of gardens, of courts, of private houses--that
avert themselves from the street as if in natural chagrin at there being
so little to see. Round about is a dull, flat, featureless country, on
which the magnificent cathedral looks down. There is a peculiar dulness
and ugliness in a French town of this type, which, I must immediately
add, is not the most frequent one. In Italy everything has a charm, a
colour, a grace; even desolation and ennui. In England a cathedral city
may be sleepy, but it is pretty sure to be mellow. In the course of six
weeks spent _en province_, however, I saw few places that had not more
expression than Bourges.

I went back to the cathedral; that, after all, was a feature. Then I
returned to my hotel, where it was time to dine, and sat down, as usual,
with the _commis-voyageurs_, who cut their bread on their thumb and
partook of every course; and after this repast I repaired for a while to
the cafe, which occupied a part of the basement of the inn and opened
into its court. This cafe was a friendly, homely, sociable spot, where
it seemed the habit of the master of the establishment to _tutoyer_ his
customers and the practice of the customers to _tutoyer_ the waiter.
Under these circumstances the waiter of course felt justified in sitting
down at the same table with a gentleman who had come in and asked him
for writing materials. He served this gentleman with a horrible little
portfolio covered with shiny black cloth and accompanied with two sheets
of

[Illustration: BOURGES: THE CATHEDRAL (WEST FRONT)]

thin paper, three wafers, and one of those instruments of torture which
pass in France for pens--these being the utensils invariably evoked by
such a request; and then, finding himself at leisure, he placed himself
opposite and began to write a letter of his own. This trifling incident
reminded me afresh that France is a democratic country. I think I
received an admonition to the same effect from the free, familiar way in
which the game of whist was going on just behind me. It was attended
with a great deal of noisy pleasantry, flavoured every now and then with
a dash of irritation. There was a young man of whom I made a note; he
was such a beautiful specimen of his class. Sometimes he was very
facetious, chattering, joking, punning, showing off; then, as the game
went on and he lost and had to pay the _consommation_, he dropped his
amiability, slanged his partner, declared he wouldn't play any