On Friday night, we slept at Sion. The next day, at noon, we reached Saint Maurice, where I left my companions. I had a whim, instead of coasting along the side of the lake by Saint Gingoux, to go to Vevay, and make the voyage in the steamer. I was in the wrong, I afterwards found; for, being alone, I had no heart to walk about and see sights at Vevay, and the day for my voyage proved cloudy and cold, so that I could not gain sight of Mont Blanc, for the sake of which I had undertaken it. However, on this account, I bade adieu to my companions at Saint Maurice, and jumped into the coupée of a diligence, which took me to Vevay. And the next morning, bleak and cloudy, as I have said, I embarked on board the steamer.

I felt now that I had passed a boundary-line, and was in another country, meeting people with a totally different set of ideas and associations. The subject of the war with Mehemet Ali, and of the dissensions with France, was raging at its height; and several persons thought me very rash to venture into that country. The fate of English travellers at the time of the peace of Amiens can never be forgotten. It was not a pleasant day for my voyage, as I have said. The far Alps were hid; the wide lake looked drear. At length, I caught a glimpse of the scenes among which I had lived, when first I stepped out from childhood into life. There, on the shores of Bellerive, stood Diodati; and our humble dwelling, Maison Chapuis, nestled close to the lake below. There were the terraces, the vineyards, the upward path threading them, the little port where our boat lay moored; I could mark and recognise a thousand slight peculiarities, familiar objects then—forgotten since—now replete with recollections and associations. Was I the same person who had lived there, the companion of the dead? For all were gone: even my young child, whom I had looked upon as the joy of future years, had died in infancy—not one hope, then in fair bud, had opened into maturity; storm, and blight, and death, had passed over, and destroyed all. While yet very young, I had reached the position of an aged person, driven back on memory for companionship with the beloved; and now I looked on the inanimate objects that had surrounded me, which survived, the same in aspect as then, to feel that all my life since was but an unreal phantasmagoria—the shades that gathered round that scene were the realities—the substance and truth of the soul’s life, which I shall, I trust, hereafter rejoin.

Disappointed in my voyage, for it was dreary, I arrived at Geneva, and took refuge in the Hôtel de Bergues—the model and perfection of these Swiss hotels, where all is conducted on a system that no number of guests can disturb, and a certainty of expense, always convenient. I dined at the table d’hôte. The tables lined three sides of a large salle-à-manger, and were crowded by a happy flock of travellers, all turning their steps towards Italy. The talk was Hammersley’s failure, the consequence of which had been very disastrous to the poorer race of travellers. It was a fine evening; and I walked a little about the town, and took my place in the diligence for Lyons.

10th Oct.

I left Geneva in the coupée of the diligence, and found myself alone in it. Our fine weather returned, and the drive was pleasant; but still, from the height of Jura, Mont Blanc was veiled from my sight.

Here we fell into the hands of the French douane, a long and troublesome operation. One is always impatient of stoppages in travelling. At length we were allowed to proceed. The way, amidst the vast range of the Jura, was interesting. I remembered it as dreary; but summer dressed all in smiles and cheerfulness. We continued near the Rhone; and the aspect of the river lent life and variety to the scene. I enjoyed it in a melancholy grumbling way, losing myself, as I best might, in fantastic dreams and endless reveries. In some things, the travelling in the coupée of a diligence is not so bad. Your limbs are not confined and manacled as in an English stage-coach. I never travelled all night in the latter, and cannot imagine how it can be endured: it is bad enough for a few hours. The meals are the worst part of French public travelling—turned out all together to feed at one table, loaded with badly-dressed French dishes, with difficulty persuading a servant to allow you to make yourself comfortable with cold water and a towel, being perpetually reminded in consequence you must go without your dinner.

By this time I became aware of a truth which had dawned on me before, that the French common people have lost much of that grace of manner which once distinguished them above all other people. More courteous than the Italians they could not be; but, while their manners were more artificial, they were more playful and winning. All this has changed. I did not remark the alteration so much with regard to myself, as in their mode of speaking to one another. The “Madame” and “Monsieur,” with which stable-boys and old beggar-women used to address each other, with the deference of courtiers, has vanished. No trace is to be found of it in France. A shadow faintly exists among Parisian shopkeepers, when speaking to their customers; but only there is the traditional phraseology still used: the courteous accent, the soft manner, erst so charming, exists no longer. I speak of a thing known and acknowledged by the French themselves. They want to be powerful; they believe money must obtain power; they wish to imitate the English, whose influence they attribute to their money-making propensities: but now and then they go a step beyond, and remind one of Mrs. Trollope’s description of the Americans. Their phraseology, once so delicately, and even to us more straight-forward people, amusingly deferential (not to superiors only, but toward one another), is become blunt, and almost rude. The French allege several causes for this change, which they date from the revolution of 1830. Some say it arises from every citizen turning out as one of the National Guard in his turn, so that they all get a ton de garnison: others attribute it to their imitation of the English. Of course, in the times of the ancien régime, the courtly tone found an echo and reflection from the royal ante-chambers down to the very ends of the kingdom. This had faded by degrees, till the revolution of ’30 gave it the coup-de-grâce. I grieved very much. Perhaps more than any people, as I see them now, the French require the restraint of good manners. They are desirous of pleasing, it is true; but their amour propre is so sensitive, and their tempers so quick, that they are easily betrayed into anger and vehemence. I am more sorry, on another score. The blessing which the world now needs is the steady progress of civilisation: freedom, by degrees, it will have, I believe. Meanwhile, as the fruits of liberty, we wish to perceive the tendency of the low to rise to the level of the high—not the high to be dragged down to the low. This, we are told by many, is the inevitable tendency of equality of means and privileges. I will hope not: for on that hope is built every endeavour to banish ignorance, and hard labour and penury, from political society.

This is a long digression: but I have not much more to say. We arrived in Lyons at half-past three in the morning, and with difficulty got admitted into an hotel. The system of French hotels has no resemblance to that of the Swiss; and you must conclude from this, that they do not emulate them in activity, order, and comfort. I was bound for Paris; and proceeded by the steamer, up the Saône, to Chalons. On board these long, narrow, river steamers, I found the same defects—the air, most agreeable to a traveller, of neatness, and civility, was absent. There is, however, no real fault to be found, and I should not mention this were it not a change; and I sincerely wish the French would return to what they once were, and give us all lessons of pleasing manners, instead of imitating and exaggerating our faults, and adding to them an impress all their own—a sort of fierceness when displeased, which is more startling than our sullenness. As I said, this has no reference to any act towards myself; but the winning tone and manner that had pleased me of old no longer appeared, and it was in the phraseology used among each other that the change was most remarkable.

Saturday, 10th.

The worst bit of the journey is from Chalons to Paris. The road is much frequented. I was obliged to wait a day for places in the diligence, and then could only get bad ones, in the intérieur, with three little boys going to school in Paris from Marseilles, and a sort of tutor conveying them; for boys are never trusted, as with us, to go about alone; such a proceeding would be looked upon as flagrantly improper. Nothing can equal the care with which French youth are guarded from contact with the world; girls in our boarding-schools are less shut up. They rise early, work hard—(a boy once said to me, “We are always at work; but we do it very slow”)—little or no exercise, and poor fare. Such is the fate of the noblest French youths, as well as those of an inferior class, at the highest public schools.