Bread slices sopped in saffron, with fish, garnished with small crabs, to be chewed up, shell and all.
On the table were glass jugs with tar-water, and I observed that over half those present drank their wine diluted with this tar-water.
One day in summer I was at table-d'hôte in France when I saw a very fine melon on the table. Said I, in my heart of hearts, "I'll have some of you by-and-by!" But, to my consternation, the melon was taken round with stewed conger eel, and eaten with salt and pepper. I could not summon up courage to try the mixture, and the whole melon was consumed before the next course came on.
I was at Marseilles when M. Carnot, the President of the Republic visited it, April 16th. Great efforts were made to give him a splendid reception. Venetian masts were set up, strings of fairy lamps were suspended between them, and tricolours were hung as banners to the masts, or grouped together in trophies. But alas! No sooner were all preparations made, than a furious gale broke over the coast, the venetian masts swayed in the wind and were upset or thrown out of the perpendicular, the little lamps jingled against each other and were broken, such as were not shivered were filled with rain, the banners were lashed with the broken wires and torn to shreds, and when M. Carnot arrived, in a pouring rain, it was amidst a very wreckage of festival preparations, and he was received by a crowd of umbrellas. Under such circumstances enthusiasm was damped and ejaculations of welcome were muffled. The President occupied an open landau, and drove along the boulevards without umbrella or waterproof, bowing to right and left in a slashing rain. A deputation of flower women presented him with a sodden bouquet, by the hand of a dripping little girl in white that clung to her as a bathing gown. The President insisted on the maid being lifted to him into the carriage, where he hugged and kissed her, whilst the moisture ran out of her garments like a squeezed sponge, and this demonstration provoked some damp cheers.
I bought Henri Rochefort's paper next day, to see what his correspondent had to say about the visit. Some passages from it are too racy not to be quoted.
"Il faisait un temps à ne pas mettre un ministre dehors, lorsque le train présidentiel est arrivé en gare, et le défilé à la détrempe était pitieux à voir dans _le gargouillement et la transsudation de ce dégorgement cataractal_. Sadi Carnot avait donné l'ordre de laisser son landau découvert, afin de recevoir les ovations enthousiastes des parapluies.