Airaines at first sight was not calculated to remove the unpleasant feeling excited by its neighbourhood: rather large for a country town, and lying on a gentle slope; its streets irregular, and buildings mean, dirty, and ruinous-looking;--altogether very gloomy. Our billet was on the _auberge_ where the diligences stopped, a house of very inferior description, in which we did not establish ourselves without difficulty, and then wretchedly enough. For ourselves we got a room with two dirty beds in it, and only the coarsest kind of furniture; floor inch-thick in dirt, and having chinks between the planks, so gaping that we could see everything going on below--and being over the gateway, the great lounge of the postilions, _gens-d’armes_, &c., we had not only the advantage of all their conversation, but also of their eternal tobacco-pipes; also the full benefit of a most cooling breeze continually blowing through the gateway. The only room we could procure for Angélique was occupied by a postilion, and he was unwilling to evacuate, so that a little tyranny became necessary to gain possession. We turned him out _vi et armis_. In this wretched place we remained a fortnight, during which the weather, always gloomy, was at times bitterly cold, or heavy rain. As the whole troop could not be lodged here, it was necessary to detach Maunsell with one division to a village at least five miles off; and Wells, pretending there was no lodging to be procured here, asked leave to accompany him--notwithstanding which, our surgeon, Ambrose, who overtook us here, immediately obtained very comfortable quarters. Hitchins also was uncommonly well lodged in the house of an old smuggler. Our park was formed on an open space by the road to Abbeville, just without the town, where, as the weather was too cold for our guard to remain in a tent, I asked the mayor to procure them accommodation in a house hard by. This he refused, until I made preparations to bring our park into the market-place, which alarmed him so much that he immediately complied. The market-place, by the way, was precisely similar to the old buildings one sees in English country towns; and here the two Sundays during our stay I performed divine service. To pass our time here we sometimes rode about the dreary neighbourhood, where we discovered a ruined castle; and in another part a rather pretty village, with a fine manor-house and park; but the people soon drove us away from this last, not only by their abuse, but even pelting us with stones. In bad weather we resorted to a wretched billiard-table opposite our inn, where I taught F. the game, and drank bitter coffee to my cigars. There was nothing extraordinary in her frequenting this table, as it is customary for females to do so; and there were seldom any other people present than our own.