Paris, Feb. 6, 1840.—­Every letter of the date is traced with an emotion of joy, for our dreary journey is over.  There was a magic in the name that revived us during a long journey, and now the thought that it is all over—­that these walls which enclose us, stand in the heart of the gay city—­seems almost too joyful to be true.  Yesterday I marked with the whitest chalk, on the blackest of all tablets to make the contrast greater, for I got out of the cramped diligence at the Barriere de Charenton, and saw before me in the morning twilight, the immense groy mass of Paris.  I forgot my numbed and stiffened frame, and every other of the thousand disagreeable feelings of diligence traveling, in the pleasure which that sight afforded.

We arose in the dark at Lyons, and after bidding adieu to morose Monsieur Ferrand, traversed the silent city and found our way in the mist and gloom to the steamboat landing on the Saone.  The waters were swollen much above their usual level, which was favorable for the boat, as long as there was room enough left to pass under the bridges.  After a great deal of bustle we got under way, and were dashing out of Lyons, against the swift current, before day-break.  We passed L’Isle Barbe, once a favorite residence of Charlemagne, and now the haunt of the Lyonnaise on summer holidays, and going under the suspension bridges with levelled chimneys, entered the picturesque hills above, which are covered with vineyards nearly to the top; the villages scattered over them have those square, pointed towers, which give such a quaintness to French country scenery.

The stream being very high, the meadows on both sides were deeply overflowed.  To avoid the strong current in the centre, our boat ran along the banks, pushing aside the alder thickets and poplar shoots; in passing the bridges, the pipes were always brought down flat on the deck.  A little after noon, we passed the large town of Macon, the birth-place of the poet Lamartine.  The valley of the Saone, no longer enclosed among the hills, spread out to several miles in width.  Along the west lay in sunshine the vine-mountains of Cote d’Or, and among the dark clouds in the eastern sky, we could barely distinguish the outline of the Jura.  The waters were so much swollen as to cover the plain for two or three miles.  We seemed to be sailing down a lake, with rows of trees springing up out of the water, and houses and villages lying like islands on its surface.  A sunset that promised better weather tinged the broad brown flood, as Chalons came in sight, looking like a city built along the shore of a lake.  We squeezed through the crowd of porters and diligence men, declining their kind offers, and hunted quarters to suit ourselves.