38 CHAP. IV. JACOBIN. NATIONAL PROPERTY. Santerre, speaking of a third person, exclaimed, "I cannot bear that man; he is a Jacobin." Let all true revolutionary republicans cry out, Bravo! at this. This miscreant lives unnoticed, in a little village near Paris, upon a slender income, which he has made in trade, not in the trade of blood; for it appears that Robespierre was not a very liberal patron of his servants. He kept his blood-hounds lean, and keen, and poorly fed them with the rankest offal. After a dusty journey, through a very rich and picturesque country, of near eighty miles, we entered the beautiful boulevards of Rouen, about seven o'clock in the evening, which embowered us from the sun. Their shade was delicious. I think them finer than those of Paris. The noble elms, which compose them in four stately rows, are all nearly of the same height. Judge of my surprise-Upon our rapidly turning the corner of a street, as we entered the city, I suddenly found coach, horses and all, in the aisle of an ancient catholic church. The gates were closed upon us, and in a moment from the busy buzzing of the streets, we were translated into the silence of shattered tombs, and the gloom of cloisters: the only light which shone upon us, issued through fragments of stained glass, and the apertures which were formerly filled with it. My surprise, however, was soon quieted, by being informed, that this church, having devolved to the nation as its property, by force of a revolutionary decree, had been afterwards sold for stables, to one of the owners of the Rouen diligences. * Environs of a town, planted with stately trees. An STABLE. EXPENSE OF CARRIAGE. 39 JV.. An old unsaleable cabriolet occupied the place of the altar; CHAP. and the horses were very quietly eating their oats in the sacristy !! At the Bureau, we paid twelve livres and a half for our places and luggage from Havre to this town. CHAP. V. CHAPTER V. A female french fib.- Military and Civil Procession. -Madame G. of Waldec. CHAP. HAVING collected together all our luggage, and seen it safely lodged in a porter's wheelbarrow, Captain C. and I bade adieu to our fellow travellers, and to these solemn and unsuitable habitations of ostlers and horses, and proceeded through several narrow streets, lined with lofty houses, the shops of which were all open, and the shopkeepers, chiefly women, looked respectable and sprightly, with gay bouquets in their bosoms, to the Hôtel de l'Europe; it is a fine inn, to which we had been recommended at Havre, kept by Madame F who, with much politeness, and many captivating movements, dressed à-la-Grec, with immense golden earrings, approached us, and gave us a little piece of information, not very pleasant to travellers somewhat discoloured by the dust of a long and sultry day's journey, who wanted comfortable rooms, fresh linen, a little coffee, and a good night's repose: her information was, that her house was completely full, but that she would send to an upholsterer to fit up two beds for us, in a very neat room, which she had just papered and furnished, opposite to the porter's lodge (all the great inns and respectable townhouses in France have great gates, and a porter's lodge, at the entrance.) |