with the beauty of its environs. The river Seine has a fine appearance here, although vastly inferior to our Thames; and we remarked a great number of chateaus rising among the woods, on every side: many of them, with their parks and domains, were really superb. Some peasants here attempted to impose upon us as foreigners, in a very disgusting manner, asking a franc for a couple of greengages, and three sous a-piece for pears, which they offered at the windows of our carriage. Our servant was very indignant at their impudence, and sent them off in a hurry, saying, "Dey ought to be shamed of demselves." Upon entering Beaumont, we met the population of the place returning from mass, in their costumes des fêtes. Nothing can well be more sweetly pretty, and delicately neat, than the dress of the women! snowy caps, with deep lace or thin linon borders plaited, white cotton gowns and stockings, gay coloured cotton handkerchiefs crossed smartly over the bosom so as to display the shape to advantage, a large gold cross suspended from the neck by a black narrow riband, or gold chain, with ear-rings, and pin for the forehead of the same material. Some few wore a crimson apron and bib, over the white gown, and others crimson gowns, with aprons of a bright antique sort of blue—a mixture of colours which is for ever to be remarked in the paintings of the old masters, and which has a singularly becoming effect upon the skin. A little worked muslin fischu, with a vandyke bordering, is sometimes added, as a finish to the dress, worn over all.
We now came to St. Denis, and at length beheld Paris! We did not pass the heights of Montmartre, &c. without emotion, when we recollected the memorable contest which so lately took place there between the veteran Blucher and the French! The country in the immediate vicinity of Paris is flat and ugly; but we thought not of nature upon entering this celebrated work and wonder of art. Covered with dust, and followed by the eyes of the multitude, who easily discovered our English physiognomies, we drove up to several hotels, at every one of which we were refused admittance for want of room to accommodate us, there being at this moment no less than thirty thousand English at Paris. At last, we were comfortably housed at the hotel Rivoli (near the jardins des Tuileries), one of the best in the city, where we found abundant civility and attention, and every convenience.
Why should I attempt to describe Paris? It has already and so often been done by abler pens than mine, that the very school girl in a country town in England is perfectly acquainted with all its lions; I shall only say, that we spent so short a time there, and I was so afraid of exhausting my stock of strength, which was fully wanted for the journey to Geneva, &c. that I did not even attempt to see every thing that might have been seen.
The extreme height of the houses, and narrowness of the streets, together with the inconceivable variety of horrible smells in all parts of the town, and the want of pavements for pedestrians, made an extremely unpleasant impression upon me. The gaiety and fancy displayed in the signs over the shops (every one of which has an emblematic device peculiar to itself) were very striking, however, as well as their markets, where Pomona seemed to have lavished the choicest treasures of her horn: indeed I never beheld such a profusion of exquisite fruits and vegetables, the cheapness of which astonished us natives of a more niggard clime not a little. The quantities of cooling and refreshing beverages, sold in every corner of the streets, were also quite a novel thing to us, as well as the circumstance of all the world sitting on hired chairs out of doors, sipping lemonade, or eating ices.
I did not remark, I must confess, that appearance of excessive animation and enjoyment, which I had been led to expect among the Parisians; on the contrary, I saw full as many grave faces as in notre triste pays, as they call it. The Palais Royal I thought a very amusing place; and the fountain in the midst is most beautiful and refreshing, throwing up a stream of water, which in its descent resembles a weeping willow. The fountain of the Lions, also, is still superior, and I think them among the most agreeable objects in Paris. The Boulevards are an airy, cheerful situation, and the moving scene constantly going on there put me in mind of a perpetual fair.
The gentlemen went to the Opera Françoise, where the splendour of the ballet, and the superiority of the dancing, struck them with astonishment and admiration. They visited Tivoli (which did not appear to them to be so good a thing of the sort as our Vauxhall); and I went one evening to the Beaujon, and les Montaignes Russes, in les Champs Elysées. Both the latter, however, were shut; that is, no sliding in the cars was going on, for there had been so many fatal accidents lately, that the rage for this amusement was over. I did not like les Champs Elysées so well as our Kensington Gardens; the want of turf was unpardonable in our English eyes. La place de Louis XV., opposite the Tuileries, where the unfortunate Louis XVI. was executed, is very superb in itself, as well as interesting from its melancholy legends. I was rather disappointed in les jardins des Tuileries, admiring the fine orange-trees in tubs there more than the gardens themselves. We saw the remains of that horrible monument of cruelty, injustice, and despotism, the Bastile; and drove past the entrance to the celebrated Jardin des plantes, which we did not enter, as I had already seen a very fine botanical collection at Kew, and a much superior set of wild beasts at Exeter Change.
To the Louvre, however, even in its present state of diminished splendour, no words of mine can do justice; its superb gallery far exceeded even my expectations, which had been highly excited by all I had ever heard upon the subject: to see the paintings properly, one ought to go there every day for a week. We had only time particularly to distinguish several landscapes of Claude Lorraine, beautiful beyond all idea, and the set of historical pictures illustrative of the life of Henri quatre, by Rubens: I was much struck with the fine countenance and person of the gallant monarch. A Saint Sebastian also, by Guido, rivetted my delighted attention. A friend of ours has painted an exquisite miniature copy of it, with which I remember being greatly struck in England, but it was not until I had seen the original that I was fully aware of its extraordinary merit. The gallery itself is a most magnificent thing; it really is quite a long fatiguing walk from one end of it to the other; and the crowds of people of all ranks who are constantly to be met with there render it altogether one of the most curious and interesting spectacles in Europe.
I was much amused with the shops, particularly the confectioners; the ingenious and endless devices into which they form their delicious bon bons and dried fruits are really surprising, and we purchased specimens of their different fancies, to astonish our English friends upon our return home. The vendeurs des tisannes (cooling beverages, something like eau de groseilles, or lemonade), going about with their stock in trade strapped to their backs like walking tea-urns, were curious figures. The vessel which holds the tisanne is not unlike a long violin case in shape, with a spout to it; it finishes at the top like a Chinese pagoda, and is sometimes covered with little jingling bells, and hung round with pretty silver mugs. The dress of the petites bourgeoises is quite distinct from that of every other rank of person; it is rather smart and neat than otherwise, but not at all picturesque.
I do not remember to have heard a single note of agreeable music while I was in Paris, except that which regaled our ears in an opposite hotel (belonging to Count S.) the second evening of our arrival. This nobleman (of an Irish family, but now a naturalized Frenchman) gave a grand dinner (in a temporary banqueting-room, built out upon the leads of the house à la troisieme étage) to the English; and, during the entertainment, his band of musicians played several pieces, amongst others the celebrated national air, still dear to the French, of Vive Henri quatre; they then attempted God save the King, but made a dreadful business of it, which I attribute less to professional ignorance than to the impossibility of their being able to feel it, or to enter into the spirit of it con amore! The ballad singers (at least all of them that we had an opportunity of hearing) have harsh wiry voices and nasal tones; the latter circumstance, however, is almost inseparable from their language. I could not but be diverted with the espièglerie of the fille de chambre who attended me at the hotel de Rivoli: she was ugly, but shrewd, and very active and civil. I asked her if Count S. was a young man; upon which she hopped round the room in the most ridiculous manner possible, imitating the action of a decrepit old person. Jeune! (said she) oh mon Dieu, que non! c'est un vieux Monsieur qui va toujours comme cela! I inquired if she knew why he gave this fête.
