Leading the Blind Read online

  Should our gentleman-traveller wish to call at the Stock Exchange, the Bourse, he may walk along boulevards which were once paved, but ‘as the stones had frequently been employed in the construction of barricades, they were replaced in 1850 by a macadamised asphalt roadway’. The Municipal Authorities of Barcelona, it was once said, solved that problem by numbering the cobblestones so that they could be put back in the correct order after each pronunciamiento. In Paris: ‘The trees with which the boulevards are flanked are a source of constant trouble to the municipal authorities, being frequently killed by the gas lamps’.

  The Bourse is open for business from midday, we are told, but visitors are admitted to the galleries from nine o’clock onwards. Numerous private carriages drive up, and ‘the money-seeking throng hurries into the building. The deafening noise, the shouting, the excited gestures of the spectators, and the eager cupidity depicted in their features, produce a most unpleasant impression on the mind of the neutral spectator.’

  Baedeker’s Paris, 1874, appeared only three years after the upheavals of the Commune, but as soon as order had been restored the tourists flocked back. England had always been much like a box at the theatre, from which heads wagged censoriously at disturbances on the Continent.

  From the Bourse our traveller might make his way to the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, where public executions occurred up to 1830. ‘Hither,’ Murray said, ‘Catherine de Medici and her son came in 1574 to see the torture and death of Montgomeri, for having accidentally slain in a tournament Henry II her husband. In 1676 the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, the notorious poisoner, was burnt here. Madame de Sevigné, a spectator, describes the scene in one of her letters. Cartouche the robber was broken alive here in 1721: and Damiens, so late as 1737, was put to death under the most protracted tortures (torn asunder by 4 horses), for attempting to assassinate Louis XV. In 1766 Lally Tollendal, the brave antagonist of the English in India, was hurried to execution with a gag on his mouth.’

  Accounts of horrors abound in all guidebooks of the period, and indeed the various French upheavals were in a traveller’s living memory, as the Second World War is with us today. At the Place de la Concorde the ‘Guillotine was erected, Jan. 21, 1793, for the execution of Louis XVI. The scaffold was raised a few yards to the w. of the pedestal. The king commenced an address to the people, but was not allowed to finish it; on a signal from Santerre, who commanded the soldiers, the king was seized from behind, bound to the bascule, or setting-plank, and thrust under the axe. No sooner had the head fallen than the crowd rushed in to dip hands, pikes, or handkerchiefs in the blood.’

  And then on 16 October Marie-Antoinette, ‘the once beautiful queen, the most maligned of her sex, but innocent of all moral guilt; she preserved her calm dignity to the last … The blood thus shed like water remained in pools around the spot for the dogs to lick up, and on one occasion the oxen employed to drag a classic car in one of the theatrical processions of the Convention stood still in horror at the tainted spot.’

  Baedeker reminds us that from 1793 to 1795 ‘upwards of 2800 persons perished here by the guillotine’. He also recounts that the last stand of the Communards, in 1871, took place – conveniently – in the Père Lachaise cemetery, where several hundred insurgents took up their position and ‘planted cannon near the tomb of the Due de Morny and the conspicuous Beaujour monument, using the latter as their guard-house. A few days later the batteries of Montmaitre opened their fire upon the cemetery, destroying seven or eight monuments and injuring others. On the 27th the defenders of the cemetery, as well as those insurgents who on being driven back from the barricades of the Château d’Eau and the Place de la Bastille had sought refuge here, were compelled to abandon it, many however, being captured and shot. Near the wall of Charonne, which bears numerous marks of bullets, 147 National Guards, who had been taken prisoner at the barricades, were shot a few days later.’

  From the cemetery it is not far distant to the famous morgue which, Murray tells us, ‘is a place where bodies of the murdered, drowned, or of suicides, are exposed until they are recognised. On entering, a glazed partition will be seen, behind which are exposed the bodies of men and women found dead or drowned, and unowned. They are stretched naked, with the exception of a piece of leather over the loins, upon black marble slabs; the clothes found hang on pegs above them, and a stream of water is trickling over the bodies. Each corpse is exposed for 3 days, and there are usually 3 or 4 at a time, often hideously bloated and distorted, the majority being taken from the river. About 200 are carried to the Morgue every year on average, of whom about one-sixth are women and one-sixth new-born infants. The greatest number are found in June and July, the fewest in December and January. Gambling at the Bourse is the most fruitful cause of suicide. 15 fr. is paid for every corpse brought in. The larger proportion are never claimed by their friends, and are buried at the public expense. A perpetual stream of men, women, and children pour in and out of this horrible exhibition, to gaze at the hideous objects before them, usually with great indifference.’ Baedeker adds: ‘The painful scene attracts many spectators daily, chiefly persons of the lower orders.’

  Baedeker also devotes a section to the Catacombs, which used to be quarries, and date from Roman times, extending under a great part of Paris, with sixty entrances in different suburbs. Several streets in the southern part of the city, situated above these quarries, having begun to show symptoms of sinking, ‘steps were taken by the government in 1784 to avert the danger by constructing piers and buttresses where the upper surface was insufficiently supported. About the same time the Council of State ordered the removal of the bodies from the Cemetery of the Innocents, and others, which were closed at the period, to these subterranean quarries. In 1786 the catacombs were accordingly converted into a vast charnel-house. During the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, immense numbers of bodies and bones brought from various quarters were thrown into these cavities, in confused masses; but in 1810 a regular system was organised for the more seemly disposition of these remains, and the preservation of their resting-place. New pillars have since been erected to support the roof, excavations made to admit more air, and channels dug to carry off the water. The galleries and different compartments are completely lined with human bones, arranged with great care, and intermingled with rows of skulls.’

  More interesting than the Catacombs was the network of sewers. Just as the Victorians thought it important to pay attention to the stomach, and what frequent and copious sustenance was put into it, so they were interested in how the detritus was carried away in the common cloaca, such fascination perhaps reinforced by their recognition that the only possible equality on earth afforded to human beings was in the disposal of what their biological systems ejected. The Paris sewers were, said Baedeker, ‘so admirably constructed and well ventilated that parties, including even ladies, have frequently been formed to explore them. This system of drainage has been so beneficial to the public health that the annual death rate has been been reduced to 22–25 per thousand. If these statistics be correct, Paris is the healthiest capital on the continent, as indeed one would expect from the fact that, with the exception perhaps of Hamburg, it is the only continental city provided with a complete system of underground drainage.’

  According to Baedeker a stay of a fortnight or three weeks was enough to give the traveller a superficial idea of ‘the innumerable attractions which the city offers, but a residence of several months would be requisite to enable him satisfactorily to explore its vast treasures of art and industry’.

  We will assume, however, that he is ready to leave, and continue his several months’ tour of the Continent and the Middle East. In the sitting room of the hotel he will unfold the cloth-bound and dissected map of Central Europe which opens elegantly from the form of a book, engraved by B. R. Davies, and published by Edward Stanford of 6 Charing Cross in 1873. The British always journeyed with good maps, and the beautifully coloured and engraved specimen no doubt carrie
d by our gentleman-traveller showed ‘all the Railways in use with the Stations. Also the principal roads, rivers and Mountain Ranges’, in a coverage extending from the Atlantic to Russian Poland, and from the Mersey to Bosnia (then part of the Turkish Empire). The scale of twenty-four miles to an inch makes its size somewhat awkward for unfolding in a crowded diligence or railway carriage, but most convenient for planning purposes; with a one-franc bottle of wine to hand, our traveller’s finger moves languidly towards Switzerland.

  In 1874 a first-class railway ticket from Paris to Basel cost sixty-three francs, the distance of 328 miles being covered in twelve hours. If our Victorian traveller intended stopping along the way he will have noted the following in Murray’s handbook:

  ‘It has been the custom of the English, who traverse France on their way to Italy or Switzerland, to complain of the monotonous features of the country, and to ridicule the epithet “la Belle France”, which the French are wont to apply to it. By a “beautiful” country, a Frenchman generally understands one richly fertile and fully cultivated; and in this point of view the epithet is justly applied to France. It is also most fortunate in its climate. Many of its vineyards, the most valuable spots in the country, occupy tracts of poor, barren, and waste land, in appearance, which in our climate would be absolutely unprofitable … In France, the features of nature are broad and expanded, and you must often traverse 50 or 100 miles to encounter these pleasing changes which, in Britain, succeed one another almost every 10 miles.’

  The writer goes on to say that, in compensation for this supposed dullness of terrain: ‘… glorious monuments of architectural skill and lavish devotion are far more stupendous in their proportion than the cathedrals of England, but have this peculiarity, that scarcely one of them is finished: thus Beauvais has no nave, Amiens has no towers, Bourges no spire.’

  It was a time, we are reminded, when French provincial towns were being improved for the social convenience of their inhabitants, many completely remodelled, with straight streets and handsome shops replacing narrow and crooked lanes: ‘There are many institutions and establishments in French towns,’ said Murray, ‘deserving high commendation and imitation in England: such are the Abattoirs, or slaughterhouses, always in the outskirts; the public Cemeteries, always situated outside the walls: even the Public Walks to be found in every French town, though not suited altogether to English ideas of recreation, yet show an attention to health and enjoyment of the people which would be worthy of imitation on our side of the Channel.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SWITZERLAND

  The first problem our traveller must consider on entering Switzerland is the complication of money. In his Murray of 1838 he will perhaps already have noted that: ‘There is hardly a country in Europe which has so complicated a currency as Switzerland; almost every canton has a Coinage of its own, and those coins that are current in one canton will not pass in the next. Let the traveller, therefore, be cautious how he overloads himself with more small change than he is sure of requiring.’

  One English sovereign could be exchanged for 17 Swiss francs, 4 batzen and 6 rappen. If any French cash remains in his pocket he will get 7 batzen and 8 rapps for each franc. In the German-speaking provinces a Swiss guilden will net 60 kreutzers, and a ducat 30. The Zurich florin is divided into 16 (good) batzen and 40 rapps, and again into 40 schillings of 4 rapps each. At Geneva a French 5-franc piece will fetch 3 livres, 1 sol and 9 deniers. In the Grisons canton a florin contains 15 (light) batzen and 60 kreutzers, or 70 blutgers, which is the equivalent of 1 French franc 76 centimes, or 16 English pence. In the southern or Ticino part of the country the lira contains 20 solidi, each of 4 quatrini. Perhaps the Norfolk jacket of those days had more pockets than it does today. By 1850, however, the Swiss currency was brought into conformity with that of France.

  Having sorted out the above problem, if he ever did, our traveller will take out his map of the country at the first good inn he comes to, though the remarks in his Murray concerning the complexity and variation in measuring distance will not be reassuring, for they are ‘reckoned not by miles, but by stunden (hours’ walking) or leagues. The measures of length given in the following routes have been taken from the most perfect tables that could be procured; but the Editor is aware that there must be many errors, and that an approach to accuracy is all that can be expected from them. The length of the stunde has been calculated at 5278 metres, or 2708 toises or 1800 Bernese feet; 21,137 of such stunden go to a degree of the Equator. To make their measurement agree with the actual pace of walking, it is necessary to advance 271 Paris feet in a minute … Since the correction of weights and measures in 1833–34, 3/10 of a metre, or 3 decimetres, or 132,988 Paris lines has been constituted the legal Swiss foot, and 16,000 Swiss feet 1 stunde.’

  Folding his map with a sigh, if not in a fit of absolute vexation, our traveller will notice that on the Italian side of the Alps things are even worse. Regarding distances in Piedmont, ‘it is nowhere more strangely felt than in this route to the Val d’Aosta from Turin. With maps, post-books, descriptions of the valley, and the latest authority of the government before us, neither distances nor measures can be reconciled. Whether the miles are geographical, 60 to a degree, or of Piedmont, 40 to a degree, is not mentioned; and no measure from the scales of three of the best maps will agree with either of the quantities described in the three best works, which ought to be of authority since they are sanctioned by the government; so that the distances named can only be approximations.’

  Before taking to the road it will be learned that travelling by diligence in Switzerland has greatly improved in the last twenty years but, even so: ‘On some routes, particularly in going from one canton into another, passengers are sometimes transferred into another coach, and run the chance of waiting several hours for it, being set down in a remote spot to pass the interval as they may, and this not unfrequently in the middle of the night.’

  Those who wish to hire a carriage and driver will observe that: ‘Before making an engagement, it is prudent to consult the landlord of the inn or some other respectable inhabitant – (N.B. not the waiter) – to recommend a person of approved character to be employed. As there are many very roguish voituriers, ready to take advantage of the traveller on all occasions, such a recommendation will be a guarantee, to a certain extent, for good behaviour. The landlord should be referred to apart, not in the presence of the coachman, nor, indeed, with his cognizance. It is a bad plan to intrust a waiter or inferior person with the negotiation; he will most probably sell the traveller to the voiturier, and make a job for his own advantage.’

  The rate of travelling was about forty miles a day, at a speed of five miles an hour, and Murray suggests that the traveller hire one set of horses for the whole tour, since it would not be easy to change them at every town he came to. He would then be free from the ‘manoeuvres of petty inn-keepers, who will often pretend that none are to be had, and will throw every impediment in the way of his departure’.

  Perhaps our traveller, for reasons of economy, decides to go where he will by charabanc, the national carriage of Switzerland, which Murray describes as having the body of a gig, or being like a bench which is ‘placed sideways upon four wheels, at a very little distance from the ground. It is surrounded by leather curtains made to draw, whence it has been compared to a four-post bedstead on wheels. There is a larger kind of char, in which the benches are suspended by thongs, not springs, across a kind of long waggon, and are arranged one behind the other. The char-à-bang is a very strong and light vehicle, capable of carrying two persons, or three at a pinch, and will go on roads where no other species of carriage could venture. It is convenient, from being so low that one can jump in, or alight without stopping the horse, while it is going on; but it is a very jolting conveyance.’ Many lines of railway were opened in Switzerland during the ensuing decades, though the diligence continued in use until motor buses took its place after the turn of the century.

  I
n 1838 the country was already well provided with hotels, though Murray has much to say about them. The approach to a high-class city establishment in summer ‘exhibits rather a characteristic spectacle. The street before it is usually filled with several rows of vehicles of all sorts, from the dirty and rickety calèche of the German voiturier, to the neat chariot of the English peer, and the less elegant, but equally imposing, equipage of the Russian prince. Before the doorway is invariably grouped a crowd of loitering servants and couriers, of all nations and languages, and two or three knots of postilions and coachmen on the look-out for employment. During the height of the season, should the traveller arrive late in the evening, the chances are against his being admitted, unless he had sent or written beforehand to secure rooms.’

  An already familiar system of graft is now outlined: ‘Couriers, voituriers, guides, and boatmen, are apt sometimes to sell their employers to the innkeepers for a gratuity, so that travellers should not always implicitly follow the recommendations of such persons … The innkeepers hitherto have been very much at the mercy of this class of persons, who invariably fare sumptuously, and certainly not at their own expense. It not unfrequently happens that the attendance which ought to be bestowed on the master is lavished upon his menials. Whenever a new inn is started, it is almost invariably by the lavish distribution of high gratuities to coachmen, couriers, and the like, and by pampering them with the best fare, that the landlord endeavours to fill his house, to the prejudice both of the comfort and the purse of their masters.’

  However: ‘It may be laid down as a general rule, that the wants, tastes, and habits of the English are more carefully and successfully studied at the Swiss inns than even in those of Germany. Thus, at most of the large inns, there is a late table-d’hôte dinner at 4 or 5 o’clock, expressly for the English; and the luxury of tea may always be had in perfection.’