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PEREGRINE IN FRANCE.

A Lounger's Journal,

IN FAMILIAR LETTERS TO HIS FRIEND.


                     "And in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation--the which he vents
In _mangled forms_."

                                AS YOU LIKE IT.


_LONDON:_

_Printed by Thomas Davison, Whitefriars_,
FOR JAMES HARPER AND CO., 46, FLEET-STREET.

1816.




PREFACE.


The friend who has ventured to send these letters to the press feels
it necessary to state, in apology for the insufficiency of such a
trifle to meet the public eye, that they are actually published
without the knowledge of Peregrine (who is still abroad) and chiefly
with the view of giving copies to the numerous friends by whom he is
so justly regarded. The editor, therefore, relying on the indulgence
of those friends, humbly also deprecates the stranger critic's
censure, both for poor Peregrine and himself.




LETTER I.


Paris, December 14, 1815.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Arrived safely at this interesting metropolis, I take the earliest
opportunity of relieving the affectionate anxiety you expressed over
our parting glass, by the assurance that I have happily escaped all
the evils prognosticated by some of our acquaintance from a journey at
this inclement season.

Those indeed of the inquisitive family of John Bull, who look only
for luxury and convenience in travelling, will do well never to
leave the comforts of their own happy island from motives of
expected pleasure, as they will be sure to be fretted by a series
of petty disappointments and vexations which fall to the lot of every
traveller. A little forethought may occasionally be necessary, but I
am convinced that he alone will truly enjoy a continental trip who
knows how at once to reconcile himself to the chances of the moment,
derive from them all the good he can, thank God for it,--and be
satisfied.

Without more prosing I will endeavour to comply with Mrs. ----'s
request, and, trying to overcome my propensity to lounging indolence,
send you, from time to time, such crude observations as may suggest
themselves in my peregrinations through some of the towns and
provinces of France, and during my short stay in the capital; although
I fear all novelty on this subject has already met your eye, from the
abler pens of more accomplished tourists.

At Dover I repaired immediately to the York Hotel, where the host and
hostess justified all you had told me of their attention and civility.
I found that the mail packet would attempt to get out of harbour on
Saturday afternoon; the captain had in vain endeavoured to put to sea
that morning: however, we succeeded on a second trial, and held one
course to Boulogne, which we reached in about four hours. The vessel
was very much crowded, having the mails of four days on board, and the
accumulation of four days' passengers. It was very cold, and I was, as
usual, sea-sick. I went on shore about eleven o'clock that night, and
was conducted to an hotel in the upper town, all those of the lower
town, which are the best, being full. I took under my protection an
English lady proceeding to her husband at Havre-de-Grace. We knocked
up the host, hostess, and drowsy servants, who, however, soon cooked
us some broiled whitings and lean mutton-chops (_coutelets de
mouton_); and after having taken a little _eau de vie_ and warm
Burgundy, I was conducted to my bed-room, having first seen my fellow
traveller safely lodged in hers. The waiter, "_garcon_," was an
Englishman, with all the obliging willingness of the French. I was
surprised to find my dormitory so comfortable, having supped in a
dirty _un_comfortable apartment, in which I believe slept mine host
and his wife, whom we had routed out of their snug quarters from an
alcove at one corner of it. My said bed-chamber was large, and on the
ground floor; at one end was a good wood fire blazing on the hearth,
and at the other a comfortable bed in a recess, with clean sheets,
&c.; over the fire-place a very fine chimney-glass, and upon a large
clumsy deal table stood a basin and ewer of thick French earthenware
and of peculiar form, the basin having that of an English salad-bowl
with a flat bottom,--of course it is inconvenient for its purpose.
Soap is only brought when you ask for it, and is an extra charge. All
the bed-chambers I have yet seen answer this description, which
perhaps you will think tedious; but every thing at the moment, with
the warm colouring of first impressions in a foreign country, was
interesting to me.

On going to the custom-house next morning, I found all my baggage,
except my drawing table, camera, and apparatus; I hope to regain them,
as I gave directions to Mrs. Parker, an Englishwoman, who keeps the
Hotel d'Angleterre, to forward them to me at Paris in case they were
left on board the packet; but there are so many porters (women
principally) who attend upon the landing of a boat, and, like as many
harpies, seize upon your packages, _malgre vous_, that it is more
than probable I shall never see them again; in which case you must not
expect very accurate sketching.

_A propos_, talking of female porters, let me inform you that, in
spite of the boasted gallantry of the French nation, some of the most
laborious part of the work, agricultural as well as commercial, is
performed by women. This may, however, be in a degree owing to the
exhaustion of male population, occasioned by the continued wars in
which unhappy France has been so long involved by the insatiate
ambition of her late ruler.

After managing, as well as I could, the affair of my missing drawing
utensils, I took a cursory view of the town and environs, attended by
a gay, obsequious droll, of the old French school, who hung about me
with such an assiduous importunity it was not possible to shake him
off; he stuck to me like a _burr_, and would fain have accompanied
"_Mi-lord Anglois_" to Paris, or any where else: he brought Sterne's
La Fleur so strongly to my mind, and amused me so exceedingly by his
singing, and skipping about at all calls with such unaffected
sprightliness, that I own I parted with him very reluctantly: but a
poor philosophic lounger, likely soon to be on half pay, had little
occasion for a valet of his qualifications. An accident afforded me a
proof of this good-humoured fellow's honesty, which I cannot deny
myself the pleasure of relating. I had a considerable quantity of
silver pieces in a bag, which, coming untied, the contents rolled on
the bed and floor; I thought I had picked up the whole, but on
returning to my chamber he presented me with several which had fallen
into a fold of the blankets, and which I had overlooked. I afterwards
also recovered a five franc piece from the _fille de chambre_. I
believe, indeed, that the lower orders in France are generally honest,
as well as sober and obliging; and that, although they make no scruple
of outwitting, they will not actually rob John Bull.

Boulogne sur Mer is divided into an higher and lower town; the
intermediate street, in which the church is situated, and which
ascends gradually to the former, is wide and cheerful, and looking
from the top of it, towards the opposite southern hills, an
interesting view presented itself,--the remains of the hut encampments
of Bonaparte's army of England. On the heights, to the northward of
the town, are also the ruins of long streets of soldiers' huts,
mess-houses, &c. Near this encampment Napoleon had begun to build a
noble column, of a species of marble found in a neighbouring quarry:
we saw a very beautiful model of it; the base and part of the shaft,
already built, are about fifty feet from the ground, but the
scaffolding around it runs to the projected height of the capital,
viz. 150 feet, and is strongly bolted with iron. This column, intended
as a trophy of imperial grandeur, would have been, when finished, a
handsome object on the coast, and probably useful to the coasting
mariner as a land-mark; it is now a striking monument of disappointed
ambition, and may afford a salutary moral lesson both to princes and
their subjects!

There are some striking views about Boulogne, which English travellers
hurrying to and from the capital rarely stop to look at. The heights
were every where bristled with cannon and mortars during the war, and
the forts are very strong by art and nature: the approach to the
harbour was therefore truly formidable when the republican flag waved
on this iron-bound coast. This port is very ancient: it was here the
Romans are said to have embarked for Britain, and the remains of a
tower, built by them in the reign of Caligula, are still shewn. The
harbour is also interesting from having been the rendezvous for the
flotilla, which idly threatened to pour the imperial legions on our
happy shores. Of this vaunted flotilla, consisting once of 2000
vessels, scarcely a wreck remains!

Our gallant tars always heartily despised this Lilliputian armada,
unsupported by ships of force, which Boulogne and the ports near it
are incapable of admitting. The harbour here being almost dry at low
water, the French, in one tide, could only have got about 100 of their
puny vessels into the outer roads, where, while waiting for the rest,
they would have been equally exposed to destruction by our vigilant
cruisers, or by a gale at N.W. Nevertheless our enterprising
government, in the spring of 1804, was induced to send over, at no
small cost, an expedition of several vessels, having each in their
interior an immense mass of large stones clamped and cemented
together, which _artificial rocks_ (the wooden exterior being set
on fire) were intended to be sunk at the mouth of the harbour and
channels near it, and thus to block up the poor republican gun-boats
for ever.

The attempt, however, to carry this scheme into execution met with
several obstacles unforeseen by the projector (a civilian and a
foreigner unskilled in nautical affairs), and after various fruitless
efforts, the expedition was wisely abandoned on the representation of
its utter inexpediency, made to the lords of the admiralty by the navy
employed on the service. The stone-ships were in consequence
withdrawn, but I never heard what became of them or their projector
afterwards.

In viewing the sands and neighbouring beach, I was forcibly struck
with the want of enterprise in the French. Such a town possessing
similar advantages in England, would shortly rival Ramsgate or
Brighton, and become, in the season, the resort of fashion. Here, with
every natural capability for a bathing-place, they have neither
machines for bathing, nor lodgings for visitants.

Embellishments, or even repairs, are rarely thought of in the
provincial towns of France; the houses are large, old, and gloomy,
and descend "unaltered, unimproved," "from sire to son," without
any of the cheerful _agremens_ which render our smallest houses in
England so delightful.

The fishing-boats of Boulogne appeared to me clumsy and ill
appointed--ours are yachts in comparison of them.

Bidding now adieu to the coast, where I have