In the provinces of the East, through which so many troops had passed in succession during the last ten years, the roads had become even more impassable. Josephine would not soon forget her journey to Aix-la-Chapelle in 1804, nor the horrible road surface that shook her to pieces between Sedan and Rethel. Next day, in order to climb a steep slope, her carriage tad to be supported by ropes, and she howled with terror.
Three years earlier Josephine had found the journey to Plombieres no pleasure excursion either, but at least it brought Bonaparte an amusing letter from Hortense, recounting the expedition. She and her mother had left home with Mme Laetitia, Emilie de Beauharnais, now Mme de Lavalette, and General Rapp, acting as escort to the ladies. As soon as they reached the Vosges, Hortense sent news:
'To the inmates of Malmaison.
£ On leaving Malmaison the party was in tears, and this gave them all such a frightful headache that the day proved really an oppressive one for these amiable creatures. Mme Bonaparte mere went through this memorable day with the greatest courage; Mme Bonaparte the Consuless showed none at all; the two young ladies in the sleeping-carriage, Mile Hortense and Mme La Valette, fought for the bottle of eau-de-Cologne, and the amiable M. Rapp had the carriage stopped every moment to relieve his little ailing stomach) which was burdened with bile/
On the second day everybody's health seems to have improved, but the dinner they found at Toul consisted of spinach 'dressed with lamp-oil, and red asparagus fricasseed in sour milF. They hoped for a better luncheon next day, at Nancy, but unfortunately the military authorities, coming to pay their respects to the travellers, interfered with their plans. £ We continued our journey, therefore, growing visibly thinner/ sighs Hortense. To crown all, the grand sleeping-carriage was nearly upset in the Moselle. Everything ended at last in a triumphal reception at Piombieres.
'This is the account of our journey, which we the undersigned certify to be true;
21st Messidor.
Josephine Bonaparte. Bonaparte-Lavalette. Hortense Beauharnais. Rapp. Bonaparte Mere/
If the journeys of the Bonapartes were as toilsome as this, it is easy to imagine the conditions under which ordinary individuals travelled. One of the nuisances they complained of was the number of toll-stages.
'The French', says Yorke, 'have recently discovered a means of raising the money needed for repairing the roads. They have set up barriers, at irregular intervals, that one can only open by paying from eighteen to twenty sous.'
Each section between two barriers counted as a stage, but the stage charges were higher on the national roads than on the others: between Calais and Paris, for instance, there were only twenty-six stages, but one had to pay tolls corresponding to thirty-four and a half.
What arithmetical problems the unfortunate traveller had to solve! He was for ever thumbing the official handbook of the stages with one hand and rummaging in his waistcoat pocket with the other.
Further taxes were imposed on him when he had to cross a bridge or be ferried over a river. The nearer he got to Paris, the greater the number of duties he had to pay. In the department of the Seine, ferry charges were as follows: six sous for a two-wheel carriage, fifty centimes for a four-wheeler, eight sous for a cart, fifteen for a wagon, ten centimes for a man on horseback, five for a foot-passenger, only three for a calf. Bipeds and quadrupeds thus had their special hierarchy.
Anyone crossing France from one end to the other would have time to compare these countless tyrannies of travel. He would be fortunate not to be held to ransom by some dishonest ferryman if he wanted to cross a ford, as was the case with the student from Perigord, the young Poumies, who has left us his recollections.
Having quitted his village in the early years of the Empire to go to Paris, where he intended to study medicine, the future Esculapius came to the bank of a stream which had just been turned into a torrent by a thunderstorm. A native declared that he knew a good ford. 'If you'll give me a hundred sous', he said, Til take you across on my back/ The bargain concluded, Poumies was soon astride the shoulders of the peasant, who had discarded all but his shirt. They had reached the middle of the ford when the porter came to a dead stop, saying, 'It's a tougher job than I thought. Double the sum, or I drop you/ To avoid a ducking, the poor lad did as he was bid. But on reaching the farther bank with his bundle intact, tired of travelling pickaback, he hurried on to Angouleme and jumped into the diligence.
Not that there was anything attractive about these clumsy vehicles, which from one year's end to the other went grinding their axles along the roads, covering hardly more than seventy-five kilometres in twenty-four hours — taking six days, that is, from Lyons to the capital, and four and a half from Paris to the Channel coast.
Their Paris station was in the Rue du Bouloi, in the old stage-coach yard painted by Boilly. There, every morning and evening, laden with endless luggage, all sorts of travellers were to be seen arriving, from the bourgeois of the Marais, carrying his skull-cap for the daytime and his cotton nightcap for the night, to the touring actress, the commercial traveller and the pair of lovers. Some were departing, others being left behind, and touching scenes took place: like Fon-tainebleau, Paris had its Court of Farewells.
After much weeping and embracing, the hour of departure arrived; the coachman mounted his box, a bell rang, and the heavy conveyance moved off with a clatter, amid the cursing and whip-cracking of the postillions. It would rumble along for hours and hours, shaking up its occupants at every jolt, deafening them with the rattling of the windows, souring their tempers, provoking subacid dialogues between neighbours: 'Monsieur, your elbow is hurting me! ? 'Madame, your box is in my way!' 'Do pull up the window! 7 'Stop that child crying!' 'Wring that parrot's neck!'
When night came, these unfortunates would sleep, alas, with one eye open. They would wake next day with cramped legs and arms, stiff necks, puffy eyes. Such was the usual martyrdom of the patrons of a diligence. Little wonder if people thought twice before trusting themselves to it, or if the total number of travellers leaving Paris each day, under the Empire, hardly exceeded an average of 220.
Lighter, and therefore faster, carriages known as veloci-feres were placed on the road at the beginning of 1804. There were seven different models, from cabriolets and berlines to the huge vehicles to seat thirty-five passengers, and drawn by four horses, which in spite of their size beat all the records of the ancient letter mail*, reaching Rouen in seven hours, Dijon in sixty, and Milan via the Simplon Pass in ten days. They had moreover the no less appreciable advantage of lower fares than those of the diligence - fifteen sous a league at most. Besides which, the stages were reckoned so as to allow their passengers to spend every night at an inn, sup on something better than a snack, and sleep in a real bed.
Was it always a comfortable one? It would be unwise to say so, for most of the French hostelries were still very indifferent. Apart from a few famous houses, such as the Tete-de-Bceuf at Abbeville, the Hotel de la Cloche at Dijon, the Haute-Mere-Dieu at Chalons-sur-Mame, the Poste at Beaune and the Tiuollier at Toulouse, the innumerable Cheval-Blancs, Grand-Cerfs, Chapeau-Rouges and Cadran-Bleus thronging the provinces at that time had only very meagre resources at their disposal.
One could sometimes have a reasonably good meal there, especially if one had taken the precaution of announcing one's arrival in advance. Sir John Dean Paul was very pleased with the dinners provided by the Dessein in Calais, and the 'Occi-tanienne* had an enthusiastic memory of the cooking of M. Villeminet, the excellent master cook of Lavaur. But in most of the inns either the customer was fleeced or he found the larder empty, and ran the risk of being told, as Theophile Gautier was, somewhat later, when he said he wished to take something: 'Well, then, monsieur, take a chair!'