Thursday, June 21, 1838 (Partial Entry)

1838

June

to order horses – I calculated – This would be 1/50 per poste for the horse and as much for the man = 13/. not worth while – The horses had come in 20 minutes, but the people were 1/4 hour in harnessing –

Allaines also a little country village (‘petit pays’) but no waiting ! Off in ten minutes and we are seldom quicker anywhere – The road not good between Allonne and Allaines, but worse from the latter place – Rarely safe to try any but the great high roads on the Continent unless one has a rattle-trap carriage of the country – +No wood – No beauty, but good light land (light brown colour), pretty well farmed, clover and corn, the latter chiefly rye –

At Artenay at 6 1/4, once more on la grande route, so our postillon asked if I would not now have 2 postillons! No! Artenay a striving little thoroughfare town, my book says, of 1500 inhabitants –Pass ‘L’hotel de la grande Fontaine,’ a shabby looking little place – But there seems to be a cour? We might have slept there.  Glad to have time not to try it – They said at Chartres it was merely an auberge –

6 minutes in changing horses + Still same sort of country to Chevilly (apple trees occasionally along the roadside, but not thriving, not looking as if they liked the soil).  One long street of good village –

Off again in 6 minutes at 7 58/.. Pass through forest on leaving Chevilly, yet 1st wood since Chartres – Vines at 8 35/.. and enter long faubourg of Orleans at 8 40/.. 1/4 hour long, and then at 8 55/.. pass the barrier gate into la ville d’Orleans, and raser l’hotel de France at 9 – Had thought to avoid Meurice’s line but l’hotel de France did not look inviting, so drove into the cour of the Boul d’or – Went in to see the rooms – Beds at 2/. for Ann and myself – No! not in this house (said the mistress), and seeing little inclination on her part very to be civil – Je vous souhaite la bon jour Madame, said I, and ordered off the carriage, which had difficulty in backing out –

Tried the hotel de France – 3/. per bed in double bedded room + 2/. for the servants’ beds, and nothing looked fresh and nice – Off aux 3 Empereurs – Same prices – but one room à 2 lits nice enough with a little cabinet to wash in – so took this at 9 20/.. Glad to be settled for the night – Had a little salon to dine in – and as comfortable as we could be in any smallish double bedded room –

Dinner at 10 to 11 – The 4 mutton cutlets so hard we could not eat them – Dined [on] the morsel of fricandeau de veau, tolerable of its kind – They are terribly gone off in cooking in France – Terribly spoilt by the au natural, English plan – for which French meat not good enough –

Fair and finish, though cloudy till about one.  Drizzling rain from about 1 1/4 p.m. more or less till about 6 p.m.  Afterwards pretty fair and fine.  Fahrenheit 66 1/2 at 12 tonight

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/21/0126