meals, you will probably pay the penalty of your patriotic and stoical adherence to the customs of your country.
In my passage from Weymouth to Normandy, I landed at Jersey. The little, secluded bays of that island are the most perfect poetry of the sea. They are types of the spot in which Horace, in his poetic mood of imaginary misanthropy, wished to end his days.
"Oblitusque meorum obliviscendus et illis
Neptunum procul e terra spectare furentem."
I was told that the scenery of Guernsey was even more beautiful; but the rough passage between the two islands is rather a heavy price to pay for the enjoyment. The islands are curious from their old Norman character, laws, and customs; their Norman patois; their system of small proprietors, whose little holdings, divided from each other by high hedges, cut the island into a multitude of paddocks; and the miniature republicanism and universal suffrage which the inhabitants enjoy, though under the paternal eye of an English governor, who, if the insects grew too angry, would no doubt sprinkle a little dust. But all that is native and original is fast being overlaid by the influx of English residents,—unhappy victims of genteel pauperism flying from the heavy taxes of England, which the Channel Islands escape; or, in not a few cases, persons whose reputation has suffered some damage in their own country. There are also a few exiles of a more honorable kind,—French liberals, who have taken refuge from imperial tyranny under the shield of English law,—the most illustrious of whom is Victor Hugo. The Emperor would fain get hold of these men, and he is now trying to force upon us a modification of the extradition treaty for that purpose. But the sanctity of our asylum is a tradition dear to the English people, and one which they will not be induced to betray. An attempt to change the English law for the purposes of the French police was fatal to Palmerston, at the height of his popularity and power.
The French government employs agents to decoy the refugees into conspiracies, in order that it may obtain a pretext for criminal proceedings against them. The fact has fallen under my personal observation. To estimate the character of these practices, and of the present attempt to tamper with the extradition treaty, we must remember that Louis Napoleon himself long enjoyed, as a political refugee, the shelter of the asylum which he is now endeavoring to subvert.
Jersey is studded with fortifications. England and France frown at each other in arms from the neighboring coasts. I thought of poor Cobden, and of the day when his policy shall finally prevail, as it begins to prevail already, over these national divisions and jealousies; and when there shall be at once a better and a cheaper security for the peace of nations than fortresses bristling with the instruments of mutual destruction. The Norman islands are of no use to England, while they involve us in a large military expenditure. In a maritime war, we should find it very difficult to defend dependencies so far from our coast and so close to that of the enemy. But the people are loyal to England, and very unwilling to be annexed to France.
Granville, where I landed in Normandy, is a hideous seaport; but its hideousness was almost turned to beauty, on that golden afternoon, by the bright French atmosphere, which can do for bad scenery what French cookery does for bad meat. The royal and imperial roads of France are as despotically straight as those of the Roman Empire. But it was a pleasant evening drive to Avranches, through the rich champaign,—the active little Norman horses trotting the sixteen miles merrily to the jingling of their bells. The figure of the gendarme, in his cocked hat and imposing uniform, setting out upon his rounds, tells me that I am in France.
Avranches stands on the steep and towering extremity of a line of hills, commanding a most magnificent and varied view of land and sea, with Mont
