Auberge

“ At Isella, however, we were, passing the custom-house, which I had hoped might be the inn, being a building of decent exterior, to arrive at the most miserable auberge ever owned by even Italian masters: a wretched shed on one side for stable, the sharp air blowing in on our wet horses, no groom to dry them, and filth for a bed ”

“ There were some old prints, also, on the walls, very superior to those hung up usually in the auberges of the continent, especially in a village auberge. When the supper was brought up, I observed that the silver forks and spoons were engraved with double arms and the coronet of a marquis. I asked the female who brought up the soup, from whence they had obtained them? She replied, rather brusquement, that she supposed they had been bought at the silversmith’s, and left the room as if not wanting to be questioned. The master of the auberge came up with some wine. ”

“ The first half hour or so of our rides in the early dewy mornings, our rough déjeuners outside the little cafés, the long, drowsy afternoons under the trees, watching the lazy life of the road—the wine wagons and the bullock carts and the sunburnt men and women—and the brown, dusty children with their goats—and the quiet evenings under the stars when we have either sat alone saying nothing or else talked to the patron of the auberge and listened to his simple philosophy of life. ”

“ LA GALETTE. Hunger, that most domineering of all tyrants, took advantage of our ramble to bully us sadly; and though we had not neglected to satisfy his morning demands, before we set out from Dieppe, he contrived to force us into a dirty little cottage at Arques, which the people called "l'Auberge!" It was the strangest combination of kitchen, and pig-sty, and hen-roost, that ever I saw. ”

“ Such was not, however, altogether the aspect of the little auberge at Bourgoin. The village was too small to have a regular inn, or gîte, and the homely symbol of a bush, suspended from a long pole, thrust forth horizontally from the front of the building, was the only sign that it could boast. The landlord and landlady were in their green old age, and were what they term in France bonasse, though that word has been applied to a beast who, if one may judge by his look, is of a very opposite sort of disposition to that which I wish to describe. ”

“ All this is comfort, compared to a country auberge in France. Arriving wet and weary, to stand in the middle of a great brick-floored room, in which there has been no fire all the winter, in expectation of seeing damp faggots burn; and finding when they do that the door into the 72 corridor must be left wide open, that the draught may conduct towards the chimney the smoke, and the steam of wet clothes and damp sheets which must be dried there, as the economical kitchen hearth exhibits only a few dying embers,—this was our case. ”

“ If you go according to the post-boy's recommendation, the aubergiste gives him two or three livres, which he makes you pay the next morning. I know but one auberge between Marseilles and Paris, where this is not a constant practice, and that is at Vermanton, five leagues from Auxerre, where every English traveller will find a decent landlord, Monsieur Brunier, a St. Nicolas; good entertainment, and no imposition, and consequently an inn where no post-boy will drive, if he can avoid it. ”

“ The people of this country dine at noon, and travellers always find an ordinary prepared at every auberge, or public-house, on the road. Here they sit down promiscuously, and dine at so much a head. The usual price is thirty sols for dinner, and forty for supper, including lodging; for this moderate expence they have two courses and a dessert. If you eat in your own apartment, you pay, instead of forty sols, three, and in some places, four livres ahead. ”

“ We had been overtaken by heavy rain soon after passing Oued el-Hamma, and on our arrival at Khenchla, whither our baggage had preceded us, we were dismayed to see the tents standing in a lake of mud and water. To sleep there was impossible. Fortunately we were once more in civilisation, and found an excellent auberge, in [100] which we passed the night most comfortably. The station was in a great state of excitement, owing to a visit which was hourly expected from the Bishop of Constantine. ”

“ Amused with my adventure, I returned to my auberge, where I asked one or two questions concerning the worthy gentleman from whom I had just parted, and found, by the replies, that, since our former rencontre in the forest, he had already made one successful trip across the Atlantic, and had given every sort of satisfaction to the owners of his vessel. "All is well that ends well," I thought ”

“ The hotel-keeper, in order to keep on good terms with the representatives of the wine-merchants—all mixers—who stop at his house, distributes his custom among them. Those who set value on a pure vin du pays with a specific flavour belonging to the soil, should look for it in the little out-of-the-way auberge lying amongst the vineyards. There it is probable that some of the old stock is still left, and if the vigneron-innkeeper says it is the old wine, the traveller may confidently believe him. ”

“ This is the only hotel in this vicinity, and as there is a really excellent bowling-alley attached to it, and the barroom has a floor upon which the miners can dance, and, above all, a cook who can play the violin, it is very popular. But the clinking of glasses, and the swaggering air of some of the drinkers, remind us that it is no place for a lady, so we will pass through the dining-room, and, emerging at the kitchen, in a step or two reach our log cabin. ”

“ But that humbler type of hostelry so often represented in sketches of English rural life and scenery—the little, cozy, one-story, wayside, or hamlet inn, with its thatched roof, checker-work window, low door, and with a loaded hay-cart standing in front of it, while the driver, in his round, wool hat, and in his smock-frock, is drinking at a pewter mug of beer, with one hand on his horse’s neck—this the hand of modern improvements has not yet reached. ”

“ They entered the door of the first inn they came to, and as John called for coffee, Amrie said:
“How beautifully is every thing ordered in this world! Here are people who have furnished a house with chairs and tables and benches; in the kitchen burns the fire, and there is coffee and milk and sugar, and a beautiful service for the table, and all for us, as though we had ordered it ”

“ But here is our inn, a long-forgotten hostelrie, where one can sit at noon in the shade by the doorway with a book, and watch the ships far out go by upon the firth, while the cool sea glistens below, and all day long there is the drowsy hum of bees about the yellow tassels of the laburnums at the gable ends. A pleasant spot it is even now in the darkness. The lilac-trees in the garden are a-bloom, and the air is sweet with their scent. ”

“ As usual, every one you look at puts out the hand to beg. The tavern where we stopped to dine seemed more like a great barn, or cavern, than any thing else. We go groping along perfectly dark stone passages, stumbling up a stone staircase, and gaining light only when the door of a kind of reception room opens upon us—a long, rough-looking room, without any carpet, furnished with a table, and some chairs, and a rude sofa. ”

“ It is a pleasant thirst when you know that there are just so many steps to the next inn, and that the cooling drink which is to wash your insides and make you jolly, lies in the cellar there, waiting for you. ”

“ The hotel stands alone upon a beautiful hill-side, a mile away from the ancient village; it is at an elevation of 2,188 feet above sea-level, in the very heart of the mountains; and, from every window of the large, quiet, clean, new building, the views are exquisite. The hill slope that sweeps far upward behind it is a mountain-pasture or Alp, where shepherd-boys tend the cattle throughout the cool summer nights. ”

“ When you have no place to lay your head, and are obliged to spend the night in the woods, you will think of your house at home and the seven well-stuffed beds that are in it, and the plenty of furniture and dishes, and the wine on tap in the cellar. ”

“ Generally, when you enter a country tavern of a summer's noon, you find some miserable creature besotting himself on a bench behind the table, half asleep over his stale beer or schnapps, who will stare at every new-comer, and brag and rail in some unintelligible fashion. ”

“ You are perhaps wondering how it comes to pass that an inn can exist placed alone in the midst of green pasture-land, and only approached by a simple foot track, which more than once leads the wayfarer across mere plank bridges, and which passes, only at long intervals, small groups of cottages that call themselves villages. ”

“ The inn is yonder,” he continued, pointing towards the noble-looking edifice.
“What, is that the inn?” said I.
“Yes, sir, the railroad hotel—and a first-rate hotel it is.”
“And are there no other inns?”
“Yes; but they are all poor places. No gent puts up at them—all the gents by the railroad put up at the railroad hotel.” ”

“ Two to four sleep in one cabin, which is well and comfortably furnished; while in the steerage from 200 to 400 sleep in one compartment on bunks, one above the other, with little light and no comforts. In the second cabin the food is excellent, is partaken of in a luxuriantly appointed dining-room, is well cooked and well served; while in the steerage the unsavoury rations are not served, but doled out, with less courtesy than one would find in a charity soup kitchen. ”

“ At noon came the break for déjeuner; preferably in some little world-forgotten townlet, where, after the hors-d’œuvre, omelette, cutlet, chicken, and fruit—and where is the sad, plague-stricken hamlet of France that cannot, in the twinkling of an eye, provide such a meal for the hungry wayfarer?—they loved to take their coffee beneath the awning of a café on the shady side of the great, sleepy square, and absorb the sleepy, sunny, prosperous spirit of the place; the unpainted bandstand in the centre, the low-lying houses with sleepy little shops and cafés—Heavens! ”

“ After ascending about an hour more, through a series of very wild and romantic glens, with cottages and curious-looking chalets scattered here and there along the borders of them, wherever the ground was smooth and green enough for cattle to feed, our travellers came, at length, to the summit of the pass, where, in a very pleasant and sheltered spot, surrounded with forest trees, there stood a little inn. ”

“ At the inn I met one of those commercial travellers who work about in the rural districts of France, driving from village to village with their samples, fiercely competing for the favours of the rustic shopkeeper, doing their utmost to get before one another, and be the first bee that sucks the flower, taking advantage of one another's errors and accidents, but always good friends and excellent table companions when they meet. ”

“ We would either have to spend the night curled up among coils of rope, with no shelter except a windowless, furnitureless cupboard of four feet by three, which maybe called itself a cabin, or we would have to crawl humbly back to the inn and sue for a night's lodging. ”

“ It is not into these gloomy receptacles of contraband that we would now conduct our reader, but into a far more cheerful and more comfortable locality—the spacious kitchen of the cabin, or, in fact, the apartment which served for the double purpose of cooking and eating—the common room of the inn, where around a blazing fire of black turf was seated a party of three persons. ”

“ Going down stairs at about eleven o'clock, I find a table set in the front hall, at the foot of the great staircase, and there, in full view of all who come or go, the landlord and his entire establishment, except the slaves and coolies, are at breakfast. This is done every day. At the café round the corner, the family with their white, hired servants, breakfast and dine in the hall, through which all the customers of the place must go to the baths, the billiard rooms, and the bowling-alleys. ”

“ Crowded into a narrow, dirty cabin, with benches on each side and a long table in the middle, at which a set of Frenchmen with their hats on are playing cards and eating déjeuners à la fourchette all day long, and deafening you with their noise, while waiters are running against your legs and treading on your toes every moment, and the water is dropping on your head through the cracks of the deck-floor, you would be forced to admit the superlative misery of such a mode of travelling. ”

“ Here one may choose his own fashion of living, for these hostelries range from the most formal and luxurious hotel to the simplest collection of tents or log cabins around a central log dining structure. Some of these camps are picturesque, the growth of years from the original log hut. Some are equipped with modern comforts; others are as primitive as their beginnings. All the larger resorts have stables of riding horses, for riding is the fashion even with those who do not venture into the mountains. ”

“ Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves
Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.
As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality ”

“ Every one that has travelled on the Continent must know how favorite a resort the kitchen of a country inn is to the middle and inferior order of travellers, particularly in that equivocal kind of weather when a fire becomes agreeable toward evening. ”