from my old pursuits, I am about to resume them, joyfully, in
Switzerland; where during another year of absence, I can at once
work out the themes I have now in my mind, without interruption:
and while I keep my English audience within speaking distance,
extend my knowledge of a noble country, inexpressibly attractive to
me.
This book is made as accessible as possible, because it would be a
great pleasure to me if I could hope, through its means, to compare
impressions with some among the multitudes who will hereafter visit
the scenes described with interest and delight.
And I have only now, in passport wise, to sketch my reader’s
portrait, which I hope may be thus supposititiously traced for
either sex:
Complexion Fair.
Eyes Very cheerful.
Nose Not supercilious.
Mouth Smiling.
Visage Beaming.
General Expression Extremely agreeable.
CHAPTER I – GOING THROUGH FRANCE
ON a fine Sunday morning in the Midsummer time and weather of
eighteen hundred and forty-four, it was, my good friend, when –
don’t be alarmed; not when two travellers might have been observed
slowly making their way over that picturesque and broken ground by
which the first chapter of a Middle Aged novel is usually attained
– but when an English travelling-carriage of considerable
proportions, fresh from the shady halls of the Pantechnicon near
Belgrave Square, London, was observed (by a very small French
soldier; for I saw him look at it) to issue from the gate of the
Hotel Meurice in the Rue Rivoli at Paris.
I am no more bound to explain why the English family travelling by
this carriage, inside and out, should be starting for Italy on a
Sunday morning, of all good days in the week, than I am to assign a
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
reason for all the little men in France being soldiers, and all the
big men postilions; which is the invariable rule. But, they had
some sort of reason for what they did, I have no doubt; and their
reason for being there at all, was, as you know, that they were
going to live in fair Genoa for a year; and that the head of the
family purposed, in that space of time, to stroll about, wherever
his restless humour carried him.
And it would have been small comfort to me to have explained to the
population of Paris generally, that I was that Head and Chief; and
not the radiant embodiment of good humour who sat beside me in the
person of a French Courier – best of servants and most beaming of
men! Truth to say, he looked a great deal more patriarchal than I,
who, in the shadow of his portly presence, dwindled down to no
account at all.
There was, of course, very little in the aspect of Paris – as we
rattled near the dismal Morgue and over the Pont Neuf – to reproach
us for our Sunday travelling. The wine-shops (every second house)
were driving a roaring trade; awnings were spreading, and chairs
and tables arranging, outside the cafes, preparatory to the eating
of ices, and drinking of cool liquids, later in the day; shoeblacks
were busy on the bridges; shops were open; carts and waggons
clattered to and fro; the narrow, up-hill, funnel-like streets
across the River, were so many dense perspectives of crowd and
bustle, parti-coloured night-caps, tobacco-pipes, blouses, large
boots, and shaggy heads of hair; nothing at that hour denoted a day
of rest, unless it were the appearance, here and there, of a family
pleasure-party, crammed into a bulky old lumbering cab; or of some
contemplative holiday-maker in the freest and easiest dishabille,
leaning out of a low garret window, watching the drying of his
newly polished shoes on the little parapet outside (if a
gentleman), or the airing of her stockings in the sun (if a lady),
with calm anticipation.
Once clear of the never-to-be-forgotten-or-forgiven pavement which
surrounds Paris, the first three days of travelling towards
Marseilles are quiet and monotonous enough. To Sens. To Avallon.
To Chalons. A sketch of one day’s proceedings is a sketch of all
three; and here it is.
We have four horses, and one postilion, who has a very long whip,