ARRIVAL AT PARIS. 241
We looked in vain for the white cottages of England, so beautiful with their trim hedges and lingering blos soms.
At St. Omers, a fortified town of gloomy aspect, where we stopped a few minutes for refreshment, we were first initiated into the terrible mendicity of France. Every age and condition of suffering human ity beset us, and cried at every crevice of our vehicle with the most piteous and persevering tones.
Being fatigued with sitting twenty hours in the dili gence, with scarcely an opportunity to change our position, we decided to rest at Amiens for a night and day. We visited the cathedral, which is a grand, im posing building, both in architecture and decorations, heard the regular daily service performed, and saw many superb monuments and shrines, before which candles were perpetually burning. At seven in the evening, we recommenced another journey of twenty hours, stopping only a few moments at Clermont, at three in the morning. The moon occasionally pierc ing the clouds reflected the shadow of our ludicrous and rumbling equipage, like a house on wheels, drawn sometimes by six, and at others by. seven horses, over wet and heavy roads ; and delighted were we when, at the Hotel Meurice, opposite the gardens of the Tuileries, we found refreshment and repose.
T was pleasant thus to see the vales of France, Green as tho Summer s spirit lingered there, 16
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