1802 Rev. W. Hughes
Géricault Life
Map: Brion de la Tour, 1766 (detail) courtesy of David Rumsey Maps.
In 1803, one English critic concluded his brutal review of Rev. W. Hughes’ account of his 1802 visit to France with this observation: “…It is altogether a pert uninstructive performance: the style of it is very familiar and very vulgar.”
We can readily concede Hughes’ pungent vulgarity and clumsy style may offend the sensibilities of some – and at the same time believe strongly that the observations of Hughes are worth reading. Hughes has a keen eye for the ordinary – common people, animals, and agriculture – writing often about matters closely connected to Théodore Géricault’s life. This first extended excerpt of Hughes’ account includes his useful commentary on Dieppe, postilions*, travel, and Norman horses.
A Tour Through Several Departments of France
“… In order to form an opinion of the manners of a people, it is necessary that we reside amongst them: the character is ascertained by a variety of circumstances of which the hasty passenger can form no conception; and not unfrequently it happens, that as soon as he lands upon a foreign shore, he lifts up his hands in admiration, and is astonished at the inconceivable folly and absurdity of customs, which, ere he is six weeks older, he finds are the result of long experience and observation, and most expressly adapted to the circumstances of the people who adopt them; for this reason my journal is not to be considered as containing an exact account of every thing which occurs as it absolutely is, but as it appeared to me. I shall detail the occurences which took place, with the impressions made upon my mind, and leave it to experience to teach me how far my sensations were fastidious, and how far they were not.
June 15, at seven in the evening, about twenty of us took our stations in a little cock-boat, at Brighthelmstone; and, after an hour’s row, got safely shipped on board the Lark, bound to Dieppe. Many of us had never been to sea before, and, of course, our expectations of the storms and tempests, shipwrecks, and hair-breadth escapes, which always overtake us in our first voyage, ran very high. Happily, we passed the night without alarm; and, at break of day, found ourselves, to our very great mortification, just under the English shore still: the calm was perfect; it was impossible for invention itself to make a storm of it, or to extract a single circumstance from the occurences of the night, with which to fill the budget of gaping wonder; it being impossible to command the winds, we had nothing to do but to submit. About the close of the second evening, we found ourselves nearly half-seas over; and, with all the due reverence for the mandates of inevitable necessicity, we retired a second time to our cots – I had almost said to our coffins, for a ship’s bed and a coffin are nearly of the same size and construction. But, ere the sun was well risen (a sight which, by the bye, is glorious when viewed from the deck of calm weather) we were roused from our slumbers by the gabbling of the French pilots, whose sharp-sighted poverty had descried us, and were got along side; in a few moments, a meagre-faced, shrivelled old fellow, with a woollen night-cap on his head, and a short stinking pipe in his mouth, jumped on board, and seized the helm; had we been at Billingsgate the clamour would have been less. The tide had dropped ere we arrived upon the coast; of course we had nothing to do but to cast anchor; and, the wind freshening a little, it will be concluded that the motion of the ship became very acceptable to those who were already qualmish and incommoded by the length of the passage. However, we all contrived to leave the settling of our accounts to some future opportunity; and, at the appointed signal made for the Pier-head. It was impossible not to notice the awkwardness of the French seamen as they worked the vessel into the harbour; the pilot felt it, and the expression of his smoke-dried distorted visage, as often as they ran it aground, would have been amusing, had we not apprehended, from the agony which his features expressed, some real danger.
The first glance of the French coast presents us with nothing which is very interesting: the harbour of Dieppe is fine and well situated; in war, it generally fits out a great number of small privateers, which annoy the trade of the Channel; and was formerly, on this account, bombarded by the combined English and Dutch fleets, and completely demolished; the piers having been unhappily neglected during the convulsions of the revolution, are gone to decay; the channel is choked with sand and gravel, and it may be doubted whether it be possible to restore it to its pristine state.
The aspect of the town, as you approach it, is deplorable, though completely uniform in consequence of its comparative modern erection, and laid out in forms very superior to those commonly seen in France; yet, wretchedness is painted on every feature; the houses have, apparently, been untouched by the hand of repair from their primitive erection; their fronts are blackened by neglect, like a smelting house; the windows, which reach from the ceiling to the floor and are furnished with balconies of wrought-iron, once elegant, are generally garnished with old stockings, old shirts, night-caps, and children’s linen, and, in short, all the contents of the laundry; spiders, and vermin of a hundred sorts, have tenanted, undisturbed, every corner; and the accumulated filth of generations, long since mouldering in the dust, almost renders the glass impervious: in short the tout-ensemble is poverty in the extreme. To account for all this, we must look to a higher source than the revolution. It is, by no means, the effect of anything modern; it is the result of abuses which flourished under the Bourbons; but, for the oppressions of the ancient government, there is no reason to be assigned why an English port should bear the aspect of comfort, a French port the aspect of misery. Dieppe is, as we before said, well situated, its quays are excellent; its harbour is spacious; and many a port in England far inferior to it in accommodation; it carries on a trade which scatters blessings upon its inhabitants: but, on the one, liberty has planted its standard – the other crouches the victim of despotism. Since the peace, the solemn stillness which, for many a tedious year, had reigned in its customhouse, its docks, &c. has given place to bustle and activity.
The first English packet which came over was welcomed with shouts of joy; and the scarcity of corn which, in the earlier part of the year, prevailed over France, has brought to it fleets of English, Swedish, and Danish vessels, so that the port seems now to be tolerably occupied, and devoted to the purposes which nature contemplated in its formation; and, ere long, we may hope to see some taste for cleanliness introduced also; the furniture and floors of the houses disrobed of their accumulated coats of filth; and neatness, comfort, and propriety succeeding to squalid wretchedness. The pavement of the streets is execrable, and ill contrived; a Frenchman has not yet conceived the idea of a public sewer beneath the surface of the earth; one grand receptacle of filth is hollowed out along the midway of every avenue, with collateral branches to the right and left, connecting with the kitchen &c. of every house, if they have one (which is very seldom the case), of course, as you drive along, if you are in a French equipage, your joints are liable to dislocation every moment: if you are in your own, you are tossed about like a cock-boat upon a rolling sea, and may think yourself extremely fortunate if you escape through the barrier without a broken head, or fractured spring.
Of the public buildings and erections, I have little to say, being in too much haste to examine whether there were any worth attention or not. The promenade, on the ramparts, is beautiful; in the middle of the town there is a salt spring, possessing, I presume, the same diarhætic qualities with other springs of the same taste; other curiosities I believe there are none.
Having spent the afternoon and night at Dieppe, to recruit the fatigues of our voyage – on the 18th we pursued our journey towards Rouen, but in a mode which the pencil of Hogarth alone can describe: the post-horses being here farmed by the government, no one is permitted to furnish the traveller with relays but the constituted post-master. You must take, therefore, the horses and the harnesses which he is pleased to give you; and, as long as you are cantered along, at the rate of six miles an hour, without breaking your neck, it is supposed that all things are well, and you have no right to complain – in fact, you may as well be silent. The horses may be spavined, broken-winded, stumbling, lean as Rosinante, chaffed, and galled from head to tail, it matters not; with all this you have nothing to do. His business is not to humour your fastidiousness, but to get you to the end of the stage; and, this being accomplished, he, or rather his agent, holds up his hand for the “Argent,” which the government has authorized him to demand, though, it must be confessed, that the stranger has seldom reason to complain of the cattle; they are rough as savages, and all of the masculine gender; but they are alert, and drag him along with safety and with speed. With the Voiture the post-master has no concern, unless you have brought a carriage with you from England. The Aubugiste furnishes you with one himself, or procures one for you at the remise: of course your accommodation in this respect is, in some degree, proportioned to the price you are disposed to pay. I say in some degree; for no money can obtain for you an equipage, comparable in neatness and convenience, to an English peddler’s cart; take the most execrable of the Brentford stages, it is elegant; it is comfortable, compared to a French diligence; for this reason, no English family should think of travelling in France without taking over an old post-chaise with them: to introduce a good one upon the French roads would be a sin against common-sense, and only serve to poison the pleasures of the excursion. A Frenchman, from habit, can bear shocks and convulsions which would dislocate the vertebræ of a Sampson.
When you have fixed upon your vehicle, the passengers, the trunks, the wheels are all counted – size and weight are totally out of the question; had you Bright of Maldon, or an infant at the breast, for a fellow-traveller, you must have a horse for each; in short, you must pay for as many horses as you have passengers, whether in the carriage, behind it, or on the box, together with the prescribed number of postilions, if they attend you or not; all which is expressly stipulated in the ordonnances of the government. On the post-roads travellers have to pay twopence halfpenny per mile for each horse, and one penny farthing per mile to each postillion, who is forbidden to demand, or receive more, though tenpence is generally given; and, should he feel himself dissatisfied, insult, or give umbrage to the passenger, in any respect, there is to be found, at every post-house, a book, regularly paged and lined, which the post-master is compelled to produce on demand. In this book you enter your complaint, and the inspector-general, when he traverses the departments to superintend and regulate the affairs of his office, will not fail to punish an offence according to its degree; for this reason, and to preserve order and activity, he is enjoined never to quit his station without leaving a responsible substitute. And the postilion bears upon his arm a ticket similar to that carried by the Smithfield-drovers, specifying his own identity, and the relay to which he belongs. In general, travellers are compelled to take as many horses as they have companions and postilions, none of which can have more than three horses under their care; but, in cases where two-wheel carriages contain but two passengers, they may compromise the matter with the post-master, by paying for two horses and a half. At the barrier, this may be an object worth attention. Having arranged how many horses, how many postilions you are to pay for, at the appointed hour your voiture comes to your door – but such a cumbersome piece of antiquity as would, long since, have been consigned, on the English side of the water, to the galleries of the British museum, or to the flames.
Two parties of our fellow-passengers went off immediately after landing; the one in a Berlin, the other in a Cabriolet; and, though surrounded by hundreds of the natives, some gazing with curiosity, others tweaking our elbows, and, with weazand-distorted countenances, miserable marks of poverty, begging, “le noble capitaine,” and the “tres belle demoiselle pour l’amour de dieu,” to pity them; and, promising how ardently they would pray to the Virgin to bless us, it was impossible to refrain from laughter; by the bye, had a company of Frenchmen, fresh landed in Britain, presumed to treat its conveyances – or, in short, any thing English, with as little ceremony, John Bull would have growled like an angry bear, and, most probably, broken their heads, by the way of teaching them a proper deference for the manners and customs of foreign nations. At Dieppe, the Frenchmen joined in the laugh, and were as much amused with the grotesque contrivances of their countrymen as we. The Berlin is a large cumbersome German coach, constructed sometime about the commencement of the former century: within, it has accommodation for the usual number of passengers; and, in the front, i.e. betwixt the front-back and the horses, it has a seat for three others, with an awning knee-boot, and oil-case curtain, to preserve them from the inclemency of the weather – this is called the Cabriolet of the Berlin. On account of the narrowness of the streets in all the continental towns, this curious compound is crane-necked, and painted and varnished in a style which once was splendid.
The Cabriolet at a distance looks something like an English one horse-chaise, but infinitely clumsier. It is constructed wholly of heart of oak, and descends from father to son with the family estate if there be one. Its timbers are a line more slender than the corresponding timbers of a Yorkshire wagon, and its weight may probably be about half a ton: sometimes it is furnished with what are called springs, and there may be elasticity in them, but compared with them the springs of an English mail-coach, are flexible and tender. This is the vehicle most commonly resorted to by travellers in the country, and it is certainly well adapted to it. Nevertheless, its weight and clumsiness must unquestionably do infinitely more towards reducing it to its first principles than the villainous pavements over which it is rattled.
The harness perfectly corresponds with the voiture. The saddle bears some distant resemblance to the one on the back of our thill cart horse, but is far more inelegant; the collar beggars all description; the traces are formed of ropes which have snapped an hundred times, and been as often knotted and spliced by the postilions. Bridle is commonly dispensed with, a leathern halter supplies its place, furnished with the wirtner only, which is on the side next to the driver to preserve the eye from the back stroke of his whip. When as many are used, the horses run three-a-breast, in consequence of which the middle-most tugs along as in a furnace, and foams and sweats in a manner which is painfully distressing. The one on which the postilion is mounted, has, however, the worst birth of the three. It is attached to the splinter-bar as well as the others, and has its full share of the resistance to surmount. In addition to this, it has besides to carry an enormous pair of jack-boots, which added to the party-coloured character occupying them, form a load fully sufficient for the sinews of the strongest beast without participating with the common business behind them. I have never seen any thing in England which can be admitted into competition with this chef-d’œuvre of superlative awkwardness! It is formed indeed of leather, but pipe-staves would have served as well; within, it is hooped with rings of iron, and at the knee, padded out with goats’ hair, wool and straw, and weighs about twenty-five pounds each. We need not say, that it is by no means an easy achievement to vault into a postilion’s saddle; however, having accomplished it, Rosinante may trot rough as the spavin and hard service can make him – if he has any mettle left he may caper and prance, there is not the least reason to apprehend that his rider can be displaced – he may tumble down, but were an elephant to roll his mighty sides across the leg, it would remain in perfect safety beneath the iron-arch.
As to symmetry and elegance of form, it enters as much into the brains of the horse as of the Maitre de Poste, and one would imagine, that the strength of a post-horse, like Sampson’s, was seated in his locks, or that it were an unpardonable sin to pluck a hair from its mane, or prune the bushment about its heels – here and there a postilion impelled by necessity weaves a few oaten straws into the tails of his stallions, and then attaches the extremity to the crupper to raise it out of the mud, but the mane is absolutely left to nature and its tangles are unviolated by the comb; what with little care would become a beauteous object is now permitted to degenerate into a filthy and disgusting deformity.
As soon as your baggage is bound on, which during the operation is sacre dieu’d as completely as an Englishman would blast it, and you are seated with your heart of oak-knee-boot firmly bolted in its place (i.e. if you have chosen the cabriolet), crack, crack, crack, goes the whip, as if la Fleur (A name frequently given to postilions.) meant to crack the drum of your ears, and away you go, two go up and two down, some trotting, some galloping over the gutters, through thick and thin as though a bailiff were at your heels! But no sooner have you crossed the barrier, than your stallions come to a dead point, the traces are snapped, the axle-tree is bent, a spoke is started, or a shoe lost – some accident or other inevitable has taken place, which requires at least an hour to be repaired. If your carriage be handsome, your conductor begins at full half a league before you reach a village to summon with his whip all the inhabitants it contains to their doors, and looks all complacence as they crowd by hundreds to the post-house, some to gaze upon the cause of this bustle, and some to intreat his charity. Not so, however within, while he is displaying all the genius of his profession, rattling round every corner as the neck had never been broken – brandishing his thong and back-stroke and fore-stroke, making the air resound with his horrid din, melord Anglais sits quaking with a tertian ague in momentary expectation of here finishing his peregrinations. In vain he entreats his tormentor to slacken his pace, with distress and apprehension in every feature of his pale and cold clammy countenance. – “Soyez tranquille – n’ayez pas d’enquietude” (‘relax – don’t worry’) with crack, crack, crack at its close is all he can obtain. It is a Frenchman’s glory to cut a dash in the world; and, if an opportunity offers, for his soul cannot decline it, though he cuts the heart-strings of the mother that bore him. The same ceremony takes place as often as you approach a post-house, which by the bye is seldom an inn. The French roads are in general finished with nothing better than miserable boutiques for “bon eau de vie” “bon vin” “bon bierre” “bon cidre” – had you an appetite to swallow the detestable fare which their cottages commonly afford, stinking from afar with garlic, leeks, and onions, and a thousand other villainous smells, it were ten to one against you finding any. Good liquor you may obtain at every third cabin, if you may believe the sign-board – your food you must carry along with you: ample proof that the Frenchman as devoutly bows before the jolly god, as a John Bull or a German; with all this cracking, cutting and slashing, it is pleasant to remark, that while temperance reigns amongst them, the horses are seldom touched with the whip.
A French postilion is a stranger to that savage brutality with which our hearts are hourly tortured upon the British roads. – He recollects that a horse has feeling, that its skin smarts as keenly as his own when it is wounded, and remembering what pain and anguish mean, inflicts it with reluctance upon those who are lent to aid us in our toil, and to improve our pleasure – not to be the sport of our ferocity. Arrived at the middle of the stage, the postilion pulls in with a whew, whew, whew, after the mode of the English ostlers as soon as their horses return to their stables. You would suppose that this interruption and its accompanying whistle were meant to give the poor dripping slaves which drag you along an opportunity of disencumbering themselves of the superfluous overheated moisture they carry within theme – in part it is the case, but the whew, whew, whew, which is intended to bring ideas of a certain complection to the mind of the horse, brings similar ones to the mind of the driver, and as soon as his jack-boots will permit, which is not till many laborious efforts have been made in vain, you see him descending and fumbling about with the most perfect sang froid, it matters not who is behind him, he thinks no more of indelicacy than his stallions, as soon as like Hudibras ‘take time for both to stale’ he mounts again, and with crack, crack, crack, pursues his journey.
Were a different mode of harnessing these animals adopted, the custom of using stallions alone upon the post-road would be admirable – their strength is immense; and though heavy, they are not by any means sluggish: but in praise of their temperance, little is to be said; does a mare cross their path or appear before them on the way, the greetings and salutations with which they all unite in accosting the lady, are absolutely formidable – nor can we much applaud their peaceable demeanour towards one another, though fellow-labourers embarked in one common cause, and bound by all the laws of charity to tug on at least without incommoding each other, yet should it happen that Monsieur le postilion has ill-timed his whew whew, and that their necessities do not keep pace with his, before he has half finished his petite affaire, they are all together by the ears, kicking, biting, screaming as though Pandæmonium were broke loose; thus interrupted, his sang froid forsakes him, then it is the Frenchman rages, and muttering many a sacre dieu, with his horrid lash reduces them to order and subordination again. At every delay this uproar is infallibly renewed. No sooner are they detached from the carriage, and their awe-inspiring driver gone to assist in preparing others to supply their places, than a cloven-foot pushes itself forward, civil dudgeon breaks out again with a din which is horrible. Accustomed to the meek and docile manners of our castrati it requires no little strength of nerve to sit behind these “chevaux entiers” but we soon get accustomed to every thing in this world – even ugliness itself: such is the happy nack of accommodation which nature has given to her children – a simple spreader passed from bit to bit would anticipate all this discord; till they smell at each others nostrils they are as peaceable as lambs…
At eight in the evening we arrived at the hotel de l’Europe, (Rouen) having travelled through 42 miles of corn-fields, fringed with apple and pear-trees, and studded here and there with enclosed tufts of similar fruit-trees. The country is, in general, flat – but the face of plenty, which it uniformly wears, is pleasing. The traveller cannot but be at a loss to conceive by what means this broad expanse is plowed, and sowed, and harvested, as, through all the road over which we pass, steeples are far more frequent than cottages. Before the revolution, Normandy was amply furnished with ecclesiastical establishments: many a noble erection presents itself on the right hand and the left; once only do we meet what may be called a town.
Rouen is finely situated…”
* Théodore Géricault made postilions the subject of several important paintings and lithographs.