From the Louvre we went to the Palais Royal. It was begun by Cardinal Richelieu in 1629, and completed in 1636. It was converted by the Duke of Orleans into a bazaar: the front towards the street of St. Honoré was built by him after the destruction of the Opera House. It presents two pavilions adorned with columns. After passing under a portico we entered a square. In the centre is a garden interspersed by young trees and encircled by lattice work; in the middle of the garden is a jet d'eau, which cools the air very much. Round the square are beautiful little shops; the prettiest are the jewellers'. In the windows were a great many ornaments of mother-of-pearl, harps, dogs, men, carts, etc. The china-shops are very pretty also. One very pretty ornament was a gold boy with a china cup on his back and a dog holding a stick in its mouth, at each end of which was a glass for ink; there were bead-necklaces, smelling-bottles, and every kind of thing. When we returned we went immediately to Passy. This village was about a mile from Paris. When we arrived at our house in the Rue Basse, we found all hands busily employed in cleaning. It was a large house, but dirty from top to bottom. It had been occupied for a year by an English family who had been abroad for three years; their housekeeper and lady's-maid were English, and disliked being in France so much that they sat in their own rooms and left the management of the house entirely to the foreign servants. There was a courier who bought and managed for the family. The consequence was that we found the house in the greatest confusion. The kitchen was like a pig-sty, and the rooms were very dirty and untidy. There were backs of books, old bottles, and all kinds of litters lying about. There was a German housemaid who was to stay on in the house with us, and she and our servants did little that day but clean. Though we were all anxious to come to a house, I began to think I would sooner have stayed where we were than come here. When we went to bed we expected at least to be at rest, instead of which the beds were so full of bugs that we were bit all over.
PASSY
May 9th.—We got up pretty early, glad enough to leave our dirty, disagreeable beds. The servants began to clean the kitchen, but the smell was so bad that it made them sick; they therefore got two men in to clean it; and when they came to the pipe that carried away the dirt, they were also unable to proceed till they got a glass of brandy. The oven was an inch thick with dirt; when it was a little cleaned they discovered a looking-glass at the back of the oven. All the egg-shells, stalks of vegetables, etc., had been thrown under the charcoal fires; the rolling-pin was covered with dirt. Indeed, a dirtier place could not have been imagined. The meat chopper was also an inch thick of dirt. The cellar was overrun with lizards, and the closets with ants, etc. It was rather more agreeable out of doors. The front of the house was turned from the street, and before it were two terraces, one above the other, which were covered with vines, and at the end were some fine Judas trees. From the terrace we had a view of the Seine and Paris. The weather was fine, but we none of us were in a humour to enjoy this view. The porter that lived at the end of the terrace had a little boy of five or six years old. François was a nice boy, but, like most of the French children, rather forward. We walked through the village as far as the Bois de Boulogne. There are streets in Passy like a town, but very few shops; the people who live there get all their things from Paris. We picked up several cantheræ.
May 10th.—We now found the dirt so intolerable that mamma determined to speak to Madame Gautier, the lady from whom we had taken the house. She said that she would have the house cleaned and painted; but that if we wished to leave it, not to consider that any agreement had been made. (Our house had been taken for a year.) On hearing this papa went immediately to Versailles to look after a house; when he returned he told us that he had taken one, to which we were to go next day. We went to bed in rather better spirits, comforting ourselves that it was the last night we should sleep here.
May 11 th.—This morning we were busy packing and settling our things. We were rather at a loss about some clothes which we had at the wash, not knowing how we could get them. The porter, however, told us that we might be easy, as he knew a coachman who passed constantly by the door, with whom he would send the things. That we might be sure, we again asked him if he was certain of being able to send the things; but he repeated his answer so often that we had not the least doubt of his being as good as his promise. Soon after breakfast we set off in a cabriolet, which is rather a curious conveyance, but very roomy. It has two seats, one before the other, and it opens in front where the man sits. It jogged very much going downhill. There is only one horse. The man drove so close behind the cabriolet in which the servants were that we could not see anything; on asking him to go to one side he went straight before. Presently he stopped and took up another man, which they call a 'lapin,' and they chatted and laughed all the way, frequently stopping to get little glasses of brandy, as all the French drivers do. They stopt for a long while at a post-house, where the men got some bread out of a bin in the corner, and some wine. The people at the inn brought us out a few little cakes, for which they afterwards charged several francs. It was about the middle of the day when we got to Versailles.
CABRIOLET