en on the eve of November 1, so that I suffered absurdly from
the rigour of a season that had not yet begun. There was something in
the air; I felt it the next day, even on the sunny quay of the Saone,
where in spite of a fine southerly exposure I extracted little warmth
from the reflection that Alphonse de Lamartine had often trodden the
flags. Macon struck me, somehow, as suffering from a chronic numbness,
and there was nothing exceptionally cheerful in the remarkable extension
of the river. It was no longer a river--it had become a lake; and from
my window, in the painted face of the inn, I saw that the opposite bank
had been moved back, as it were, indefinitely. Unfortunately the various
objects with which it was furnished had not been moved as well, the
consequence of which was an extraordinary confusion in the relations of
things. There were always poplars to be seen, but the poplar had become
an aquatic plant. Such phenomena, however, at Macon attract but little
attention, as the Saone, at certain seasons of the year, is nothing if
not expansive. The people are as used to it as they appeared to be to
the bronze statue of Lamartine, which is the principal monument of the
_place_, and which, representing the poet in a frogged overcoat and
top-boots, improvising in a high wind, struck me as even less casual in
its attitude than monumental sculpture usually succeeds in being. It is
true that in its present position I thought better of this work of art,
which is from the hand of M. Falguiere, than when I had seen it through
the factitious medium of the Salon of 1876. I walked up the hill where
the older part of Macon lies, in search of the natal house of the _amant
d'Elvire_, the Petrarch whose Vaucluse was the bosom of the public. The
Guide-Joanne quotes from "Les Confidences" a description of the
birthplace of the poet, whose treatment of the locality is indeed
poetical. It tallies strangely little with the reality, either as
regards position or other features; and it may be said to be not an aid,
but a direct obstacle, to a discovery of the house. A very humble
edifice, in a small back street, is designated by a municipal tablet,
set into its face, as the scene of Lamartine's advent into the world. He
himself speaks of a vast and lofty structure, at the angle of a _place_,
adorned with iron clamps, with a _porte haute et large_ and many other
peculiarities. The house with the tablet has two meagre storeys above
the b