Part 3

_May 7th._[14]--Soon after breakfast we set out in a carriage to go to the Jardin des Plantes. We crossed the Seine by the Pont Royal; the river is dirty and muddy, the water is so green that it cannot be drunk without being filtered. On the bridge were several women clipping poodles, and the limonadiers, both men and women, were passing backwards and forwards with their castles full of lemonade or sorbets on their backs, their cocks by their sides, and their tin cups over their shoulders, crying as they went along, 'Voulez-vous boire, voulez-vous boire?' Some of them had larger things, a great deal ornamented. When we alighted at the entrance of the botanic garden several women crowded round us, begging us to buy a description of the menagerie. It was a very fine day. This charming garden was founded by Jean de la Brasse, physician to Louis XIII. At the entrance of the garden are several square enclosures. The first contains different kinds of soil and manure; in the second are specimens of hedges, fences, and ditches; there are likewise every different method of training fruit-trees, some like a cup, some like a pyramid, and two trees fastened together with a gate between them. In another enclosure are vegetables, and in another different kinds of fruit-trees and bowers. We then walked to the menagerie, near which are some very fine Judas trees which were covered with lilac flowers. The wild beasts' dens were very large and kept remarkably clean. There were several lions, tigers, panthers, hyenas, wolves and bears; but what pleased me most was a dog in the den with one of the lions. One very fierce-looking black bear was rearing up against the bars. The bears were formerly kept in sunken enclosures, but since an accident happened they have been confined with the other wild beasts.[15] At the end of the menagerie is the aviary, the bars of which were so close that we could hardly see into it; there did not seem many rare birds, but plenty of monkeys were skipping about. Some distance off this is the house for the elephant: it is a large-looking building near a pond, the whole enclosed by a railing. The elephant was plunging about and enjoying the water while its keeper was rubbing it with a wet broom. In several enclosures were antelopes, deer, elks, and different kinds of sheep. They were so tame as to come up to the railings and take pieces of bread out of the people's hands. In one enclosure were different kinds of fowls, storks, and an ostrich, and a Botany Bay bird of immense height. There were also two old camels, and two young ones. There were some curious long-eared goats, which were very tame. In the pit, where the bears were formerly, are now some wild boars, and several young ones. The botanic garden consists of more than seven thousand plants, every one of which is labelled, and the beds are divided by little hedges of box. A piece of water, supplied from the Seine, is appropriated to the aquatic plants. We did not look into the greenhouses or hothouses: several of the plants were ranged out of doors. After we had passed these we ascended by a path an artificial hill at the top of which is a kind of temple: from this we had a view of the greater part of Paris. The Museum of Natural History is at the end of the garden opposite the entrance; it is open on Tuesday and Friday. We could not see it the day we were at the garden.

LOUVRE AND PALAIS ROYAL

_May 8th._--As we had taken a house at Passy, the servants and trunks went there: but we staid till the afternoon that we might see the Gallery of the Louvre and as much of Paris as we could. In the first saloon of this museum are the earliest works of the French and Italian artists. In the next the celebrated battle-pieces of Le Brun. We then entered the great gallery, which appears to have no end; this magnificent apartment is fourteen hundred feet in length. The ceiling is particularly pretty. I was very much disappointed in the pictures; there were such a number that I could hardly distinguish them. The Déluge by Poussin is very sublime. I also admired the St. Michael vanquishing Satan. The inside of a kitchen, and another painting in which there is a lamp, are very natural. There is a picture of some dogs, and another of some game, both of which I liked. A basket of fruit and some butterflies is also very pretty.

From the Louvre we went to the Palais Royal. It was begun by Cardinal Richelieu in 1629, and completed in 1636. It was converted by the Duke of Orleans into a bazaar: the front towards the street of St. Honoré was built by him after the destruction of the Opera House. It presents two pavilions adorned with columns. After passing under a portico we entered a square. In the centre is a garden interspersed by young trees and encircled by lattice work; in the middle of the garden is a _jet d'eau_, which cools the air very much. Round the square are beautiful little shops; the prettiest are the jewellers'. In the windows were a great many ornaments of mother-of-pearl, harps, dogs, men, carts, etc. The china-shops are very pretty also. One very pretty ornament was a gold boy with a china cup on his back and a dog holding a stick in its mouth, at each end of which was a glass for ink; there were bead-necklaces, smelling-bottles, and every kind of thing. When we returned we went immediately to Passy. This village was about a mile from Paris. When we arrived at our house in the Rue Basse, we found all hands busily employed in cleaning. It was a large house, but dirty from top to bottom. It had been occupied for a year by an English family who had been abroad for three years; their housekeeper and lady's-maid were English, and disliked being in France so much that they sat in their own rooms and left the management of the house entirely to the foreign servants. There was a courier who bought and managed for the family. The consequence was that we found the house in the greatest confusion. The kitchen was like a pig-sty, and the rooms were very dirty and untidy. There were backs of books, old bottles, and all kinds of litters lying about. There was a German housemaid who was to stay on in the house with us, and she and our servants did little that day but clean. Though we were all anxious to come to a house, I began to think I would sooner have stayed where we were than come here. When we went to bed we expected at least to be at rest, instead of which the beds were so full of bugs that we were bit all over.

PASSY

_May 9th._--We got up pretty early, glad enough to leave our dirty, disagreeable beds. The servants began to clean the kitchen, but the smell was so bad that it made them sick; they therefore got two men in to clean it; and when they came to the pipe that carried away the dirt, they were also unable to proceed till they got a glass of brandy. The oven was an inch thick with dirt; when it was a little cleaned they discovered a looking-glass at the back of the oven. All the egg-shells, stalks of vegetables, etc., had been thrown under the charcoal fires; the rolling-pin was covered with dirt. Indeed, a dirtier place could not have been imagined. The meat chopper was also an inch thick of dirt. The cellar was overrun with lizards, and the closets with ants, etc. It was rather more agreeable out of doors. The front of the house was turned from the street, and before it were two terraces, one above the other, which were covered with vines, and at the end were some fine Judas trees. From the terrace we had a view of the Seine and Paris. The weather was fine, but we none of us were in a humour to enjoy this view. The porter that lived at the end of the terrace had a little boy of five or six years old. François was a nice boy, but, like most of the French children, rather forward. We walked through the village as far as the Bois de Boulogne. There are streets in Passy like a town, but very few shops; the people who live there get all their things from Paris. We picked up several cantheræ.

_May 10th._--We now found the dirt so intolerable that mamma determined to speak to Madame Gautier, the lady from whom we had taken the house. She said that she would have the house cleaned and painted; but that if we wished to leave it, not to consider that any agreement had been made. (Our house had been taken for a year.) On hearing this papa went immediately to Versailles to look after a house; when he returned he told us that he had taken one, to which we were to go next day. We went to bed in rather better spirits, comforting ourselves that it was the last night we should sleep here.

_May 11 th._--This morning we were busy packing and settling our things. We were rather at a loss about some clothes which we had at the wash, not knowing how we could get them. The porter, however, told us that we might be easy, as he knew a coachman who passed constantly by the door, with whom he would send the things. That we might be sure, we again asked him if he was certain of being able to send the things; but he repeated his answer so often that we had not the least doubt of his being as good as his promise. Soon after breakfast we set off in a cabriolet, which is rather a curious conveyance, but very roomy. It has two seats, one before the other, and it opens in front where the man sits. It jogged very much going downhill. There is only one horse. The man drove so close behind the cabriolet in which the servants were that we could not see anything; on asking him to go to one side he went straight before. Presently he stopped and took up another man, which they call a 'lapin,' and they chatted and laughed all the way, frequently stopping to get little glasses of brandy, as all the French drivers do. They stopt for a long while at a post-house, where the men got some bread out of a bin in the corner, and some wine. The people at the inn brought us out a few little cakes, for which they afterwards charged several francs. It was about the middle of the day when we got to Versailles.

It is a nice-looking town. There are three avenues up the middle. The soldiers were exercising in the Avenue de Sceaux when we passed; they exercised there several times a week. We used to like to hear their music, but they spoilt it with drumming. Our house was near the end of the Avenue de Sceaux, No. 6. Before the door was what they called 'Deux jolis jardins,' which turned out to be a small garden with a walk, and two hedges up the middle which divided it. We had not the upper story of the house. We paid 300 francs a month. The rooms were all round a court, so that one had to pass from one room to get to another. The drawing-room was furnished quite after the French fashion: there was a round table with two large pieces of marble on it; another table supported by bronze sphinxes; a beautiful piece of furniture that had belonged to the palace, which contained fourteen secret drawers and several mirrors. But besides this there were two clocks, neither of which would go; linen curtains hung on common iron rods; common painted frames round the glasses. Instead of a carpet there was a very little shabby piece of green cloth; and no grate; and such fire-irons as you would not see in an English kitchen. The furniture was stamped blue cotton-velvet. On the floor of the dining-room there was a little ragged piece of old tapestry; this and the green cloth were the only pretensions to carpet in the house, so that what with the want of grates and the red stone floors, it looked very cold and comfortless. But that we did not much mind, as the heat was what we always dreaded. The locks of the doors hurt all our fingers, they were so stiff. After we had thoroughly looked through the house, we went out to walk through the town. The trees in the avenues are kept cut, which is very formal-looking. We passed before the King's stables. They are in the form of a half moon; before the court is a railing with gilt tops. The great and the little stable are separated by the Avenue de Paris. Nearly opposite is the palace. Higher up the avenue, on the side of the Grande Ecurie, is the kennel. It looks pretty, and I think very large for a dog-kennel; it was, however, found too small. After walking as far as the Place d'Armes (which separates the old from the new town) we returned, and spent the evening in condoling with one another.

VERSAILLES PALACE

_May 12th._--We went this day to see the palace and the gardens. When one looks at it, from the side next Paris, one might fancy it was a town of itself, there seem so many different buildings. As you go up to it there are some curious-looking buildings in imitation of tents. The iron railing that separates the palace from the Place d'Armes is very much ornamented and gilt, and on each side there is a group of gilt figures. After passing by the chapel we entered the park. On this side the palace is 1800 feet long, and from its great length looks rather low. The park of Versailles is divided into the great and the little park, which united form a circuit of sixty miles. The great park includes several villages. The little park includes the gardens, the groves, the pieces of water, etc. There are several entrances. The principal one is by the arcades of the palace. When one stands in the middle of the terrace one sees the Basin of Latona, the Tapis-vert, Apollo's Bath, and the canal at the right, the parterre of the north, and Neptune's Bath; and at the left the parterre of flowers, the orangery, and the _pièce d'eau des Suisses_. The whole garden seems almost composed of statues and vases. The vases are, I think, the most beautiful things in the garden; they are mostly of white marble (a few are of bronze), and covered with the most beautiful carving; some are very simple, having only a border round them, and others are covered with figures, sunflowers, or vines. There are also a great many basins of water. The finest is Neptune's Bath. It is a large piece of water surrounded by twenty-two vases. There are several groups of figures: the principal one in the front is Neptune and Amphitrite seated in a large shell, and surrounded by tritons and naiads. Apollo's Bath is another very fine one. Apollo is represented in his car drawn by four horses, and surrounded by sea-monsters. Latona's basin is as curious as any: in the middle, on several steps of red marble, are Latona and her children, and around them, on the steps, are seventy-four frogs, which represent the Lybian peasants metamorphosed by Jupiter on the complaint made to him by Latona. Some of them seem half frogs and half men. Besides these there are a great many smaller basins. There is one basin which seems gone to decay. In it is represented the giant Enceladus crushed under the ruins of Mount Olympus, and a number of groups of bronze children supporting basins. Around many of them are parterres of flowers.

The Tapis-vert is a long piece of grass, at each side of which are numerous vases and statues. In the evening, before sunset, this is the favourite promenade, and is quite crowded by all ranks of people. It is a favourite game to try and walk down this green blindfold. The canal is at the bottom of the Tapis-vert, below Apollo's Bath. It is very long, but not very pretty, as it does not finish with anything; it is crossed by another canal, which conducts to the Trianon.

There are a great many long avenues and squares, several of which are closed. The avenues looked suitable to the rest of the garden, but _very_ formal. There are also rows of yew-trees cut into every kind of formal shape, which spoils the look of the gardens very much. The prettiest part of the garden is Hartwell, or the King's garden, which is made in imitation of the place where he resided when in England. It is very like an English garden. In the middle is a column of very pretty marble, with a small figure of Flora at the top. This garden is railed in, but is open every evening for people to walk in. I was very much disappointed in the orangery: it is lower than the rest of the garden. Most of the orange-trees were standing out, but there is a gallery to put them in. There is a basin of water in the middle of the orangery, and borders of flowers all round. There are immense numbers of orange, lemon, citron, laurel, and pomegranate trees:--the oldest orange-tree is said to be five hundred years old; but they are by no means pretty; they are all in large tubs; and instead of the branches being allowed to spread, they are all cut like box, which make them look still more formal. Even the flowers in the borders of the orangery are planted alternately yellow and white. The blossoms of the oranges are sold. From the orangery we had a view of the Etang Suisse; it looks like a dirty pond on a common. The whole garden is open to every person till nine o'clock, when a drum beats. At the entrance there is a list of rules: no dogs are to be brought in unless tied with a string; and nobody is to fish in the ponds, or to touch the statues or flowers. Notwithstanding, however, these prohibitions, I have counted seven or eight dogs at one time running over the flower-borders, and boys climbing on the beautiful vases, or fishing for gold and silver fish, of which there are a great many, particularly in Apollo's Bath. As we returned through the court, several very ugly old women pressed round us and asked whether we would like to see the apartments of the palace, but we thought it was better to defer this till another day.

_May 13th._--I was very much surprised to see here, as well as at Paris, not the least regard paid to Sunday. All the shops were open, houses were building, and people sitting working at their doors, seeming more industrious this day than any other; even the tradespeople made a point of bringing their things on a Sunday. The English clergyman was a Mr. Beaver. At church we saw several people that we had formerly seen at Clifton and Bath; it was quite full of English.

JACK

_May 14th._--About this time a little circumstance happened which shows the French inconsistency. We wanted a jack put up in the kitchen. The mason and his boy came first, but not finding the blacksmith there, they went away; then came the blacksmith and his boy, but not finding the mason, they went away. After going on in this way for some time, they at last all met. The mason then took out of a paper bag some delicate-looking white powder, which, after mixing into a paste, he layed with great care on to a fine silver trowel, and then proceeded to dab it on to the wall with his fingers.

_May 15th._--We now began to be rather surprised that the clothes we had left at Passy, and which the porter said he would send directly, had not arrived. Stephens, our foreign courier, who spoke English, was therefore despatched to bring them. We afterwards found that, so far from knowing a person to send them by, the porter had consulted with Stephens and asked him if he knew of any person; so that we might have waited long for our clothes if we had trusted to the porter's word. The French are very fond of making promises, but not quite so fond of performing them; this we found to be the case with our house: one of our beds broke down several times; some rooms wanted tables, some jugs, some carpets, and all window-curtains--so that you could see across the yard from one room to another; they found it very easy to promise all these things, but we waited many a week before we got one. The English family above us had one baby of a few months old, called Angelica Ellen, which we were very fond of nursing. The lady was so ill as not to be able to attend to it, and seemed to leave it entirely to the care of a French nurse, who attended to it very badly. She would take it out in the rain, or give it to anybody in the street to hold, while she played at hide-and-seek with the old porter and his wife, who looked to be above seventy; she one day let it fall into the fire and burnt all its poor little hands. There is a porter to all the French houses. Our porter's wife took care of children: we sometimes used to get her in to clean the pans, etc.; then the nurse used to come in also to chat with her and meddle with the things in the kitchen.

TRIANONS

_May 19th._--This day was, for a rarity, very warm. We saw in the garden a swallow-tail butterfly and some small red moths, which were almost the only kinds I saw in France. I never saw anywhere so few butterflies: we thought it quite a treat to see a single white one. There was the same scarcity of birds; and, notwithstanding the quantity of wood in the gardens, we hardly heard one. In the middle of the day we walked to the Trianons. The Grand Trianon is situated at the extremity of one of the branches of the canal. We went to it from the palace garden along a hayfield, near which we sometimes saw the soldiers playing at ninepins. Near the Trianons were some tall lombardy poplars and some very pretty acacias. At the gate were a great many soldiers. An avenue leads up to the little Trianon, which, though it is called a palace, is not larger than a small private house. The Grand Trianon is very pretty, but looks small after the other great palace: it is adorned with eight green marble, and fourteen red marble pillars. We this day saw neither the inside nor the gardens, but merely passed by it. Lower down was a pond near which some sheep were feeding, which, with the wood of the forest, formed a pretty scene. We returned through part of the forest, and home through the gardens. As we were going along one of the walks we saw a great many people running, and on enquiring the reason we were told it was to see the Duchesse d'Angoulême: we saw her go into one of the walks which were closed, and afterwards pass through the Orangerie. She was on horseback; there were some ladies and gentlemen beside her, and other attendants behind. She was dressed in a dark habit; her eyes were red, as if she had been crying, and she was not good-looking. We saw her two or three times afterwards, when she came to visit a college for educating priests to send over the country, and which was very near our house. We often saw scores of students going a-walking in their long black gowns tucked up through the pocket-hole. They were in general very vulgar and ungentlemanly-looking. The people did not seem to pay them much respect, as the porter's wife and the nurse pointed, and then burst out a-laughing when they passed. There were above three hundred at the college.

BALL

_May 17th._--There was this day a ball given at the palace in honour of the Duke of Bordeaux's baptism. Mamma did not go, as Mrs. Murray, the only person she knew there, could not go on account of the death of a friend. They said the supper was to be very splendid. We went to a _pâtissier_ to see some of the ornaments. There were very few, and those were not very pretty: one of the best was the arms of France, made of cake and ornamented with coloured paste. They told us that there were no more ornaments for supper than what we saw; but there must have been more, as we saw people carrying several out of the shop into another room: what we saw were merely a few in the windows. In the evening we walked towards the palace to see the illuminations. Beside the gate and across the court were pieces of iron this shape