It is a nice-looking town. There are three avenues up the middle. The soldiers were exercising in the Avenue de Sceaux when we passed; they exercised there several times a week. We used to like to hear their music, but they spoilt it with drumming. Our house was near the end of the Avenue de Sceaux, No. 6. Before the door was what they called 'Deux jolis jardins,' which turned out to be a small garden with a walk, and two hedges up the middle which divided it. We had not the upper story of the house. We paid 300 francs a month. The rooms were all round a court, so that one had to pass from one room to get to another. The drawing-room was furnished quite after the French fashion: there was a round table with two large pieces of marble on it; another table supported by bronze sphinxes; a beautiful piece of furniture that had belonged to the palace, which contained fourteen secret drawers and several mirrors. But besides this there were two clocks, neither of which would go; linen curtains hung on common iron rods; common painted frames round the glasses. Instead of a carpet there was a very little shabby piece of green cloth; and no grate; and such fire-irons as you would not see in an English kitchen. The furniture was stamped blue cotton-velvet. On the floor of the dining-room there was a little ragged piece of old tapestry; this and the green cloth were the only pretensions to carpet in the house, so that what with the want of grates and the red stone floors, it looked very cold and comfortless. But that we did not much mind, as the heat was what we always dreaded. The locks of the doors hurt all our fingers, they were so stiff. After we had thoroughly looked through the house, we went out to walk through the town. The trees in the avenues are kept cut, which is very formal-looking. We passed before the King's stables. They are in the form of a half moon; before the court is a railing with gilt tops. The great and the little stable are separated by the Avenue de Paris. Nearly opposite is the palace. Higher up the avenue, on the side of the Grande Ecurie, is the kennel. It looks pretty, and I think very large for a dog-kennel; it was, however, found too small. After walking as far as the Place d'Armes (which separates the old from the new town) we returned, and spent the evening in condoling with one another.
VERSAILLES PALACE
May 12th.—We went this day to see the palace and the gardens. When one looks at it, from the side next Paris, one might fancy it was a town of itself, there seem so many different buildings. As you go up to it there are some curious-looking buildings in imitation of tents. The iron railing that separates the palace from the Place d'Armes is very much ornamented and gilt, and on each side there is a group of gilt figures. After passing by the chapel we entered the park. On this side the palace is 1800 feet long, and from its great length looks rather low. The park of Versailles is divided into the great and the little park, which united form a circuit of sixty miles. The great park includes several villages. The little park includes the gardens, the groves, the pieces of water, etc. There are several entrances. The principal one is by the arcades of the palace. When one stands in the middle of the terrace one sees the Basin of Latona, the Tapis-vert, Apollo's Bath, and the canal at the right, the parterre of the north, and Neptune's Bath; and at the left the parterre of flowers, the orangery, and the pièce d'eau des Suisses. The whole garden seems almost composed of statues and vases. The vases are, I think, the most beautiful things in the garden; they are mostly of white marble (a few are of bronze), and covered with the most beautiful carving; some are very simple, having only a border round them, and others are covered with figures, sunflowers, or vines. There are also a great many basins of water. The finest is Neptune's Bath. It is a large piece of water surrounded by twenty-two vases. There are several groups of figures: the principal one in the front is Neptune and Amphitrite seated in a large shell, and surrounded by tritons and naiads. Apollo's Bath is another very fine one. Apollo is represented in his car drawn by four horses, and surrounded by sea-monsters. Latona's basin is as curious as any: in the middle, on several steps of red marble, are Latona and her children, and around them, on the steps, are seventy-four frogs, which represent the Lybian peasants metamorphosed by Jupiter on the complaint made to him by Latona. Some of them seem half frogs and half men. Besides these there are a great many smaller basins. There is one basin which seems gone to decay. In it is represented the giant Enceladus crushed under the ruins of Mount Olympus, and a number of groups of bronze children supporting basins. Around many of them are parterres of flowers.
The Tapis-vert is a long piece of grass, at each side of which are numerous vases and statues. In the evening, before sunset, this is the favourite promenade, and is quite crowded by all ranks of people. It is a favourite game to try and walk down this green blindfold. The canal is at the bottom of the Tapis-vert, below Apollo's Bath. It is very long, but not very pretty, as it does not finish with anything; it is crossed by another canal, which conducts to the Trianon.
There are a great many long avenues and squares, several of which are closed. The avenues looked suitable to the rest of the garden, but very formal. There are also rows of yew-trees cut into every kind of formal shape, which spoils the look of the gardens very much. The prettiest part of the garden is Hartwell, or the King's garden, which is made in imitation of the place where he resided when in England. It is very like an English garden. In the middle is a column of very pretty marble, with a small figure of Flora at the top. This garden is railed in, but is open every evening for people to walk in. I was very much disappointed in the orangery: it is lower than the rest of the garden. Most of the orange-trees were standing out, but there is a gallery to put them in. There is a basin of water in the middle of the orangery, and borders of flowers all round. There are immense numbers of orange, lemon, citron, laurel, and pomegranate trees:—the oldest orange-tree is said to be five hundred years old; but they are by no means pretty; they are all in large tubs; and instead of the branches being allowed to spread, they are all cut like box, which make them look still more formal. Even the flowers in the borders of the orangery are planted alternately yellow and white. The blossoms of the oranges are sold. From the orangery we had a view of the Etang Suisse; it looks like a dirty pond on a common. The whole garden is open to every person till nine o'clock, when a drum beats. At the entrance there is a list of rules: no dogs are to be brought in unless tied with a string; and nobody is to fish in the ponds, or to touch the statues or flowers. Notwithstanding, however, these prohibitions, I have counted seven or eight dogs at one time running over the flower-borders, and boys climbing on the beautiful vases, or fishing for gold and silver fish, of which there are a great many, particularly in Apollo's Bath. As we returned through the court, several very ugly old women pressed round us and asked whether we would like to see the apartments of the palace, but we thought it was better to defer this till another day.
May 13th.—I was very much surprised to see here, as well as at Paris, not the least regard paid to Sunday. All the shops were open, houses were building, and people sitting working at their doors, seeming more industrious this day than any other; even the tradespeople made a point of bringing their things on a Sunday. The English clergyman was a Mr. Beaver. At church we saw several people that we had formerly seen at Clifton and Bath; it was quite full of English.
JACK
May 14th.—About this time a little circumstance happened which shows the French inconsistency. We wanted a jack put up in the kitchen. The mason and his boy came first, but not finding the blacksmith there, they went away; then came the blacksmith and his boy, but not finding the mason, they went away. After going on in this way for some time, they at last all met. The mason then took out of a paper bag some delicate-looking white powder, which, after mixing into a paste, he layed with great care on to a fine silver trowel, and then proceeded to dab it on to the wall with his fingers.
May 15th.—We now began to be rather surprised that the clothes we had left at Passy, and which the porter said he would send directly, had not arrived. Stephens, our foreign courier, who spoke English, was therefore despatched to bring them. We afterwards found that, so far from knowing a person to send them by, the porter had consulted with Stephens and asked him if he knew of any person; so that we might have waited long for our clothes if we had trusted to the porter's word. The French are very fond of making promises, but not quite so fond of performing them; this we found to be the case with our house: one of our beds broke down several times; some rooms wanted tables, some jugs, some carpets, and all window-curtains—so that you could see across the yard from one room to another; they found it very easy to promise all these things, but we waited many a week before we got one. The English family above us had one baby of a few months old, called Angelica Ellen, which we were very fond of nursing. The lady was so ill as not to be able to attend to it, and seemed to leave it entirely to the care of a French nurse, who attended to it very badly. She would take it out in the rain, or give it to anybody in the street to hold, while she played at hide-and-seek with the old porter and his wife, who looked to be above seventy; she one day let it fall into the fire and burnt all its poor little hands. There is a porter to all the French houses. Our porter's wife took care of children: we sometimes used to get her in to clean the pans, etc.; then the nurse used to come in also to chat with her and meddle with the things in the kitchen.