This miscreant lives unnoticed, in a little village near Paris, upon a slender income, which he has made in trade, not in the _trade of blood_; for it appears that Robespierre was not a very liberal patron of his servants. He kept his blood-hounds lean, and keen, and poorly fed them with the rankest offal.
After a dusty journey, through a very rich and picturesque country, of near eighty miles, we entered the beautiful boulevards[3] of Rouen, about seven o'clock in the evening, which embowered us from the sun. Their shade was delicious. I think them finer than those of Paris. The noble elms, which compose them in four stately rows, are all nearly of the same height. Judge of my surprise--Upon our rapidly turning the corner of a street, as we entered the city, I suddenly found coach, horses and all, in the aisle of an ancient catholic church. The gates were closed upon us, and in a moment from the busy buzzing of the streets, we were translated into the silence of shattered tombs, and the gloom of cloisters: the only light which shone upon us, issued through fragments of stained glass, and the apertures which were formerly filled with it.
[3] Environs of a town, planted with stately trees.
My surprise, however, was soon quieted, by being informed, that this church, having devolved to the nation as its property, by force of a revolutionary decree, had been afterwards sold for stables, to one of the owners of the Rouen diligences.
An old unsaleable cabriolet occupied the place of the altar; and the horses were very quietly eating their oats in the sacristy!!
At the Bureau, we paid twelve livres and a half for our places and luggage from Havre to this town.
[Illustration: _Rouen, from Mount St. Catherine._]
_A female french fib.--Military and Civil Procession.--Madame G.--The Review.--Mons. l'Abbé.--Bridge of Boats.--The Quay.--Exchange.--Theatre.--Rouen.--Cathedral.--St. Ouens.--Prince of Waldec.--Maid of Orleans._