Remembering our own signalmen, and the importance attached to their capabilities and education for the important office assigned them, it ceases to be a matter of amusement to see the lives of hundreds daily intrusted to the direction of such ignorant creatures as these. I suppose that ‘Monsieur,’ smoking at his ease by the fireside in the little wooden station-house, directs the actions of his mother, wife, or daughter; but what are the authorities about not to insist on his performing his duty himself? Notwithstanding all which, however, our train reaches Jemelle (the nearest station to Rochefort) in safety, and in the midst of a wind sufficient, if not to take our heads, to take our hats off, we and our belongings come to the ground. It takes some minutes to get our nine packages together; and when we present ourselves at the door of the diligence, it is nearly full. I look despairingly at the nurse and all the children, and decide that the younger members of the family must go by diligence, and the elder shall walk with me to Rochefort. But the Rochefortians are too polite to permit such a thing. Two of them insist upon getting out and giving up their places to the children. I protest against such a proceeding, of course, as in duty bound, but they will hear of no excuse, and start off walking at such a pace that they are out of sight before the diligence is set in motion. At last the luggage is all packed away on the top, and we are all packed away inside, in company with two gentlemen, who open the conversation pleasantly by asking us where we come from, and telling us that we must not expect to find Rochefort as large as Brussels, which, to say truth, we had scarcely anticipated. The talk becomes fragmentary, for the diligence rattles and jolts over the stony, hilly road, and the bells on the horses’ collars jangle in unison; and the baby is so enchanted with the noise, that he shouts till no one can be heard but himself. But twenty minutes’ purgatory brings us into a long, steep, narrow street, paved with stones, and bordered with grey-and-white houses; and I have hardly time to ask, ‘Is this Rochefort?’ when the diligence draws up before a whitewashed house with a sign swinging before the door, and I am asked if we are for the Hôtel Biron. No, we are for the Hôtel de la Cloche d’Or; and as no one seems to be for the Hôtel Biron, the diligence continues to climb the stony street until it reaches the summit, and halts before the Hôtel de la Cloche d’Or.