A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 | Page 3

the gallies if they shot a bird.
I passed this way in 1783 and 1784, and saw vast numbers of pheasants, partridges, and hares cross the road, and feed by the side of it, as tame as poultry in a farm-yard; but at present the game is all destroyed; neither are there any more wild boars in the forest, which is of 7600 acres. These animals still inhabit the forest of Fontainebleau. This forest (which covers almost four times as much ground as that of Chantilly)[2] contains a greater number of trees, of a more enormous size, than I have seen in any other part of Europe, growing amongst rocks and stones equally remarkable for their dimensions. I know not of any parallel to the sublime-beautiful, and to the wild and romantic grandeur of the scenery here displayed. The landscapes of Salvator Rosa appear to have been taken from natural objects, similar to those which are here seen. It is only forty miles from Paris.
[Note 2: It is about five square miles, or rather, eight miles in length from two to four miles in breadth.]
In the treasury of the Abbey at St. Denis were formerly preserved the Chess-men of Charlemagne; these I described in the first volume of Chess, published in 1787; they are now either stolen or strayed, and will probably never more be heard of.
All the horses (many of which were stone-horses) we had occasion to make use of along this road were very gentle, and so were the cattle which were feeding on the grass growing on the borders of the cornfields, (without any inclosure) which they were prevented from entering by a string tied to their horns, one end of which was sometimes held by a child of five or six years old. The people here are very merciful and kind to their beasts. I have seen droves of oxen walking leisurely through the green markets in the cities, smelling at the vegetables, and driven to the slaughter-house by children. There are no instances here of mad oxen, mad dogs, or run-away horses.
In every one of the towns between Calais and Paris a full-grown tree (generally a poplar) has been planted in the market-place, with many of its boughs and leaves; these last being withered, it makes but a dismal appearance; on the top of this tree or pole is a red woollen or cotton night-cap, which is called the Cap of Liberty, with streamers about the pole, of red, blue and white ribbands.
I saw several statues of saints, both within and without the churches (and in Paris likewise) with similar caps, and several crucifixes with the national cockade of ribbands tied to the left arm of the image on the cross, but not one with the cockade in its proper place; the reason of which I know not.
I was both surprised and sorry to see the wooden images, many of them as large as the life, on crosses, painted with the natural colours, to the amount of perhaps twenty between Calais and Paris, still suffered to remain nuisances on the side of the road. The perpendicular of each cross being seasoned, by having been exposed many years to the open air, might make a couple of excellent pike staves;[3] but the remainder would, as far as I know, be of no other use than for fuel.
[Note 3: This was written after I had become familiarized to pikes.]
Another absurdity which has not been attended to as yet is, that most of the almanacks, even that which is prefixed to Mr. Rabaut's Account of the Revolution, contains against every day in the year, the name of some saint or other, male or female; some of them martyrs, and others not, others archangels, angels, arch-bishops, bishops, popes, and virgins, to the number of twenty-four, and of these, four were martyrs into the bargain; and this at a time when churches are selling by auction and pulling down, when the convents are turned into barracks, when there is neither monk nor nun to be seen in the kingdom, nor yet any Abbe, and when no priest dares appear in any sacerdotal garment, or even with any thing which might mark him as an ecclesiastic. It must however be acknowledged, that the saints have lost all their credit in France, and of course so have the Bienheureux, or Blessed. In order to arrive at saint-hood, the candidate must first have died en odeur de Sainteté, which, were it not too ludicrous, might be translated smelling of holiness; he was then created a Bienheureux, and after he had been dead a century, the pope might canonize him if he pleased; after which he, the saint, might work miracles if he could, or let it alone.
France formerly contained eighteen arch-bishopricks, and one hundred