ROUEN. APPROACH. BOULEVARDS. POPULATION. STREET SCENERY.


Here I am, my excellent good friend, in the most extraordinary city in the
world. One rubs one's eyes, and fancies one is dreaming, upon being carried
through the streets of this old-fashioned place: or that, by some secret
talismanic touch, we are absolutely mingling with human beings, and objects
of art, at the commencement of the sixteenth century: so very curious, and
out of the common appearance of things, is almost every object connected
with ROUEN. But before I commence my observations upon the _town_, I must
give you a brief sketch of my _journey_ hither. We had bespoke our places
in the cabriolet of the Diligence, which just holds three tolerably
comfortable; provided there be a disposition to accommodate each other.
This cabriolet, as you have been often told, is a sort of a buggy, or
phaeton seat, with a covering of leather in the front of the coach. It is
fortified with a stiff leathern apron, upon the top of which is a piece of
iron, covered with the leather, to fasten firmly by means of a hook on the
perpendicular supporter of the head. There are stiffish leathern curtains
on each side, to be drawn, if necessary, as a protection against the rain,
&c. You lean upon the bar, or top of this leathern apron, which is no very
uncomfortable resting-place. And thus we took leave of Dieppe, on the 4th
day after our arrival there. As we were seated in the cabriolet, we could
hardly refrain from loud laughter at the novelty of our situation, and the
grotesqueness of the conveyance. Our Postilion was a rare specimen of his
species, and a perfectly _unique copy_. He fancied himself, I suppose,
rather getting "into the vale of years," and had contrived to tinge his
cheeks with a plentiful portion of rouge.[34] His platted and powdered hair
was surmounted with a battered black hat, tricked off with faded ribband:
his jacket was dark blue velvet, with the insignia of his order (the royal
arms) upon his left arm. What struck me as not a little singular, was, that