It may seem like heresy to say it, but, after having visited many countries, I am still inclined to think that France in its various parts, notwithstanding its proximity to our own country, retains more points of interest, more of the _couleur locale_, than any other land. But an Englishman, who travels to see France and French people, ought always to dine at the table d'hôte, wherever he finds one. The higher classes of all nations are too nearly alike to offer any very striking points of difference to a casual observer, for the general principle of all is to conceal what they feel and what they think, at least in public; but the mixture of a table d'hôte affords almost always something worth studying. It is in such circumstances that we find the most legible pages in the book of human nature. The classes of Englishmen travelling in France are somewhat altered since Sterne's time. The economical traveller is not so simple as he was then: there are also travellers who go for luxury; there are travellers for novelty; there are travellers for information; and there are travellers who journey forth into the world from the mere necessity of locomotion. These last are very numerous amongst the English. One of this class, finding the disease coming on violently, builds himself a low carriage, with very substantial wheels, and plenty of room for his feet. He furnishes it with all the peculiar luxuries of London, strews the left-hand seat with novels, and, placing himself in the interior, with his servant behind, draws up the windows, and fancies he is travelling through Europe. The profound meditations which he enjoys in the inside of his painted box are seldom if ever interrupted, except when the carriage stops, and he asks, "John, where am I?" The servant holds open the door, touches his hat, and replies, "At Rome, sir!" and the traveller, yawning, walks into the inn.
There are several varieties of this class merging into others. One morning a party of them came into the aisle, when I was in the cathedral at Rouen (a very beautiful specimen of Gothic building, let criticism say what it will). The only attention they gave it was one vacant stare, which wandered heedlessly over the rich ornaments and the most magnificent combination of arches that architecture can produce--swore it was _fine_, _very fine_, and walked out. I asked the valet-de-place who accompanied us, how long English travellers staid in general, when they visited the cathedral. He said, "About five minutes; but if they staid longer at all, they generally made it nearly as long as we had been."