The Jews were very civil. The singing was tolerably good; the singing boys, about twenty in number, in white surplices and sky-blue silk sashes and scarfs, and bonnets, had a good effect, mixed with the old priests in their hoods. The ceremony of producing the books of Moses and returning them to the ark was the most imposing in point of solemnity, and was attended by music; but what to me was the most striking, was when at a certain period in the service called the Benediction, every parent found immediately his son or grandson, or the children their parents. In short, after a few moments’ bustle, you saw every one, whatever his age, imposing his hooded head and hands on his own offspring, and every generation thus at the same instant receiving the benediction from his own parent respectively. This was really an imposing scene.
The most truly Jewish part followed, for by solemn proclamation every sacred office, namely, the opening of the ark, the drawing the curtains, carrying the books, putting on the ornaments, reading out of them when produced, the right of assisting in every part of the ceremonies, was regularly put up to auction, and sold to the highest bidder. The biddings were from one franc to three and five, and even at times up to forty and fifty. As I was informed, these profits were given to the poor. There was a little spoilt Jew child, about six years old, for whom its papa had, I conclude, bought the privilege of placing the silver ornaments on the tops of the wooden rollers of the vellum Pentateuch, and the little creature seemed much pleased and excessively proud of his office. On Wednesday next there is to be a wedding, and if not engaged, it is my intention to be present.
The coffee-houses here, before we came, were very good, and are not very dear. They are now so hot and crowded, and in such confusion that I prefer my dinner solo. Being in a great measure fixed by la carte as to prices, I believe we are less imposed upon at the restaurateurs than anywhere else.
I rode out one day about four miles on the old Bayonne road, to see a house and garden much talked of here, belonging to a Mons. R——, the Portuguese Consul, a queer old man, who goes about in a scarlet uniform like that of our former English Generals, and with a white-feathered General’s hat. The grounds and gardens are large, and in the first style of a Paddington tea-garden, with a mixture of Hawkstone nonsense and Walsh Porter’s sham villages, &c. The house is nothing remarkable, consisting of a number of rooms by no means good; not a single good picture, only some bad indecent ones and very free prints. The most ludicrous part was a regular inscription of “Library” over a door which led to a little closet with one small set of book-shelves, containing a dozen or two of great almanacs, and a few odd volumes of all sorts of books, the whole in number about a hundred.
On the landing-place on the stairs is a negro, carved in wood, holding a bottle and glass. The flower-garden—which is in the old style, is tolerable. There are no good statues, but plenty of cut trees in all shapes, temples, &c., the whole being an endeavour to make poor Nature as little likely to know herself as possible. There were trees with the stems in frames and the tops pointed. In the cut promenades in the woods were tombs and wooden painted figures, of all sorts and descriptions. There were dogs in their houses, the prodigal son feeding swine, a mad lady half naked in a cage, &c. In another part of the garden was a labyrinth, and a windmill with a wooden man looking out of one window and a woman out of the other, and below these a wooden cow and some sheep, goats, deer of the same material, grazing.
Strangers are admitted to survey this place on any day. The doors were opened to about a dozen of us, and we were turned loose, without any showman, into the house and grounds, and ranged about where we pleased. On Sunday every one is admitted, and it is said there is much company. The walks are cool, and it is not surprising that they are frequented. The whole is one mode out of many of obtaining notoriety. An ingenious way for preserving the flowers is by an inscription insinuating that every flower is a transformed female. This would not, I fear, succeed in England. The poor ladies would have many a pinch and squeeze, and lose many a limb, if Kensington Gardens were full of such flowers, and had no other protector.
Sunday, 19th.—The embarkation of the troops is now going on with more spirit. The fourth division are, I believe, all on board, if not sailed, and everything is by degrees moving down towards the camp at Blanquefort, and the place of embarkation, Pouillac, about thirty-five miles below this. From the state of uncertainty in which I remain I shall be one of the last, if I go at all, that is, whether our Tarragona Court-martial is put an end to. All accounts which have reached me agree with P——’s. I have thought all along that, with the help and assistance of Bonaparte himself, who was our best ally, almost the whole of what has happened has arisen, as it were, from the peculiar state of the nations of Europe, and from a natural course of events directed by Providence, and with which the Allies had nothing to do, except not to prevent it by their blunders or quarrels.
We have various letters from Toulouse, to officers of the army, full of regret for the loss of their English friends, and by no means satisfied with the exchange for their own countrymen. The army is vexed at this, and matters are worse, as they do nothing but grumble and quarrel in consequence. The reception of the French troops when they entered, it is said, was very flat and provoking. D’Armagnac, who was supposed to have saved the town by advising Soult to be off, was sent in first, with two thousand five hundred men, and he and his officers bowed and were very anxious to court a cordial greeting; but the dull silence was scarcely broken, and the French officers could not contain their vexation and abuse in consequence. There was, I believe, more sincerity in the professions of the Toulousians towards us, as far as the majority was concerned, than is usual with Frenchmen, or than we could reasonably have expected from them.
On the other hand, the accounts from the cavalry, of their treatment in their march through France, is very different from ours at Toulouse:—in this they all agree. The officers, trusting to French hospitality, have left their own beds behind, and having had to bivouac almost as much as in Spain, they have had a bad time of it. Several letters have come from Mr. H——, who went with the column through Angoulême and Poictiers. He has written from both these places. He says, “The inhabitants profess openly that, as we chose to march through France, they will try and make us repent of it. They scarcely give any quarters, send the men leagues about out of the road, and only let the Commissary buy his provisions on the road. At Angoulême, a town which might quarter ten thousand men without inconvenience for a short time, they would only suffer a few officers and the General in the town, and most of those were quartered at inns. The General and one servant got a billet at a private house, but he was to pay if he took more in with him. The incivility is general; the doors were all shut against us. The playhouse at Angoulême was empty the night it was known that our officers would be there. Nothing to be had without paying.” This is the same spirit of vexation as that in the army—a conviction that they have been beaten, and that this march is a sort of proof and token of it.
Head-Quarters, Bordeaux, June 26th, 1814.—My life has been every day the same—a ride early, at work at home all the middle of the day, a dinner generally solo, and another walk or ride in the evening, or, as the weather has become cooler again, sometimes the play.