Four Years in France: or, Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period; Preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic FaithBeste, Henry Digby
Religion
Four Years in France: or, Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that Period; Preceded by some Account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic Faith
Beste, Henry Digby
France -- Description and travel
From the elevated ground of the park of St. Cloud, where the lantern
rears its head, Paris is seen over an extent of flat and marshy ground,
over which the Seine winds with as many evolutions and curvatures as a
serpent. The fable of the sun and the wind contending which of them
could first induce a traveller to quit his cloak, might be paralleled by
one invented on the sinuosity of rivers in plain countries. Let nature
oppose rocks and mountains, the river holds on its way by torrent and by
cataract: arrived at a level country, it seems to amuse itself by delay.
If it were told, at an English gaming club, that the mountain and the
plain had engaged in a contest, which of them should most effectually
divert the course of a river from its direct line to the ocean, the odds
would, most likely, be in favour of the mountain. But the result is
otherwise.
The road from Paris to St. Germains en Laye is the most varied and
agreeable of any in the environs. From the avenue and bridge of Neuilly
it passes by Mont Valerien, a finely-wooded hill; through Nanterre, the
birth-place of Ste. Geneviève, patroness of Paris; near Malmaison, the
last abode of Napoleon in France; by Marly, where all is beautiful
except the aqueduct. There is a steam-engine to raise the water, and
pipes to conduct it, which workmen were repairing. We clambered up by
the side of the pipes, at every step induced to mount higher by the
beauties of the prospect, the same as that from the terrace of St.
Germains. It reminded me of the view from Richmond Hill, but it is
bolder and more romantic; and the Seine, being nearer to the hill than
the Thames at Richmond, appears an equally important feature in the
landscape.
One of the roads to St. Cloud passes through the Bois de Boulogne: this
wood was much injured while the allied armies remained in the
neighbourhood of Paris: young trees had been planted, and appeared
thriving. Let us hope that a long, a very long peace, may obliterate all
traces of a war which desolated all Europe, and more than Europe, for a
quarter of a century. Indeed, I cannot help agreeing in the wish
expressed by one of the common people, in answer to another who
congratulated him on the good news of the peace of Amiens:--"Ay," said
the first, "I wish we may never have such good news again." A third
cried out, "D--n your jacobin eyes, what do you mean by that?" The
congratulator explained, "Why, doesn't see, that, for us to have good
news of peace again, we must first have war again? and he wishes we may
never have another war." The wish, it seems, was then a symptom of
jacobinism; but in the present day, it must be considered as laudable to
join in it, as I do most cordially, since it is the end proposed by the
Holy Alliance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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