After A Pleasing Description Of Grasse, "Famous For Its Pomatum,
Gloves, Wash-Balls, Perfumes, And Toilette Boxes Lined With
Bergamot," The Homeward Traveller Crossed The French Frontier At
Antibes, And In Letter XXXIX At Marseille, He Compares The Galley
Slaves Of France With Those Of Savoy.
At Bath where he had gone
to set up a practice, Smollett once astonished the faculty by
"proving" in a pamphlet that the therapeutic properties of
the waters had been prodigiously exaggerated.
So, now, in the
south of France he did not hesitate to pronounce solemnly that
"all fermented liquors are pernicious to the human constitution."
Elsewhere he comments upon the immeasurable appetite of the
French for bread. The Frenchman will recall the story of the
peasant-persecuting baron whom Louis XII. provided with a
luxurious feast, which the lack of bread made uneatable; he may
not have heard a story told me in Liege at the Hotel Charlemagne
of the Belgian who sought to conciliate his French neighbour by
remarking, "Je vois que vous etes Français, monsieur, parceque
vous mangez beaucoup de pain," and the Frenchman's retort, "Je
vois que vous etes lye monsieur, parceque vous mangez beaucoup
de tout!" From Frejus
Smollett proceeds to Toulon, repeating the old epigram that "the
king of France is greater at Toulon than at Versailles." The
weather is so pleasant that the travellers enjoy a continual
concert of "nightingales" from Vienne to Fontainebleau. The
"douche" of Aix-les-Bains having been explained, Smollett and his
party proceeded agreeably to Avignon, where by one of the strange
coincidences of travel he met his old voiturier Joseph "so
embrowned by the sun that he might have passed for an Iroquois."
In spite of Joseph's testimonial the "plagues of posting" are
still in the ascendant, and Smollett is once more generous of
good advice.
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