University of Virginia Library

24. LETTER XXIV.

I found a day and a half quite enough for Lyons.
The views from the mountain and the river were the
only things that pleased me. I made the usual dry
visit to the library and the museum, and admired the
Hotel de Ville, and the new theatre, and the front of
the Maison de Tolosan, that so struck the fancy of
Joseph II., and having “despatched the lions,” like a
true cockney traveler, I was too happy to escape the
offensive smells of the streets, and get to my rooms.
One does not enjoy much comfort within doors either.
Lyons is a great imitation metropolis—a sort of second-hand
Paris. I am not very difficult to please, but
I found the living intolerable. It was an affectation
of abstruse cookery throughout. We sat down to
what is called the best table in the place, and it was a
series of ludicrous travesties, from the soup to the
salad. One can eat well in the country, because the
dishes are simple, and he gets the natural taste of
things; but to come to a table covered with artificial
dishes, which he has been accustomed to see in their
perfection, and to taste and send away everything in
disgust, is a trial of temper which is reserved for the
traveller at Lyons.

The scenery on the river, from Lyons to Avignon,
has great celebrity, and I had determined to take that
course to the south. Just at this moment, however,
the Rhone had been pronounced too low, and the
steamboats were stopped. I probably made the last
passage by steam on the Saone, for we ran aground
repeatedly, and were compelled to wait till horses could
be procured to draw the boat into deep water. It was
quite amusing to see with what a regular, business-like
air, the postillions fixed their traces to the prow, and
whipped into the middle of the river. A small boat
was my only resource, and I found a man on the quay
who plied the river in what is called batteaux de poste,
rough shallops with flat bottoms, which are sold for
firewood on their arrival, the rapidity of the Rhone
rendering a return against the current next to impossible.
The sight of the frail contrivance in which I
was to travel nearly two hundred miles, rather startled
me, but the man assured me he had several other passengers,
and two ladies among them. I paid the
arrhes, or earnest money, and was at the river-stairs
punctually at four the next morning.

To my very sincere pleasure the two ladies were the
daughters of my polite friend and fellow passenger
from Chalons. They were already on board, and the
little shalop sat deep in the water with her freight.
Besides these, there were two young French chasseurs
going home on leave of absence, a pretty Parisian
dress-maker flying from the cholera, a masculine woman,
the wife of a dragoon, and my friend the captain.
We pushed out into the current, and drifted slowly
down under the bridges, without oars, the padrone
quietly smoking his pipe at the helm. In a few minutes
we were below the town, and here commenced
again the cultivated and ornamented banks I had so
much admired on my approach to Lyons from the
other side. The thin haze was just stirring from the
river's surface, the sunrise flush was on the sky, the
air was genial and impregnated with the smell of grass
and flowers, and the little changing landscapes; as we
followed the stream, broke upon us like a series of exquisite
dioramas. The atmosphere was like Doughty's
pictures, exactly. I wished a thousand times for
that delightful artist, that he might see how richly the
old chateaux and their picturesque appurtenances filled
up the scene. It would have given a new turn to his
pencil.

We soon arrived at the junction of the rivers, and as
we touched the rapid current of the Rhone, the little
shallop yielded to its sway, and redoubled its velocity.
The sun rose clear, the cultivation grew less and less,
the hills began to look distant and barren, and our little
party became sociable in proportion. We closed around
the invalid, who sat wrapped in a cloak in the stern,
leaning on her father's shoulder, and talked of Paris
and its pleasures—a theme of which the French are
never weary. Time passed delightfully. Without
being decidedly pretty, our two Parisiennes were quiet-mannered
and engaging; and the younger one particularly,
whose pale face and deeply-sunken eyes gave
her a look of melancholy interest, seemed to have
thought much, and to feel besides, that her uncertain
health gave her a privilege of overstepping the rigid
reserve of an unmarried girl. She talks freely, and
with great delicacy of expression and manner.

We ran ashore at the little village of Condrieu to
breakfast. We were assailed on stepping out of the
boat by the demoiselles of two or three rival auberges—
nice-looking, black-eyed girls, in white aprons, who
seized us by the arm, and pulled each to her own
door, with torrents of unintelligible patois. We left
it to the captain, who selected the best-looking leader,
and we were soon seated around a table covered with
a lavish breakfast; the butter, cheese, and wine excellent,
at least. A merrier party, I am sure, never
astonished the simple people of Condrieu. The pretty
dress-maker was full of good-humor and politeness,
and delighted at the envy with which the rural belles
regarded her knowing Parisian cap; the chasseurs
sang the popular songs of the army, and joked with
the maids of the auberge; the captain was inexhaustibly
agreeable, and the hour given us by the padrone
was soon gone. We embarked with a thousand adieus
from the pleased people, and altogether it was more
like a scene from Wilhelm Meister, than a passage
from real life.

The wind soon rose free and steady from the northwest,
and with a spread sail we ran past Vienne, at ten
miles in the hour. This was the metropolis of my
old friends, “the Allobrogues,” in Cesar's Commentaries.
I could not help wondering at the feelings
with which I was passing over such classic ground.
The little dress-maker was giving us an account of
her fright at the cholera, and every one in the boat
was in agonies of laughter. I looked at the guide-book
to find the name of the place, and the first glance
at the word carried me back to my old school-desk at
Andover, and conjured up for a moment the redolent
classic interest with which I read the history of the
land I was now hurrying through. That a laugh with
a modern grisette should engross me entirely, at the
moment I was traversing such a spot, is a possibility
the man may realize much more readily than the
school-boy. A new roar of merriment from my companions
plucked me back effectually from Andover to
the Rhone, and I thought no more of Gaul or its great
historian.

We floated on during the day, passing chateaux and
ruins constantly; but finding the country barren and
rocky to a dismal degree, I can not well imagine how
the Rhone has acquired its reputation for beauty. It
has been sung by the poets more than any other river
in France, and the various epithets that have been applied
to it have become so common, that you can not
mention it without their rising to your lips; but the
Saone and the Seine are incomparably more lovely,
and I am told the valleys of the Loire are the most
beautiful part of France. From its junction with the
Saone to the Mediterranean, the Rhone is one stretch
of barrenness.

We passed a picturesque chateau, built very wildly
on a rock washed by the river, called “La Roche de
Glun,” and twilight soon after fell, closing in our view

to all but the river edge. The wind died away, but
the stars were bright and the air mild; and, quite
fatigued to silence, our little party leaned on the sides
of the boat, and waited till the current should float us
down to our resting-place for the night. We reached
Valence at ten, and with a merry dinner and supper in
one, which kept us up till after midnight, we got to
our coarse but clean beds, and slept soundly.

The following forenoon we ran under the Pont St.
Esprit, an experiment the guide-book calls very dangerous.
The Rhone is rapid and noisy here, and we
shot under the arches of the fine old structure with
great velocity; but the “Rapids of the St. Lawrence”
are passed constantly without apprehension by travellers
in America, and those of the Rhone are a mere
mill-race in comparison. We breakfasted just below,
at a village where we could scarce understand a syllable,
the patois was so decided, and at sunset we were
far down between the provinces of Dauphiny and Languedoc,
with the villages growing thicker and greener,
and a high mountain within ten or fifteen miles, covered
with snow nearly to the base. We stopped opposite
the old castle of Rocheméuse to pay the droit.
It was a demi-fete day, and the inhabitants of a village
back from the river had come out to the green bank
in their holyday costume for a revel. The bank swelled
up from the stream to a pretty wood, and the green
sward between was covered with these gay people, arrested
in their amusements by our arrival. We jumped
out for a moment, and I walked up the bank and
endeavored to make the acquaintance of a strikingly
handsome woman of about thirty, but the patois was
quite too much. After several vain attempts to understand
each other, she laughed and turned on her
heel, and I followed the call of the padrone to the
batteau. For five or six miles below, the river passed
through a kind of meadow, and an air more loaded
with fragrance I never breathed. The sun was just
down, and with the mildness of the air, and quiet glide
of the boat on the water, it was quite enchanting.
Conversation died away, and I went forward and lay
down in the bow alone, with a fit of desperate musing.
It is as singular as it is certain, that the more one enjoys
the loveliness of a foreign land, the more he feels
how absolutely his heart is at home only in his own
country.