XIX.
FRANCE, CENTRAL AND EASTERN.
Lyons, Tuesday, June 17, 1851.
I came out of Paris through the spacious Boulevards,[B] which, under various second appellations, stretch eastward from the Madeleine Church nearly to the barrier, and then bend southward, near the beautiful column which marks the site and commemorates the fall of the Bastile, so long the chief dungeon wherein Despotism stifled Remonstrance and tamed the spirit of Freedom. Liberty in France is doomed yet to undergo many trials—nay, is now enduring some of them—but it is not within the compass of probability that another Bastile should ever rear its head there, nor that the absolute power and abject servitude which it fitly symbolized should ever be known there hereafter. Very near it on the south lies the famous Faubourg St. Antoine, inhabited mainly by bold, free-souled working-men, who have repeatedly evinced their choice to die free rather than live slaves, and in whom the same spirit lives and rules to-day. I trust that dire alternative will never again be forced upon them, but if it should be there is no Bastile so impregnable, no despotism so fortified by prescription, and glorious recollections, and the blind devotion of loyalty, as those they have already leveled to the earth.
The Paris Station of the Lyons Railway is at the eastern barrier of the City. I received here another lesson in French Railroad management. I first bought at the office my ticket for Chalons on the Saone, which is the point to which the road is now completed. The distance is 243 miles; the fare (first-class) $7.50. But the display of my ticket did not entitle me to enter the passengers' sitting-room, much less to approach the cars. Though I had cut down my baggage, by two radical retrenchments, to two light carpet-bags, I could not take these with me, nor would they pass without weighing. When weighed, I was required to pay three or four sous (cents) for extra baggage, though there is no stage-route in America on which those bags would not have passed unchallenged and been accounted a very moderate allowance. Now I was permitted to enter the sacred precincts, but my friend, who had spent the morning with me and come to see me off, was inexorably shut out, and I had no choice but to bid him a hasty adieu. Passing the entrance, I was shown into the apartment for first-class passengers, while the second-class were driven into a separate fold and the third-class into another. Thus we waited fifteen minutes, during which I satisfied myself that no other American was going by this train, and but three or four English, and of these the two with whom I scraped an acquaintance were going only to Fontainbleau, a few miles from Paris. They were required to take their places in a portion of the train which was to stop at Fontainbleau, and so we moved off.
The European Railway carriages, so far as I have yet seen them, are more expensive and less convenient than ours. Each is absolutely divided into apartments about the size of a mail-coach, and calculated to hold eight persons. The result is thirty-two seats where an American car of equal length and weight would hold at least fifty, and of the thirty-two passengers, one-half must inevitably ride backward. I believe the second-class cars are more sociable, and mean to make their acquaintance. I should have done it this time, but for my desire to meet some one with whom I could converse, and Americans and Englishmen are apt to cling to the first-class places. My aim was disappointed. My companions were all Frenchmen, and, what was worse, all inveterate smokers. They kept puff-puffing, through the day; first all of them, then three, two, and at all events one, till they all got out at Dijon near nightfall; when, before I had time to congratulate myself on the atmospheric improvement, another Frenchman got in, lit his cigar, and went at it. All this was in direct and flagrant violation of the rules posted up in the car; but when did a smoker ever care for law or decency? I will endeavor next time to find a seat in a car where women are fellow-passengers, and see whether their presence is respected by the devotees of the noxious weed. I have but a faint hope of it.
The Railroad from Paris to Chalons passes through a generally level region, watered by tributaries of the Seine and of the Saone, with a range of gentle hills skirting the valleys, generally on the right and sometimes on either hand. As in England, the track is never allowed to cross a carriage-road on its own level, but is carried either under or over each. The soil is usually fertile and well cultivated, though not so skillfully and thoroughly as that of England. There are places, however, in which the cultivation could not easily be surpassed, but I should say that the average product would not be more than two-thirds that of England, acre for acre. There are very few fences of any kind, save a slight one inclosing the Railway, beyond which the country stretches away as far as the eye can reach without a visible landmark, the crops of different cultivators fairly touching each other and growing square up to the narrow roads that traverse them. You will see, for instance, first a strip of Grass, perhaps ten rods wide, and running back sixty or eighty rods from the Railroad; then a narrower strip of Wheat; then one of Grape-Vines; then one of Beans; then one of Clover; then Wheat again, then Grass or Oats, and so on. I saw very little Rye; and if there were Potatoes or Indian Corn, they were not up sufficiently high to be distinguished as we sped by them. The work going forward was the later Weeding with the earlier Hay-making, and I saw nearly as many women as men working in the fields. The growing crops were generally kept pretty clear of weeds, and the grass was most faithfully but very slowly cut. I think one Yankee would mow over more ground in a day than two Frenchmen, but he would cut less hay to the acre. Of course, in a country devoid of fences and half covered with small patches of grain, there could not be many cattle: I saw no oxen, very few cows, and not many horses. The hay-carts were generally drawn by asses, or by horses so small as not to be easily distinguished from asses as we whirled rapidly by. The wagons on the roads were generally drawn by small horses. I judge that the people are generally industrious but not remarkably efficient, and that the women do the larger half of the work, house-work included. The hay-carts were wretchedly small, and the implements used looked generally rude and primitive. The dwellings are low, small, steep-roofed cottages, for which a hundred dollars each would be a liberal offer. Of course, I speak of the rural habitations; those in the villages are better, though still mainly small, steep-roofed, poor, and huddled together in the most chaotic confusion. The stalls and pastures for cattle were in the main only visible to the eye of faith; though cattle there must be and are to do the ploughing and hauling. I suspect they are seldom turned loose in summer, and that there is not a cow to every third cottage. I think I did not see a yoke of oxen throughout the day's ride of 243 miles.