John William Polidori - The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori

[It was, I believe, at this point of the narrative that my aunt Charlotte Polidori cut out a peccant passage. I seem to remember the precise diction of it, which was this: "As soon as he reached his room, Lord Byron fell like a thunderbolt upon the chambermaid." Such at any rate was the substance of the statement. The other statement which my aunt excluded came somewhat further on, when Dr. Polidori was staying near Geneva. He gave some account of a visit of his to some haunt of the local Venus Pandemos. I think the police took some notice of it. The performance was not decorous, but was related without any verbal impropriety.]

Arising in the morning, I went upon a stroll round the town. Saw little girls of all ages with head-dresses; books in every bookseller's window of the most obscene nature; women with wooden shoes; men of low rank basking in the sun as if that would evaporate their idleness. The houses generally good old style, very like a Scotch town, only not quite so filthy. Very polite custom-house officers, and very civil waiters. Fine room painted as a panorama, all French-attitudinized. Went into a shop where no one spoke French. Tried German; half-a-dozen women burst out laughing at me. Luckily for myself, in a good humour; laughed with them. Obliged to buy two books I did not want, because I let a quarto fall upon a fine girl's head while looking at her eyes. Coaches of the most horrid construction; apparently some fine horses, others small. Fortifications look miserable. Once stood a fine siege, when 40,000 on one side and 80 on the other fed fowls and manured the fields. What for? For religion? No—for money. There was the spring of all. As long as only religion and rights were affected, bigoted religionists and wild republicans were alone concerned; but a step too far, and all was ruined.

[The allusion here is to the great siege of Ostend, 1601 to 1604.]

We set off at 3, with four horses. Postillion with boots to his hips, nankeens, leather hat with quaker brim, only neatly rounded with black riband; a blue and red coat, joined to which a most rascally face, with lips that went a few lines beyond the brim of his hat. A dreadful smacker of his whip, and a driver of four horses from the back of one of the hindermost. We were obliged to hire a calèche to send with our luggage. The rascal made us pay three times too much at each of his barriers; but, after having (on account of the horses not being ready at the next post) gone beyond his beat, he allowed the toll-keepers to be honest, and only take a few centimes instead of a franc. The country very flat, highly cultivated; sand, no waste. Roads paved in the middle, with trees on each side. Country, from the interspersion of houses, spires, cottages, etc., delightful; everything comfortable, no appearance of discontent.

We got out of our carriage at a place where the horses ate bread and hay, and walked on to a church-yard, where we found no tombstones, no funeral-pomp, no flattering eulogy, but simply a wooden cross at each grave's head and foot. On the side of the church-steeple, at a little height, was made a niche wherein statues formed a crucifixion, as an object to excite reverence and adoration of God in every passenger. We passed on, and arrived at Bruges at the fall of the evening. Our passports were dispensed with on our mentioning that we were not stopping. We entered one of the most beautiful towns I ever saw; every house seemed substantial—had some ornament either of fretwork or lines—all seem clean and neat. We stopped at the post. We were shown into the postmaster's parlour on our asking for something to eat—well furnished—better even than a common middleman's house in London. N.B.—Everywhere 6 francs for a bottle of Rhenish. Women generally pretty. Flemish face has no divinity—all pleasing more than beautiful—a sparkling eye in a full round. Their pictures of every age have the mark of their country.

As we went from Bruges, twilight softened all the beauty, and I do not know how to describe the feeling of pleasure we felt in going through its long roof-fretted streets, bursting on to spots where people were promenading amidst short avenues of trees. We passed on. At the gates I saw a boy with sand in his hand let it through his fingers laughingly, heedless of the myriads whose life hung upon each sand. We passed on at 10. We came to a village where we heard the sound of music. The innkeeper, on our enquiring what it was, asked us politely in to hear a concert of amateurs. We descended, and were gratified and surprised at hearing, in a village of 5000 souls, a full band playing difficult though beautiful music. One march particularly struck us. But what was our surprise, when the door opened, to view the group: none apparently above the rank of labourers, yet they met three times a week. In our country the amusement is to reel drunk as many. There was one figure manifestly consumptive, yet he was blowing an enormous trombone.

Within a few miles of Gand, I was wakened from a pleasant fireside in England by my companion saying "They have lost their way"; and, seeing a house near me, I jumped out to enquire, when to my great fear I saw it was deserted. I immediately suspected something, and went back for a pistol, and then thundered at the door; no one came. Looking round, I saw other houses; towards which upon my moving the postillion got off, and, telling me in French, as a consolation, that he could not understand it, went with me towards a house where there was light, and suddenly ran off. I immediately went to the carriage, and we gave sabres to the servants; when he ran back from out of sight, and knocked again at the door and roused two, who told us the way. By the by, we had crossed several times the bridge, and from the road and back again, whereas we had nothing to do but to go straight on, instead of which he crossed over and was going back in the direction of Bruges, when our servant stopped him. I cannot explain his conduct; he was dreadfully frightened.

We arrived at Ghent at 3 in the morning, and knocked some time at the gates, but at last, by means of a few francs, got through—passports not asked for. Got to the Hôtel des Pays Bas, where Count Artois resided while at Ghent. We were ushered into a splendid room, got excellent Rhenish, butter, cheese, etc., and went to bed.

April 27. —At Gand Charles the Ist of Spain was born. It was here he really showed the insufficiency of ambition and all the joys of manhood. After having at Brussels resigned to Philip his extensive dominions, he came here, and enjoyed many days while passing over the scenes of his youth, which neither the splendour attached to a European or an Indian crown nor to the conquests of his powerful and noble views could efface. He did not seek Pavia; no, it was at Gand that he sought for his last draught of worldly joy. The town was worthy of it, if beauty and antiquity, if riches and liberty with all their train, could render it worthy of him. This town has all the beauty of Bruges, but more extensive: finer houses perhaps, fine cathedral, fine paintings, fine streets, fine canal. The streets are perhaps the finest I have seen; not so unpleasantly regular as London, not so high, but more rich in outside.

We visited the Cathedral; and, after having been accustomed to the tinselly ornaments of our Catholic chapels, and the complete want of any in the Scotch and English churches, we were much pleased with the Cathedral's inside dress: paintings that were by the hand of masters; the fortune of a bishop expended in building the part near the altar in marble and statues not contemptible, united with the airy, high fretted roof and little light, impressive of awe. Under this Cathedral is the first Belgian church that was built in the reign of Charlemagne, 800 years, I think, after Christ. It is low-roofed, but so strong it bears the weight of the Cathedral upon it. There were several paintings preserved in it (before the date of oil-painting), where the colours are mixed with white of egg. Some curious tombs, where the different styles are evident. In the earliest tomb some of the draperies on the relief are in a bold fine style. One of the earliest has a bishop, where all his robes are carved out, with almost the threads of his vest. Others, however, are for general effect. We mounted 450 steps to the top of the steeple; whence we saw a complete horizon of plain, canals, intersecting trees, and houses and steeples thrown here and there, with Gand below at our feet. The sea at a distance, bound by the hands of man, which pointed "So far shall ye go and no farther." Bruges held in the horizon its steeples to our view, and many hamlets raised from out their surrounding wood their single spires to sight.