1819] A Rough Journey in France 133 



over a great wide ploughed plain, almost at the extent of 

 which I observed a farm-house. However before I reached 

 that I fell in with some waggoners, and they and their horses 

 after a time helped us out of the rut; then we took one of 

 them as a guide to the Saint Quentin road, for we were, as 

 we expected, in some cross one in which, they told us, if 

 we had gone much further we must inevitably have been 

 over-turned. We had to walk full two hours following our 

 unhappy-looking carriage, appearing every five minutes as 

 if it was going to be plunged [word torn off]. The villages 

 we passed through were like Jeffrestone, quite as full of 

 [mire], and darkness was coming on so fast, I wonder we 

 escaped being swallowed up in it. It was quite dark when 

 we arrived on the pave, and never was I more glad in my life 

 to arrive at any place ; and we arrived at St Quentin between 

 ten and eleven, tired and out of humour, which a dirty inn 

 did not improve. The next day we had still to contend 

 with bad roads, but fatigue made us take them as gently 

 as possible, and as our carriage had escaped the day before 

 with no more damage than six franks repaired, we began 

 to feel confidence in it; and Fanny's outcries when the 

 carriage went aside subsided, and I was surprised to observe 

 how little harm so much fatigue did her. After, or rather 

 before we arrived at Dijon, and from thence on to this place, 

 our journey was entirely agreeable, the travelling in and view 

 from the Jura finer than I ever thought it before. The 

 weather was splendid, and Mont Blanc broke on us in all ita 

 glory. . . . 



