The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 120: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE STEAM -PACKET, 87 him in due order. One would —— fancied he saw another Napoleon reviewing another ‘‘ grand army.” The disappointed touters pursued the cavalcade for some time, vainly endeavouring to persuade the Luminaries to change their minds in favour of other hotels; but, finding that they were obstinately bent upon repairing to the Hotel de Flandres (which was in reality the best hotel in the town) they eventually ceased their persecution. While the Luminaries are filing gracefully through the carriage-gate of the Hotel de Flandres, we may take the opportunity to observe, that the hotels of the French provincial towns, and especially in places upon the maritime frontier, are infinitely superior to those with similar pretensions in- England. Many of the establishments of Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, Havre, &c., are equal to any of the West- End hotels of London; and at nearly all of them can the traveller obtain a better dinner (if French cookery be to his taste) than at Long’s, the Clarendon, Fenton’s, or any other fashionable resort of the same standing. The French hotels are spacious and lofty; they are invariably built in the form of a quadrangle, with a large paved court- yard in the middle for the use of carriages. The interiors are elegantly fitted up and furnished; and when the English cockney returns home and declares ‘‘ that French hotels are all very well, but they want the comfort of the English inn,” we pronounce him to be one of those silly personages who would rather declare that the works of Demos- thenes smell of the midnight oil, than not find any fault at all. At the meanest’ inn in France the traveller will be provided with silver spoons and table-napkins—the latter luxury unknown in many estab- lishments of large pretensions in England. Then the English pre- judice which declares French windows and doors to be so badly fixed in their settings that they afford ingress to a perpetual draught, is most absurd and unfounded. The immense extent of French hotels, gene- rally, may be imagined when we assure our readers that many of them can make up from a hundred to a hundred and sixty beds, and supply private sitting-rooms for probably thirty different families. In addi- tion to these accommodations there are the coffee. and table-d’héte rooms for all those who choose to use them. It was of one of these apartments that the Luminaries took possession as their parlour ; and it was there that the head waiter proceeded to question Mr. Pifpaf relative to the dinner which the latter was anxious to have served up as soon as possible, the sea air having sharpened his own appetite and that of all his companions, in spite of a good luncheon at one o’clock on board. Now it happened that Captain Pentonville,—being the only one of the whole party who could speak anything like decent French - Gomicbooks (E(0)