A TOUR THROUGH SOME PARTS OF FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, SAVOY, GERMANY AND BELGIUM, DURING THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1814. BY THE HON. RICHARD BOYLE BERNARD, M.P. Majora minorane famæ! HOR. Say are they less or greater than report! London: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN. PATER NOSTER-ROW; 1815. * * * * * HARVARD AND FARLEY, Skinner Street, London * * * * * TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE REGENT. SIR, Permit me to offer my most respectful thanks to Your Royal Highness, for the honor you have conferred upon me, by permitting the following pages to be inscribed to Your Royal Highness. I beg at the same time to express my congratulations to Your Royal Highness on the late glorious events, which have distinguished Your Royal Highness's Government, which have restored to England the blessings of universal Peace, and will render the present æra ever memorable in History. I have the Honor to be, With the highest Respect, Sir, Your Royal Highness's Obliged and most obedient Servant, R.B. BERNARD. * * * * * PREFACE. Had the following Pages required the exertion either of superior judgment, or of abstruse research, the Author is not sufficiently vain to have submitted them to the notice of the Public. They are therefore not recommended to the perusal of the critical reader; as in fact, they contain merely the hasty observations suggested by the scenes he visited in the course of his Tour, together with a few occasional remarks, which he thought might be acceptable to the generality of readers: since notwithstanding the late increase of travellers, the numbers are still very great, who, being prevented by business, or deterred by the inconveniences of travelling, from visiting the Continent, might be disposed to pardon some inaccuracies, should they meet with a small portion either of amusement or information. * * * * * CONTENTS. CHAP. I. PAGE Introduction--On the opening of the Continent--Departure from London--Arrival in France--Different appearance of Things-Large Bonnets--Custom House and Passports--Of Travelling in France--French Dinners--Abbeville--Beauvais--Vines--Chantilly; its ruined Appearance--St. Denis and its Abbey 1 CHAP. II. Of the Approach to Paris--General Appearance of that City--Its Bridges--Is inferior in Comfort to London--Settled at an Hotel--Population of Paris--Its Markets--Badly supplied with Water--Of its various Divisions and their Inhabitants--Palais Royal--Gamblers--Police--English Papers--Rule to find one's Way through Paris--The Tuilleries--The Louvre--Plans of Improvement 19