CHAPTER II
The road from Dieppe to Rouen is highly interesting. You at first ascend a straight steep hill, which commands a view of the town and harbour behind you, with villas on each side, something between modern cottages and antique castles; and afterwards, from the top of the hill, the prospect spreads out over endless plains, richly cultivated. It has been conjectured that the English borrowed their implements and modes of husbandry from their Norman Conquerors; the resemblance is, indeed, complete to a deception. You might suppose one side of the channel was transported to the other, from the general aspect of the country, from the neatness of the orchard-plots, the gardens, and farm-yards. Every thing has a look of the greatest industry and plenty. There is a scanty proportion of common pasturage; but rich fields of clover, oats, barley, and vetches, with luxuriant crops ready to cut, are presented to the eye in uninterrupted succession; there are no wastes, no barren, thankless enclosures; every foot of ground seems to be cultivated with the utmost success. It is in vain after this to talk of English agriculture, as if no such thing existed anywhere else. Agriculture can do no more than make provision that every part of the soil is carefully tilled, and raise the finest crops from it. The only distinctive feature is, that there are here no hedges along the road-side, their place being supplied by rows of apple-trees or groves of elm and poplar, which stretch out before you in lengthened vistas, as far as the eye can reach. We like this, whatever Mr. Mac-Adam may object; and moreover, the roads here are as good as his. To be sure, they are much broader, and admit of this collateral improvement. Shady plantations open their arms to meet you, closing in a point, or terminated by a turn in the road; and then you enter upon another long hospitable avenue,
‘Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail;’
the smiling landscape waves on either side to a considerable extent; you pass a shepherd tending his flock, or a number of peasants returning from market in a light long waggon, like a hen-coop; the bells of the horses jingle, the postilion cracks his whip, or speaks to them with a friendly voice, and the Diligence rolls on, at the rate of six miles an hour towards Paris!—Travelling is much cheaper in France than in England. The distance from Dieppe to Rouen is thirty-six miles, and we only paid eight francs, that is, six shillings and eight pence a-piece, with two francs more to the guide and postilion, which is not fourpence a mile, including all expenses. On the other hand, you have not the advantage of taking an outside place at half-price, as a very trifling difference is made in this respect.
The Diligence itself cuts a very awkward figure, compared with our stage-coaches. There is much the same difference as between a barge and a pleasure-boat; but then it is roomy and airy, and remarkably easy in its motion. In the common mechanic arts the French attend to the essential only; we are so fond of elegance and compactness, that we sacrifice ease to show and finish. The harness of the horses is made of ropes or rusty leather, and it is wonderful how they get along so well as they do, three, or sometimes four a-breast. The apples of the orchards hang over the road-side, which speaks well for the honesty of the inhabitants, or the plenty of the country. The women appear to work a good deal out of doors. Some of the older ones have strangely distorted visages, and those horrid Albert-Durer chins and noses, that have been coming together for half a century. The younger ones are handsome, healthy-looking, animated; a better sort of English country girls. The character of French coquetry prevails even here, and you see a young peasant-girl, broiling in the sun, with a blue paper cap on her head, that glitters like the smoothest satin, and that answers the purpose of finery just as well. I observed that one man frequently holds the plough and guides the horses without any one else to assist him, as they do in Scotland, and which in England they hold to be an agricultural heresy. In Surrey, where an English gentleman had hired a Scotch servant to try this method, the boors actually collected round the man in the church-yard on Sunday, and pointed at him, crying, ‘That’s he who ploughs and drives the horses himself!’ Our prejudices are no less on the alert, and quite as obstinate against what is right as what is wrong. I cannot say I was quite pleased with my barber at Dieppe, who inserted a drop of citron juice in the lather I was to shave with, and converted it into a most agreeable perfume. It was an association of ideas, a false refinement, to which I had not been accustomed, and to which I was averse. The best excuse I could find for my reluctance to be pleased, was that at the next place where the same thing was attempted, the operator, by some villainous mixture, almost stunk me to death!
The entrance into Rouen, through extensive archways of tall trees, planted along the margin of the Seine, is certainly delectable. Here the genius of civilized France first began to display itself. Companies of men and women were sitting in the open air, enjoying the cool of the evening, and the serene moonlight, under Chinese lamps, with fruit and confectionery. We arrived rather late, but were well received and accommodated at the Hotel Vatel. My bad French by no means, however, conciliates the regard or increases the civility of the people on the road. They pay particular attention, and are particularly delighted with the English, who speak French well, or with tolerable fluency and correctness, for they think it a compliment to themselves and to the language; whereas, besides their dislike to all difficulty and uncertainty of communication, they resent an obvious neglect on this point as an affront, and an unwarrantable assumption of superiority, as if it were enough for an Englishman to shew himself among them to be well received, without so much as deigning to make himself intelligible. A person, who passes through a country in sullen silence, must appear very much in the character of a spy. Many things (a native is conscious) will seem strange to a foreigner, who can neither ask the meaning, nor understand the explanation of them; and on the other hand, if in these circumstances you are loquacious and inquisitive, you become proportionably troublesome. It would have been better (such is the natural feeling, the dictate at once of self-love and common sense) to have learned the language before you visited the country. An accent, an occasional blunder, a certain degree of hesitation are amusing, and indirectly flatter the pride of foreigners; but a total ignorance or wilful reluctance in speaking shews both a contempt for the people, and an inattention to good manners. To neglect to make one’s self master of a language tacitly implies, that in travelling through a country we have neither wants nor wishes to gratify; that we are quite independent, and have no ambition to give pleasure, or to receive instruction.
At Rouen the walls of our apartment were bare, being mere lath and plaster, a huge cobweb hung in the window, the curtains were shabby and dirty, and the floor without carpeting or matting; but our table was well-furnished, and in the English taste. French cooking comprehends English, and easily condescends to it; so that an Englishman finds himself better off in France than a Frenchman does in England. They complain that our cookery is dry, and our solid, unsavoury morsels, beef-steaks, and mutton chops, must stick in their throats as well as be repulsive to their imaginations; nor can we supply the additional sauces or disguises which are necessary to set them off. On the other hand, we had a dinner at the Hotel Vatel, a roast fowl, greens, and bacon, as plain, as sweet, and wholesome, as we could get at an English farm-house. We had also pigeons, partridges, and other game, in excellent preservation, and kept quite clear of French receipts and odious ragouts. Game or poultry is the half-way house, a sort of middle point, between French and English cookery. The bread here is excellent, the butter admirable, the milk and coffee superior to what we meet with at home. The wine and fruit, too, are delightful, but real French dishes are an abomination to an English palate. Unless a man means to stay all his life abroad, let him beware of making the experiment, or get near enough to the door to make his exit suddenly. The common charges at the inns are much the same as in England; we paid twenty-pence for breakfast, and half a crown, or three shillings, for dinner. The best Burgundy is only three shillings and fourpence a bottle. A green parrot hung in a cage, in a small court under our window, and received the compliments and caresses of every one who passed. It is wonderful how fond the French are of holding conversation with animals of all descriptions, parrots, dogs, monkeys. Is it that they choose to have all the talk to themselves, to make propositions, and fancy the answers; that they like this discourse by signs, by jabbering, and gesticulation, or that the manifestation of the principle of life without thought delights them above all things? The sociableness of the French seems to expand itself beyond the level of humanity, and to be unconscious of any descent. Two boys in the kitchen appeared to have nothing to do but to beat up the white of eggs into froth for salads. The labour of the French costs them nothing, so that they readily throw it away in doing nothing or the merest trifles. A nice-looking girl who officiated as chamber-maid, brought in a ripe melon after dinner, and offering it with much grace and good humour as ‘un petit cadeau’ (a trifling present) was rather hurt we did not accept of it. Indeed it was wrong. A Mr. James Williams acted as our English interpreter while we staid, and procured us places in the Paris Diligence, though it was said to be quite full. We here also heard that the packet we came over in, blew up two days after, and that the passengers escaped in fishing-boats. This has completed my distaste to steam-boats.
The city of Rouen is one of the oldest and finest in France. It contains about a hundred thousand inhabitants, two noble churches; a handsome quay is embosomed in a range of lofty hills, and watered by the Seine, which, proud of its willowy banks and tufted islands, winds along by it. The ascent up the rising grounds behind it, is magnificent beyond description. The town is spread out at your feet (an immense, stately mass of dark grey stone), the double towers of the old Gothic Cathedral, and of the beautiful Church of St. Antoine, rise above it in their majestic proportions, overlooking the rich sunny valleys which stretch away in the distance; you gradually climb an amphitheatre of hills, sprinkled with gardens and villas to the very top, and the walk on Sunday afternoon is crowded with people enjoying the scene, adding to its animation by their intelligent, varying looks, and adorning it by their picturesque and richly-coloured dresses. There is no town in England at the same time so fine, and so finely situated. Oxford is as fine in its buildings and associations, but it has not the same advantages of situation: Bristol is as fine a mass of buildings, but without the same striking accompaniments—
‘The pomp of groves and garniture of fields.’
Edinburgh alone is as splendid in its situation and buildings, and would have even a more imposing and delightful effect if Arthur’s Seat were crowned with thick woods, if the Pentland-hills could be converted into green pastures, if the Scotch people were French, and Leith-walk planted with vineyards! The only blot in this fair scene was the meeting with a number of cripples, whose hideous cries attracted and alarmed attention before their formidable mutilations became visible, and who extorted charity rather from terror than pity. Such objects abound in France and on the Continent. Is it from the want of hospitals, or from the bad care taken of the young and necessitous, to whom some dreadful accident has happened?—The hill that commands this beautiful prospect, and seems the resort of health, of life, of pleasure, is called (as I found on inquiry) Mont des Malades! Would any people but the French think of giving it so inauspicious a title? To the English such a name would spoil the view, and infect the imagination with the recollections of pain and sickness. But a Frenchman’s imagination is proof against such weaknesses; he has no sympathy except with the pleasurable; and provided a hill presents an agreeable prospect, never troubles his head whether the inhabitants are sick or well. The streets of Rouen, like those of other towns in France, are dirty for the same reason. A Frenchman’s senses and understanding are alike inaccessible to pain—he recognises (happily for himself) the existence only of that which adds to his importance or his satisfaction. He is delighted with perfumes, but passes over the most offensive smells,[[12]] and will not lift up his little finger to remove a general nuisance, for it is none to him. He leaves the walls of his houses unfinished, dilapidated, almost uninhabitable, because his thoughts are bent on adorning his own person—on jewels, trinkets, pomade divine! He is elaborate in his cookery and his dress, because the one flatters his vanity, the other his appetite; and he is licentious in his pleasures, nay gross in his manners, because in the first he consults only his immediate gratification, and in the last annoys others continually, from having no conception that any thing he (a Frenchman) can do can possibly annoy them. He is sure to offend, because he takes it for granted he must please. A great deal of ordinary French conversation might be spared before foreigners, if they knew the pain it gives. Virtue is not only put out of countenance by it, but vice becomes an indifferent common-place in their mouths. The last stage of human depravity is, when vice ceases to shock—or to please. A Frenchman’s candour and indifference to what must be thought of him (combined with his inordinate desire to shine) are curious. The hero of his own little tale carries a load of crimes and misfortunes at his back like a lead of band-boxes, and (light-hearted wretch) sings and dances as he goes! The inconsequentiality in the French character, from extreme facility and buoyancy of impression, is a matter of astonishment to the English. A young man at Rouen was walking briskly along the street to church, all the way tossing his prayer-book into the air, when suddenly on reaching the entrance a priest appeared coming from church, and he fell on his knees on the steps. No wonder the Popish clergy stand up for their religion, when it makes others fall on their knees before them, and worship their appearance as the shadow of the Almighty! The clergy in France present an agreeable and almost necessary foil to the foibles of the national character, with their sombre dress, their gravity, their simplicity, their sanctity. It is not strange they exert such an influence there: their professional pretensions to learning and piety must have a double weight, from having nothing to oppose to them but frivolity and the impulse of the moment. The entering the Cathedral here after the bustle and confusion of the streets, is like entering a vault—a tomb of worldly thoughts and pleasures, pointing to the skies. The slow and solemn movements of the Priests, as grave as they are unmeaning, resemble the spells of necromancers; the pictures and statues of the dead contrast strangely with the faces of the living; the chaunt of the Priests sounds differently from the jargon of the common people; the little oratories and cells, with some lone mourner kneeling before a crucifix, every thing leads the thoughts to another world, to death, the resurrection, and a judgment to come. The walls and ornaments of this noble pile are left in a state of the most lamentable neglect, and the infinite number of paltry, rush-bottomed chairs, huddled together in the aisle, are just like the rubbish of a broker’s shop. The great bell of the Cathedral is the most deep-mouthed I ever heard, ‘swinging slow with sullen roar,’ rich and sonorous, and hoarse with counting the flight of a thousand years. It is worth while to visit France, were it only to see Rouen.