable in giving explanations, and renewing their promises of greater promptitude and attention, in no less execrable Enghsh. One thing struck me forcibly on my last arrival in Calais. And what does the reader suppose that was ? I am sure he would not easUy or speeddy guess. It was the great increase which had taken place in the number of beards which everywhere met my eye. I may be asked, how is the fact to be accounted for?

I have a theory on the subject, but I do not wish any one to adopt it merely because it is mine. I ascribe the greatly increased prevalence of beards since I was last in Erance, to the fact of Louis Napoleon wearing one. Louis PhUippe had a decided prejudice against beards ; and we aU know that the ex ample of the highest person in any country is always foUowed by the bulk of the community. Who that is old enough, does not remember how the example of George the Eourth was foUowed in matters of dress ? That monarch not only aspired to the distinction of being, as regards manners, the first gentleman in Europe, but he was also ambitious of being the leader of the fashion in affairs of the toilet. Within a few days of his appear ing in a new suit of clothes, of some novel cut, Bond-street, at that time the favourite resort of the dandies of London, wras crowded with foppish promenaders, showing off the new attire.

It wid also be recollected by many persons, that about ten years ago, it became quite the fashion with the ladies of England to have their bonnets tied beneath their chins with their veils. The origin of that invasion on the previously existing female fashion, is also to be traced to the example of Royalty. When the Queen was one day in Scotland on a visit to the magnificent mansion of the Marquis of Breadalbane, there suddenly arose a strong breeze of wind whde she was walking in the fields. The bonnet, by a sudden gust, was weU nigh torn off her head, and fearing that some other gust might either carry it away altogether, or destroy it, she tied it in the way I have described. The ladies in Scotland, who first saw her Majesty wearing her bonnet this way, accordingly did the same, assuming that she had done the thing from choice, not necessity; and, before many weeks had elapsed, the practice was universal throughout Great Britain.

In the same way, because Louis Philippe, while King of Erance, did not wear a beard, that facial feature became much less general during his reign than it had been before. But now that we have at the head of affairs in France, a man who glories in his beard, we see a vast increase in the number of beards among aU classes since the year 1848. My hypothesis on the subject receives much confirmation from the fact, that a very large number of the beards which now confront your eye the moment you land on the shores of France, are manifest imitations as to form, of the facial fringe which is the property of Louis Napoleon. Calais is a dud place. When I paid my first visit to it, I formed a more favourable opinion of it. It is, however, right to mention that I then saw it under peculiarly propitious circumstances.

It was when the Great Northern RaUway was opened to Calais. The place might then be said to be attired in its hohday clothes. All its inhabitants were dressed in theirs. Every public place, and a large proportion of the private houses, were ornamented in every possible variety of style. Flags were everywhere floating in the ah. Thou sands of people crowded into the town from aU parts of the surrounding country, and every countenance amidst the vast throng was radiant wdth joy. No wonder, then, if under chcumstances so favourable, I was rather pleased with Calais on my first visit. I have been there twice since then, and must say that I look upon it as one of the duUest towns, either on the coast or in the interior of France. And what is more, I venture to say, that of all the Englishmen resident in it, of which there is a goodly number, not one wiU be found who entertains a different opinion from that which I have expressed.

They are there, one and all, not from choice, but necessity. It is their poverty, not their wiU, that consents to then being located in Calais. Every EngUshman feels it to be a place of exile. I weU remember the pathetic description which the late celebrated sporting writer, Mr. Apperley, better known by the name of " Nimrod," gave about twenty years ago of the intolerable dulness of Calais. He could not have experienced more of the feelings of an exde had he been banished to some barren and far distant island of the sea. Calais, as every reader of English his tory is aware, was once in the possession of England. It was taken by Edward the Thhd, after a severe siege, which lasted for eleven months. The story of Eustace de St. Pierre, the burgomaster, and his five companions, who were brought with halters round then necks before the English Monarch, preparatory to their execution, which had been ordered for the resistance which they offered to the capture of their town, but who were afterwards pardoned at the earnest entreaty of the Queen, — has been lately dlustrated in one of the most valuable of the works which the Art Union has yet issued.

To Englishmen, one of the greatest objects of curiosity in Calais is the room in the inn kept by H. Dessin, in which Sterne slept when he paid the visit to the continent in which the " Sentimental Journey " had its origin. I weU remember when coming, twenty years ago, to the metropolis, that one of my first visits was to an inn which possessed a somewhat simdar celebrity. I allude to the " Bed at Edmonton," which Cowper has immortalized in his celebrated story of " John Gilpin." Calais was, a few years ago, brought prominently before the notice of the English public, by the circumstance of Lady Hamilton — the " Emma" of Lord Nelson, whom he loved with an intensity of passion which has never been sur passed — having died there in utter destitution ; and, but for the charity of the English clergyman, no burial-place would have been found for her remains, other than that which is allotted to the veriest pauper.

Such was the melancholy end of one who, though of humble origin, became one of the most brilfiant, as well as beautiful women of her day, and who, at one time, had all the fashionable world at her feet. Not one of the survivors or descendants of the hundreds of those who had received marked favours and lucrative situations through her influence, thought of send ing her a farthing, when they knew full well that she was UteraUy perishing of hunger, an exile and an outcast, in Calais. Such is fashionable feeling — such is fashionable friendship. Calais is a place of some little trade, but it has, of late, been declining, partly owing to the greater advantages and spirited rivalry of Boulogne. Its population is, in round numbers, about 12,000, without any prospect of an aug mentation.