A cruise upon wheels : the chronicle of some autumn wanderings among the deserted postroads of France

Front matter

Fifteenth] Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser. [Issue.

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Preface

TiiE Great Exhibition of 1862 is made the medium of putting forward for public approval all sorts of inventions and the results of all sorts of experiments. Artists, scientific men, engineers, mechanicians, and a vast crowd of other ingenious persons, send the issue of their studies to the International Exhibition. Literature stands almost •alone in being unrepresented there.

Now I, too, like these other labourers, have made an experiment, the result of which it is my desire to exhibit for public approbation.

It is an experiment to write the history of a journey in which the interest attaches more to the persons who travel, than to the places which they travel through.

It is an experiment to treat mountains and rivers, and woods and towns, as, after all, but the background to a figure picture.

It is an experiment to give the full weight and value to all the smaller incidents of each day's pilgrimage, and to be as confidential with the reader as may consist with that respect, which should always be his due.

It is an experiment to seek to interest the public in a

VI PREFACE.

mode of travelling of which it has probably had no experience.

It is an experiment to use fictitious characters in a book of travels, and to describe their adventures in the third person.

These experiments, fresh from the laboratory, are now ready for trial, but for such there is no department open at the Great Exhibitic;/.

It is a greater exhibition than that at Kensington to which an author sends his handiwork — an exhibition which has scarcely any limits, and whose area extends to every land where the English tongue is spoken. To it I would send this production of mine. It does not profess to be an invention which shall electrify mankind, or affect the existing condition or future prospects of Europe. It is an invention for occupying harmlessly those leisure hours which the busiest among us are obliged sometimes to allow themselves, and for taking off the thoughts of those who are in sorrow or anxiety from the trouble which presses most heavily in inactive moments.

London, April 3, 1862.

Chapter I

IN WHICH IT WILL BE SEEN THAT SO SIMPLE A TRANSACTION AS THE PURCHASE OE A MAP MAY BE ATTENDED WITH VEIIY REMARKABLE RESULTS. ... pp. 1 — 16

Chapter II

SHOWING HOW OUR TWO ERIENDS MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OE MONSIEUR GARROT, AND HOW THEY BEHAVED WITH INFINITE CAUTION AND DISCREETNESS . pp. 17 — 30

CHAPTER, III.

THE PLOT THICKENS, AND THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO BIJOU, THE " PEARL OE MALAISE" . . pp. 31 — 40

THE CARRIOLE ARRIVES AT PARIS, AND THE PROSPECTS OF THE TRAVELLERS BEGIN TO BRIGHTEN CONSIDERABLY — A NEW AND VERY REMARKABLE CHARACTER IS INTRODUCED TO THE READER pp. 1GS— ISO

CONTENTS. IX

Chapter XI

IN WHICH YET ANOTHER CHARACTER DESTINED TO PLAY AN IMPORTANT TART IN THESE PAGES COMES UPON THE SCENE ; AND IN WHICH THERE REALLY SEEMS A CHANCE OP "THE CRUISE" BEING RESUMED AFTER ALL . pp. 187 — 197

CHAPTER, XII.

RATHER A LONG CHAPTER, CONTAINING MUCH IMPORTANT MATTER, AND SHOWING HOW THE TRAVELLERS MADE A NEW START, HOW MAZARD WAS KIDNAPPED, HOW THE LITTLE HORSE BEHAVED, AND HOW MR. PINCHBOLD SAT UP ALL NIGHT pp. 198 — 227

TONNERRE, AND REST — SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GOODLY COMPANY ASSEMBLED AT THE INN AT ANCY LE FRANC, AND OF THEIR REFRESHING AND INGENIOUS CONVERSATION ; WITH OTHER MATTERS pp. 342 — 356

Chapter XXI

DEVOTED TO A CERTAIN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF MR. FRANCIS PINCHBOLD — IN FACT, IN THIS CHAPTER THE READER WILL HEAR HOW THAT GENTLEMAN FELL IN LOVE IN A VERY RIDICULOUS MANNER, AND HOW HE WAS RUDELY AWAKENED FROM A VERY FOOLISH DREAM . . pp. 357 — 375

Chapter XXII

SOMETHING ABOUT THE COUNTRY BETWEEN MONTBARD AND DIJON ; THE MOST DESERTED OF DESERTED ROADS— SOME- THING ALSO IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE FOLLY OF IMPA- TIENCE, A FEELING TO WHICH THE READER, IT IS HOPED, NEVER GIVES WAY pp. 376—391

CONTENTS. Xl

Chapter XXIII

DIJON, THE HEART OF THE COTE D'OR — TWO DAYS OF REST, AMD THE iAST GREAT DIVISION OF THE JOURNEY ENTERED UPON — THE TRAVELLERS ARRIVE AT AUXONNE, AND GET INTO VERY REMARKABLE QUARTERS INDEED, pp. 392 — 408

Chapter XXIV

THE MOUNTAINS ; THE GREAT RAMPART OF THE SWISS COUN- TRY ; THE BARRIER BETWEEN OUR TRAVELLERS AND THEIR JOURNEY'S END; THE JUKA CHAIN — HOW SHALL IT BE

crossed ? pp. 409—422

Chapter XXV

THE ASCENT BEGINS, AND THE TWO FRIENDS GRADUALLY MAKE THEIR WAY INTO THE VERY HEART OF THE JURA MOUN- TAINS — ON THE FOURTH DAY, AT ABOUT NOON, THEY COME IN SIGHT OF THE ALPS ! . . . . pp. 423 — 441

Chapter XXVI

THE LAST— THE DESCENT FROM THE HEIGHTS; ITS LENGTH AND STEEPNESS — ABOVE THE CLOUDS — ARRIVAL IN THE PLAIN AFTER SIX MILES OF DESCENT — THE FEAT ACCOM- PLISHED — AND THE END .... pp. 442 — 451

conclusion .pp. 452 — 456

A CETJISE UPON WHEELS.

Chapter I

IN WHICH It WILL BE SEEN THAT SO SIMPLE A TRANSACTION AS THE PUKCHASE OP A MAP MAY BE ATTENDED WITH VEUY RE- MARKABLE RESULTS.

On the fifteenth day of the month of August, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty, and at about half-past nine of the forenoon, there appeared in the main street of Malaise a certain gentleman of England, residing temporarily at No. 56, Eue Loyale, in the town just mentioned, which is situated in the French dominions.

Now this gentleman, who, as has been said, was of English birth and descent, and bore the name of David Fudge, was a personage of simple tastes and of a retiring disposition. He was one who found more pleasure in studying men than in associating with them, one who liked better to be among the woods and fields than in great towns, one who prized but little the stakes which most men play their all to win ; in a word, he was dreadfully unpractical, and would be capable of taking up his residence for a month in some little French town with a strongly-flavoured moat surrounding it, if haply the place had some touch of antiquarian interest connected with it, or if it appealed to that turn for the romantic with which he was profoundly imbued.

It was some such feeling as this that had caused our gentleman and his friend and companion, Mr, Pinchbold,

B

2 A Cruisk upon wheels,

to stop short at tlic very threshold of a contemplated tour on the continent, and to take up their abode for six weeks at Malaise.

Has it ever happened to the reader to take a, place, a person, an invention — an institution, in short, of any kind — under his protection, to stick to it for weeks, to be incommoded by it, to be rendered wretched by it, to be leading a miserable life in consequence of it, and yet to cling to it still ? Nay, has it happened to him even to be wholly unconscious that his despair was attributable to the place, person, thing, invention, or other institution in question, till some slight circumstance lias at length exposed to him. the real cause of his unhappiness, and laid it bare before him with dazzling clearness?

Once again, has the reader ever, arriving at some place,, he has never visited before, taken a sudden fancy to it, committed himself to apartments for a month certain, gone on praising the locality and all that belongs to it, defending it against attack, ferreting out concealed attractions, attaching undue importance to them, undervaluing obvious defects just as much as he overvalues hardly discernible merits; has he gone on in this way for three weeks out of Iris month, and then suddenly broken down, found out his mistake, and pined in secret for deliverance?

Woe to him, who, arriving in the dead of night at the town of Malaise — it is easily found by him who will take boat at Dover and steer nearly due south for sometwo-andtwenty miles — woe to him who, hearing the carillon of bells chime forth the hour of midnight as he crosses the Place d'Armes, takes it suddenly into his head that Malaise is a delightful old place, and that a man might do worse than take up his abode there for some time.

It is not so. A man may not do worse. The man who has chanced upon Malaise at midnight, and come to the conclusion just recorded, will find (the day after he has committed himself irrevocably to a suite of apartments) that he could not have done worse, if he had tried.

MALAISE. $

If you happen to hit upon the exact time — apparently about one hour in six weeks — when the tide is up, if you happen to take the one tolerable walk along the ramparts, if you happen to arrive just when the fair is being held in the Place d' Amies, and if the weather happens to be for that day satisfactory, then it may chance that you will be (like Messrs. Fudge and Pinchbold) the victim of this evil town, and Avill fall into its malignant clutches helplessly. Then when you walk forth with the key of your apartments in your pocket, will Malaise wear a wholly different aspect, and will — it is a characteristic of French bargains — lose no time in letting you know what a mistake you have made.

When a town has a port which emits incessant odours, a city-ditch surrounding it on all sides with a flavour several degrees stronger than even that of the port, when every gutter in every street is a smaller edition — in a concentrated form — of the city-ditch, when a neighbourhood is without walks, when the sea is hopelessly shut out from access by miles of intricate harbour, then may the city of which these are the characteristics be pronounced detestable, and its freedom — if that phrase implies that you are free to escape from it — be coveted by all right-minded persons.

Now both Mr. Fudge and Mr. Pinchbold were the victims of a fancy which they had taken to Malaise on first arriving at it, and were, though curiously enough they had not acknowledged it to each other, or, perhaps, even to themselves, both suffering from a three weeks' residence in a town the characteristics of which have been detailed above. For the rest, the two were well-matched companions, and had nothing to complain of in each other. It was not the first time that they had been thus thrown together. Friends of long standing, partners years before of that great event in a man's life, the first continental experience, they were bound together further by a similarity of tastes, and, perhaps, more than all by a certain dissimilarity of character. When two men ride on a horse one must ride behind, and it is a ques-

e 2 tion whether a great degree of intimacy and harmony can exist between two persons unless one does to a ceitain extent acknowledge the other as his superior. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that in the case we are considering the conduct of affairs was mainly in the hands of the elder of these two gentlemen, Mr. David Fudge, and that the other looked up to him, believed in him, and was ever ready to be guided by him.

There never was such a strange complication of elements as were brought together to form the character of Francis Pinchbold. If he had not, during the first ten years of his life, been systematically spoilt by a sensitive mother, and frightened out of his wits by a boisterous father, who laughed at. him and bullied him by turns, he would have grown up a more useful member of society than lie was ; been more uniformly happy, perhaps, himself; but he would also have been less keenly alive to many sources of pleasure, and would certainly never have been thought queer and remarkable enough as a character to find a place in these pages. He was, to use an old quotation, everything by turns — rash and timid ; irritable and long-suffering ; irresolute and determined ; and in a thousand other ways inconsistent ; while (to go on with the hackneyed quotation) he was nothing long; unless it was that he was conscientious, faithful, and true always. But perhaps the most salient point of all in the character of him whom we are thus examining was the stranore combination of excessive nervousness and sensitiveness to danger, with a singular aptitude for getting into situations of risk and peril. He was always in a state of woe and alarm about something or other, and was no sooner relieved from this source of apprehension than he found out another and plunged into it headlong. Croker was not so great an alarmist as our friend, nor so swift to find out that everything was goin"- wrong. Yet it was difficult to say whether Pinchbold was altogether a slave to timidity, or whether there were some latent elements of courage lurking within him. A delicate ntAXCIS l'lXCHBOLD. 5

frame, however, an excessive nervousness, a keen sense of danger, a morbid incapability of bearing pain, these thincrs it is as certain that he possessed, as that he had a heart that was worth a Jew's ransom, and a constitution that was not worth twopence.

Now, most people would expect that, because it has been said above that there was a certain dissimilarity between the character of Pinchbold and his friend, that therefore the nature of David Fudge was of the sternest order. But it was not so. It has been mentioned at the commencement of this chapter that he was a man of somewhat unpractical tendency, and truly alive to the pleasures of the romantic. He was only more consistent, more uniformly courageous, more firm of nerve, than his friend, and he was, at the same time, more cautious, and though less disturbed when in a difficulty than Pinchbold, was also more prudent about getting into one, and less likely to become involved in scrapes than the other. But enough has been said now of the characters of both the one and the other, and we may leave them to develop themselves in the course of this narrative. It is only necessary further to say that Mr. Pinchbold, to complete his inconsistencies, had been brought tip to the law without having an atom of vocation for that profession, and that he had a small independence which left him at liberty to neglect it as much as he liked. Mr. David Fudge was a professional author, but one who, working chiefly in anonymous publications, had as yet done nothing to attract public attention to his somewhat remarkable name. Having mentioned that of these two gentlemen Mr. Fudge was the elder by four years, and was himself three-and-thirty, we need at present say no more about them and may proceed at once to business.

It happened, then, on the morning — the date of which has been set down at the beginning of this chapter — that Mr. David Fudge, when he went out (it being his turn) tq, purchase the rolls for breakfast, saw in the window of the chief bookseller's and stationer's shop of Malaise, what appeared to be a small volume in paper covers of a yellow hue. It turned out, however, on inspection, to be a folded map, with this inscription outside it : —

NOUVELLE CARTE

D E FRANCS,

PAK DfiPAKTEMENTS

1NDIQUANT

AVEO LES DISTANCES EN KILOMETRES,

ET fiVKCIIKS, &C. &C.

PAR DUSSEE BERTHE,

GEOGHAl'HE.

An economist of no mean order by nature, and also by circumstances rendered almost parsimonious in his habits, it was a long time before Mr. Fudge could justify in his mind the purchase of this map, which his soul coveted. He would perhaps never have bought it at all if it had not happened that, just as he had turned away from the window, and was passing the door of the shop, the proprietor, Monsieur Carton, coming out to sniff the morning air, actually jostled against him, and then with profuse apology stepped out into the street, as if to make way for Mr. Fudge's entry into the shop. In short he seemed to take it for granted that our economist was going to make a purchase.

" Here are four rolls, half-a-pound of butter, a pound of bacon, and two eggs," said Mr. Fudge, on his return home, and laying each of the articles named on the breakfast-table as he spoke. " Is Agnes the abhorrent on the premises ?"

This Agnes was a servant whom the two bachelors lmd hired to attend to their household wants. She was called a " femme de menage," came every morning and went away in the evening, taking her meals also, as well as her repose,

at her own home. A certain fluey appearance about her hair, a superhuman ugliness, a habit of asking for sous to make purchases of inscrutable wares, which she alleged were necessary for the menage, a tendency to put down her employers on every occasion by disparaging everything which they bought — all these things combined, caused her powers of aggravation to be of a high order, and made her, especially in the eyes of Mr. Fudge, an object of detestation and alarm.

" She is not only on the premises," said Mr. Pinchbold, in a low tone, " but in the room." And indeed, on looking sharply round, Mr. Fudge found this aggravating personage immediately behind him, and engaged in performing one of her choicest feats of aggravation.

It was the practice of Agnes the abhorrent, whenever either of her employers made a purchase, to take it up, and, being excessively near-sighted, to hold it close to one of her eyes in order to examine it. Having protracted this scrutiny to the utmost limits of time that could be given to the purpose, she would either utter some remark calculated to deteriorate the market value of the commodity very considerably, or else ■would bear it off to the kitchen with a smile which intimated a knowledge of some hidden defect in the article which was too dreadful to be mentioned. Sometimes, too, she would conclude her examination with a deep sigh, which was a thing of even more dire and sinister augury than the smile. It was with such a profoundlydrawn inspiration that this fearful woman now terminated her inspection (at an inch and a half from her nose) of Mr. Fudge's bacon, after which she withdrew with it to the kitchen.

" When do you hate Agnes most?" Mr. Fudge inquired of his friend, as they sat down to breakfast.

" When she looks close at the things we buy," answered Mr. Pinchbold, without a moment's hesitation.

" I hate her most," said Mr. Fudge, who, as has been already hinted, was of a somewhat parsimonious habit — " I hate her most when she asks for three sous to buy soft soap."

" You are a screw, Fudge," remarked Mr. Pinchbold.

" I am an economist, Pinchbold," Avas the answer ; " a screw," added Mr. F., as he pulled the map which he had just bought out of his pocket, " would not have made this useless purchase. I bought it this morning at Monsieur Carton's."

" I delight in a map," said Mr. Pinchbold, eagerly opening the ■one in question, and spreading it out upon the floor. " I like to pick out all sorts of strange lonely-looking places, and imagine what they are like. Look here," he continued, sprawling over the map, and pointing at a spot on it with his pencil, " Ancy le Franc ;" " fancy the dulness of Ancy le Franc. Tonnerre, again — the French for thunder — what an awful place that must be. Oh, Fudge," he cried, presently, turning suddenly round, " let us go somewhere. Why, in the name of goodness, don't we travel ?"

" I have," said Mr. Fudge, " such a detestation of the act of travelling. I hate a railway-station with an indescribable hatred. Travelling has lost to me almost all its attractiveness since railways were thought of, and I can hardly understand any one wanting to take a journey unless it is on business. It is not travelling at all, it is getting into a chamber of fidgets at one station, and getting out of it at another. The very aspect of a station takes away all the interest of a place I arrive at. Then think of the luggage, the struggles at junctions, the changes of carriages just when you have got all those inevitable things which you always carry in your hand stowed away. Think of our getting into a carriage where we are not wanted, where we should find only two places left, where we should stumble in over objecting legs, and have to sit for six hours with a pile of coats, a hat-box, a carpet-bag, a paper of provisions, and a bundle of sticks in our laps. Think," said the economist; " pf the incessant fees — the fiacres at stations, the.

PLANNING THE CRUISE. 9

catching and missing of trains. No, Pinchbold, I cannot stand it — I really cannot stand it."

Mr. Pinchbold seemed daunted for a moment by his companion's description of the miseries of a. journey by train, and Avas silent for some moments. Presently, however, he returned to the charge.

" But is there no other way," he said, " in which we could travel ? Why couldn't we go, like the people in Mr. James's romances, on horseback ?"

" Because the expense of buying and keeping a couple of horses would be something tremendous ; because we should never find two that would do ; because there would be nowhere to put the luggage."

" Saddle-bags," murmured Mr. Pinchbold, faintly.

" Never do," said Mr. Fudge. " Never do at all."

" Well, then, I'll tell you what would do," cried the other. " Suppose we were to get a cabriolet and a horse, and drive — say twenty miles each day. Fancy how delightful that would be, Avith nobody to control us ; starting when we liked, resting when we liked ; staying Avhere Ave liked, and as long as we liked ; we should be free, perfectly free."

" I question whether anybody is perfectly free," Mr. Fudge put in ; " but I must oavii that the notion of the cabriolet-journeying comes very near to my idea of liberty. It Avould be tremendously expensive, though."

" Not a bit of it," argued Mr. Pinchbold, " supposing the first outlay once over "

" Which is supposing a good deal," interrupted Mr. Fudge.

" The first outlay over," continued Mr. Pinchbold, " the rest would cost nothing ; less than living here or anyivhere else. Those country inns are so cheap. Oh, it would be very delightful. Fancy the strange melancholy places Ave should arrive at, the wild scenery we should pass through. Jlere is the map of France before ijs," Mr. P, went on, pointing to it as it lay on the floor; "let us choose our route, buy our horse— "

" Buy our horse," said Mr. Fudge, musingly, in parenthesis.

" Get our cabriolet," continued the eloquent Pinchbolc!, " and start."

Such was the proposal of Mr. Pinchbold.

The conversation which succeeded it was a long one, and was in its turn followed by many more. It was one of the qualities of Mr. Pinchbold, and was a part of that mixture of rashness and timidity by which he was characterized, that he had no sooner proposed any scheme, or started any project, than he suddenly perceived all its dangers or disadvantages, and proceeded to dwell on these as freely as he had done befone on the pleasures connected with his plan. Mr. Fudge, who knew the weakness of his friend well, was therefore in nowise astonished, when in the course of the day succeeding the morning which we have described, Mr. Pinchbold began to hazard a few remarks apparently in disparagement of the journey, of which he had spoken in such rapturous terms.

It so happened that on the afternoon of the day whose morning Ave have been all this time occupied with, our two friends, in the course of their walk, were just passingthrough the gates of Malaise at the moment when a struoyle of a somewhat alarming kind between a horse and his driver was going on in front of the portcullis. The animal in question was a young and fiery beast, which had apparently been more accustomed to the sound of its footsteps on the hard road than on the resounding wood of a drawbridge and every time its hoofs descended with a hollow thump, it plunged and reared in a manner that threatened to upset the heavy cart in which it was placed. At last, responding to a tremendous application of the driver's whip, the animal rushed furiously forward and disappeared with its load behind it in the tunnel-like entrance of the fortifications.

wmi j;t;gaud to houses? ll

" A nasty liot brute," observed Mr. Fudge to his friend, as they walked on after observing this little incident.

Mr. Pinchbold was silent for a time, and when he spoke it was with a certain hesitation in his manner that argued a condition of mind the reverse of confident.

" With regard to horses?" asked Mr. P.

" "Well, what Avith regard to them?"

"Why, with regard to our notion of the journey in the cabriolet. I'm afraid Ave should have a great difficulty in finding a horse that would be suited to our purpose."

" There is no doubt Ave should," replied his friend.

" The horse," said Mr. Pinchbold, making a general remark, " is an awful animal."

" Not always," replied Mr. Fudge, laughing.

" I don't know," rejoined the other, "when you come to think of it. The strength, the capabilities of doing mischief. Why he can bite, kick, rear, fall back upon you "

" Not the last, in a carriage," interposed Mr. Fudge.

" I don't know that," continued Pinchbold. " I don't knoAV that, Fudge. At all events he can fling himself from side to side. Then he can run away. He can bolt down a hill Avith a bridge at the bottom of it, and dash the carriage to pieces against the paparet. Oh ! Fudge," repeated Mr. Pinchbold, " oh ! Fudge, Fudge, a horse is an awful animal."

" Well," said the gentleman thus appealed to, " do you Avish the idea to be given up ? Only, if you do, say so, my dear fellow, at once, for if I once make a move in a project Avhich I like the notion of as much as I do this, I know I shall neA r er be able to abandon it."

" Oh, don't let's abandon it," said Mr. Pinchbold ; " but there are some tremendous things connected Avith it, are there not ? We should have fearful things to encounter — let me see," continued Mr. Pinchbold, as the two friends seated themselves on some timber by the roadside (they had now got well out of the toAvn). " Let me see ; first of

12 A CRUISE UPON WJIEELS.

all, there would be the clangers with the horse — a biting horse, a kicking horse, a rearing horse, a jibbing horse, a shying horse, a bolting horse, a tumbling-down horse, a horse' that was devilish in the stable, a horse that was difficult to harness, a horse — a horse "

"That will do for the horse," remarked Mr. Fudge;

get on to the other dangers."

" There would be dangers connected with losing our way, getting benighted, having to put up at some obscure auberge, where persons who looked as well off as we do, had never been seen before. What awful places," continued Mr. P., warming to his subject, " we might have to put tip at ! Why, the roads now must be more deserted and lonely than they ever were before. I never thought of that. The railroads must have taken all the traffic off them ; and as to the inns, nobody can ever stop at them at all. Think of the cut-throat places we should arrive at, with ill-looking men playing at billiards, and staring wildly at us. Think of the disused hotels, with landlords — desperate characters — who, finding themselves on the brink of ruin, would seize any opportunity of enriching themselves that came in their way. Think of the other dangers connected with those inns ; why," said Mr. Pinchbold in a mysterious tone, "to take another aspect of the thing altogether, think of the dangers from copper saucepans."

" Copper saucepans ?" repeated Mr. Fudge.

" Copper saucepans," continued Mr. P., " long disused, »nd which would have contracted verdigris ; these might be used in cooking our food, and "

" Nay," interrupted Mr. Fudge, " you are going too far now ; never mind the saucepan dangers. What else is t'here ?"

" Footpads," said Mr. Pinchbo'ld. " Those deserted roads are more apt for banditti than they ever were before. Imagine the ruffians in blue blouses, who hearing of us at the house where we passed the night, would get a start of lis in the morning, and waylay us on the road. Have yo u thought of all these things, Fudge ?"