SD1511. Diary Entry of Thomas Carlyle
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 17, 273–274 (in part).
Chelsea
[26 September 1851]
We strolled back to pay our bill, and get ready for our start to Paris. Browning, as before, did everything; I sat out of doors on some logs at my ease, and smoked, looking over the population and their ways. Before eleven we were in the omnibus, facing towards the débarcadère (rail terminus), which is at the south-east corner of the harbour, a very smart, airy, but most noisy and confused place.
Maximum of fuss! The railway people, instead of running to get your luggage and self stowed away quàm primum and out of their road, keep you and it in hall after hall, weighing it, haggling over it, marching you hither, then thither; making an infinite hubbub. You cannot get to your carriages till the very last minute, and then you must plunge in head foremost. ‘They order these matters worse in France!’ Browning fought for us, and we—that is, the women, the child, and I—had only to wait and be silent. We got into a good carriage at last: we four, a calm young Frenchman in glazed hat, who was kind enough not to speak one word, and a rather pretty young lady of French type, who smiled at the child sometimes, but sat thoughtful for the rest and did not speak either. There was air enough, both my window and the other down; the air was fine, the country beautiful; and so away we rolled under good auspices again. …
At length Paris itself (4 p.m.), and we are safe in the terminus at our set hour.
Alas, it was still a long battle before our luggage could be got out; and a crowding, jingling, vociferous tumult, in which the brave Browning fought for us, leaving me to sit beside the women. It is so they manage in France: there are droits de l’octroi; there are—in fine, there is maximum of fuss, and much ado about almost nothing! Some other train was in the act of departing, as our poor women sat patiently waiting on their bench; and all was very fidgetting and very noisy. I walked out to smoke; one official permitted me, another forbade; I at length went into the street and sat down upon a borne to smoke; touters of hotels came round me: I am for the Hôtel Meurice, inflexibly fixed; de grâce, Messieurs, laissez-moi en paix; which at last they did. Cigar ended, I went in again, Browning still fighting (in the invisible distance) about nothing at all. Our luggage visible at last upon a distant counter, then Browning visible with report of a hackney coach: we think it is now over; rash souls, there is yet endless uproar among the porters, wishing to carry our luggage on a truck; we won’t, they will: even Browning had at last grown heated; at length I do get a cab for myself and little trunk, certain French coins hastily from Browning, and roll away. Halt! Browning has my key; I have to turn back, and get it: happily this proves the last remora, and now I do get along and reach Meurice’s—at five instead of four p.m. …
Text: Last Words of Thomas Carlyle (London, 1892), pp. 155–165.
___________________
