A banker, or dealer in money only, is not to be found, except in the largest commercial towns of France, and provincial notes are unknown. The Parisian banker had referred me to a négociant and manufacturer of silk, who, during my stay at Avignon, supplied the absence of a regular priest of Plutus; loading me, at my pleasure, with heavy five-franc pieces, for which he required only good bills on Paris, or on London, where also he had a correspondence. I am obliged to call him a négociant, as marchand means a shop-keeper; nay, a dealer in the pettiest wares is called a merchant: a seller of milk is a marchand de lait. As for shops, they have disappeared: every shop is a magasin, so that France is not a nation boutiquière, whatever England may be. I called on my banker this morning, and consulted him on my establishment.
We retired to rest early in the evening, but were soon after disturbed by the noise of loud voices below: it ceased after a short hubbub. On inquiring the cause next day, the waiter told us that the English prince had descended at the Palais Royal, but that the authorities had presented themselves, and had engaged him to pass to the Hôtel d'Europe, where they had prepared for his reception; and that the noise was caused by the passage of the prince and his suite, attended by the authorities.
This was a very prudent, but rather an imperfect statement: it was the truth, but not the whole truth. The fact was that the Duke of Gloucester, in his tour through France, arrived at Avignon: he had sent forward a courier, who had given orders for his reception at our inn, where he was set down; but, while he was taking tea, the prefect of the department and the mayor of the city waited on him to request that he would accept of the hospitality of the town, and representing that preparations had been made accordingly at the Hôtel d'Europe. His Royal Highness thought proper to accede to this polite invitation. Madame Moulin, the mistress of our inn, enraged at the loss of the honour and profit of the prince's company, and transported beyond the bounds of discretion, broke out into violent invectives against M. le Préfet and M. le Maire, who, to punish an insult offered to them in the presence of the English prince, committed Madame Moulin to prison. Moulin told me this story, adding, "Ma femme est très sensible."[35] If her sensibility provoked her to make all the clamour we heard at ten o'clock the evening before, she certainly merited, and was probably benefited by, the restraint imposed on her, which, by the intercession of the prince, lasted only twenty hours.
Moulin has as much the appearance of a bon vivant as if he were an English landlord, but with a cast of French manners. A very pretty young English lady (so she was described to me,) admired his great Newfoundland dog, but said, "M. Moulin, I am afraid of him: will he bite me?"—"Non, Mademoiselle; mon chien ne vous mordera pas: fût il un tigre, il lêcheroit une si belle main."[36]
I called on the Préfet, who received me with much politeness; and, when I announced my intention of settling at Avignon, felicitated the city on the acquisition it was about to make. It is regulated that no one shall be prefect of a department of which he is a native, or to which his family belongs. This rule proceeds on the principle, recognised amongst us by the circuits of the twelve judges, which supposes that justice will be more impartially administered by strangers than by those who may be liable to the influence of local connexions. The prefect of Vaucluse was of the department of the Rhone, and member of the chamber of Deputies for that department.
I called on the Mayor, and was much surprised to find, invested with that office, not a man resembling an English alderman or a good bourgeois, but a meagre, old noble, adorned with the croix de St. Louis, and with the manners of his caste. In the American war he had been captain of a ship of the line; he had emigrated, and been despoiled of his property during the revolution; had passed three years of his emigration in London, where he had learned to admire tea and tost. On his return, he had married a rich wife who had just left him a widower; he showed me the weepers on his coat sleeves as an excuse for not returning my visit. He had recovered some of the wrecks of his fortune, and had repurchased his house; part of which had been pulled down by him who had bought it as national property, that, when compelled to restitution, as was expected, on the return of the king, he might secure at least the price of the materials. M. le Maire had built a house for himself on the ruins of the part pulled down: of the part left standing he had already made a detached house, which he offered to me. I promised to look at it.
And now began my search for a house, which I conducted according to my English notions and prepossessions. In the south of France, or in Italy, a man of twenty thousand francs a year lives in a larger house than a man of an income of as many pounds sterling inhabits in London. In England, a nine months winter, an enormous tax on windows, a duty on bricks, timber, and glass, reduce us to content ourselves with small houses; but in these countries, large rooms, lofty ceilings, wide staircases, are required by the climate, and by no means astonish the minds of those who are used to them. Things on this scale of vastness I had frequently seen in England, particularly in country-houses, but had not been, as yet, familiarized with them.
I visited an hotel in which Charles IV. of Spain had been lodged on his journey from Paris to Rome, after his abdication at Bayonne. I was desired, by the man of affairs, to determine what apartments I should want, and then the rent might be fixed. The house was an agreeable one, but appeared in too grand a style for me: I told the man of business it might do very well for a prince, or, par occasion, for a king of Spain, and declined all further treaty. I have no doubt, I might have been as cheaply lodged here as I was in the house I afterwards rented. There occurred besides another English prejudice: I was to have but a part of the house: who might they be who should inhabit the other part? An Englishman likes to have his house to himself; it is his castle: a privilege, by the by, which the present chancellor of the exchequer has restored to him, by taking off the tax on internal windows. Another apartment I visited; but here the proprietor, who lived on the rez-de-chaussée, or ground floor, had, as well as myself, a family of young children: besides, he refused me the privilege of walking in his garden. From this refusal, and from the intercourse of the children, I anticipated future misunderstandings. The use of a garden in this climate is, that, in the shade, or after sunset, it serves as an additional room, loftier than any in the house. In winter, a town garden, surrounded by high walls, or houses, is absolutely useless.
At length I took the house of M. le Maire. It consisted of a vestibule, a small dining-room, servants hall, kitchen, and offices: on the first floor was a salon, twenty-four feet square; on one side of this salon was a space partitioned off, about six feet wide: at half the height of this room, a floor had been laid, and thus two cabinets were procured: there was a second salon twenty-one feet by fifteen; there were three chambers with two cabinets, three servants rooms, and on the second floor two chambers for my sons. I had besides a small stable, and coach-house for a cabriolet, but no garden. The house was built on three sides of a small court. My lease was for four years, at a thousand francs a year, determinable by me at the end of each year on two months notice, determinable also on payment of a quarter's rent in case of war, or any event of a public nature that might affect my personal security. This last clause I copied from a lease I had seen at Paris; a prudent, and, at that time, no one could say, a superfluous caution. I paid no taxes.