"We stopped a few moments at Melun, at Joigny and Tonnerre, which latter place was quite pretty with a fine-looking Gothic church. We found the villages from Paris thus far much neater and in better style than those on the road from Boulogne.
"Our company consisted of Mr. Town, of New York, Mr. Jocelyn, of New Haven, a very pretty Frenchwoman, and myself. The Frenchwoman was quite a character; she could not talk English nor could we talk French, and yet we were talking all the time, and were able to understand and be understood.
"At four o'clock the next morning we dined!! at Montbar, which place we entered after much detention by the snow. It was so deep that we were repeatedly stopped for some time. At a picturesque little village, called Val de Luzon, where we changed horses, the country began to assume a different character. It now became mountainous, and, had the season been propitious, many beautiful scenes for the pencil would have presented themselves. As it was, the forms of the mountains and the deep valleys, with villages snugly situated at the bottom, were grateful to the eye amidst the white shroud which everywhere covered the landscape. We could but now and then catch a glimpse of the scenery through our coach window by thawing a place in the thickly covered glass, which was so plated with the arborescent frost as not to yield to the warmth of the sun at midday.
"We arrived at Dijon at nine o'clock on Saturday evening, after three days and two nights of fatiguing riding. The diligence is, on the whole, a comfortable carriage for travelling. I can scarcely give you any idea of its construction; it is so unlike in many respects to our stage-coach. It is three carriage-bodies together upon one set of wheels. The forward part is called the coupé, which holds but three persons, and, from having windows in front so that the country is seen as you travel, is the most expensive. The middle carriage is the largest, capable of holding six persons, and is called the intérieur. The other, called the derrière, is the cheapest, but is generally filled with low people. The intérieur is so large and so well cushioned that it is easy to sleep in it ordinarily, and, had it not been for the sudden stops occasioned by the clogging of the wheels in the snow, we should have had very good rest; but the discordant music made by the wheels as they ground the frozen snow, sounding like innumerable instruments, mostly discordant, but now and then concordant, prevented our sound sleep.
"The cold we found as severe as any I have usually experienced in America. The snow is as deep upon the hills, being piled up on each side of the road five or six feet high. The water in our pitchers froze by the fireside, and the glass on the windows, even in rooms comfortably warmed, was encrusted with arborescent frost. The floors, too, of all the rooms are paved with bricks or tiles, and, although comfortable in summer, are far from desirable in such a winter.
"At Dijon we stopped over the Sabbath, for the double purpose of avoiding travelling on that day and from really needing a day of rest. On Sunday morning we enquired of our landlord, Mons. Ripart, of the Hôtel du Parc, for a Protestant church, and were informed that there was not any in the place. We learned, however, afterwards that there was one, but too late to profit by the information. We walked out in the cold to find some church, and, entering a large, irregular Gothic structure, much out of repair, we pressed towards the altar where the funeral service of the Catholic Church was performing over a corpse which lay before it. The priests, seven or eight in number, were in the midst of their ceremonies. They had their hair shorn close in front, but left long behind and at the sides, and powdered, and, while walking, covered partially with a small, black, pyramidal velvet cap with a tuft at the top. While singing the service they held long, lighted wax tapers in their hands. There was much ceremony, but scarcely anything that was imposing; its heartlessness was so apparent, especially in the conduct of some of the assistants, that it seemed a solemn mockery. One in particular, who seemed to pride himself on the manner in which he vociferated 'Amen,' was casting his eyes among the crowd, winking and laughing at various persons, and, from the extravagance of his manners, bawling out most irreverently and closing by laughing, I wondered that he was not perceived and rebuked by the priests.
"As the procession left the church it was headed by an officer bearing a pontoon;[1] then one bearing the silver crucifix; then eight or ten boys with lighted wax tapers by the side of the corpse; then followed the priests, six or eight in number, and then the relatives and friends of the deceased. At the grave the priests and assistants chanted a moment, the coffin was lowered, the earth thrown upon it, and then an elder priest muttered something over the grave, and, with an instrument consisting of a silver ball with a small handle, made the sign of the cross over the body, which ceremony was repeated by each one in the procession, to whom in succession the instrument was handed.
[Footnote 1: This must be a mistake.]
"There were, indeed, two or three real mourners. One young man in particular, to whom the female might have been related as wife or sister, showed all the signs of heartfelt grief. It did not break out into extravagant gesture or loud cries, but the tears, as they flowed down his manly face, seemed to be forced out by the agony within, which he in vain endeavored to suppress. The struggle to restrain them was manifest, and, as he made the sign of the cross at the grave in his turn, the feebleness with which he performed the ceremony showed that the anguish of his heart had almost overcome his physical strength. I longed to speak to him and to sympathize with him, but my ignorance of the language of his country locked me out from any such purpose….
"Accustomed to the proper and orderly manner of keeping the Sabbath so universal in our country, there are many things that will strike an American not only as singular but disgusting. While in Paris we found it to be customary, not only on week days but also on the Sabbath, to have musicians introduced towards the close of dinner, who play and sing all kinds of songs. We supposed that this custom was a peculiarity of the capital, but this day after dinner a hand-organ played waltzes and songs, and, as if this were not enough, a performer on the guitar succeeded, playing songs, while two or three persons with long cards filled with specimens of natural history—lobsters, crabs, and shells of various kinds—were busy in displaying their handiwork to us, and each concluded his part of the ceremony by presenting a little cup for a contribution."