Sabbath, June 19. After breakfast went with Miss W. to the temple St. Marie, to hear Adolphe Monod. Was able to understand him very well. Gained a new idea of the capabilities of the French language as the vehicle of religious thought and experience. I had thought that it was a language incapable of being made to express the Hebrew mind and feeling of Scripture. I think differently. The language of Canaan can make its way through all languages, and in the French it has a pathos, point, and simplicity which are wonderful. There were thoughts in the sermon which I shall never forget. I feel myself highly rewarded for going.
The congregation was as large as the church could possibly hold, and composed of very interesting and intelligent-looking people. His subject was, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth willingly, and without upbraiding," &c. It was most touchingly adapted to the wants of the unhappy French, and of all poor sinners; and it came home to me in particular, as if it had been addressed to me singly, so that I could not help crying.
The afternoon and evening spent at home, reading. H. went in the morning with Madame de T. to the Catholic service, at the church St. Germaine l'Auxerrois, and her companion pointed out the different parts of the service.
H. said she was moved with compassion towards these multitudes, who seem so very earnest and solemn. Their prayer books contain much that is excellent, if it was not mixed with so much that is idolatrous.
Monday, June 20. Went to have our passport viséd. The sky was black, and the rain pouring in torrents. As I reached the quay the Seine was rushing dark, and turbidly foaming. I crept into a fiacre, and was amused, as we rattled on, to see the plight of gay and glittering Paris. One poor organ grinder, on the Pont National, sat with his umbrella over his head, and his body behind the parapet, grinding away, in the howling storm. It was the best use for a hand organ I ever saw. The gardens of the Tuileries presented a sorry sight. The sentries slunk within their boxes. The chairs were stacked and laid on their sides. The paths were flooded; and the classic statues looked as though they had a dismal time of it, in the general shower bath.
My passport went through the office of the American embassy, prefecture of the police, and the bureau des affaires étrangères, and the Swiss legation, and we were all right for the frontier.
Our fair hostesses are all Alpine mountaineers, posted up in mountain lore. They make you look blank one moment with horror at some escape of theirs from being dashed down a precipice; the next they run you a rig indeed over the Righi; anon you shamble through Chamounix, and break your neck over the Col-de-balme, and, before you are aware, are among the lacking at Interlachen.
Wednesday, June 22. Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons sur Saone! After affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we were rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails, through Burgundy that was; I reading to H. out of Dumas' Impressions de Voyage, going over our very route. We arrived at Chalons at nine in the evening, and were soon established in the Hotel du Park, in two small, brick-floored chambers, looking out upon the steamboat landing.
Thursday, 23. Eight o'clock A. M. Since five we have had a fine bustle on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers, shaped, for all the world, like our last night's rolls. One would think Ichabod Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the water. They ought to be swift. L'Hirondelle (the Swallow) flew at five; another at six. We leave at nine.
Eleven o'clock. Here we go, down the Saone. Cabin thirty feet by ten, papered and varnished in invitation of maple. Ladies knitting, netting, nodding, napping; gentlemen yawning, snoring; children frolicking; dogs whining. Overhead a constant tramping, stamping, and screeching of the steam valve. H. suggests an excursion forward. We heave up from Hades, and cautiously thread the crowded Al Sirat of a deck. The day is fine; the air is filled with golden beams.