It was only at the very
best hotels in France that we ever found fowls tolerably well roasted;
generally speaking, they are never more than half-cooked, and are
as unsightly as they are unsavoury. Our fellow-passengers did ample
justice to the meal, from which we gladly escaped, in order to devote
the brief remainder of our time to a hasty toilet.
From what we could see of it, Auxerre appeared to be a very pretty
place, it being at this time perfectly enwreathed with vines. In
fact, every step of our journey increased our regret that we should be
obliged to hurry through a country which it would have delighted us
to view at leisure, each town that we passed through offering some
inducement to linger on the road. Active preparations were making
for the vintage, the carts which we met or overtook being laden with
wine-casks, and much did we desire to witness a process associated in
our minds with the gayest scenes of rural festivity.
It would not be a fair criterion to judge of the accommodation
afforded at the hotels of the French provinces by those at which the
diligence changed horses; in some I observed that we were not shown
into the best apartments reserved for public entertainment, but in
none did we find any difficulty in procuring water to wash with,
nor did we ever see a dish substituted for a basin.
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