I was again agreeably disappointed in the abundance of Trees. Wood seems to be the peasants' sole reliance for fuel, and trees are planted beside the roads, the streams, the ditches, and often in rows or patches on some arable portion of the peasants' narrow domain. This planting is mainly confined to two varieties—the Lombardy Poplar and what I took to be the Pollard, a species of Willow which displays very little foliage, and is usually trimmed up so as to have but a mere armful of leaves and branches at the top of a trunk thirty to fifty feet high, and six to twelve inches through. The Lombardy Poplar is in like manner preferred, as giving a large amount of trunk to little shade, the limbs rarely extending three feet from the trunk, while the growth is rapid. Such are the means employed to procure fuel and timber with the least possible abstraction of soil from the uses of cultivation. There are some side-hills so rocky and sterile as to defy human industry, and these are given up to brush-wood, which I presume is cut occasionally and bound into faggots for fuel. Some of it may straggle up, if permitted, into trees, but I saw little that would fairly justify the designation of Forest. Of Fruit-trees, save in the villages, there is a deplorable scarcity throughout.
We passed through few villages and no town of note but Dijon, the capital of ancient Burgundy, where its Parliament was held and where its Dukes reigned and were buried. Their palace still stands, though they have passed away. Dijon is 200 miles from Paris, and has 25,000 inhabitants, with manufactures of Cotton, Woolen and Silk. Here and henceforth the Vine is more extensively cultivated than further Northward.
We reached Chalons on the Saone (there is another Chalons on the Marne) before 9 P. M. or in about ten hours from Paris. Here a steamboat was ready to take us forthwith to Lyons, but French management was too much for us. Our baggage was all taken from the car outside and carried piece by piece into the dépôt, where it was very carefully arranged in order according to the numbers affixed to the several trunks, &c., in Paris. This consumed the better part of half an hour, though half as many Yankees as were fussing over it would have had it all distributed to the owners inside of ten minutes. Then the holders of the first three or four numbers were let into the baggage-room, and when they were disposed of as many more were let in, and so on. Each, as soon as he had secured his baggage, was hustled into an omnibus destined for the boat. I was among the first to get seated, but ours was the last omnibus to start, and when the attempt was made, the carriage was overloaded and wouldn't start! At last it was set in motion, but stopped twice or thrice to let off passengers and baggage at hotels, then to collect fare, and at last, when we had got within a few rods of the landing, we were cheered with the information that "Le bateau est parti!" The French may have been better than this, but its purport was unmistakable—the boat was gone, and we were done. I had of course seen this trick played before, but never so clumsily. There was no help for us, however, and the amount of useless execration emitted was rather moderate than otherwise. Our charioteers had taken good care to obtain their pay for carrying us some time before, and we suffered ourselves to be taken to our predestined hotel in a frame of mind approaching Christian resignation. In fact, when I had been shown up to a nice bed-room, with clean sheets and (for France) a fair supply of water, and had taken time to reflect that there is no accommodation for sleeping on any of these European river-boats, I was rather glad we had been swindled than otherwise. So I am still. But you may travel the same route in a hurry; so look out!
We rose at 4 and made for the boat, determined not to be caught twice in the same town. At five we bade good-bye to Chalons-sur-Saone (a pleasant town of 13,000 people), under a lowering sky which soon blessed the earth with rain—a dubious blessing to a hundred people on a steamboat with no deck above the guards and scarcely room enough below for the female passengers. However, the rain soon ceased and the sky gradually cleared, so that since 9 o'clock the day has been sunny and delightful.
The distance from Chalons to Lyons by the Saone is some 90 miles. The river is about the size of the Connecticut from Greenfield to Hartford, but is sluggish throughout, with very low banks until the last ten or fifteen miles. After an intervale of half a mile to two miles, the land rises gently on the right to an altitude of some two to five hundred feet, the slope covered and checkered the whole distance with vineyards, meadows, woods, &c. The Poplar and the Pollard are still planted, but the scale of cultivation is larger and the houses much better than between Paris and Dijon. The intervale (mainly in meadow) is much wider on the left bank, the swell beyond it being in some places scarcely visible. The scenery is greatly admired here, and as a whole may be termed pretty, but cannot compare with that of the Hudson or Connecticut in boldness or grandeur. There are some craggy hill-sides in the distance, but I have not yet seen an indisputable mountain in France, though I have passed nearly through it in a mainly southerly course for over five hundred miles.
As we approach Lyons, the hills on either side come nearer and finally shut in the river between two steep acclivities, from which much building-stone has been quarried. Elsewhere, these hill-sides are covered with tasteful country residences of the retired or wealthy Lyonnais, surrounded by gardens, arbors, shrubbery, &c. The general effect is good. At last, houses and quays begin to line and bridges to span the river, and we halt beside one of the quays and are in Lyons.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] Boulevard means, I presume, rampart or fortified works (hence our English bulwark). The rampart was long ago removed, as the city outgrew it, but the name is retained by the ample street which took its place. Our Battery at New-York illustrates this origin of a name.