Notes, etc

Front matter

NOTES OP A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. By W. H A Z L I T T. 1' the world's volume Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it; In a great pool, a swan's nest. Prithee think There's livers out of Britain. Cymbeline. LONDON : PRINTED FOR HUNT AND CLARKE, TAVISTOCK-STREET, COVENT-GARDEN. MDCCCXXVI. LONDON: HUNTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, Northumberland-court.

ADVERTISEMENT.

. The foUowing 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. a CONTENTS.

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 precon ception 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 sys tem of carping and contradiction can extract neither use nor meaning from any thing, and only tends B 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 griev ances. 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 assist ance in this way. Amiable land of Cockayne, happy in itself, and in making others happy ! Blest ex uberance of self-satisfaction, that overflows upon others ! Delightful impertinence, that is forward to oblige them ! THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 3 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 Levi athan, 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 com prehension, 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 seestnot, hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and listen to thee ! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness, un wieldy, 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 ig norance, 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 B 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 peti tion 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 sove reign ! Every thing here appears in motion — coming or going. People at a watering-place may be com pared 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 philan thropy 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 sio-ht. out of mind. How poor a geographer is the human THROUGH FKANCE AND ITALY. 5 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 com pletely 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 Memberof 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 crew 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 cettina 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 pre vented 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 mis-shapen, 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 towns 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 ges ticulation 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.

" Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please !" 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 some thing 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 novel tv 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 Eng lish ballad-singer would dream of flattering the French visitors by a song in praise of Louis le Desire before a Brighton or a Dover Hotel ?

As the door opened just now, I saw the lad or garcon, 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 com mands 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 pro portion 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 culti vated 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 soilis care fully 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, " Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail; ' the smiling landscape waves on either side to a con siderable 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 Eng land.

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 postillion, 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 accus tomed, 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 arch ways 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 un certainty of communication, they resent an obvious neglect on this point as an affront, and an unwarrant able 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 expla nation 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 reluc tance 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 carpetting 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, un savoury 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, par tridges, 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 de lightful, 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 expe riment, 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 four-pence 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 socia bleness 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-lookino* 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. c Indeed it was wrong. A Mr. James Williams acted as our English interpreter while we staid, and pro cured 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 in habitants, 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 — " The pomp of groves and garniture of fields."

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, and 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 weak nesses ; he has no sympathy except with the plea surable; and provided a hill presents an agreeable prospect, never troubles his head whether the inhac bitants 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*, and will not lift up his little finger to remove * One would think that a people so devoted to perfumes, who deal in essences and scents, and have fifty different sorts of snuffs, would be equally nice, and offended at the approach of every disagreeable odour.