Saturday 28th June 1834

Up at – [gap] breakfasted, then went to the Cathedral, the most plain, & least worth seeing of any, I have yet been to in France, not nearly so handsome as Notre Dame – Priest performing high mass, & saw another priest in the Confessional, with a board placed like a reading desk before his face, so that it could not be seen, & the [person?] confessing in a separate box, at the side, who was also concealed except the lower part of her person – appeared to be one or two fine Monuments but had not time to examine them – Went to the Jardin des Plants, just lately begun, & tastefully laid out, something on the plan of that at Paris – a brook winding thro’ the Garden, & each all the species of one genus of plants in one bed – very pretty edgings to walks, of Lavender ½ yard high, common sage, box, discovered the name of the plant, whose leaves are quite white, which was in Greenhouse at Crownest – [word crossed out] Cineraria. & of the Teazle Dipsacus. A mount of rock work judiciously placed for wild plants – numbers of Acacia trees. Magnolias, Oleanders, Marigolds of which the French are particularly fond – Dahlias – Poppy’s & Carnations. Saw at Rokeby Park – a very nice plan for shewing Carnations, advantageously, earth raised about 2 feet in form of a cheese, & banked up by the branches of large trees split down middle, bark side, outwards, these [words crossed out]. & plants placed on top – of the earth round edge then another raising of earth in middle, as if it might be a smaller cheese placed exactly upon a large one – & banked – same way as first, then a third, – whole beds of the different varieties of pansies, &c. – back to Hotel, & off for [gap] country not so pretty after we left Dijon – not at all tired detained at [word crossed out] Dole, for want of a postillion two hours – proposed dining which we did – wrote a little in journal. & off for Mont sous vaudré [Vaudrey] at 6 – – [gap] where we slept – going to bed as soon as we arrived.

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

[up at] 5 50/..
[to bed at] 10 55/..

with her from ten to eleven and a quarter and a long very good kiss to her and tolerable to me fine morning Fahrenheit 57 1/2 at 6 10/.. – breakfast at 7 1/4 – wrote the last 15 lines till 8 3/4 – Hotel de la Cloche very comfortable – good eating – attentive civil people – Miss Walker and I out at 9 1/4 – cathedral – good old gothic church but not so handsome as Notre Dame we saw last night – at the botanic garden called Jardin des plantes at 9 40/.. – the old one given up, and this new one not quite finished – approached thro’ a piece of nicely laid out, wooded (with large trees) piece of ground in which boys were playing, and seeming to belong to a good pile of brick building adjoining the garden – perhaps (from the number of beds in a room) a school – much pleased with the garden – only wish it larger – (a square of about 3 or 4 acres?) all the trees, shrubs and flowers planted quite recently – a winding stream all thro’ (across from corner to corner) the garden with a little basin and boat on it – 2 or 3 pieces of pretty rock-made mount, and a gothic seat hide the end wall, too little distant as one faces it on entering – small but pretty serres near the top of the garden, nicely placed the right side wall on entering – flowerbeds (as at the Jardin des plantes Paris) laid out in narrow stripes, but looking more soignés from being all box–edged and having 2 feet gravel walks between – all the plants ticketed – (Linnean system?) Sambucus nigra common Elder – Fedia (forget–me–not?) – Dipsacus, teazle – Cineraria maritima (white velvety stalks and leaves ragged, like senecio, (dogstander)) – Off from the hotel de la Cloche (very comfortable – good eating) Dijon at 10 47/.. – Dijon a very nice good provincial town, in a fine country – Genlis (1st relais) very neat little village – Auxonne fortified goodish town – stopt on entering the porte de ville to shew passports and at the café opposite for café au lait for Adney – had it in 22 minutes – walked forwards to the poste, and off in 2 minutes more at 2 18/.. – soon after Dijon, on getting to the top of the 1st rising ground 1st view of a saddlebacked mountain of the Jura range – wide, fertile plain (corn, India ditto 1st we have seen potatoes lucerne grass etc.) around Dijon and all the way till the wooded hills en face gradually closing upon us on nearing Dôle till at 3 40/.. from the top of the hill (or mountain?) just above Dôle, very fine rich view – large vine-covered sufficiently wooded plain to our right, Auxonne behind us, and the good-looking town of Dôle with its church steeples en face backed by the long line of Jura mountains – not like Alps or Pyrenees, but very fine – vines for the last hour (from about 2 40/..) and all about Dôle in the rich plain, little else – at Dôle at 4 11/.. – no postillion – obliged to wait – so drove to the hotel de Paris close by – dined (very good dinner) at 5 in an hour – before and after till 6 1/4 wrote the above of today – off from Dôle at 6 22/.. – no vines much beyond Dôle – corn, India ditto, hemp etc. as before – the Jura not more than the wolds 1/2 way between York and Market Weighton – now at 8 1/4 – picturesque villages all today – at La Poste Mont sous Vaudré /Mont sous Vaudrey/ at 8 35/.. – a mere auberge – but a nice enough double bedded room and wanting nor dinner nor breakfast in the morning (but which by the way would I daresay have been very fair) we do very well – some little more than usual difficulty in bargaining for the 4 beds for 6/. – fine morning, tho’ blackish clouds about soon after 12, and showers in the afternoon, but fair and fine from between 4 and 5 for the rest of the evening – Fahrenheit 68° at 9 p.m. –

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