Friday, June 29, 1838

1838

June

Friday 29

7 40/..

3 25/..

Heavy rain at 7 55/.. for 1/4 hour.  Fahrenheit 66 1/2° at 8 1/2 a.m. – Looking at post map – Breakfast at 9 3/4 – Heavy rain between 10 and 11 again –

Nice light carriage (sort of Calèche) closed and I and our valet de Place, Pierre, out at 11 40/.. – to the Post Office.  Got 5 or 6 Galignani’s Messengers – Then to the bank (bank of Bordeaux by mistake).  Began to rain again –

Then to chez Guetrier, banquer and négociant (1 of the 1st wine merchants here), and get Letter from Messers Hammersleys and company enclosing £250 in circulars and letter of credit for £500 – The power of attorney of no use because only one witness! – yet Mr. Parker had it all his own way!  Ann had letter from her Sister – Cashed circular No. 1072 = £50, exchange at 25/40 = francs 1270 – M. Guetrier very civil – Asked for small – With difficulty, gave me 30 francs worth – I find one must go to a money changer for small money as well as gold – At the bank 1/2 hour till 12 1/2 –

Then to the Bourse – Centre part an oblong about 25 by 15 yards lighted from the top by windows, slashed, as it were, into the coved roof – Plafond of boards painted (washed) and black-lined ashler-form – Very nice exchange – Might serve as a model for one at Halifax –

Left the bourse at one – then to the Pont, and went into the interior at 1 1/2 for 10 minutes – Very curious – A vaulted passage from end to end about 5 feet 6 inches high – but a little gate across the middle kept locked, that one may not, by going to the end, take up the time of the man who has the perquisite of shewing the interior – Gave ./75, then, on asking our valet, found that people generally give a franc – The duke of Bedford was, or some of his family, at our hotel on his way this spring from Nice, and Pierre was their laquais de Place –

From the Pont to the church of St. Michel from 1 50/.. to 2 1/4 – Put into to poor box there ./50, there being a printed appeal to the charity of strangers on account of the great number of poor – Handsome church – Organ at west end of nave, taking up 1/2 one arcade in depth – This one + 3 arcades to the transepts which are merely 2 arcades, i.e. the length (respectively) of the one side aisle and the one ditto ditto taken in little chapels – Choir = 3 arcades + the apse –

Curious mouldings on the 2 great transept-nave columns entering the Choir, particularly the column on the North side, marigolds and their deeply indented leaves – 2 men fighting – One man standing on his head – One ditto riding a dog ? etc. etc.

South side pillar – 2 (scaly) birds pecking at a head placed between them – and this repeated – Marigold or Sunflower among its deeply indented leaves – The clocher of St. Michel (handsome old gothic tower) at a little distance from the church –

Went down to see les Cadavres – 17 feet deep of ossemens – Much in the same state as in 1830 but the bones swept up more tidily into a heap in the middle – 3 or 4 decent women and a man there had just gone down before us – Went down, I should think, about 20 steps – Only 2 or 3 minutes there, and came away at 2 1/2 –

Then to the Eglise de la Croix – The west front old – à la Civray – Small part (2 or 3 stones, the rest modern) of an old Zodiâc (as at Civray) remaining round the great west door (left, as you face door) –

Then looked into a little bazaar – Empty – All the shops to let – Under repair or something – Then to the bazaar – Turned into print shop, and Ann bought the 7 livraisons published (5 more to be sent directed to Madame Lister de Shibden, Porte restante à St. Sauveur, Hautes Pyrénées) of the principal buildings of Bordeaux –

Then left Ann chez un patissier near our hotel at 4 and brought the money home and locked it up in the secretaire – Then back to Ann.

Then to the Musée of paintings and came away at 4 55/.. Nothing particular there but a fine old female Roman Statue found here and a good painting of Mary of Medicis by Van d’Eyck – The concierge there said trade is very bad at Bordeaux – 1 of the principal négocians of Medoc has not sold anything (wine) these 2 years –

Then at the Cathedral at 5 – Low broad nave – No side-aisle or side chapels – 2 arcades of transept on each side, and continued in 2 aisles round the Choir, the one being in chapels, the other clear round the high altar – Organ west end, handsome tribune taking up the whole breadth of the nave, and all of carved stone carved in low relief – The organ takes one arcade, then 3 more arcades up to a different sort of column (a different period of architecture) clustered up to the top – The others not so – 3 of these other arcades up to the transepts – The 3 columns next the organ, singular, the arching spring from them like seven branches –

2 old pieces of sculpture under the organ up against the west end wall of the church – Jupiter and his eagle, and Roman matrons and figures ?  The other side, carving a great heavy cross – and a man with a little cross in his hand with something tied to the top (petticoat-like?) and a heavy iron hexagonal ? ring round one end of one of the arms of the cross –

The west end built up with houses so that no west end church front is to be seen –

Then to the church of St. Surin, the must curious of all the 4 churches we have seen here (St. Michel, Cathedral, Ste. Croix and St. Surin) – Curious, richly carved handsome south door, some part Roman – but masked with a great modern projection that forms a sort of bay-porch in front of the door – I should think this front was originally rather à la Civray.

The old west door, masked by a modern porch is old and very interesting – the most interesting part of the church – The whole of the north part of the church is built up against curious old carving and square capitals in this old west porch – Abraham going to sacrifice his son – and a man astride of a lamb beyond the altar – The name of Abraham written and another name Isaac ? but it struck me that these names were not original.

The interior of this church very interesting – At west end of nave, 3 great old plain 3 foot or more diameter pillars, quite plain –

Came away at 6 – Then to the Palais Gallien – till 6 1/4 – 5 old Roman small arches and the 5 great arches are before another, forming, as it were, a roadway, but in fact part of an amphitheatre ?

Then to the musée des antiquités – Too late – Shuts at 4 –

Then to the Jardin botanique at 6 25/.. for 1/2 hour – Determined to go tomorrow morning if fine, and leave here from 2 to 3 for Langon –

Home in 7 minutes at 7 10/.. – Dinner at 7 1/4 and out at 8 1/2, Ann and I to our bookseller’s – Ann bought 2 volume quarto (another to come out 7 or 8 years hence) by .  .  . on the Statistique de Bordeaux, for the sake of the notice of the church of St. Croix – I bought a medical work on the thermal waters of the Pyrénees etc. with a tolerable map of these waters (but good generally) 7/.  Gave my address Madame Lister de Shibden,

Poste restante at St. Sauveur, Hautes Pyrénées, for Charpentier to be sent from Paris as soon as possible – The letter went by tonight’s post – The book will arrive in 7 or 8 days – Paid for it 8/. including carriage 1/. and postage of letter – He shewed me a sort of Latin etymological dictionary 9 volume quarto (I think he said) good work – Out of print – Had refused 60/. for the work – but I think I might have it at that if I chose ? – His boy came back with us and brought the books.

Home at 10 – Fine evening – Had Josephine immediately – Ann right today and this evening but so touchy.  She was rather wrong because I know not what, that I asked to look at her book, or what? –

Perpetual showers till about 5 p.m. and afterwards fine evening –

Wrote out from line 22 of page 250 to here, which took me till 2 35/.. tonight, at which hour Fahrenheit 66 12° – Then at accounts till 3 –

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/21/0133 and SH:7/ML/E/21/0134