NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO

OSTEND.

DEPARTURE FROM PARIS.

On the 13th day of July 1834, at four o'clock, P. M. I, the writer hereof, deposited my precious person in the diligence which performs the journey between Paris and Lille. The day was most beautiful; and, though loth to quit the French capital, where I had spent six pleasant weeks, I consoled myself with the anticipated pleasures of the trip before me, which I did not doubt would add considerably to my stock of ideas, and make me a wiser, if not a better man. There is no knowledge like to that gained through the medium of our own observation. The learning derived from books we may forget, but that impressed upon the tablet of memory by the senses is seldom or never effaced, remaining an undying monument in the mind of the individual. The path I was about to peregrinate was, it is true, hackneyed beyond conception. Myriads from all nations had gone over the same ground, and not a season elapsed without a score of volumes being dedicated to a description of the

scenery. It had been stared at by Cockneys from the purlieus of Bow-bells, scribbled about by blue-stockings of every age, chattered over by dandified Parisians, and clouded with smoke from the pipes of fogbound Dutchmen and beer-bibbing Belgians. Of all this I was aware, but I cared nothing about it: the road was new to me, and I determined to see and write about it, as if it had never been seen or written about before.

My companions in the coupé-for it was in that section of the diligence my place was taken-consisted of a tall, good-looking man, with a wooden leg; his wife, a pretty little woman, without a wooden leg; and their daughter, a charming child of five or six years. They were French, and bound for Douay. I found them very pleasant people; and had scarce seated myself, when we all became as intimate as if we had been acquainted for years. The left side of the coupé was occupied by the gentleman, the right by his wife, and the centre by myself; at her mother's feet, upon a low stool, sat the little girl. Thus snugly situated, and every thing being arranged both without and within, the powerful and gigantic conducteur took his place on the top; the words tout prêt were heard thundering from his Herculean lungs; and away, to the smacking of the postilion's whip, and the ringing of their own little bells, started the fine steeds from the court of the Messageries Générales, dragging their ponderous load and its cargo of goods, luggage, and live-stock, behind them. On went the di

ligence, wriggling its way through the narrow and tortuous streets in a style which would have done honour to an eel amid the sinuosities of a coral reef, or a boa constrictor among the closely studded trees of an Indian forest. A number of windings and turnings brought us to the Rue Faubourg St Martin, a spaciously magnificent street, closed at its farther end by one of the city barriers. Having passed this civic rubicon, we got immediately into Livilette, which, though beyond the walls of Paris, is literally a continuation of the street just mentioned. Here some fête was going on; the windows displayed innumerable flags, the streets were crowded with multitudes of people in their gayest attire; every thing wore the look of festivity and mirth. Fêtes of this kind are very common in France; and when one takes place

in

any of the villages contiguous to Paris, a vast concourse is sure to be drawn to the spot. Indeed, every Sunday is a kind of fête in these villages; as wine being much cheaper there than in the city, the workmen make a regular practice of visiting them in the afternoon, not forgetting to take their sweethearts, and make them participators in the amusements of the day. Sunday in France is the gayest day of the year. The religion of the country does not prohibit this day from being kept as merrily as any other; and if it did, Frenchmen would not allow the prohibition to stand between them and their amusements. Vive la bagatelle! has always been the motto of this mercurial people, and will, I suspect, be so till the end of the chapter.

EARLY HARVEST.

The country now presented an appearance of great fertility. The crops were nearly all ripe, and, in fact, a great portion of them down. Shortly after quitting Livilette, I was surprised to see a number of men in the act of cutting down a field of oats,—an instance of early maturity of which our own country affords no example; but such is the delightful climate of France -such the precocious abundance of her harvests.

ADVANTAGES OF WOODEN LEGS."

After riding about nine miles, we came to a small village, opposite to the inn of which a number of people were waltzing to the notes of an old violin and cracked clarionet, from which two itinerant perform ers were endeavouring to extract something in the shape of music. My left-hand neighbour looked at the motley group, and then satirically at his own wooden leg.

"Ah!" said he, " I have seen the day when I was fond of that amusement, and could demean myself at it with the best man in France; but, thank God, this is now out of the question! I have lost my leg.”

"Do you congratulate yourself on this loss?" said I, not a little surprised at the cool manner with which he spoke of what I should have deemed a very serious misfortune.

“Ah, Monsieur," observed his wife with a smile, my husband is a philosopher: he will prove to you that one leg is better than two."

"And that no legs at all are better than one," added the little girl. The parents laughed heartily, and I could not help doing the same; but French children are proverbial for ready wit, and have a perception of the ridiculous not possessed by those of double their age in England.

Well, Monsieur," said I, wishing to carry on the joke, and see with what arguments he could make good his case, "let us hear how you demonstrate the extraordinary propositions maintained by this lady and your little daughter. If you can satisfy me of their perfect truth, I shall be the first man to part with my legs."

"Done!" said he, grasping my hand, and giving it a hearty shake. "And when we arrive at Douay, we shall have the operation done by my own surgeon, who is one of the best operators in France. Of course, you are a man of your word."

"Sans doute.”

"Well then," continued he, "I prove the point as follows.

A man with one leg has a leg the less for gout and rheumatism to play their pranks upon, than the man who has two.

will admit."

“I admit it readily.”

This proposition I hope you

"A man with two legs may get them both broken, or put out of joint. A one-legged man cannot."

"Unquestionably."

"Two legs require two stockings, two shoes, two boots; one leg only one stocking, one shoe, one boot;