DEPARTURE FROM LYONS--BATTEAUX DE POSTE--RIVER SCENERY--VILLAGE OF CONDRIEU--VIENNE--VALENCE--POINT ST. ESPRIT--DAUPHINY AND LANGUEDOC--DEMI-FETE DAY, ETC.
I found a day and a half quite enough for Lyons. The views from the mountain and the river were the only things that pleased me. I made the usual dry visit to the library and the museum, and admired the Hotel de Ville, and the new theatre, and the front of the _Maison de Tolosan_, that so struck the fancy of Joseph II., and having "despatched the lions," like a true cockney traveller, I was too happy to escape the offensive smells of the streets, and get to my rooms. One does not enjoy much comfort within doors either. Lyons is a great imitation metropolis--a sort of second-hand Paris. I am not very difficult to please, but I found the living intolerable. It was an affectation of abstruse cookery throughout. We sat down to what is called the best table in the place, and it was a series of ludicrous travesties, from the soup to the salad. One can eat well in the country, because the dishes are simple, and he gets the natural taste of things; but to come to a table covered with artificial dishes, which he has been accustomed to see in their perfection, and to taste and send away everything in disgust, is a trial of temper which is reserved for the traveller at Lyons.
The scenery on the river, from Lyons to Avignon, has great celebrity, and I had determined to take that course to the south. Just at this moment, however, the Rhone had been pronounced too low, and the steamboats were stopped. I probably made the last passage by steam on the Saone, for we ran aground repeatedly, and were compelled to wait till horses could be procured to draw the boat into deep water. It was quite amusing to see with what a regular, business-like air, the postillions fixed their traces to the prow, and whipped into the middle of the river. A small boat was my only resource, and I found a man on the quay who plied the river in what is called _batteaux de poste_, rough shallops with flat bottoms, which are sold for firewood on their arrival, the rapidity of the Rhone rendering a return against the current next to impossible. The sight of the frail contrivance in which I was to travel nearly two hundred miles, rather startled me, but the man assured me he had several other passengers, and two ladies among them. I paid the _arrhes_, or earnest money, and was at the river-stairs punctually at four the next morning.