bted to Mons. Picon, a master voiturier at Paris, who imposed
on us both as to the number of horses, and the length of time in which
we were to be conveyed to Chalons.

"Hic niger est; hunc tu, Romane, caveto."

Having met with a respectable voiturier, named Veroux, who conveyed us
admirably from Calais to Paris, my habitual distrust of this class of
gentry had relaxed just at the wrong time, for the benefit of M. Picon.

If cities are to be estimated by their appearance of neatness and
opulence, Chalons deserves to be marked on the map in more capital
letters than the imposing names of Sens or Auxerre. To no town indeed
does it bear a greater resemblance than to Tours, both from the modern
air of its houses, and from its noble river, adapted for every purpose
of internal commerce. The Hotel des Trois Faisans is also an excellent
inn, and, like that at Auxerre, sufficiently well frequented to find no
account in these little beggarly impositions which are practised at
inferior places.

May 2.--We walked before breakfast to St. Marcel, a village about a mile
from Chalons, to visit the church and monastery where Abelard, after his
removal from Cluni, died and was buried. Our excursion however only
answered in affording us an hour's healthy exercise; for the monastery
has been destroyed, and the church stript of what ornaments it
possessed, during the time of the Revolution; and the monument of
Abelard is removed to Paris. Nor does the town of Chalons itself,
handsome and cheerful as it is, present any food for the pencil, the
more particularly as its flat situation offers no favourable point of
perspective. The spot from which its stately quay, and its stone bridge
ornamented with obelisks, are seen to the most advantage, is about a
mile down the river;--in fact from the deck of the coche d'eau, in which
we embarked at noon for Lyons. This excellent conveyance is a large
covered boat, towed at the rate of six miles an hour by four
post-horses, or, when necessary, by six; and performs the journey from
Chalons to Lyons, a distance of about ninety miles, in twenty-eight or
thirty hours, affording ample time for rest and refreshment at a line of
inns of a superior description. The reasonable amount of the fare paid
by each person at the bureau des diligences, (nine francs fourteen sous)
might induce a fastidious or inexperienced traveller to form an
indifferent idea both of the company and accommodations of the coche
d'eau