Lisle, August, 1792.
You restless islanders, who are continually racking imagination to perfect the art of moving from one place to another, and who can drop asleep in a carriage and wake at an hundred mile distance, have no notion of all the difficulties of a day's journey here. In the first place, all the horses of private persons have been taken for the use of the army, and those for hire are constantly employed in going to the camp—hence, there is a difficulty in procuring horses. Then a French carriage is never in order, and in France a job is not to be done just when you want it—so that there is often a difficulty in finding vehicles. Then there is the difficulty of passports, and the difficulty of gates, if you want to depart early. Then the difficulties of patching harness on the road, and, above all, the inflexible sang froid of drivers. All these things considered, you will not wonder that we came here a day after we intended, and arrived at night, when we ought to have arrived at noon. —The carriage wanted a trifling repair, and we could get neither passports nor horses. The horses were gone to the army—the municipality to the club—and the blacksmith was employed at the barracks in making a patriotic harangue to the soldiers.—But we at length surmounted all these obstacles, and reached this place last night.
The road between Arras and Lisle is equally rich with that we before passed, but is much more diversified. The plain of Lens is not such a scene of fertility, that one forgets it has once been that of war and carnage. We endeavoured to learn in the town whereabouts the column was erected that commemmorates that famous battle, [1648.] but no one seemed to know any thing of the matter. One who, we flattered ourselves, looked more intelligent than the rest, and whom we supposed might be an attorney, upon being asked for this spot,—(where, added Mr. de ____, by way of assisting his memory, "le Prince de Conde s'est battu si bien,") —replied, "Pour la bataille je n'en sais rien, mais pour le Prince de Conde il y a deja quelque tems qu'il est emigre—on le dit a Coblentz."* After this we thought it in vain to make any farther enquiry, and continued our walk about the town.
*"Where the Prince of Conde fought so gallantly."—"As to the battle I know nothing about the matter; but for the Prince of Conde he emigrated some time since—they say he is at Coblentz."
Mr. P____, who, according to French custom, had not breakfasted, took a fancy to stop at a baker's shop and buy a roll. The man bestowed so much more civility on us than our two sols were worth, that I observed, on quitting the shop, I was sure he must be an Aristocrate. Mr. P____, who is a warm Constitutionalist, disputed the justice of my inference, and we agreed to return, and learn the baker's political principles. After asking for more rolls, we accosted him with the usual phrase, "Et vous, Monsieur, vous etes bon patriote?"—"Ah, mon Dieu, oui, (replied he,) il faut bien l'etre a present."*
*"And you, Sir, are without doubt, a good patriot?"—"Oh Lord, Sir, yes; one's obliged to be so, now-a-days."
Mr. P____ admitted the man's tone of voice and countenance as good evidence, and acknowledged I was right.—It is certain that the French have taken it into their heads, that coarseness of manners is a necessary consequence of liberty, and that there is a kind of leze nation in being too civil; so that, in general, I think I can discover the principles of shopkeepers, even without the indications of a melancholy mien at the assignats, or lamentations on the times.
The new doctrine of primeval equality has already made some progress. At a small inn at Carvin, where, upon the assurance that they had every thing in the world, we stopped to dine, on my observing they had laid more covers than were necessary, the woman answered, "Et les domestiques, ne dinent ils pas?"—"And, pray, are the servants to have no dinner?"
We told her not with us, and the plates were taken away; but we heard her muttering in the kitchen, that she believed we were aristocrates going to emigrate. She might imagine also that we were difficult to satisfy, for we found it impossible to dine, and left the house hungry, notwithstanding there was "every thing in the world" in it.