My Unknown Chum Part 3

So I crossed the Tiber in one of those little ferry boats which are attached to a cable stretched over the river, and thus are swung across by the movement of the current,a labour-saving arrangement preminently Roman in its character,and soon found myself in my lodgings However warm the weather may be in Rome, one can keep tolerably comfortable so long as he does not move about,thanks to the thick walls and heavy wooden window shutters of the houses,so I found my room a cool asylum after my morning of laborious pleasure.

At last, the good byes having all been said, behold me, with my old portmanteau, (covered with its many-coloured coat of baggage labels, those trophies of many a hard campaign of travel,) at the office of the diligence for Civita Vecchia. The luggage and the pa.s.sengers having been successfully stowed away, the lumbering vehicle rolled down the narrow streets, and we were soon outside the gate that opens upon the old Aurelian Way. Here the pa.s.sports were examined, the postilions cracked their whips, and I felt indeed that I was "banished from Rome." It is a sad thing to leave Rome. I have seen people who have made but a brief stay there shed more tears on going away than they ever did on a departure from home; but for one who has lived there long enough to feel like a Roman citizento feel that the broken columns of the Forum have become a part of his beingto feel as familiar with St. Peters and the Vatican as with the Kings Chapel and the Tremont Houseit is doubly hard to go away. The old city, so "rich with the spoils of time," seems invested with a personality that appeals most powerfully to every man, and would fain hold him back from returning to the world. The lover of art there finds its choicest treasures ever open to him; the artist there finds an abundance of employment for his chisel or his brush; the man of business there finds an asylum from the vexing cares of a commercial career; the student of antiquity or of history can there take his fill amid the "wrecks of a world whose ashes still are warm," and listen to the centuries receding into the unalterable past with their burdens of glory or of crime; the lover of practical benevolence will there be delighted by the inspection of establishments for the relief of every possible form of want and suffering; the enthusiast for education finds there two universities and hundreds of public schools of every grade, and all as free as the bright water that sparkles in Romes countless fountains; the devout can there rekindle their devotion at the shrines of apostles and martyrs, and breathe the holy air of cloisters in which saints have lived and died, or join their voices with those that resound in old churches, whose pavements are furrowed by the knees of pious generations; the admirer of pomp, and power, and historic a.s.sociations can there witness the more than regal magnificence of a power, compared to which the houses of Bourbon or of Hapsburg are but of yesterday; the lover of republican simplicity can there find subject for admiration in the facility of access to the highest authorities, and in the perfection of his favourite elective system by which the supreme power is perpetuated. There is, in short, no cla.s.s of men to whom Rome does not attach itself. People may complain during their first week that it is dull, or melancholy, or dirty; but you generally find them sorry enough to go away, and looking back to their residence there as the happiest period of their existence. Somebody has said,and I wish that I could recall the exact words, they are so true,that when we leave Paris, or Naples, or Florence, we feel a natural sorrow, as if we were parting from a cherished friend; but on our departure from Rome we feel a pang like that of separation from a woman whom we love!

At last Rome disappeared from sight in the dusk of evening, and the discomforts of the journey began to make themselves obtrusive. The night air in Italy is not considered healthy, and we therefore had the windows of the diligence closed. Like Charles Lamb after the oyster pie, we were "all full inside," and a pretty time we had of it. As to respiration, you might as well have expected the performance of that function from a mackerel occupying the centre of a well-packed barrel of his finny comrades, as of any person inside that diligence. Of course there was a baby in the company, and of course the baby cried. I could not blame it, for even a fat old gentleman who sat opposite to me would have cried if he had not known how to swear. But it is useless to recall the anguish of that night: suffice it to say that for several hours the only air we got was an occasional vocal performance from the above-mentioned infant.

At midnight we reached Palo, on the sea coast, where I heard "the wild water lapping on the crag," and felt more keenly than before that I had indeed left Rome behind me. The remainder of the journey being along the coast, we had the window open, though it was not much better on that account, as we were choking with dust. It was small comfort to see the cuttings and fillings-in for the railway which is destined soon to destroy those beastly diligences, and place Rome within two or three hours of its seaport.

At five oclock in the morning, after ten toilsome hours, I found myself, tired, dusty, and hungry, in Civita Vecchia, a city which has probably been the cause of more profanity than any other part of the world, including Flanders. I was determined not to be fleeced by any of the hotel keepers; so I staggered about the streets until I found a barbers shop open. Having repaired the damage of the preceding night, I hove to in a neighbouring _caf_ long enough to take in a little ballast in the way of breakfast. Afterwards I fell in with an Englishman, of considerable literary reputation, whom I had several times met in Rome.

He was one of those men who seem to possess all sorts of sense except common sense. He was full of details, and could tell exactly the height of the dome of St. Peters, or of the great pyramid,could explain the process of the manufacture of the Mini rifle or the boring of an artesian well, and could calculate an eclipse with Bond or Secchi,but he could not pack a carpet-bag to save his life. That he should have been able to travel so far from home alone is a fine commentary on the honesty and good nature of the people of the continent. I could not help thinking what a time he would have were he to attempt to travel in America. He would think he had discovered a new nomadic tribe in the cabmen of New York. He had come down to Civita Vecchia in a most promiscuous style, and when I discovered him he was trying to bring about a union between some six or eight irreconcilable pieces of luggage. I aided him successfully in the work, and his look of perplexity and despair gave way to one of grat.i.tude and admiration for his deliverer. Delighted at this escape from the realities of his situation, he launched out into a profound dissertation on the philosophy of language and the formation of provincial dialects, and it was some time before I could bring him down to the common and practical business of securing his pa.s.sage in the steamer for Ma.r.s.eilles. Ten oclock, however, found us on board one of the steamers of the _Messageries Imperiales_, and we were very shortly after under way. We were so unfortunate as to run aground on a little spit of land in getting out of port, as we ran a little too near an English steamer that was lying there. But a Russian frigate sent off a cable to us, and thus established an alliance between their flag and the French, which drew the latter out of the difficulty in which it had got by too close a proximity to its English neighbour.

It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and reminded me of many halcyon days I had spent on that blue Mediterranean in other times. It reminded me of some of my childhoods days in the country in New England,days described by Emerson where he says that we "bask in the s.h.i.+ning hours of Florida and Cuba,"when "the day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills and warm, wide fields,"when "the cattle, as they lie on the ground, seem to have great and tranquil thoughts." It was on such a day that I used to delight to pore over my Shakspeare, undisturbed by any sound save the hum of the insect world, or the impatient switch of the tail, or movement of the feet, of a horse who had sought the same shade I was enjoying. To a man who has been rudely used by fortune, or who has drunk deep of sorrow or disappointment, I can conceive of nothing more grateful or consoling than a summer cruise in the Mediterranean. "The sick heart often needs a warm climate as much as the sick body."

My English friend, immediately on leaving port, took some five or six prescriptions for the prevention of seasickness, and then went to bed, so that I had some opportunity to look about among our s.h.i.+ps company.

There were two men, apparently companions, though they hardly spoke to each other, who amused me very much One was a person of about four feet and a half in height, who walked about on deck with that manner which so many diminutive persons have, of wis.h.i.+ng to be thought as tall as Mr.

George Barrett. He boasted a deportment that would have made the elder Turveydrop envious, while it was evident that under that serene and dignified exterior lay hidden all the warm-heartedness and geniality of that eminent philanthropist who was obliged to play a concerto on the violin to calm his grief at seeing the conflagration of his native city.

The other looked as if "he had not loved the world, nor the world him"; he was a thin, bilious-looking person, and seemed like a whole serious family rolled into one individuality. I felt a great deal of curiosity to know whether he was reduced to that pitiable condition by piety or indigestion. I felt sure that he was meditating suicide as he gazed upon the sea, and I stood by him for some time to prevent his accomplis.h.i.+ng any such purpose, until I became convinced that to let him take the jump, if he pleased, would be far the more philanthropic course of action. There was a French bishop, and a colonel of the French staff at Rome, among the pa.s.sengers, and by their genial urbanity they fairly divided between them the affections of the whole company. Either of them would have made a fog in the English Channel seem like the suns.h.i.+ne of the Gulf of Egina. I picked up a pleasant companion in an Englishman who had travelled much and read more, and spent the greater part of the day with him. When he found that I was an American, he at once asked me if I had ever been to Niagara, and had ever seen Longfellow and Emerson. I am astonished to find so many cultivated English people who know little or nothing about Tennyson; I am inclined to think he has ten readers in America to one in England, while the English can repeat Longfellow by pages.

After thirty hours of pleasant sailing along by Corsica and Elba, and along the coast of France, until it seemed as if our cruise (like that of the widow of whom we have all read) would never have an end, we came to anchor in the midst of a vast fleet of steamers in the new port of Ma.r.s.eilles. The bustle of commercial activity seemed any thing but pleasant after the cla.s.sical repose of Rome; but the landlady of the hotel was most gracious, and when I opened the window of my room looking out on the Place Royale, one of those peripatetic dispensers of melody, whose life (like the late M. Mantalinis after he was reduced in circ.u.mstances) must be "one demnition horrid grind," executed "Sweet Home" in a manner that went entirely home to the heart of at least one of his accidental audience.

Ma.r.s.eILLES, LYONS, AND AIX IN SAVOY

If the people of Ma.r.s.eilles do not love the Emperor of the French, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. He has so completely changed the aspect of that city by his improvements, that the man who knows it as it existed in the reign of Louis Philippe, would be lost if he were to revisit it now. The completion of the railway from Paris to Ma.r.s.eilles is an inestimable advantage to the latter city, while the new port, in magnitude and style of execution, is worthy of comparison with the splendid docks of London and Liverpool. The flags of every civilized nation may be seen there; and the variety of costumes and languages, which bewilder ones eyes and ears, a.s.sure him that he is in the commercial metropolis of the Mediterranean. The frequency of steam communication between Ma.r.s.eilles and the various ports of Spain, Italy, Africa, and the Levant, draws to it a large proportion of the travellers in those directions. I believe that Ma.r.s.eilles is only celebrated for having been colonized by the Phocans, or some such people, for having several times been devastated by the plague, and for having been very perfectly described by d.i.c.kens in his Little Dorrit. The day on which I arrived there was very like the one described by d.i.c.kens; so if any one would like further particulars, he had better overhaul his Little Dorrit, and, "when found, make note of it."

The day after my arrival I saw a grand religious procession in the streets of the city. The landlady of my hotel had told me of it, but my expectations were not raised very high, for I thought that after the grandeur of Rome, all other things in that way would be comparatively tame. But I was mistaken; the procession fairly rivalled those of Rome.

There were the same gorgeous vestments, the same picturesque groupings of black robes and snowy surplices, of mitres and crosiers and shaven crowns, of scarlet and purple and cloth of gold, the same swinging censers and clouds of fragrant incense, the same swelling flood of almost supernatural music. The munic.i.p.al authorities of the city, with the staff of the garrison, joined in the procession, and the military display was such as can hardly be seen out of France. I have often been struck with the facility with which the Catholic religion adapts itself to the character of every nation. I have had some opportunity of observation; I have seen the Catholic Church on three out of the four continents, and have every where noticed the same phenomenon.

Mahometanism could never be transplanted to the snowy regions of Russia or Norway; it needs the soft, enervating atmosphere of Asia to keep it alive; the veranda, the bubbling fountain, the noontide repose, are all parts of it. Puritanism is the natural growth of a country where the sun seldom s.h.i.+nes, and which is shut out by a barrier of water and fog from kindly intercourse with its neighbours. It could never thrive in the bright south. The merry vine-dressers of Italy could never draw down their faces to the proper length, and would be very unwilling to exchange their blithesome _canzonetti_ for Sternhold and Hopkinss version. But the Catholic Church, while it unites its professors in the belief of the same inflexible creed, leaves them entirely free in all mere externals and national peculiarities. When I see the light-hearted Frenchman, the fiery Italian, the serious Spaniard, the cunning Greek, the dignified Armenian, the energetic Russian, the hard-headed Dutchman, the philosophical German, the formal and "respectable" Englishman, the thrifty Scotchman, the careless and warm-hearted Irishman, and the calculating, go-ahead American, all bound together by the profession of the same faith, and yet retaining their national characteristics,I can compare it to nothing but to a similar phenomenon that we may notice in the prism, which, while it is a pure and perfect crystal, is found on examination to contain, in their perfection, all the various colours of the rainbow.

The terminus of the Lyons and Mediterranean Railway is one of the best things of its kind in the world. I wish that some of our American railway directors could take a few lessons from the French. The attention paid to securing the comfort and safety of the pa.s.sengers and the regularity of the trains would quite bewilder him. Instead of finding the station a long, unfinished kind of shed, with two small, beastly waiting rooms at one side, and a stand for a vender of apples, root beer, and newspapers, he would see a fine stone structure, several hundred feet in length, with a roof of iron and gla.s.s. He would enter a hall which would remind him of the Doric hall of the State House in Boston, only that it is several times larger, and is paved with marble.

He would choose out of the three ticket offices of the three cla.s.ses, where he would ride, and he would be served with a promptness and politeness that would remind him of Mr. Child in the palmy days of the old Tremont Theatre, while he would notice that an officer stood by each ticket office to see that every purchaser got his ticket and the proper change, and to give all necessary information. Having booked his luggage, he would be ushered into one of the three waiting rooms, all of them furnished in a style of neatness and elegance that would greatly astonish him. He might employ the interval in the study of geography, a.s.sisted by a map painted on one side of the room, giving the entire south of France and Piedmont, with the railways, &c., and executed in such a style that the names of the towns are legible at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet. Two or three minutes before the hour fixed for the starting of the train, the door would be opened, and he would take his seat in the train with the other pa.s.sengers. The whole affair would go on so systematically, with such an absence of noise and excitement, that he would doubt whether he had been in a railway station at all, until he found himself spinning along at a rapid rate, through long tunnels, and past the beautiful panorama of Provenal landscape.

The sun was as bright as it always is in fair Provence, the sky as blue.

The white dusty roads wound around over the green landscape, like great serpents seeking to hide their folds amid those hills. The almond, the lemon, and the fig attracted the attention of the traveller from the north, before all other trees,not to forget however, the pale foliage of that tree which used to furnish wreaths for Minervas brow, but now supplies us with oil for our salads. Arles, with its old amphitheatre (a broken shadow of the Coliseum) looming up above it, lay stifled with dust and broiling in the sun, as we hurried on towards Avignon. It does not take much time to see that old city, which, from being so long the abode of the exiled popes, seems to have caught and retained something of the quiet dignity and repose of Rome itself. That gloomy old palace of the popes, with its lofty turrets, seems to brood over the town, and weigh it down as with sorrow for its departed greatness. Centuries have pa.s.sed, America has been discovered, the whole face of Europe has changed, since a pontiff occupied those halls; and yet there it stands, a monument commemorating a mere episode in the history of the see of St.

Peter.

Arriving at Lyons, I found another palatial station, on even a grander scale than that of Ma.r.s.eilles. The architect has worked the coats of arms of the different cities of France into the stone work of the exterior in a very effective manner. Lyons bears witness, no less than Ma.r.s.eilles, to the genius of the wonderful man who now governs France.

It is a popular notion in England and America, that the enterprise of Napoleon III. has been confined to the improvement of Paris. If persons who labour under this error would extend their journeyings a little beyond the ordinary track of a summer excursion, they would find that there is scarcely a town in the empire that has not felt the influence of his skill as a statesman and political economist. The _Rue Imperiale_ of Lyons is a monument of which any sovereign might be justly proud. The activity of Lyons, the new buildings rising on every side, and its look of prosperity, would lead one to suppose that it was some place that had just been settled, instead of a city with twenty centuries of history.

The Sunday, I was glad to see, was well observed; perhaps not exactly in the style which Aminadab Sleek would commend, but in a very rational, Christian, un-Jewish manner. The shops were, for the most part, closed, the churches were crowded with people, and in the afternoon and evening the entire population was abroad enjoying itselfand a cleaner, better-behaved, happier-looking set of people I never saw. The excessive heat still continues. It is now more than two months since I opened my umbrella; the prospects of the harvest are good, but they are praying hard in the churches for a little rain. During my stay at Lyons, I lived almost entirely on fresh figs, and plums and ices. How full the _cafs_ were those sultry evenings! How busy must the freezers have been in the cellars below! I read through all the newspapers I could lay my hands on, and then amused myself with watching the gay, chattering throng around me. How my mind flew across the ocean that evening to a quiet back parlour at the South End! I could see the venerable Baron receiving a guest on such a night as that, and making the weather seem cool by contrast with the warmth of his hospitality. I could see him offering to his perspiring visitor a release from the slavery of broadcloth, in the loan of a nankeen jacket, and then busying himself in the preparation of a compound of old Cochituate, (I had almost said old Jamaica,) of ice, of sugar, yea, of lemons, and commending the grateful chalice to the parched lips of his guest. Such an evening in the Barons back parlour is the very ecstasy of hospitality. It is many months since that old nankeen jacket folded me in its all-embracing arms, but the very thought of it awakes a thrill of pleasure in my heart. When I last saw it, "decays effacing fingers" had meddled with the b.u.t.tons thereof, and it was growing a trifle consumptive in the vicinity of the elbows; but I hope that it is good for many a year of usefulness yet, before the epitaph writer shall commence the recital of its merits with those melancholy words, _Hic jacet!_ Pardon me, dear reader, for this digression from the recital of my wanderings; but this jacket, the remembrance of which is so dear to me, is not the trifle it may seem to you. It is, I believe, the only inst.i.tution in the world of the same age and importance, which has not been apostrophized in verse by that gifted bard, Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper. If this be not celebrity, what is it?

In one of the narrow streets of Lyons I found a barber named Melnotte.

He was a man somewhat advanced in life, and I feel sure that he addressed a good-looking woman in a snowy white cap, who looked in from a back room while I was having my hair cut, as Pauline. Be that as it may, when he had finished his work, and I walked up to the mirror to inspect it, he addressed to me the language of Bulwers hero, "Do you like the picture?" or words to that effect. I cannot help mistrusting that Sir Edward may have misled us concerning the ultimate history of the Lady of Lyons and her husband. But the heat was too intolerable for human endurance; so I packed up, and leaving that fair city, with its numerous graceful bridges, and busy looms whose fabrics brighten the eyes of the beauties of Europe and America, and lighten the purses of their chivalry,leaving Our Lady of Fourvires looking down with outstretched hands from the dome of her lofty shrine, and watching over her faithful Lyonnese,I turned my face towards the Alpine regions.

The Alps have always been to me what Australia was to the late Mr.

Micawber"the bright dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." I remember when I was young, long before the days of railways and steamers, in the times when a man who had travelled in Europe was invested with a sort of awful dignityI remember hearing a travelled uncle of mine tell about the Alps, and I resolved, with all the enthusiasm of boyhood, thenceforward to "save up" all my Fourth of July and Artillery Election money, until I should be able to go and see one. When the Rev. James Sheridan Knowles (he was a wicked playactor in those days) produced his drama of William Tell, how it fed the flame of my ambition! How I longed to stand with the hero once again among his native hills! How I loved the glaciers! How I doted on the avalanches!

But age has cooled the longings of my heart for mountain excursions, and robbed my legs of all their climbing powers, so that if it depends upon my own bodily exertions, the Vale of Chamouni will be entirely unavailable for me, and every mount will be to me a blank. The scenery along the line of railway from Ambrieu to Culoz on the Rhone is very grand. The ride reminded me of the ride over the Atlantic and St.

Lawrence road through the White Mountains, only it is finer. The boldness of the cliffs and precipices was something to make ones heart beat quick, and cause him to wonder how the peasants could work so industriously, and the cattle feed so constantly, without stopping to look up at the magnificence that hemmed them in.

At Culoz I went on board one of those peculiar steamers of the Rhoneabout one hundred and fifty feet in length by ten or twelve in width. Our way lay through a narrow and circuitous branch of the river for several miles. The windings of the river were such that men were obliged to turn the boat about by means of cables, which they made fast to posts fixed in the banks on either side for that purpose. The scenery along the banks was like a dream of Paradise. To say that the country was smiling with flowers and verdure does not express it.i.t was bursting into a broad grin of fertility. Such vineyards! Not like the grape vine in your back yard, dear reader, nailed up against a brick wall, but large, luxuriant vines, seeming at a loss what to do with themselves, and festooned from tree to tree, just as you see them in the scenery of Fra Diavolo. And then there were groups of people in costumes of picturesque negligence, and women in large straw hats, and dresses of brilliant colours, just like the chorus of an opera. The deep, rich hue of the foliage particularly attracted my notice. It was as different from the foliage of New England as Wins.h.i.+ps Gardens are from an invoice of palm-leaf hats. Beyond the immediate vicinity of the river rose up beautiful hills and cliffs like the Palisades of the Hudson. Let those who will, prefer the wild grandeur of our American mountain scenery; there is a great charm for me in the union of nature and art. The careful cultivation of the fields seems to set off and render more grand and austere the gray, jagged cliffs that overlook them. As the elder Pliny most justly remarks, (lib. iv. cap. xi. 24,) "It requires the lemon as well as the sugar to make the punch."

After about an hours sail upon the river, we came out upon the beautiful Lake of Bourget. It was stirred by a gentle breeze, but it seemed as if its bright blue surface had never reflected a cloud. All around its borders the trees and vines seemed bending down to drink of its pure waters. Far off in the distance rose up the mighty peaks of the Alpstheir snow-white tops contrasting with the verdure of their sides.

They seemed to be watching with pleasure over the glad scenes beneath them, like old men whose gray hairs have been powerless to disturb the youthful freshness and geniality of their hearts.

At St. Innocent I landed, and underwent the custom house formalities attendant upon entrance into a new territory. The officials were very expeditious, and equally polite. I at first supposed that the letters V.

E., which each of them bore conspicuously on his cap, meant "_very empty_,"but it afterwards occurred to me that they were the initials of his majesty, the King of Sardinia. A few minutes ride over the "Victor Emmanuel Railway" brought me to the beautiful village of Aix. It is situated, as my friend the Lyonnese barber would say, in "a deep vale shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world." It possesses about 2500 inhabitants; but that number is considerably augmented at present, for the mineral springs of Aix are very celebrated, and this is the height of "the season." There is a great deal of what is called "society" here, and during the morning the baths are crowded. It is as dull as all watering places necessarily are, and twice as hot. I think that the French manage these things better than we do in America. There is less humbug, less display of jewelry and dress, and a vast deal more of common sense and solid comfort than with us. The _cafs_ are like similar establishments in all such placesan abundance of ices and ordinary coffee, and a plentiful lack of newspapers. I have found a companion, however, who more than makes good the latter deficiency. He is an Englishman of some seventy years, who is here bathing for his gout. His light hair and fresh complexion disguise his age so completely that most people, when they see us together, judge me, from my gray locks, to be the elder. He is one of the most entertaining persons I have ever methe knows the cla.s.sics by heart,is familiar with English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish literature,speaks nine languages,and has travelled all over the world. He is as familiar with the Steppes of Tartary as with Wapping Old Stairs,has imbibed sherbet in Damascus and sherry cobblers in New York, and seen a lion hunt in South Africa. But his heart is the heart of a boy"age cannot wither nor custom stale" its infinite geniality. He cannot pa.s.s by a beggar without making an investment for eternity, and all the babies look over the shoulders of their nurses to smile at him as he walks the streets. I mention him here for the sake of recording one of his opinions, which struck me by its truth and originality. We were sitting in a _caf_ last evening, and, after a long conversation, I asked him what he should give as the result of all his reading and observation of men and things, and all his experience, if he were to sum it up in one sentence. "Sir," said he, removing his meerschaum from his mouth, and turning towards me as if to give additional force to his reply, "it may all be comprised in this: the world is composed of two cla.s.ses of mennatural fools and dd fools; the first cla.s.s are those who have never made any pretensions, or have reached a just appreciation of the nothingness of all human acquirements and hopes; the second are those whose belief in their own infallibility has never been disturbed; and this cla.s.s includes a vast number of every rank, from the profound German philosopher, who thinks that he has fathomed infinity, down to that young fop twirling his moustache at the opposite table, and flattering himself that he is making a great impression."

Savoy, as every body knows, was once a part of France, and it still retains all of its original characteristics. I have not heard ten words of Italian since I arrived here, and, judging from what I do hear and from the tone of the newspapers, it would like to become a part of France again. The Savoyards are a religious, steady-going people, and they have little love either for the weak and dissolute monarch who governs them, or for the powerful, infidel prime minister who governs their monarch. The high-pitched roofs of the houses here are suggestive of the snows of winter; but the heat reminds me of the coast of Africa during a sirocco. How true is Sydney Smiths remark, "Man only lives to s.h.i.+ver or perspire"! The thermometer ranges any where from 80 to 90.

Can this be the legitimate temperature of these mountainous regions? I am "ill at these numbers," and nothing would be so invigorating to my infirm and shaky frame as a sniff of the salt breezes of Long Branch or Nantasket.

AIX TO PARIS

There is no need of telling how disgusted I became with Aix-les-Bains and all that in it is, after a short residence there. How I hated those straw-hatted people who beset the baths from the earliest flush of the aurora! How I detested those fellows who were constantly pestering me with offers (highly advantageous, without doubt) of donkeys whereon to ride, when they knew that I didnt want one! How I abominated the sight of a man (who seemed to haunt me) in a high velvet-collared coat and a bell-crowned hat just overtopping an oily-looking head of hair and bushy whiskerswho looked, for all the world, as if he were made up for Sir Harcourt Courtly! How maliciously he held on to the newspapers in the _caf_! How constantly he sat there and devoured all the news out of them through the medium of a double tortoise-sh.e.l.l eye-gla.s.s, which always seemed to be just falling off his nose! How I abhorred the sight of those waiters, who looked as if the season were a short one, and time (as B. Franklin said) was money! How stifling was the atmosphere of that "seven-by-nine" room for which I had to pay so dearly! How hot, how dusty, how dull it was, I need not weary you by telling; suffice it to say, that I never packed my trunk more willingly than when I left that village. I am very glad to have been there, however, for the satisfaction I felt at leaving the place is worth almost any effort to obtain. The joy of departure made even the exorbitant bills seem reasonable; and when I thought of the stupidity and discomfort I was escaping from, I felt as if, come what might, my future could only be one of suns.h.i.+ne and content. Aix-les-Bains is one of the pleasantest places to leave that I have ever seen. I can never forget the measureless happiness of seeing my luggage ticketed for Paris, and then taking my seat with the consciousness that I was leaving Aix (not _aches_, alas!) behind me.

The Lake of Bourget was as beautiful and smiling as beforeonly it did seem as if the sun might have held in a little. He scorched and blistered the pa.s.sengers on that steamboat in the most absurd manner. He seemed never to have heard of Horace, and was consequently entirely ignorant of the propriety of maintaining a _modus_ in his _rebuses_. The scenery along the banks of the Rhone had not changed in the least, but was as romantic and theatrical as ever. At Culoz I was glad to get on sh.o.r.e, for like Hamlet, I had been "too much i the sun"; so I left the "blue rus.h.i.+ng of the arrowy Rhone," (which the late Lord Byron, with his usual disregard of truth, talks about, and which is as muddy as a Medford brick-yard,) and took refuge in the hospitality of a custom house. Here I fell into a meditation upon custom house officers. I wonder whether the custom house officers of France are in their leisure hours given to any of the vanities which delight their American brethren. There was one lean, thoughtful-looking man among those at Culoz who attracted my attention. I tried ineffectually to make out his bent from his physiognomy. I could not imagine him occupying his leisure by putting any twice-told tales on paperor cultivating Shanghai poultryor riding on to the tented field amid the roar of artillery at the head of a brigade of militia,and I was obliged, in the hurry of the examination of luggage, to give him up.

I had several times, during the journey from Aix, noticed a tall, eagle-eyed man, in a suit of gray, and wearing a moustache of the same colour, and while we were waiting for the train at Culoz, I observed that he attracted a great deal of attention: his bearing was so commanding, that I had set him down as being connected with the military interest, before I noticed that he did not bear arms, for the left sleeve of his coat hung empty and useless by his side; so I ventured to inquire concerning him, and learned that I was a fellow-traveller of Marshal Baraguay dHilliers. I must do him the justice to say that he did not look like a man who would leave his arms on the field.

We were soon whirling, and puffing, and whistling along through the tame but pleasing landscape of France. Those carefully-tilled fields, those vineyards almost overflowing with the raw material of conviviality, those interminable rows of tall trees which seem to give no shade, those farm-houses, whose walls we should in America consider strong enough for fortifications, those contented-looking cattle, those towns that seem to consist of a single street and an old gray tower, with a dark-coloured conical top, like a candle extinguisher,all had a good, familiar look to me; and the numerous fields of Indian corn almost made me think that I was on my way to Worcester or Fitchburg. I stopped for a while at Macon, (a town which I respect for its contributions to the good cheer of the world,) and hugely enjoyed a walk through its clean, quiet streets. While I was waiting at the station, the express train from Paris came along; and many of the pa.s.sengers left their places (like Mr.

Squeers) to stretch their legs. Among them was a man whose acquisitive eye, black satin waistcoat, fas.h.i.+onable hat, (such as no man but an American would think of travelling in,) and coat with the waist around his hips, and six or eight inches of skirt, immediately fixed my attention. Before I thought, he had asked me if I could speak English. I set him at his ease by answering that I took lessons in it once when I was young, and he immediately launched out as follows: "Well, this is the cussedest language I ever did hear. I dont see how in _the_ devil these blasted fools can have lived so long right alongside of England without trying to learn the English language." The whistle of the engine cut short the declaration of his sentiments, and he was whizzing on towards Lyons a moment after. Whoever that man may have been, he owes it to himself and his country to write a book. His work would be as worthy of consideration as the writings of two thirds of our English and American travellers, who think they are qualified to write about the government and social condition of a country because they have travelled through it. Fancy a Frenchman, entirely ignorant of the English tongue, landing at Boston, and stopping at the Tremont House or Parkers; he visits the State House, the Athenum, Bunker Hill, the wharves, &c. Then on Sunday he wishes to know something about the religion of these strange people; so he goes across the street to the Kings Chapel, and finds that it is closed; so he walks down the street in the burning sun to Brattle Street, where he hears a comfortable, drony kind of sermon, which seems to have as composing an effect upon the fifty or a hundred persons who are present as upon himself. In the afternoon he finds his way to Trinity Church, (somebody having charitably told him that that is the most genteel place,) and there he hears "our admirable liturgy"

sonorously read out to twenty or thirty people, all of whom are so engrossed in their devotions that the responses are entirely neglected.

Having had enough of what the Irishman called the English lethargy, he returns to his lodgings, and writes in his note-book that the Americans seldom go to church, and when they do, go there to sleep in comfortable pews. Then he makes a little tour of a fortnight to New Haven, Providence, Springfield, &c., and returns to France to write a book of travels in New England. And what are all his observations worth? Ill tell you. They are worth just as much, and give exactly as faithful a representation of the state of society in New England, as four fifths of the books written by English and American travellers in France, Spain, and Italy, do of the condition of those countries.

I have encountered many interesting studies of humanity here on the continent in my day. I have met many people who have come abroad with a vague conviction that travel improves one, and who do not see that to visit Europe without some preparation is like going a-fis.h.i.+ng without line or bait. They appear to think that some great benefit is to be obtained by pa.s.sing over a certain s.p.a.ce of land and water, and being imposed upon to an unlimited extent by a horde of _commissionnaires_, _ciceroni_, couriers, and others, who find in their ignorance and lack of common sense a source of wealth. I met, the other day, a gentleman from one of the Western States, who said that he was "putting up" at Meurices Hotel, but didnt think much of it; if it had not been for some English people whom he fell in with on the way from Calais, he should have gone to the Htel de Ville, which he supposed, from the pictures he had seen, must be a "fust cla.s.s house"! I have within a few hours seen an American, who could not ask the simplest question in French, but thinks that he shall stop three or four weeks, and learn the language! I have repeatedly met people who told me that they had come out to Europe "jest to see the place." But it is not alone such ignoramuses as these who merit the pity or contempt of the judicious and sensible. Their folly injures no one but themselves. The same cannot be said, however, of the authors of the numerous duodecimos of foreign travel which burden the booksellers counters. They have supposed that they can sketch a nations character by looking at its towns from the windows of an express train. They presume to write about the social life of France or Italy, while they are ignorant of any language but their own, and do not know a single French or Italian family. Victims of a bitter prejudice against those countries and their inst.i.tutions, they are prepared beforehand to be shocked and disgusted at all they see.

Like Sternes Smelfungus, they "set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object they pa.s.s by is discoloured or distorted." Kenelm Digby wisely remarks that one of the great advantages of journeying beyond sea, to a man of sense and feeling, is the spectacle of general travellers: "it will prevent his being ever again imposed upon by these birds of pa.s.sage, when they record their adventures and experience on returning to the north."

Dijon is a fine old city. Every body knows that it used to be the capital of Burgundy, but to the general reader it is more particularly interesting as being the place to which Mrs. Dombey and Mr. Carker fled after the elopement. There is a fine cathedral and public library, and the whole place has an eminently Burgundian flavour which makes one regret that he got tired so soon when he tried to read Froissarts Chronicles. There is a church there which was desecrated during the old revolution, and is now used as a market-house. It bears an inscription which presents a satirical commentary on its recent history: "_Domine, dilexi decorem domus tu!_" The Dijon gingerbread (which the people, in their ignorance and lack of our common school advantages, call _pain dpice_) would really merit a diploma from that academy of connoisseurs, the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives. But Dombey and Dijon are all forgotten in our first glimpse of the "gay capital of bewildering France." There lay Paris, sparkling under the noonday sun.

The sight of its domes and monuments awoke all my fellow-travellers: shabby caps and handkerchiefs were exchanged for hats and bonnets, which gave their wearers an air of respectability perfectly uncalled for. We were soon inside the fortifications, which have been so outgrown by the city that one hardly notices them; and, after the usual luggage examination, I found myself in an omnibus, and once more on the Boulevards.

And what a good, comfortable home-feeling it was! There were the old, familiar streets, the well-known advertis.e.m.e.nts, painted conspicuously, in blue, and green, and gold, on what would else have been a blank, unsightly wall, and inviting me to purchase cloths and cashmeres; there were the same ceaseless tides of life ebbing and flowing through those vast thoroughfares, the same glossy beavers, the same snowy caps and ap.r.o.ns, the same blouses, the same polite, _sil vous-plat, pardon, msieur_, take-it-easy air, that Paris, as seen from an omnibus window, always presents. We rolled through the Rue St. Antoine, and it was hard to realize that it had ever been the theatre of so much appalling history. I tried to imagine the barricades, the street ploughed up by artillery, and that heroic martyr, Archbishop Affre, falling there, and praying that his blood might be the last shed in that fratricidal strife; but it was useless; the lively present made the past seem but the mere invention of the historian. All traces of the frightful scenes of 1848 have been effaced, and the facilities for barricades have been disposed of in a way that must make red republicanism very disrespectful to the memory of MacAdam. As we pa.s.sed a church in that b.l.o.o.d.y locality, a wedding party came out; the bridegroom looked as if he had taken chloroform to enable him to get through his difficulties, and the effect of it had not entirely pa.s.sed off. The bride (for women, you know, have greater power of endurance than men) seemed to take it more easily, and, beaming in the midst of a sort of wilderness of lace, and gauze, and muslin, like a lighthouse in a fog, she tripped briskly into the carriage, with a bouquet in her hand, and happiness in her heart. Before the bridal party got fairly out of sight, a funeral came along. The white pall showed that it was a child who slept upon the bier; for the Catholic church does not mourn over those who are removed from the temptations of life before they have known them. The vehicles all gave way to let the little procession pa.s.s, the hum seemed to cease for a moment, every head was uncovered, even the porter held his burden on his shoulder with one hand that he might pay his respects to that sovereign to whom even republicans are obliged to bow, and the many-coloured hats of the omnibus drivers were doffed. I had often before noticed those striking contrasts that one sees in a capital like Paris; but to meet such a one at my very entrance impressed me deeply. Such is Paris. You think it the liveliest place in the world, (and so it is;) but suddenly you come upon something that makes you thoughtful, if it does not sadden you. Life and death elbow and jostle each other along these gay streets, until it seems as if they were rivals striving to drive each other out.

I entered a church a day or two since. There was a funeral at the high altar. The black vestments and hangings, the lighted tapers, the solemn chant of the _De profundis_ were eloquent of death and what must follow it. I was startled by hearing a childs cry, and looking round into the chapel which served as a baptistery, there stood two young mothers who had just received their infants from that purifying laver which made them members of the great Christian family. I never before had that beautiful thought of Chateaubriands so forced upon me"Religion has rocked us in the cradle of life, and her maternal hand shall close our eyes, while her holiest melodies soothe us to rest in the cradle of death."

There are, without doubt, many persons, who can say that in their pilgrimage of life they have truly "found their warmest welcome at an inn." My experience outstrips that, for I have received one of my most cordial greetings in a _caf_. The establishment in question is so eminently American, that I should feel as if I had neglected a sacred duty, if I did not describe it, for the benefit of future sojourners in the French capital, who are hereby requested to overhaul their memorandum books and make a note of it. It does not boast the magnificence and luxury of the _Caf de Paris_, Vrys, the _Trois Frres Provenaux_, nor of Taylors; nor does it thrust itself forward into the publicity of the gay Boulevards, or of the thronged arcades of the _Palais Royal_. It does not appeal to those who love the noise and dust of fas.h.i.+ons highway; for them it has no welcome. But to those who love "the cool, sequestered path of life," it offers a degree of quiet comfort, to which the "slaves of pa.s.sion, avarice, and pride," who view themselves in the mirrors of the _Maison Dore_, are strangers. You turn from the _Boulevard des Italiens_ into the _Rue de la Michodire_, which you perambulate until you come to number six, where you will stop and take an observation. Perhaps wonder will predominate over admiration.

The front of the establishment does not exceed twelve feet in width, and the sign over the door shows that it is a _Crmerie_. The fact is also adumbrated symbolically by a large bra.s.s can, which is set over the portal. In one of the windows may be observed a neatly-executed placard, to this effect:

_Aux Amricains_ Spcialit.

Pumpkin Pie.

"Enterits vastness overwhelms thee not!" On the contrary, having pa.s.sed through the little front shop, you stand in a room ten or twelve feet squarejust the size of Was.h.i.+ngton Irvings "empire," in the Red Horse Inn, at Stratford. This little room is furnished with two round tables, a sideboard, and several chairs, and is decorated with numerous crayon sketches of the knights of the aforesaid round tables. You make the acquaintance of the excellent Madame Busque, and order your dinner, which is served promptly and with a motherly care, which will at first remind you of the time when your bib was carefully tied on, and you were lifted to a seat on the family Bible, which had been placed on a chair, to bring the juvenile mouth into proper relations with the table.

Nothing can surpa.s.s the home feeling that took possession of me when I found myself once more in Madame Busques little back room at No. 6, _Rue de la Michodire_. How cordial was that estimable ladys welcome!

She made herself as busy as a cat with one chicken, and prepared for me a "tired natures sweet restorer" in the shape of one of her famous omelets. The old den had not changed in the least. Madame Busque used to threaten occasionally to paint it, and otherwise improve and embellish it; but we always told her that if she did any thing of that kind, or tried to render it less dingy, or snug, or unpretending, we would never eat another of her pumpkin pies. Not all the mirrors and magnificence of the resorts of fas.h.i.+on can equal the quiet cosiness of Madame Busques back room. You meet all kinds of company there. The blouse is at home there, as well as its ambitious cousin, the broadcloth coat. Law and medicine, literature and art, pleasure and honest toil, meet there upon equal terms. Our own aristocratic Was.h.i.+ngton never dreamed of such a democracy as his calm portrait looks down upon in that room. Then we have such a delightful neighbourhood there. I feel as if the charcoal woman of the next door but one below was some relation to meat least an aunt; she always has a pleasant word and a smile for the frequenters of No. 6; and then it is so disinterested on her part, for we can none of us need any of her charcoal. I hope that no person who reads this will be misled by it, and go to Madame Busques _crmerie_ expecting to find there the variety which the restaurants boast, for he will be disappointed. But he will find every thing there of the best description. My taste in food (as in most other matters) is a very catholic one: I can eat beef with the English, garlic and onions with the French, sauerkraut with the Germans, macaroni with the Italians, pilaf with the Turks, baked beans with the Yankees, hominy with the southerners, and oysters with any body. But as I feel age getting the better of me day by day, I think I grow to be more and more of a pre-Raphaelite in these things. So I crave nothing more luxurious than a good steak or chop, with the appropriate vegetables; and these are to be had in their perfection at Madame Busques. My benison upon her!

The canicular weather I suffered from in the south followed me even here. I found every body talking about the extraordinary _chaleur_.

Shade of John Rogers! how the sun has glared down upon Paris, day after day, without winking, until air-tight stoves are refrigerators compared to it, and even old-fas.h.i.+oned preaching is outdone! How the asphalte sidewalks of the Boulevards have melted under his rays, and perfumed the air with any thing but a Saban odour! The fragrance of the linden trees was entirely overpowered. The thought of the helmets of the cavalry was utterly intolerable. Tortonis and the _cafs_ were crowded. Great was the clamour for ices. Greater still was the rush to the cool shades of the public gardens, or the environs of Bougival and Marly. At last, the welcome rain came hissing down upon these heated roofs; and _malheur_ to the man who ventures out during these days without his umbrella. It has been a rain of terror. It almost spoilt the great national _fte_ of the 15th; but the people made the best of it, and, between the free theatrical performances at sixteen theatres, the superb illuminations, and the fireworks, seemed to have a very merry time. I went in the morning to that fine lofty old church, (whose Lady Chapel is a splendid monument of Coutures artistic genius,) St. Eustache, where I heard a new ma.s.s, by one M. LHte. It was well executed, and the orchestral parts were particularly effective. After the ma.s.s, the annual _Te Deum_ for the Emperor was sung. The effect of the latter was very grand; indeed, when it was finished, I was just thinking that it was impossible for music to surpa.s.s it, when the full orchestra and two organs united in a burst of harmony that almost lifted me off my feet. I recognized the old Gregorian anthem that is sung every Sunday in all the churches, and when it had been played through, the trumpets took up the air of the chant, above the rest of the accompaniment, and the clear, alto voice of one of those scarlet-capped choir-boys rang out the words, _Domine, salvum fac imperatorem nostrum, Napoleonem_, in a way that seemed to make those old arches vibrate, and wonderfully quickened the circulation in the veins of every listener. It was like the gradual mounting and heaving up of a high sea in a storm on the Atlantic, which, when it has reached a pitch you thought impossible, curls majestically over, and, breaking into a creamy foam, loses itself in a transitory vision of emerald brilliancy, that for the moment realizes the most gorgeous and improbable fables of Eastern luxury. It made even me, notwithstanding my prejudices in favour of republicanism, forget the spread eagle, and my free (and easy) native land, and for several hours I found myself singing that solemn anthem over in a most impressive manner. _Vive lEmpereur!_