16 Travelling Particularities. Q!AN. 



The Couronne is a comfortable little hotel, close to the port ; and the 

 Hotel de 1'Europe (rue Royale), one of the same class, equally com- 

 fortable and economical. At either of these, the traveller who is not 

 over fastidious, will find all his wants amply provided for. If, 

 however, he is more ft nice than wise," or, above all, if there are 

 " ladies in the case/* let him, as a general rule, eschew all inns but 

 the very best understanding thereby the dearest. Indeed, in the 

 case of ladies being of the party, he will of course travel post ; and then, 

 " the best inn " always is the best : I say " of course " for it may be 

 taken as another rule of continental travelling, that an English female, 

 above the condition of a livery-stable keeper's wife, or a lady's maid, 

 must on no account set her foot in a public conveyance : for if one axiom, 

 appertaining to the metaphysics of general morals may be learned here 

 sooner than any other, it is this that a very high share of external polish 

 and refinement, is in no degree incompatible with a coarseness and vul- 

 garity of mental habits and constitution, little above those of savage life. 

 Not professing to be a connoisseur in such matters, I will not deny that 

 the French are the most polite people the world ever knew. But this I 

 will say, that if an Englishman were to address the same kind of talk to 

 a figure dancer behind the scenes of our theatres, as I have repeatedly 

 heard pass in the public vehicles, and at public tables in France, he 

 would not only deserve to be kicked into the street, but would be very 

 likely to meet with his deserts. 



On about a level with the Couronne and the H6tel de 1'Europe, is that of 

 London, lately fitted up and opened by a Hollander with an unsightly 

 name. The only objection that need be made to this hotel is on the 

 score of its name, which tempts me to offer you one more rule to travel 

 by : never, (while there are others open to you,) enter the doors of an 

 inn, the sign of which includes a compliment to your country or country- 

 men at the expense of its own. Put down, therefore, in your index expur- 

 gatorius, all such agnomens as, ' ' de Londres " " d'Angleterre" " des 

 Isles Britanniques" " d' Albion," &c. 



Consistently with my object in the above comparative estimate of the 

 hotels of Calais, I might safely pass by all the rest in silence. But that 

 my sketch may be complete in this particular, I will add, that in the rue 

 de la Tete d'Or, there is a hotel, (the Albion,) kept by an Englishman, 

 who has at least the merit of retaining all the bluntness and bonhommie 

 that he brought with him from England, as a gentleman's gamekeeper. 

 Those who come to France for the purpose of seeing how near it can be 

 made to seem like England, may dine at the "ordinary" of honest John 

 Cullen, off fillet of veal and ham, or roast beef and plum pudding, as 

 comfortably and profusely as they can at the farmers' table of a market 

 town in their own country and rather more cheaply. Finally, there is 

 a Hotel de St. Louis, and a Hotel de 1'Union, both of about the same 

 quality as that just named ; but the first is French, and consequently, 

 (being in France) to be preferred before the other two. 



Such is Calais a little town well worth seeing, and pleasant enough to 

 live in for a month or a summer ; but not very well adapted for the per- 

 manent residence of those who seek either economy or retirement since its 

 extreme facility of access from England, makes it at once a constant scene 

 of change and bustle, and the dearest town in all France, Boulogne alone 

 exceptcd \ to say nothing of those mauvaises sujels of our immaculate 

 country, of which the same cause makes it the temporary receptacle. 



