LITMIR.BIZ

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who was a living image of Don Quixote. I, who am such an enthusiastic admirer of the latter, could willingly have given a double fee for the pleasure I took in contemplating his faithful resemblance; the loose shamoy leather doublet, brown beaver Spanish-looking flapped hat; long, black, greasy hair, hanging in strings about his scraggy neck and doleful visage; the wild, eager, prominent, dark eyes, &c. – all was complete! The French drivers differ in many particulars from ours; in one respect alone there is a wide line of demarcation. The former talk a good deal (en route) to their horses, while the latter confine themselves to the mute eloquence of the whip and spur.

      The country now assumes a totally new character. The hills rise into the dignity of mountains, and are entirely barren, save in the immediate vicinity of a little valley or two which smiles between them, when their rough granite sides are clothed with partial underwood; these valleys have a verdant and cultivated effect, from being well wooded, and also from the unusual practice of inclosing the fields with hedges. Indeed the whole scene for three or four miles before you come to Autun is bold, rich, and beautiful. We were told that the people here and in the South of France were (generally speaking) extremely well-disposed towards the Bourbon government, disliking the remembrance of Bonaparte.

      Autun, an ugly town, yet most romantically situated at the foot of three mountains covered with superb woods. Here are some fine gateways of Corinthian architecture, baths, and a cathedral. We went to look at the latter, and saw several women there telling their beads, who cast an eye of curiosity upon us in the midst of their devotions, while their fingers and lips continued to move with great rapidity. I peeped into several vacant confessionals, which resembled little sentry-boxes, partitioned into two apartments, in one of which there is a seat for the priest, and in the other a grated aperture through which the penitent breathes his communications.

      The tomb of the president Jennin and his wife is shewn here. It was, I believe, concealed during the fury of the revolution, in common with many similar and sacred curiosities. He was one of Henri quatre's ministers, and a man much esteemed by that sovereign. He cannot have a higher professional eulogium. The costume both of the president and his dame is quaint in the extreme, and the length of her waist is quite ridiculous. Our inn (la poste) was comfortable and reasonable. For five francs a-head, they sent us up for dinner (I will for once say what we had for dinner) some capital soup au ris, a magnificent jack, a duck stewed with pickles, a fowl, white and delicate as those of Dorking, a ragout of sweetbreads in brown sauce, a large dish of craw-fish, potatoes drest à la maître d'hotel, Guyere cheese, and four baskets of fruit. The latter evinced the coldness of the climate here, for the peaches were diminutive, crude, and colourless, the grapes rather sour, and the cherries hard, tough, and not bigger than black currants.

      Leaving Autun, we passed over a very steep granite mountain of that name, covered in the most luxuriant profusion with trees of every sort, but chiefly oak: the road wound round the sides till it reached nearly the summit of this mountain in graceful sweeps. It rained during our ascent, and the groups of women emerging at intervals from the woody recesses in the steeps above us, with their gay coloured cotton handkerchiefs held over their white caps, to shelter them from the scudding shower, looked highly picturesque. The male costume here becomes marked; it consists of a very large black hat, (with a low crown and an enormous breadth of brim,) round which is sometimes worn a string of red and white beads; a dark blue linen jacket and trowsers, coloured waistcoat, white shirt, with a square deep collar thrown open at the throat, and sabots. We could plainly hear the babbling of the brook which runs among these sylvan retreats. My husband gathered me some blackberries in the woods, and I longed to accompany him in his rambles, instead of remaining in the carriage. Altogether it was the most romantic scene I had ever beheld, and my exclamations of admiration reaching the ears of the postillion, (who was easing his horses by walking by their side) he came up to the window, to ask me if I had ever seen such a beautiful thing in my own country? I assured him I had not, and he graciously added that he would shew me a very grand plain also in a few minutes. Our Swiss attendant, however, (Christian) did not seem to approve of all these commendations, and could not refrain from throwing out a hint, that we should see much finer things in his country. This mountain is covered with wild strawberries in the season. Bonaparte intended to have made a wider road through it, had not the Fates thought proper to cut short his plans when he least expected it. The view of the promised plain was fertile as that of Canaan; the glimpses of it caught occasionally through the openings of the rocks were charming. I liked the national pride of the postillion; applied thus to the beauties of nature, it had almost a character of refinement: he was a good-humoured, merry-looking, ugly fellow, who seemed as if he had never known a care in his life; but (the truth must be told) he was a great admirer of Bonaparte, and said he should live and die in the hope of his return. He had laid by his green jacket and badge in his box, thinking it not impossible that he might want to wear it again one day; at all events he trusted to see the young son upon the throne, and spoke of him with much affectionate emotion. Bonaparte had been driven by this man (upon his flight from Elba,) and this puts me in mind, that I omitted to mention the circumstance of my having slept in the same bed which he then occupied at Autun; I think he must have left his troubled spirit behind him, for my dreams were perturbed and melancholy in the greatest degree! There are plenty of wolves and wild boars in this neighbourhood; five of the latter were killed the week before. I expected to have met with gipsies, but neither here, nor in any other part of the continent, had we yet encountered one of the race.

      At St. Emilan, (a small village) we stopt to breakfast: it was a merry, cheerful meal. We sat round the blazing faggots in the cottage kitchen of la Poste, and boiled our eggs in a vessel which I believe was an old iron shaving pot; the milk (for our coffee) was served up in a large earthen tureen, with a pewter ladle; and the cups were of a dirty yellow cracked ware, that I am sure my cook would not suffer to be exhibited in her scullery. The bread was sour, and so was the fruit, but I never remember to have enjoyed a breakfast more thoroughly; so true is it, that hunger is the best sauce. The host (seeing that we were English) asked if we would not choose our pain to be grillé? and was proceeding to broil it accordingly, instead of toasting it, if we had not preferred the loaf in its natural state. We were somewhat surprised at seeing a print over the chimney of Dr. Nicholas Saunderson, Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. An obscure village kitchen in the heart of France was the last place where one would have expected to have found such a thing. The hostess had bought it many years since at a sale of the property of the celebrated Buffon.

      Seeing some cows ploughing in the fields here, which was what we had never before witnessed, our servant Christian gave us an account of the manner of conducting that operation in Switzerland; "de only difference is (said he) dat dere de cows be all oxes." The costume of the paysannes is very picturesque; a straw hat, of the gipsy form, and large as an umbrella, rather short petticoat, gay coloured handkerchief, deep bordered white cap, and sabots. The landscape was rather pretty for some distance beyond St. Emilan.

      We now began to meet with vineyards again, as we descended from these bleak and elevated regions. A brook wound through the lowlands, fringed with willows, by means of which we could as usual trace its course for miles. I forgot to mention the cajoleries made use of by a set of little beggar children, the preceding day. The white beaver hats worn by my husband and Mr. W. struck their fancy not a little, and they ran after the carriage with incredible perseverance, calling out, Vivent les chapeaux blancs! Vivent les jolis messieurs! vive la jolie dame! vive le joli carrosse! vive le roi, et vive le bon Dieu! We were engaged in lamenting the drawback of a goître (or swelling in the throat) to the beauty of a very pretty woman, whom we had just seen, when in going down a steep hill we met with an accident, which might have been serious. The harness (made of old ropes) suddenly broke, one of the horses fell down, the postillion was thrown off, and the other horses continuing to trot on without stopping, we felt the carriage go over some soft substance, which we concluded to be the person of their unfortunate driver. Both the gentlemen involuntarily exclaimed "he is killed!" when we were relieved by seeing him running by the side of the animals, very little the worse for his fall. The poor horse was the greatest sufferer, as the wheels went twice over his neck! however, even he was not much hurt, and was able to rise and go on with his work in a few seconds. The great creature in the middle was an old, scrambling, wilful beast, who liked his own way, and I believe he would

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