About Ten In The Morning We Stopped To Breakfast At Some
Auberge, Where We Always Found Bread, Butter, And Milk.
In the
mean time, we ordered a poulard or two to be roasted, and these,
wrapped in a napkin, were put into the boot of the coach,
together with bread, wine, and water.
About two or three in the
afternoon, while the horses were changing, we laid a cloth upon
our knees, and producing our store, with a few earthen plates,
discussed our short meal without further ceremony. This was
followed by a dessert of grapes and other fruit, which we had
also provided. I must own I found these transient refreshments
much more agreeable than any regular meal I ate upon the road.
The wine commonly used in Burgundy is so weak and thin, that you
would not drink it in England. The very best which they sell at
Dijon, the capital of the province, for three livres a bottle, is
in strength, and even in flavour, greatly inferior to what I have
drank in London. I believe all the first growth is either
consumed in the houses of the noblesse, or sent abroad to foreign
markets. I have drank excellent Burgundy at Brussels for a florin
a bottle; that is, little more than twenty pence sterling.
The country from the forest of Fontainbleau to the Lyonnois,
through which we passed, is rather agreeable than fertile, being
part of Champagne and the dutchy of Burgundy, watered by three
pleasant pastoral rivers, the Seine, the Yonne, and the Saone.
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