GUIDES TO FRANCE.* IN a late hasty notice, we mentioned
this little book, as contain- ing in a small compass all the information that a traveller destined for France might require : we assumed that it was accurate, and gave it credit for the bona fide intention of impartially guiding the traveller in the direction that might best administer to his com- forts. Had this been the case, it would have deserved our praise. On further inquiry, however, and on a comparison of the different editions, we are strongly inclined to doubt at least the accuracy of this soi-disant Guide, and to suspect both its fidelity and its usefulness.
We have now, we say, inspected the different editions of this work. The first is fresh from the author's pen, and we can divine the description of person to whom the book owes its parentage. He is evidently a most ignorant fellow : he is indebted to his printer for spelling, and would gladly also have derived his gram- mar from the same source, but probably the printer himself:was not too well supplied with the commodity. A writer ought at least to know his own language ; but the writer of a Guide to France might be expected to know something of French. Tins Mr. COGHLAN, however, does not know enough French to save him from the most ridiculous of blunders. For instance, he writes the names of the hotels De Hotel Quilliac, De Hotel Meurice, De Hotel de Londres, &c. We cannot explain this "de" without supposing that the author has caught his idea of French from the imitations of broken English by players on the stage, in the cha- racter of Frenchmen, with whom the de for the occurs in every sentence. In the last edition, some of the most glaring of the errors are corrected, apparently by an editor; but the editor is not very much further advanced than the author, for he has left nume- rous absurdities which it seems were beyond his reach,—such as "Chaise de Post," "Passport d'Interieur," " from (Motel Bien Venu," "from de Grande Bureau," "Monsieur de Commission- aire," These are trifling errors, and we should not quarrel with the writer were they the only ones : he is not only ignorant, however, but he is spiteful ; and he has published a work which, founded as it is upon ignorance and spite, is calculated to mislead the tra- veller and involve him in perpetual disputes. Armed with this immaculate Guide, travellers arrive every day at Calais, perhaps On pleasure, perhaps on business, and immediately engage in a struggle with the persons whose services they are obliged to re- quire. A;Travellers for pleasure lose their temper, travellers on busipesekheir time. The plea is that they save their money : it nOthisiliS-of the traveller—it is possible that the resident might, acquainted as he is with the localities, and having time and leisure at his command ; but no " traveller," even on this man's own showing, can be "his own commissioner,"—though this is the very title of the former editions of his book. The mistakes of this author are not only those of ignorance and spite—it is clear, by a comparison of the various editions, that he is corrupt. The edition of 1828 contains a strange garbled statement respecting a dispute between two hotels adjoining each other; the edition of 1829 contains a gross puff of one of the houses in question ; the edition of next year, 1830, appears without the said puff, but in place of it a sort of card from the other. In both these cases, the parties benefited attribute the advantage to an application of the draught which Lord BereoN states himself to have administered to his " Grandmother's Review." It is melan- choly to see the poor British traveller a sport to such nefarious practices. In the edition of 1829, the description of the Hotel Bourbon runs thus- " Isidore and Dehorter, brothers, of the Hotel Bourbon, Calais, feel called upon, in justice to themselves, of publicly contradicting the false statements circulated by Mr. Rignolle," &c.
In the edition of 1830, all this and much more is left out, and the paragraph begins- " Rignolle, late occupier of the Hotel Bourbon, flatters himself, that after many years enjoying the confidence of his friends and the public in general, that he retired from it without forfeiting the esteem or good wishes of his numerous connection."
Nothing can be plainer than that they who buy fluctuating advice like this, are themselves sold. The instances of this species of corruption are not rare: we know nothing of the circumstances, but it is easy, for example, to be detected in the outrageous recom- mendation of the line of coaches from the Spread Eagle to Paris, by means of CHAPLIN'S establishment and the Hirondelle, in pre- ference to the other coaches from London just as good, and the Messageries Roy-ales, which are, if there is any preference, to be preferred to the Hirondelle. It is. curious to watch the power of the press : even in such a paltry publication as this, a man may farm his praise from year to year, and live upon the variations in his editions. Poor blind John • A Guide to France; explaining every form and expense of Travelling from Lon- don to Paris, by Dovor and Calais, Brighton and Dieppe, Southampton and Havre, Margate and Ostend, and by Steam-packets from London to Calais and Boulogne. By Francis Coghian. Illustrated with a plan of Calais, and a map showing the dif- ferent routes. Fifth edition, and enlarged. London, 1830. t In spite of all this, the author, we see, has published a French Grammar; which will probably be as useful as his Guide. " Oh my poor public !" Bull is going about in the meantime, wandering and hitting his head against any wall that may happen to be raised in his path by the unfaithful guide who has sold his peace. It might seem sufficient to show that, in the course of five edi- tions of the Guide to France, scarcely a single statement of fact in the first remains unaltered. But we will, for the benefit of the uninitiated who may propose to visit the Continent this summer, indicate a few of the errors of this infallible guide, who would ena- ble the traveller to travel without spending money. Error is in- jurious enough in itself, but when it is accompanied with preten- sion, the mischief is more odious, and still more extensive, for it infallibly imposes upon the fools, who are unluckily, according to the anecdote of the charlatan and the regular physician, the grand majority of the crowd.
In the brief space we can afford to a publication of this kind, we shall only allude to one or two of the mistakes which may ac- tually concern our matters, many of whom may perhaps be about to visit the Continent during the fine season of the year. In leaving London for Dover, with a view of reaching much or little may be at stake, and inaccuracy may cause the deepest disappointment. Now, this director tells us, at page 8, " The most expeditious way of reaching Paris, is by taking the night coach to Dover, which leaves London at five o'clock, and arrives at Dover in sufficient time to take your passage across the same morning." The coach leaves London at seven o'clock. The time of departure of the steam-boat from Dover to Calais depends upon the tide ; and it may and does happen, that the vessel, on many days of the year, leaves Dover harbour before the arrival of any coach but the mail,—a circumstance which ought at least to be men- tioned as an exception. The Guide adds—" By this plan, you will probably be within view of Calais by the time the morning coaches are leaving London.' This is another uncertainty ; and it is not extremely probable—it is only possible. The arrival at Calais de- pends upon the tide, which ranges from five in the morning to five in the evening. He might have said, with equal truth, that it was probable that you would he in sight of Calais by the time the evening coaches leave London. There are several tables of expenses in this publication. The items are all calculated at the lowest rate possible, and adapted to the condition of servants out of place, or workmen leaving the country to find employment in the tulle or net-weaving line, of whom so many have emigrated. The fares are outside in England, without being so named ; the provisions are priced at the rate of the tap-room, and the steam-boat fares are those of the steerage or fore-cabin, in order that the sum total may appear surprisingly small, and thus entrap the unwary. In describing the hotels, the author makes a very imperfect division of them into French and English,—and classes one, in particular, in a manner which has neither grammar nor justice to recommend it. The author thus speaks of the Hiltel Royal at Calais ; which we have more than once heard characterized by old travellers as the most comfortable house in Europe. " The Royal Hotel (neither English or French), Rue de la Toile (Rue de 1'Etoile), kept by a person of the name of Roberts."
A writer who can speak in this manner of so respectable a house as the Hiltel Royal, and of so respected a man as its landlord, and who has no more to say of the matter, is evidently, to all who knows any thing about travelling on the Continent, a person to be eschewed. But we detect in this and in some other observations, the evidence of a spiteful feeling ; and how it can have arisen we know not, for we would engage that the author never entered in his life one of the superior hotels of Calais. The peculiarity of ROBERTS'S Hotel is that which the writer here and in another place urges as a fault—it is neither French nor English ; it is both ; the advantages of both systems are followed in domestic and culinary arrangements ; and the consequence is, as we have said, that it is considered, by experienced travellers, the most moderate and the most comfortable house in Europe. The great point made in the book—the great praise it pretends to merit, for we cannot detect another instanee of proposed saving, though there is a great deal of grumbling—is the saving of a frank by the traveller who goes to the HOtel de Vile (Town Hall) him- self; though, certainly, if the instructions of the writer be attended to, nothing will be gained but confusion, for we defy any body to comprehend his directions. The fact is, as he states, that if an individual traveller applies for his passport for Paris at ,Calais him- self, he will be only charged two franks ; if the commissioner of his Ithtel demands it, he pays three franks. The reason of this is, that the traveller, when he demands it, only requires it during the office hours, which are but few, in the middle of the day ; whereas the commissioner is entitled to it, by an agreement with the clerks, at all hours of the night and day. If the traveller, attending to the directions of this foolish book, were to arise in the night, and wish to set off early in the morning,—and, presuming upon his knowledge, were to attempt to procure his passport,—he would in- fallibly be left behind by his coach, as not unfrequently happens, according to the information we have received, to persons who trust to these blind guides. It is not one frank or five franks which will pay a clerk for getting up in the night, but he is suffi- ciently remunerated for being ready at all hours, by a frank upon each of the passports -required by all the hotels: so that this im- position, as it is called 'here, is neither more nor less than a ge- neral, and by no means an exorbitant tax on travellers for their general convenience. They who come within the hour pay a trifle for the convenience of being able to get through at any hour.
The natural result of a person's following the directions of this Guide is, that he will quarrel with every individual he meets with, and more particularly with the commissioner, the person for whose services he really has most need. The author gives a specimen of this mode of calculation, in the bill he quotes, and which, he says, he " was an eye-witness to." A person arrives at, Calais, break- fasts, passes his luggage through the Customhouse, causes it to be carried to the packet, and is embarked : the bill amounts to about 4s. 6d.: now the writer calculates, that the real cost of all this to the innkeeper is only 10d. This is possible, but not pro- bable; and if it be true, what is to pay the innkeeper for keeping open house, for the time and labour of his porter and commis- sioners, and other servants,—all of whose services are included in this model of exorbitance ?
A traveller, under the idea of saving some money, follows, or rather attempts to follow, the directions of this book: the result that he either causes himself to miss the regular opportunities of the place, or that, atter a great deal of vexatious discussion, he is obliged to yield to the ordinary charges, which after all are not extravagant.
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