P.S. The Antiquarian will find amusement in this town. There are some Roman remains worthy of notice; but such as require the information of the inhabitant to be seen.
LETTER VI.
Dijon.
You will laugh, perhaps, when I tell you, I could hardly refrain from tears when I took leave of the De Jardin family at Rheims,—but so it was. Good-breeding, and attention, have so much the appearance of friendship, that they may, and often do, deceive the most discerning men;—no wonder, then, if I was unhappy in leaving a town, where I am sure I met with the first, and had some reason to believe I should have found the latter, had we staid to cultivate it. Bourgogne is, however, a much finer province than Champaigne; and this town is delightfully situated; that it is a cheap province, you will not doubt, even to English travellers, when I tell you, that I had a good supper for four persons, three decent beds, good hay, and plenty of corn, for my horse, at an inn upon this road, and was charged only four livres ten sols! not quite four shillings. Nor was it owing to any mistake; for I lay the following night at just such another inn, and was charged just the same price for nearly the same entertainment. They were carriers' inns, indeed, but I know not whether they were not, upon the whole, better, and cleaner too, than some of the town auberges. I need not therefore tell you, I was straggled a little out of le Route Anglois, when I found such a bon Marche.
Dijon is pleasantly situated, well built, and the country round about it is as beautiful as nature could well make it. The shady walks round the whole town are very pleasing, and command a view of the adjacent country. The excellence of the wine of this province, you are better acquainted with than I am; though I must confess, I have drank better burgundy in England than I have yet tasted here: but I am not surprized at that; for at Madeira I could not get wine that was even tolerable.
I found here, two genteel English gentlemen, Mess. Plowden and Smyth, from whom we received many marks of attention and politeness.—Here, I imagined I should be able to bear seeing the execution of a man, whose crimes merited, I thought, the severest punishment. He was broke upon the wheel; so it is called; but the wheel is what the body is fixed upon to be exposed on the high road after the execution. This man's body, however, was burnt. The miserable wretch (a young strong man) was brought in the evening, by a faint torch light, to a chapel near the place of execution, where he might have continued in prayer till midnight; but after one hour spent there, he walked to, and mounted the scaffold, accompanied by his confessor, who with great earnestness continually presented to him, and bade him kiss, the crucifix he carried in his hand. When the prisoner came upon the scaffold, he very willingly laid himself upon his back, and extended his arms and legs over a cross, that was laid flat and fixed fast upon the scaffold for that purpose, and to which he was securely tied by the executioner and his mother, who assisted her son in this horrid business. Part of the cross was cut away, in eight places, so as to leave a hollow vacancy where the blows were to be given, which are, between the shoulder and elbow, elbow and wrist, thigh and knee, and knee and ancle. When the man was securely tied down, the end of a rope which was round his neck, with a running noose, was brought through a hole in and under the scaffold; this was to give the Coup de Grace, after breaking: a Coup which relieved him, and all the agitated spectators, from an infinite degree of misery, except only, the executioner and his mother, for they both seemed to enjoy the deadly office. When the blows were given, which were made with a heavy piece of iron, in the form of a butcher's cleaver without an edge, the bones of the arms and legs were broke in eight places; at each blow, the sufferer called out, O God! without saying another word, or even uttering a groan. During all this time, the Confessor called upon him continually to kiss the cross, and to remember Christ, his Redeemer. Indeed, there was infinite address, as well as piety, in the conduct of the Confessor; for he would not permit this miserable wretch to have one moment's reflection about his bodily sufferings, while a matter of so much more importance was depending; but even those eight blows seemed nothing to two dreadful after-claps, for the executioner then untied the body, turned his back upwards, and gave him two blows on the small of the back with the same iron weapon; and yet even that did not put an end to the life and sufferings of the malefactor! for the finishing stroke was, after all this, done by the halter, and then the body was thrown into a great fire, and consumed to ashes. There were two or three executions soon after, but of a more moderate kind. Yet I hope I need not tell you, that I shall never attend another; and would feign have made my escape from this, but it was impossible.—Here, too, I saw upwards of fourscore criminals linked together, by one long chain, and so they were to continue till they arrived in the galleys at Marseilles. Now I am sure you will be, as I was, astonished to think, an old woman, the mother of the executioner, should willingly assist in a business of so horrid a nature; and I dare say, you will be equally astonished that the magistrates of the city permitted it. Decency, and regard to the sex, alone, one would think, should have put a stop to a practice so repugnant to both; and yet perhaps, not one person in the town considered it in that light. Indeed, no other person would have assisted, and the executioner must have done all the business himself, if his mother had not been one of that part of the fair sex, which Addison pleasantly mentions, "as rakers of cinders;" for the executioner could not have found a single person to have given him any assistance. There was a guard of the Marechaussee, to prevent the prisoners' escape; but none that would have lifted up a little finger towards forwarding the execution; the office is hereditary and infamous, and the officer is shut out of all society. His perquisites, however, were considerable; near ten pounds, I think, for this single execution; and he had a great deal more business coming on. I would not have given myself the pain of relating, nor you the reading, the particulars of this horrid affair, but to observe, that it is such examples as these, that render travelling in France, in general, secure. I say, in general; for there are, nevertheless, murders committed very frequently upon the high roads in France; and were those murders to be made known by news-papers, as ours are in England, perhaps it would greatly intimidate travellers of their own, as well as other nations. But as the murdered, and murderers, are generally foot-travellers, though the dead body is found, the murderer is escaped; and as nobody knows either party, nobody troubles themselves about it. All over France, you meet with an infinite number of people travelling on foot, much better dressed than you find, in general, the stagecoach gentry in England. Most of these foot-travellers are young expensive tradesmen, and artists, who have paid their debts by a light pair of heels; when their money is exhausted, the stronger falls upon the weaker, knocks out his brains, and furnishes himself with a little money; and these murders are never scarce heard of above a league from the place where they are committed; for which reason, you never meet a foot-traveller in France, without arms, of one kind or other, and carried for one purpose, or the other. Gentlemen, however, who travel only in the day-time, and who are armed, have but little danger to apprehend; yet it is necessary to be upon their guard when they pass through great woods, and to keep in the middle of the road, so as not to be too suddenly surprized; because a convenient opportunity may induce two or three honest travellers to embrace a favourable occasion of replenishing their purses; and as they always murder those whom they attack, if they can, those who are attacked should never submit, but defend themselves to the utmost of their power. Though the woods are dangerous, there are, in my opinion, plains which are much more so; a high hill which commands an extensive plain, from which there is a view of the road some miles, both ways, is a place where a robber has nothing to fear but from those whom he attacks; and he is morally certain of making his escape one way or the other: but in a wood, he may be as suddenly surprized, as he is in a situation to surprize others; for this reason, I have been more on my guard when I have seen people approach me on an extensive plain, than when I have passed through deep woods; nor would I ever let any of those people come too near my chaise; I always shewed them the utmost distance, and made them return the compliment, by bidding them, if they offered to come out of their line, to keep off: this said in a peremptory manner, and with a stern look, is never taken ill by honest men, and has a forcible effect upon rascals, for they immediately conclude you think yourself superior to them, and then they will think so too: whatever comes unexpected, is apt to dismay; whole armies have been seized with a panic from the most trifling artifice of the opposite general, and such as, by a minute's reflection, would have produced a contrary effect: the King's troops gave way at Falkirk; the reason was, they were dismayed at seeing the rebels (I beg pardon) come down pell mell to attack them with their broad swords! it was a new way of fighting, and, they weakly thought, an invincible one; but had General Cope previously rode through the ranks, and apprised the troops with the manner of their fighting, and assured them how feeble the effect of such weapons would be upon men armed with musket and bayonet, which is exactly the truth, not a man would have retired; yet, trim-tram, they all ran, and the General, it is said, gave the earliest notice of his own defeat! But I should have observed, above, that the laws of France being different, in different provinces, have the contrary effect in the southern parts, to what they were intended. The Seigneur on whose land a murdered body is found, is obliged to pay the expence of bringing the criminal to justice. Some of these lordships are very small; and the prosecuting a murderer to punishment, would cost the lord of the manor more than his whole year's income; it becomes his interest, therefore, to hide the dead body, rather than pursue the living villain; and, as whoever has property, be it ever so small, has peasants about him who will be glad to obtain his favour, he is sure that when any of these peasants see a murdered body, they will give him the earliest notice, and the same night the body is for ever hid, and no enquiry is made after the offender. I saw hang on the road side, a family of nine, a man, his wife, and seven children, who had lived many years by murder and robberies; and I am persuaded that road murders are very common in France; yet people of any condition may nevertheless, travel through France with great safety, and always obtain a guard of the Marechaussee, through woods or forests, or where they apprehend there is any danger.
P.S. The following method of buying and selling the wine of this province, may be useful to you.
To have good Burgundy, that is, wine de la premiere tete, as they term it, you must buy it from 400 to 700 livres. There are wines still dearer, up to 1000 or 1200 livres; but it is allowed, that beyond 700 livres, the quality is not in proportion to the price; and that it is in great measure a matter of fancy.