2nd. The Ambassador resolving to go by Amiens, our governor, the messenger, resolved to take the ordinary road by Poy, which we, who went to seek adventure beyond Paris, easily consented to. We therefore plodded on nine leagues to Poy; we were no sooner got into our chambers, but we thought we were come there too soon, as the highway seemed the cleaner and more desirable place. It being decreed we must stay there all night, I called, entreated, and swaggered a good while for a pair of slippers: at last they brought them, and I sat me down on the only seat we had in our apartment, which at present was a form, but had formerly been a wooden-horse I thought to ease myself by standing, but with no very good success, I assure you; for the soles of my pantofles, being sturdy timber, had very little compliance for my feet, and so made it somewhat uncomfortable to keep myself, as the French call it, on one end.

This small taste of sabot gave me a surfeit of them, and I should not make choice of a country to pass my pilgrimage in where they are in fashion: as we had but two pair between three of us, there could not be a nicer case in breeding than to know whether to take, offer, or refuse their use. Many compliments, I assure you, passed on the occasion; we shuffled favour, obligation, and honour, and many such words (very useful in travelling), forward and backward until supper came here we thought to divert our pain, but we quickly found a supper of ill meat, and worse cooking: soup and ragout, and such other words of good savour, lost here their relish quite, and out of five or six dishes, we patched up a very uncomfortable supper. But be it as rascally as it was, it must not fail to be fashionable; we had the ceremony of first and second course, and a dessert at the close: whatever the fare, the treat must be in all its formality, with some haws, if no better, under the fine name of Pomet de Paradise.

After supper, we retreated to the place that usually gives relief to all moderate calamities, but our beds were antidotes to sleep: I do not complain of the hardness, but the tangible quality of what was next me, and the savour of all about made me quite forget both slippers and supper. As we had a long journey of twelve leagues to go next day, our stay was fortunately short here: we were roused before day, and all were ad to be released from the prison; we willingly left it to

the miserable souls who were to succeed us. If Paris be heaven (for the French, with their usual justice, extol it above all things on earth), Poy certainly is Purgatory in the way to it.

3rd. We dined at Beauvais, where I saw nothing remarkable except the quire of a church, very high and stately, built, as they say, by the English, who, it seems, had not time to complete the whole, and the French have never thought fit to finish it. If the nave of the church were added, it would be a magnificent structure. As far as I have observed of the churches of both countries, to make them in every way exact, we ought to build, and they to adorn them. Hence, we went three leagues to Tilliard to bed. Good mutton, and a good supper, clean linen of the country, and a pretty girl to lay it (who was an angel compared with the fiends at Poy), made us some amends for the past night's suffering. Do not wonder that a man of my constitution and gravity mentions to you a handsome face amongst his remarks, for I imagine that a traveller, though he carry a cough with him, goes not out of his way when he takes notice of strange and extraordinary things.

4th. We dined at Beaumont. This being the last assembly we were like to have of our company, 't was thought convenient here to even some small account had happened upon the road. One of the Frenchmen, who had disbursed for our troop, was, by the natural quickness of his temper, carried beyond the mark, and demanded for our shares more than we thought due. Whereupon, one of the English desired an account of particulars, not that the whole was so considerable, but to keep a certain custom we had in England not to pay money without knowing for what. Monsieur answered briskly, he would give no account; the other as briskly, that he would have it: this produced a reckoning of the several disbursements, and an abatement of one-fourth of the demand, and a great demonstration of good nature. Monsieur steward showed afterwards more civility and good nature, after the little contest, than he had done all the journey before.

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Thus, in seven days, we came from Paris to Lyons, 100 leagues; the passage to Chalons was troublesome; from

Chalons by water was very easy and convenient, and the river quiet.

21st. Lyons.-We visited Mr Charleton, who treated us extreme civilly. They showed us, upon the top of the hill, a church, now dedicated to the Virgin, which was formerly a Temple of Venus: near it dwelt Thomas Becket, when banished from England.

22nd. We saw the Jesuits' College; a large quadrangle, surrounded by high buildings, having the walls covered with pretty well-painted figures. The library is the best that ever I saw, except Oxford, being one very high oblong square, with a gallery round to come at the books; it is yet but moderately furnished with books, being made, as they told us, not above a year. The College is pleasantly situated on the banks of the Rhone, and hath a very excellent prospect. Saw M. Servis's museum of pumps, clocks, and curiosities.

23rd. Saw St John's Church, the cathedral, a very plain, ordinary building, nothing very observable but the clock, which they say cost 20,000 livres: at every hour, the image of an old man, designed for the Father, shakes his hand; this is what is most looked at, but of least moment, there being other things far more considerable; as the place of the sun, dominical letter, Epact, moveable feasts, and other things of an almanack, for almost a hundred years to come.

24th. I saw a little castle, called Pierre en Cise, upon the river Soane, at the entrance into the town. It is a place used to keep prisoners; indeed, it is much better fitted to keep criminals in, than enemies out. It is a little, irregular fortification on a rock, which hath a precipice on all sides, and is high towards the river and two other sides, but commanded by hills much higher; here Fouquet was once prisoner. Here the hill on the left hand turns short towards the Rhone, and leaves a long plain neck of land between the two rivers, on which the greatest part of Lyons is built, in narrow, irregular streets; stone houses, flat-roofed, covered with pantiles, and some turrets, and the angle of the roofs with tin. A good part of the town lies also on the right hand of the Soane; and the sides of the hills are covered with houses, gardens, and vineyards, so that it is a pleasant place. The town-house is a stately building.

25th. Saw a fine fair prospect of the town from the hills

E

on the north side. The Hotel Dieu, a fair large hospital, containing, as they told me, five hundred sick persons: they lie in a room which is a large cross, and three rows of beds in each two of the arms of the cross have men, and two women; in the centre is an altar.

26th. I saw the Charité, consisting of nine square courts, and there are in them 1500, as I am told, maintained and lodged here. They receive bastards, and, as soon as they are able, employ them in winding silk, the manner whereof, it being holiday, we could not see. The most considerable thing we saw was their granary, one hundred steps long and thirty-six broad, windows open all round: there are constantly in it 6000 asnees of wheat,-one asnee is an ass-load of six bushels. They turn the corn every day, about which seven men are employed; when the boys are grown up, they bind them out to traders. It is a noble foundation, and has a large revenue.

27th. By the old town of Vienne to St Vallier, through a pleasant valley of the Rhone, with mulberry and walnut trees set in exact quincunx at the distance of our apple trees in England.

28th. To Valence, seven leagues. Pretty large town, illbuilt; the cathedral the plainest I had anywhere seen. The Scola Juris et Medicinæ here very mean. As we came along, we passed by the Hermitage, the place so famous for wine; it is on the side of a hill open to the south and a little west, about a mile long, beginning just at Thuin. We also saw the citadel, which we got into with some difficulty; and there was some reason for the caution, we being four, and there being a garrison in it of but one man and one great gun, which was left behind (when the King lately took away all the rest for his ships) for a fault very frequent in this country, viz. in the touch-hole.

29th. Montelimart. Streets broad and buildings better, though not altogether so big as Valence.

30th. To Pont St Esprit, five leagues. To this place we had the Rhone on our right hand, and the high barren hills of Dauphiné on the left. The valley is in some places a league or two broad; in some broader, and in some very narIn great part of the journey from Lyons, the soil was covered with great round pebbles, in some places so thick

row.

that no earth was seen, and yet all along the corn was sown. In many places the mulberry trees and almonds, set in quincunx, covered the corn as thick as apple trees in an orchard in England. We saw several digging the ground, and some ploughing, with a very little light plough with one handle, drawn by a pair of cows, steers, or asses. The soil very light and sandy; they turn it up not above two or three inches deep. In this valley we crossed many rivers and rivulets; one by ferry, some by bridges and fords, and the channels of some quite dry; but all appeared to be sometimes great and swift torrents, when either rain or melted snow is poured down into them from the high hills of Dauphiné.

About half a league from St Vallier, we saw a house, a little out of the way, where they say Pilate lived in banishment. We met with the owner, who seemed to doubt the truth of the story; but told us there was mosaic work very ancient in one of the floors.

At Chateau Neuf, we got up a hill which runs directly to the Rhone, and the Rhone through it, as the Avon at the Hot Wells. Much box and lavender: a prospect of a large valley much broader than any part between Vienne and Chateau Neuf. Three leagues to Pallu, a little town belonging to the Pope.

One league from hence, we came to Pont St Esprit, a bridge over the Rhone, on eighteen great arches, 1100 of my steps; the ascent to the top one hundred and twenty steps, over six lesser arches on the east side: they reckon twentyseven arches in all, besides a little one between each of the eighteen great arches. The bridge is very narrow, paved with little square stones very regularly placed; at the end of it, on the west side, is the town of St Esprit, and a citadel; in it we saw some soldiers, and a few unmounted small brass guns. The bridge is not exactly straight, but about the middle makes an obtuse angle towards the current of the river.

Three leagues from Pont St Esprit, we came to Orange, a little town within a square wall, less than Bath within the walls. The half-moons at the entrance of the gate are demolished by the King of France, and the castles, which were upon a rocky hill just over it. Here we also saw Marius's triumphal arch, a piece of very handsome building with trophies and