A Little Tour In France [96]
a railway journey is a good deal like a sea voyage; its miseries fade from the mind as soon as you arrive. That is why I completed, to my great satisfaction, my little tour in France. Let this small effusion of ill-nature be my first and last tribute to the whole despotic _gare_: the deadly _salle d'attente_, the insuffer- able delays over one's luggage, the porterless platform, the overcrowded and illiberal train. How many a time did I permit myself the secret reflection that it is in perfidious Albion that they order this matter best! How many a time did the eager British mer- cenary, clad in velveteen and clinging to the door of the carriage as it glides into the station, revisit my invidious dreams! The paternal porter and the re- sponsive hansom are among the best gifts of the Eng- lish genius to the world. I hasten to add, faithful to my habit (so insufferable to some of my friends) of ever and again readjusting the balance after I have given it an honest tip, that the bouillon at Lyons, which I spoke of above, was, though by no means an ideal bouillon, much better than any I could have obtained at an English railway station. After I had imbibed it, I sat in the train (which waited a long time at Lyons) and, by the light of one of the big lamps on the platform, read all sorts of disagreeable things in certain radical newspapers which I had bought at the book-stall. I gathered from these sheets that Lyons was in extreme commotion. The Rhone and the Saone, which form a girdle for the splendid town, were almost in the streets, as I could easily be- lieve from what I had seen of the country after leav- ing Orange. The Rhone, all the way to Lyons, had been in all sorts of places where it had no business to be, and matters were naturally not improved by its confluence with the charming and copious stream which, at Macon, is said once to have given such a happy opportunity to the egotism of the capital. A visitor from Paris (the anecdote is very old), being asked on the quay of that city whether he didn't ad- mire the Saone, replied good-naturedly that it was very pretty, but that in Paris they spelled it with the _ei_. This moment of general alarm at Lyons had been chosen by certain ingenious persons (I credit them, perhaps, with too sure a prevision of the rise of the rivers) for practising further upon the appre- hensions of the public. A bombshell filled with dynamite had been thrown into a cafe, and various votaries of the comparatively innocuous _petit verre_ had been wounded (I am not sure whether any one had been killed) by the irruption. Of course there had been arrests and incarcerations, and the "Intransi- geant" and the "Rappel" were filled with the echoes of the explosion. The tone of these organs is rarely edifying, and it had never been less so than on this occasion. I wondered, as I looked through them, whether I was losing all my radicalism; and then I wondered whether, after all, I had any to lose. Even in so long await as that tiresome delay at Lyons I failed to settle the question, any more than I made up my mind as to the probable future of the militant democracy, or the ultimate form of a civilization which should have blown up everything else. A few days later, the waters went down it Lyons; but the de- mocracy has not gone down.
I remember vividly the remainder of that evening which I spent at Macon, - remember it with a chatter- ing of the teeth. I know not what had got into the place; the temperature, for the last day of October, was eccentric and incredible. These epithets may also be applied to the hotel itself, - an extraordinary structure, all facade, which exposes an uncovered rear to the gaze of nature. There is a demonstrative, voluble landlady, who is of course part of the facade; but everything behind her is a trap for the winds, with chambers, corridors, staircases, all exhibited to the sky, as if the outer wall of the house had been lifted off. It would have been delightful for Florida, but it didn't do for Burgundy, even on the eve of November 1st, so that I suffered
I remember vividly the remainder of that evening which I spent at Macon, - remember it with a chatter- ing of the teeth. I know not what had got into the place; the temperature, for the last day of October, was eccentric and incredible. These epithets may also be applied to the hotel itself, - an extraordinary structure, all facade, which exposes an uncovered rear to the gaze of nature. There is a demonstrative, voluble landlady, who is of course part of the facade; but everything behind her is a trap for the winds, with chambers, corridors, staircases, all exhibited to the sky, as if the outer wall of the house had been lifted off. It would have been delightful for Florida, but it didn't do for Burgundy, even on the eve of November 1st, so that I suffered