Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/237

 At Villeneuve we saw the Castle Chillon with its dancing halls above and its dungeons below and the little island of Childe Harold in the lake, and getting on a boat, crossed Lake Geneva lengthwise to Geneva. From there we went by rail across France to Paris. Irwin took us to a modest hotel, the Bergere, where our bill for five days, including some wine, was only one hundred and eighteen francs for both of us, or twenty-three dollars and sixty cents.

At the Louvre from the fifteen miles of paintings La Gioconda smiled upon us, and we then went to Versailles, where, apart from the palace with its historic interest and the gardens with their beauty, were two paintings which impressed me. One represented the Battle of Sedan. On a crest stood in life size an officer. Off in the distance was a little smoke. It was the artist's idea of a battle. The other picture told the story of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown to the French fleet. Washington had nothing whatever to do with it. I had grown up under another impression, but still perhaps it is well to modify these early impressions. I said to a man whom I met in the street in Paris:

“Pouvez vous me dire ou est l'Eiffel Tour?” emphasizing the first syllable in Eiffel. He looked at me in blank amazement. After a long conversation he said:

“Vous pensez au Tour Eiffel?”

“Oui, Monsieur.”

Then he pointed out the way.

We went to the opera, where Mrs. Pennypacker had a great struggle to retain her cloak with a French woman who insisted upon taking it away as she talked at the top of her speed, but in the end American grit prevailed. The French people, as I saw them at their work, impressed me as being more rather bright and cultivated, than earnest and strong. They seemed eager to finish their tasks and get away to the concert gardens. Amusement appeared to be a motive in life. We had crossed the ocean and the Zuyder Zee and Lake Geneva without being seasick and the English Channel had Rh