Monday, June 25, 1838

1838

June

Monday 25

5

11 1/2

Fair, but rain-threatening morning; Fahrenheit 68 1/2° at 5 40/.. a.m.

Off from Tours at 6 1/2 – at 6 3/4 cross the Cher, good stone bridge, good river – Montbazon, 1 street poor little town – Nothing there like an Inn – Sorigny, a farm house and 1 or 2 little cottages – from there to Ste. Maure hilly, fine country – Stopt à la Poste at 9 12/.. – no Inn – I had been asleep or should have seen this – 

The horses put to again , and drove to the other end of the Faubourg to the Cheval Blanc (at 9 20/..), a neat-looking small hotel or auberge, where we found ourselves très bien – Marshal Soult and his wife here 3 weeks last Christmas, he taken ill in the night, erysipelas in his face – He had sent them a great many people –

The woman of the house talkative and civil – her husband faisait la cuisine when it was worth while (for the marshal, and would for us if we staid there).  Had learnt at Tours and was renommé for his cooking – We had excellent café and milk and butter just made very good – Not quite ready when we arrived –

Off again at 10 3/4 – The town of Ste. Maure and its goodish looking church at a little distance behind our Cheval Blanc – At 11 1/2, cross good stone bridge over the Creuse, and enter the Department of the Vienne (river) and the nice village of Port-de-Pilesa.  Fine, open country, corn and grass –

Aux Ormes at 11 3/4 – Neat, good little village, the tool-box dropt off as we stopt à la poste, and getting the strap-holders sewed on again delayed us 35 minutes –

Off again at 12 3/4 – Pretty river Vienne close right – Fine, broad, wooded, corn (chiefly rye) and grass valley – Vines on the hillside (right) – Sandy land all hereabouts – Not naturally fertile –

During this stage, (right) observed 2 or 3 little white flags or poles as if for rail-road – Oats and barley short and thin – Handsome stone bridge over the Vienne at Châtellerault, and just after passing the bridge and the 2 old round towers at the end of it, stop at the Poste, which is also the hotel Du Grand Monarque at 1 3/4 –

One of the main-bolts of the off back spring (fixed to the bed of the under carriage) broken – What with the torment of blacksmiths to mend this and women up against the carriage windows with cutlery, one had enough to do, more especially as it rained (just began to rain) pretty smartly –

Went into the hotel – Desired the mistress to send for the man she herself employed on these occasions, and in about 1/4 hour had agreed with him to do the job for 12/. + 1/. pour boire for the workmen – To be done in 1 1/2 hour – Went afterwards twice to see that all was going on right – It was good 2 1/2 hours before the job was done, and then the men begged so hard, gave six sols over of pour boire –

Very heavy rain almost all the time – At least from 1 3/4 to 4 1/2, it rained almost incessantly –

From 2 35/.. to 3 1/4 inked over my travelling accounts from Friday (22nd instante mense up to now – Then half asleep on the sofa – Then at 4 went (2nd time) to look after the carriage, then ate a plate of (large-white) strawberries, Ann having had hers before –

Off again at 4 3/4 – Châtellerault seems a good town – Much improved – Much new building since 1830 – Would not be teazed into buying any cutlery, but it looks better finished and of a higher order of make than it was in 1830 – Nice looking small penknives and scissors – Really looking like England – En sortant, enter forest, which continues far towards La Tricherie, nice, neat, good little village –

Fine country all today – Walnut trees in good bearing along the road side, and now from La Tricherie are fine, large healthy, handsome formed trees, like forest trees – Along the road and at a little distance, park-like – The great quantity of poplars (Italian and others, pruned to the very top, a striking feature ever since Paris – indeed all over France? 

No sight of the Vienne since Châtellerault, except perhaps one peep – Very fine country – Clan one long row of good village houses – the Poste at the far end, a little distance from the other houses, good looking largeish house – Left, en sortant, the Clain, nice little river –

A few drops of rain since leaving Châtellerault – Vine on the hillsides – At 7, the Vienne and its tall Italian poplars (close left) forming a high hedge, and (right) high, hoary, calcareous, picturesque rock, interspersed with gardens and fine walnut trees –

Very picturesque approach to Poitiers on the hill just above us – at 7 10/.. pass the iron grille barrier gate into the City and pass through old, ill built, ill paved (with little boulder stone very slippery, the horses could scarcely stand) steep, narrow streets – Steep ascent to the hotel de France (at the top of the hill, near the grande Place) at 7 20/.. –

Off to the cathedral with a boy guide in 10 minutes and there along narrow streets on the descent, in 1/4 hour at 7 3/4 – The only one I ever saw of the kind – the 2 side aisles (only 2) very nearly as high as the nave – Short church – and short transept, – the oval iron railed choir extends 3/4 breadth of transepts into the nave, having the transepts on each side of it – and the pulpit is against the great transept-nave column (South side) – 4 large arcades of nave – then the large arcade between the transepts, then 3 more large arcades, of which the 2 next the transepts and 3/4 of the arcade between the transepts form the choir – Adossé to the 3rd large arcade (at the back of the choir) the apse is very small (little more than, as it were, a swelling out) that contains the Virgin’s chapel – Only 2 side aisles, and no side chapels – The great altar is near the entrance into the choir – and there is an altar at the End of each transept – Organ in the west end, in dark oak Tribune, taking up the whole of one arcade of nave and aisles –

Exterior of the cathedral plain, except west end the 3 doorways much carved as at Rheims – 7 steps down to platform 6 or 8 yards broad up to the church door – Then 5 steps down from the door (west end) into the church – Very ancient – Painted windows in the transepts and round the East end – Large Marigold window over the richly carved centre doorway (west end) and open round-gothic-arched gallery along the top between the 2 plain gothic towers – 1/4 hour there –

Then to the church of Ste. Radegonde, femme de Clotaire, and descended by 18 steps down from the nave and 6 steps up from the nave to the choir, so that the Chapel is loftyish for a souterraine to her tomb below the choir, – a small very ancient looking chapel, 2 candles burning over the tomb of old, dark, porphyry? polished – Lying like a plain 3 sided coffin (sharp edge uppermost) on the tomb – They tried to break this in la grande revolution but could not, and one of the men died in the chapel (said the young man (Sacristan) who, seeing us enter the church had come after us –

He then shewed us the chapel of the “Pied de Dieu” – Our Saviour appearing to Sainte Radegonde, foretelling her death and that she should be a pearl in his crown, left the print of his foot on the stone which stone is encadrée and has a wire guard in the rude form of a shoe or little basket put (locked) over it – The foot-mark is deepish cut – Whether the man really believed or not , I know not, he looked as if he did and thought I did too –

The church of the Sainte Radegonde is evidently very ancient and the ground has risen much about it as at the cathedral –

From Sainte Radegonde to the rue des Arènes to the house that has i written over it ‘Aux Antiquités Romaines.’ I remembered the place – went into courtyard and through the stables into the garden and remains of the old Roman amphitheater – The garden within very nice – All much done-up and cleared out and improved since 1830 – All about is now tidy –

Just peeped at the fine promenade – Handsome public baths and other new buildings thereabouts just out of the grille gate barrier –

Too dark to see very clearly – but Ann bore the walk exceedingly well – She was interested – Voilà tout –

Home at 9 – Dinner at 9 1/4 – Came to my room at 10 1/2 –

Fine day till the heavy rain between 2 and 3 p.m.  Afterwards, fine afternoon and evening – Fahrenheit 67 1/2° at 11 5/.. p.m.

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/21/0128 and SH:7/ML/E/21/0129