sure sign of a generous and elevated military quality.
It is not long since we parted with the last of these hero-brothers; and the civilian brother, Richard, who manifests the family spirit and accomplishments in his own way, still survives. Sir George Napier died in 1855, Sir Charles in 1853, and Henry a few weeks afterwards. Sir William lived, in spite of his wounds and an unequalled number of challenges arising out of his History, to the age of seventy-five, dying in February of last year. Their wonderful countenances are familiar to most of us through the frontispieces in Sir Charles’s “Life and Correspondence” and the print shop windows. The fiery-eyed Charles, and William, a perfect Jupiter Tonans, once seen can never be forgotten; and the impression of their heroic quality, shown in every intellectual and social act, leaves the same kind of ineffaceable impression on the imagination as the gaze of that eye and the glory of that brow. In the age of the Napiers, England may be as proud as ever of her soldiers.
SEA-BATHING IN FRANCE.
I saw it at St. Malo, where it is said to flourish. There was nothing very particular in the shape of the machines which were drawn up on the beach. Except that they were made of canvas instead of wood, and had much lower wheels than ours, they had the same bald, gritty look which those vehicles generally wear. They were twenty or thirty yards from the edge of the water, and therefore, as I was not thinking much about bathers, but idling along in a promiscuous sort of way, I supposed that the day’s dipping was over. Judge of my surprise when, on passing close by a machine, the door opened, and a short, stout gentleman, in a jacket and drawers of a large staring check flannel, stepped out with a smile and a shudder—like a clown. I almost expected him to put his head on one side, and say “Here we are again,” before turning a summersault.
But it was the mayor. The mayor of St. Malo, going to bathe. Or if it was not the mayor, it was as good, for I saw him afterwards, and he had a red ribbon in his button-hole, to which no end of people took off their hats. Perhaps he was a Préfet. At any rate, he had on nothing but breeches and a shortish jacket, of flaring check flannel, and proceeded to paddle down to the water after a few minutes, with Mrs. M., who popped out of a neighbouring machine similarly dressed, on his arm; and I can assure you Mrs. M. did not owe all her charms to crinoline.
Bless my heart, I said to myself, this is worth coming to France to see. So I brisked up, opened my eyes, got a chair for a sous, sat down, and took it all in. Let me reflect—no, not reflect—but consult my notes, which I made on the sly, lest a ferocious gendarme, who paced about, should suspect me of sketching a fort, and sabre me on the spot.
Let me see. There were about fifty or sixty machines in this village, all of canvas, and upon very low wheels, the floor of the hut not being above a foot from the ground. They are seldom, if ever, taken into the Mater, and of course, a plunge from one of them is impossible even then, as they cannot draw above six inches. There are rafts moored at different distances from the brink, so that those bathers who want to take headers may be suited—there being always a raft in about three or four feet water, and another further on.
But whatever you do when you are fairly afloat, you must paddle in like a goose.
The ladies and gentlemen all bathe together, often walking down to the sea, or up from it, arm in arm. When Mr. and Mrs. M. came out thus, and his aldermanic proportions were more developed by the clinging of the wet flannel (I won’t mention her), the effect was so odd, the contrast to English habits so grotesque, that I laughed—respectfully. At first, I thought that several figures in the water were boys, but they turned out at last to be young ladies—who came up dripping from the ocean, like so many Venuses in flannel dittoes.
Many of them evidently wore their own bathing dresses, which fitted so jauntily, and were so prettily trimmed and ornamented, that I have no doubt they were made to measure—women tailors, I presume. When I came to think about it, and had seen through the novelty of the “costume,” as it is called on the beach, I saw how decent and sensible it was. The suit was really nothing but Bloomer. In many cases a trifle more close fitting and short-skirted; but the lines of the model were Bloomerian. Many of the men wore dresses as tight as an acrobat’s; and, indeed, looked so like them, that you half expected to see the mat and pole produced; or, at least, a “pyramid” made. By the time I had sat there an hour, the number of bathers increased fast. There was quite a crowd of expectants and friends. The former, with their dresses rolled up under their arms, ready to get into the next vacant machine, the latter reading, working, or sitting in chairs, idly waiting till the bath should be over. Fresh bathers paddled down in twos or threes, while others continually emerged, and came up the beach dripping; the suit was so complete in some cases, that the wet figure looked as if the bath I had been taken by accident, not choice. Everything was well organised. There were three or four sunburnt women with bare feet, and hats with “Service des Bains” on the band, like the name of a ship; and men who gave lessons in swimming, or helped to shove the heads of recusant children under water. A “Buvette” on the beach provided glasses of liqueur to those who wanted to take the chill off themselves, and there was a large copper of hot water on wheels, to supply bathers who wished to wash their feet after walking across the dry sand to their machines. One tremendous woman, who was mistress of the ceremonies, directed her crew where to take these little addenda of baths, and dispensed the dresses to those who brought none of their own. Moreover, she arranged the order of procedure, and insisted strictly on the rule, “first come, first served.” She was a tremendous woman, with a voice like a speaking-trumpet, and knitted rapidly all the time she was giving her orders, or listening to the