Thursday 28 June 1838
Rained all and very rainy morning Fahrenheit 66 at 7 1/2 a.m. - breakfast at 8 3/4
Still rain and off in the rain from the Hotel de France, quite an auberge but good eating and good beds and good sort of people and civil servants, Barberzieux at 9 1/2 - not one peep of the old castle we sketched with so much pleasure in 1830 - too dark to see it last night - turned into a barrack 2 or 3 years ago - Barberzieux as we drove off in the rain this morning seemed a poor little place, but in a fine well wooded country - corn, and Indian ditto, and vines, and potatoes - have seen very little wheat - the best, and some good, on the high ground just out of Barberzieux and fine as before, Spanish chestnut trees parkwise
Reignac, little church little village - overheard the maitre de poste observe of my carriage 'Il y a bien peu de berlines à present' - I do not remember to have seen one on the road all the way from Paris - Changed horses in 3 minutes, and off again at 10 3/4 at which time fair, having rained all the way - never fair since 12 1/2 last night? At 11, 1/4 hour from Reignac, Copse forest of very cut-leaved oak and some young firs Pinus maritima? La Graulle, a farm-house - asleep to La Garde Montlieu (bourg) at 11 47/60 - asleep again - at Chièrsac in 20 minutes single house - asked Ann to have noyau soon after settin[g] out no and her tone of voice was the sign for my saying no more I have never spoken since dullish work
Off from Chiersac at 12 20/60 - my Itinéraire mentions Landes - rare nowadays - so far the ground is almost everywhere wood or in cultivation generally green hedges along the road-sides - Began to rain again soak after leaving Chiersac - at Cavignac, good village, at 1 21/60 2pp. postes in 57 minutes in spite of the rain - ha dozed great part of the way
Just out of Cavignac, nice fig tree against cottage end - 1st. I have seen - fine country - our postillon, 4th. a la basque our third à la basque being from Chiersac, turned his blanket-cloak wrong side before, against the rain and thus kept himself dry - at 2 35/60 drive thro' the tolerable little town of St. André de Cubzac, Itinéraire says 1,000 inhabitant, and at 2 53/60 sabot and down into good village of Cubzac
Dordogne, muddy with the rain - broad as the Garonne at Bordeaux - 3 piers in the river with iron-work on them and about 30 arches this side and 27 or 28 on the other for a suspension bridge - Picturesque remain right, of old gateway onto 2 round towers and large quarry of soft white sandstone of which they seem to be building the bridge
At the water's edge at 3 - 4 fresh horses came in 10 minutes and embarked at 3 7/60 a sail astern, and 6 horses turning the wheel in the middle of our broad raft-like vessel worked us across in 13 minutes and we landed, drove out of the vessel as we drove in, at 3 1/2 - hedges and like England except for the vines which here and all today, from Barberzieux, have seemed generally old plants - old rugged stems perhaps a couple of feet? high from which spring the young shoots - rye quite yellow and barley turning fast - nowhere so forward as here - hill-surrounded, wooded, fine, well-peopled rich plane - Carbon Blanc (good white village) at 4 - all the villages white when clean and new
From top of hill at 4 27/60 1st. view of the fine Garonne, and bridge and Bordeaux and its seven spires - very fine view spite of the rain - hill side on our left, in the descent, walled up with a bar-wall, not much barred, but having at about every 2 yards along the bottom loop-holes 3 or 4 inches wide and 2 feet+ long capital to let the water off and therefore take off all strain from the wall - beautiful descent - beautifully rounded wooded hills and vineyards left and rich plane right - then at 4 1/2 fine double avenue of youngish elms and poplars up to the river
Cross the magnificent bridge of 17 arches, 500 feet long and 45 feet wide, at 4 3/4 and alight at the hotel de Rouen at 4 50/60 - very good humoured looking civil maitresse d'hotel - 2 rooms au 1er. opening into each other - looking into the court, small and glazed over like a conservatory - but our rooms must be 15 feet high - too lofty to be close
Dinner at 5 50/60 to 6 1/2 - I had had a bad headache ever since crossing the Dordogne and Ann said she had also a very headache - she would go out with me - out from 7 to 8 55/60 - sauntered to the Place Dauphine, theatre Français, Cathedral, and a very civil bookseller's in the Fossés du Chapeau Rouge no. 17 - bought Itinéraire des Pyrénées and inquired for Charpentier's map - not to be had without the work itself and this not to be had in Bordeaux - to be sent for to Paris - the carriage would be per poste 1 sol per sheet that is 1 sheet 8vo. octavo = 8 leaves or 16pp. pages therefore the no. of pages of the work/16 x 1 sol = the price of carriage to St. Sauveur Poste restante
Except two or three times asking her to have noyau I never spoke from Barbezieux to Bordeaux spoke a little this evening but she is terrible I never before know the misery of solitude she is with me and yet I have not a soul to speak to she is a human being at my elbow and I am alone oh that I was well rid of her
Very rainy day but fair from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Fahrenheit 66 1/2 at 10 10/60 p.m. had Josephine at 9 - sat reading des Pyrénées till 10 p.m.
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