"Nothing remarkable occurred till we met a courier a travelling, Mr. Fulmer said, with despatches; these men were called couriers immediately after the return of the Bonbons, in compliment to the London newspaper, which always wrote in their favour. At Montrule, Mr. Fulmer shewed me Sterne's Inn, and there I saw Mr. Sterne himself, a standing at the door, with a French cocked hat upon his head, over a white night-cap. Mr. Fulmer asked if he had any becauses in his house; but he said no: what they were I do not know to this moment.
"It is no use describing the different places on our rout, because Paris is the great object of all travellers, and therefore I shall come to it at once—it is reproached by a revenue of trees; on the right of which you see a dome, like that of St. Paul's, but not so large. Mr. Fulmer told me it was an invalid, and it did certainly look very yellow in the distance; on the left you perceive Mont Martyr, so called from the number of windmills upon it.
"I was very much surprised at the height of the houses, and the noise of the carriages in Paris: and was delighted when we got to our hotel, which is Wag Ram; why I did not like to enquire; it is just opposite the Royal Timber-yard, which is a fine building, the name of which is cut in stone.—Timbre Royal.
"The hotel which I have mentioned is in the Rue de la Pay, so called from its being the dearest part of the town. At one end of it is the place Fumdum, where there is a pillow as high as the Trojan's Pillow at Rome, or the pompous pillow in Egypt; this is a beautiful object, and is made of all the guns, coats, waistcoats, hats, boots and belts, which belonged to the French who were killed by the cold in Prussia at the fire of Moscow.
"At the top of the pillow is a small apartment, which they call a pavillion, and over that a white flag, which I concluded to be hoisted as a remembrance of Buonaparte, being very like the table-cloths I noticed at Callous.
"We lost no time in going into the gardens of the Tooleries, where we saw the statutes at large in marvel—here we saw Mr. Backhouse and Harry Edney, whoever they might be, and a beautiful grope of Cupid and Physic, together with several of the busks which Lavy has copied, the original of which is in the Vacuum at Rome, which was formerly an office for government thunder, but is now reduced to a stable where the Pope keeps his bulls.
"Travellers like us, who are mere birds of prey, have no time to waste, and therefore we determined to see all we could in each day, so we went to the great church, which is called Naughty Dam, where we saw a priest doing something at an altar. Mr. Fulmer begged me to observe the knave of the church, but I thought it too hard to call the man names in his own country, although Mr. Fulmer said he believed he was exercising the evil spirits in an old lady in a black cloak.
"It was a great day at this church, and we staid for mass, so called from the crowd of people who attend it—the priest was very much incensed—we waited out the whole ceremony, and heard Tedium sung, which occupied three hours.
"We returned over the Pont Neuf, so called from being the north bridge in Paris, and here we saw a beautiful image of Henry Carter; it is extremely handsome, and quite green—I fancied I saw a likeness to the Carters of Portsmouth, but if it is one of his family, his posteriors are very much diminished in size and figure.
"Mr. Fulmer proposed that we should go and dine at a tavern called Very—because every thing is very good there; and accordingly we went, and I never was so malapropos in my life—there were two or three ladies quite in nubibus; but when I came to look at the bill of fare, I was quite anileated, for I perceived that Charlotte de Pommes might be sent for for one shilling and twopence, and Patty de Veau for half-a-crown. I desired Mr. Fulmer to let us go; but he convinced me there was no harm in the place, by shewing me a dignified clergyman of the Church of England and his wife, a eating away like any thing.
"We had a voulez vous of fowl, and some sailor's eels, which were very nice, and some pieces of crape, so disguised by the sauce that nobody who had not been told what it was would have distinguished them from pancakes—after the sailor's eels we had some pantaloon cutlets, which were savoury—but I did not like the writing paper—however, as it was a French custom, I eat every bit of it—they call sparrow-grass here asperge, I could not find out why.
"If I had not seen what wonderful men the French cooks are, who actually stew up shoes with partridges, and make very nice dishes too, I never could have believed the influence they have in the politics of the country—everything is now decided by the cooks, who make no secret of their feelings, and the party who are still for Buonaparte call themselves traitors, while those who are partizans of the Bonbons are termed Restaurateurs, or friends of the Restoration.
"After dinner a French monsheur, who I thought was a waiter, for he had a bit of red ribbon at his button-hole, just the same as one of the waiters had, began to talk to Mr. Fulmer, and it was agreed we should go to the play—they talked of Racing and Cornhill, which made me think the mounsheur had been in England—however, it was arranged that we were to go and see Andrew Mackay at the Francay, or Jem Narse, or the Bullvards; but at last it was decided unanimously, crim. con. that we should go to see Jem Narse, and so we went—but I never saw the man himself after all.
"A very droll person, with long legs and a queer face, sung a song which pleased me very much, because I understood the end of it perfectly—it was 'tal de lal de lal de lal,' and sounded quite like English—after he had done, although every body laughed, the whole house called out 'beast, beast,' and the man, notwithstanding, was foolish enough to sing it over again."
VI.
ADVENTURES AT PARIS.
To Mr. Bull.
Paris, January 28, 1824.
Sir,—As my daughter Lavy, who acts as my amaranthus, is ill-disposed with a cold and guittar, contracted by visiting the Hecatombs last week, I send this without her little billy which she usually sends; my second daughter has sprained her tender hercules in crossing one of the roues, and my third daughter has got a military fever, which, however, I hope, by putting her through a regiment, and giving her a few subterfuges, will soon abate. I am, however, a good deal embracée, as the French say, with so many invalids.
Since I wrote last, I have visited the Hullaballoo, or cornmarket, so called from the noise made in it; Mr. Fulmer told me I should see the flower of the French nation there, but I only saw a crowd of old men and old women; here is a pillow made for judicious astronomy, but which looks like a sun-dial.
We went, on Tuesday, to the symetery of the Chaise-and-pair, as they call it, where the French and English are miscellaneously interred, and I amused myself by copying the epigrams on the tombstones—one of them, which looked like a large bath, Mr. Fulmer told me was a sark of a goose, which I had previously heard my friend Mr. Rogers call Mr. Hume's shirt.
In the afternoon we went to dine at Beau Villiers's—not the Mr. Villiers who owes our Government so much money—but the smell of the postillions which were burning in the rooms quite overpowered me. I got better in the evening, and as the girls were not with us, Mr. Fulmer took me round the Palais Royal, which is a curious place indeed. We saw several Russian war houses, and went into the "Caffee de Milk alone," so called because, when Bonypart confisticated the cargoes from the West Indies, and propagated the use of coffee, the lady who kept this place made a mixture with milk alone, which answered all the purpose of coffee. The room is surrounded by looking-glasses, so that the people are always multiplying who go there: the lady herself was very beautiful, but Mr. Fulmer told me she was constantly reflected upon. Mr. F. took some melted glass, upon which I did not like to venture, but contented myself with a tumbler of caterpillar and water.
Wednesday we went to the Shampdemars (which is opposite to the Pere Elisée), and saw a review of the Queerasses of the Royal Guard. The sister of the late Dolphin was present—the Dolphin of France is the same as the Prince of Whales in England. The Duke of Anglehome came by, from hunting, just at the time; I am told he is quite a Ramrod in the chace.