Tuesday, October 19, 1830 Travel Journal

1830

October

Tuesday 19

9 1/2

3 1/2

Had been up for near 1/2 hour at 7 – Breakfast at 10 1/2 –

Sent off my letter, 3 pages and the ends, to Mariana (Lawton) – Say I shall probably [be home] about or soon after the 12th of next month, and beg she will let me have a letter to meet me – Give her a brief account of myself from the date of sending off my last, 14 September, up to yesterday, mentioning that we were to be off from here tomorrow, then a couple of days at Toulon, and 3 or 4 at Hières, and then bend our steps homewards –

At about 11 1/2, came to my room and wrote out private journal of September 23 and nearly the whole of 24 till 12 3/4, when Mr. Turnbull called – Lady Stuart and Charlotte and I went out with him to the Hotel de Ville – where saw the two old pictures of the plague – The abysse, the front of the hotel de ville, and the port and the artist Puget among dead and dying sketching the scene the subject of one – The Cours? the carts taking away the dead and a corpse being let down with ropes from a top story window the subject of the other –

Then to the maison de Santé near the font de Saint Jean at the end of the port to see David’s picture, Saint Roch supplicating the virgin to stay the plague.  On his right in the distance, dead and dying – On his left, 3 prominent figures in 3 different stages of the disease – The beginning, with slight delirium, and the horror of the confirmed disease – A man clasping the arm of one just dead in very fine picture, one of David’s earliest and best – The colouring not so vivid as his later style – More in the manner of Gerard, who is doing a pendant for this picture –

Then parted with Mr. Turnbull at the Hotel de Ville and drove to Rondeau’s – Lady Stuart gave a pretty large order and I 1 box chinoises 10 pounds and 3 boxes 5 pounds each pears, apricots, and figs, to be sent in the same box with Lady Stuart’s and to be in Paris in 3 weeks – i.e., 25 pounds at 1/60 per lb. pound = 40/.

Then home – for near 1/2 hour, and then off to the reserve to sketch at about 4 1/2 – I ordered horses for 8 in the morning to be off for Toulon, this being agreed upon and that Lady Stuart should stay a day longer – While Lady Stuart sketched, I sat writing the above notes of today – then slept a little.  Went to a shop for salaisons and dried fruits – Raisins malaga at 1/50 a pound –

Home at 7 20/.. – Dinner at 7 1/2 – Little Lou not quite well and Miss Hirriott hipped?

Sat talking till 1 40/..when came to my room – Packing etc. till 3 25/..

Talked of property I would provide for the person who lived with me, of Lord Lindsey and his Eton story, his weak point and exaggerations, and lastly speaking of pistachio nuts.  I said they were quizzical affrodisiac, then got to what I had seen when young, she having led to it by naming the Spanish dish of lambs stones and chickens in fricassees.  Told how I had been shewn things by William Wilson, the shepherd.  Had seen all the animals operated on, had picked up the white jelly (seed) of a boar.  My father sent me to school for all this.  Never talked to me of impropriety, but that it was as bad as a butcher –

Very fine day – Pleasantly cool – Fahrenheit 63° about 10 a.m. and 64 1/2 ° now at 3 1/2 tonight –

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/TR/8/0028 and SH:7/ML/TR/8/0029