When A Bourgeois Of Boulogne Takes The Air, He Goes In A One-Horse
Chaise, Which Is Here Called Cabriolet, And Hires It For
Half-A-Crown A Day.
There are also travelling chaises, which hold
four persons, two seated with their faces to the horses, and two
behind their backs; but those vehicles are all very ill made, and
extremely inconvenient.
The way of riding most used in this place
is on assback. You will see every day, in the skirts of the town,
a great number of females thus mounted, with the feet on either
side occasionally, according as the wind blows, so that sometimes
the right and sometimes the left hand guides the beast: but in
other parts of France, as well as in Italy, the ladies sit on
horseback with their legs astride, and are provided with drawers
for that purpose.
When I said the French people were kept in good humour by the
fopperies of their religion, I did not mean that there were no
gloomy spirits among them. There will be fanatics in religion,
while there are people of a saturnine disposition, and melancholy
turn of mind. The character of a devotee, which is hardly known
in England, is very common here. You see them walking to and from
church at all hours, in their hoods and long camblet cloaks, with
a slow pace, demure aspect, and downcast eye. Those who are poor
become very troublesome to the monks, with their scruples and
cases of conscience: you may see them on their knees, at the
confessional, every hour in the day. The rich devotee has her
favourite confessor, whom she consults and regales in private, at
her own house; and this spiritual director generally governs the
whole family. For my part I never knew a fanatic that was not an
hypocrite at bottom. Their pretensions to superior sanctity, and
an absolute conquest over all the passions, which human reason
was never yet able to subdue, introduce a habit of dissimulation,
which, like all other habits, is confirmed by use, till at length
they become adepts in the art and science of hypocrisy.
Enthusiasm and hypocrisy are by no means incompatible. The
wildest fanatics I ever knew, were real sensualists in their way
of living, and cunning cheats in their dealings with mankind.
Among the lower class of people at Boulogne, those who take the
lead, are the sea-faring men, who live in one quarter, divided
into classes, and registered for the service of the king. They
are hardy and raw-boned, exercise the trade of fishermen and
boatmen, and propagate like rabbits. They have put themselves
under the protection of a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary,
which is kept in one of their churches, and every year carried in
procession. According to the legend, this image was carried off,
with other pillage, by the English, when they took Boulogne, in
the reign of Henry VIII. The lady, rather than reside in England,
where she found a great many heretics, trusted herself alone in
an open boat, and crossed the sea to the road of Boulogne, where
she was seen waiting for a pilot. Accordingly a boat put off to
her assistance, and brought her safe into the harbour: since
which time she has continued to patronize the watermen of
Boulogne. At present she is very black and very ugly, besides
being cruelly mutilated in different parts of her body, which I
suppose have been amputated, and converted into tobacco-stoppers;
but once a year she is dressed in very rich attire, and carried
in procession, with a silver boat, provided at the expence of the
sailors. That vanity which characterises the French extends even
to the canaille. The lowest creature among them is sure to have
her ear-rings and golden cross hanging about her neck. Indeed
this last is an implement of superstition as well as of dress,
without which no female appears. The common people here, as in
all countries where they live poorly and dirtily, are hard-featured,
and of very brown, or rather tawny complexions. As they
seldom eat meat, their juices are destitute of that animal oil
which gives a plumpness and smoothness to the skin, and defends
those fine capillaries from the injuries of the weather, which
would otherwise coalesce, or be shrunk up, so as to impede the
circulation on the external surface of the body. As for the dirt,
it undoubtedly blocks up the pores of the skin, and disorders the
perspiration; consequently must contribute to the scurvy, itch,
and other cutaneous distempers.
In the quarter of the matelots at Boulogne. there is a number of
poor Canadians, who were removed from the island of St. John, in
the gulph of St. Laurence. when it was reduced by the English.
These people are maintained at the expence of the king, who
allows them soldier's pay, that is five sols, or two-pence
halfpenny a day; or rather three sols and ammunition bread. How
the soldiers contrive to subsist upon this wretched allowance, I
cannot comprehend: but, it must be owned, that those invalids who
do duty at Boulogne betray no marks of want. They are hale and
stout, neatly and decently cloathed, and on the whole look better
than the pensioners of Chelsea.
About three weeks ago I was favoured with a visit by one Mr. M - ,
an English gentleman, who seems far gone in a consumption. He
passed the last winter at Nismes in Languedoc, and found himself
much better in the beginning of summer, when he embarked at
Cette, and returned by sea to England. He soon relapsed, however,
and (as he imagines) in consequence of a cold caught at sea. He
told me, his intention was to try the South again, and even to go
as far as Italy. I advised him to make trial of the air of Nice,
where I myself proposed to reside. He seemed to relish my advice,
and proceeded towards Paris in his own carriage.
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