Friday 27th June 1834

Up at 4 oclock breakfasted & off at 7.33  Country very beautiful all way to Dijon, hills planted with vines, interspersed with slips of land, sown with corn wheat. barley &c. – road winding along river Ouche almost all way to Dijon, with very high rocks on other side – passed thro many very pretty villages, with Churches here & there standing alone on side of hill – appearance of Dijon as one approaches very pretty – arrived at Hotel de la Cloche 4.28 ordered dinner in an hour, lay down on Sofa, two very comfortable rooms – dinner best cooked & sent off, of any we have had in France – Vin ordinaire, after dinner walked about the town – went to the Museum – no very good paintings, except one or two by Ancient Artists – beautiful tombs of Duke of Burgundy & Philip le Hardi, removed from the Chartreuse at the Revolution. the Duke et sa femme, sculptured on the top, & at the sides most beautiful tabernacle work, in each compartment a monk & woman former with Missal en main, but in the centre compartment a monk et sa femme, with the cowl & hood drawn over their faces, she weeping, & he having his hands clasped in an agony of grief – very old door with arms of the French counties carved upon it – A Statue of Bossuet, & busts of a few other celebrated Frenchmen.

We [start of word, then a gap of two lines]

Went to the Churches of Notre Dame & – – [gap]

then to the park getting some orange syrup at a Confectioners by the way – Park nothing particular. A l’Hotel at – [gap] went to bed immediately – 

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale WYC:1525/7/1/5/1/11 & 12

[up at] 5 1/4
[to bed at] 11 20/..

fine morning Fahrenheit 68 1/2° at 5 1/2 – no kiss she asleep so got quietly into my own bed in the same room had dressing room – breakfast at 6 1/2 – off from La poste Rouvray (comfortable tho’ a mere auberge in appearance) at 7 33/.. – the hotel du Léopard no longer exists – what we passed last night is the hotel de l’ancienne poste, in appearance quite as good as where we are – pretty country about Rouvray – here begins the district of the Côte d’or, so called from the fertility of the hills – fine country from Rouvray to Maison neuve – the hills tho’ granitic not âpres, but cultivated, rich and well wooded – Maison neuve seems a shabby little town – At Vittaux /Vitteaux/ at 11 10/.. and off from there at 11 18/.. – the part we drove thro’ (did not see the hotel – hotel des Diligences, said to be good) old, ill paved, and shabby looking – fine country – the hills close more in upon us – chiefly covered with vines, with corn, or wood, or rock above them, and corn and grass etc. along the bottom of the valley – black clouds and wind and thunder as we slowly ascend (in 3/4 hour) the Montagne de Vittaux just on leaving the town – the rain came on but not very heavy – the storm was at some distance – before 12 and continued more or less till within 2 or 3 miles of Dijon and then fine and sunny very hilly road from Vittaux to La Chaleur, merely the poste and a few houses – fine drive to Pont Pany (only a few houses besides the poste an hotel where one could sleep) but more so from Pont Pany to Dijon – just out of Pont Pany the valley narrows to about a mile? and is very fine – the nice little river Ouche and the canal de Bourgignon close along side of us (left) till we crossed the bridge into Plombiers /Plombières/ at 4 (about a poste from Dijon) and left then at some distance right – Plombiers a picturesque village with steeple covered with various coloured tiles – 6 or 7 minutes from Plombiers the valley opens to a considerable width and we have vines again which we had not observed since passing the Montagne de Vittaux – quite a garden from Plombières, and beautiful drive to Dijon – beautiful drive all the way from Pont Pany – alight opposite the Poste, at the hotel de la Cloche, at 4 28/.. – 2 single bedded rooms as last night – tidied mine, and then wrote out the above of today till dinner at 5 40/.. – Miss Walker and I out at 7 10/.. took George – went to the musée, in 5 or 6 salles of the old ducal palace – a few pictures of the old masters 2 or 3 pretty good ones – the rest modern – the walls well covered with them – one salle of statuary but all modern – copies by the young men of the school of Dijon studying at Rome – in the 1st salle, the tomb of Philip sans peur (Philip the bold) and his wife Margaret de Bavière, and that of Philip le Hardi (dukes of Burgundy), taken from the chartreuse here (destroyed in the 1st revolution) very handsome – all in marble – the sculpture beautiful – tombs very large – the figures on the table part are good likenesses – the antiques found in the rue des Singes in 1819 are put downstairs close to the grand staircase by which you go up to the musée – they are pieces of columns capitals – observed one Roman cippus etc. – from the musée went to the large handsome old gothic church notre Dame with fine painted glass windows – then to the handsome but less handsome church of St. Michel a sort of middle age gothic exterior looking better at a distance than quite near – handsome vestibule leading into the nave – very handsome exterior with large Corinthian portico of theatre – a concert of the great musicians from Paris held there this evening – Drouet the great flute player, the leader – then walked about the town, and in the park and home at 8 55/.. – very fine from about 4 p.m. Fahrenheit 69° at 9 40/.. – went t[o] her bed at ten –

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale, SH:7/ML/E/17/0047