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Object: Page from David Garrick’s Travel Diary to Paris
Creator: David Garrick (British, 1717-1779)
Date: 1751
Shelf-mark: Garrick, Theater Arts Manuscripts Collection
Repository: Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Rights: Public Domain
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David Garrick was descended from French Huguenots who fled from France to England in 1685. The consummate British actor-manager made his first trip to Paris in 1751, a watershed moment in his life that he would speak of in letters and journals throughout the rest of his life. This first page of his travel diary discusses the difficult journey from his home in London through the port of Boulogne on his way to Paris. The document is especially challenging for its 18th-century terminology and its abbreviations of certain words and place names.
Transcription (click to reveal)My wife, Mr. Denis & myself set out from London the 19th of May (OS) Sunday, & we got to Paris the Thursday after (ye 23d), we made our Passage from Dover to Boulogne in three hours & a half.
Boulogne
all the French writers who have written about England complain of ye Brutality of our common People, but let ’em say or write what they will, I never saw so much Dirt, Beggary, imposition & Impertinance as I did at Boule. The Custom house Officers (not-withstanding ye freedom of ye Port) were very uncivil & strict; & ye Collector, whom we went before, had our things (tho my wife was wth us) open’d in ye Passage of his House & shew’d not ye least politeness to her or us – as t owhat else pass’d at this place is of very little Consequence, we could hardly get Post horses and Everything was as disagreeable as it could possibly be –
From Boule to Paris
The Roads for ye most Part very good, the Inns very bad, the best at Abeville, the People very civil