June 5 Friday – Sam, Livy, and Jean left Hartford for New York, where they met their other daughters and Sue Crane. The party stayed at the Murray Hill Hotel.
New York to France: Gascoigne
June 6 Saturday – At 5 a.m. the Clemenses sailed from New York for France on the Gascoigne. The family would not return for more than eight years and would never again live in Hartford.
June 7 Sunday – Sam’s notebook entry: Glassy sea — no wind — everybody on deck — overcoats not needed….Delicious breakfasts, 12.30. Lie abed till 10.30: they bring you a cup of coffee & a biscuit about 8.30 if you want it — & you do.
June 8 Monday – Clara Clemens’ seventeenth birthday. Sam’s notebook entry: Certainly the sunniest & most beautiful day the Atlantic ever saw. But little sea — though what there is would be seriously felt on a smaller vessel. This one has no motion.
The phosphorescent waves at night are very intense on the black surface….Open fire place & big mantelepiece in great salon — imitation, not real; but a cosy & perfect counterfeit.
The haggard perplexity in the face of the All-Knowing is admirably brought out.
The perfect cleanliness of the rest of the ship is realized to you when you happen suddenly upon the violent contrast afforded by the smoking-cabin of the ler class, whose oil-cloth carpet has apparently never been washed or swept, & is littered with the burnt matches of a bygone generation.
The Lodge of Sorrow or the Towers of Silence — divans all around a great square occupied by silent folk in the squalmish stage. A piano in there — hated by the above.
June 9 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook entry: Brilliant sun, but good deal of sea. Breakfast table rather deserted. It is a good, easy-riding sea-boat. … Blow whistle for noon — can’t hear the bell far…. Seen the whole length of the gangway, people at dinner are diminished to children
A sour deck steward who makes all calls upon him a reluctant & uncomfortable thing.
June 10 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook entry: Rough sea. Il est defense d’apporter du petit et du vin blanc a la chambre
June 11 Thursday – Sam’s notebook entry: The loneliness of a ship at 4 a.m. Saw just one person for an instant flit through the gray of yesterday’s dawn. Very rough — winds singing — first wet deck. Electrics seemed to burn dim. Smoking sty stunk unenduringly. …Susy: “Their gesticulations are so out of proportion to what they are saying.”
Smooth sea again.
Jean, positively comfortable. Clara, compara[tively comfortable] Susy, superlatively un[comfortable].
Know a new voyager because he don’t re-set his watch.
June 12 Friday – Sam’s notebook entry: Very Smoothe sea.
June 13 Saturday – Sam’s notebook entry: Concert.
June 14 Sunday – The Clemens family, accompanied by Susan Crane and Katy Leary, arrived in Le Havre, France and took rooms in the Hotel Frascati on the beach in Le Havre, outside of town.
June 16 Tuesday – The Clemens party of seven was in Paris at the Grand Hotel Terminus.
June 20 Saturday – The Clemens party left Paris on or about this day for Geneva, Switzerland. In Geneva, Sam and Livy installed Susy and Clara in a boarding school. “They were to study French with a family there while Papa, Mamma, and Aunt Sue took the waters,” first in Annecy, then in Aix-les-Bains, France. Letters later sent to the girls address them to Mme. Ducroix at 16 rue de la Tour, Geneva
Scharnhorst (pg 4) notes that the Clemenses departed Paris on the 26th after excursions to Saint-Cloud and Versailles.