hundreds of my fellow-creatures in the train of
pleasure, and in three hours, or even less, I am
walking towards the boat at Folkestone.
Nature, on this occasion, being disposed to be kind,
the closely packed mass of human beings is taken
across a glassy sea without an individual instance
of sickness, and deposited in the tender,
outstretched arms of the expectant French
customhouse officials at Boulogne. After the usual
ungenerous suspicions with regard to my small
portmanteau, and the usual triumph of injured
innocence on the part of that very ill-used and
necessary article of travel, I am thrown, a houseless
wanderer, on the hot sandy streets of Boulogne,
to be stung to death by touters from one
o'clock at noon until eight o'clock in the evening.
After several dinners, various drinks, a
game at billiards, a fruit feast in the market-place,
a walk upon the sands, and a bath in the
sea—all nothing but various devices to pass the
time, and all enjoyed uneasily, with a sense of
lingering on the road—the train of pleasure is
ready at last to receive us, and I take my place
with the knowledge that I am about to travel all
night upon the most sluggish railway in Europe—
the Great Northern of France. To expect
anything more than your legal place, to hope to
stretch your legs, much less your body, are all
idle dreams on such a journey as this.
Tomorrow (Sunday) is the greatest fête day that
France has seen for nearly half a century, and a
million of visitors are expected to swell the
already crowded population. I begin to fancy
that the present train of pleasure is another
great mistake.

Night travellers are but sorry, hideous phantoms
at the best of times, and what can I expect
now? Wild peasants from French Flanders,
both male and female, who speak a hoarse,
guttural dialect of the Parisian language, as
charming as Bolton English; a pale-faced Boulevard
tailor's shopman, in a very tight-fitting dress
suit, who reclines in one corner of the carriage,
not far from the flickering lamp, and who looks
exceedingly ghastly with his head bound up in a
white pocket-handkerchief; a couple of female
peasants with huge caps and enormous baskets,
who look like English prize-fighters dressed up
for chimney-sweepers' May Queens; a stout
compatriot, who snores most vigorously when
asleep, and who presents an absurd resemblance
to one of Messrs. Barclay's draymen; another
stout compatriot, a true native of Bethnal-green,
who thinks and speaks most tenderly of the
beer he has left behind him; some fish-women
from Dunkirk, and some factory operatives from
the neighbourhood of Amiens (the French
northern Manchester), complete a choked
carriageful of excursionists. What nodding varied
shapes they assume, as the train of pleasure
crawls along, as the moon looks in at the window,
as the lamp gutters down, as the white
autumn steamy mist covers the fields and trees
like a deluge of water! What maniacs they
look, without keepers, as they roll from their
cells of carriages at a great refreshment station,
rush along the platform, forget the number of
their compartment, and shout out to missing
friends as they clasp a long loaf of bread or a
bottle of wine, and are hustled by the liveried
half-police railway officials.

Paris at last, about half-past five on the Sunday
morning, with half its population already
astir, and its streets festooned with innumerable
tricolor flags. I obtain a one-horse fly with
some difficulty (for is it not the great fête
morning?), and drive to my hotel. My hotel, indeed!
Anybody's hotel; everybody's hotel. "They have
been full to overflowing for several days, so has
next door, and next door but six; so has another
place of rest where I have been in the habit of
stopping; so have several hotels that have been
strongly recommended to me; so has the place
where my father stopped before me. This is the
great fête day, and I have come by a train of
pleasure. I give up the fruitless search at
last, and another hour finds me, a very dusty,
tired, fishy-eyed traveller, in very dirty,
obscure, and (very likely) disreputable private
lodgings.

I go out to be shaved; and the barber finishes
me off rapidly and dangerously, for he is anxious
to be off to the fête. I apply at a street corner
to have my boots cleaned, and the shoe-cleaner
is drunk. He shouts out, "Vive la France!"
with a flourish of his brush, and falls helpless
over his foot-box.

I wander about the crowded streets, and soon
become aware that every cab, fly, and vehicle in
the city is engaged for ever. I penetrate with
difficulty on to the Italian Boulevard, and might
have obtained a very good view of the military
procession if I had paid seventy francs for a
share of a window. I did not pay the seventy
francs, and was consequently left to buffet with
the mob. A standing on a coach wheel, a
school form, or an upturned basket was offered
me, in the same style as at the Derby; but
while I found the prices too high, I found
the temporary platforms too low, and I
declined the many eligible positions that were
forced upon me. I saw the sunburnt, slouching,
stooping troopers pass by, at different times,
from different points of view, to the melancholy
sound of the military drums; and when I had
feasted enough upon this spectacle, I sought for
a dinner. Here, again, I was doomed to a bitter
disappointment. My favourite restaurant could
refresh me no more; it was crowded to the
garrets; so were all restaurants; and I dined
with difficulty.

Monday and Tuesday (the other two of the
"three clear days") were passed in much the
same manner: no vehicles were to be had, the
theatres were free and crowded, and it was only
towards the evening of the third day, near the
hour at which my ticket ordered me to start on
my return, that Paris began to assume its
natural, comfortable, and proper aspect. At
nine P.M. on the Tuesday evening, much worn
in body, I again rendered myself at the railway
station. There may have been a thousand people
waiting for the train of pleasure, but they looked
like twenty thousand. A body of soldiers, with