A Year of Consolation

A YEAR OF CONSOLA TION. BY MRS • .B.UTLER, • UTa ,."'..., K.OLR. Df TWO VOLVMEt!. VOL I. NEW YORK: WILEY .. PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY. 1847. Digitized by Google d .. ./.1 "'?"b..: '/' ~q .'fL""",, of IiI., "UR.:J i: .t.,b' leoa (~1rJ T. a .••ITR, 8T&R&OTTP&a, !lUI WILLI... ITIL_n. Digitized by Google TO EDW ARD SARTORIS, ESQ., 'l'lU8 BOOl!: DBAx EDWARD, . A YEAR'S experience and observation of your fine taste and critical judgment would hardly have encouraged me to place your name on the title-page of my book; but a sojourn of that length under the shelter of your roof has enabled me to appeal, with perfect confidence, to your kindness and indulgence. • To them, and the affectionate and generous interest you have ever shown me, I venture to offer, as a most inadequate token of gratitude, this record of the happy year I spent in Italy. FANNY. 1.o1OlOl'I', .Il1ril, 1847. Digitized by Google A YEAR OF CONSOLATION Saturday, 20th December.-Left Southampton per steamboat, for Havre, at ten. o'clock at night-the weather clear over head, but blowing very hard-horrible little boat-where, objecting to lie close to two old women, the only empty berths were, one into which the water forced itself, or one in close proximity to the boiler-in the l&:tter I slept. The gale increased to a perfect hurricane: luckily it was in the stem of the ship; but what with it and the thumping of the water, pursuing and overtaking the little steamboat, I thought its poop would be driven in. I have crossed the Atlantic six times, and have never spent a more terrible night at sea. Came to the bar by eight o'clock in the morning, but the tide was out-the inner harbor without suffi. cient water to admit us; we therefore lay till twelve o'clock, beaten by a furious wind and frothing angry sea, as sick as possible, and a great deal crosser. The landing, custom.h~use, &c., all went smoothly enough, to the great delight of my inexperience, which had imagined to itself all manner of horrors. Put up at the Hotel de I' AmirauttS-like an old French noble bouse-the great quaint room, with its grey boi.terie-innume. rable doors of communication, and bed· rooms and dressing.rooms running into each other in most ingenious intricacy. With a roaring wood fire, and, pulling the chilly furniture all round it, it got. to look quite comfortable, but the doors, and oupboards, 2 Digitized by Google A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. and exits, and entrances, confound me-the place looks made for playing at hide and see~ an one.'s life. The charges high, the people civil, and the house co~ fortable enough. Horrible day,-rainy aud cold,-the sea, over which our window looks, yellow, bilious-looking, and full of foaming ridges as far as eye can reach, the wind howling over it, and shaking up the loose carpets on the brick floors under our feet, from the great gaps below the shrunken doors. To-morrow towards Rome. MMIilay, 22d.-It is a very great blessing to have a comfort able maid, and the next blessing to that is to have an entertaining one-to expect both would be unreasonable, for the creature, maid, cannot by possibility be both useful and amusing. This morning, as I looked at the pale golden bars of light in the east, flecked with dark copper-colored clouds that gradually grew dusky red as the great fire of the day kindled behind them, and exclaimed, "How beautiful!" , with her innocent mouth wide open, and her grey lack-lustre eyes steadily fixed upon the glowing splendor, said, in a tone of philosophic sugges tion, "I suppose the sun is going to come up somewhere about there." I suggested the moon, or a great fire, but, with a smile infinitely more stupid than her seriousness even, she said, "No, she knew better than that!" What a delicious thing pure niaiaerie is! Shakspeare has done it like everything else better than anyone else-the clown in Antony and Cleopatra, Audrey, Sir Andrew Aguecheek-jewels of the first water all of them. In spite of my agonized entreaties to be allowed to get oft' in time, having still.my passport to obtain, the cool and easy people of the house kept me waiting for a coach any length of time, assuring me with all their hideous shrugs and hateful grimaces that I had plenty of time. To the Police-office I went for this indispensable pass; it was past the offiQe hours, but the func tionary had not arrived, and when he did, he leisurely first took Digitized by Google ROUTE TO ROtYEN. • off his hat and drew OD a wann fur cap, then stripped off his coat, edifying us with his shirt·sleeves the while, and transferred him. self to some more easy working jacket; and finally having, I sincerely hope, made himself quite comfortable, turned his attention to our business; He merely returned my own passport,' bidding me walk into another room and get· the ptUH prorJi8oire. The other room; though long after office hours, was not yet open, and nobody had arrived to attend to Me8Iieur.lu ~•• I stood perplexed; the Diligence in which our places were taken started at half.past nine. I was afraid I should lose them ; the little gatrrin au B41JTe, who had thought fit to stick to me as my Cicerone through this intricate passage of my life, assured me I could gO perfectly well without further ceremonies; but remem. bering· my tather'sinjunctions about always having my passport en regie, with the fear of the gemtlarme8, the CumfIIi88tlire U Police, a march under military escort through the streets, and the eventual prison Mr. Murray so obligingly hints at, I rushed back into the den of the comfortable gentleman, and asked hir& if I really could proceed without having the necessary alteration made in my passport, to which he very cheerfully replied,- " Mais puisque ces messieurs ne sont pas I&., je crois que YOU8 n'en mouITeZ pas,"-whereupon; with a blessing on their lOose business habits, I departed. We got into our coupl, and so off to Rouen. Before we were well out of Havre, a heavy snow·storm came OB, and the horses of our grotesque equipage were the only part of the prospect which the blinding storm left visible. As, however, I had never travelled by diligence before, they furnished me with abundant amusement-the variety of their equipment, size, and gait-the obstinate little trot of some, and the unprevailing· frantic canter of othem; especially did I admire the ingenious twisting up m their taillt, which, with an eye to. my own back hair, .. Bieken.· callsr it, I should like mightily to have the reoi~. fbr, Digitized by Google , A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. because they all held up without any combs. At one pretty steep hill we had an addition of another horse, and thus went with seven,-four, and three abreast. At the hill of La Valette, which is both long and steep, we took an addition of three horses, and thus, with three file of three, proceeded to climb the ascent, a postilion having mounted the near horse of the first file. It 80 happened, however, that the middle horse of this rank had an invincible repugnance to move, the consequence of which was, that the second and third rank came close upon the haunches of the first, and a scene of most ludicrous confusion ensued; the insane postilion exhausting himself in blows, oaths, and kicks,· ineffectually. The conductev,r having come down (from heaven, as it appeared), applied an equal amount of oaths on the opposite side, and as many cuts with a whip as could be brought to bear upon the obdurate middle-man under the bellies and over the backs of his companions, whose liveliness increasing wonderfully by this process, while his steadfastness remained unmoved, I expected to see them and the diligence finally go bodily over the consistent quadruped. Suddenly the postilion pulled up his blue blouse, snatched a knife out of his pocket, and opening it very emphatically, stabbed his horse twice. Whether this pro cess was medicinal or moral I know not--our exceedingly efficient first file was then marched off, and by dint of their departure, we achieved the ascent. The .railroad crosses a deep valley just here by a very lofty viaduct of many arches, through which the landscape, even at this season, and veiled in the cheerless covering of the new-fallen snow, looked picturesque and pretty enough to make one wiHh one had seen it in spring under the rosy mantle of its apple-blossoms. Nothing can be Batter or duller than our route-through vast uninclosed fields, at this season bare and dreary in the extreme, and varied only by little inclosures, like mock fortifioations, con. ai&ting of an embankment three or four feet high, planted with Digitized by Google stiff trees, which curtain and conceal the dwellings of IUch of the inhabitants as are not congregated in the villages we passed through. Descending a steep hill into the suburbs of Rouen, one of our wheel-horses fell; no notice, however, was taken of the accident, and-the carriage coming rapidly upon the poor brate -he regained his legs, as a meaSure of personal safety, and no one but himself was the wiser. I think, generally, the French are more brutal in the treatment of their animals than we are; perhaps, however, the noisr demonstrations with which they accompany everything they do, make them seem more ferocious than our quieter people.

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