After Waterloo: Reminiscences Of European Travel 1815-1819, By Major W. E Frye













































































































 -  A great deal of
flax from whence the oil is made, grows in the country.

I left Lille on the - Page 64
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A Great Deal Of Flax From Whence The Oil Is Made, Grows In The Country.

I left Lille on the morning of the 24th inst., with the courier for Amiens. From Amiens I took

The diligence to Beauvais and on arrival there I put up under the hospitable roof of my friend Major G., of the 18th Light Dragoons, lately made Lt.-Colonel for his gallantry at Waterloo.[42] I did not want for amusement here, for the next day a fete champetre was given just outside the walls of the town, and I admired the grace and tournure of the female peasantry and their good dancing. How much more creditable are these innocent and agreeable fetes to the fairs and meetings in England, which are generally signalized in drunkenness! The next afternoon presented a novel sight to the inhabitants of Beauvais, it being a grand cricket match played between the officers of the 10th and 18th Dragoons. It was won by the latter, mainly owing to the superior play of Colonel G. of the 18th, who never touched a bat since he was at Burney's school. The Officers afterwards dined al fresco and many toasts accompanied by the huzzas were given, to the astonishment of the bystanders, who seemed to consider us as little better than barbarians. One of the officers wishing to pay a compliment to the inhabitants of Beauvais proposed the health of Louis XVIII, but they seemed to take it coldly and not at all to be flattered by the compliment.

After five days very agreeable residence at Beauvais, I put myself in the diligence to return to Paris. During the journey an ardent political altercation arose between a young lady, who appeared to be a warm partisan of Napoleon, on the one side, and a Garde du Corps on the other. The lady was seconded by a young gentleman, of whom it was difficult to say, whether he sustained her argument from a dislike to the present order of things, or from a wish to ingratiate himself in her favour. The argument of the Garde du Corps was espoused, but soberly, by one of the passengers who was a mathematical professor at one of the Lyceums; he was not by any means an Ultra, but he supported the Bourbons, with moderate, gentlemanly and I therefore believe sincere attachment. This professor seemed a well informed sort of man; he told me that he was acquainted with Sir James M., formerly recorder at Bombay. On our arrival at the Bureau des Messageries, the whole company forgot their disputes and parted good friends; and the young man who was partisan of the young lady in the political dispute took care to inform himself of her abode in Paris.

* * * * *

Remarks on the various dramatic performances which I witnessed at Paris, with opinions on the French theatre in general.

In my ideas of dramatic works I am neither rigidly classic nor romantic, and I think both styles may be good if properly managed and the interest well kept up; in a word I am pleased with all genres hors le genre ennuyux,[43] and tho' a great admirer of Shakespeare and Schiller, I am equally so of Voltaire, Racine and Corneille; I take equal delight in the pathos of the sentimental dramas of Kotzebue as in the admirable satire and vis comica of the unrivalled Moliere, so that on my arrival at Paris I was not violently prejudiced either for or against the French stage, but rather pre-occupied, to use a gentler term, in its favour; and I have not been at all disappointed, for I think I can pronounce it with safety the first, perhaps the only stage in Europe.

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