Now, as to her Ladyship's having written her "France," while France was still "so French," this we do not deny; but we do deny that her France itself is "so French." It would be an affair of some considerable difficulty, in our humble opinion, to find any thing French either about it or the "France" we are now reviewing, except their titles, and innumerable scraps of the French language, not unfrequently so expressed and so applied that they would do honour to Mrs. Malaprop herself.
Lady M.'s fondness for generalizing, has led her to relate this apparition of the "Bang-up" in such a way as would induce any one who did not know better, to suppose that the "Coach" had entirely superseded the "Diligence" upon the French roads. Truly would such a change be a cause of regret; for the traveller in France would thus be deprived of a fruitful source of amusement. But we have the pleasure of announcing, for the satisfaction of such of our readers as may entertain the design of paying a visit to that country, that the coach which Lady Morgan saw, was the only vehicle of the kind with which her eyes could have been annoyed. We speak understandingly on the subject, as we happened to be in France about the same time as her Ladyship. This coach, which, if we recollect aright, was called the Telegraph, and not the "Bang-up," was a speculation of some Englishman, who ran it for a short time between Boulogne and Calais, but without much success. The old national vehicle had too strong a hold upon the affections of the most national people in the world, to be pushed from the field by any foreign opponent, and the slow, sure, and comfortable Diligence kept on the even tenor of its way, while the dashing, rapid Telegraph arrived prematurely at the end of its journeying.
We do not deem ourselves competent to decide upon so momentous a subject as the respective merits of the English and French stages, to give them our technical appellation; but it may be remarked as perhaps somewhat singular, that with regard to comfort—a matter respecting which the French are as noted for their general heedlessness as the English are for their almost uniform concern—the Diligence can lay claim to unquestionable superiority over the coach. On the other hand, the coach is constructed in such a way as to possess far greater facilities for rapidity of locomotion,—a quality which it might be supposed the quick vivacious temperament of the French would especially prize in their conveyances. As to appearance also, the English vehicle is certainly a good deal better off than the French. Nothing, indeed, that a stranger may have heard or read about the latter, can prepare him for it sufficiently, to prevent him on first beholding it from giving way to something more than a smile. It is not, however, so much the mere machine itself that operates upon his risible faculties, as the whole equipage, or atalage,—the scare-crow horses, that seem to have been once the property of the keeper of some museum by whom their bones have been linked together and covered with skin as well as they might be, without inserting something between as a substitute for flesh; the non-descript gear by which these living anatomies are kept together and attached to the vehicle, composed of rope, leather, iron, steel, brass, and every thing else that could by any possibility be used for the purpose; the queer-looking postillion, with his long cue, huge boots, and pipe, all combine with the grotesque appearance of the Diligence itself, to form an ensemble irresistibly ludicrous.
What a difference, too, there is in the facility with which they get "under weigh." One crack of the coachman's whip, causes his fine animals to give "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull together," and away you whirl in an instant. But the traveller in France does not find starting so easy a matter. He gets into the Diligence; every thing seems ready. The passengers are all in their places, and have saluted each other with true French politeness, except some gruff John Bull sitting in a corner seat and eyeing his associates with mingled scorn and distrust—the five or six apologies for horses are standing in an attitude of the greatest patience, waiting for the signal to make an attempt at putting one foot before the other—the conducteur, a person who has the supreme direction of the movements of the Diligence, is in his place on the top—the boots in which the legs of the postillion are buried, are dangling on both sides of the wheel horse on the left—crack! goes his whip—a jingling sound responds, caused by the endeavours of the "cattle" to advance—"mais que diable"—crack! crack! crack!—something like motion is experienced, when there is a sudden stop, and the conducteur is seen descending from his eminence, muttering sundry expressions of no very gentle nature—"what the devil's the matter now," growls a more than bass voice out of one window—"qu'est ce que c'est, conducteur," simultaneously demand a treble and a tenor from another window—"rien, Madame," the answer is always addressed to the lady, "rien du tout," he replies whilst endeavouring to repair some part of the "rigging" that could not stand the efforts of the poor beasts to move from their position. At length, however, you get fairly under weigh, with about a four knot breeze, and continue to make some progress for an hour or two amidst a noise caused by the rumbling of the vehicle, the creaking, jingling, rattling, and clanking, of the atalage, the unceasing crack of the whip, and the chattering of your companions, to which the sounds at Babel were music. The movement then becomes adagio, and soon afterwards the conducteur's voice is heard, begging the passengers in all parts of the vehicle to descend. Wondering what is the matter, you get out with the rest, and find the cause of this commotion to be a grande Montagne—anglicè, a little hill—in mounting which, the tender care that is taken of the animals upon the road, however much the state of their flesh shows it is diminished in the stable, renders it indispensable that they should be relieved of every possible weight. To this inconvenience you are subjected on approaching almost every little elevation, the like of which in England or the United States, would not cause the slightest diminution of speed. But it must be confessed, that occasionally, a hill is to be passed of a magnitude which the steeds could never surmount without diminishing their load, and then the notice that is said to have been affixed to one of the Diligences, may very well be appended to all. "MM. les voyageurs, sont priés, quand ils descendent, de ne pas aller plus vite que la voiture:" passengers are requested, when they descend, not to go faster than the vehicle. A most necessary request! La Fontaine, when he wrote the fable in which he gives an account of a vehicle ascending a steep eminence, and the exertions of a fly to assist the horses, must have just returned from some excursion in a Diligence, during which he was witness to the creeping, toiling, panting of the animals pulling it up a hill. Pauvres diables! as the women are constantly exclaiming, a fly might really lend them some aid in their efforts. About every eight miles, fresh horses are in readiness, but the change is rarely for the better,—for the worse it cannot be.
It is only on the road that the postillions drive slowly; when they enter a town it is a sort of signal for them to dash on at a furious rate, notwithstanding the danger of going rapidly through streets which are little better than alleys, and in which there are no side-pavements to mark the limits for pedestrians. We never before experienced such philanthropic alarm for the safety of our fellow-mortals, as on the evening of our arrival in Paris, whilst whirling at a furious rate through its narrow streets, which were thronged with people, when it was so dark that their ears alone could give them warning to get out of the way. No accident, however, occurred. The French drivers, it must be confessed, though not very elegant or stylish "whips," are very sure; they contrive to guide the immense Diligences through the crowded labyrinths of a large city with wonderful safety, notwithstanding the swiftness with which they generally pass through them, and the loose manner in which the horses are linked together.
But where did we leave our Ladyship? Oh, with her head out of the window of the hotel, saying something about her France and the other France. We really beg her pardon for keeping her so long in such a situation, and hasten to relieve her from it, by placing her, together with Sir C. M. and the Irish footman, in a,—but here again we are at fault. She has not had the kindness to inform us what was the species of conveyance that she consecrated to eternal veneration by employing for her journey to Paris, and as we have neither time nor space for an adequate investigation of this important point, we must leave it to be mooted by other commentators, contenting ourselves with the knowledge that the illustrious trio arrived safely at the capital.
On reaching the hotel in the Rue de Rivoli, which she had resolved upon immortalizing by residing in it during her sojourn in Paris, she was again fearfully agitated by that dreadful fondness for things English, in France, by which her nervous system had before been so greatly discomposed. Woful to relate, she was received by "a smart, dapper, English-innkeeper-looking landlord," and conducted to apartments "which were a box of boudoirs, as compact as a Chinese toy." "There were carpets on every floor, chairs that were moveable, mirrors that reflected, sofas to sink on, footstools to stumble over; in a word, all the incommodious commodities of my own cabin in Kildare street." Poor Miladi! this was really too provoking, to have all the trouble and expense of journeying from Dublin to see just what was to be seen there; but no matter, it will serve for the subject of some twenty pages in your intended book. But then the change, so trying to the nerves of a romantic lady, which had taken place since 1816. In that year, she remembered, on driving into the paved court of the hotel d'Orleans, she had seen "an elderly gentleman, sitting under the shelter of a vine, and looking like a specimen of the restored emigration. His white hair, powdered and dressed à l'oiseau royale; his Persian slippers and robe de chambre, à grand ramage, (we hope, reader, you have a French dictionary near you) spoke of principles as old as his toilet. He was reading, too, a loyal paper, loyal, at least, in those days,—the Journal des Débats. Bowing, as we passed, he consigned us, with a graceful wave of the hand, to the care of Pierre, the frotteur. I took him for some fragment of a duc et pair of the old school; but, on putting the question to the frotteur, who himself might have passed for a figurante at the opera, he informed us that he was 'Notre bourgeois,' the master of the hotel." It is quite wonderful to us how Miladi could have survived to relate so shocking a metamorphosis. Ovid has nothing half so strange and heart-rending.
The instances we have mentioned are far from being the only ones in which her Ladyship was "put out of sorts" by the Anglomania, which, she would make us believe, is operating at present as great a revolution in the social, as was effected in '98 in the political condition of France. All along the road from Calais to Paris, she sees nothing but "youths galloping their horses in the cavalry costume of Hyde Park," "smart gigs and natty dennets," "cottages of gentility, with white walls and green shutters, and neat offices, rivalling the diversified orders of the Wyatvilles of Islington and Highgate," in short, nothing but "English neatness and propriety on every side," with one terrible exception, however, "an Irish jaunting car!" of which she chanced, to her infinite dismay, to catch a glimpse. The second appearance that she makes in the streets of Paris, is for the purpose of buying some "bonbons, diablotins en papillotes, Pastilles de Nantes, and other sugared prettinesses," for which Parisian confectioners are so renowned. Accordingly, she goes into a shop where she supposes that "fanciful idealities, sweet nothings, candied epics and eclogues in spun sugar, so light, and so perfumed as to resemble (was there ever such nonsense) congealed odours, or a crystallization of the essence of sweet flowers," are to be sold, but on inquiry she is told by a "demoiselle behind the counter, as neat as English muslin and French (what a wonder it wasn't English) tournure could make her," that 'we sell no such a ting,' but that she might have 'de cracker, de bun, de plom-cake, de spice gingerbread, de mutton and de mince pye, de crompet and de muffin, de gelée of de calves foot, and de apple dumplin.' Reader, Lady Morgan "was struck dumb!" She purchased a bundle of crackers, "hard enough to crack the teeth of an elephant," and hurried from the shop. But misfortunes never come single, and her ladyship, though an exception to most other general rules, was not destined to prove the correctness of that one in this instance, for just as she was escaping from the place where she had experienced the serious inconvenience of being "struck dumb," she was struck in another way—viz. on the left cheek, by the explosion of a bottle of "Whitbread's entire," the consequence of which was, that the exterior of her head became covered with precisely the same thing with which its interior is filled—"froth."—
Foaming with rage and brown-stout, her Ladyship was hastening home as fast as her "little feet" could carry her, when a perfumer's shop "caught the most acute of all her senses."—What a delightful mode, by the way, her ladyship has, of imparting knowledge en passant, as it were; here we have the important information communicated to us, that her "acutest sense" is situated in her nose, just because she happened to pass by a perfumery store; but what a nose her ladyship's nose must be, since it is endowed with more wonderful faculties than her eyes, which possess such miraculous powers as to enable her to see things in France perceptible by no other mortal optics! But to proceed with our dismal story. Her ladyship's olfactory nerves, as we have already mentioned, having made her aware of the proximity of a perfumer's shop, she was induced to go into it by the desire of procuring something which might relieve them from the torture produced by the exhalations of 'Whitbread's entire.' But here again she was doomed to disappointment. She asked for various "eaux, essences, and extraits," and was presented with bottles of "lavendre vatre, honey vatre, and tief his vinaigre;" she asked for savons, and was shown cakes of "Vindsor soap," and "de Regent's vashball." In an agony of despair, she rushes from the shop, first taking care, however, to "gather up her purse and reticule," and soon arrives at her—alas! English furnished apartments. After stumbling over a footstool, and being incommoded by other "incommodious commodities," she at length sinks exhausted upon a sofa, just opposite to a "mirror that reflected." But what other singular looking object, besides Miladi's face, is it that forms a subject of that glass's reflections, and is lying on a table just behind her? It is a little basket, the contents of which her ladyship soon begins to investigate,—and what do you suppose she finds?—"A flask of genuine potteen!!" This time she is struck loquacious, and she shrieks out, "this is too much! was it for this we left the snugness and economical comfort of our Irish home, and encountered the expensive inconveniencies of a foreign journey, in the hope of seeing nothing British, 'till the threshold of that home should be passed by our feet;'—to meet at every step with all that taste, health, and civilization (exemplified by 'lavendre vatre,' 'vindsor soap,' and 'a flask of potteen,') we cry down at home, as cheap and as abundant abroad," &c. &c. The piercing key on which her Ladyship pitched her voice while declaiming this magnificent soliloquy, brought Sir C. M., the Irish footman, and the English-looking landlord into the room, in a terrible flurry. "My dearest dear what is the matter?"—"Och! my leddy, what is it now that ails you?"—"Ah! madame, mille pardons, qu'est ce que c'est?" simultaneously issue from the mouths of the three worthies. "Avaunt! get out of my sight, you maudit imitateur; and you Sir Charles, et vous, Patrick, see that tout est preparé for returning to Dublin dans l'heure même," meekly responds Miladi. But a sudden change comes over her countenance—sudden as that which took place in the aspect of Juno when she beheld the waves raised to the very heavens by the power of Neptune, and supposed that they had overwhelmed the bark which carried Æneas and his companions, the objects of her eternal hatred. She smiled, as the face of Nature smiles when the clouds that have long covered it with gloom, have disappeared before the potent influence of the "glorious orb that gives the day," and at length she rapturously cried out, "How lucky to have written my France, while France was still so French!"—Lady Morgan was herself again.
Now we beg leave to observe, that this Anglomania bugbear, by which her ladyship pretends to have been so much distressed, is the merest piece of nonsense and affectation in the world. We will not be so ungallant as to suppose that Lady Morgan has intentionally related what is not altogether so true as might be, but she has been accustomed for such a length of time to roam about the varied realms of fancy, that it would be impossible for her ever to descend to the flat regions of fact. Besides, as we have already stated, she has been gifted with powers of vision more surprising than those of the lynx or the seer—the first can only see through a stone, the second can only see things which may exist at a future day, when they will be visible to every one else—but she sees things existing at present, that defy the ken of all other animals, rational and irrational. While reading her account of the English vehicles, English cottages, &c. &c. which she observed in her journey from Calais to Paris, we could not help asking ourselves, where were our eyes during the time we travelled that road? We are satisfied, however, that they were in their right place, and tolerably well employed; and that if they did not encounter the signs of Anglomania mentioned by her Ladyship, it was because these were to be perceived by no one but herself. Wide indeed is the difference between travelling in France and England! The poet Grey, in one of his charming letters, affirms, that in the former country it would be the finest in the world, were it not for the terrible state of the inns; but it must have greatly deteriorated there, or have improved in his native isle since his time, for there can not be the slightest question as to the superior delights of journeying in the latter at present. The inns in France are still bad enough, in all conscience, and offer but a dreary welcome to one who has been accustomed to the neatness and comforts of English hostels. There are, however, various other particulars of importance for a traveller's enjoyment, which Shakspeare's "sea-walled garden" furnishes in by far the greater abundance. In France the roads are comparatively much inferior, and the general appearance of the country is less pleasing. You meet there with few or none of those detached farm-houses, with their little dependencies of cottages, which everywhere greet the eye in England, bespeaking the honest and well-conditioned yeoman, and presenting a picture of prosperity and contentment,—the villages through which you pass, mostly wear a decayed and squalid appearance—the magnificent country-seats, with their parks and other appurtenances, whose frequent recurrence in England constitutes so rich a feast for the gaze of the stranger, are rarely rivalled in France—the landscape here, also, is much seldomer able to borrow that venerable grace and romantic charm which the remains of feudal ages alone can lend. This last circumstance is one greatly to be regretted; for perhaps the most exquisite gratification to be derived from travelling through a country, where for centuries civilization in a greater or less degree has exercised sway, arises from the contemplation of the various monuments of by-gone days, some slowly mouldering into dust, others still proudly defying the assaults of the great destroyer. The mind dwells upon them with a species of pensive delight, and that peculiar charm which their association with the fictions and annals of times past inspires. It would seem, that France should be especially rich in the relics of that feudalism of which for a long time it was the chief seat, but a reason for their scantiness may be found in the policy which caused Louis XI., and which was subsequently pursued by Richelieu, and completed by Louis le Grand, to call the nobles from their estates, where they exercised almost sovereign authority, to the capital, and convert them into mere hangers on of the court—in the destructive hostilities which have almost incessantly desolated the kingdom—and especially in the determined war that was made upon castles by the patriots of the Revolution. These, at all events, are the causes which Sir Walter Scott, in his "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk," assigns for the circumstance we are lamenting. The first one of them had also been previously intimated by that worthy personage, the father of Tristram Shandy,—"Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen's seats, (he would ask with some emotion, as he walked across the room,) throughout so many delicious provinces in France? Whence is it that the few remaining chateaux amongst them are so dismantled, so unfurnished, and in so ruinous and desolate a condition?—Because, sir, (he would say,) in that kingdom no man has any country-interest to support:—the little interest of any kind which any man has anywhere in it, is concentrated in the court, and the looks of the Grand Monarch; by the sunshine of whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every Frenchman lives or dies." This, however, is certainly not the case with Frenchmen of the present day.