First Impressions on a Tour upon the Continent

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Marianne Baillie. First Impressions on a Tour upon the Continent

PREFACE

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

NOTES

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When we first started from Calais for Paris, with post-horses, I could not help a little national feeling of complacency upon observing the slovenly, shabby appearance of their harness and accoutrements, compared with those of England. From London to Dover, we had bowled away with ease and rapidity; the carriage seemed to cut through the air with a swift and even motion. Now we crawled and jumbled along, as it pleased the fancy of the horses and driver, upon the latter of which no remonstrance of ours would have had any effect. The costume of the post-boy (who drives three horses abreast, a fat, full-sized beast in the middle, his own rather smaller, and the off horse always a ragged flap-eared pony, looking as if he had just been caught up from a common) is whimsical enough; it is universally the royal livery: a shabby, dirty, short-waisted blue jacket, turned up with crimson, and laced sometimes with silver; boots resembling those of our heavy cavalry, and a thick clubbed pigtail, swinging like a pendulum from beneath a rusty japan hat. It was not till we had reached the distance of Abbeville that we met with the celebrated genuine grosses bottes, whose enormous size put me in mind of my nursery days, when I used to listen to the wonderous tale of the giant-killer and his seven-leagued boots. The lash of the post-boy's whip is thick and knotted, and they have a curious method of cracking it upon passing other carriages, to give notice of their approach: this saves their lungs, and has not an unpleasant effect, the cracking sound being of a peculiar nature, double, as if it said "crac-crac" at each stroke. It is not every post-boy, however, who manages this little implement in the true style. They all carry the badge of their profession upon the left arm (like our watermen), being a silver or metal plate with the arms of France upon it. From Calais to Haut-buisson the country is extremely flat, barren and uninteresting, like the ugliest parts of Wiltshire and Sussex; and the straight line in which all the French roads are cut is tiresome and monotonous to a great degree. The case is not mended even when you advance as far as Marquise, and I began to yawn in melancholy anticipation of a similar prospect for nearly a hundred and eighty miles, which yet remained to be passed ere we reached Paris; but upon coming near Beaupres, we were agreeably disappointed, finding the surface of the country more undulated, and patches of woodlands thinly strewn here and there – it is amazing how greatly the eye is relieved by this change. The hamlets between Haut-buisson and Boulogne much resemble those in the west of England; we were perpetually fancying ourselves in a Somersetshire village as we passed through them. On the road-side it is very common to see large crucifixes, raised to a considerable height, with the figure of our Saviour the size of life. We remarked one in particular, painted black, and the image flesh-colour, with the drapery about the middle gilt; another was inclosed in a small railed space (like a village pound), surrounded by four or five clumsy stone images, which I rather imagine were meant to represent the holy women who assembled round the cross during our Saviour's last moments. As we approached Boulogne, we met several old peasants: they all wore cocked hats, and a suit of decent, sad-coloured clothes, not unlike the dress of our villagers on a Sunday.

The entrance to Boulogne is very picturesque: the fortifications are crumbling a little beneath the touch of time, and the walls are partly overgrown by trees and lichens; but a very little exertion would render it formidable enough, I imagine, to besiegers. We dined here at an inn, where they thought they could not do us a greater favour than by sending up a meal in what they believed to be the English style of cookery; consequently it was neither one thing nor the other, and extremely disagreeable: amongst various delicacies, we had melted salt butter swimming in oil, and quite rancid, brought to table in a tea-cup, and a large dish of tough spongy lumps of veal, which they called veal cutlets. As I sat at the window, which opened upon the principal street, I had an opportunity of remarking a specimen of true French flattery, but I was not quite so pervious to its benign influence as Sterne describes his ladies to have been in the Sentimental Journey. A little ragged urchin of about ten years old rather annoyed me, by jumping up and grinning repeatedly in my face: "Allez, allez, que faites vous là?" said I. "C'est que je veux dire bon jour à Madame!" – "Eh, bien donc, vous l'avez dit à present – allez!" – "Ah! mais que Madame est jolie! Mon Dieu! elle est very prit. Elle me donnera un sous, n'est ce pas?"

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At Essone, where we changed horses, the postillion came out in a white night-cap (or rather a cap which once had boasted that title of purity), loose blue trowsers reaching scantily below the knee, and sans shoes or stockings of any sort: upon seeing that his services were wanted, he threw on an old japan hat, jumped into his jack boots, and clawing up the reins, drove off with an air of as much importance and self satisfaction as the smartest-clad post-boy on the Epsom road during the race week.

In the stubble fields near Fontainbleau, we observed great quantities of partridges. The shepherds here sleep in little moveable houses or huts, upon wheels, somewhat inferior to a good English dog-kennel. At Chailly, we saw the Virgin Mary looking out of a round hole in the wall, and not at all more dignified in her appearance than the well-known hero of Coventry. We now exchanged our driver for a spirited old gentleman, who frolicked along beneath the burthen of threescore or more, seeming to bid defiance to the whole collection of pains and HH's (vide Kemble's classical pronunciation). Perhaps, reader, I do not make my meaning perfectly clear; but that does not signify, the first authors write in this way; and besides, I know what I mean myself, which is not always the case even with them. We remarked in the course of our journey a great number of similar merry Nestors, and found, almost invariably, that they drove us faster, better, and in a superior style altogether to their younger competitors. I suppose they have a sort of pride in thus displaying their activity, which a middle-aged man does not feel.

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