Onward still and the walls rise sheer out of the rocks and the water. At certain tides, the sea dashes against them and breaks back upon itself in froth and foam and angry boom. Sight and sound are a wonderful nerve tonic. Countless rocks rise like small islands in every direction, stretching far out to sea. On a calm day it is all lovely beyond the power of words. The sky is blue and brilliant with sunshine. The sea receives the dazzling rays and returns them in a myriad flashes. The water seems to have as many tints as the rainbow, and they are as changing and beautiful and intangible. A distant vessel, passing slowly with all her sails set, almost becalmed, suggests a dreamy and delicious existence that has not its rival. The coast of Normandy stretches far out of sight. In the distance are the Channel Islands, visible possibly on a clear day and with a strong glass. I know not how that may be.
Turn your gaze, and you have St. Malo lying within its grey walls. The sea on the right is all freedom and broad expanse; the town on the left is cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd. Extremes meet here, as they often do elsewhere.
It is a succession of slanting roofs, roof above roof, street beyond street. Many of the houses are very old and form wonderful groups, full of quaint gables and dormer windows, whilst the high roofs slant upwards and fall away in picturesque outlines. An artist might work here for years and still find fresh material to his hand. The streets are narrow, steep and tortuous; the houses, crowding one upon another, are many stories high; not a few seem ready to fall with age and decay. Only have patience, and all yields to time.
On one of the islets is the tomb of Chateaubriand, who was born in St. Malo and lived here many years. It was one of his last wishes to be buried where the sea, for ever playing and plashing around him, would chant him an everlasting requiem. Many will sympathise with the feeling. No scene could be more in accordance with the solemnity of death, the long waiting for the "eternal term;" more in unison with the pure spirit that could write such a prose-poem as Atala.
Nothing could have been lovelier than the day of our arrival at St. Malo; the special day of which I write; for St. Malo has seen our coming and going many times and in all weathers.
The crossing had been calm as a lake. Even H.C., who would sooner brave the tortures of a Spanish Inquisition than the ocean in its angry moods, and who has occasionally landed after a rough passage in an expiring condition: even H.C. was impatient to land and break his fast at the liberal table of the Hôtel de France—very liberal in comparison with the Hôtel Franklin. We had once dined at the table d'hôte of the Franklin, and found it a veritable Barmecide's feast, from which we got up far more hungry than we had sat down; a display so mean that we soon ceased to wonder that only two others graced the board with ourselves, and they, though Frenchmen, strangers to the place. The Hôtel de France was very different from this; if it left something to be desired in the way of refinement, it erred on the side of abundance.
Therefore, on landing this morning, we gave our lighter baggage in charge of the porter of the hotel, who knew us well, and according to his wont, gave us a friendly greeting. "Monsieur visite encore St. Malo," said he, "et nous apporte le beau temps. Soyez le bienvenu!" This was not in the least familiar—from a Frenchman.
We went on to the custom-house, and as we had nothing to declare the inspection was soon over. H.C. had left all his tea and cigars behind him at the Waterloo Station, in a small hand-bag which he had put down for a moment to record a sudden fine phrenzy of poetical inspiration. Besides tea and cigars, the bag contained a copy of his beloved "Love Lyrics," without which he never travels, and a bunch of lilies of the valley, given him at the moment of leaving home by Lady Maria; an amiable but æsthetical aunt, who lives on crystallised violets, and spends her time in endeavouring to convert all the young men of her acquaintance who go in for muscular Christianity to her æsthetical way of thinking.
Leaving the custom-house, we crossed the quay, the old castle in front of us, and passing through the great gateway, immediately found ourselves at the Place Chateaubriand and the Hôtel de France. For the hotel forms part of the building in which Chateaubriand lived.