us the afflicting moment when
we were to quit Paris. The postilion, who was to convey us to Rochefort,
was already at the door of the house in which we lived, to conduct us to
his carriage, which waited for us at the Orleans gate. Immediately an
old hackney coach appeared; my father stept into it, and in an instant
it was filled. The impatient coachman cracked his whip, sparks flashed
from the horse's feet, and the street of Lille, which we had just
quitted, was soon far behind us. On arriving before the garden of the
Luxumbourg, the first rays of the morning's sun darted fiercely through
the foliage, as if to say, you forsake the zephyrs in quitting this
beautiful abode. We reached the Observatory, and in an instant passed
the gate d'Enfer. There, as yet for a moment to breathe the air of the
capital, we alighted at the Hotel du Pantheon, where we found our
carriage. After a hasty breakfast, the postilion arranged our trunks,
and off again we set. It was nearly seven in the morning when we quitted
the gates of Paris, and we arrived that evening at the little village
of d'Etampes, where our landlord, pressing us to refresh ourselves,
almost burned his inn in making us an omelet with rotten eggs. The
flames, ascending the old chimney, soon rose to the roof of the house,
but they succeeded in extinguishing them. We were, however, regaled with
a smoke which made us shed tears. It was broad day when we quitted
d'Etampes; and our postilion, who had spent the greater part of the
night in drinking with his comrades, was something less than polite. We
reproached him, but he made light of the circumstance; for, in the
evening, he was completely drunk. On the twenty-fifth of May, at ten in
the morning, my father told me we were already thirty-two leagues from
Paris. Thirty-two leagues! cried I; alas, so far! Whilst I made this
reflection, we arrived at Orleans. Here we remained about three hours to
refresh ourselves as well as our horses. We could not leave the place
without visiting the statue raised in honour of Joan of Arc, that
extraordinary woman, to whom the monarchy once owed its safety.

On leaving Orleans, the Loire, and the fertile pastures through which it
rolls its waters, excited our admiration. We had on our right the
beautiful vineyards of Beaugency. The road, as far as Amboise, is
delightful. I then began to think, that Paris and its environs might
perhaps be forgotten, if the country of Senegal, to which we were