The accommodations at the inn were indifferent, and not cheap. We walked forward a mile or two before the coach on the road to Montargis. It presents a long, broad, and stately avenue, without a turning as far as the eye can reach, and is skirted on each side by a wild, woody, rocky scenery The day was dull, but quite mild, though in the middle of January.
She complained of the cold of the night air; but this she seemed to dread less than the want of company. We got out, notwithstanding, at the inn at Montargis, where we met with a very tolerable reception, and were waited on at supper by one of those Maritormeses that perfectly astonish an English traveller. Her joy at our arrival was as extreme as if her whole fortune depended on it. She laughed, danced, sang, fairly sprang into the air, bounded into the room, nearly overset the table, hallooed and talked as loud as if she had been alternately ostler and chambermaid.
These gentlemen [the proprietors of the coach Lyonnais at Fontainebleau] came to me after I had paid for two places as far as Nevers, to ask me to resign them in favour of two Englishmen, who wished to go the whole way, and to re-engage them for the following evening. I said I could not do that; but as I had a dislike to travelling at night, I would go on to Montargis by some other conveyance, and proceed by the Lyonnais, which would arrive there at eight or nine on Sunday morning, as far as I could that night.
I set out on the faith of this understanding. I was led to it by a shabby double or counterpart of the Lyonnais, which stood before the door, empty, dirty, bare of luggage, waiting the Paris one, which had not yet arrived. It drove into town four hours afterwards, with three foundered hacks , with the conducteur and postillion for its complement of passengers, the last occupying the left-hand corner of the coupe in solitary state.
We quarrelled incessantly, but I could not help laughing, for he sometimes looked like my old acquaintance Dr. Stoddart , and sometimes like my friend Aββ Hββ, of Edinburgh. He told me, for my comfort, the reason of his being so late was that two of his horses had fallen down dead on the road.
