1828.] Travelling Particularities. 15 



Journey" which so spread its fame, it is somewhat passe. This may 

 perhaps account for its extravagant charges, which its diminished vogue 

 may render necessary. But be this as it may, two francs for a plain 

 breakfast, six for merely a tolerable dinner, and four or five for a bed, are 

 prices ridiculously beyond the mark I mean here, on the continent 

 where, I will venture to say, they are not charged at any other place what- 

 ever, out of Paris. Nevertheless, to those who can well afford it, the stately 

 rooms, splendid furniture, and altogether characteristic arrangements of 

 this place, are well worth paying for a sight of, by those who for the first 

 time set their foot on foreign ground. 



Next to Dessin's, in point of selectness, is the Bourbon, situated in an 

 out of the way street, rue Eustache St. Pierre. It is not conducted with 

 any thing like the decorum of Dessin's, and there is none of that air of 

 grandeur which distinguishes the other ; but its rooms are furnished with 

 every elegance consistent with comfort, and its charges are as moderate 

 as they need or ought to be since, if all the hotels of a much-frequented 

 place were to charge no more for their accommodations than exactly what 

 they could afford to supply them for, the slightest superiority of outward 

 appearance, or of treatment, would attract all travellers, to the manifest 

 inconvenience of all, and would put an end to that distinction which 

 wealth, and a free disposal of it, has a right to command. But there 

 should be a reasonable limit put to that distinction ; and the agremens of 

 life may be purchased at too dear a rate. I had rather pay five shillings 

 for a slice of broiled salmon and a rump steak off silver, in a well-ap- 

 pointed coffee-room, than half that sum for the same off crockery in a 

 chop-house, in company with bank clerks and " law students " even 

 though the viands may be as good and as well dressed in the latter case 

 as in the former j but if I am to pay seven and sixpence, or ten shillings, 

 then I shall assuredly put up with the inferior arrangements, and the 

 " table talk " which I must fain hear into the bargain. 



Quillacq's (rue Neuve) is the next in reputation to the Bourbon, and de- 

 serves to be at least on an equality with it. It is larger, more airy, more 

 lively, and more French which latter is a point in its favour. Its charges 

 are about the same less rather than more. These three hotels must be 

 reckoned as first-rate ; and those who travel in any other mode than by 

 post, will do well to avoid the two first-named of them ; since they will 

 pay about a third more than elsewhere, only to be treated with neglect. 



At the head of the second-rate hotels of Calais, I must place Meurice's 

 (rue de la Prison ;) and at the head of all, for those travellers, among 

 the middle classes, who visit France for once, to see what they cannot see 

 elsewhere. Meurice's is a perfect specimen of a French auberge, with its 

 public salon, its table d'hote, its open cuisine, its diligences, coming and 

 going, its rude, red-skirted filles de chambre, and all its various items of 

 entertaining novelty. 



On about the same level with Meurice's, is the Hotel Royal, (rue de la 

 Duchesse de Kingston,) kept by a Frenchified Englishman which is, and 

 ought to be, an abomination in the eyes of both English and French. His 

 hotel, however, is tolerably well conducted, and affords every comfort 

 at a moderate price. The cour (that pleasant appendage to all large 

 french inns) is more pleasant to me with its vines spreading everywhere 

 over the walls, and its little boxed-in garden round two sides of it than 

 any other in Calais : though I should like it still better with the nice old>- 

 fashioned addition of an outside gallery to the chambers on the first floor. 



