The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, by Laurence Sterne

Published：2026-07-29 23:40:55 Source: affordable electronic learning toys Author: Emergency Vehicles

A
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
THROUGH
FRANCE AND ITALY;

BY MR. YORICK.

[THE REV. LAURENCE STERNE,best math toys for 4 year olds under 20 dollarsM.A.]

[Firstpublished in 1768.]

They order, said I, this matter better inFrance.—You have been in France? said my gentleman, turningquick upon me, with the most civil triumph in theworld.—Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself,That one and twenty miles sailing, for ’tis absolutely nofurther from Dover to Calais, should give a man theserights:—I’ll look into them: so, giving up theargument,—I went straight to my lodgings, put up half adozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches,—“thecoat I have on,” said I, looking at the sleeve, “willdo;”—took a place in the Dover stage; and the packetsailing at nine the next morning,—by three I had got satdown to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably inFrance, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the wholeworld could not have suspended the effects of the droitsd’aubaine; [557]—my shirts,and black pair of silk breeches,—portmanteau and all, musthave gone to the King of France;—even the little picturewhich I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, Iwould carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from myneck!—Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwarypassenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to theircoast!—By heaven! Sire, it is not well done; and much doesit grieve me, ’tis the monarch of a people so civilized andcourteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine feelings, thatI have to reason with!—

But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions.—

CALAIS.

When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King ofFrance’s health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him nospleen, but, on the contrary, high honour for the humanity of histemper,—I rose up an inch taller for the accommodation.

—No—said I—the Bourbon is by no means acruel race: they may be misled, like other people; but there is amildness in their blood. As I acknowledged this, I felt asuffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek—more warm andfriendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres abottle, which was such as I had been drinking) could haveproduced.

—Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what isthere in this world’s goods which should sharpen ourspirits, and make so many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out socruelly as we do by the way?

When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a featheris the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse,and holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if hesought for an object to share it with.—In doing this, Ifelt every vessel in my frame dilate,—the arteries beat allcheerily together, and every power which sustained life,performed it with so little friction, that ’twould haveconfounded the most physical précieusein France;with all her materialism, she could scarce have called me amachine.—

I’m confident, said I to myself, I should have oversether creed.

The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, ashigh as she could go;—I was at peace with the world before,and this finish’d the treaty with myself.—

—Now, was I King of France, cried I—what amoment for an orphan to have begg’d his father’sportmanteau of me!

THE MONK.
CALAIS.

I had scarce uttered the words,when a poor monk of the order of St. Francis came into the roomto beg something for his convent. No man cares to have hisvirtues the sport of contingencies—or one man may begenerous, as another is puissant;—sed non quoadhanc—or be it as it may,—for there is no regularreasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our humours; they may dependupon the same causes, for aught I know, which influence the tidesthemselves: ’twould oft be no discredit to us, to supposeit was so: I’m sure at least for myself, that in many acase I should be more highly satisfied, to have it said by theworld, “I had had an affair with the moon, in which therewas neither sin nor shame,” than have it pass altogether asmy own act and deed, wherein there was so much of both.

—But, be this as it may,—the moment I cast my eyesupon him, I was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and,accordingly, I put my purse into my pocket—buttonedit—set myself a little more upon my centre, and advanced upgravely to him; there was something, I fear, forbidding in mylook: I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and thinkthere was that in it which deserved better.

The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a fewscattered white hairs upon his temples, being all that remainedof it, might be about seventy;—but from his eyes, and thatsort of fire which was in them, which seemed more temper’dby courtesy than years, could be no more than sixty:—Truthmight lie between—He was certainly sixty-five; and thegeneral air of his countenance, notwithstanding somethingseem’d to have been planting wrinkles in it before theirtime, agreed to the account.

It was one of those heads which Guido has oftenpainted,—mild, pale—penetrating, free from allcommonplace ideas of fat contented ignorance looking downwards uponthe earth;—it look’d forwards; but look’d as ifit look’d at something beyond this world.—How one ofhis order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon amonk’s shoulders best knows: but it would have suited aBramin, and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I hadreverenced it.

The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; onemight put it into the hands of any one to design, for ’twasneither elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expressionmade it so: it was a thin, spare form, something above the commonsize, if it lost not the distinction by a bend forward in thefigure,—but it was the attitude of Intreaty; and, as it nowstands presented to my imagination, it gained more than it lostby it.

When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; andlaying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff withwhich he journey’d being in his right)—when I had gotclose up to him, he introduced himself with the little story ofthe wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order;—anddid it with so simple a grace,—and such an air ofdeprecation was there in the whole cast of his look andfigure,—I was bewitch’d not to have been struck withit.

—A better reason was, I had predetermined not to givehim a single sous.

THE MONK.
CALAIS.

—’Tis very true, saidI, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes, with which he hadconcluded his address;—’tis very true,—andheaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of theworld, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for themany great claimswhich are hourly made upon it.

As I pronounced the words great claims, he gave aslight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of histunic:—I felt the full force of the appeal—Iacknowledge it, said I:—a coarse habit, and that but oncein three years with meagre diet,—are no great matters; and thetrue point of pity is, as they can be earn’d in the worldwith so little industry, that your order should wish to procurethem by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame,the blind, the aged and the infirm;—the captive who liesdown counting over and over again the days of his afflictions,languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of theorder of mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, pooras I am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfullyshould it have been open’d to you, for the ransom of theunfortunate.—The monk made me a bow.—But of allothers, resumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely,have the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress uponour own shore.—The monk gave a cordial wave with hishead,—as much as to say, No doubt there is misery enough inevery corner of the world, as well as within ourconvent—But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon thesleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal—wedistinguish, my good father! betwixt those who wish only to eatthe bread of their own labour—and those who eat the breadof other people’s, and have no other plan in life, but toget through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love ofGod.

The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a momentpass’d across his cheek, but could not tarry—Natureseemed to have done with her resentments in him;—he showednone:—but letting his staff fall within his arms, hepressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, andretired.

THE MONK.
CALAIS.

My heart smote me the moment heshut the door—Psha! said I, with an air of carelessness,three several times—but it would not do: every ungracioussyllable I had utter’d crowded back into my imagination: Ireflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to denyhim; and that the punishment of that was enough to thedisappointed, without the addition of unkind language.—Iconsider’d his gray hairs—his courteous figure seem’dto re-enter and gently ask me what injury he had doneme?—and why I could use him thus?—I would have giventwenty livres for an advocate.—I have behaved very ill,said I within myself; but I have only just set out upon mytravels; and shall learn better manners as I get along.

THE DESOBLIGEANT.
CALAIS.

When a man is discontented withhimself, it has one advantage however, that it puts him into anexcellent frame of mind for making a bargain. Now therebeing no travelling through France and Italy without achaise,—and nature generally prompting us to the thing weare fittest for, I walk’d out into the coach-yard to buy orhire something of that kind to my purpose: an olddésobligeant[562] in the furthestcorner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantlygot into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with myfeelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, themaster of the hotel:—but Monsieur Dessein being gone tovespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on theopposite side of the court, in conference with a lady justarrived at the inn,—I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us,and being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen andink and wrote the preface to it in thedésobligeant.

PREFACE.
IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.

It must have been observed by manya peripatetic philosopher, That nature has set up by her ownunquestionable authority certain boundaries and fences tocircumscribe the discontent of man; she has effected her purposein the quietest and easiest manner by laying him under almostinsuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain hissufferings at home. It is there only that she has providedhim with the most suitable objects to partake of his happiness,and bear a part of that burden which in all countries and ageshas ever been too heavy for one pair of shoulders.’Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power ofspreading our happiness sometimes beyond herlimits, but’tis so ordered, that, from the want of languages,connections, and dependencies, and from the difference ineducation, customs, and habits, we lie under so many impedimentsin communicating our sensations out of our own sphere, as oftenamount to a total impossibility.

It will always follow from hence, that the balance ofsentimental commerce is always against the expatriatedadventurer: he must buy what he has little occasion for, at theirown price;—his conversation will seldom be taken inexchange for theirs without a large discount,—and this, bythe by, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitablebrokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires nogreat spirit of divination to guess at his party—

This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if thesee-saw of this désobligeantwill but let me geton) into the efficient as well as final causes oftravelling—

Your idle people that leave their native country, and goabroad for some reason or reasons which may be derived from oneof these general causes:—

Infirmity of body,
Imbecility of mind, or
Inevitable necessity.

The first two include all those who travel by land or bywater, labouring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen,subdivided and combined ad infinitum.

The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs;more especially those travellers who set out upon their travelswith the benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travellingunder the direction of governors recommended by themagistrate;—or young gentlemen transported by the crueltyof parents and guardians, and travelling under the direction ofgovernors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.

There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they wouldnot deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work ofthis nature to observe the greatest precision and nicety, toavoid a confusion of character. And these men I speak of,are such as cross the seas and sojourn in a land of strangers,with a view of saving money for various reasons and upon variouspretences: but as they might also save themselves and others agreat deal of unnecessary trouble by saving their money athome,—and as their reasons for travelling are the leastcomplex of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguishthese gentlemen by the name of

Simple Travellers.

Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to thefollowing heads:—

Idle Travellers,

Inquisitive Travellers,

Lying Travellers,

Proud Travellers,

Vain Travellers,

Splenetic Travellers.

Then follow:

The Travellers of Necessity,

The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,

The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,

The Simple Traveller,

And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller,(meaning thereby myself) who have travell’d, and of which Iam now sitting down to give an account,—as much out ofNecessity, and the besoin de Voyager, as any one inthe class.

I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels andobservations will be altogether of a different cast from any ofmy forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole nitchentirely to myself;—but I should break in upon the confinesof the VainTraveller, in wishing to draw attentiontowards me, till I have some better grounds for it than the mereNovelty of my Vehicle.

It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a travellerhimself, that with study and reflection hereupon he may be ableto determine his own place and rank in the catalogue;—it will beone step towards knowing himself; as it is great odds but heretains some tincture and resemblance, of what he imbibed orcarried out, to the present hour.

The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to theCape of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt ofdrinking the same wine at the Cape, that the same grape producedupon the French mountains,—he was too phlegmatic forthat—but undoubtedly he expected to drink some sort ofvinous liquor; but whether good or bad, or indifferent,—heknew enough of this world to know, that it did not depend uponhis choice, but that what is generally called choice, wasto decide his success: however, he hoped for the best; and inthese hopes, by an intemperate confidence in the fortitude of hishead, and the depth of his discretion, Mynheermightpossibly oversee both in his new vineyard; and by discovering hisnakedness, become a laughing stock to his people.

Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and postingthrough the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit ofknowledge and improvements.

Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing andposting for that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and realimprovements is all a lottery;—and even where theadventurer is successful, the acquired stock must be used withcaution and sobriety, to turn to any profit:—but, as thechances run prodigiously the other way, both as to theacquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a man wouldact as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live contentedwithout foreign knowledge or foreign improvements, especially ifhe lives in a country that has no absolute want ofeither;—and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and manya time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step theInquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look intodiscoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, theymight have seen dry-shod at home. It is an age so full oflight, that there is scarce a country or corner in Europe whosebeams are not crossed and interchanged withothers.—Knowledge in most of its branches, and in mostaffairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereofthose may partake who pay nothing.—But there is no nationunder heaven—and God is my record (before whose tribunal Imust one day come and give an account of this work)—that Ido not speak it vauntingly,—but there is no nation underheaven abounding with more variety of learning,—where thesciences may be more fitly woo’d, or more surely won, thanhere,—where art is encouraged, and will so soon risehigh,—where Nature (take her altogether) has so little toanswer for,—and, to close all, where there is more wit andvariety of character to feed the mind with:—Where then, mydear countrymen, are you going?—

We are only looking at this chaise, said they.—Your mostobedient servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off myhat.—We were wondering, said one of them, who, I found wasan Inquisitive Traveller,—what could occasion itsmotion.—’Twas the agitation, said I, coolly, ofwriting a preface.—I never heard, said the other, who was aSimple Traveller, of a preface wrote in adésobligeant.—It would have been better, saidI, in a vis-a-vis.

—As an Englishman does not travel to seeEnglishmen, I retired to my room.

CALAIS.

I perceived that somethingdarken’d the passage more than myself, as I stepp’dalong it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the masterof the hôtel, who had just returned from vespers, and withhis hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, toput me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty wellout of conceit with the désobligeant, and Mons.Dessein speaking of it, with a shrug, as if it would no way suitme, it immediately struck my fancy that it belong’d to someInnocent Traveller, who, on his return home, had left itto Mons. Dessein’s honour to make the most of. Fourmonths had elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe inthe corner of Mons. Dessein’s coach-yard; and havingsallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first,though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it hadnot profited much by its adventures,—but by none solittle as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner ofMons. Dessein’s coach-yard. Much indeed was not to besaid for it,—but something might;—and when a fewwords will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the man whocan be a churl of them.

—Now was I the master of this hôtel, said I,laying the point of my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein’sbreast, I would inevitably make a point of getting rid of thisunfortunate désobligeant;—it stands swingingreproaches at you every time you pass by it.

Mon Dieu! said Mons. Dessein,—I have nointerest—Except the interest, said I, which men of acertain turn of mind take, Mons. Dessein, in their ownsensations,—I’m persuaded, to a man who feels forothers as well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise it asyou will, must cast a damp upon your spirits:—You suffer,Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine—

I have always observed, when there is as much sourassweetin a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally ata loss within himself, whether to take it, or let it alone: aFrenchman never is: Mons. Dessein made me a bow.

C’est bien vrai, said he.—But in this caseI should only exchange one disquietude for another, and withloss: figure to yourself, my dear Sir, that in giving you achaise which would fall to pieces before you had got half-way toParis,—figure to yourself how much I should suffer, ingiving an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lyingat the mercy, as I must do, d’un hommed’esprit.

The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so Icould not help tasting it,—and, returning Mons. Dessein hisbow, without more casuistry we walk’d together towards hisRemise, to take a view of his magazine of chaises.

IN THE STREET.
CALAIS.

It must needs be a hostile kind ofa world, when the buyer (if it be but of a sorry post-chaise)cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the street toterminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls intothe same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the samesort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-parkcorner to fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poorswordsman, and no way a match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt therotation of all the movements within me, to which the situationis incident;—I looked at Monsieur Dessein through andthrough—eyed him as he walk’d along inprofile,—then, en face;—thought like aJew,—then a Turk,—disliked his wig,—cursed himby my gods,—wished him at the devil.—

—And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for abeggarly account of three or four louis d’ors, which is themost I can be overreached in?—Base passion! said I, turningmyself about, as a man naturally does upon a sudden reverse ofsentiment,—base, ungentle passion! thy hand is againstevery man, and every man’s hand against thee.—Heavenforbid! said she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for I hadturned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conferencewith the monk:—she had followed usunperceived.—Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her myown;—she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at thethumb and two fore-fingers, so accepted it withoutreserve,—and I led her up to the door of the Remise.

Monsieur Dessein had diabledthe key above fifty timesbefore he had found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand:we were as impatient as himself to have it opened; and soattentive to the obstacle that I continued holding her handalmost without knowing it: so that Monsieur Dessein left ustogether with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned towardsthe door of the Remise, and said he would be back in fiveminutes.

Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worthone of as many ages, with your faces turned towards the street:in the latter case, ’tis drawn from the objects andoccurrences without;—when your eyes are fixed upon a deadblank,—you draw purely from yourselves. A silence ofa single moment upon Mons. Dessein’s leaving us, had beenfatal to the situation—she had infallibly turnedabout;—so I begun the conversation instantly.—

—But what were the temptations (as I write not toapologize for the weaknesses of my heart in this tour,—butto give an account of them)—shall be described with thesame simplicity with which I felt them.

THE REMISE DOOR.
CALAIS.

When I told the reader that I didnot care to get out of the désobligeant, because Isaw the monk in close conference with a lady just arrived at theinn—I told him the truth,—but I did not tell him thewhole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by theappearance and figure of the lady he was talking to.Suspicion crossed my brain and said, he was telling her what hadpassed: something jarred upon it within me,—I wished him athis convent.

When the heart flies out before the understanding, it savesthe judgment a world of pains.—I was certain she was of abetter order of beings;—however, I thought no more of her,but went on and wrote my preface.

The impression returned upon my encounter with her in thestreet; a guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand,showed, I thought, her good education and her good sense; and asI led her on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, whichspread a calmness over all my spirits—

—Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as thisround the world with him!—

I had not yet seen her face—’twas not material:for the drawing was instantly set about, and long before we hadgot to the door of the Remise, Fancyhad finished thewhole head, and pleased herself as much with its fitting hergoddess, as if she had dived into the Tiber for it;—butthou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou cheatestus seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with somany charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures inthe shapes of so many angels of light, ’tis a shame tobreak with thee.

When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her handfrom across her forehead, and let me see the original:—itwas a face of about six-and-twenty,—of a clear transparentbrown, simply set off without rouge or powder;—it was notcritically handsome, but there was that in it, which, in theframe of mind I was in, attached me much more to it,—it wasinteresting: I fancied it wore the characters of a widow’dlook, and in that state of its declension, which had passed thetwo first paroxysms of sorrow, and was quietly beginning toreconcile itself to its loss;—but a thousand otherdistresses might have traced the same lines; I wish’d toknow what they had been—and was ready to inquire, (had thesame bon tonof conversation permitted, as in the days ofEsdras)—“What aileth thee? and why art thoudisquieted? and why is thy understandingtroubled?”—In a word, I felt benevolence for her;and resolv’d some way or other to throw in my mite ofcourtesy,—if not of service.

Such were my temptations;—and in this disposition togive way to them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand inmine, and with our faces both turned closer to the door of theRemise than what was absolutely necessary.

THE REMISE DOOR.
CALAIS.

This certainly, fair lady, said I,raising her hand up little lightly as I began, must be one ofFortune’s whimsical doings; to take two utter strangers bytheir hands,—of different sexes, and perhaps from differentcorners of the globe, and in one moment place them together insuch a cordial situation as Friendship herself could scarce haveachieved for them, had she projected it for a month.

—And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur,she has embarrassed you by the adventure—

When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is soill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: youthank Fortune, continued she—you had reason—the heartknew it, and was satisfied; and who but an English philosopherwould have sent notice of it to the brain to reverse thejudgment?

In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thoughta sufficient commentary upon the text.

It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of theweakness of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, whichworthier occasions could not have inflicted.—I wasmortified with the loss of her hand, and the manner in which Ihad lost it carried neither oil nor wine to the wound: I neverfelt the pain of a sheepish inferiority so miserably in mylife.

The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon thesediscomfitures. In a very few seconds she laid her hand uponthe cuff of my coat, in order to finish her reply; so, some wayor other, God knows how, I regained my situation.

—She had nothing to add.

I forthwith began to model a different conversation for thelady, thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that Ihad been mistaken in her character; but upon turning her facetowards me, the spirit which had animated the reply wasfled,—the muscles relaxed, and I beheld the sameunprotected look of distress which first won me to herinterest:—melancholy! to see such sprightliness the prey ofsorrow,—I pitied her from my soul; and though it may seemridiculous enough to a torpid heart,—I could have taken herinto my arms, and cherished her, though it was in the openstreet, without blushing.

The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressingacross hers, told her what was passing within me: she lookeddown—a silence of some moments followed.

I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight effortstowards a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensationI felt in the palm of my own,—not as if she was going towithdraw hers—but as if she thought about it;—and Ihad infallibly lost it a second time, had not instinct more thanreason directed me to the last resource in thesedangers,—to hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I wasevery moment going to release it, of myself; so she let itcontinue, till Monsieur Dessein returned with the key; and in themean time I set myself to consider how I should undo the illimpressions which the poor monk’s story, in case he hadtold it her, must have planted in her breast against me.

THE SNUFF BOX.
CALAIS.

The good old monk was within sixpaces of us, as the idea of him crossed my mind; and wasadvancing towards us a little out of the line, as if uncertainwhether he should break in upon us or no.—He stopp’d,however, as soon as he came up to us, with a world of frankness:and having a horn snuff box in his hand, he presented it open tome.—You shall taste mine—said I, pulling out my box(which was a small tortoise one) and putting it into hishand.—’Tis most excellent, said the monk. Thendo me the favour, I replied, to accept of the box and all, andwhen you take a pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it was thepeace offering of a man who once used you unkindly, but not fromhis heart.

The poor monk blush’d as red as scarlet. MonDieu! said he, pressing his hands together—you neverused me unkindly.—I should think, said the lady, he is notlikely. I blush’d in my turn; but from whatmovements, I leave to the few who feel, to analyze.—Excuseme, Madame, replied I,—I treated him most unkindly; andfrom no provocations.—’Tis impossible, said thelady.—My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseverationwhich seem’d not to belong to him—the fault was inme, and in the indiscretion of my zeal.—The lady opposedit, and I joined with her in maintaining it was impossible, thata spirit so regulated as his, could give offence to any.

I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet andpleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it.—Weremained silent, without any sensation of that foolish pain whichtakes place, when, in such a circle, you look for ten minutes inone another’s faces without saying a word. Whilstthis lasted, the monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of histunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightnessby the friction—he made me a low bow, and said, ’twastoo late to say whether it was the weakness or goodness of ourtempers which had involved us in this contest—but be it asit would,—he begg’d we might exchange boxes.—In sayingthis, he presented his to me with one hand, as he took mine fromme in the other, and having kissed it,—with a stream ofgood nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom,—and tookhis leave.

I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of myreligion, to help my mind on to something better: in truth, Iseldom go abroad without it; and oft and many a time have Icalled up by it the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate myown, in the justlings of the world: they had found fullemployment for his, as I learnt from his story, till about theforty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military services illrequited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment inthe tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sextogether, and took sanctuary not so much in his convent as inhimself.

I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that inmy last return through Calais, upon enquiring after FatherLorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months, and wasburied, not in his convent, but, according to his desire, in alittle cemetery belonging to it, about two leagues off: I had astrong desire to see where they had laid him,—when, uponpulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, andplucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had nobusiness to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly uponmy affections, that I burst into a flood of tears:—but I amas weak as a woman; and I beg the world not to smile, but to pityme.

THE REMISE DOOR.
CALAIS.

I had never quitted thelady’s hand all this time, and had held it so long, that itwould have been indecent to have let it go, without firstpressing it to my lips: the blood and spirits, which had suffereda revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.

Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard,happening at that crisis to be passing by, and observing ourcommunications, naturally took it into their heads that we mustbe man and wifeat least; so, stopping as soon as theycame up to the door of the Remise, the one of them who was theInquisitive Traveller, ask’d us, if we set out for Paristhe next morning?—I could only answer for myself, I said;and the lady added, she was for Amiens.—We dined thereyesterday, said the Simple Traveller.—You go directlythrough the town, added the other, in your road to Paris. Iwas going to return a thousand thanks for the intelligence,that Amiens was in the road to Paris, but, upon pullingout my poor monk’s little horn box to take a pinch ofsnuff, I made them a quiet bow, and wishing them a good passageto Dover.—They left us alone.—

—Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if Iwere to beg of this distressed lady to accept of half of mychaise?—and what mighty mischief could ensue?

Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took thealarm, as I stated the proposition.—It will oblige you tohave a third horse, said Avarice, which will put twenty livresout of your pocket;—You know not what she is, saidCaution;—or what scrapes the affair may draw you into,whisper’d Cowardice.—

Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, ’twill be saidyou went off with a mistress, and came by assignation to Calaisfor that purpose;—

—You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show yourface in the world;—or rise, quoth Meanness, in thechurch;—or be any thing in it, said Pride, but a lousyprebendary.

But ’tis a civil thing, said I;—and as I generallyact from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to thesecabals, which serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompassthe heart with adamant—I turned instantly about to thelady.—

—But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause waspleading, and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, bythe time I had made the determination; so I set off after herwith a long stride, to make her the proposal, with the bestaddress I was master of: but observing she walk’d with her cheek half resting upon the palmof her hand,—with the slow short-measur’d step ofthoughtfulness,—and with her eyes, as she went step bystep, fixed upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the samecause herself.—God help her! said I, she has somemother-in-law, or tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman, toconsult upon the occasion, as well as myself: so not caring tointerrupt the process, and deeming it more gallant to take her atdiscretion than by surprise, I faced about and took a short turnor two before the door of the Remise, whilst she walk’dmusing on one side.

IN THE STREET.
CALAIS.

Having, on the first sight of thelady, settled the affair in my fancy “that she was of thebetter order of beings;”—and then laid it down as asecond axiom, as indisputable as the first, that she was a widow,and wore a character of distress,—I went no further; I gotground enough for the situation which pleased me;—and hadshe remained close beside my elbow till midnight, I should haveheld true to my system, and considered her only under thatgeneral idea.

She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere somethingwithin me called out for a more particular enquiry;—itbrought on the idea of a further separation:—I mightpossibly never see her more:—The heart is for saving whatit can; and I wanted the traces through which my wishes mightfind their way to her, in case I should never rejoin her myself;in a word, I wished to know her name,—herfamily’s—her condition; and as I knew the place towhich she was going, I wanted to know from whence she came: butthere was no coming at all this intelligence; a hundred littledelicacies stood in the way. I form’d a scoredifferent plans.—There was no such thing as a man’sasking her directly;—the thing was impossible.

A little French débonnairecaptain, who camedancing down the street, showed me it was the easiest thing inthe world: for, popping in betwixt us, just as the lady was returningback to the door of the Remise, he introduced himself to myacquaintance, and before he had well got announced, begg’dI would do him the honour to present him to the lady.—I hadnot been presented myself;—so turning about to her, he didit just as well, by asking her if she had come from Paris?No: she was going that route, she said.—Vousn’êtes pas de Londres?—She was not, shereplied.—Then Madame must have come throughFlanders.—Apparemment vous êtes Flammande?said the French captain.—The lady answered, shewas.—Peut être de Lisle? added he.—Shesaid, she was not of Lisle.—Nor Arras?—norCambray?—nor Ghent?—nor Brussels?—She answered,she was of Brussels.

He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of itlast war;—that it was finely situated, pourcela,—and full of noblesse when the Imperialists weredriven out by the French (the lady made a slightcourtesy)—so giving her an account of the affair, and ofthe share he had had in it,—he begg’d the honour toknow her name,—so made his bow.

—Et Madame a son Mari?—said he, lookingback when he had made two steps,—and, without staying foran answer—danced down the street.

Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, Icould not have done as much.

THE REMISE.
CALAIS.

As the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came upwith the key of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us intohis magazine of chaises.

The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Desseinopen’d the door of the Remise, was another oldtatter’d désobligeant; and notwithstanding itwas the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much inthe coach-yard but an hour before,—the very sight of itstirr’d up a disagreeable sensation within me now; and Ithought ’twas a churlish beast into whose heart the ideacould first enter, to construct such a machine; nor had I much morecharity for the man who could think of using it.

I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself: soMons. Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stoodabreast, telling us, as he recommended them, that they had beenpurchased by my lord A. and B. to go the grand tour, but had goneno further than Paris, so were in all respects as good asnew.—They were too good;—so I pass’d on to athird, which stood behind, and forthwith begun to chaffer for theprice.—But ’twill scarce hold two, said I, openingthe door and getting in.—Have the goodness, Madame, saidMons. Dessein, offering his arm, to step in.—The ladyhesitated half a second, and stepped in; and the waiter thatmoment beckoning to speak to Mon. Dessein, he shut the door ofthe chaise upon us, and left us.

THE REMISE.
CALAIS.

C’estbiencomique, ’tis very droll, said the lady, smiling, fromthe reflection that this was the second time we had been lefttogether by a parcel of nonsensicalcontingencies,—c’est bien comique, saidshe.—

—There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but thecomic use which the gallantry of a Frenchman would put itto,—to make love the first moment, and an offer of hisperson the second.

’Tis their fort, replied the lady.

It is supposed so at least;—and how it has come to pass,continued I, I know not; but they have certainly got the creditof understanding more of love, and making it better than anyother nation upon earth; but, for my own part, I think themarrant bunglers, and in truth the worst set of marksmen that evertried Cupid’s patience.

—To think of making love by sentiments!

I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes outof remnants:—and to do it—pop—at first sight,by declaration—is submitting the offer, and themselves withit, to be sifted with all their poursand contres,by an unheated mind.

The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.

Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand uponhers:—

That grave people hate love for the name’ssake;—

That selfish people hate it for their own;—

Hypocrites for heaven’s;—

And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worsefrightened than hurt by the very report,—what a wantof knowledge in this branch of commerce a man betrays, whoeverlets the word come out of his lips, till an hour or two, atleast, after the time that his silence upon it becomestormenting. A course of small, quiet attentions, not sopointed as to alarm,—nor so vague as to bemisunderstood—with now and then a look of kindness, andlittle or nothing said upon it,—leaves nature for yourmistress, and she fashions it to her mind.—

Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you havebeen making love to me all this while.

THE REMISE.
CALAIS.

Monsieur Dessein came back to letus out of the chaise, and acquaint the lady, the count deL—, her brother, was just arrived at the hotel.Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I cannot say that Irejoiced in my heart at the event—and could not helptelling her so;—for it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, saidI, that I was going to make to you—

—You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she,laying her hand upon both mine, as she interrupted me.—Aman my good Sir, has seldom an offer of kindness to make to awoman, but she has a presentiment of it some momentsbefore.—

Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediatepreservation.—But I think, said she, looking in my face, Ihad no evil to apprehend,—and, to deal frankly with you,had determined to accept it.—If I had—(she stopped amoment)—I believe your good will would have drawn a story fromme, which would have made pity the only dangerous thing in thejourney.

In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, andwith a look of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of thechaise,—and bid adieu.

IN THE STREET.
CALAIS.

I never finished a twelve guineabargain so expeditiously in my life: my time seemed heavy, uponthe loss of the lady, and knowing every moment of it would be astwo, till I put myself into motion,—I ordered post horsesdirectly, and walked towards the hotel.

Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, andrecollecting that I had been little more than a single hour inCalais,—

—What a large volume of adventures may be grasped withinthis little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything, and who, having eyes to see what time and chance areperpetually holding out to him as he journeyeth on his way,misses nothing he can fairlylay his hands on!

—If this won’t turn out something,—anotherwill;—no matter,—’tis an assay upon humannature—I get my labour for my pains,—’tisenough;—the pleasure of the experiment has kept my sensesand the best part of my blood awake, and laid the gross tosleep.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry,’Tis all barren;—and so it is: and so is all theworld to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers. Ideclare, said I, clapping my hands cheerily together, that were Iin a desert, I would find out wherewith in it to call forth myaffections:—if I could not do better, I would fasten themupon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress toconnect myself to;—I would court their shade, and greetthem kindly for their protection.—I would cut my name uponthem, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout thedesert: if their leaves wither’d, I would teach myselfto mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along withthem.

The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne toParis,—from Paris to Rome,—and so on;—but heset out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object hepass’d by was discoloured or distorted.—He wrote anaccount of them, but ’twas nothing but the account of hismiserable feelings.

I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of thePantheon:—he was just coming out of it.—’Tisnothing but a huge cockpit, [580] said he:—Iwish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, repliedI;—for in passing through Florence, I had heard he hadfallen foul upon the goddess, and used her worse than a commonstrumpet, without the least provocation in nature.

I popp’d upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his returnhome; and a sad tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell,“wherein he spoke of moving accidents by flood and field,and of the cannibals that each other eat: theAnthropophagi:”—he had been flayed alive, andbedevil’d, and used worse than St. Bartholomew, at everystage he had come at.—

—I’ll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to theworld. You had better tell it, said I, to yourphysician.

Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; goingon from Rome to Naples,—from Naples to Venice,—fromVenice to Vienna,—to Dresden, to Berlin, without onegenerous connection or pleasurable anecdote to tell of; but hehad travell’d straight on, looking neither to his righthand nor his left, lest Love or Pity should seduce him out of hisroad.

Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself,were it possible to get there with such tempers, would wantobjects to give it; every gentle spirit would come flying uponthe wings of Love to hail their arrival.—Nothing would thesouls of Smelfungus and Mundungus hear of, but fresh anthems ofjoy, fresh raptures of love, and fresh congratulations of theircommon felicity.—I heartily pity them; they have brought upno faculties for this work; and, were the happiest mansion in heavento be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be so farfrom being happy, that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundunguswould do penance there to all eternity!

MONTREUIL.

I had once lost my portmanteau frombehind my chaise, and twice got out in the rain, and one of thetimes up to the knees in dirt, to help the postilion to tie iton, without being able to find out what was wanting.—Norwas it till I got to Montreuil, upon the landlord’s askingme if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to me, that thatwas the very thing.

A servant! That I do most sadly, quoth I.—Because,Monsieur, said the landlord, there is a clever young fellow, whowould be very proud of the honour to serve anEnglishman.—But why an English one, more than anyother?—They are so generous, said thelandlord.—I’ll be shot if this is not a livre out ofmy pocket, quoth I to myself, this very night.—But theyhave wherewithal to be so, Monsieur, added he.—Set down onelivre more for that, quoth I.—It was but last night, saidthe landlord, qu’un milord Anglois présentoit unécu à la fille de chambre.—Tant pispour Mademoiselle Janatone, said I.

Now Janatone, being the landlord’s daughter, and thelandlord supposing I was young in French, took the liberty toinform me, I should not have said tant pis—but,tant mieux. Tant mieux, toujours,Monsieur, said he, when there is any thing to begot—tant pis, when there is nothing. It comesto the same thing, said I. Pardonnez-moi, said thelandlord.

I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all,that tant pisand tant mieux, being two of thegreat hinges in French conversation, a stranger would do well toset himself right in the use of them, before he gets toParis.

A prompt French marquis at our ambassador’s tabledemanded of Mr. H—, if he was H— the poet? No,said Mr. H—, mildly.—Tant pis, replied themarquis.

It is H— the historian, said another,—Tant mieux,said the marquis. And Mr. H—, who is a man of anexcellent heart, return’d thanks for both.

When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he calledin La Fleur, which was the name of the young man he had spokeof,—saying only first, That as for his talents he wouldpresume to say nothing,—Monsieur was the best judge whatwould suit him; but for the fidelity of La Fleur he would standresponsible in all he was worth.

The landlord deliver’d this in a manner which instantlyset my mind to the business I was upon;—and La Fleur, whostood waiting without, in that breathless expectation which everyson of nature of us have felt in our turns, came in.

MONTREUIL.

I am apt to be taken with all kindsof people at first sight; but never more so than when a poordevil comes to offer his service to so poor a devil as myself;and as I know this weakness, I always suffer my judgment to drawback something on that very account,—and this more or less,according to the mood I am in, and the case;—and I may add,the gender too, of the person I am to govern.

When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I couldmake for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellowdetermined the matter at once in his favour; so I hired himfirst,—and then began to enquire what he could do: But Ishall find out his talents, quoth I, as I wantthem,—besides, a Frenchman can do every thing.

Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat adrum, and play a march or two upon the fife. I wasdetermined to make his talents do; and can’t say myweakness was ever so insulted by my wisdom as in the attempt.

La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as mostFrenchmen do, with servingfor a few years; at the end ofwhich, having satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, Thatthe honour of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, asit open’d no further track of glory to him,—he retiredà ses terres, and lived comme il plaisoit à Dieu;—that is tosay, upon nothing.

—And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer toattend you in this tour of yours through France andItaly!—Psha! said I, and do not one half of our gentry gowith a humdrum compagnon du voyagethe same round, andhave the piper and the devil and all to pay besides? Whenman can extricate himself with an équivoquein suchan unequal match,—he is not ill off.—But you can dosomething else, La Fleur? said I.—O qu’oui! hecould make spatterdashes, and play a little upon thefiddle.—Bravo! said Wisdom.—Why, I play a bassmyself, said I;—we shall do very well. You can shave,and dress a wig a little, La Fleur?—He had all thedispositions in the world.—It is enough for heaven! said I,interrupting him,—and ought to be enough for me.—So,supper coming in, and having a frisky English spaniel on one sideof my chair, and a French valet, with as much hilarity in hiscountenance as ever Nature painted in one, on the other,—Iwas satisfied to my heart’s content with my empire; and ifmonarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as satisfiedas I was.

MONTREUIL.

As La Fleur went the whole tour ofFrance and Italy with me, and will be often upon the stage, Imust interest the reader a little further in his behalf, bysaying, that I had never less reason to repent of the impulseswhich generally do determine me, than in regard to thisfellow;—he was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul asever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and,notwithstanding his talents of drum beating andspatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves,happened to be of no great service to me, yet was I hourlyrecompensed by the festivity of his temper;—it supplied alldefects:—I had a constant resource in his looks in alldifficulties and distresses of my own—I was going to haveadded of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of everything; for, whether ’twas hunger or thirst, or cold ornakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleurmet with in our journeyings, there was no index in hisphysiognomy to point them out by,—he was eternally thesame; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan nowand then puts it into my head I am,—it always mortifies thepride of the conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to thecomplexional philosophy of this poor fellow, for shaming me intoone of a better kind. With all this, La Fleur had a smallcast of the coxcomb,—but he seemed at first sight to bemore a coxcomb of nature than of art; and, before I had beenthree days in Paris with him,—he seemed to be no coxcomb atall.

MONTREUIL.

The next morning, La Fleur enteringupon his employment, I delivered to him the key of myportmanteau, with an inventory of my half a dozen shirts and silkpair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon thechaise,—get the horses put to,—and desire thelandlord to come in with his bill.

C’est un garcon de bonne fortune, said thelandlord, pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches whohad got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking theirleave of him, as the postilion was leading out the horses.La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again, and thricehe wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them allpardons from Rome.

—The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by allthe town, and there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where thewant of him will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in theworld, continued he, “he is always in love.”—Iam heartily glad of it, said I,—’twill save me thetrouble every night of putting my breeches under my head.In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur’s elogeas my own, having been in love with one princess or anotheralmost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so till I die, beingfirmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be insome interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst thisinterregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up,—Ican scarce find in it to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore Ialways get out of it as fast as I can—and the moment I amrekindled, I am all generosity and good-will again; and would doanything in the world, either for or with any one, if they willbut satisfy me there is no sin in it.

—But in saying this,—sure I am commanding thepassion,—not myself.

A FRAGMENT.

—The town of Abdera,notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying all the powers ofirony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and mostprofligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons,conspiracies, and assassinations,—libels, pasquinades, andtumults, there was no going there by day—’twas worseby night.

Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that theAndromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the wholeorchestra was delighted with it: but of all the passages whichdelighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginationsthan the tender strokes of nature which the poet had wrought upin that pathetic speech of Perseus, O Cupid, prince ofgods and men! &c. Every man almost spoke pureiambics the next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus hispathetic address,—“O Cupid! prince of gods andmen!”—in every street of Abdera, in every house,“O Cupid! Cupid!”—in every mouth, likethe natural notes of some sweet melody which drop from it,whether it will or no,—nothing but “Cupid! Cupid!prince of gods and men!”—The fire caught—andthe whole city, like the heart of one man, open’d itself toLove.

No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,—nota single armourer had a heart to forge one instrument ofdeath;—Friendship and Virtue met together, and kiss’deach other in the street; the golden age returned, and hung overthe town of Abdera—every Abderite took his eaten pipe, andevery Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sat herdown and listened to the song.

’Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the Godwhose empire extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to thedepths of the sea, to have done this.

MONTREUIL.

When all is ready, and everyarticle is disputed and paid for in the inn, unless you are alittle sour’d by the adventure, there is always a matter tocompound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; andthat is with the sons and daughters of poverty, who surroundyou. Let no man say, “Let them go to thedevil!”—’tis a cruel journey to send a fewmiserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: Ialways think it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and Iwould counsel every gentle traveller to do so likewise: he neednot be so exact in setting down his motives for givingthem;—They will be registered elsewhere.

For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; forfew, that I know, have so little to give; but as this was thefirst public act of my charity in France, I took the more noticeof it.

A well-a-way! said I,—I have but eight sous in theworld, showing them in my hand, and there are eight poor men andeight poor women for ’em.

A poor tatter’d soul, without a shirt on, instantlywithdrew his claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, andmaking a disqualifying bow on his part. Had the wholeparterrecried out, Place aux dames, with onevoice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deferencefor the sex with half the effect.

Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, thatbeggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in othercountries, should find a way to be at unity in this?

—I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous,merely for his politesse.

A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against mein the circle, putting something first under his arm, which hadonce been a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, andgenerously offer’d a pinch on both sides of him: it was agift of consequence, and modestly declined.—The poor littlefellow pressed it upon them with a nod ofwelcomeness.—Prenez en—prenez, said he,looking another way; so they each took a pinch.—Pity thybox should ever want one! said I to myself; so I put a couple ofsous into it—taking a small pinch out of his box, toenhance their value, as I did it. He felt the weight of thesecond obligation more than of the first,—’twas doinghim an honour,—the other was only doing him acharity;—and he made me a bow down to the ground forit.

—Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who hadbeen campaigned and worn out to death in theservice—here’s a couple of sous forthee.—Vive le Roi! said the old soldier.

I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, pourl’amour de Dieu, which was the footing on which it wasbegg’d.—The poor woman had a dislocated hip; so itcould not be well upon any other motive.

Mon cher et très-charitableMonsieur.—There’s no opposing this, said I.

Milord Anglois—the very sound was worth themoney;—so I gave my last sous for it. But inthe eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a pauvrehonteux, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, Ibelieve, would have perished, ere he could have ask’d onefor himself: he stood by the chaise a little without the circle,and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen betterdays.—Good God! said I—and I have not one single sousleft to give him.—But you have a thousand! cried all thepowers of nature, stirring within me;—so I gavehim—no matter what—I am ashamed to say howmuchnow,—and was ashamed to think how little, then:so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, asthese two fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livreor two what was the precise sum.

I could afford nothing for the rest, but Dieu vousbénisse!

—Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore, saidthe old soldier, the dwarf, &c. The pauvrehonteuxcould say nothing;—he pull’d out a littlehandkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away—and Ithought he thanked me more than them all.

THE BIDET.

Having settled all these littlematters, I got into my post-chaise with more ease than ever I gotinto a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur having got one largejack-boot on the far side of a little bidet, [588] and another on this (for I countnothing of his legs)—he canter’d away before me ashappy and as perpendicular as a prince.—But what ishappiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life!A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to LaFleur’s career;—his bidet would not pass byit,—a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellowwas kick’d out of his jack-boots the very first kick.

La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neithermore nor less upon it, than Diable! So presently gotup, and came to the charge again astride his bidet, beating himup to it as he would have beat his drum.

The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, thenback again,—then this way, then that way, and in short,every way but by the dead ass:—La Fleur insisted upon thething—and the bidet threw him.

What’s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet ofthine? Monsieur, said he, c’est un cheval le plusopiniâtre du monde.—Nay, if he is a conceitedbeast, he must go his own way, replied I. So La Fleur gotoff him, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me atmy word, and away he scampered back toMontreuil.—Peste! said La Fleur.

It is not mal-à-proposto take notice here, thatthough La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms ofexclamation in this encounter,—namely, Diable! andPeste! that there are, nevertheless, three in the Frenchlanguage: like the positive, comparative, and superlative, one orthe other of which serves for every unexpected throw of the dicein life.

Le Diable! which is the first, and positive degree, isgenerally used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where smallthings only fall out contrary to your expectations; suchas—the throwing once doublets—La Fleur’s beingkick’d off his horse, and so forth.—Cuckoldom, forthe same reason, is always—Le Diable!

But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, asin that of the bidet’s running away after, and leaving LaFleur aground in jack-boots,—’tis the seconddegree.

’Tis then Peste!

And for the third—

—But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellowfeeling, when I reflect what miseries must have been their lot,and how bitterly so refined a people must have smarted, to haveforced them upon the use of it.—

Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence indistress!—what ever is my cast, grant me but decentwords to exclaim in, and I will give my nature way.

—But as these were not to be had in France, I resolvedto take every evil just as it befell me, without any exclamationat all.

La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followedthe bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight,—andthen, you may imagine, if you please, with what word he closedthe whole affair.

As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots,there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behindthe chaise, or into it.—

I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to thepost-house at Nampont.

NAMPONT.
THE DEAD ASS.

—And this, said he, puttingthe remains of a crust into his wallet—and this should havebeen thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have sharedit with me.—I thought, by the accent, it had been anapostrophe to his child; but ’twas to his ass, and to thevery ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned LaFleur’s misadventure. The man seemed to lament itmuch; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho’slamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches ofnature.

The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, withthe ass’s pannel and its bridle on one side, which he tookup from time to time,—then laid themdown,—look’d at them, and shook his head. Hethen took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if toeat it; held it some time in his hand,—then laid it uponthe bit of his ass’s bridle,—looked wistfully at thelittle arrangement he had made—and then gave a sigh.

The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and LaFleur amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; asI continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear overtheir heads.

—He said he had come last from Spain, where he had beenfrom the furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on hisreturn home, when his ass died. Every one seemed desirousto know what business could have taken so old and poor a man sofar a journey from his own home.

It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons,the finest lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two ofthe eldest of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling illof the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all;and made a vow, if heaven would not take him from him also, hewould go in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.

When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp’dto pay Nature her tribute,—and wept bitterly.

He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he hadset out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been apatient partner of his journey;—that it had eaten the samebread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.

Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow withconcern.—La Fleur offered him money.—The mourner saidhe did not want it;—it was not the value of theass—but the loss of him.—The ass, he said, he wasassured, loved him;—and upon this told them a long story ofa mischance upon their passage over the Pyrenean mountains,which had separated them from each other three days; during whichtime the ass had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, andthat they had scarce either eaten or drank till they met.

Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the lossof thy poor beast; I’m sure thou hast been a mercifulmaster to him.—Alas! said the mourner, I thought so when hewas alive;—but now that he is dead, I thinkotherwise.—I fear the weight of myself and my afflictionstogether have been too much for him,—they have shortenedthe poor creature’s days, and I fear I have them to answerfor.—Shame on the world! said I to myself.—Did we butlove each other as this poor soul loved hisass—’twould be something.—

NAMPONT.
THE POSTILION.

The concern which the poorfellow’s story threw me into required some attention; thepostilion paid not the least to it, but set off upon thepavéin a full gallop.

The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia couldnot have wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did forgrave and quiet movements; and I should have had an high opinionof the postilion had he but stolen off with me in something likea pensive pace.—On the contrary, as the mourner finishedhis lamentation, the fellow gave an unfeeling lash to each of hisbeasts, and set off clattering like a thousand devils.

I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven’s sake togo slower:—and the louder I called, the more unmercifullyhe galloped.—The deuce take him and his gallopingtoo—said I,—he’ll go on tearing my nerves topieces till he has worked me into a foolish passion, and thenhe’ll go slow that I may enjoy the sweets of it.

The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time hehad got to the foot of a steep hill, about half a league fromNampont,—he had put me out of temper with him,—andthen with myself, for being so.

My case then required a different treatment; and a goodrattling gallop would have been of real service to me.—

—Then, prithee, get on—get on, my good lad, saidI.

The postilion pointed to the hill.—I then tried toreturn back to the story of the poor German and his ass—butI had broke the clue,—and could no more get into it again,than the postilion could into a trot.

—The deuce go, said I, with it all! Here am Isitting as candidly disposed to make the best of the worst, asever wight was, and all runs counter.

There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Natureholds out to us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fellasleep; and the first word which roused me was Amiens.

—Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes,—this is thevery town where my poor lady is to come.

AMIENS.

The words were scarce out of mymouth when the Count de L—’s post-chaise, with hissister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time to make me abow of recognition,—and of that particular kind of it,which told me she had not yet done with me. She was as goodas her look; for, before I had quite finished my supper, herbrother’s servant came into the room with a billet, inwhich she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with aletter, which I was to present myself to Madame R— thefirst morning I had nothing to do at Paris. There was onlyadded, she was sorry, but from what penchantshe had notconsidered, that she had been prevented telling me herstory,—that she still owed it to me; and if my route shouldever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the nameof Madame de L—,—that Madame de L— would beglad to discharge her obligation.

Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! atBrussels;—’tis only returning from Italy throughGermany to Holland, by the route of Flanders,home;—’twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but,were it ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown myjourney, in sharing in the sickening incidents of a taleof misery told to me by such a sufferer? To see her weep!and, though I cannot dry up the fountain of her tears, what anexquisite sensation is there still left, in wiping them away fromoff the cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I’msitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence the wholenight beside her?

There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantlyreproached my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobateof expressions.

It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singularblessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably inlove with some one; and my last flame happening to be blown outby a whiff of jealousy on the sudden turn of a corner, I hadlighted it up afresh at the pure taper of Eliza but about threemonths before,—swearing, as I did it, that it should lastme through the whole journey.—Why should I dissemble thematter? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity;—she hada right to my whole heart:—to divide my affections was tolessen them;—to expose them was to risk them: where thereis risk there may be loss:—and what wilt thou have, Yorick,to answer to a heart so full of trust and confidence—sogood, so gentle, and unreproaching!

—I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interruptingmyself.—But my imagination went on,—I recalled herlooks at that crisis of our separation, when neither of us hadpower to say adieu! I look’d at the picture she hadtied in a black riband about my neck,—and blush’d asI look’d at it.—I would have given the world to havekiss’d it,—but was ashamed.—And shall thistender flower, said I, pressing it between my hands,—shallit be smitten to its very root,—and smitten, Yorick! bythee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?

Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon theground,—be thou my witness—and every pure spiritwhich tastes it, be my witness also, That I would not travel toBrussels, unless Eliza went along with me, did the road lead metowards heaven!

In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of theunderstanding, will always say too much.

THE LETTER.
AMIENS.

Fortune had not smiled upon LaFleur; for he had been unsuccessful in his feats ofchivalry,—and not one thing had offered to signalise hiszeal for my service from the time that he had entered into it,which was almost four-and-twenty hours. The poor soulburn’d with impatience; and the Count de L—’sservant coming with the letter, being the first practicableoccasion which offer’d, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and,in order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a backparlour in the auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of thebest wine in Picardy; and the Count de L—’s servant,in return, and not to be behindhand in politeness with La Fleur,had taken him back with him to the Count’s hotel. LaFleur’s prevenancy(for there was a passport in hisvery looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease withhim; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort ofprudery in showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, hadpulled out his fife, and leading off the dance himself with thefirst note, set the fille de chambre, the maîtred’hôtel, the cook, the scullion, and all thehouse-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: Isuppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.

Madame de L—, in passing from her brother’sapartments to her own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rungup her fille de chambreto ask about it; and, hearing itwas the English gentleman’s servant, who had set the wholehouse merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.

As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he hadloaded himself in going up stairs with a thousand compliments toMadame de L—, on the part of his master,—added a longapocrypha of inquiries after Madame de L—’shealth,—told her, that Monsieur his master was audésespoirefor her re-establishment from the fatiguesof her journey,—and, to close all, that Monsieur hadreceived the letter which Madame had done him the honour—Andhe has done me the honour, said Madame de L—, interruptingLa Fleur, to send a billet in return.

Madame de L— had said this with such a tone of relianceupon the fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint herexpectations;—he trembled for my honour,—and possiblymight not altogether be unconcerned for his own, as a man capableof being attached to a master who could be wanting enégards vis à vis d’une femme! so thatwhen Madame de L— asked La Fleur if he had brought aletter,—O qu’oui, said La Fleur: so layingdown his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of hisright side pocket with his left hand, he began to search for theletter with his right;—thencontrariwise.—Diable! then sought everypocket—pocket by pocket, round, not forgetting hisfob:—Peste!—then La Fleur emptied them uponthe floor,—pulled out a dirty cravat,—ahandkerchief,—a comb,—a whip lash,—anightcap,—then gave a peep into his hat,—Quelleétourderie! He had left the letter upon thetable in the auberge;—he would run for it, and be back withit in three minutes.

I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give mean account of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as itwas: and only added that if Monsieur had forgot (parhazard) to answer Madame’s letter, the arrangement gavehim an opportunity to recover the faux pas;—and ifnot, that things were only as they were.

Now I was not altogether sure of my étiquette,whether I ought to have wrote or no;—but if I had,—adevil himself could not have been angry: ’twas but theofficious zeal of a well meaning creature for my honour; and,however he might have mistook the road,—or embarrassed mein so doing,—his heart was in no fault,—I was underno necessity to write;—and, what weighed more thanall,—he did not look as if he had done amiss.

—’Tis all very well, La Fleur, saidI.—’Twas sufficient. La Fleur flew out of theroom like lightning, and returned with pen, ink, and paper, inhis hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them close before me,with such a delight in his countenance, that I could not helptaking up the pen.

I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and thatnothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I madehalf a dozen different beginnings, and could no way pleasemyself.

In short, I was in no mood to write.

La Fleur stepp’d out and brought a little water in aglass to dilute my ink,—then fetch’d sand andseal-wax.—It was all one; I wrote, and blotted, and toreoff, and burnt, and wrote again.—Le diablel’emporte! said I, half to myself,—I cannot writethis self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as Isaid it.

As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with themost respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousandapologies for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had aletter in his pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment to acorporal’s wife, which he durst say would suit theoccasion.

I had a mind to let the poor fellow have hishumour.—Then prithee, said I, let me see it.

La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket bookcramm’d full of small letters and billet-doux in a sadcondition, and laying it upon the table, and then untying thestring which held them all together, run them over, one by one,till he came to the letter in question,—La voila!said he, clapping his hands: so, unfolding it first, he laid itopen before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst Iread it.

THE LETTER.

Madame,

Je suis pénétré de la douleur la plusvive, et réduit en même temps au désespoirpar ce retour imprévù du Caporal qui rend notreentrevûe de ce soir la chose du monde la plusimpossible.

Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser àvous.

L’amour n’est riensans sentiment.

Et le sentiment est encore moinssans amour.

On dit qu’on ne doit jamais sedésesperér.

On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi:alors ce cera mon tour.

Chacun à son tour.

En attendant—Vive l’amour! et vive labagatelle!

Je suis, Madame,
Avec tous les sentimens les plus
respectueux et les plus tendres,
tout à vous,
Jaques Roque.

It was but changing the Corporal into the Count,—andsaying nothing about mounting guard on Wednesday,—and theletter was neither right nor wrong:—so, to gratify the poorfellow, who stood trembling for my honour, his own, and thehonour of his letter,—I took the cream gently off it, andwhipping it up in my own way, I seal’d it up and sent himwith it to Madame de L—;—and the next morning wepursued our journey to Paris.

PARIS.

When a man can contest the point bydint of equipage, and carry all on floundering before him withhalf a dozen of lackies and a couple of cooks—’tisvery well in such a place as Paris,—he may drive in atwhich end of a street he will.

A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantrydoes not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, andsignalize himself in the cabinet, if he can get up intoit;—I say up into it—for there is nodescending perpendicular amongst ’em with a “Mevoici! mes enfans”—here Iam—whatever many may think.

I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary andalone in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being soflattering as I had prefigured them. I walked up gravely tothe window in my dusty black coat, and looking through the glasssaw all the world in yellow, blue, and green, running at the ringof pleasure.—The old with broken lances, and in helmetswhich had lost their vizards;—the young in armour brightwhich shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of theeast,—all,—all, tilting at it like fascinated knightsin tournaments of yore for fame and love.—

Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here? On the veryfirst onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to anatom;—seek,—seek some winding alley, with atourniquet at the end of it, where chariot never rolled orflambeau shot its rays;—there thou mayest solace thy soulin converse sweet with some kind grisette of a barber’swife, and get into such coteries!—

—May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out the letterwhich I had to present to Madame de R—.—I’llwait upon this lady, the very first thing I do. So I calledLa Fleur to go seek me a barber directly,—and come back andbrush my coat.

THE WIG.
PARIS.

When the barber came, he absolutelyrefused to have any thing to do with my wig: ’twas eitherabove or below his art: I had nothing to do but to take one readymade of his own recommendation.

—But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won’tstand.—You may emerge it, replied he, into the ocean, andit will stand.—

What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thoughtI.—The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker’sideas could have gone no further than to have “dipped itinto a pail of water.”—What difference! ’tislike Time to Eternity!

I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the punyideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with thegreat works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it,I never would make a comparison less than a mountain atleast. All that can be said against the French sublime, inthis instance of it, is this:—That the grandeur ismorein the word, and lessin thething. No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vastideas; but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I shouldrun post a hundred miles out of it, to try theexperiment;—the Parisian barber meant nothing.—

The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly,but a sorry figure in speech;—but, ’twill besaid,—it has one advantage—’tis in the nextroom, and the truth of the buckle may be tried in it, withoutmore ado, in a single moment.

In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of thematter, The French expression professes more than itperforms.

I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks ofnational characters more in these nonsensicalminutiæthan in the most important matters of state;where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much alike, thatI would not give ninepence to choose amongst them.

I was so long in getting from under my barber’s hands,that it was too late to think of going with my letter to MadameR— that night: but when a man is once dressed at all pointsfor going out, his reflections turn to little account; so takingdown the name of the Hôtel de Modene, where I lodged, Iwalked forth without any determination where to go;—I shallconsider of that, said I, as I walk along.

THE PULSE.
PARIS.

Hail, ye small sweet courtesies oflife, for smooth do ye make the road of it! like grace andbeauty, which beget inclinations to love at first sight:’tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.

—Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell mewhich way I must turn to go to the OpéraComique?—Most willingly, Monsieur, said she, laying asideher work.—

I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as Icame along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered bysuch an interruption: till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I hadwalked in.

She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair,on the far side of the shop, facing the door.

—Très volontiers, most willingly, said she,laying her work down upon a chair next her, and rising up fromthe low chair she was sitting in, with so cheerful a movement,and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying out fifty louisd’ors with her, I should have said—“This womanis grateful.”

You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the doorof the shop, and pointing the way down the street I was totake,—you must turn first to your left hand,—maisprenez garde—there are two turns; and be so good as totake the second—then go down a little way and you’llsee a church: and, when you are past it, give yourself thetrouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you tothe foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross—and thereany one will do himself the pleasure to show you.—

She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with thesame goodnatur’d patience the third time as thefirst;—and if tones and mannershave a meaning,which certainly they have, unless to hearts which shut themout,—she seemed really interested that I should not losemyself.

I will not suppose it was the woman’s beauty,notwithstanding she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I eversaw, which had much to do with the sense I had of her courtesy;only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to her,that I looked very full in her eyes,—and that I repeated mythanks as often as she had done her instructions.

I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I hadforgot every tittle of what she had said;—so looking back,and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop, as if tolook whether I went right or not,—I returned back to askher, whether the first turn was to my right or left,—forthat I had absolutely forgot.—Is it possible! said she,half laughing. ’Tis very possible, replied I, when aman is thinking more of a woman than of her good advice.

As this was the real truth—she took it, as every womantakes a matter of right, with a slight curtsey.

—Attendez! said she, laying her hand upon my armto detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to getready a parcel of gloves. I am just going to send him, saidshe, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have thecomplaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and heshall attend you to the place.—So I walk’d in withher to the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in myhand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she satdown herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself downbeside her.

—He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in amoment.—And in that moment, replied I, most willingly wouldI say something very civil to you for all these courtesies.Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation ofthem shows it is a part of the temperature; and certainly, addedI, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart whichdescends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you musthave one of the best pulses of any woman in the world.—Feelit, said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, Itook hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the twoforefingers of my other to the artery.—

—Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passedby, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in mylack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one,with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the criticalebb or flow of her fever.—How wouldst thou havelaugh’d and moralized upon my new profession!—andthou shouldst have laugh’d and moralized on.—Trustme, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, “There are worseoccupations in this world than feeling a woman’spulse.”—But a grisette’s! thou wouldst havesaid,—and in an open shop! Yorick—

—So much the better: for when my views are direct,Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it.

THE HUSBAND.
PARIS.

I had counted twenty pulsations,and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband,coming unexpected from a back parlour into the shop, put me alittle out of my reckoning.—’Twas nobody but herhusband, she said;—so I began a fresh score.—Monsieuris so good, quoth she, as he pass’d by us, as to givehimself the trouble of feeling my pulse.—The husband tookoff his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him too muchhonour—and having said that, he put on his hatand walk’d out.

Good God! said I to myself, as he went out,—and can thisman be the husband of this woman!

Let it not torment the few who know what must have been thegrounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who donot.

In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper’s wife seem tobe one bone and one flesh: in the several endowments of mind andbody, sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as, ingeneral, to be upon a par, and totally with each other as nearlyas man and wife need to do.

In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings moredifferent: for the legislative and executive powers of the shopnot resting in the husband, he seldom comes there:—in somedark and dismal room behind, he sits commerce-less, in his thrumnightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy issalique, having ceded this department, with sundry others,totally to the women,—by a continual higgling withcustomers of all ranks and sizes from morning to night, like somany rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicablecollisions they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles,and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, some ofthem, a polish like a brilliant:—Monsieur le Mariislittle better than the stone under your foot.

—Surely,—surely, man! it is not good for thee tosit alone:—thou wast made for social intercourse and gentlegreetings; and this improvement of our natures from it I appealto as my evidence.

—And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she.—Withall the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that Iexpected.—She was going to say something civil inreturn—but the lad came into the shop with thegloves.—Apropos, said I, I want a couple ofpairs myself.

THE GLOVES.
PARIS.

The beautiful grisette rose up whenI said this, and going behind the counter, reach’d down aparcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over against her:they were all too large. The beautiful grisette measuredthem one by one across my hand.—It would not alter theirdimensions.—She begg’d I would try a single pair,which seemed to be the least.—She held it open;—myhand slipped into it at once.—It will not do, said I,shaking my head a little.—No, said she, doing the samething.

There are certain combined looks of simplesubtlety,—where whim, and sense, and seriousness, andnonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel setloose together, could not express them;—they arecommunicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarcesay which party is the infector. I leave it to your men ofwords to swell pages about it—it is enough in the presentto say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our handswithin our arms, we both lolled upon the counter—it wasnarrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay betweenus.

The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, thensideways to the window, then at the gloves,—and then atme. I was not disposed to break silence:—I followedher example: so, I looked at the gloves, then to the window, thenat the gloves, and then at her,—and so on alternately.

I found I lost considerably in every attack:—she had aquick black eye, and shot through two such long and silkeneyelashes with such penetration, that she look’d into myvery heart and reins.—It may seem strange, but I couldactually feel she did.—

It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs nextme, and putting them into my pocket.

I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above asingle livre above the price.—I wish’d she had askeda livre more, and was puzzling my brains how to bring thematter about.—Do you think, my dear Sir, said she,mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of astranger—and of a stranger whose politeness, more than hiswant of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at mymercy?—M’en croyez capable?—Faith! notI, said I; and if you were, you are welcome. So countingthe money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generallymakes to a shopkeeper’s wife, I went out, and her lad withhis parcel followed me.

THE TRANSLATION.
PARIS.

There was nobody in the box I waslet into but a kindly old French officer. I love thecharacter, not only because I honour the man whose manners aresoftened by a profession which makes bad men worse; but that Ionce knew one,—for he is no more,—and why should Inot rescue one page from violation by writing his name in it, andtelling the world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of myflock and friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at thislong distance from his death—but my eyes gush out withtears. For his sake I have a predilection for the wholecorps of veterans; and so I strode over the two back rows ofbenches and placed myself beside him.

The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, itmight be the book of the opera, with a large pair ofspectacles. As soon as I sat down, he took his spectaclesoff, and putting them into a shagreen case, return’d themand the book into his pocket together. I half rose up, andmade him a bow.

Translate this into any civilized language in theworld—the sense is this:

“Here’s a poor stranger come into the box—heseems as if he knew nobody; and is never likely, was he to beseven years in Paris, if every man he comes near keeps hisspectacles upon his nose:—’tis shutting the door ofconversation absolutely in his face—and using him worsethan a German.”

The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if hehad, I should in course have put the bow I made him into Frenchtoo, and told him, “I was sensible of his attention, andreturn’d him a thousand thanks for it.”

There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality,as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick inrendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all theirinflections and delineations, into plain words. For my ownpart, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that, when Iwalk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; andhave more than once stood behind in the circle, where not threewords have been said, and have brought off twenty differentdialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and swornto.

I was going one evening to Martini’s concert at Milan,and, was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisinadi F— was coming out in a sort of a hurry:—she wasalmost upon me before I saw her; so I gave a spring to once sideto let her pass.—She had done the same, and on the sameside too; so we ran our heads together: she instantly got to theother side to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been,for I had sprung to that side, and opposed her passageagain.—We both flew together to the other side, and thenback,—and so on:—it was ridiculous: we bothblush’d intolerably: so I did at last the thing I shouldhave done at first;—I stood stock-still, and the Marquisinahad no more difficulty. I had no power to go into the room,till I had made her so much reparation as to wait and follow herwith my eye to the end of the passage. She look’dback twice, and walk’d along it rather sideways, as if shewould make room for any one coming up stairs to passher.—No, said I—that’s a vile translation: theMarquisina has a right to the best apology I can make her, andthat opening is left for me to do it in;—so I ran andbegg’d pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, sayingit was my intention to have made her way. She answered, shewas guided by the same intention towards me;—so wereciprocally thank’d each other. She was at the topof the stairs; and seeing no cicisbeonear her, Ibegg’d to hand her to her coach;—so we went down thestairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concertand the adventure.—Upon my word, Madame, said I, when I hadhanded her in, I made six different efforts to let you goout.—And I made six efforts, replied she, to let youenter.—I wish to heaven you would make a seventh, saidI.—With all my heart, said she, making room.—Life istoo short to be long about the forms of it,—so I instantlystepp’d in, and she carried me home with her.—Andwhat became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it,knows more than I.

I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of thetranslation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honourto make in Italy.

THE DWARF.
PARIS.

I had never heard the remark madeby any one in my life, except by one; and who that was willprobably come out in this chapter; so that being pretty muchunprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck methe moment I cast my eyes over the parterre,—and that was,the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers ofdwarfs.—No doubt she sports at certain times in almostevery corner of the world; but in Paris there is no end to heramusements.—The goddess seems almost as merry as she iswise.

As I carried my idea out of the Opéra Comiquewith me,I measured every body I saw walking in the streets byit.—Melancholy application! especially where the size wasextremely little,—the face extremely dark,—the eyesquick,—the nose long,—the teeth white,—the jawprominent,—to see so many miserables, by force of accidentsdriven out of their own proper class into the very verge ofanother, which it gives me pain to write down:—every thirdman a pigmy!—some by rickety heads and humpbacks;—others by bandy legs;—a third set arrested bythe hand of Nature in the sixth and seventh years of theirgrowth;—a fourth, in their perfect and natural state likedwarf apple trees; from the first rudiments and stamina of theirexistence, never meant to grow higher.

A Medical Traveller might say, ’tis owing to unduebandages;—a Splenetic one, to want of air;—and anInquisitive Traveller, to fortify the system, may measure theheight of their houses,—the narrowness of their streets,and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh stories suchnumbers of the bourgeoisie eat and sleep together; but I rememberMr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any bodyelse, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred thatchildren, like other animals, might be increased almost to anysize, provided they came right into the world; but the miserywas, the citizens of were Paris so coop’d up, that they hadnot actually room enough to get them.—I do not call itgetting anything, said he;—’tis gettingnothing.—Nay, continued he, rising in his argument,’tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have gotafter twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care andmost nutritious aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be ashigh as my leg. Now, Mr. Shandy being very short, therecould be nothing more said of it.

As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as Ifound it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark,which is verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris. I waswalking down that which leads from the Carousal to the PalaisRoyal, and observing a little boy in some distress at the side ofthe gutter which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of hishand and help’d him over. Upon turning up his face tolook at him after, I perceived he was about forty.—Nevermind, said I, some good body will do as much for me when I amninety.

I feel some little principles within me which incline me to bemerciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who haveneither size nor strength to get on in the world.—I cannotbear to see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seatedbeside my old French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, byseeing the very thing happen under the box we sat in.

At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the firstside box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the houseis full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. Though youstand, as in the parterre, you pay the same price as in theorchestra. A poor defenceless being of this order had gotthrust somehow or other into this luckless place;—the nightwas hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet and a halfhigher than himself. The dwarf suffered inexpressibly onall sides; but the thing which incommoded him most, was a tallcorpulent German, near seven feet high, who stood directlybetwixt him and all possibility of his seeing either the stage orthe actors. The poor dwarf did all he could to get a peepat what was going forwards, by seeking for some little openingbetwixt the German’s arm and his body, trying first on oneside, then the other; but the German stood square in the mostunaccommodating posture that can be imagined:—the dwarfmight as well have been placed at the bottom of the deepestdraw-well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to theGerman’s sleeve, and told him his distress.—TheGerman turn’d his head back, looked down upon him as Goliahdid upon David,—and unfeelingly resumed his posture.

I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk’slittle horn box.—And how would thy meek and courteousspirit, my dear monk! so temper’d to bear andforbear!—how sweetly would it have lent an ear to thispoor soul’s complaint!

The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with anemotion, as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask mewhat was the matter?—I told him the story in three words;and added, how inhuman it was.

By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in hisfirst transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told theGerman he would cut off his long queue with his knife.—TheGerman look’d back coolly, and told him he was welcome, ifhe could reach it.

An injury sharpen’d by an insult, be it to whom it will,makes every man of sentiment a party: I could have leap’dout of the box to have redressed it.—The old French officerdid it with much less confusion; for leaning a little over, andnodding to a sentinel, and pointing at the same time with hisfinger at the distress,—the sentinel made hisway to it.—There was no occasion to tell thegrievance,—the thing told himself; so thrusting back theGerman instantly with his musket,—he took the poor dwarf bythe hand, and placed him before him.—This is noble! said I,clapping my hands together.—And yet you would not permitthis, said the old officer, in England.

—In England, dear Sir, said I, we sit all at ourease.

The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself,in case I had been at variance,—by saying it was a bonmot;—and, as a bon motis always worth somethingat Paris, he offered me a pinch of snuff.

THE ROSE.
PARIS.

It was now my turn to ask the oldFrench officer “What was the matter?” for a cry of“Haussez les mains, Monsieurl’Abbé!” re-echoed from a dozen differentparts of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as myapostrophe to the monk had been to him.

He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upperloges, who, he supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple ofgrisettes in order to see the opera, and that the parterreespying him, were insisting upon his holding up both his handsduring the representation.—And can it be supposed, said I,that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes’pockets? The old French officer smiled, and whispering inmy ear, opened a door of knowledge which I had no idea of.

Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment—is itpossible, that a people so smit with sentiment should at the sametime be so unclean, and so unlike themselves,—Quellegrossièrté! added I.

The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at thechurch, which had begun in the theatre about the time theTartuffe was given in it by Molière: but like otherremains of Gothic manners, was declining.—Every nation,continued he, have their refinements and grossièrtés, in which they takethe lead, and lose it of one another by turns:—that he hadbeen in most countries, but never in one where he found not somedelicacies, which others seemed to want. LePOUR et leCONTRE se trouvent en chaquenation; there is a balance, said he, of good and badeverywhere; and nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipateone half of the world from the prepossession which it holdsagainst the other:—that the advantage of travel, as itregarded the sçavoir vivre, was by seeing a greatdeal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration; andmutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught usmutual love.

The old French officer delivered this with an air of suchcandour and good sense, as coincided with my first favourableimpressions of his character:—I thought I loved the man;but I fear I mistook the object;—’twas my own way ofthinking—the difference was, I could not have expressed ithalf so well.

It is alike troublesome to both the rider and hisbeast,—if the latter goes pricking up his ears, andstarting all the way at every object which he never sawbefore.—I have as little torment of this kind as anycreature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a thinggave me pain, and that I blush’d at many a word the firstmonth,—which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocentthe second.

Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weekswith her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach abouttwo leagues out of town.—Of all women, Madame de Ramboulietis the most correct; and I never wish to see one of more virtuesand purity of heart.—In our return back, Madame deRambouliet desired me to pull the cord.—I asked her if shewanted anything—Rien que pour pisser, said Madame deRambouliet.

Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Ramboulietp—ss on.—And, ye fair mystic nymphs! go each onepluck your rose, and scatter them in your path,—forMadame de Rambouliet did no more.—I handed Madame deRambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the priest of thechaste Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with amore respectful decorum.

THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.
PARIS.

What the old French officer haddelivered upon travelling, bringing Polonius’s advice tohis son upon the same subject into my head,—and thatbringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare’sworks, I stopp’d at the Quai de Conti in my return home, topurchase the whole set.

The bookseller said he had not a set in the world.Comment! said I, taking one up out of a set which lay uponthe counter betwixt us.—He said they were sent him only tobe got bound, and were to be sent back to Versailles in themorning to the Count de B—.

—And does the Count de B—, said I, readShakespeare? C’est un esprit fort, replied thebookseller.—He loves English books! and what is more to hishonour, Monsieur, he loves the English too. You speak thisso civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an Englishman tolay out a louis d’or or two at your shop.—Thebookseller made a bow, and was going to say something, when ayoung decent girl about twenty, who by her air and dress seemedto be fille de chambreto some devout woman of fashion,come into the shop and asked for Les Égarements du Cœuret de l’Esprit: the bookseller gave her the bookdirectly; she pulled out a little green satin purse run roundwith a riband of the same colour, and putting her finger andthumb into it, she took out the money and paid for it. As Ihad nothing more to stay me in the shop, we both walk’d outat the door together.

—And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with TheWanderings of the Heart, who scarce know yet you have one?nor, till love has first told you it, or some faithless shepherdhas made it ache, canst thou ever be sure it is so.—LeDieu m’en garde! said the girl.—With reason, saidI, for if it is a good one, ’tis pity it should be stolen;’tis a little treasure to thee, and gives a better air toyour face, than if it was dress’d out with pearls.

The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding hersatin purse by its riband in her hand all thetime.—’Tis a very small one, said I, taking hold ofthe bottom of it—she held it towards me—and there isvery little in it, my dear, said I; but be but as good as thouart handsome, and heaven will fill it. I had a parcel ofcrowns in my hand to pay for Shakespeare; and, as she had let gothe purse entirely, I put a single one in; and, tying up theriband in a bow-knot, returned it to her.

The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a lowone:—’twas one of those quiet, thankful sinkings,where the spirit bows itself down,—the body does no morethan tell it. I never gave a girl a crown in my life whichgave me half the pleasure.

My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you,said I, if I had not given this along with it: but now, when yousee the crown, you’ll remember it;—so don’t, mydear, lay it out in ribands.

Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I amincapable;—in saying which, as is usual in little bargainsof honour, she gave me her hand:—Envérité, Monsieur, je mettrai cetargent àpart, said she.

When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, itsanctifies their most private walks: so, notwithstanding it wasdusky, yet as both our roads lay the same way, we made no scrupleof walking along the Quai de Conti together.

She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before wegot twenty yards from the door, as if she had not done enoughbefore, she made a sort of a little stop to tell meagain—she thank’d me.

It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoidpaying to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I hadbeen rendering it to for the world;—but I see innocence, mydear, in your face,—and foul befall the man who ever lays asnare in its way!

The girl seem’d affected some way or other with what Isaid;—she gave a low sigh:—I found I was notempowered to enquire at all after it,—so said nothing moretill I got to the corner of the Rue de Nevers, where, we were topart.

—But is this the way, my dear, said I, to theHotel de Modene? She told me it was;—or that I mightgo by the Rue de Gueneguault, which was the next turn.—ThenI’ll go, my dear, by the Rue de Gueneguault, said I, fortwo reasons; first, I shall please myself, and next, I shall giveyou the protection of my company as far on your way as Ican. The girl was sensible I was civil—and said, shewished the Hotel de Modene was in the Rue de St.Pierre.—You live there? said I.—She told me she wasfille de chambreto Madame R—.—Good God! saidI, ’tis the very lady for whom I have brought a letter fromAmiens.—The girl told me that Madame R—, shebelieved, expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient tosee him:—so I desired the girl to present my compliments toMadame R—, and say, I would certainly wait upon her in themorning.

We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst thispass’d.—We then stopped a moment whilst she disposedof her Égarements du Cœur, &c. more commodiouslythan carrying them in her hand—they were two volumes: so Iheld the second for her whilst she put the first into her pocket;and then she held her pocket, and I put in the other afterit.

’Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads ouraffections are drawn together.

We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girlput her hand within my arm.—I was just biddingher,—but she did it of herself, with that undeliberatingsimplicity, which show’d it was out of her head that shehad never seen me before. For my own part, I felt theconviction of consanguinity so strongly, that I could not helpturning half round to look in her face, and see if I could traceout any thing in it of a family likeness.—Tut! said I, arewe not all relations?

When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, Istopp’d to bid her adieu for good and all: the girl wouldthank me again for my company and kindness.—She bid meadieu twice.—I repeated it as often; and so cordial was theparting between us, that had it happened any where else,I’m not sure but I should have signed it with a kiss ofcharity, as warm and holy as an apostle.

But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men,—I did, whatamounted to the same thing—

—I bid God bless her.

THE PASSPORT.
PARIS.

When I got home to my hotel, LaFleur told me I had been enquired after by the Lieutenant dePolice.—The deuce take it! said I,—I know thereason. It is time the reader should know it, for in theorder of things in which it happened, it was omitted: not that itwas out of my head; but that had I told it then it might havebeen forgotten now;—and now is the time I want it.

I had left London with so much precipitation, that it neverenter’d my mind that we were at war with France; and hadreached Dover, and looked through my glass at the hills beyondBoulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in itstrain, that there was no getting there without a passport.Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal aversion forreturning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one ofthe greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could lessbear the thoughts of it: so hearing the Count de —— had hiredthe packet, I begg’d he would take me in his suite.The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made little or nodifficulty,—only said, his inclination to serve me couldreach no farther than Calais, as he was to return by way ofBrussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass’d there, Imight get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I mustmake friends and shift for myself.—Let me get to Paris,Monsieur le Count, said I,—and I shall do very well.So I embark’d, and never thought more of the matter.

When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had beenenquiring after me,—the thing instantly recurred;—andby the time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotelcame into my room to tell me the same thing, with this additionto it, that my passport had been particularly askedafter: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped Ihad one.—Not I, faith! said I.

The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as froman infected person, as I declared this;—and poor La Fleuradvanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movementwhich a good soul makes to succour a distress’done:—the fellow won my heart by it; and from that singletrait I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon itas firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for sevenyears.

Mon seigneur! cried the master of the hotel; butrecollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantlychanged the tone of it.—If Monsieur, said he, has not apassport (apparemment) in all likelihood he has friends inParis who can procure him one.—Not that I know of, quoth I,with an air of indifference.—Then certes, repliedhe, you’ll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet aumoins.—Poo! said I, the King of France is a goodnatur’d soul:—he’ll hurt nobody.—Celan’empêche pas, said he—you will certainlybe sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning.—But I’vetaken your lodgings for a month, answer’d I, and I’llnot quit them a day before the time for all the kings of Francein the world. La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobodycould oppose the king of France.

Pardi! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont desgens très extraordinaires;—and, having both saidand sworn it,—he went out.

THE PASSPORT.
THE HOTEL AT PARIS.

I could not find in my heart totorture La Fleur’s with a serious look upon the subject ofmy embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it socavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, Idropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me atsupper, talk’d to him with more than usual gaiety aboutParis, and of the Opéra Comique.—La Fleur had beenthere himself, and had followed me through the streets as far asthe bookseller’s shop; but seeing me come out withthe young fille de chambre, and that we walk’d downthe Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deem’d it unnecessaryto follow me a step further;—so making his own reflectionsupon it, he took a shorter cut,—and got to the hotel intime to be inform’d of the affair of the police against myarrival.

As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone downto sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about mysituation.—

—And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at theremembrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us themoment I was going to set out:—I must tell it here.

Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to beoverburden’d with money as thought, had drawn me aside tointerrogate me how much I had taken care for. Upon tellinghim the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would notdo; so pull’d out his purse in order to empty it intomine.—I’ve enough in conscience, Eugenius, saidI.—Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius; I knowFrance and Italy better than you.—But you don’tconsider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before Ihave been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or dosomething or other for which I shall get clapp’d up intothe Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of monthsentirely at the king of France’s expense.—I begpardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot thatresource.

Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.

Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, orpertinacity—or what is it in me, that, after all, when LaFleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could notbring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had thenspoken of it to Eugenius?

—And as for the Bastile; the terror is in theword.—Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, theBastile is but another word for a tower;—and a tower is butanother word for a house you can’t get out of.—Mercyon the gouty! for they are in it twice a year.—But withnine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience,albeit a man can’t get out, he may do very wellwithin,—at least for a month or six weeks; at the end ofwhich, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and hecomes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into thecourt-yard, as I settled this account; and remember Iwalk’d down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit ofmy reasoning.—Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I,vauntingly—for I envy not its powers, which paints theevils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mindsits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, andblackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, sheoverlooks them.—’Tis true, said I, correcting theproposition,—the Bastile is not an evil to bedespised;—but strip it of its towers—fill up thefosse,—unbarricade the doors—call it simply aconfinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of adistemper—and not of a man, which holds you init,—the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half withoutcomplaint.

I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with avoice which I took to be of a child, which complained “itcould not get out.”—I look’d up and down thepassage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went outwithout farther attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same wordsrepeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starlinghung in a little cage.—“I can’t getout,—I can’t get out,” said the starling.

I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who camethrough the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards whichthey approach’d it, with the same lamentation of itscaptivity. “I can’t get out,” said thestarling.—God help thee! said I, but I’ll let theeout, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get to thedoor: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, therewas no getting it open without pulling the cage topieces.—I took both hands to it.

The bird flew to the place where I was attempting hisdeliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis pressedhis breast against it as if impatient.—I fear, poorcreature! said I, I cannot set thee atliberty.—“No,” said the starling,—“I can’t get out—I can’t get out,”said the starling.

I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do Iremember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, towhich my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call’dhome. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune tonature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew allmy systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walkedupstairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! saidI,—still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands inall ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitteron that account.—’Tis thou, thrice sweet and graciousgoddess, addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public or inprivate worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so,till Nature herself shall change.—No tintof wordscan spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre intoiron:—with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, theswain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou artexiled!—Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon thelast step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou greatBestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as mycompanion,—and shower down thy mitres, if it seems goodunto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching forthem!

THE CAPTIVE.
PARIS.

The bird in his cage pursued meinto my room; I sat down close to my table, and leaning my headupon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries ofconfinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gavefull scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creaturesborn to no inheritance but slavery: but finding, howeveraffecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, andthat the multitude of sad groups in it did but distractme.—

—I took a single captive, and having first shuthim up in his dungeon, I then look’d through the twilightof his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation andconfinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it waswhich arises from hope deferr’d. Upon looking nearerI saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breezehad not once fann’d his blood;—he had seen no sun, nomoon, in all that time—nor had the voice of friend orkinsman breathed through his lattice.—Hischildren—

But here my heart began to bleed—and I was forced to goon with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in thefurthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chairand bed: a little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head,notch’d all over with the dismal days and nights he hadpassed there;—he had one of these little sticks in hishand, and, with a rusty nail he was etching another day of miseryto add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had,he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast itdown,—shook his head, and went on with his work ofaffliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turnedhis body to lay his little stick upon the bundle.—He gave adeep sigh.—I saw the iron enter into his soul!—Iburst into tears.—I could not sustain the picture ofconfinement which my fancy had drawn.—I started up from mychair, and calling La Fleur: I bid him bespeak me a remise, andhave it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in themorning.

I’ll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc deChoiseul.

La Fleur would have put me to bed; but—not willing heshould see anything upon my cheek which would cost the honestfellow a heart-ache,—I told him I would go to bed bymyself,—and bid him go do the same.

THE STARLING.
ROAD TO VERSAILLES.

I got into my remise the hour Iproposed: La Fleur got up behind, and I bid the coachman make thebest of his way to Versailles.

As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which Ilook for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better thanwith a short history of this self-same bird, which became thesubject of the last chapter.

Whilst the Honourable Mr. — was waiting for a wind atDover, it had been caught upon the cliffs, before it could wellfly, by an English lad who was his groom; who, not caring todestroy it, had taken it in his breast into thepacket;—and, by course of feeding it, and taking it onceunder his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got itsafe along with him to Paris.

At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for thestarling, and as he had little to do better the five months hismaster staid there, he taught it, in his mother’s tongue,the four simple words—(and no more)—to which Iown’d myself so much its debtor.

Upon his master’s going on for Italy, the lad had givenit to the master of the hotel. But his little song forliberty being in an unknownlanguage at Paris, the birdhad little or no store set by him: so La Fleur bought both himand his cage for me for a bottle of Burgundy.

In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the countryin whose language he had learned his notes; and telling the storyof him to Lord A—, Lord A— begg’d the bird ofme;—in a week Lord A— gave him to Lord B—; LordB— made a present of him to Lord C—; and LordC—’s gentleman sold him to Lord D—’s fora shilling; Lord D— gave him to Lord E—; and soon—half round the alphabet. From that rank hepass’d into the lower house, and pass’d the hands ofas many commoners. But as all these wanted to getin, and my bird wanted to get out, he had almost aslittle store set by him in London as in Paris.

It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and ifany by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to informthem, that that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up torepresent him.

I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from thattime to this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to myarms.—Thus:

—And let the herald’s officers twist his neckabout if they dare.

THE ADDRESS.
VERSAILLES.

I should not like to have my enemytake a view of my mind when I am going to ask protection of anyman; for which reason I generally endeavour to protect myself;but this going to Monsieur le Duc de C— was an act ofcompulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should have done it,I suppose, like other people.

How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did myservile heart form! I deserved the Bastile for every one ofthem.

Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight ofVersailles, but putting words and sentences together, andconceiving attitudes and tones to wreath myself into Monsieur leDuc de C—’s good graces.—This will do, saidI.—Just as well, retorted I again, as a coat carried up tohim by an adventurous tailor, without taking his measure.Fool! continued I,—see Monsieur le Duc’s facefirst;—observe what character is written in it;—takenotice in what posture he stands to hear you;—mark theturns and expressions of his body and limbs;—and for thetone,—the first sound which comes from his lips will giveit you; and from all these together you’ll compound anaddress at once upon the spot, which cannot disgust theDuke;—the ingredients are his own, and most likely to godown.

Well! said I, I wish it well over.—Coward again! as if man to manwas not equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and ifin the field—why not face to face in the cabinet too?And trust me, Yorick, whenever it is not so, man is false tohimself and betrays his own succours ten times where nature doesit once. Go to the Duc de C— with the Bastile in thylooks;—my life for it, thou wilt be sent back to Paris inhalf an hour with an escort.

I believe so, said I.—Then I’ll go to the Duke, byheaven! with all the gaiety and debonairness in theworld.—

—And there you are wrong again, replied I.—A heartat ease, Yorick, flies into no extremes—’tis ever onits centre.—Well! well! cried I, as the coachmanturn’d in at the gates, I find I shall do very well: and bythe time he had wheel’d round the court, and brought me upto the door, I found myself so much the better for my ownlecture, that I neither ascended the steps like a victim tojustice, who was to part with life upon the top most,—nordid I mount them with a skip and a couple of strides, as I dowhen I fly up, Eliza! to thee to meet it.

As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, whopossibly might be the maître d’hôtel,but had more the air of one of the under secretaries, who told methe Duc de C— was busy.—I am utterly ignorant, saidI, of the forms of obtaining an audience, being an absolutestranger, and what is worse in the present conjuncture ofaffairs, being an Englishman too.—He replied, that did notincrease the difficulty.—I made him a slight bow, and toldhim, I had something of importance to say to Monsieur leDuc. The secretary look’d towards the stairs, as ifhe was about to leave me to carry up this account to someone.—But I must not mislead you, said I,—for what Ihave to say is of no manner of importance to Monsieur le Duc deC— —but of great importance tomyself.—C’est une autre affaire, repliedhe.—Not at all, said I, to a man of gallantry.—Butpray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger hope to haveaccess?—In not less than two hours, said he, looking at hiswatch. The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed tojustify the calculation, that I could have no nearer aprospect;—and as walking backwards and forwards in thesaloon, without a soul to commune with, was for the time as badas being in the Bastile itself, I instantly went back to myremise, and bid the coachman drive me to the Cordon Bleu,which was the nearest hotel.

I think there is a fatality in it;—I seldom go to theplace I set out for.

LE PATISSIER.
VERSAILLES.

Before I had got half way down thestreet I changed my mind: as I am at Versailles, thought I, Imight as well take a view of the town; so I pull’d thecord, and ordered the coachman to drive round some of theprincipal streets.—I suppose the town is not very large,said I.—The coachman begg’d pardon for setting meright, and told me it was very superb, and that numbers of thefirst dukes and marquises and counts had hotels.—The Countde B—, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti hadspoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into mymind.—And why should I not go, thought I, to the Count deB—, who has so high an idea of English books and Englishmen—and tell him my story? so I changed my mind a secondtime.—In truth it was the third; for I had intended thatday for Madame de R—, in the Rue St. Pierre, and haddevoutly sent her word by her fille de chambrethat Iwould assuredly wait upon her;—but I am governed bycircumstances;—I cannot govern them: so seeing a manstanding with a basket on the other side of the street, as if hehad something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to him, and enquirefor the Count’s hotel.

La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was aChevalier de St. Louis selling pâtés.—It isimpossible, La Fleur, said I.—La Fleur could no moreaccount for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in hisstory: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, hesaid, tied to his buttonhole—and had looked into the basketand seen the pâtés which the Chevalier was selling; so couldnot be mistaken in that.

Such a reverse in man’s life awakens a better principlethan curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him asI sat in the remise:—the more I look’d at him, hiscroix, and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into mybrain.—I got out of the remise, and went towards him.

He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below hisknees, and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast;upon the top of this, but a little below the hem, hung hiscroix. His basket of little pâtés was coveredover with a white damask napkin; another of the same kind wasspread at the bottom; and there was a look ofpropretéand neatness throughout, that one mighthave bought his pâtés of him, as much from appetiteas sentiment.

He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with themat the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it withoutsolicitation.

He was about forty-eight;—of a sedate look, somethingapproaching to gravity. I did not wonder.—I went uprather to the basket than him, and having lifted up the napkin,and taking one of his pâtés into my hand,—Ibegg’d he would explain the appearance which affectedme.

He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life hadpassed in the service, in which, after spending a smallpatrimony, he had obtained a company and the croix with it; butthat, at the conclusion of the last peace, his regiment beingreformed, and the whole corps, with those of some otherregiments, left without any provision, he found himself in a wideworld without friends, without a livre,—and indeed, saidhe, without anything but this,—(pointing, as he said it, tohis croix).—The poor Chevalier won my pity, and he finishedthe scene with winning my esteem too.

The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but hisgenerosity could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it wasonly his misfortune to be amongst the number. He had alittle wife, he said, whom he loved, who did the pâtisserie; and added, he felt nodishonour in defending her and himself from want in thisway—unless Providence had offer’d him a better.

It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, inpassing over what happen’d to this poor Chevalier of St.Louis about nine months after.

It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates whichlead up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes ofnumbers, numbers had made the same enquiry which I haddone.—He had told them the same story, and always with somuch modesty and good sense, that it had reach’d at lastthe king’s ears;—who, hearing the Chevalier had beena gallant officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a manof honour and integrity,—he broke up his little trade by apension of fifteen hundred livres a year.

As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allowme to relate another, out of its order, to pleasemyself:—the two stories reflect light upon eachother,—and ’tis a pity they should be parted.

THE SWORD.
RENNES.

When states and empires have theirperiods of declension, and feel in their turns what distress andpoverty is,—I stop not to tell the causes which graduallybrought the house d’E—, in Brittany, intodecay. The Marquis d’E— had fought up againsthis condition with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and stillshow to the world, some little fragments of what his ancestorshad been;—their indiscretions had put it out of hispower. There was enough left for the little exigencies ofobscurity.—But he had two boys who looked up to himfor light;—he thought they deserved it. He hadtried his sword—it could not open the way,—themountingwas too expensive,—and simple economy wasnot a match for it:—there was no resource but commerce.

In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting theroot for ever of the little tree his pride and affectionwish’d to see re-blossom.—But in Brittany, therebeing a provision for this, he avail’d himself of it; and,taking an occasion when the states were assembled at Rennes, theMarquis, attended with his two boys, entered the court; andhaving pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which,though seldom claim’d, he said, was no less in force, hetook his sword from his side:—Here, said he, take it; andbe trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in conditionto reclaim it.

The president accepted the Marquis’s sword: he staid afew minutes to see it deposited in the archives of hishouse—and departed.

The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next day forMartinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successfulapplication to business, with some unlook’d for bequestsfrom distant branches of his house, return home to reclaim hisnobility, and to support it.

It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen toany traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennesat the very time of this solemn requisition: I call itsolemn;—it was so to me.

The Marquis entered the court with his whole family: hesupported his lady,—his eldest son supported his sister,and his youngest was at the other extreme of the line next hismother;—he put his handkerchief to his facetwice.—

—There was a dead silence. When the Marquis hadapproached within six paces of the tribunal, he gave theMarchioness to his youngest son, and advancing three steps beforehis family,—he reclaim’d his sword. His swordwas given him, and the moment he got it into his hand he drew italmost out of the scabbard:—’twas the shining face ofa friend he had once given up—he look’d attentivelyalong it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was thesame,—when, observing a little rust which it had contractednear the point, he brought it near his eye, and bending his headdown over it,—I think—I saw a tear fall upon theplace. I could not be deceived by what followed.

“I shall find,” said he, “some otherwayto get it off.”

When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into itsscabbard, made a bow to the guardians of it,—and, with hiswife and daughter, and his two sons following him, walk’dout.

O, how I envied him his feelings!

THE PASSPORT.
VERSAILLES.

I found no difficulty in gettingadmittance to Monsieur le Count de B—. The set ofShakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling themover. I walk’d up close to the table, and givingfirst such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knewwhat they were,—I told him I had come without any one topresent me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment,who, I trusted, would do it for me:—it is my countryman,the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works—etayez la bonté, mon cher ami, apostrophizing hisspirit, added I, de me faire cethonneur-là.—

The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; andseeing I look’d a little pale and sickly, insisted upon mytaking an arm-chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjecturesupon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of theincident in the bookseller’s shop, and how that hadimpelled me rather to go to him with the story of a littleembarrassment I was under, than to any other man inFrance.—And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it,said the Count. So I told him the story just as I have toldit the reader.

—And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it,will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent tothe Bastile;—but I have no apprehensions, continuedI;—for, in falling into the hands of the mostpolish’d people in the world, and being conscious I was atrue man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarcethought I lay at their mercy.—It does not suit thegallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show itagainst invalids.

An animated blush came into the Count de B—’s cheeks asI spoke this.—Ne craignez rien—Don’tfear, said he.—Indeed, I don’t, replied Iagain.—Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I havecome laughing all the way from London to Paris, and I do notthink Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as tosend me back crying for my pains.

—My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B—(making him a low bow), is to desire he will not.

The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not saidhalf as much,—and once or twice said,—C’estbien dit. So I rested my cause there—anddetermined to say no more about it.

The Count led the discourse: we talk’d of indifferentthings,—of books, and politics, and men;—and then ofwomen.—God bless them all! said I, after much discourseabout them—there is not a man upon earth who loves them somuch as I do: after all the foibles I have seen, and all thesatires I have read against them, still I love them; being firmlypersuaded that a man, who has not a sort of affection for thewhole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as heought.

Eh bien! Monsieur l’Anglois, saidthe Count, gaily;—you are not come to spy the nakedness ofthe land;—I believe you;—ni encore, I daresay, thatof our women!—But permit me toconjecture,—if, par hazard, they fell into your way,that the prospect would not affect you.

I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of theleast indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat Ihave often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain havehazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sextogether,—the least of which I could not venture to asingle one to gain heaven.

Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I;—as for thenakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes overit with tears in them;—and for that of your women (blushingat the idea he had excited in me) I am so evangelical in this,and have such a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak about them,that I would cover it with a garment if I knew how to throw iton:—But I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness oftheir hearts, and through the different disguises of customs,climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashionmy own by:—and therefore am I come.

It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that Ihave not seen the Palais Royal,—nor theLuxembourg,—nor the Façade of the Louvre,—norhave attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures,statues, and churches.—I conceive every fair being as atemple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawingsand loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration ofRaphael itself.

The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that whichinflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my ownhome into France,—and from France will lead me throughItaly;—’tis a quiet journey of the heart in pursuitof Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, whichmake us love each other,—and the world, better than wedo.

The Count said a great many civil things to me upon theoccasion; and added very politely, how much he stood obliged toShakespeare for making me known to him.—But àpropos, said he;—Shakespeare is full of greatthings;—he forgot a small punctilio of announcing yourname:—it puts you under a necessity of doing ityourself.

THE PASSPORT.
VERSAILLES.

There is not a more perplexingaffair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who Iam,—for there is scarce any body I cannot give a betteraccount of than myself; and I have often wished I could do it ina single word,—and have an end of it. It was the onlytime and occasion in my life I could accomplish this to anypurpose;—for Shakespeare lying upon the table, andrecollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turningimmediately to the grave-diggers’ scene in the fifth act, Ilaid my finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with myfinger all the way over the name,—Me voici! saidI.

Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick’s skull was put outof the Count’s mind by the reality of my own, or by whatmagic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years,makes nothing in this account;—’tis certain theFrench conceive better than they combine;—I wonder atnothing in this world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one ofthe first of our own Church, for whose candour and paternalsentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the samemistake in the very same case:—“He could notbear,” he said, “to look into the sermons wrote bythe King of Denmark’s jester.” Good, my Lordsaid I; but there are two Yoricks. The Yorick your Lordshipthinks of, has been dead and buried eight hundred years ago; heflourished in Horwendillus’s court;—the other Yorickis myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.—Heshook his head. Good God! said I, you might as wellconfound Alexander the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, mylord!—“’Twas all one,” hereplied.—

—If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translatedyour Lordship, said I, I’m sure your Lordship would nothave said so.

The poor Count de B— fell but into the sameerror.

—Et, Monsieur, est-il Yorick? criedthe Count.—Je le suis, saidI.—Vous?—Moi,—moi qui ail’honneur de vous parler, Monsieur leComte.—Mon Dieu! said he, embracingme,—Vous êtes Yorick!

The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, andleft me alone in his room.

THE PASSPORT.
VERSAILLES.

I could not conceive why the Countde B— had gone so abruptly out of the room, any more than Icould conceive why he had put the Shakespeare into hispocket.—Mysteries which must explain themselves are notworth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takesup: ’twas better to read Shakespeare; so taking up“Much Ado About Nothing,” I transported myselfinstantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and gotso busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that Ithought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.

Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at oncesurrender itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrowof their weary moments!—Long,—long since had yenumber’d out my days, had I not trod so great a part ofthem upon this enchanted ground. When my way is too roughfor my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to somesmooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered over with rosebudsof delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come backstrengthened and refresh’d.—When evils press soreupon me, and there is no retreat from them in this world, then Itake a new course;—I leave it,—and as I have aclearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I forcemyself, like Æneas, into them.—I see him meet thepensive shade of his forsaken Dido, and wish to recogniseit;—I see the injured spirit wave her head, and turn offsilent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;—Ilose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affectionswhich were wont to make me mourn for her when I was atschool.

Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow—nor doesman disquiet himselfin vain by it:—he oftenerdoes so in trusting the issue of his commotions to reasononly.—I can safely say for myself, I was never able toconquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively,as beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentlesensation to fight it upon its own ground.

When I had got to the end of the third act the Count deB— entered, with my passport in his hand. Monsieur leDuc de C—, said the Count, is as good a prophet, I daresay, as he is a statesman. Un homme qui rit, saidthe Duke, ne sera jamais dangereux.—Had it been forany one but the king’s jester, added the Count, I could nothave got it these two hours.—Pardonnez moi, Monsieurle Count, said I—I am not the king’sjester.—But you are Yorick?—Yes.—Etvous plaisantez?—I answered, Indeed I didjest,—but was not paid for it;—’twas entirelyat my own expense.

We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; thelast we had was in the licentious reign of CharlesII.;—since which time our manners have been so graduallyrefining, that our court at present is so full of patriots, whowish for nothingbut the honours and wealth of theircountry;—and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, sogood, so devout,—there is nothing for a jester to make ajest of.—

Voilà un persiflage! cried the Count.

THE PASSPORT.
VERSAILLES.

As the passport was directed to alllieutenant-governors, governors, and commandants of cities,generals of armies, justiciaries, and all officers of justice, tolet Mr. Yorick the king’s jester, and his baggage, travelquietly along, I own the triumph of obtaining the passport wasnot a little tarnish’d by the figure I cut in it.—Butthere is nothing unmix’d in this world; and some of thegravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm, thatenjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh,—and thatthe greatest they knew ofterminated, in a generalway, in little better than a convulsion.

I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in hisCommentary upon the Generations from Adam, very naturally breaksoff in the middle of a note to give an account to the world of acouple of sparrows upon the out-edge of his window, which hadincommoded him all the time he wrote, and at last had entirelytaken him off from his genealogy.

—’Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the factsare certain, for I have had the curiosity to mark them down oneby one with my pen;—but the cock sparrow, during the littletime that I could have finished the other half of this note,has actually interrupted me with the reiteration of his caressesthree-and-twenty times and a half.

How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to hiscreatures!

Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should beable to write that to the world, which stains thy face withcrimson to copy, even in thy study.

But this is nothing to my travels.—So Itwice,—twice beg pardon for it.

CHARACTER.
VERSAILLES.

And how do you find the French?said the Count de B—, after he had given me thepassport.

The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof ofcourtesy, I could not be at a loss to say something handsome tothe enquiry.

—Mais passe, pour cela.—Speakfrankly, said he: do you find all the urbanity in the Frenchwhich the world give us the honour of?—I had found everything, I said, which confirmed it.—Vraiment, saidthe Count, les François sont polis.—To anexcess, replied I.

The Count took notice of the word excès; andwould have it I meant more than I said. I defended myself along time as well as I could against it.—He insisted I hada reserve, and that I would speak my opinion frankly.

I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certaincompass, as well as an instrument; and that the social and othercalls have occasion by turns for every key in him; so that if youbegin a note too high or too low, there must be a want either inthe upper or under part, to fill up the system ofharmony.—The Count de B— did not understand music, sodesired me to explain it some other way. A polish’dnation, my dear Count, said I, makes every one its debtor: andbesides, Urbanity itself, like the fair sex, has so many charms,it goes against the heart to say it can do ill; and yet, Ibelieve, there is but a certain line of perfection, that man,take him altogether, is empower’d to arrive at:—ifhe gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than getsthem. I must not presume to say how far this has affectedthe French in the subject we are speaking of;—but, shouldit ever be the case of the English, in the progress of theirrefinements, to arrive at the same polish which distinguishes theFrench, if we did not lose the politesse du cœur,which inclines men more to humane actions than courteousones,—we should at least lose that distinct variety andoriginality of character, which distinguishes them, not only fromeach other, but from all the world besides.

I had a few of King William’s shillings, as smooth asglass, in my pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in theillustration of my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when Ihad proceeded so far:—

See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying thembefore him upon the table,—by jingling and rubbing oneagainst another for seventy years together in one body’spocket or another’s, they are become so much alike, you canscarce distinguish one shilling from another.

The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passingbut few people’s hands, preserve the first sharpnesseswhich the fine hand of Nature has given them;—they are notso pleasant to feel,—but in return the legend is sovisible, that at the first look you see whose image andsuperscription they bear.—But the French, Monsieur leCount, added I (wishing to soften what I had said), have so manyexcellences, they can the better spare this;—they are aloyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and goodtemper’d people as is under heaven;—if they have afault—they are too serious.

Mon Dieu! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.

Mais vous plaisantez, said he, correcting hisexclamation.—I laid my hand upon my breast, and withearnest gravity assured him it was my most settled opinion.

The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear myreasons, being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc deC—.

But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat yoursoup with me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have thepleasure of knowing you retract your opinion,—or, in what manneryou support it.—But, if you do support it, MonsieurAnglois, said he, you must do it with all your powers, becauseyou have the whole world against you.—I promised the CountI would do myself the honour of dining with him before I set outfor Italy;—so took my leave.

THE TEMPTATION.
PARIS.

When I alighted at the hotel, theporter told me a young woman with a bandbox had been that momentenquiring for me.—I do not know, said the porter, whethershe is gone away or not. I took the key of my chamber ofhim, and went upstairs; and when I had got within ten steps ofthe top of the landing before my door, I met her coming easilydown.

It was the fair fille de chambreI had walked along theQuai de Conti with; Madame de R— had sent her upon somecommission to a marchande des modeswithin a step or twoof the Hôtel de Modene; and as I had fail’d inwaiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I had left Paris; and ifso, whether I had not left a letter addressed to her.

As the fair fille de chambrewas so near my door, shereturned back, and went into the room with me for a moment or twowhilst I wrote a card.

It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month ofMay,—the crimson window curtains (which were of the samecolour as those of the bed) were drawn close:—the sun wassetting, and reflected through them so warm a tint into the fairfille de chambre’sface,—I thought sheblush’d;—the idea of it made me blushmyself:—we were quite alone; and that superinduced a secondblush before the first could get off.

There is a sort of a pleasing half guilty blush, where theblood is more in fault than the man:—’tis sentimpetuous from the heart, and virtue flies after it,—not tocall it back, but to make the sensation of it more delicious tothe nerves:—’tis associated.—

But I’ll not describe it;—I felt something at firstwithin me which was not in strict unison with the lesson ofvirtue I had given her the night before.—I sought fiveminutes for a card;—I knew I had not one.—I took up apen.—I laid it down again;—my handtrembled:—the devil was in me.

I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if weresist, he will fly from us;—but I seldom resist him atall; from a terror, though I may conquer, I may still get a hurtin the combat;—so I give up the triumph for security; and,instead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.

The fair fille de chambrecame close up to the bureauwhere I was looking for a card—took up first the pen I castdown, then offer’d to hold me the ink; she offer’d itso sweetly, I was going to accept it;—but I durstnot;—I have nothing, my dear, said I, to writeupon.—Write it, said she, simply, upon anything.—

I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl!upon thy lips.—

If I do, said I, I shall perish;—so I took her by thehand, and led her to the door, and begg’d she would notforget the lesson I had given her.—She said, indeed shewould not;—and, as she uttered it with some earnestness,she turn’d about, and gave me both her hands, closedtogether, into mine;—it was impossible not to compress themin that situation;—I wish’d to let them go; and allthe time I held them, I kept arguing within myself againstit,—and still I held them on.—In two minutes I foundI had all the battle to fight over again;—and I felt mylegs and every limb about me tremble at the idea.

The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the placewhere we were standing.—I had still hold of herhands—and how it happened I can give no account; but Ineither ask’d her—nor drew her—nor did I thinkof the bed;—but so it did happen, we both sat down.

I’ll just show you, said the fair fille dechambre, the little purse I have been making to-day to holdyour crown. So she put her hand into her right pocket,which was next me, and felt for it some time—then into theleft.—“She had lost it.”—Inever bore expectation more quietly;—it was in her rightpocket at last;—she pull’d it out; it was of greentaffeta, lined with a little bit of white quilted satin, and justbig enough to hold the crown: she put it into my hand;—itwas pretty; and I held it ten minutes with the back of my handresting upon her lap—looking sometimes at the purse,sometimes on one side of it.

A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; thefair fille de chambre, without saying a word, took out herlittle housewife, threaded a small needle, and sew’d itup.—I foresaw it would hazard the glory of the day; and, asshe pass’d her hand in silence across and across my neck inthe manœuvre, I felt the laurels shake which fancy hadwreath’d about my head.

A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoewas just falling off.—See, said the fille dechambre, holding up her foot.—I could not, for my soulbut fasten the buckle in return, and putting in thestrap,—and lifting up the other foot with it, when I haddone, to see both were right,—in doing it too suddenly, itunavoidably threw the fair fille de chambreoff hercentre,—and then—

THE CONQUEST.

Yes,—and then—.Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down ormask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man shouldhave them? or how his spirit stands answerable to the Father ofspirits but for his conduct under them?

If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threadsof love and desire are entangled with the piece,—must thewhole web be rent in drawing them out?—Whip me such stoics,great Governor of Nature! said I to myself:—wherever thyprovidence shall place me for the trials of myvirtue;—whatever is my danger,—whatever is mysituation,—let me feel the movements which rise out of it,and which belong to me as a man,—and, if I govern themas a good one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for thouhast made us, and not we ourselves.

As I finished my address, I raised the fair fille dechambreup by the hand, and led her out of theroom:—she stood by me till I locked the door and put thekey in my pocket,—and then,—the victory being quitedecisive—and not till then, I press’d my lips to hercheek, and taking her by the hand again, led her safe to the gateof the hotel.

THE MYSTERY.
PARIS.

If a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to goback instantly to my chamber;—it was touching a cold keywith a flat third to it upon the close of a piece of music, whichhad call’d forth my affections:—therefore, when I letgo the hand of the fille de chambre, I remained at thegate of the hotel for some time, looking at every one whopass’d by,—and forming conjectures upon them, till myattention got fix’d upon a single object which confoundedall kind of reasoning upon him.

It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious, adust look,which passed and repass’d sedately along the street, makinga turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of thehotel;—the man was about fifty-two—had a small caneunder his arm—was dress’d in a darkdrab-colour’d coat, waistcoat, and breeches, whichseem’d to have seen some years service:—they werestill clean, and there was a little air of frugalpropretéthroughout him. By his pulling offhis hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way, Isaw he was asking charity: so I got a sous or two out of mypocket ready to give him, as he took me in his turn.—Hepass’d by me without asking anything—and yet did notgo five steps further before he ask’d charity of a littlewoman.—I was much more likely to have given of thetwo.—He had scarce done with the woman, when hepull’d off his hat to another who was coming the sameway.—An ancient gentleman came slowly—and, afterhim, a young smart one.—He let them both pass, andask’d nothing. I stood observing him half an hour, inwhich time he had made a dozen turns backwards and forwards, andfound that he invariably pursued the same plan.

There were two things very singular in this, which set mybrain to work, and to no purpose:—the first was, why theman should onlytell his story to the sex;—and,secondly,—what kind of story it was, and what species ofeloquence it could be, which soften’d the hearts of thewomen, which he knew ’twas to no purpose to practise uponthe men.

There were two other circumstances, which entangled thismystery;—the one was, he told every woman what he had tosay in her ear, and in a way which had much more the air of asecret than a petition;—the other was, it was alwayssuccessful.—He never stopp’d a woman, but shepull’d out her purse, and immediately gave himsomething.

I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.

I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; soI walk’d upstairs to my chamber.

THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.
PARIS.

I was immediately followed up bythe master of the hotel, who came into my room to tell me I mustprovide lodgings elsewhere.—How so, friend? saidI.—He answered, I had had a young woman lock’d upwith me two hours that evening in my bedchamber, and ’twasagainst the rules of his house.—Very well, said I,we’ll all part friends then,—for the girl is noworse,—and I am no worse,—and you will be just as Ifound you.—It was enough, he said, to overthrow the creditof his hotel.—Voyez vous, Monsieur, said he,pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon.—Iown it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but mypride not suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhortedhim to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine dothat night, and that I would discharge what I owed him atbreakfast.

I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had hadtwenty girls—’Tis a score more, replied I,interrupting him, than I ever reckon’d upon—Provided,added he, it had been but in a morning.—And does thedifference of the time of the day at Paris make a difference inthe sin?—It made a difference, he said, in thescandal.—I like a good distinction in my heart; and cannotsay I was intolerably out of temper with the man.—I own itis necessary, resumed the master of the hotel, that a stranger atParis should have the opportunities presented to him of buyinglace and silk stockings and ruffles, et toutcela;—and ’tis nothing if a woman comes with aband-box.—O, my conscience! said I, she had one but I neverlook’d into it.—Then Monsieur, said he, has boughtnothing?—Not one earthly thing, replied I.—Because,said he, I could recommend one to you who would use you enconscience.—But I must see her this night, saidI.—He made me a low bow, and walk’d down.

Now shall I triumph over this maîtred’hôtel, cried I,—and what then? ThenI shall let him see I know he is a dirty fellow.—And whatthen? What then?—I was too near myself to say it wasfor the sake of others.—I had no good answerleft;—there was more of spleen than principle in myproject, and I was sick of it before the execution.

In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box oflace.—I’ll buy nothing, however, said I, withinmyself.

The grisette would show me everything.—I was hard toplease: she would not seem to see it; she opened her littlemagazine, and laid all her laces one after another beforeme;—unfolded and folded them up again one by one with themost patient sweetness.—I might buy,—ornot;—she would let me have everything at my ownprice:—the poor creature seem’d anxious to get apenny; and laid herself out to win me, and not so much in amanner which seem’d artful, as in one I felt simple andcaressing.

If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so muchthe worse;—my heart relented, and I gave up my secondresolution as quietly as the first.—Why should I chastiseone for the trespass of another? If thou art tributary tothis tyrant of an host, thought I, looking up in her face, somuch harder is thy bread.

If I had not had more than four louis d’ors in my purse,there was no such thing as rising up and showing her the door,till I had first laid three of them out in a pair of ruffles.

—The master of the hotel will share the profit withher;—no matter,—then I have only paid as many a poorsoul has paidbefore me, for an act he couldnotdo, or think of.

THE RIDDLE.
PARIS.

When La Fleur came up to wait uponme at supper, he told me how sorry the master of the hotel wasfor his affront to me in bidding me change my lodgings.

A man who values a good night’s rest will not lie downwith enmity in his heart, if he can help it.—So I bid LaFleur tell the master of the hotel, that I was sorry on my sidefor the occasion I had given him;—and you may tell him, ifyou will, La Fleur, added I, that if the young woman should callagain, I shall not see her.

This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved,after so narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leaveParis, if it was possible, with all the virtue I enter’dit.

C’est déroger à noblesse,Monsieur, said La Fleur, making me a bow down to theground as he said it.—Et encore, Monsieur,said he, may change his sentiments;—and if (parhazard) he should like to amuse himself,—I find noamusement in it, said I, interrupting him.—

Mon Dieu! said La Fleur,—and took away.

In an hour’s time he came to put me to bed, and was morethan commonly officious:—something hung upon his lips tosay to me, or ask me, which he could not get off: I could notconceive what it was, and indeed gave myself little trouble tofind it out, as I had another riddle so much more interesting upon mymind, which was that of the man’s asking charity before thedoor of the hotel.—I would have given anything to have gotto the bottom of it; and that, not out ofcuriosity,—’tis so low a principle of enquiry, ingeneral, I would not purchase the gratification of it with atwo-sous piece;—but a secret, I thought, which so soon andso certainly soften’d the heart of every woman you camenear, was a secret at least equal to the philosopher’sstone; had I both the Indies, I would have given up one to havebeen master of it.

I toss’d and turn’d it almost all night long in mybrains to no manner of purpose; and when I awoke in the morning,I found my spirits as much troubled with my dreams, as ever theKing of Babylon had been with his; and I will not hesitate toaffirm, it would have puzzled all the wise men of Paris as muchas those of Chaldea to have given its interpretation.

LE DIMANCHE.
PARIS.

It was Sunday; and when La Fleurcame in, in the morning, with my coffee and roll and butter, hehad got himself so gallantly array’d, I scarce knewhim.

I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with asilver button and loop, and four louis d’ors, pours’adoniser, when we got to Paris; and the poor fellow,to do him justice, had done wonders with it.

He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pairof breeches of the same.—They were not a crown worse, hesaid, for the wearing.—I wish’d him hang’d fortelling me.—They look’d so fresh, that though I knewthe thing could not be done, yet I would rather have imposed uponmy fancy with thinking I had bought them new for the fellow, thanthat they had come out of the Rue de Friperie.

This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.

He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat,fancifully enough embroidered:—this was indeed somethingthe worse for the service it had done, but ’twas cleanscour’d;—the gold had been touch’d up, and uponthe whole was rather showy than otherwise;—and as the bluewas not violent, it suited with the coat and breeches very well:he had squeez’d out of the money, moreover, a new bag and asolitaire; and had insisted with the fripierupon a goldpair of garters to his breeches knees.—He had purchasedmuslin ruffles, bien brodées, with four livres ofhis own money;—and a pair of white silk stockings for fivemore;—and to top all, nature had given him a handsomefigure, without costing him a sous.

He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in thefirst style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast.—Ina word, there was that look of festivity in everything about him,which at once put me in mind it was Sunday;—and, bycombining both together, it instantly struck me, that the favourhe wish’d to ask of me the night before, was to spend theday as every body in Paris spent it besides. I had scarcemade the conjecture, when La Fleur, with infinite humility, butwith a look of trust, as if I should not refuse him, begg’dI would grant him the day, pour faire le galantvis-à-vis de sa maîtresse.

Now it was the very thing I intended to do myselfvis-à-vis Madame de R—.—I had retained theremise on purpose for it, and it would not have mortified myvanity to have had a servant so well dress’d as La Fleurwas, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse sparedhim.

But we must feel, not argue in theseembarrassments.—The sons and daughters of Service part withliberty, but not with nature, in their contracts; they are fleshand blood, and have their little vanities and wishes in the midstof the house of bondage, as well as their task-masters;—nodoubt, they have set their self-denials at a price,—andtheir expectations are so unreasonable, that I would oftendisappoint them, but that their condition puts it so much in mypower to do it.

Behold,—Behold, I am thyservant—disarms me at once of the powers of amaster.—

Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.

—And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou havepicked up in so little a time at Paris? La Fleur laid hishand upon his breast, and said ’twas a petitedemoiselle, at Monsieur le Count deB—’s.—La Fleur had a heart made for society;and, to speak the truth of him, let as few occasions slip him ashis master;—so that somehow or other,—buthow,—heaven knows,—he had connected himself with thedemoiselle upon the landing of the staircase, during the time Iwas taken up with my passport; and as there was time enough forme to win the Count to my interest, La Fleur had contrived tomake it do to win the maid to his. The family, it seems,was to be at Paris that day, and he had made a party with her,and two or three more of the Count’s household, upon theboulevards.

Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay downall your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away theweights of grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nationsto the earth.

THE FRAGMENT.
PARIS.

La Fleur had left me something toamuse myself with for the day more than I had bargain’dfor, or could have enter’d either into his head ormine.

He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf:and as the morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it,he had begg’d a sheet of waste paper to put betwixt thecurrant leaf and his hand.—As that was plate sufficient, Ibade him lay it upon the table as it was; and as I resolved tostay within all day, I ordered him to call upon thetraîteur, to bespeak my dinner, and leave me tobreakfast by myself.

When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf outof the window, and was going to do the same by the wastepaper;—but stopping to read a line first, and that drawingme on to a second and third,—I thought it betterworth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair up to it, I satdown to read it.

It was in the old French of Rabelais’s time, and foraught I know might have been wrote by him:—it was moreoverin a Gothic letter, and that so faded and gone off by damps andlength of time, it cost me infinite trouble to make anything ofit.—I threw it down; and then wrote a letter toEugenius;—then I took it up again, and embroiled mypatience with it afresh;—and then to cure that, I wrote aletter to Eliza.—Still it kept hold of me; and thedifficulty of understanding it increased but the desire.

I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with abottle of Burgundy; I at it again,—and, after two or threehours poring upon it, with almost as deep attention as everGruter or Jacob Spon did upon a nonsensical inscription, Ithought I made sense of it; but to make sure of it, the best way,I imagined, was to turn it into English, and see how it wouldlook then;—so I went on leisurely, as a trifling man does,sometimes writing a sentence,—then taking a turn ortwo,—and then looking how the world went, out of thewindow; so that it was nine o’clock at night before I haddone it.—I then began and read it as follows.

THE FRAGMENT.
PARIS.

—Now, as the notary’swife disputed the point with the notary with too muchheat,—I wish, said the notary, (throwing down theparchment) that there was another notary here only to set downand attest all this.—

—And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, risinghastily up.—The notary’s wife was a little fume of awoman, and the notary thought it well to avoid a hurricane by amild reply.—I would go, answered he, to bed.—You maygo to the devil, answer’d the notary’s wife.

Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the othertwo rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and thenotary not caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had butthat moment sent him pell mell to the devil, went forth with hishat and cane and short cloak, the night being very windy, andwalk’d out, ill at ease, towards the Pont Neuf.

Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world whohave pass’d over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is thenoblest,—the finest,—the grandest,—thelightest,—the longest,—the broadest, that everconjoin’d land and land together upon the face of theterraqueous globe.

[By this it seems as if theauthor of the fragment had not been a Frenchman.]

The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonnecan allege against it is, that if there is but a capfull of windin or about Paris, ’tis more blasphemously sacreDieu’dthere than in any other aperture of the wholecity,—and with reason good and cogent, Messieurs; for itcomes against you without crying garde d’eau, andwith such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it withtheir hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and ahalf, which is its full worth.

The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry,instinctively clapp’d his cane to the side of it, but inraising it up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop ofthe sentinel’s hat, hoisted it over the spikes of theballustrade clear into the Seine.—

—’Tis an ill wind, said a boatman, whocatched it, which blows nobody any good.

The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up hiswhiskers, and levell’d his arquebuss.

Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an oldwoman’s paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening tobe blown out, she had borrow’d the sentry’s match tolight it:—it gave a moment’s time for theGascon’s blood to run cool, and turn the accident better tohis advantage.—’Tis an ill wind, said he,catching off the notary’s castor, and legitimating thecapture with the boatman’s adage.

The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue deDauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself ashe walked along in this manner:—

Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport ofhurricanes all my days:—to be born to have the storm of illlanguage levell’d against me and my profession wherever Igo; to be forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to atempest of a woman;—to be driven forth out of my house bydomestic winds, and despoil’d of my castor by pontificones!—to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at themercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents!—Where am I to laymy head?—Miserable man! what wind in the two-and-thirtypoints of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it does to therest of thy fellow-creatures, good?

As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining inthis sort, a voice call’d out to a girl, to bid her run forthe next notary.—Now the notary being the next, andavailing himself of his situation, walk’d up the passage tothe door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, wasusher’d into a large chamber, dismantled of everything buta long military pike,—a breastplate,—a rusty oldsword, and bandoleer, hung up, equidistant, in four differentplaces against the wall.

An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, andunless decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was agentleman at that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand inhis bed; a little table with a taper burning was set close besideit, and close by the table was placed a chair:—the notarysat him down in it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a sheet ortwo of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them beforehim; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast overthe table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman’slast will and testament.

Alas! Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman,raising himself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath, whichwill pay the expense of bequeathing, except the history ofmyself, which I could not die in peace, unless I left it as alegacy to the world: the profits arising out of it I bequeath toyou for the pains of taking it from me.—It is a story souncommon, it must be read by all mankind;—it will make thefortunes of your house.—The notary dipp’d his peninto his inkhorn.—Almighty Director of every event in mylife! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raisinghis hands towards heaven,—Thou, whose hand has led me onthrough such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this sceneof desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, andbroken-hearted man;—direct my tongue by the spirit of thyeternal truth, that this stranger may set down nought but what iswritten in that Book, from whoserecords, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to becondemn’d or acquitted!—the notary held up the pointof his pen betwixt the taper and his eye.—

It is a story, Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman,which will rouse up every affection in nature;—it will killthe humane, and touch the heart of Cruelty herself withpity.—

—The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and puthis pen a third time into his ink-horn—and the oldgentleman, turning a little more towards the notary, began todictate his story in these words:—

—And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as hejust then enter’d the room.

THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. [648]
PARIS.

When La Fleur came up close to thetable, and was made to comprehend what I wanted, he told me therewere only two other sheets of it, which he had wrapped round thestalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he had presentedto the demoiselle upon the boulevards.—Then prithee, LaFleur, said I, step back to her to the Count de B—’shotel, and see if thou canst get it.—There is no doubt ofit, said La Fleur;—and away he flew.

In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out ofbreath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looksthan could arise from the simple irreparability of thefragment. Juste Ciel! in less than two minutes thatthe poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell ofher—his faithless mistress had given his gaged’amourto one of the Count’s footmen,—thefootman to a young sempstress,—and the sempstress to afiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.—Our misfortuneswere involved together:—I gave a sigh,—and La Fleurechoed it back again to my ear.

—How perfidious! cried La Fleur.—How unlucky! saidI.

—I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth LaFleur, if she had lost it.—Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had Ifound it.

Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.

THE ACT OF CHARITY.
PARIS.

The man who either disdains orfears to walk up a dark entry may be an excellent good man, andfit for a hundred things, but he will not do to make a goodSentimental Traveller.—I count little of the many things Isee pass at broad noonday, in large and openstreets.—Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators;but in such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single shortscene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French playscompounded together,—and yet they are absolutelyfine;—and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon myhands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as ahero, I generally make my sermon out of ’em;—and forthe text,—“Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia andPamphylia,”—is as good as any one in the Bible.

There is a long dark passage issuing out from the OperaComique into a narrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humblywait for a fiacre, [649] or wish to get offquietly o’foot when the opera is done. At the endof it, towards the theatre, ’tis lighted by a small candle,the light of which is almost lost before you get half-way down,but near the door—’tis more for ornament than use:you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; itburns,—but does little good to the world, that we knowof.

In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approachedwithin five or six paces of the door, two ladies standingarm-in-arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as Iimagined, for a fiacre;—as they were next the door,I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up within ayard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand.—Iwas in black, and scarce seen.

The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of aboutthirty-six; the other of the same size and make, of about forty:there was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either ofthem;—they seem’d to be two upright vestal sisters,unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tendersalutations.—I could have wish’d to have made themhappy:—their happiness was destin’d that night, tocome from another quarter.

A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadenceat the end of it, begg’d for a twelve-sous piece betwixtthem, for the love of heaven. I thought it singular that abeggar should fix the quota of an alms—and that the sumshould be twelve times as much as what is usually given in thedark.—They both seemed astonished at it as much asmyself.—Twelve sous! said one.—A twelve-sous piece!said the other,—and made no reply.

The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies oftheir rank; and bow’d down his head to the ground.

Poo! said they,—we have no money.

The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, andrenew’d his supplication.

—Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your goodears against me.—Upon my word, honest man! said theyounger, we have no change.—Then God bless you, said thepoor man, and multiply those joys which you can give to otherswithout change!—I observed the elder sister put her handinto her pocket.—I’ll see, said she, if I have asous. A sous! give twelve, said the supplicant; Nature hasbeen bountiful to you, be bountiful to a poor man.

—I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, ifI had it.

My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to theelder,—what is it but your goodness and humanity whichmakes your bright eyes so sweet, that they outshine the morningeven in this dark passage? and what was it which made the Marquisde Santerre and his brother say so much of you both as they justpassed by?

The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at thesame time they both put their hands into their pocket, and eachtook out a twelve-sous piece.

The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was nomore;—it was continued betwixt themselves, which of the twoshould give the twelve-sous piece in charity;—and, to endthe dispute, they both gave it together, and the man wentaway.

THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.
PARIS.

I stepped hastily after him: it wasthe very man whose success in asking charity of the women beforethe door of the hotel had so puzzled me;—and I found atonce his secret, or at least the basis of it:—’twasflattery.

Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! howstrongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side!how sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through themost difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!

The poor man, as he was not straiten’d for time, hadgiven it here in a larger dose: ’tis certain he had a wayof bringing it into a less form, for the many sudden cases he hadto do with in the streets: but how he contrived to correct,sweeten, concentre, and qualify it,—I vex not my spiritwith the enquiry;—it is enough the beggar gained twotwelve-sous pieces—and they can best tell the rest, whohave gained much greater matters by it.

PARIS.

We get forwards in the world, notso much by doing services, as receiving them; you take awithering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it,because you have planted it.

Monsieur le Count de B—, merely because he had done meone kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do meanother, the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to afew people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and soon.

I had got master of my secretjust in time to turnthese honours to some little account; otherwise, as is commonlythe case, I should have dined or supp’d a single time ortwo round, and then, by translatingFrench looks andattitudes into plain English, I should presently have seen, thatI had hold of the couvert[652] of some moreentertaining guest; and in course should have resigned all myplaces one after another, merely upon the principle that I couldnot keep them.—As it was, things did not go much amiss.

I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis deB—: in days of yore he had signalized himself by some smallfeats of chivalry in the Cour d’Amour, and haddress’d himself out to the idea of tilts and tournamentsever since.—The Marquis de B— wish’d to have itthought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain.“He could like to take a trip to England,” and askedmuch of the English ladies.—Stay where you are, I beseechyou, Monsieur le Marquis, said I.—Les MessieursAngloiscan scarce get a kind look from them as itis.—The Marquis invited me to supper.

Monsieur P—, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitiveabout our taxes. They were very considerable, heheard.—If we knew but how to collect them, saidI, making him a low bow.

I could never have been invited to Mons. P—’sconcerts upon any other terms.

I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q— as anesprit.—Madame de Q— was an espritherself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and hear metalk. I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did notcare a sous whether I had any wit or no;—I was let in, tobe convinced she had. I call heaven to witness I never onceopened the door of my lips.

Madame de V— vow’d to every creature shemet—“She had never had a more improving conversationwith a man in her life.”

There are three epochas in the empire of a Frenchwoman.—She is coquette,—then deist,—thendévote: the empire during these is neverlost,—she only changes her subjects when thirty-five yearsand more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, shere-peoples it with slaves of infidelity,—and then with theslaves of the church.

Madame de V— was vibrating betwixt the first of thoseepochas: the colour of the rose was fading fast away;—sheought to have been a deist five years before the time I had thehonour to pay my first visit.

She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake ofdisputing the point of religion more closely.—In shortMadame de V— told me she believed nothing.—I toldMadame de V— it might be her principle, but I was sure itcould not be her interest to level the outworks, without which Icould not conceive how such a citadel as hers could bedefended;—that there was not a more dangerous thing in theworld than for a beauty to be a deist;—that it was a debt Iowed my creed not to conceal it from her;—that I had notbeen five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begunto form designs;—and what is it, but the sentiments ofreligion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast,which could have check’d them as they rose up?

We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;—andthere is need of all restraints, till age in her own time stealsin and lays them on us.—But my dear lady, said I, kissingher hand,—’tis too—too soon.

I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unpervertingMadame de V—.—She affirmed to Monsieur D— andthe Abbé M—, that in one half hour I had said morefor revealed religion, than all their Encyclopædia had saidagainst it.—I was listed directly into Madame deV—’s coterie;—and she put off the epochaof deism for two years.

I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of adiscourse, in which I was showing the necessity of a firstcause, when the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand tothe farthest corner of the room, to tell me my solitairewas pinn’d too straight about my neck.—It should beplus badinant, said the Count, looking down upon hisown;—but a word, Monsieur Yorick, to thewise—

And from the wise, Monsieur le Count, replied I, makinghim a bow,—is enough.

The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever Iwas embraced by mortal man.

For three weeks together I was of every man’s opinion Imet.—Pardi! ce Monsieur Yorick a autantd’esprit que nous autres.—Il raisonnebien, said another.—C’est un bon enfant,said a third.—And at this price I could have eaten anddrank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but’twas a dishonest reckoning;—I grew ashamed ofit.—It was the gain of a slave;—every sentiment ofhonour revolted against it;—the higher I got, the more wasI forced upon my beggarly system;—the better thecoterie,—the more children of Art;—Ilanguish’d for those of Nature: and one night, after a mostvile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, Igrew sick,—went to bed;—order’d La Fleur to getme horses in the morning to set out for Italy.

MARIA.
MOULINES.

I never felt what the distress ofplenty was in any one shape till now,—to travel it throughthe Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France,—in the heydayof the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into everyone’s lap, and every eye is lifted up,—a journey,through each step of which Music beats time to Labour, andall her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters:to pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindlingat every group before me,—and every one of them waspregnant with adventures.—

Just heaven!—it would fill up twenty volumes;—andalas! I have but a few small pages left of this to crowd itinto,—and half of these must be taken up with the poorMaria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with near Moulines.

The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me nota little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhoodwhere she lived, it returned so strong into the mind, that Icould not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a leagueout of the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, toenquire after her.

’Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the WoefulCountenance in quest of melancholy adventures. But I knownot how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of theexistence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled inthem.

The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the storybefore she open’d her mouth.—She had lost herhusband; he had died, she said, of anguish, for the loss ofMaria’s senses, about a month before.—She had fearedat first, she added, that it would have plunder’d her poorgirl of what little understanding was left;—but, on thecontrary, it had brought her more to herself:—still, shecould not rest.—Her poor daughter, she said, crying, waswandering somewhere about the road.

Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what madeLa Fleur, whose heart seem’d only to be tuned to joy, topass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the womanstood and told it? I beckoned to the postilion to turn backinto the road.

When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a littleopening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Mariasitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow inher lap, and her head leaning on one side within herhand:—a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.

I bid the postilion go on with the chaise toMoulines—and La Fleur to bespeak my supper;—and thatI would walk after him.

She was dress’d in white, and much as my frienddescribed her, except that her hair hung loose, which before wastwisted within a silk net.—She had superadded likewise toher jacket, a pale green riband, which fell across her shoulderto the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe.—Her goathad been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dogin lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to hergirdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with thestring.—“Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio,” saidshe. I look’d in Maria’s eyes and saw she wasthinking more of her father than of her lover, or her littlegoat; for, as she utter’d them, the tears trickled down hercheeks.

I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away asthey fell, with my handkerchief.—I then steep’d it inmy own,—and then in hers,—and then in mine,—andthen I wip’d hers again;—and as I did it, I felt suchundescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not beaccounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with whichmaterialists have pester’d the world ever convince me tothe contrary.

MARIA.

When Maria had come a little toherself, I ask’d her if she remembered a pale thin personof a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about twoyears before? She said she was unsettled much atthat time, but remembered it upon two accounts:—that ill asshe was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goathad stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for thetheft;—she had wash’d it, she said, in the brook, andkept it ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case sheshould ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promisedher. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out ofher pocket to let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in acouple of vine leaves, tied round with a tendril;—onopening it, I saw an S. marked in one of the corners.

She had since that, she told me, stray’d as far as Rome,and walk’d round St. Peter’s once,—andreturn’d back;—that she found her way alone acrossthe Apennines;—had travell’d over all Lombardy,without money,—and through the flinty roads of Savoywithout shoes:—how she had borne it, and how she had gotsupported, she could not tell;—but God tempers thewind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in myown land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, andshelter thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of myown cup;—I would be kind to thy Sylvio;—in all thyweaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee and bring theeback;—when the sun went down I would say my prayers: andwhen I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thypipe, nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted forentering heaven along with that of a broken heart!

Nature melted within me, as I utter’d this; and Mariaobserving, as I took out my handkerchief, that it wassteep’d too much already to be of use, would needs go washit in the stream.—And where will you dry it, Maria? saidI.—I’ll dry it in my bosom, saidshe:—’twill do me good.

And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.

I touch’d upon the string on which hung all hersorrows:—she look’d with wistful disorder for sometime in my face; and then, without saying any thing, took herpipe and play’d her service to the Virgin.—The stringI had touched ceased to vibrate;—in a moment or twoMaria returned to herself,—let her pipe fall,—androse up.

And where are you going, Maria? said I.—She said, toMoulines.—Let us go, said I, together.—Maria put herarm within mine, and lengthening the string, to let the dogfollow,—in that order we enter’d Moulines.

MARIA.
MOULINES.

Though I hate salutations andgreetings in the market-place, yet, when we got into the middleof this, I stopp’d to take my last look and last farewellof Maria.

Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order offine forms:—affliction had touched her looks with somethingthat was scarce earthly;—still she was feminine;—andso much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or theeye looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out ofher brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she should not onlyeat of my bread and drink of my own cup, but Maria should liein my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.

Adieu, poor luckless maiden!—Imbibe the oil and winewhich the compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way,now pours into thy wounds;—the Being, who has twice bruisedthee, can only bind them up for ever.

THE BOURBONNNOIS.

There was nothing from which I hadpainted out for my self so joyous a riot of the affections, as inthis journey in the vintage, through this part of France; butpressing through this gate, of sorrow to it, my sufferings havetotally unfitted me. In every scene of festivity, I sawMaria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under herpoplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast ashade across her.

—Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of allthat’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thouchainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw—and’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven!—EternalFountain of our feelings!—’tis here I tracethee—and this is thy “divinity which stirs withinme;”—not that, in some sad and sickening moments,“my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startlesat destruction;”—mere pomp of words!—butthat I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyondmyself;—all comes from thee, great—great Sensorium of the world! which vibrates, if ahair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotestdesert of thy creation.—Touch’d with thee, Eugeniusdraws my curtain when I languish—hears my tale of symptoms,and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thougiv’st a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasantwho traverses the bleakest mountains;—he finds thelacerated lamb of another’s flock.—This moment Ibehold him leaning with his head against his crook, with piteousinclination looking down upon it!—Oh! had I come one momentsooner! it bleeds to death!—his gentle heart bleeds withit.—

Peace to thee, generous swain!—I see thou walkest offwith anguish,—but thy joys shall balance it;—for,happy is thy cottage,—and happy is the sharer ofit,—and happy are the lambs which sport about you!

THE SUPPER.

A shoe coming loose from the forefoot of the thill-horse, at the beginning of the ascent of mountTaurira, the postilion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, and putit in his pocket; as the ascent was of five or six miles, andthat horse our main dependence, I made a point of having the shoefastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilion hadthrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being ofno great use without them, I submitted to go on.

He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flintypiece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from offhis other fore foot. I then got out of the chaise in goodearnest; and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the lefthand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion toturn up to it. The look of the house, and of every thingabout it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to thedisaster.—It was a little farm-house, surrounded with abouttwenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn;—and close tothe house, on one side, was a potagerieof an acre and ahalf, full of everything which could make plenty in a Frenchpeasant’s house;—and, on the other side, was a littlewood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was abouteight in the evening when I got to the house—so I left thepostilion to manage his point as he could;—and, for mine, Iwalked directly into the house.

The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife,with five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives,and a joyous genealogy out of them.

They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; alarge wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagonof wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of therepast:—’twas a feast of love.

The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectfulcordiality would have me sit down at the table; my heart was setdown the moment I enter’d the room; so I sat down at oncelike a son of the family; and to invest myself in the characteras speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man’sknife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and,as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of anhonest welcome, but of a welcome mix’d with thanks that Ihad not seem’d to doubt it.

Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that madethis morsel so sweet,—and to what magic I owe it, that thedraught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, thatthey remain upon my palate to this hour?

If the supper was to my taste,—the grace which followedit was much more so.

THE GRACE.

When supper was over, the old mangave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bidthem prepare for the dance: the moment the signal was given, thewomen and girls ran altogether into a back apartment to tie uptheir hair,—and the young men to the door to wash theirfaces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soulwas ready upon a little esplanade before the house tobegin.—The old man and his wife came out last, and placingme betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performerupon the vielle,—and at the age he was then of,touch’d it well enough for the purpose. His wife sungnow and then a little to the tune,—thenintermitted,—and join’d her old man again, as theirchildren and grand-children danced before them.

It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, fromsome pauses in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up,I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit differentfrom that which is the cause or the effect of simplejollity. In a word, I thought I beheld Religionmixing in the dance:—but, as I had never seen her soengaged, I should have look’d upon it now as one of theillusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, hadnot the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said, that this wastheir constant way; and that all his life long he had made it arule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance andrejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mindwas the best sort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasantcould pay,—

Or a learned prelate either, said I.

THE CASE OF DELICACY.

When you have gained the top ofMount Taurira, you run presently down to Lyons:—adieu,then, to all rapid movements! ’Tis a journey ofcaution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be in ahurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturinto take his timewith a couple of mules, and convoy me in my own chaise safe toTurin, through Savoy.

Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty,the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you bythe world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it.—Nature!in the midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to thescantiness thou hast created: with all thy great works aboutthee, little hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or tothe sickle;—but to that little thou grantest safety andprotection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand soshelter’d.

Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the suddenturns and dangers of your roads,—your rocks,—yourprecipices;—the difficulties of getting up,—thehorrors of getting down,—mountains impracticable,—andcataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, andblock his road up.—The peasants had been all day at work inremoving a fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane;and, by the time my voituringot to the place, it wanted full twohours of completing before a passage could any how begain’d: there was nothing but to wait withpatience;—’twas a wet and tempestuous night; so thatby the delay, and that together, the voiturinfound himselfobliged to put up five miles short of his stage at a littledecent kind of an inn by the roadside.

I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber—got a goodfire—order’d supper; and was thanking heaven it wasno worse, when a voiturinarrived with a lady in it and herservant maid.

As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, thehostess,—without much nicety, led them into mine, tellingthem, as she usher’d them in, that there was nobody in itbut an English gentleman;—that there were two good beds in it, anda closet within the room which held another. The accent inwhich she spoke of this third bed, did not say much forit;—however, she said there were three beds and but threepeople, and she durst say, the gentleman would do anything toaccommodate matters.—I left not the lady a moment to make aconjecture about it—so instantly made a declaration that Iwould do anything in my power.

As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of mybed-chamber, I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as tohave a right to do the honours of it;—so I desired the ladyto sit down,—pressed her into the warmestseat,—called for more wood,—desired the hostess toenlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with the verybest wine.

The lady had scarce warm’d herself five minutes at thefire, before she began to turn her head back, and give a look atthe beds; and the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the morethey return’d perplexd;—I felt for her—and formyself: for in a few minutes, what by her looks, and the caseitself, I found myself as much embarrassed as it was possible thelady could be herself.

That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room,was enough simply by itself to have excited all this;—butthe position of them, for they stood parallel, and so very closeto each other as only to allow space for a small wicker chairbetwixt them, rendered the affair still more oppressive tous;—they were fixed up moreover near the fire; and theprojection of the chimney on one side, and a large beam whichcross’d the room on the other, formed a kind of recess forthem that was no way favourable to the nicety of oursensations:—if anything could have added to it, it was thatthe two beds were both of them so very small, as to cut us offfrom every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which ineither of them, could it have been feasible, my lying besidethem, though a thing not to be wish’d, yet there wasnothing in it so terrible which the imagination might not havepass’d over without torment.

As for the little room within, it offer’d little or noconsolation to us: ’twas a damp, cold closet, with a halfdismantled window-shutter, and with a window which had neitherglass nor oil paper in it to keep out the tempest of thenight. I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the ladygave a peep into it; so it reduced the case in course to thisalternative—That the lady should sacrifice her health toher feelings, and take up with the closet herself, and abandonthe bed next mine to her maid,—or that the girl should takethe closet, &c., &c.

The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow ofhealth in her cheeks. The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty,and as brisk and lively a French girl as ever moved.—Therewere difficulties every way,—and the obstacle of the stonein the road, which brought us into the distress, great as itappeared whilst the peasants were removing it, was but a pebbleto what lay in our ways now.—I have only to add, that itdid not lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that wewere both too delicate to communicate what we felt to each otherupon the occasion.

We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wineto it than a little inn in Savoy could have furnish’d, ourtongues had been tied up, till necessity herself had set them atliberty;—but the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy inher voiture, sent down her fille de chambrefor a coupleof them; so that by the time supper was over, and we were leftalone, we felt ourselves inspired with a strength of mindsufficient to talk, at least, without reserve upon oursituation. We turn’d it every way, and debated andconsidered it in all kinds of lights in the course of a twohours’ negotiation; at the end of which the articles weresettled finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and mannerof a treaty of peace,—and I believe with as much religionand good faith on both sides as in any treaty which has yet hadthe honour of being handed down to posterity.

They were as follow:—

First, as the right of the bed-chamber is inMonsieur,—and he thinking the bed next to the fire to bethe warmest, he insists upon the concession on the lady’sside of taking up with it.

Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That asthe curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, andappear likewise too scanty to draw close, that the fille dechambreshall fasten up the opening, either by corking pins,or needle and thread, in such manner as shall be deem’d asufficient barrier on the side of Monsieur.

2dly. It is required on the part of Madame, thatMonsieur shall lie the whole night through in his robe dechambre.

Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a robe dechambre; he having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirtsand a black silk pair of breeches.

The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire changeof the article,—for the breeches were accepted as anequivalent for the robe de chambre; and so it wasstipulated and agreed upon, that I should lie in my black silkbreeches all night.

3dly. It was insisted upon and stipulated for by thelady, that after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fireextinguished, that Monsieur should not speak one single word thewhole night.

Granted; provided Monsieur’s saying his prayers mightnot be deemed an infraction of the treaty.

There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that wasthe manner in which the lady and myself should be obliged toundress and get to bed;—there was but one way of doing it,and that I leave to the reader to devise; protesting as I do it,that if it is not the most delicate in nature, ’tis thefault of his own imagination,—against which this is not myfirst complaint.

Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty ofthe situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I couldnot shut my eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn’dand turn’d again, till a full hour after midnight; whenNature and patience both wearing out,—O, my God! saidI.

—You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, whohad no more slept than myself.—I begg’d a thousandpardons—but insisted it was no more than anejaculation. She maintained ’twas an entireinfraction of the treaty—I maintain’d it was providedfor in the clause of the third article.

The lady would by no means give up her point, though sheweaken’d her barrier by it; for in the warmth of thedispute, I could hear two or three corking pins fall out of thecurtain to the ground.

Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I,—stretching myarm out of bed by way of asseveration.—

(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassedagainst the remotest idea of decorum for the world);—

But the fille de chambrehearing there were wordsbetween us, and fearing that hostilities would ensue in course,had crept silently out of her closet, and it being totally dark,had stolen so close to our beds, that she had got herself intothe narrow passage which separated them, and had advanced so farup as to be in a line betwixt her mistress and me:—

So that when I stretch’d out my hand I caught hold ofthe fille de chambre’s—

THE END

FOOTNOTES.

[557] All the effects of strangers(Swiss and Scotch excepted) dying in France, are seized by virtueof this law, though the heir be upon the spot—the profit ofthese contingencies being farmed, there is no redress.

[562] A chaise, so called, in France,from its holding but one person.

[580] Vide S—’s Travels:[i.e.Dr. Smollett’s “Travels through Franceand Italy.”—Ed.]

[588] Post-horse.

[648] Nosegay.

[649] Hackney coach.

[652] Plate, napkin, knife, fork andspoon.

Related articles