The expression of the French boy is not as that of the English boy, in the same way as the expression of the French dog differs widely from that of his English relation. Somehow it always seems to me that the French boy misses the jolly bluffness of demeanour of our boys, though he has a quiet, collected, reflective look. But when you come to the French dog, whether it be the poodle, or that peculiar spotted yellow, squinting variety which is the street arab of Bordeaux, you understand the difficulty an English dog finds in translating a French dog's bark.
Along the quay side, is a sort of rough gutter market; chock full of stalls, which are crowded with all sorts of colours, and a perfect babel as regards noise. Some of the stalls were placed under big tarpaulin umbrellas, some striped blue, some a dirty olive-green, others under tents—dirty yellowish white for choice—one under a carriage umbrella, or what had once been a carriage umbrella, but had lost its handle and its claims to consideration by "carriage folk."
All the stalls were in close proximity; and pots and pans of all sorts and sizes, harness of all sorts—generally out of sorts—long broom handles, chestnuts peeled and unpeeled, little yellow cakes on the simmer over a brazier, fruits, vegetables, saucepans, kitchen utensils, nails, knives, scissors and every variety of implement jostled each other, with no respect of articles. Each booth possessed a curious, arresting smell of its own. It met you immediately on your entrance, accompanied you a foot or so as you moved on, and then suddenly let go of you, as you were assailed by the smell that was indigenous to the stall coming next in order. It was a kaleidoscope of colour, a German band as to noise.
One old woman, with a faded green pin-cushion on her head, tied with black tape over her striped handkerchief, a broad red handkerchief over her shoulders, and carrying coils of ropes, was ubiquitous. One met her everywhere, and she carried her own perfume thick upon her wherever she went, but she always left sufficient behind in her own particular booth to keep up its character and special personal note. As I left the excited, jabbering crowd, a countrywoman, seeing the prey about to make its escape, darted out from her stall and seized me by the shoulder, pressing on me at the same time two large fish arranged on a cabbage leaf.
I came along the quay side later in the evening and all the sails—I mean the booths—were furled, carriage umbrella and all; and the low row of furled umbrellas, standing asleep and casting long dark shadows in the dim light, like so many owls, gave a quaint, extraordinary effect to the whole scene.
In the daytime it is difficult to imagine a finer, more striking effect than the quay side, and the stone buildings, most of them with crests over the doorway, fine ironwork balconies, and jalousied windows. The two ancient gates: La Porte du Cailha, and La Porte de l'hotel de Ville, standing solemn, grim and grey, aloof (how could it be otherwise?) from the modern life of to-day, its trams, its tin trumpets, its electric lights—but permitting in its dignified isolation, the traffic which has revolutionised the entire neighbourhood. Most of the old part of Bordeaux is near the quay side. There are many delightful old houses in Rue Quai-Bourgeois, Rue de la Halle, Rue Porte des Pontanets, Rue de la Fusterie, Rue St. Croix and others. The poetry of past ages, past doings, past individualities, is thick in the air as one passes down these narrow, dimly-lighted, old-world streets. Stories of adventures, of dark deeds, of sudden disappearances, are no longer so difficult to picture when one has stood under these long, broad doorways, in the darkest and most sombre of entrance halls, and seen dim, hardly distinguishable staircases away in the shadow beyond. The only sounds that break on one's ear are the dull, booming drone of the steamer away in the harbour, the loose, uneven rattle of the cumbrous waggons over the cobbles; and, when that has passed, the quick tap-tap perhaps of some stray foot-passenger's sabots.
[From Collection of Mr Gustavus A. Sieveking.
BORDEAUX, 1842.
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