Sunday.
We have been to the great Church. It was full, very full, but the congregation nearly all female.
There is certainly something highly imposing and impressive in that general spirit of outward devotion at least which pervades all ranks. Nothing can be finer than their music: we had a sermon, too, and not a bad one. The order of things is somewhat reversed. In England we wear white bands and black gown, here the preacher had black bands and white gown, and I fear the eloquence of St. Paul would not prevent the smiles of my hearers in Alderley Church were I to pop on my head in the middle of the discourse a little black cap of which I enclose an accurate representation.
What shall I say of political feeling? I think they appear to think or care very little about it; the military are certainly dissatisfied and the Innkeepers delighted, but further I know not what to tell you; I am told, however, that the new proclamation for the more decent observance of Sunday, by forcing the Shopkeepers to shut up their shops during Mass, is considered a great grievance.....
Letter II.
Rouen, June 28, 1814.
Foolish people are those who say it is not worth while to cross the water for a week. For a week! why, for an hour, for a minute, it would be worth the trouble—in a glance a torrent of news, ideas,[103] feelings, and conceptions are poured in which are valuable through life. We staid at Havre till Monday morning, and though a Cantab friend of Edward's, on bundling into his cabriolet, expressed his astonishment we would think of staying a day, when he had seen more than enough of the filthy place in an hour, we amused ourselves very well till the moment of departure....
At 4 on Monday we stepped into the cabriolet or front part of our diligence, on the panels of which was written "Fugio ut Fulgor," and though appearances were certainly against anything like compliance with this notice, the result was much nearer than I could have conceived. Five horses were yoked to this unwieldy caravan—two to the pole, and three before, and on one of these pole horses mounted a Driver without Stockings in Jack Boots, crack went an enormous whip, and away galloped our 5 coursers. It is astonishing how they can be managed by such simple means, yet so it was; we steered to a nicety sometimes in a trot, sometimes in a canter, sometimes on a full gallop.
The time for changing horses by my watch was not more than one minute—before you knew one stage was passed another was commenced; they gave us 5 minutes to eat our breakfast—an operation something like that of ducks in a platter, the dish consisting of coffee and milk with rolls sopped in it. The roads are incomparable—better than ours and nearly if not quite as good as the Irish. The country from Havre to Rouen is rich in corn of[104] every description—there is nothing particular in the face of it, and yet you would, if awakened from a dream, at once declare you were not in England; in the first place there are no hedges—the road was almost one continuous avenue of apple-trees; the timber trees are not planted in hedgerows but in little clumps or groves, sometimes but generally rather removed from the road, and it is amongst these that the villages and cottages are concealed, for it is surprising how few in comparison with England are seen. The trees are of two descriptions—either trimmed up to the very top or cut off so as to form underwood. I did not observe one that could be called a branching tree; the finest beech we saw looked like a pole with a tuft upon it. The cottages are mostly of clay, generally speaking very clean, and coming nearer to what I should define a cottage to be than ours in England.
You see no cows in the fields, they are all tethered by the road-side or other places, by which a considerable quantity of grass must be saved, and each is attended by an old woman or child. We passed through 2 or 3 small towns and entered Rouen 8 hours after quitting Havre, 57 miles. Rouen, beautiful Rouen, we entered through such an avenue of noble trees, its spires, hills and woods peeping forth, and the Seine winding up the country, wide as the Thames at Chelsea.