"Bon voyage"; and the driver, firing a volley of whip-cracks, the four grays started off with a clatter of silver-mounted harness, on a smart trot, as we rode away in the best appointed equipage it had been our fortune to enjoy in our whole European tour.
This fact contributed to mitigate the conviction that fifty-one dollars in gold was a pretty high price, as it was, for a fourteen hour's ride, compared with that paid for carriages in other parts of Italy for similar journeys. Borgo, however, had a monopoly of the best carriages, and was always sure of English tourists, who would take none other, and really performs his service thoroughly and well, without any attendant vexations, delays, humbugs, or swindles—a great consideration to the tourist.
The Mont Cenis Pass, it will be remembered, was built by order of Napoleon I., by engineer Fabbroni, and the culminating point of it reaches an elevation of sixty-seven hundred and seventy-five feet above the level of the sea. The original cost of the road was three hundred thousand pounds, although a large additional amount has since been expended upon it. It is the safest and most frequented route between France and Italy, and it was by this road the French troops entered Italy in 1859.
The beautiful mountain views of this grand ride, if described, would be to the reader almost a repetition of others given in these pages. The great sweeps of scenery from the zigzags of the road, the old Hospice of the monks that we halt at, the boundary line between France and Italy, all claim attention as we roll along upon our journey, and feel in the atmosphere that we are leaving Italy's penetrating heat, and, let us hope, also its flies and filthiness, behind us. Italy was left behind; houses of refuge on the mountain road had been passed, grand scenery viewed, great curves and wondrous windings been marvelled at, and our aching bones confessed that even in the best-appointed vehicles, fatigue is not a stranger; so we were not sorry at night to reach the dirty little Hotel de la Poste, in the muddy little village of San Michel, in French dominions—Savoy.
Next forenoon we bade adieu to post travelling, taking train at two P. M. for Macon, on the Saone River, about forty miles north of the city of Lyons, where we saw a pretty quay along the river, and a bridge over it, and learned that the city was chiefly dependent on its wine trade for business. The same chain of hills that protect the vineyards of that noted wine-growing department of France known as Côte d'Or, extends through the department of Saone et Loire, of which Macon is the capital; but from some causes the wines are not so fine as those of that celebrated district: however, Macon wines, which are set down on most of the hotel bills of fare in Europe and our own country, are served here in their original purity and excellence, which cannot always be said of them in America. Coming here, we passed Lake Bourget, which Lamartine mentions in his poetry as "the lake;" it looked very grandly under the influence of a violent September gale, which was raising its waves like a miniature ocean, at Culoz, where we dined.
Passing the night at Macon, we left next day for Paris, reaching the city at seven o'clock P. M. Here once more we experienced some of the excellent arrangements characterizing great cities in foreign countries. Not a passenger was permitted to enter that portion of the great station till the baggage was all unloaded and sorted, which was done with marvellous celerity and skill, each foreign party's pieces being selected by some clews they had, and piled together.
This being done, we were permitted to enter; and a customs officer, as we designated our trunks, inquired if they contained eau de cologne, fire-arms, and various other things, in a sort of formula that he repeated. We had nothing "to declare" for Paris, as we assured this functionary our luggage was packed for America; in fact, some of it was a sort of heterogeneous puzzle of shirts, Swiss carved work, coats, stockings, stereoscopic views, boots, Genoese jewelry, handkerchiefs, Vienna leather, guide-books, and photographs, such as all tourists become acquainted with, more, or less, upon their first experience on the "grand tour." With a polite wave of the hand, the officer summoned another, who also spoke English, and whose duty it was to despatch foreigners to their several destinations in the city: this person, in his turn, after learning the quarter of the city we wished to reach, calling two railway porters, transferred our luggage to a carriage in waiting, told the driver in French where to carry us, and ourselves in English what we were to pay for the service, and, bowing politely, turned on his heel, and we were once more rattling over the smooth asphalt pave of Paris, the streets and cafés of which were ablaze with gas, the windows gay with brilliant display of goods, and the broad Boulevards thronged with crowds of pedestrians.
Having experienced the swindles and inconveniences of the Grand Hotel and Hotel de l'Athenée, we were more than grateful to find an excellent American boarding-house upon the Boulevard Haussman, fronting the Rue Trouchet, commanding an extended view of the Boulevard and the Madeleine, and kept by Miss Emily Herring, a New York lady, where excellent accommodations, prompt service, and good cuisine were had, and no vexatious swindling "extras" or "bougies" put in the bill, French fashion, which is so exasperating to the English and American tourists.
Having sight-seen Paris so much at a former visit, one might imagine but little remained to be done; but such is not the case in this great capital, though now, with our faces set, as it were, homewards, there was but little time remaining for that purpose. A visit to the sewers was an excursion that we desired to make, especially with the remembrance of Jean Valjean's experiences, in Victor Hugo's story, Les Misérables, fresh in mind. Having obtained a permit from the proper authorities, we found, on arriving at the point designated, that we were one of a party of a dozen ladies and gentlemen. We looked somewhat askant at the silk and muslin dresses of the former, as being hardly the costume one would select for going down into a drain with, and wondered whether the olfactories of the wearers would be proof against what might assail them during their visit. But our doubts, as will be seen, were soon removed on this point.
Descending through a large iron trap-door in the sidewalk, near the Church of the Madeleine, by a stone staircase, we found ourselves in a handsome, vaulted, stone tunnel, twenty feet high, with granite sidewalks on each side, between which, in a space perhaps ten feet wide and five deep, ran the sewage. By some admirable system of ventilation, these sewers are kept so clean and sweet that no more offence is done to the olfactories than in a wash-room. Overhead run great iron pipes, by which the city is supplied with pure water; also telegraph wires, enclosed in lead pipes, by which communication is had with the police and official stations in different parts of the city. But we were to make a trip through the sewers. Two or three open cars, with cushioned seats, holding twelve persons, and lighted by a brilliant carcel lamp in front, were in readiness, and into these the ladies and gentlemen of the party were bestowed. The car runs on a track placed on the edge of the flowing sewage, and is propelled by men who run on a narrow stone pathway, and push it.