What its contents were, I quite forget; some great nonsense, I dare say. But who in this age of the world would write sense, when Feeling has been strangled for a traitor, Virtue publicly whipped for breaking all the commandments, Generosity turned out to beg his bread, and Charity (I do not mean ostentation) sent to the treadmill? In short, when Vice is triumphant, Folly is sure to come in for a share in the administration, and Nonsense becomes the only patron to whom a wise man can apply. There is no such thing, my dear R----, as being mad in this world. It is only being in the minority; and instead of saying that a man has been put in a lunatic hospital, we ought to say that he has been confined by the majority. However, I hope that my letter, which was a sad raw cub when it left my hands, has been improved by travelling, in which case it may give you some amusement.
You ask me a variety of questions, to very few of which I can reply. What has made me stay at Bordeaux so long is a problem which I should be happy if any one could solve for me. It has been from no particular or general attraction. Here the climate is disagreeable, and the society, generally, not much better. There are few that I care about, there is none that I love, there is little to amuse, there is little to interest. It must have been by some law of gravitation that I settled down here, and until some propelling force of sufficient power acts upon me, I suppose I shall not budge.
Your next question is, "When do you return to England?" I cannot tell. The very idea is wretchedness to me. I think it was the Helvetii--was it not?--who, without rhyme or reason, collected together all the provisions they could find, burnt their towns and villages, and left their own country to seek another. But with me it is not from any distaste to England that I leave it. I love it because it is my country. I love it for its free institutions and noble privileges; for its brave spirits and generous hearts; and I am proud of it for its grand pre-eminence over a corrupted world. But it is a country where I have suffered much and lost much, and I cannot calmly think of returning to the scenes which must recall so much bitterness.
But, to change the subject, I have been to see a curious receptacle for our mortality. It is a sort of bone-house, called "Le Caveau des Morts," placed under the tower of an old church, now converted into a station for a telegraph. The first notice we had of such a place being in existence, (for the people of Bordeaux know nothing,) was the sight of the name placarded on the door, and entering, we found ourselves in the inside of an old Gothic building, in company with an animal that at first view might be taken for Caliban. He was a shapeless man, dressed in a rough, shaggy coat, that descended to two feet clad in immeasurable sabots. On his head he wore a large black nightcap, that alone suffered to appear the lower part of his face and two small dark eyes, together with the tips of a pair of elephantine ears. For the first few minutes we could get nothing from him but a kind of growling bark, which proved to be cough, and he himself turned out the sexton and bell-ringer, and very readily, in consideration of a franc, conducted us down a narrow staircase in the wall, to descend which, I was obliged to bow my head, and my companion to go almost double.
On getting to the bottom we entered an almost circular vault, roofed by Gothic arches and paved with the mouldering remains of frail humanity. B---- took the candle from our sexton, and standing in the midst, held it high above his head, looking like some colossal spectre; while the light gleamed faintly round, catching on the groins of the vault and the rows of ghastly dead, half skeleton half mummy, which were ranged along the walls. As soon as he had lighted a lamp in the middle, our guide, in the true tone of a showman at a fair, began to give us an account of the place and what it contained. He told us first, that the ground on which we stood was fifty feet deep in dead. When the family vaults of the cemetery, he said, were full, the bodies which were not found corrupted were removed to this cavern, and took their station against the wall, as we saw them; and pointing to the one next the door, he assured us that it had lain in the earth for five hundred years, although the skin and flesh, dried to a thick kind of leather, were still hanging about its bones. He then went round them all, occasionally giving us little bits of their history, which might or might not be true, sometimes moralising and sometimes jesting, bringing strongly to my mind the grave-digger in Hamlet. It was strange to see him, just dropping into the grave, joking with the grim tenants of the tomb as if he were himself immortal. At length, he conducted us once more into the upper air of the tower, from whence we immediately issued into the most populous part of Bordeaux, swarming with the busy and the gay, the beautiful and the strong, all hurrying through an agitated existence towards the same great receptacle we had just left. It was a strange contrast.
The cathedral here is not so fine as many others we have seen. A few days ago we heard a fine military mass, at which the archbishop assisted. I was pleased with the service, notwithstanding all the overdone stage-effect of the Catholic ceremonies; but after the soldiers had marched out and the church was cleared, it was most disgusting to observe the effects of the French people's bad habit of spitting. There was actually a rivulet of saliva on each side of the church where the military stood. The archbishop is one of the best men in existence, but they say rather superstitious. A good story is told of him here, which, most probably, has its portion of falsehood. His cook-maid, it is said, gave herself out as possessed by a demon. Now, Monseigneur having no taste for such an inmate as this in his cook-maid or his house, proceeded instantly to exorcise the gentleman, ordering his chaplain to put his head to the lady's stomach and collect the devil's answers.
"Does the devil speak?" asked the archbishop, after a long address to the unearthly visitant.
"Yes," replied the chaplain.
"What does he say?" demanded the prelate.
"He says," answered the other, "Je m'en fiche--i. e. I do not care a groat."