We discharged part of our cargo at Honfleur, but the boat was still greatly crowded. Fatigue and ill health rendered standing painful to A----, and all the benches were crowded. She approached a young girl of about eighteen, who occupied _three chairs_. On one she was seated; on another she had her feet; and the third held her _reticule_. Apologizing for the liberty, A---- asked leave to put the _reticule_ on the second chair, and to take the third for her own use. This request was refused! The selfishness created by sophistication and a factitious state of things renders such acts quite frequent, for it is more my wish to offer you distinctive traits of character than exceptions. This case of selfishness might have been a little stronger than usual, it is true, but similar acts are of daily occurrence, _out of society_, in France. _In society_, the utmost respect to the wants and feelings of others is paid, vastly more than with us; while, with us, it is scarcely too strong to say that such an instance of unfeeling selfishness could scarcely have occurred at all. We may have occasion to inquire into the causes of this difference in national manners hereafter.
The Seine narrows at Quilleboeuf, about thirty miles from Havre, to the width of an ordinary European tide river. On a high bluff we passed a ruin, called _Tancarville_, which was formerly a castle of the De Montmorencies. This place was the cradle of one of William's barons; and an English descendant, I believe, has been ennobled by the title of Earl of Tankerville.
Above Quilleboeuf the river becomes exceedingly pretty. It is crooked, a charm in itself, has many willowy islands, and here and there a grey venerable town is seated in the opening of the high hills which contract the view, with crumbling towers, and walls that did good service in the times of the old English and French wars. There were fewer seats than might have been expected, though we passed three or four. One near the waterside, of some size, was in the ancient French style, with avenues cut in formal lines, mutilated statues, precise and treeless terraces, and other elaborated monstrosities. These places are not entirely without a pretension to magnificence; but, considered in reference to what is desirable in landscape gardening, they are the very _laid idéal_ of deformity. After winding our way for eight or ten hours amid such scenes, the towers of Rouen came in view. They had a dark ebony-coloured look, which did great violence to our Manhattanese notions, but which harmonized gloriously with a bluish sky, the grey walls beneath, and a background of hanging fields.