Indeed The Stranger Seems To Be Left Intirely At The Mercy Of Those Fellows, Except In Large Towns, Where He May Have Recourse To The Magistrate Or Commanding Officer.

The post stands very often by itself in a lone country situation, or in a paultry village, where the

Post-master is the principal inhabitant; and in such a case, if you should be ill-treated, by being supplied with bad horses; if you should be delayed on frivolous pretences, in order to extort money; if the postilions should drive at a waggon pace, with a view to provoke your impatience; or should you in any shape be insulted by them or their masters; and I know not any redress you can have, except by a formal complaint to the comptroller of the posts, who is generally one of the ministers of state, and pays little or no regard to any such representations. I know an English gentleman, the brother of an earl, who wrote a letter of complaint to the Duc de Villars, governor of Provence, against the post-master of Antibes, who had insulted and imposed upon him. The duke answered his letter, promising to take order that the grievance should be redressed; and never thought of it after. Another great inconvenience which attends posting in France, is that if you are retarded by any accident, you cannot in many parts of the kingdom find a lodging, without perhaps travelling two or three posts farther than you would choose to go, to the prejudice of your health, and even the hazard of your life; whereas on any part of the post-road in England, you will meet with tolerable accommodation at every stage. Through the whole south of France, except in large cities, the inns are cold, damp, dark, dismal, and dirty; the landlords equally disobliging and rapacious; the servants aukward, sluttish, and slothful; and the postilions lazy, lounging, greedy, and impertinent. If you chide them for lingering, they will continue to delay you the longer: if you chastise them with sword, cane, cudgel, or horse-whip, they will either disappear entirely, and leave you without resource; or they will find means to take vengeance by overturning your carriage. The best method I know of travelling with any degree of comfort, is to allow yourself to become the dupe of imposition, and stimulate their endeavours by extraordinary gratifications. I laid down a resolution (and kept it) to give no more than four and twenty sols per post between the two postilions; but I am now persuaded that for three-pence a post more, I should have been much better served, and should have performed the journey with much greater pleasure. We met with no adventures upon the road worth reciting. The first day we were retarded about two hours by the dutchess D - lle, and her son the duc de R - f - t, who by virtue of an order from the minister, had anticipated all the horses at the post. They accosted my servant, and asked if his master was a lord? He thought proper to answer in the affirmative, upon which the duke declared that he must certainly be of French extraction, inasmuch as he observed the lilies of France in his arms on the coach. This young nobleman spoke a little English. He asked whence we had come; and understanding we had been in Italy, desired to know whether the man liked France or Italy best? Upon his giving France the preference, he clapped him on the shoulder, and said he was a lad of good taste. The dutchess asked if her son spoke English well, and seemed mightily pleased when my man assured her he did. They were much more free and condescending with my servant than with myself; for, though we saluted them in passing, and were even supposed to be persons of quality, they did not open their lips, while we stood close by them at the inn-door, till their horses were changed. They were going to Geneva; and their equipage consisted of three coaches and six, with five domestics a-horseback. The dutchess was a tall, thin, raw-boned woman, with her head close shaved. This delay obliged us to lie two posts short of Macon, at a solitary auberge called Maison Blanche, which had nothing white about it, but the name. The Lionnois is one of the most agreeable and best-cultivated countries I ever beheld, diversified with hill, dale, wood, and water, laid out in extensive corn-fields and rich meadows, well stocked with black cattle, and adorned with a surprising number of towns, villages, villas, and convents, generally situated on the brows of gently swelling hills, so that they appear to the greatest advantage. What contributes in a great measure to the beauty of this, and the Maconnois, is the charming pastoral Soame, which from the city of Chalons winds its silent course so smooth and gentle, that one can scarce discern which way its current flows. It is this placid appearance that tempts so many people to bathe in it at Lions, where a good number of individuals are drowned every summer: whereas there is no instance of any persons thus perishing in the Rhone, the rapidity of it deterring every body from bathing in its stream. Next night we passed at Beaune where we found nothing good but the wine, for which we paid forty sols the bottle. At Chalons our axle-tree took fire; an accident which detained us so long, that it was ten before we arrived at Auxerre, where we lay. In all probability we must have lodged in the coach, had not we been content to take four horses, and pay for six, two posts successively. The alternative was, either to proceed with four on those terms, or stay till the other horses should come in and be refreshed. In such an emergency, I would advise the traveller to put up with the four, and he will find the postilions so much upon their mettle, that those stages will be performed sooner than the others in which you have the full complement.

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