CHAP. XVI.

CHAP. XVI.

Comparative Estimate of French and English Country Inns—Tremendous Hail Storm—Country Masquerade—La Charité—Beauty and Luxuriance of its Environs—Nevers—Fille-de-Chambre—Lovely Country between Nevers and Moulins—Treading Corn—Moulins—Price of Provisions.

We were two more days on our journey to La Charité: the scenery continued the same, except that the surface became more level. On both sides of the Loire, however, there was that appearance of plenty and of happiness, of the bounty of Nature and of the cheerful labour of man, which inspirits the heart of the beholder. The painters have very justly adopted it as a maxim, that no landscape is perfect, in which there are not the appendages of life and motion. The truth is, that man, as a being formed for society, is never so much interested as by man, and it is hence a maxim of feeling, as well as of moral duty, that nothing is foreign to him as an individual which is connected with him in nature.

In this part of our journey we saw more of French inns of all degrees than we had hitherto experienced. I believe I have already mentioned, that a very wrong idea prevails as to their comparative merit. In substantial provision and accommodation, the French inns are not a whit inferior to English of the same degree; but they are inferior to them in all the minor appendages. In point of eating and drinking the French inns infinitely exceed the English: their provisions are of a better kind, and are much cheaper: we scarcely slept any where, where we could not procure fowls of all kinds, eggs and wine. It is too true, indeed, that their mode of cooking is not very well suited to an English palate; but a very little trouble will remedy this inconvenience. The French cooks are infinitely obliging in this respect—they will take your instructions, and thank you for the honor done them. The dinner, moreover, when served up, will consist of an infinite variety, and that without materially swelling the bill. Add to this the dessert, of which an English inn-keeper, except in the most expensive hotels, has not a single idea. In France, on the other hand, in the poorest inns, in the most ordinary hedge ale-house, you will have a dessert of every fruit in season, and always tastily and even elegantly served. The wine, likewise, is infinitely better than what is met with on the roads in England. In the article of beds, with a very few exceptions, the French inns exceed the English: if a traveller carry his sheets with him, he is always secure of an excellent hair mattrass, or if he prefer it, a clean feather-bed. On the other side, the French inns are certainly inferior to the English in their apartments. The bed-room is too often the dining-room. The walls are merely whitewashed, or covered with some execrable pictures. There are no such things as curtains, or at least they are never considered as necessary. There is neither soap, water, nor towel, to cleanse yourself when you rise in the morning. A Frenchman has no idea of washing himself before he breakfasts. The furniture, also, is always in the worst possible condition. We were often puzzled to contrive a tolerable table: the one in most common use is composed of planks laid across two stools or benches. The chairs are usually of oak, with perpendicular backs. There are no bells; and the attendants are more frequently male than female, though this practice is gradually going out of vogue. There is a great change moreover, of late years, in the civility of the landlords—they will now acknowledge their obligations to you, and not, as formerly, treat you as intruders.

To sum up the comparison between a French and English provincial inn, the expences for the same kind of treatment, allowing only for the necessary national differences, are about one-fourth of what they would be in England. In the course of our tour, we were repeatedly detained for days together at some of the inns on the road, and our whole suite, amounting to seven in number, never cost us more than at the rate of an English guinea a day. In England I am confident it would have been four times the sum.

The last post but one before we reached La Charité, we were overtaken by a tremendous shower of hail, a calamity, for such it is, which too frequently afflicts this part of France. The hail-tones were at least as large as nuts: some trees were at hand, under which we drove for shelter. Had we been in an open exposed road, I have no doubt but that the horses must have been hurt. I was informed, that these storms are sometimes so violent as to kill the lambs, and even to wound in a very dangerous manner the larger cattle. They usually happen about the end of the spring and the summer.

We passed some very pretty peasant girls, dressed in bodices laced crossways with ribbon. They informed us that they were the daughters of a small farmer, and were going to a neighbouring chateau to dance at the birth-day of one of the ladies of the family. Mr. Younge complimented them on their beauty; they smiled with more grace than seemed to belong to their station. Our ladies at this instant came up; the young peasants made a curtsey, which instantly betrayed their secret to Mrs. Younge and Mademoiselle St. Sillery. "Where is the masque?" said the latter. "In the Chateau de Thiery," replied one of them, "about a fourth part of a league through this gateway; perhaps, if you are going only to the next post, you will join us. Papa and Mamma will be honored by your company." The invitation was declined with many thanks to the charming girls. It is needless to add, that they were young ladies habited as peasants, and that there was a masque at the chateau. This kind of entertainment is very common in this part of France.

We reached La Charité in such good time, that we resolved to push on for Nevers. I had a walk round the town whilst our coffee was preparing. The interior of the town does not merit a word; the streets are narrow, the houses low and dark, and this too in a country where the Loire rolls its beautiful stream through meadows and plains, and where ground is plentiful and cheap. I can readily account for the narrow streets in capital cities, where locality has an artificial value, and where the competition is necessarily great. But whence are the streets thus huddled together, and the air thus carefully excluded, where there is no such want of ground or value of building lots? It must here originate purely in that execrable taste which characterized the early ages.

The environs of the town, the fields, the meadows, the gently rising hills, and the recluse vallies, compensate for the vile interior: Nature here reigns in all her loveliness, and a poet, a painter, even any one of ordinary feeling, could not see her without delight and admiration. There are innumerable nightingales in the woods at a small distance from the town. If the French noblesse had the taste of the English, the vicinity of La Charité would be covered with villas.

We took our coffee on a kind of raised mound, at the extremity of a garden, which overhung the Loire. A lofty and spreading tree overshadowed us, and stretched its branches over the river. In the fork, formed where the trunk first divides into the greater branches, was a railed seat and table. The view from hence over the meadow on the opposite bank, was gay and picturesque. The peasant girls were milking their cows and singing with their usual merriment. Parties of the townsmen were playing at golf; others were romping, running, walking, with all the thoughtless erility of the French character. I never enjoyed an hour more sensibly. The evening was delightful, and all around seemed gay and happy.

Our journey to Nevers was partly by moon-light. The road exceeds all powers of description. It was frequently bordered by hedges of flowering shrubs, and such cottages as we passed seemed sufficient for the climate. Why might not Marmontel have lived in such a cottage? thought I, as I rode by more than one of them. This spot of France certainly excells every part of the world. Even the clay and chalk-pits are verdant: the sides are covered with shrubs which are raised with difficulty even in the hot-houses of England.

Our inn at Nevers, the Grand Napoleon, had nothing to correspond with its sounding title; our bed-chambers, however, were pleasantly situated, and for once since we had left Orleans, we had each of us his own apartment. The fille-de-chambre too was handsome and cleanly-looking, but somewhat more loquacious than a weary traveller required. She endeavoured to bring me into a conversation on the subject of Mademoiselle St. Sillery's beauty. The familiar impertinence of these girls must be seen to be understood. One maxim is universal in France—that difference of rank has no place between a man and a woman. A fille-de-chambre is on a perfect footing of equality with a marshal of France, and will address, and converse with him as such. They enter your room without knocking, stay as long as they like, and will remain whilst you are undressing. If you exhibit any modest unwillingness, they laugh at you, and perhaps two or three of them will come in to rally Monsieur. I must do them the justice, however, to add, that though their raillery will be sometimes broad enough, it is never verbally indelicate. There is less of this in the lower ranks in France than in England. The decencies are observed in word, however violated in fact.

Nevers is a pleasant town, and very agreeably situated on the declivities of an hill, at the bottom of which flows the Loire. On the summit of the hill is what remains of the palace of the ancient Counts; it has of course suffered much from time, but enough still remains to bear testimony to its original magnificence. We visited some of the apartments. The tapestry, though nearly three centuries old, still retains in a great degree the original brilliancy of its colours: the figures are monstrous, but the general effect is magnificent. There is a portrait of Madame de Montespan, the second acknowledged mistress of Louis the Fourteenth. According to the fashion of the age, her hair floats down her shoulders. She is habited in a loose robe, and has one leg half naked. Her face has the French character; it is long, but beautiful: its principal expression seemed to me voluptuousness, with something of the haughty beauty. It is well known that her temper was violent in the extreme, and perhaps the knowledge of this circumstance might have impressed me with an idea which I have imputed to the expression of the picture.

The cathedral of Nevers is one of the most ancient in France. About one hundred years since, in digging a vault, a body was discovered enveloped in a long robe; some very old coins were found in the coffin, and the habit in which the body was wrapped was of itself of the most ancient fashion. According to the French antiquaries, this was the body of one of the ancient dukes of Nevers. There are many other antiquities in the town, but I do not find that I have noted them, except that they exist in sufficient numbers to establish the ancient origin of this capital of the Nivernois.

Nothing can be more picturesque than the country between Nevers and Moulins. Natural beauty, and the life and activity of cultivation, unite to render it the most complete succession of landscape in France. The road is gravel, and excellent to a degree. It is bordered by magnificent trees, but which have been so planted, as to procure shade without excluding air; the road, therefore, is at once shady and dry. The chesnut trees, which are numerous in this part of the Bourbonnois, in beauty at least, infinitely exceed the British oaks: they have a bossy foliage, which reminds one of the Corinthian volutes. The French peasantry are not insensible of this beauty—wherever there was a tree of this kind of more than common luxuriance in its foliage, a seat was made around the trunk, and the turf mowed and ornamented, so as to shew that it was the scene of the village sports. Though England has many delightful villages, and rustic greens, France beats it hollow in rural scenery; and I believe I have before mentioned, that the French peasantry equally exceed the English peasantry in the taste and rustic elegance with which they ornament their little domains. On the great scale, perhaps, taste is better understood in England than in France, but as far as Nature leads, the sensibility of the French peasant gives him the advantage. Some of the gardens in the provinces of France are delightful.

We passed several fields in which the farming labourers were treading out their corn; indeed the country all around was one universal scene of gaiety and activity in the exercise of this labour. The manner in which it is done is, I believe, peculiar to France. Three or four layers of corn, wheat, barley, or pease, are laid upon some dry part of the field, generally under the central tree; the horses and mules are then driven upon it and round it in all directions, a woman being in the centre like a pivot, and holding the reins: the horses are driven by little girls. The corn thrashed out is cleared away by the men, others winnow it, others heap it, others supply fresh layers. Every one seems happy and noisy, the women and girls singing, the men occasionally resting from their labour to pay their gallant attentions. The scene is so animated as to inspirit the beholder. It is evident, however, that this cheap method of getting up their harvest, is only practicable in countries where the climate is settled: even in this province they are sometimes surprised with a shower, but as the sun immediately bursts out with renewed fervour, every thing is soon put to rights. In Languedoc, as I understood, they have no barns whatever, and therefore this practice is universal. The wheat was not very heavy, it resembled barley rather than wheat; the average crop about sixteen English bushels. Nothing is so vexatious as the French measures; I do not understand them yet, though I have inquired of every one.

Moulins somewhat disappointed my expectation. It is indeed, beautifully situated, in the midst of a rising and variegated country, with meadows, corn-fields, hills, and woods, to which may be added the river Allier, a stream so recluse and pretty, and so bordered with beautiful grounds, as to give the idea of a park. These grounds, moreover, are laid out as if for the pleasure of the inhabitants: the meadows and corn-fields are intersected by paths in every direction; and fruit-trees are in great number, and to all appearance are common property. There is something very interesting in these characteristics of simple benevolence; they recall the idea of the primæval ages. I have an indistinct memory of a beautiful passage in Ovid, which describes the Golden Age. I am writing, however, without the aid or presence of books, and therefore must refer the classical reader to the original.

The interior of the town does not merit description: the streets are narrow, the houses dark, and built in the worst possible style. The architect has carried the idea of a city into the country: there is the same economy of ground and light, and the same efforts for huddling and comprehending as much brick and mortar as possible in the least possible space. Its origin was in the fourteenth century. The Dukes of Bourbon selected it as a place of residence during the season of the chace, and having built a castle in the neighbourhood, their suite and descendants shortly founded a town. This, indeed, was the usual origin of most of the provincial towns in Europe; they followed the castle or the chateau of the Baron. As seen in the fields and meadows in the vicinity of the town, Moulins has a very agreeable appearance. The river, and the beautiful scenery around it, compensate for its disagreeable interior; and some trees being intermixed with the buildings of the town give an air of gaiety and the picturesque to the town itself.

The market-place is only worthy of mention as introducing the price of provisions. Moulins is as cheap as Tours: beef, and mutton, and veal, are plentiful; vegetables scarcely cost any thing, and fuel is very moderate. Fruit is so cheap as scarcely to be sold, and very good; eggs two dozen for an English sixpence; poultry abundant, and about sixpence a fowl. A good house, such a one as is usually inhabited by the lawyer, the apothecary, or a gentleman of five or six hundred per annum, in the country towns in England, is at Moulins from twelve to fourteen pounds per year, including garden and paddock.

Our inn at Moulins, however, was horrible: our beds would have frightened any one but an experienced traveller.