Paris revisited, in 1815, by way of Brussels ... Second edition

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PARIS REVISITED, in 1815, BY WAY OF BRUSSELS : INCLUDING A WALK OVER THE FIELD OF BATTLE AT WATERLOO. Bv JOHN SCOTT, AUTHOR OF A VISIT TO PARIS IN 1814 ; AND EDITOR OF THS CHAMPION, A LONDON WEEKLY JOURNAL. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, FATERNOSTER-ROW. 1816. Printed by A. Strahan, New-Street- Square, London. CONTENTS. CHAP. I. Introduction on board a Margate Hoy: English character of a watering place : description of a citizen and his family on an excursion to the Coast : meagre air of a Continental sea-port, compared with the appearance of Margate and Ramsgate: description of the company on board a Margate hoy Page i — 14 CHAP. II. Departure from Ramsgate: view from the sea: fell of night : first appearance of Ostend : two soldiers' wives : the harbour of Ostend : deference shewn to British officers, and general respect paid to the English : this traced to their influx into these foreign places: responsibility incurred by England : the inhabitants of Ostend, and the military stationed there 15 — 29 CHAP. III.

Canal boats to Bruges : pleasant circumstances attending the passage : description of the passengers on board a schuyt : an old organ-grinder and his lively grandson, — their playing on deck : description of what was going on below: wives of British serjeants and serjeant-majors : anecdotes of two Dutch sailors: arrival at A CONTENTS. IV Bruges : hotel book full of British names : meeting with a Fletnish farmer : allusions to Flanders as fre quently the theatre of wars : the boat from Bruges to Ghent : a night party : a Flemish shoolmaster : stop page for refreshment : the morning : Belgian soldiers : spire of Ghent : boys at the landing place Page 30 — 50 CHAP. IV.

Empty look of Ghent, and the Flemish towns : system of Buonaparte : his sale of a church at Utrecht : rise and fall of the Flemish cities : dislike between the inhabitants of Belgium and the Dutch : intentions of the rulers of the present day : popularity of the hereditary Prince of Orange : public hankering after Buonaparte's system : tendencies to a much better feeling : regard for the English in the Netherlands 51 — 73 CHAP. V. Heavy rain in this country : description of the miserable carriages : self-complacency of an English servant : anecdote of an Irish officer : first appearance of Brussels : the wood of Soignees : ill-managed hotel at Brussels : first view of the streets of Brussels full of recovering British soldiers : the military hospital : general air of Brussels : its highly excited feeling : popularity of the British military : affecting circumstances increase the kindness of the people of Brussels : danger to virtue arising from a virtuous source : description of the females of Brussels : the system of female manners here : the park of Brussels : its interesting crowds : wounded officers : fete of the King CONTENTS.

Chapter I

'THO commence the account of my ex- ■*■ cursion as the excursion itself com menced, I must invite the reader on board a Margate Floy. A more dignified starting point may easily be fancied ; but none, probably, would so well answer the desir able purpose of exciting attention to the most striking peculiarities of our own country, just as we are on the point of encountering the features of one that is foreign. We may ransack the treatises of England's constitutional writers from one end to the other ; we may explore the mysteries and complications of her com merce and finance, — but these will not afford any one national lineament so cha racteristically and exclusively her own as R AN ENGLISH WATERING-PLACE. a crowded Watering Place, situated within a moderate distance of the metropolis. As belonging to the place itself, must, of course, be included, the skilful and tempt ing processes of conveyance to and fro, as well as the elaborate organization of its customs and amusements, and the extensive assortment of conditions, tempers, and tastes, presented by its company.

There is no counterpart to this curious spectacle in any history of former times, or of other people. Nothing like it either has been seen, or is to be seen, but amongst ourselves at the present period. The display of human intellect, the glories of war, the pomps of courts, and the luxuries of the rich, offer no very strong contrasts between the different ages and places of the world. Mankind have generally possessed some good poets, and many bad ones : the revels of palaces were as well known to the people of antiquity, as to the living generation, to set any example but a proper one : and the elegant caprices of a Grecian Beauty, and the gratifications of a Roman Bon Vivant do not merit the contempt even of these enlightened days of A CITIZEN WHEN THERE. music-masters, millinery, and made-dishes. — But neither Greece nor Rome, can furnish us with a parallel to the enjoyment of an elderly London shop-keeper, — who, for eleven months of the year, looks at brick-walls, rises early in the morning to arrange his shelves, and sits up late at night to post his ledger, — escaped, with the gladness of a young bird, for a week or two, to stand on a chalk cliff and watch the waves of the sea, to ask questions about the tides of the fishermen, discuss the crops of grass and turnips with the farmers, and finish the day, thus devoted to nature, with half-crown loo at the libra ries ! — What edification and entertainment have we lost, inasmuch as this illustration of national manners and individual humour, did not exist in Steele's time to furnish suggestions to be improved by his exquisite senius !

The beauty of the exhibition con sists in what some may be apt to imagine it wants, — a rich truth to nature, and a strong marking of specific traits. The citizen, and the citizen's lady, are as entirely native in the bathing machine, as in the counting-house, or the back parlour. b A LONDON FAMILY'S 4 The straw hat with enormous brims, the showy umbrella held against the sun, the inordinate appetite for every thing rural, are so many indications of the confinement of Cheapside : — they have not a feeling for the country that does not spring from, and suggest, a recollection of the city. The little boy by their side is made to walk with a cane, because people ought to look respectable when away from home. The bow is carefully careless, because customers are nobody more than any body else here.

The waiter is called in a stern tone, not from ill-nature, but because those that can afford to pay their bill should be attended to, without distinction of persons. Their most distinguishing symptoms, however, are, a remarkable quickness of notice and accuracy of information relative to every thing by which they are surrounded. Those who have ridiculed the emigrants from the capital, as ill-informed and blundering, con cerning what is foreign to the track of their own habits and occupations, are inaccurate observers, and unqualified to relish what is nicest in character. A Lon don family, that has been accustomed to VOYAGE TO MARGATE. make a yearly voyage to Margate, will be found, even to the yoinrg ladies that are released from boarding-school for the vaca tion, perfectly acquainted with the cant as well as technical names, given by the sailors to every turn of the river and every point of its banks.

They will cause one who has only been to the East Indies as a passenger, to blush for his ignorance of marine matters, as they talk of Sea-reach, and Long-reach ; — they well know when to look with the glass for the gibbets ; — they smile in pity if you call a sloop a ship, or .seem puzzled when you hear that you are going at the rate of six knots. They eat unceasingly 'to vanquish any suspicion of being " affected by the motion ;" but their great triumph is, when the crew come round to collect money from those despised beings who have not before seen the Nore light ! Papa, who is an old Margate-man, is still more nautically erudite. He is ostentatiously familiar with the captain ; puts on his night-cap pretty early in the afternoon, and talks with a wink of turning in : — he, every now and then, throws his eye from the compass in the binnacle to lB A CONTINENTAL SEA-PORT. the vane on the mast-head, — and recom mends a lady with a pale face to go to the leeward-side of the vessel, but to take care of the boom when she jibes.

Moreover, he is equally loquacious and expert when he is fairly landed in Kent, and comes in contact with the labourers in the fields. He sees, in a moment, the promise of the young wheats, — regrets that the black crops are likely to be scanty, — and praises, in the terms of a horse-dealer, the near Wheeler of the stage-coach that goes past, though he can perceive, with half an eye, that the poor thing's feet are tender through bad shoeing. I dwell upon this portrait (perhaps too long) because, as I have before observed, it is one thoroughly and solely English : — it is no where else to be met with, and it is to be traced to qualities ef national condition, indicating a degree of general advancement, that has not yet been at tained elsewhere. I have been tempted to the description, in consequence of being forcibly impressed with the meagre, quiet, and empty air of the Continental Sea-port at which I arrived, comparing it with the ITS DULL LOOK IN COMPARISON. 7 bustling, jocund, full appearance of that which I had left but a few hours before.

Large houses, scantily occupied; gloomy unfurnished shops, silent streets, a sleepy, poor aspect characterize Ostend. At Mar gate and Ramsgate, how different was the general effect ! There every thing seemed overflowing ; the demand went far beyond the means of accommodation, instead of lagging behind them ; — business supplied pleasure, and pleasure gave circulation and vigour to business. It is only in England, and but lately there, that the intermingling of the different orders of society, and the intermeddling of one class of people with the proper habits of others, which constitute the life of a watering place, could occur. A very long and highly prosperous settlement of national institutions, and personal pursuits, is neces sary, before any great number of individuals can have the power so to quit for a time their natural track, and respite their routine tasks : and an active, stout, and inde pendent turn of thinking can alone account for the inclination to do so.

A German or a Frenchman landing at a b PROBABLE THOUGHT OF A FOREIGN VISITOR. spot in England such as has been described, and uninformed of its nature, could only suppose, that, in the country to which he had come, the rich and the poor, the fortunate and the miserable, were arranged so as to inhabit separate towns, and that he had happened to debark at a place appropriated to those who had drawn the luckiest ca sualties in the lottery of existence. Con sidering what he has quitted, he cannot but be greatly surprised, when he learns that the swarm before him is a medley formed of every description of the nation ; that the greater proportion of itis composed of persons of the middle ranks, who come from considerable distances, not more in fluenced by fashion, than competent to obey its dictates.

A scene so utterly new to him, intimating a public union, opulence, and intelligence, so far beyond what he has been accustomed to see the signs of, can not but give him a high notion of the land on which he has just stepped, and is calculated to justify in his opinion all the accounts of her wealth, power, and spirit, which may have previously reached his ear. THE MARGATE HOY. But to return to our Margate Hoy, that we may prosecute our voyage. A party of commercial men occupied the principal table in the cabin, and amused themselves, after they had finished a sumptuous din ner and desert, which they brought on board nicely packed, with playing at five shilling whist, and betting highly on the various points of the game. Their iced port, and cant phrases, — their pine-apples, and city proverbs, assorted curiously.

A gentleman, who lost ten guineas with the greatest carelessness, turned sharply round, after laying down a bank note for five pounds before the winner, to beg of a person, whom he heard speak of going from Ramsgate to Ostend, to take over for him a small sample of sewing cottons, ■ — " But, for God's sake," said he, " be very particular in explaining at the custom house, that they are only samples, for otherwise I shall be put to the expence of a penny a-piece on the dozen balls, as harbour duty !" An active, smart sailor, the upper leathers of whose shoes scarcely covered his toes, and whose black silk handkerchief was put on DESCRIPTION OF A SAILOR, loosely, to shew his brown, but handsome throat, sat observing this party of players, with looks that shewed how eagerly he sympathized with the chances of the game, and how well inclined he was to share in the hazards of the adventure.

He was a man turned of forty, but had all the light brisk air of sea foppery, which may often be observed in our tars, united with the in dications of hardy habits, simple minds, and desperate spirits. He was returning, I found, to Margate, to see his wife and children, after an absence of ten years. He had belonged originally to one of the hoys, and soon became possessed of a boat of his own, but fell into rough hands, in consequence, as he said, with an arch wink, " of taking a trip across, to fetch the old women a drop of gin." The Excise seized his boat, its cargo, and himself: he lost four hundred and fifty pounds, which he had saved, and was sent on board a man of war. He had been for several years cruizing on the American coast, and described pithily, but simply, the miseries of a cold unhealthy station.

His ship had lost many of its men, and, as he said this, his own HIS STORY AND CONDITION. 11 lungs were torn with a dry cough, which boded very fatally. It was impossible to hear this portentous signal, to look at the intelligent but dissolute and fierce counte nance of the man, and listen to his story, told in quaint, sometimes highly comic, and always very forcible language, — with out questioning, with feelings of regret, the value of that national system, to which he had become an unfortunate victim. Here was an individual utterly ruined in principles, constitution, and circumstances. He spoke bitterly of the treatment of the seamen by their officers, prophesied that our navy had seen its best days, and, while he shewed the most thorough contempt for the Americans, whom he described as cowards and lubbers, exulted in the idea that they were likely to be strengthened against Eng land by multitudes of prime English sailors, who would seize with avidity any opportunity to escape from the lash, and low wages.

It was quite clear that this man's testimony was strongly tinctured with the prejudices and various imprqper feelings of an irregu lar and unprincipled mind, composed of violent dispositions, and disappointed hopes; TWO FEMALE PASSENGERS : but it is mere self-deception to set down as unworthy of notice all that may drop, as complaint or denunciation, from one so circumstanced. Those who exercise power, such is human nature, are quite as liable to fall into error as those who are the objects of its exercise ; and the impro prieties of the former are both the most dangerous, and the most intolerable. The downfall of great states has usually been produced by a disregard of the sources of alienation, and the feeders of discontent, — by a bigotted and harsh obstinacy in favour of every thing that bears the port of authority and the features of prescription, heed less of their natural tendencies to corruption and abuse.

Not the least characteristic of the passen gers were two elderly women, who came together. They each carried a lap-dog, a well stocked and well arranged basket, and a stone bottle, the contents of which it would be impertinent to examine. The magnificent superfluity of their preparation, the skill and care of its adjustment, betokening luxurious tastes, — and the pam pered appearance of their fourfooted friends, THEIR MAGNIFICENT PROVISION. 13 contrasted oddly with their obstinate re jection of the proffered assistance of the porters to carry on board their weighty delicacies. Rather than pay three-pence to one of the men on the quays, they stumbled, and panted, and pushed, under a load which was heavier than it need to have been by at least five shillings, laid out in ham and mutton pies, more than the voyage required.

A genteel lady and her husband, who took a cold fowl from the footman attending them, were rescued from the dilemma into which their culpa ble heedlessness as to such essential matters had involved them, by the loan of a little salt, very promptly extended from these more thoughtful caterers. It was delight ful to observe the hasty carriage of good will, mingled with some natural pride, and not a little self-approbation, with which these benevolent persons went at once to the precise corner where lurked the identi cal paper parcel : having found it, they held forth its treasure with an air and mien full of the dignity that attends alleviating the effects of the improvidence of our IMPROVIDENCE RELIEVED. fellow-creatures. This dignity is chiefly felt, when the objects of our bounty (as in the present case) — have pretensions in some respects higher than our own. ( w )

Chapter II. Ramsgate

is understood to be the most eligible point of departure for Ostend. The trip to Brussels, going by one of the Hoys from London to the former place, or to Margate, and taking advantage of the beautiful canal navigation from Os tend to Ghent, is highly pleasant, and very easy, and is not necessarily attended with much expense. But those who go this way to Paris, find the journey from Brussels both long and expensive. The view of Ramsgate, as the packet left its noble harbour, and stretched out across the spacious blue sea, under the weight of a summer breeze, was very beautiful. The handsome houses scattered over the cliffs, the walking and riding par ties on the sands, the rows of white bath ing machines, formed an interesting and VIEW ON LEAVING RAMSGATE. pleasing picture. The vessel rippled the transparent water as she inclined easily on her way.

By degrees the smaller fea tures of England became less distinct, and, as they 'gradually faded, afforded the means of calculating the progress we were making. As we advanced further from the land, more of it opened on our sight : the Downs presented a rich and animating throng of masts ; the bold headlands threw themselves against the waves to the north and to the south of us ; — our country appeared " stoutly ramparted with rocks," and the light shadowy sails, that gleamed and shifted around this sublime barrier, might, with but little help from a poetic imagination, be deemed the " Guardian spirits of the isle." The first shade of the evening rendered it doubtful whether it was the gloom or the distance, that melted down the outlines of the earth into the slight and shifting tracery of the air and the ocean. — Bv an instinc tive impulse, our eyes, which had hitherto been directed behind the vessel, were now fixed in the direction she was proceeding, — in haste to discover, since the curtain APPEARANCE OF THE COAST. 17 had dropped on England, what new scene was about to be disclosed.

The night, however, fell thickly on our view, — and it was in the hazy, cold light of a very early hour of the following morning, that I perceived the round, sulky looking bent hillocks, whose dwarfish elevation told us we were approaching the port of Ostend. Its light-house was just distinguishable, rising from the blank flatness of the apparently interminable coast. As the day advanced, the houses of the town shewed themselves ; but they seemed to look forth scantily and with jealousy, from within the bulky projections of grass and stone that denoted its fortifications. We waited impatiently for the hoisting of the flag at the end of the wooden pier, which is the signal that the tide serves for entering a most inconvenient and dangerous harbour. The passengers in the packet were chiefly persons connected with the British army, called over in consequence of the arrangements necessary after the great battles.

Before the morning had assumed its fresh cheerful aspect, and while the heaviness and damps of night yet lowered on its c TWO soldiers' wives. brow and chilled its influence, my attention was attracted to two women, the wives of soldiers who had been wounded, and who were going to Brussels to see their hus bands. They had apparently squatted out, in the same attitude, and with the same unmoved looks, the whole of the hours that I had passed below. As I left them, so I found them. Their natures had become, under the constant action of coarse circumstances, callous, cold, and stiff, — what the body becomes when it is weather-beaten. I asked them if they had spent the night on deck ? They said they had ; — they believed there was not room below. I en quired if they had not felt, it cold ? " No Sir," — one of them replied in a slight tone, i — and the other, moving her shoulders, and making a sleepy sound with her breath, drew her cloak more closely around her.

There was something more touching in this insensibility to hardships, than in any common susceptibility to them. It seemed more melancholy that we should lose the faculty of feeling evil when it pressed upon us, than that we should groan under its weight. The inequality of human APPEARANCE OF OSTEND. 19 condition was more affectingly exemplified in the torpor of thesepoor women, contrasted with the artificial sensibilities and idle affec tations of so many of their fellow-creatures, than it could be by any lively complaint of wretchedness. 1 The signal was given, and we rapidly approached Ostend. Its houses, roofed with tiles, give it an English character, so that the strong impression made by the foreign aspect of Dieppe, which I have de scribed in another work, was not now ex perienced. The boatmen who joined the crew had nothing about them of the grotesque look of the French pilots ; they were open faced, well-dressed, and well-made fellows.

The women on the pier seemed simpler in their general air than those which last year constituted my first specimen of French females in their own country. These early indications of a prepossessing nature were pleasingly corroborated when I saw more of the Netherlands. The harbour was full of English trans ports : soldiers of the same nation were distinguishable by their red coats, walking on the ramparts, and standing as loiterers c DEFERENCE TO THE BRITISH. on the beach. On the quays, English cannon-balls were piled in large pyramidical masses. " I am a British officer," said one of our party as we came up to the customhouse ; — the people there immediately touched their hats, and we passed on with our trunks unopened and unstopped. These talismanic words operated with the same efficacy through the whole of the Netherlands.

When the baggage of a crowd of passengers arrived at the first frowning barrier of each of the several fortified towns* on the road to Brussels, the individuals, appointed to perform this duty, began a busy inspection of boxes, bundles, and frequently of persons : — this operation, accustomed as we are to a process of a similar nature at some of our towns on the coast, has always an unpleasant look with it to an English eye, and more particularly so when it occurs at inland places, and is exercised on the few small articles carried by the country-people in their short journies. In behalf of the general restraints and strong inflictions of the arm of the law, the well being of society conciliates every reasonable mind ; but extreme disgust and sharp ani- DEFERENCE TO THE BRITISH. 21 mosity exist amongst the public of England against the petty meddling of its fingers, — and this disposition is by no means to be deplored.

In the course, however, of these irksome examinations, the authority and suspicion of the inspectors were instantaneously transformed into the signs of implicit confidence and profound respect, at the intimation that they were laying hands on the trunk or portmanteau of an English officer. It was immediately released from the forms to which the others were compelled to submit, and this privilege was extended to all that claimed to be joined in its company. The inhabitants, delayed and obstructed, saw their visitors pass on before them as if superior to all regulations. It was sufficiently plain that the habitual observation of this courtesy and deference, paid to our countrymen, had excited and diffused the most lofty notions of our country. The officers of other nations, in alliance with the King of the Netherlands, had not any thing like the same degree of favor shewn to them : — but the word English was every where a passport and a protection : it was an admission to what was c BRITISH TRAVELLERS generally concealed, a title to what was generally denied, an excuse for what might be irregular, an introduction to every one's intimacy, and a certain appeal to every one for assistance and kindness.

Much of this disposition, so pleasant and profitable to British travellers, is to be traced to their immense influx into these foreign places ; a circumstance which, added to the belief which is universally entertained on the continent, of England's absorbing share and commanding influence in all the political transactions of Europe, — seemed to give the Belgians an amazed sense of the strength and splendor of the people, of whose means they received so large and superb a specimen. It certainly was calculated to strike their feelings in this way, to hear all their inn-yards re-echoing with the wheels of British equipages, and the strange voices of British servants ; to see their roads choaked and their streets crowded with a pouring tide of British visitors, most of them sufficiently well informed to speak the language of those amongst whom they had come, — and superior to all about them in the arrangement and CROWDING THE ROADS. 23 quality of their conveniences ; bearing themselves with an independence of man ner, and decisive air, that gave the assur ance of personal respectability, and vouched for the power to remunerate the attentions and services which they rather peremptorily demanded.

The cause of this visiting; on so large a scale, was well known to involve no motives of gain or necessity, but to arise from a public enthusiasm relative to the grand military achievements, the pride as well as the expence of which were acknowledged chiefly to belong to our nation. The awfulness of these had in a great mea sure smitten the faculties of the people amongst whom they had occurred, but it had roused the spirits and kindled the ani mation of the English. Every one who has lately been abroad must have observed the very distinguished estimation in which circumstances have caused the British name and character to be held ; and the vindic tive irritation of the French against us, and their ignorant abuse, form a testimony co inciding with the evidence of the kindness and respect shewn by others.

But while we cherish the exultation thus. c very naturally excited, we ought to bethink ourselves of the responsibility which our impetuous interference in European politics, the remarkable accomplishment of our wishes, and the success of our exertions, have imposed. Amidst much that was disastrous and malignant in the disorders that have been afflicting the world, there were many excellent tendencies to public improvement, which men had the sagacity to perceive and the wisdom to applaud, though they were unfortunately encompassed, and even connected with what was hateful and mischievous. The principal agents in the destruction of the bad, are called upon to distinguish properly in their work. If they do not, the honour and praise which have been awarded them in the hour of triumph, will be turned to infamy and execration when, in calmer moments, it is discovered, that they have crushed all that gave hope for the future when they struck down what was presently irksome.

He has not accurately observed the nature of the public feeling of the nations of Europe towards England, who is not convinced that an admiration of free institutions, in the possession of which she is justly believed to be in advance of other states, is the great source of the respect paid to her name and people. To her attainments in this way they all look with an earnest eye of desire ; her liberal and enlightened endeavours to extend the blessings which she enjoys and prizes, are what all expect and demand from her. If men are disappointed in these their hopes ; if they find her following up the display of her transcendant strength by encouraging and abetting the re-imposition of what they know to be imbecile, odious, and unjust, — the whole of her wonderful exertions will be placed to the account of a sordid and selfish spirit, and the few virulent traducers osher fame, whose murmuring spitefulness is now drowned in the cheering of disenthralled kingdoms, will be joined by the unanimous outcries of mankind, thus infamously deceived and fatally abused.