The Parson, Pen and Pencil: or reminiscences and illustrations of an excursion to Paris, Tours and Rouen in the summer of 1847: with a few memoranda on French farming

Front matter

THE PARSON, PEN, AND PENCIL OR, REMINISCENCES AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF AN EXCURSION TO PARIS, TOURS, AND ROUEN. IN THE SUMMER OF 1847; WITH A FEW MEMORANDA ON FRENCH FARMING. BY G. M. MUS GRAVE, M.A. VICAR OF BORDEN, KENT. " All my reports go with the modest truth ; Not more, nor clipp'd, but so." SHAKSPEABl?. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET Eufclisifjw in ©rtfinara to S?er iHajtSti'. 1848. London : Printed by S. & J, Bentley, Wilson, and Fley, Bangor House, Shoe Lane. TO GILBERT HENDERSON, Esq., OF THE INNER TEMPLE, Q.C, Krcor&cr of ftibrrpool, AND LATE FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXON. THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED EY HIS EARLIEST COMPANION IN FOREIGN TRAVEL, AND SINCERELY ATTACHED FRIEND, THE AUTHOR.

Preface

. Three persons out of four who take up a work of this light character, with the intention of perusing its contents, begin at Chapter I. without even a glance at the Preface. Hence very few Writers, now-a-days, trouble the reading Public with any long preliminary observations ; and I, for one, am not desirous of forming a disagreeable exception. For such a trifle as this transcript of mere wayside notes and sketches, it will be sufficient for my purpose to be allowed to say, that had I, in the course of desultory reading, met with any accredited author of recent date that had familiarly touched on the many subjects com prised in the following pages, these Volumes would never have appeared. His publication

PREFACE.

. VI of such narrative would have been my Hand- Book on the scenes through which my route lay ; and my Remembrancer when at home again : and I will be frank enough to admit that in sending these Reminiscences to press I am not without hope that they may become travelling companions, at whose suggestion some one solitary tourist shall be enabled to employ the period of even as brief a stay as mine in France to very profitable account. As little books require neither bed nor board, such addition to the travelling carriage will be, at any rate, inexpensive ; and, on points of difference, will not interrupt harmony by loud discussion. My Sketches must speak for them selves ; but their eloquence is of the most unobtrusive character. There are, of course, an infinity of topics left unnoticed in this memorial, many of which would have worthily occupied the attention of the Divine, the Scholar, and the Citizen of the World — but deep investigation of either

PREFACE.

. VII Church or State matters was wholly foreign to my design, and incompatible with the very limited duration of my furlough : not to men tion that my dear comrade in travel was a youth entitled, as being for the first time on the Continent, to all the advantages of paternal companionship ; and these could not have been enjoyed in the Colleges, Cloisters, or Salons of Paris. Such is my Avant Propos, or Prologue ; the pertinence of which will, perhaps, be best evinced when the last page shall have dismissed both Critic and Friend ; the one wondering how Pen and Pencil ever contrived to complete so much ; and the other indignant at a Parson not having done it better ! / BORDEN, February, 1848. PEN, AND PENCIL.

Chapter I

It must be a matter of perfect indifference to the reader, but he is welcome to the information, that I had two main objects in quitting the manse of my quiet village on June 21 st, 1847, for the shores of France. First, to disperse, by active exercise, and change of scene and climate, certain ugly symptoms of gout which had been intermittent since March ; and, secondly, to afford to my elder son, during the earlier period of the vacation, an opportunity of visiting for the first time a foreign land, and marking some of the characteristic qualities of his near, but unknown, neighbours. Youths of eighteen, even of average endowments of intellect, are susceptible of no slight improvement from being led to raise reflec- VOL. I. B tions on the civil and ecclesiastical government, and the national manners and resources of a great people ; and those who have at this early period of life been taught how to distinguish the pro gress of civilization, science, and religion, have, in truth, contemplated the three greatest blessings of which human nature is susceptible, and cannot but derive advantage from the survey, however transient.

Pursuant to this design, we obtained our pass port in London for Paris via Amiens ; in which I was somewhat amused to find the " signale ment," or description of my venerable person, adding two inches to my stature over and above the measure recorded concerning the same body in the year 1820 ; but there was no particulariza tion, as at that date, of the " visage ovale," " teint colore" " menton rond," " cheveux char tains,'''' &c. &c. The aforesaid incorrect state ment of height was the only mention made on the face of this essential vade-mecum with reference to the person. The declaration of my being an incumbent of the established church was hardly of so much importance ; for, not all our " customary suit of solemn black," nor the annexation of " Reverend/'' seems to impress the foreigner with a conviction that we are bond fide clergy.

While their cures and vicaires* walk and ride in cassock and band, (though this, by the bye, is beginning to fall into desuetude,) we appear before them in the garb of the laity, and pass muster, I suspect, in three cases out of four, simply as " gentilshommes Anglois, riches, et soi-disants ecclesiastiques." Let one of our fraternity leave his card, on a morning call, at the residence of a French family unin itiated in these matters : — The first note that shall reach him, in case of there being any occasion of writing, will be addressed "A Monsieur, Monsieur ," not ''Au Reverend.'''' In fact, the French, and most foreigners, appear to be incapable of discriminating the ranks and titles of this country. I was questioned respecting Sir Russell and Lord Peel, Lord Gladstone and Le Brougham ; f and though I am willing to believe * In France "Cure" means the Incumbent; "Vicaire," the Curate. t Even their leading newspapers exhibit, weekly, the same blunder. b that the quasi cassock (or what is vulgarly termed the bishop's apron) would induce my French friends to salute the wearer thereof as Monsieur l'Eveque, in recognition of his card as that ofthe Bishop of , it is very doubtful if our reverend deans and venerable archdeacons, " shovel hat," rosette, and all, would be exempts from the category of simple " Monsieur."

The clergy on the Continent are a gens togata — gownsmen, one and all ; and, as far as my personal experience is concerned, between the Tiber and the Thames, the Romish population repudiate the notion of the priest without frock ; and regard us as gentlemen of independence, interesting ourselves, perhaps, in the special welfare of the Protestant church, but not as officiating priests and pastors of the people. However, I shall be unconsciously open ing the question of clerical habit ; it is high time, therefore, to snatch up my ministerial wrapper, or surtout, such as it is, and hurry from London to Folkstone. This was a transit of only three hours and a quarter. Really this is a luxurious refinement in travelling. I have a me morandum-book of the year 1820, which records the fact of myself and a fellow collegian starting from Charing-Cross on Tuesday, the 20th of June, 1820, on the top of the favourite four horsed Dover coach, which left the Golden Cross at 8 a.m. By p. 11 we had reached Gravesend; having stopped at Dartford for breakfast !

By p. 2 we were at Green Street, between Sittingbourne and Faversham. At p. 5 we reached Barham Downs. At | p. 7 were set down at Paine's Hotel, Dover ! Here was a total of eleven hours and a half, by a fast coach, twenty-seven years ago, occupied in accomplishing a journey which is now daily performed in little more than a fifth part of the time.* Moreover, in the case I am here quoting, we were obliged to pass the night at the hotel : a genuine case of dinner, coffee, bed and breakfast, waiter and chambermaid, boots, luggage porter, and ladderman ; total, two pounds, seven shillings and sixpence each traveller, of which one guinea was paid before we clambered down from our " fast coach." * The express train accomplishes the distance in two hours and eighteen minutes. For my ride from London Bridge station to Folkstone last June I paid eleven shillings and sixpence ; and the passage across, an hour and a half afterwards, was charged at six shillings and sixpence : so that I effected a most delightful journey from London Bridge to Boulogne Pier, between eleven o'clock and five, for exactly the very sum which I had paid in June, 1 820, for a ride of nearly twelve hours, (three of which were in heavy rain,) on the dangerous summit of a stage-coach, which, after all that expenditure of time and patience, served but to deposit myself and luggage on the beach of Dover ; and involve me in a further outlay of one pound, six and sixpence before I embarked.

Add to this, the lum bering, loitering voyage of the " remarkably fast sailing packets," (even tlien there were "fast men " and "fast " carriages and craft !) and the contrast is complete : the charm of modern im provements is wound up. Reader ! revel with an old traveller in the contemplation of these many and marvellous ameliorations. Let us reckon up a few of these comforts, and see if we cannot, as we grow old, disprove the allegation of Aristotle and Horace, that the nearer a man approaches to the close of his term, the more vehemently he lauds the things of his earlier day. I question if we who came into this world of inventions at the close of the last century are entitled to exercise either our imagination or speech in such a libellous spirit of detraction. Steam, gas, electric telegraphs, Wenham ice, caoutchouc, chloroform, ethereal insensibility, Macintoshes, Indiarubber pavement. — But modern refinements defy enumeration : allons nous toujours !

What a halting-place, too, at Folkstone ! Vantini's hotel is the caravanserai par excellence of " the civil'st place of all this isle." The contrast between the almost palatial elegance of this establishment and the best accommodation in Boulogne or Calais cannot fail to strike every traveller who is either not too much in dread of the passage to, or too completely " done up " by the passage from the opposite coast, to exercise any powers of discernment ; and such bewilderment is nothing rare. We were much amused at the doubts, and fears, and ill-disguised misgivings of an amiable pdre de famille, who consulted me as to my undisguised opinion on the state of the sea. Would it be prudent, on the whole, to venture out to-day? There had been such a wind all last night ; and Mrs. was but a poor creature on the water.

Indeed, he himself was as bad a subject as any of the party. He did not think he should ever manage to prevail on his daughters to leave that very comfortable hotel this afternoon : — A passenger by the morning boat had reported the waves halfway across to be absolutely terrific. What would / advise ? / seemed to be quite conversant with the Channel. (Fancy my fami liarity with old Ocean !) I had a mind to quote the hackneyed lines, — " There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, &c. And we must take the current as it serves, Or lose our venture." But, without flinging blank verse into so blank a countenance, I merely remarked that there was but a ground-swell, the annoyance of which would subside after about an hour's steaming, and advised the decoying of the mere de famille to the jetty, where the " Prince Ernest," of 145 tons, was at that moment taking in her cargo of every conceivable variety of box, bag, portmanteau, and package, augmented to no small extent by the carriage and trunks of Count Jarnac, Secretary of Legation in London.

No sooner had the diplomatist's baggage descended the groove or inclined plane, down which all the personal effects are rapidly and securely transferred from the pier to the deck, than a loud crash, followed instantaneously by a tremendous shout of alarm, called all hands forward ; and the panic fear of the moment led many to conclude that a man had gone overboard. A cart heavily laden with paving-stone, for the repair or completion of that part of the pier close to which our vessel was moored, had overrun its boundary line on the iron ways of the works, and fallen over with both horses ; the latter being precipitated into the water between the jetty and the side of the " Three Brothers," brig of Dover ; and the cart and its ponderous contents bearing down all before it till it reached, with a thundering shock, the deck of the brig, where but a few minutes previously, three or B four of the crew had been at work.

One poor animal, having fallen on its back, could not right itself by struggling, and was speedily drawn un der the keel and drowned. The other began to swim, and was soon afterwards towed across the harbour. The escape of the sailors below was most providential. But here come the fearfuls I Husband and wife, two sons, two daughters, abigail, and bull finch. It must have been ingenious special plead ing which could have brought this about. I saw them severally descend the steps. Let me record the language of six pairs of eyes on the occasion, as addressed in mute expressive eloquence to mine : — Husband. " I've been and done it. Here we ■n are, you see. Wife. " Ah ! this is your doing !" Elder Daughter. " People are so fond of giving advice, not considering other people's feelings." Younger Daughter.

" And so we are to be vic timized, because you happen not to care about a dreadful rough sea." Elder Son. " Sha'nt we have a nice time of it with the women !" Second Son. " The gov'nor doesn't know his own mind. First we were to dine and sleep here ; then it was to be only luncheon, and sail, if all calm ; then, if rough, dine late after sketch ing in the neighbourhood. Now, we are hauled off from that prime concern yonder, to sprawl aboard this horrid oily hulk. Confound it ! " However, sure enough, there they all were on deck, for a few seconds of time ; for they lost not the earliest opportunity of diving down to secure berths, and take up such positions as their several anticipations of the pitch and toss, roll and lurch, bumping and thumping of the next two hours or more, induced them to single out from the gene ral distribution of sofas, cot-beds, camp-stools, or chairs, in the state cabin of the Prince Ernest : " And so they formed a groupe that 's quite antique."

I ran down for a couple of carpet-stools to use on deck, and gained a brief insight into the state of things. One despairing maiden had laid her self down in beauty, with dishevelled hair, and general abandon, to the dismal horror of the time — the veritable impersonation of Sir Joshua Rey nolds's Dido on the funeral pile. Her sister, the ' Anna Soror ' of the scene, was bending over her brow, and steeping a cambric handkerchief — of oh ! how delicate a tissue ! — in eau de Cologne : Sweets to the sweet ! Opposite, lay a matron, whose " still life," in the attitude she had taken up, presented an ad mirable tableau vivant of the Cleopatra of the Capitol at Rome. These chief dramatis persona were supported by two lively girls, of about sixteen, who had climbed into a sort of cot, and, believing it to be a most needful preparation, were unfolding two of the prettiest of all frilled nightcaps.

Two prattling lady's-maids, who had been indefatigable on terra firma in the embark ation of a spaniel dog and parrot, two guitar cases, and an enormously disproportionate straw basket of ham and beef sandwiches, brandy-flask, and drinking cups, — had now measured their flounced and furbelowed lengths on the floor south-west of " Dido ;" preparing, as I inferred from certain long ivory needles in their hands, to continue the knitting of some fancy purses a, la crochet, which probably would have been fin ished before landing in France, had they not, un luckily, been finished themselves, within half an hour of distance from Folkestone. Not far from these was Madame :— She, the too easily persuaded, no doubt, against her better reason, simply because that stout middle-aged gentleman in black had assured Mr that there was nothing to apprehend !

I give her credit, however, for that philosophical determination to abide the worst, which seemed to say, " When it 's done, it 's over." Pillowed on the right hand and left, and propped by what appeared to be a carpet-bag, or a mass of folded cloaks and shawls, she was calmly surveying the opening scene of the two sisters' " total derange ment of system ;" and, trying to laugh at their growing apprehensions, " She sate, like Patience on a monument, Smiling at Grief." And, faithful to his vow to take her for better for worse, in sickness or in health, lay, out stretched upon two chairs alongside, my worthy interlocutor, her spouse. He had donned a black velvet cap, loosened his cravat, and prepared for everything and anything but a series of sedulous and delicate little attentions, which, however delightful in theory and contemplation, are quite out of the question when the bile is upset.

I think the reader will be of opinion that I com prehended a tolerably wide scope in my survey of somewhat less than a minute below. The occasional rattle and " fitful sound " of seven white mysterious wash-basins, piled up between the cot and a table, (a precaution of the pro vident steward or stewardess) gave " dreadful note of preparation ;" and as the shake, shake, shake of the upheaving boat began to do its work, I left all parties to the quiet enjoyment of their own company. Affairs soon began to wear a dismal aspect on deck also. The diplomatist's lady was swinging in her travelling-carriage, which blocked up the passage of communication fore and aft ; screwing her courage to that stick ing-place. Another carriage was lashed in the same position larboard, effectually spoiling my promenade from stem to stern, in which I rejoice on shipboard, especially against a head-wind.

By a wheel of this barouche one delicate gentle lady, of upwards of five-and-forty years of age, held on during the whole passage ; her right hand grasping her son's ; eyes closed, features rigid ; feet rivetted, as it were, to the plank. It was a singular spectacle ; a great experiment. It succeeded. Not so some twenty or thirty beyond her. What a scene ! How soon the loud talking ceased ! How stealthily the couples that had begun by nestling into quiet chat withdrew from further gossip. Where are those laughing eyes under the Leghorn bonnet and apricot-tinted ribbons? Alas! they are glaring without "speculation" on the heaving waters ; the pretty blue fringed parasol is broken, and " The Traveller's Guide through Kent" lies uncut, unheeded at her feet. The very polite and communicative beau, her particular friend's brother, with that smart Joinville tie and Chesterfield Macintosh coat, who, only half an hour since, was pitying " the landsmen," and proposing lunch, has suc cumbed to peculiar sensations, and grasps the gunwale with a sick man's clutch, deploring from his heart, that " Nature," as Ben Jonson saith, " hath these vicissitudes, and makes no man a state of perpetuity."

Not two yards off, with a visage to match her soiled lemon kid gloves, sits Madame de Jarnac's lady's maid : — Pauvre enfant ! The silver top ped flask of Eau de Vie de Cognac has been appealed to in vain ; she was " willing to make herself generally useful to her employer," but were her titled lady the Queen of England's sister, she couldn't walk a plank at this moment to save royalty itself from drowning. Why, how fares it now with that " nice young man" abaft the binnacle? Not two minutes since he was asking the steersman for a lucifer to light his Havannah ; he had laid down last Saturday's " Punch," and begun to express his opinion that it was rather " slow" to be confined in this manner for upwards of two hours, across the " duckpond." The complainant has now hardly a leg to stand upon, as the lawyers say.

He was evidently contemplating a brisk walk backwards and forwards ; he finds it won't exactly do, under the circumstances. He resumes his locus standi; for the " movement" does not pro mise well. He has thrown his third-part-unsmoked cigar overboard. The breeze has blown last Saturday's Punch some four or five feet away into a coil of rope. Never mind; he had rather not go after it. The mate comes up with a little blue-leaved cheque-book. " Eight shillings, if you please, sir." " By and bye ; not just now." If he lifts his elbow from the present position — if he attempt to thrust a hand into either pocket — open a purse, ask for change, wait for silver, speak another word on any subject, it will all be over with him. As the vessel went down in the trough of the sea just now, he felt as if his chin was at his knees, and his stomach at his toes ; disturb him in his form, and " he's agone 'coon," as Jonathan would say.

Down dips the bow sprit ; up come the funnel, carriages, paddle boxes : he wouldn't look that way again for a thousand pounds. The water-cask is overturned ! " Look out, sir ! " He must run aside a yard or two to starboard, to save his shins, and comes full tilt against a sailor, who has just at that moment opened the panel of a mysterious, hot closet, appropriated as the caboose of Prince Ernest, and let forth the fumes of sundry fried flat fish, onions, and dripping. This is too bad ! " Beyond that rush, he had no hint of any after deed — For he was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed." * I cannot conceive that Dante, in all his four teen embassies from the Florentine states, ever went on a sea-voyage, or he would have embodied either in the " Purgatorio," or " Inferno," or both, a horrifying episode on sea-sickness, which, not the lapse of five hundred years since he wrote, involving the noblest discoveries in che mical and medical science, have availed to banish from the ills that human flesh, once afloat, is heir to.

An able article in the Examiner, (January 1, 1848) commenting on Lord Ellesmere's remarks on an invasion, says : — " One ally of ours, whose force is always unnoticed, is sea-sickness, to which the French [?] are more liable than any other people ; and fifty thousand shipped heroes * Hood's " Demon Ship." 1!) PEN, AND PENCIL. would, upon landing, be fifty thousand wretched helpless invalids, nauseating even glory ! " But we are now so close to beautiful France as to be able to see her green crops and pro mised harvest waving on the slopes of Boulogne. Not Margate, nor Ryde, nor Ramsgate, nor Weymouth, is a prettier seaport to enter in sunshine than Gessoriacum Romanorum, now Boulogne. The mouth of Boulogne harbour, by the bye, has been long sacred to travellers in England and Wales under that most grotesque and fal lacious hieroglyphic of the metropolitan coach office, a highly emblazoned edition of which may, I believe, still be seen, gratis, in Regent's Circus, Piccadilly.

That 's the column ! The first stone of it was laid by Soult, on the 9th of November, 1805. " Nothing now remains," said Buonaparte, when Sir Ralph Abercrombie had defeated Menou at Alexandria, " but to invade Britain." A passage in the Memoirs of the Due de Rovigo, relative to the proceedings of Napoleon subsequent to the rupture of the peace of Amiens, states that a naval council was assembled by the ambitious consul on the coast of Flanders, to discuss the means he had to contend with the English; when it was unanimously agreed that the sole chance of competing with British prowess lay in a descent upon their coast. For this it would be indispensable to build a flotilla. M. Decres, Minister of Marine Affairs, deprecated this pro ject, assuring the council that if such a flotilla were constructed, the English would meet it in the Channel with another.

One of the admirals present (Bruix) took occasion to observe that much would be achieved if the English did thus build ; for they would be obliged to disarm their fleet to fit out their flotilla. This opinion even tually prevailed, and the descent, the invasion, was determined upon. It has always appeared to me an act of unaccountable inconsistency and folly, that the French authorities should have permitted one stone to stand upon another at this spot. Give the monumental pillar what name they may, — dedicate it to the memory of never so many legions of mighty men of valour, it is but a record of defeat, and a memorial of folly and criminal ambition. It reminds me of the 18th verse of the 18th chapter of the 2nd Book of Samuel : " Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar which is in the king's dale : for he said, ' I have no son to keep my name in remembrance :' and he called the pillar after his own name ; and it is called unto this day ' Absalom's place.' " Napoleon shared the royal rebel's destiny, in being buried far away from the scene of his ambitious enterprises ; and the willows of Long wood, and the desolation of the Rock of St. He lena, where one large stone covered the moderate space sufficient, after death, for the man for whom Europe was once too little, are not unaptly prefigured by the verse that goes before ; to which the reader, if he be disposed, may refer.

My observation applies to the discomfiture and disappointment encountered in this very locality, from whence the Chief Consul witnessed the loss of three of his gun-boats, as they went down under the fire of our English cruisers, who stood into shore with composure, and occasionally fired at himself and suite as at a mark. If three alliterative words, in Cæsar's style, might, be substituted on the pedestal of the Bononian Column for the vapid braggadocio still extant, I know of none more appropriate than — VENI, VIDI, VITAVl. which, being translated and expounded, would intimate thus much : — " I came hither for the purpose of effecting a landing with the army of France on the beach at Dover, or wherever our flotilla might effect a descent, and of forcing my way to London, there to establish a Republic and dethrone King George.

" I saw the British frigates in the offing, and the effect of their twenty-fours. " I abandoned all my designs of invasion, and avoided all further contact with such ugly opponents." But we are now at the pier, and must frater nize with these long-bearded, mustachioed, in digo-dye-frocked natives, who are trooping along to greet us. Nova Scotia may enjoy its joke of " Blue Noses ; " old Gaul comes before us with that of blue frock ! " Oh the blue bonnets over the border ! " might be appropriately echoed by "Oh the blue gaberdines over the water!" If they be all smiles and activity, they are also all srnalt and blouse. I should say the whole collective multitude of French operatives (that's the modern term in vogue) are thus habited. Every class of artisan, in or out of the mill or manufac tory, is invariably the wearer of this coloured frock : item, the farmer, vintner, butcher, fish monger, greengrocer, carpenter, blacksmith, brick layer, railway-labourer, engineer, stoker, coach man, ploughman, shepherd, baker, pastrycook, scavenger, tinker, water-carrier, &c. &c, and so I might run through the list of some hundred be sides, habited in this uniform short slop, which is only varied in tint according to the alkali em ployed at the wash-tub or washing-barge, by the fair hands that beat and batter the soiled garment (more Gallico) into a state of azure clean liness.

Another step, and we are actually landed. My lively companion, a thoroughly good sailor, as the phrase is, bounded gaily into the frontiers of the land " without impediment." Yes ; but I have a little note, also, on this head. Wood and stone now do the kindly office for which, seven and-twenty years ago, the brawny flesh and mer maid bone of Boulogne's poissardes alone sufficed in the matter of landing at low water. Fancy a Fellow of Brazenose College, Oxford, being hoist ed on to the shoulders of one of these amphibious nymphs with "a very ancient and fish-like smell, legged like a woman, and her fins like arms," who bore him off, tenpence the ride, from the row boat to the shore ; the " sailing-packet " not being able to get in by half a mile. On a change tout cela ; but, however grotesque and inglorious as a premiere entree and debut, it caused a great deal of laughter at the time, as poor Matthews used to say.