at Orange, was full to overflowing; and the only refuge I
could find was an inside angle in a carriage laden with Germans who had
command of the windows, which they occupied as strongly as they have
been known to occupy other strategical positions. I scarcely know,
however, why I linger on this particular discomfort, for it was but a
single item in a considerable list of grievances--grievances dispersed
through six weeks of constant railway-travel in France. I have not
touched upon them at an earlier stage of this chronicle, but my reserve
is not owing to any sweetness of association. This form of locomotion,
in the country of the amenities, is attended with a dozen discomforts;
almost all the conditions of the business are detestable. They force the
sentimental tourist again and again to ask himself whether, in
consideration of such mortal annoyances, the game is worth the candle.
Fortunately a railway journey is a good deal like a sea-voyage; its
miseries fade from the mind as soon as you arrive. That is why I
completed, to my great satisfaction, my little tour in France. Let this
small effusion of ill-nature be my first and last tribute to the whole
despotic _gare_: the deadly _salle d'attente_, the insufferable delays
over one's luggage, the porterless platform, the overcrowded and
illiberal train. How many a time did I permit myself the secret
reflection that it is in perfidious Albion that they order this matter
best! How many a time did the eager British mercenary, clad in velveteen
and clinging to the door of the carriage as it glides into the station,
revisit my invidious dreams! The paternal porter and the responsive
hansom are among the best gifts of the English genius to the world. I
hasten to add, faithful to my habit (so insufferable to some of my
friends) of ever and again readjusting the balance after I have given it
an honest tip, that the bouillon at Lyons, which I spoke of above, was,
though by no means an idea bouillon, much better than any I could have
obtained at an English railway-station. After I had imbibed it I sat in
the train (which waited a long time at Lyons) and, by the light of one
of the big lamps on the platform, read all sorts of disagreeable things
in certain

[Illustration: LYONS.]

radical newspapers which I had bought at the bookstall. I gathered from
these sheets that Lyons was in extreme commotion. The Rhone and the
Saone, which form a girdle for the splendid town, were almost i