After dinner H. and the two Misses C. rode out to the Bois de
Boulogne, the fashionable drive of Paris.
We saw all the splendid turnouts, and all the _not_ splendid. Our
horse was noted for the springhalt. It is well to have something to
attract attention about one, you know.
Sabbath, June 19. After breakfast went with Miss W. to the temple St.
Marie, to hear Adolphe Monod. Was able to understand him very well.
Gained a new idea of the capabilities of the French language as the
vehicle of religious thought and experience. I had thought that it was
a language incapable of being made to express the Hebrew mind and
feeling of Scripture. I think differently. The language of Canaan can
make its way through all languages, and in the French it has a pathos,
point, and simplicity which are wonderful. There were thoughts in the
sermon which I shall never forget. I feel myself highly rewarded for
going.
The congregation was as large as the church could possibly hold, and
composed of very interesting and intelligent-looking people. His
subject was, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth
willingly, and without upbraiding," &c. It was most touchingly adapted
to the wants of the unhappy French, and of all poor sinners; and it
came home to me in particular, as if it had been addressed to me
singly, so that I could not help crying.
The afternoon and evening spent at home, reading. H. went in the
morning with Madame de T. to the Catholic service, at the church St.
Germaine l'Auxerrois, and her companion pointed out the different
parts of the service.
H. said she was moved with compassion towards these multitudes, who
seem so very earnest and solemn. Their prayer books contain much that
is excellent, if it was not mixed with so much that is idolatrous.
Monday, June 20. Went to have our passport _vised_. The sky was
black, and the rain pouring in torrents. As I reached the quay the
Seine was rushing dark, and turbidly foaming. I crept into a fiacre,
and was amused, as we rattled on, to see the plight of gay and
glittering Paris. One poor organ grinder, on the Pont National, sat
with his umbrella over his head, and his body behind the parapet,
grinding away, in the howling storm. It was the best use for a hand
organ I ever saw. The gardens of the Tuileries presented a sorry
sight. The sentries slunk within their boxes. The chairs were stacked
and laid on their sides. The paths were flooded; and the classic
statues looked as though they had a dismal time of it, in the general
shower bath.
My passport went through the office of the American embassy,
prefecture of the police, and the _bureau des affaires etrangeres_,
and the Swiss legation, and we were all right for the frontier.
Our fair hostesses are all Alpine mountaineers, posted up in mountain
lore. They make you look blank one moment with horror at some escape
of theirs from being dashed down a precipice; the next they run you a
rig indeed over the Righi; anon you shamble through Chamounix, and
break your neck over the Col-de-balme, and, before you are aware, are
among the lacking at Interlachen.
Wednesday, June 22. Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons sur Saone! After
affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we were
rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails,
through Burgundy that was; I reading to H. out of Dumas'
_Impressions de Voyage_, going over our very route. We arrived at
Chalons at nine in the evening, and were soon established in the Hotel
du Park, in two small, brick-floored chambers, looking out upon the
steamboat landing.
Thursday, 23. Eight o'clock A. M. Since five we have had a fine bustle
on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers, shaped, for
all the world, like our last night's rolls. One would think Ichabod
Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the water.
They ought to be swift. _L'Hirondelle_ (the Swallow) flew at
five; another at six. We leave at nine.
Eleven o'clock. Here we go, down the Saone. Cabin thirty feet by ten,
papered and varnished in invitation of maple. Ladies knitting,
netting, nodding, napping; gentlemen yawning, snoring; children
frolicking; dogs whining. Overhead a constant tramping, stamping, and
screeching of the steam valve. H. suggests an excursion forward. We
heave up from Hades, and cautiously thread the crowded _Al Sirat_
of a deck. The day is fine; the air is filled with golden beams.
More and more beautiful grows the scene as we approach the Rhone - the
river broader, hills more commanding, and architecture tinged with the
Italian. Bradshaw says it equals the Rhine.
At Lyons there was a scene of indescribable confusion. Out of the hold
a man with a rope and hook was hauling baggage up a smooth board.
Three hundred people were sorting their goods without checks. Porters
were shouldering immense loads, four or five heavy trunks at once,
corded together, and stalking off Atlantean. Hatboxes, bandboxes, and
valises burst like a meteoric shower out of a crater. "_A moi, a
moi!_" was the cry, from old men, young women, soldiers,
shopkeepers, and _pretres_, scuffling and shoving together.
Careless at once of grammar and of grace, I pulled and shouted with
the best, till at length our plunder was caught, corded and poised on
an herculean neck. We followed in the wake, H. trembling lest the cord
should break, and we experience a pre-Alpine avalanche. At length,
however, we breathed more freely in rooms _au quatrieme of Hotel de
l'Univers_.
After dinner we drove to the cathedral. It was St. John's eve. "At
twelve o'clock to-night," said H., "the spirits of all who are to die
this year will appear to any who will go alone into the dark cathedral
and summon them"! We were charmed with the interior.
