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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, v4
+#4 in our series Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
+
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+Title: The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, v4
+
+Author: Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
+
+Release Date: March, 2004  [EBook #5237]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 10, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF LORREQUER, V4 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Mary Munarin
+and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFESSIONS OF HARRY LORREQUER, v4
+
+[By Charles James Lever (1806-1872)]
+
+
+Dublin
+
+MDCCCXXXIX.
+
+
+
+Volume 4. (Chapter XXIV-XXVIII)
+
+
+Contents:
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+The Gen d'Arme
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+The Inn at Chantraine
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+Mr O'Leary
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+Paris
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+Paris
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE GEN D'ARME.
+
+I had fortunately sufficient influence upon my fair friends to persuade
+them to leave Calais early on the morning following; and two hours before
+Kilkee had opened his eyes upon this mortal life, we were far upon the
+road to Paris.
+
+Having thus far perfectly succeeded in my plot, my spirit rose rapidly,
+and I made every exertion to make the road appear short to my fellow-
+travellers.  This part of France is unfortunately deficient in any
+interest from scenery; large undivided tracts of waving cornfields, with
+a back-ground of apparently interminable forests, and occasionally, but
+rarely, the glimpse of some old time-worn chateau, with its pointed gable
+and terraced walk, are nearly all that the eye can detect in the
+intervals between the small towns and villages.  Nothing, however, is
+"flat or unprofitable" to those who desire to make it otherwise; good
+health, good spirits, and fine weather, are wonderful travelling
+companions, and render one tolerably independent of the charms of
+scenery.  Every mile that separated me from Calais, and took away the
+chance of being overtaken, added to my gaiety, and I flatter myself that
+a happier party have rarely travelled that well frequented road.
+
+We reached Abbeville to dinner, and adjourned to the beautiful little
+garden of the inn for our coffee; the evening was so delightful that I
+proposed to walk on the Paris road, until the coming up of the carriage,
+which required a screw, or a washer, or some such trifle as always occurs
+in French posting.  To this la chere mamma objected, she being tired, but
+added, that Isabella and I might go on, and that she would take us up in
+half an hour.  This was an arrangement so very agreeable and unlooked for
+by me, that I pressed Miss Bingham as far as I well could, and at last
+succeeded in overcoming her scruples, and permitting me to shawl her.
+One has always a tremendous power of argument with the uninitiated
+abroad, by a reference to a standard of manners and habits totally
+different from our own.  Thus the talismanic words--"Oh! don't be
+shocked; remember you are in France," did more to satisfy my young
+friend's mind than all I could have said for an hour.  Little did she
+know that in England only, has an unmarried young lady any liberty, and
+that the standard of foreign propriety on this head is far, very far more
+rigid than our own.
+
+"La premiere Rue a gauche," said an old man of whom I inquired the road;
+"et puis," added I.
+
+"And then quite straight; it is a chaussee all the way, and you cannot
+mistake it."
+
+"Now for it, mademoiselle," said I.  "Let us try if we cannot see a good
+deal of the country before the carriage comes up."
+
+We had soon left the town behind and reached a beautifully shaded high
+road, with blossoming fruit trees, and honeysuckle-covered cottages;
+there had been several light showers during the day, and the air had all
+the fresh fragrant feeling of an autumn evening, so tranquillizing and
+calming that few there are who have not felt at some time or other of
+their lives, its influence upon their minds.  I fancied my fair companion
+did so, for, as she walked beside me, her silence, and the gentle
+pressure of her arm, were far more eloquent than words.
+
+If that extraordinary flutter and flurry of sensations which will now and
+then seize you, when walking upon a lonely country road with a pretty
+girl for your companion, whose arm is linked in yours, and whose
+thoughts, as far you can guess at least, are travelling the same path
+with your own--if this be animal magnetism, or one of its phenomena, then
+do I swear by Mesmer, whatever it be, delusion or otherwise, it has given
+me the brightest moments of my life--these are the real "winged dreams"
+of pleasures which outlive others of more absorbing and actual interest
+at the time.  After all, for how many of our happiest feelings are we
+indebted to the weakness of our nature.  The man that is wise at
+nineteen, "Je l'en fais mon compliment," but I assuredly do not envy him;
+and now, even now, when I number more years than I should like to
+"confess," rather than suffer the suspicious watchfulness of age to creep
+on me, I prefer to "go on believing," even though every hour of the day
+should show me, duped and deceived.  While I plead guilty to this
+impeachment, let me show mitigation, that it has its enjoyments--first,
+although I am the most constant and devoted man breathing, as a very
+cursory glance at these confessions may prove, yet I have never been able
+to restrain myself from a propensity to make love, merely as a pastime.
+The gambler that sits down to play cards, or hazard against himself, may
+perhaps be the only person that can comprehend this tendency of mine.  We
+both of us are playing for nothing (or love, which I suppose is
+synonymous;) we neither of us put forth our strength; for that very
+reason, and in fact like the waiter at Vauxhall who was complimented upon
+the dexterity with which he poured out the lemonade, and confessed that
+he spent his mornings "practising with vater," we pass a considerable
+portion of our lives in a mimic warfare, which, if it seem unprofitable,
+is, nevertheless, pleasant.
+
+After all this long tirade, need I say how our walk proceeded?  We had
+fallen into a kind of discussion upon the singular intimacy which had so
+rapidly grown up amongst us, and which years long might have failed to
+engender.  Our attempts to analyse the reasons for, and the nature of the
+friendship thus so suddenly established--a rather dangerous and difficult
+topic, when the parties are both young--one eminently handsome, and the
+other disposed to be most agreeable.  Oh, my dear young friends of either
+sex, whatever your feelings be for one another, keep them to yourselves;
+I know of nothing half so hazardous as that "comparing of notes" which
+sometimes happens.  Analysis is a beautiful thing in mathematics or
+chemistry, but it makes sad havoc when applied to the "functions of the
+heart."
+
+"Mamma appears to have forgotten us," said Isabella, as she spoke, after
+walking for some time in silence beside me.
+
+"Oh, depend upon it, the carriage has taken all this time to repair; but
+are you tired?"
+
+"Oh, by no means; the evening is delightful, but--"
+
+"Then perhaps you are ennuyee," said I, half pettishly, to provoke a
+disclaimer if possible.  To this insidiously put quere I received, as I
+deserved, no answer, and again we sauntered on without speaking.
+
+"To whom does that chateau belong, my old friend?" said I addressing a
+man on the road-side.
+
+"A Monsieur le Marquis, sir," replied he.
+
+"But what's his name, though?"
+
+"Ah, that I can't tell you," replied the man again.
+
+There you may perceive how, even yet, in provincial France, the old
+respect for the aristocracy still survives; it is sufficient that the
+possessor of that fine place is "Monsieur le Marquis;" but any other
+knowledge of who he is, and what, is superfluous.  "How far are we from
+the next village, do you know?"
+
+"About a league."
+
+"Indeed.  Why I thought 'La Scarpe' was quite near us."
+
+"Ah, you are thinking of the Amiens road."
+
+"Yes, of course; and is not this the Amiens road?"
+
+"Oh, no; the Amiens road lies beyond those low hills to the right.  You
+passed the turn at the first 'barriere'."
+
+"Is it possible we could have come wrong?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Lorrequer, don't say so, I entreat of you."
+
+"And what road is this, then, my friend?"
+
+"This is the road to Albert and Peronne."
+
+"Unfortunately, I believe he is quite right.  Is there any crossroad from
+the village before us now, to the Amiens road?"
+
+"Yes; you can reach it about three leagues hence."
+
+"And we can get a carriage at the inn probably?"
+
+"Ah, that I am not sure of--.  Perhaps at the Lion d'or you may."
+
+"But why not go back to Abbeville?"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Bingham must have left long since, and beside you forget the
+distance; we have been walking two hours."
+
+"Now for the village," said I, as I drew my friend's arm closer within
+mine, and we set out in a fast walk.
+
+Isabella seemed terribly frightened at the whole affair; what her mamma
+might think, and what might be her fears at not finding us on the road,
+and a hundred other encouraging reflections of this nature she poured
+forth unceasingly.  As for myself, I did not know well what to think of
+it; my old fondness for adventure being ever sufficiently strong in me to
+give a relish to any thing which bore the least resemblance to one.  This
+I now concealed, and sympathised with my fair friend upon our mishap, and
+assuring her, at the same time, that there could be no doubt of our
+overtaking Mrs. Bingham before her arrival at Amiens.
+
+"Ah, there is the village in the valley; how beautifully situated."
+
+"Oh, I can't admire any thing now, Mr. Lorrequer, I am so frightened."
+
+"But surely without cause," said I, looking tenderly beneath her bonnet.
+
+"Is this," she answered, "nothing," and we walked on in silence again.
+
+On reaching the Lion d'or we discovered that the only conveyance to be
+had was a species of open market-cart drawn by two horses, and in which
+it was necessary that my fair friend and myself should seat ourselves
+side by side upon straw: there was no choice, and as for Miss Bingham,
+I believe if an ass with panniers had presented itself, she would have
+preferred it to remaining where she was.  We therefore took our places,
+and she could not refrain from laughing as we set out upon our journey in
+this absurd equipage, every jolt of which threw us from side to side, and
+rendered every attention on my part requisite to prevent her being upset.
+
+After about two hours' travelling we arrived at the Amiens road, and
+stopped at the barriere.  I immediately inquired if a carriage had
+passed, resembling Mrs. Bingham's, and learned that it had, about an hour
+before, and that the lady in it had been informed that two persons, like
+those she asked after, had been seen in a caleche driving rapidly to
+Amiens, upon which she set out as fast as possible in pursuit.
+
+"Certainly," said I, "the plot is thickening; but for that unlucky
+mistake she might in all probability have waited here for us.  Amiens is
+only two leagues now, so our drive will not be long, and before six
+o'clock we shall all be laughing over the matter as a very good joke."
+
+On we rattled, and as the road became less frequented, and the shadows
+lengthened, I could not but wonder at the strange situations which the
+adventurous character of my life had so often involved me in.  Meanwhile,
+my fair friend's spirits became more and more depressed, and it was not
+without the greatest difficulty I was enabled to support her courage.  I
+assured her, and not altogether without reason, that though so often in
+my eventful career accidents were occurring which rendered it dubious and
+difficult to reach the goal I aimed at, yet the results had so often been
+more pleasant than I could have anticipated, that I always felt a kind of
+involuntary satisfaction at some apparent obstacle to my path, setting it
+down as some especial means of fortune, to heighten the pleasure awaiting
+me; "and now," added I, "even here, perhaps, in this very mistake of our
+road--the sentiments I have heard--the feelings I have given utterance
+to--"  What I was about to say, heaven knows--perhaps nothing less than a
+downright proposal was coming; but at that critical moment a gen-d'arme
+rode up to the side of our waggon, and surveyed us with the peculiarly
+significant scowl his order is gifted with.  After trotting alongside for
+a few seconds he ordered the driver to halt, and, turning abruptly to us,
+demanded our passports.  Now our passports were, at that precise moment,
+peaceably reposing in the side pocket of Mrs. Bingham's carriage; I
+therefore explained to the gen-d'arme how we were circumstanced, and
+added, that on arriving at Amiens the passport should be produced.  To
+this he replied that all might be perfectly true, but he did not believe
+a word of it--that he had received an order for the apprehension of two
+English persons travelling that road--and that he should accordingly
+request our company back to Chantraine, the commissionaire of which place
+was his officer.
+
+"But why not take us to Amiens," said I; "particularly when I tell you
+that we can then show our passports?"
+
+"I belong to the Chantraine district," was the laconic answer; and like
+the gentleman who could not weep at the sermon because he belonged to
+another parish, this specimen of a French Dogberry would not hear reason
+except in his own "commune."
+
+No arguments which I could think of had any effect upon him, and amid a
+volley of entreaty and imprecation, both equally vain, we saw ourselves
+turn back upon the road to Amiens, and set out at a round trot to
+Chantraine, on the road to Calais.
+
+Poor Isabella, I really pitied her; hitherto her courage had been
+principally sustained by the prospect of soon reaching Amiens; now there
+was no seeing where our adventure was to end.  Besides that, actual
+fatigue from the wretched conveyance began to distress her, and she was
+scarcely able to support herself, though assisted by my arm.  What a
+perilous position mine, whispering consolation and comfort to a pretty
+girl on a lonely road, the only person near being one who comprehended
+nothing of the language we spoke in.  Ah, how little do we know of fate,
+and how often do we despise circumstances that determine all our fortunes
+in the world.  To think that a gen-d'arme should have any thing to do
+with my future lot in life, and that the real want of a passport to
+travel should involve the probable want of a licence to marry.  Yes, it
+is quite in keeping, thought I, with every step I have taken through
+life.  I may be brought before the "maire" as a culprit, and leave him as
+a Benedict.
+
+On reaching the town, we were not permitted to drive to the inn, but at
+once conveyed to the house of the "commissaire," who was also the "maire"
+of the district.  The worthy functionary was long since in bed, and it
+was only after ringing violently for half an hour that a head, surmounted
+with a dirty cotton night-cap, peeped from an upper window, and seemed to
+survey the assemblage beneath with patient attention.  By this time a
+considerable crowd had collected from the neighbouring ale-houses and
+cabarets, who deemed it a most fitting occasion to honour us with the
+most infernal yells and shouts, as indicating their love of justice, and
+delight in detecting knavery; and that we were both involved in such
+suspicion, we had not long to learn.  Meanwhile the poor old maire, who
+had been an employe in the stormy days of the revolution, and also under
+Napoleon, and who full concurred with Swift that "a crowd is a mob, if
+composed even of bishops," firmly believed that the uproar beneath in the
+street was the announcement of a new change of affairs at Paris,
+determined to be early in the field, and shouted therefore with all his
+lungs--"vive le peuple"--"Vive la charte"--"A bas les autres."  A
+tremendous shout of laughter saluted this exhibition of unexpected
+republicanism, and the poor maire retired from the window, having learned
+his mistake, covered with shame and confusion.
+
+Before the mirth caused by this blunder had subsided, the door had
+opened, and we were ushered into the bureau of the commissaire,
+accompanied by the anxious crowd, all curious to know the particulars of
+our crime.
+
+The maire soon appeared, his night-cap being replaced by a small black
+velvet skull-cap, and his lanky figure enveloped in a tarnished silk
+dressing-gown; he permitted us to be seated, while the gen-d'arme
+recounted the suspicious circumstances of our travelling, and produced
+the order to arrest an Englishman and his wife who had arrived in one of
+the late Boulogne packets, and who had carried off from some banking-
+house money and bills for a large amount.
+
+"I have no doubt these are the people," said the gen-d'arme; "and here is
+the 'carte descriptive.'  Let us compare it--'Forty-two or forty-three
+years of age.'"
+
+I trust, M. le Maire," said I, overhearing this, "that ladies do not
+recognize me as so much."
+
+"Of a pale and cadaverous aspect," continued the gen-d'arme.
+
+Upon this the old functionary, wiping his spectacles with a snuffy
+handkerchief, as if preparing them to examine an eclipse of the sun,
+regarded me fixedly for several minutes, and said--"Oh, yes, I perceive
+it plainly; continue the description."
+
+"Five feet three inches," said the gen-d'arme.
+
+"Six feet one in England, whatever this climate may have done since."
+
+"Speaks broken and bad French."
+
+"Like a native," said I; "at least so said my friends in the chaussee
+D'Antin, in the year fifteen."
+
+Here the catalogue ended, and a short conference between the maire and
+the gen-d'arme ensued, which ended in our being committed for examination
+on the morrow; meanwhile we were to remain at the inn, under the
+surveillance of the gen-d'arme.
+
+On reaching the inn my poor friend was so completely exhausted that she
+at once retired to her room, and I proceeded to fulfil a promise I had
+made her to despatch a note to Mrs. Bingham at Amiens by a special
+messenger, acquainting her with all our mishaps, and requesting her to
+come or send to our assistance.  This done, and a good supper smoking
+before me, of which with difficulty I persuaded Isabella to partake in
+her own room, I again regained my equanimity, and felt once more at ease.
+
+The gen-d'arme in whose guardianship I had been left was a fine specimen
+of his caste; a large and powerfully built man of about fifty, with an
+enormous beard of grizzly brown and grey hair, meeting above and beneath
+his nether lip; his eyebrows were heavy and beetling, and nearly
+concealed his sharp grey eyes, while a deep sabre-wound had left upon his
+cheek a long white scar, giving a most warlike and ferocious look to his
+features.
+
+As he sat apart from me for some time, silent and motionless, I could not
+help imagining in how many a hard-fought day he had borne a part, for he
+evidently, from his age and bearing, had been one of the soldiers of the
+empire.  I invited him to partake of my bottle of Medoc, by which he
+seemed flattered.  When the flask became low, and was replaced by
+another, he appeared to have lost much of his constrained air, and
+seemed forgetting rapidly the suspicious circumstances which he supposed
+attached to me--waxed wondrous confidential and communicative, and
+condescended to impart some traits of a life which was not without its
+vicissitudes, for he had been, as I suspected, one of the "Guarde"--the
+old guarde--was wounded at Marengo, and received the croix d'honneur in
+the field of Wagram, from the hands of the Emperor himself.  The headlong
+enthusiasm of attachment to Napoleon, which his brief and stormy career
+elicited even from those who suffered long and deeply in his behalf, is
+not one of the least singular circumstances which this portion of history
+displays.  While the rigours of the conscription had invaded every family
+in France, from Normandie to La Vendee--while the untilled fields, the
+ruined granaries, the half-deserted villages, all attested the
+depopulation of the land, those talismanic words, "l'Empereur et la
+gloire," by some magic mechanism seemed all-sufficient not only to
+repress regret and suffering, but even stimulate pride, and nourish
+valour; and even yet, when it might be supposed that like the brilliant
+glass of a magic lantern, the gaudy pageant had passed away, leaving only
+the darkness and desolation behind it--the memory of those days under the
+empire survives untarnished and unimpaired, and every sacrifice of
+friends or fortune is accounted but little in the balance when the honour
+of La Belle France, and the triumphs of the grand "armee," are weighted
+against them.  The infatuated and enthusiastic followers of this great
+man would seem, in some respects, to resemble the drunkard in the
+"Vaudeville," who alleged as his excuse for drinking, that whenever he
+was sober his poverty disgusted him.  "My cabin," said he, "is a cell, my
+wife a mass of old rags, my child a wretched object of misery and malady.
+But give me brandy; let me only have that, and then my hut is a palace,
+my wife is a princess, and my child the very picture of health and
+happiness;" so with these people--intoxicated with the triumphs of their
+nation, "tete monte" with victory--they cannot exist in the horror of
+sobriety which peace necessarily enforces; and whenever the subject turns
+in conversation upon the distresses of the time or the evil prospects of
+the country, they call out, not like the drunkard, for brandy, but in the
+same spirit they say--"Ah, if you would again see France flourishing and
+happy, let us once more have our croix d'honneur, our epaulettes, our
+voluntary contributions, our Murillos, our Velasquez, our spoils from
+Venice, and our increased territories to rule over."  This is the
+language of the Buonapartiste every where, and at all seasons; and the
+mass of the nation is wonderfully disposed to participate in the
+sentiment.  The empire was the Aeneid of the nation, and Napoleon the
+only hero they now believe in.  You may satisfy yourself of this easily.
+Every cafe will give evidence of it, every society bears its testimony to
+it, and even the most wretched Vaudeville, however, trivial the interest
+--however meagre the story, and poor the diction, let the emperor but
+have his "role"--let him be as laconic as possible, carry his hands
+behind his back, wear the well-known low cocked-hat, and the "redingote
+gris"--the success is certain--every sentence he utters is applauded, and
+not a single allusion to the Pyramids, the sun of Austerlitz, l'honneur,
+et al vieille garde, but is sure to bring down thunders of acclamation.
+But I am forgetting myself, and perhaps my reader too; the conversation
+of the old gen-d'arme accidentally led me into reflections like these,
+and he was well calculated, in many ways, to call them forth.  His
+devoted attachment--his personal love of the emperor--of which he gave me
+some touching instances, was admirably illustrated by an incident, which
+I am inclined to tell, and hope it may amuse the reader as much as it did
+myself on hearing it.
+
+When Napoleon had taken possession of the papal dominions, as he
+virtually did, and carried off the pope, Pius VI, to Paris, this old
+soldier, then a musketeer in the garde, formed part of the company that
+mounted guard over the holy father.  During the earlier months of the
+holy father's confinement he was at liberty to leave his apartments at
+any hour he pleased, and cross the court-year of the palace to the chapel
+where he performed mass.  At such moments the portion of the Imperial
+Guard then on duty stood under arms, and received from the august hand of
+the pope his benediction as he passed.  But one morning a hasty express
+arrived from the Tuilleries, and the officer on duty communicated his
+instructions to his party, that the apostolic vicar was not to be
+permitted to pass, as heretofore, to the chapel, and that a most rigid
+superintendence was to be exercised over his movements.  My poor
+companion had his turn for duty on that ill-starred day; he had not been
+long at his post when the sound of footsteps was heard approaching, and
+he soon saw the procession which always attended the holy father to his
+devotions, advancing towards him; he immediately placed himself across
+the passage, and with his musket in rest barred the exit, declaring, at
+the same time, that such were his orders. In vain the priests who formed
+the cortege addressed themselves to his heart, and spoke to his feelings,
+and at last finding little success by these methods, explained to him the
+mortal sin and crime for which eternal damnation itself might not be a
+too heavy retribution if he persisted in preventing his holiness to pass,
+and thus be the means of opposing an obstacle to the head of the whole
+Catholic church, for celebrating the mass; the soldier remained firm and
+unmoved, the only answer he returned being, "that he had his orders, and
+dared not disobey them."  The pope, however, persisted in his resolution,
+and endeavoured to get by, when the hardy veteran retreated a step, and
+placing his musket and bayonet at the charge, called out "au nom de
+l'Empereur," when the pious party at last yielded and slowly retired
+within the palace.
+
+Not many days after, this severe restriction was recalled, and once more
+the father was permitted to go to and from the chapel of the palace, at
+such times as he pleased, and again, as before, in passing the corridor,
+the guards presented arms and received the holy benediction, all except
+one; upon him the head of the church frowned severely, and turned his
+back, while extending his pious hands towards the others.  "And yet,"
+said the poor fellow in concluding his story, "and yet I could not have
+done otherwise; I had my orders and must have followed them, and had the
+emperor commanded it, I should have run my bayonet through the body of
+the holy father himself.
+
+"Thus, you see, my dear sir, how I have loved the emperor, for I have
+many a day stood under fire for him in this world, 'et il faut que
+j'aille encore au feu pour lui apres ma mort.'."
+
+He received in good part the consolations I offered him on this head, but
+I plainly saw they did not, could not relieve his mind from the horrible
+conviction he lay under, that his soul's safety for ever had been
+bartered for his attachment to the emperor.
+
+This story had brought us to the end of the third bottle of Medoc; and,
+as I was neither the pope, nor had any very decided intentions of saying
+mass, he offered no obstacle to my retiring for the night, and betaking
+myself to my bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE INN AT CHANTRAINE.
+
+When contrasted with the comforts of an English bed-room in a good hotel,
+how miserably short does the appearance of a French one fall in the
+estimation of the tired traveller.  In exchange for the carpetted floor,
+the well-curtained windows, the richly tapestried bed, the well cushioned
+arm-chair, and the innumerable other luxuries which await him; he has
+nought but a narrow, uncurtained bed, a bare floor, occasionally a
+flagged one, three hard cane-bottomed chairs, and a looking-glass which
+may convey an idea of how you would look under the combined influence of
+the cholera, and a stroke of apoplexy, one half of your face being twice
+the length of the other, and the entire of it of a bluish-green tint--
+pretty enough in one of Turner's landscapes, but not at all becoming when
+applied to the "human face divine."  Let no late arrival from the
+continent contradict me here by his late experiences, which a stray
+twenty pounds and the railroads--(confound them for the same)--have
+enabled him to acquire.  I speak of matters before it occurred to all
+Charing-Cross and Cheapside to "take the water" between Dover and Calais,
+and inundate the world with the wit of the Cider Cellar, and the Hole in
+the Wall.  No!  In the days I write of, the travelled were of another
+genus, and you might dine at Very's or have your loge at "Les Italiens,"
+without being dunned by your tailor at the one, or confronted with your
+washer-woman at the other.  Perhaps I have written all this in the spite
+and malice of a man who feels that his louis-d'or only goes half as far
+now as heretofore; and attributes all his diminished enjoyments and
+restricted luxuries to the unceasing current of his countrymen, whom
+fate, and the law of imprisonment for debt, impel hither.  Whether I am
+so far guilty or not, is not now the question; suffice it to say, that
+Harry Lorrequer, for reasons best known to himself, lives abroad, where
+he will be most happy to see any of his old and former friends who take
+his quarters en route; and in the words of a bellicose brother of the
+pen, but in a far different spirit, he would add, "that any person who
+feels himself here alluded to, may learn the author's address at his
+publishers."  "Now let us go back to our muttons," as Barney Coyle used
+to say in the Dublin Library formerly--for Barney was fond of French
+allusions, which occasionally too he gave in their own tongue, as once
+describing an interview with Lord Cloncurry, in which he broke off
+suddenly the conference, adding, "I told him I never could consent to
+such a proposition, and putting my chateau (chapeau) on my head, I left
+the house at once."
+
+It was nearly three o'clock in the morning, as accompanied by the waiter,
+who, like others of his tribe, had become a kind of somnambulist ex-
+officio, I wended my way up one flight of stairs, and down another, along
+a narrow corridor, down two steps, through an antechamber, and into
+another corridor, to No. 82, my habitation for the night.  Why I should
+have been so far conducted from the habitable portion of the house I had
+spent my evening in, I leave the learned in such matters to explain; as
+for me, I have ever remarked it, while asking for a chamber in a large
+roomy hotel, the singular pride with which you are ushered up grand
+stair-cases, down passages, through corridors, and up narrow back
+flights, till the blue sky is seen through the sky-light, to No. 199,
+"the only spare bed-room in the house," while the silence and desolation
+of the whole establishment would seem to imply far otherwise--the only
+evidence of occupation being a pair of dirty Wellingtons at the door of
+No. 2.
+
+"Well, we have arrived at last," said I, drawing a deep sigh, as I threw
+myself upon a ricketty chair, and surveyed rapidly my meagre-looking
+apartment.
+
+"Yes, this is Monsieur's chamber," said the waiter, with a very peculiar
+look, half servile, half droll.  "Madame se couche, No. 28."
+
+"Very well, good night," said I, closing the door hastily, and not liking
+the farther scrutiny of the fellow's eye, as he fastened it on me, as if
+to search what precise degree of relationship existed between myself and
+my fair friend, whom he had called "Madame" purposely to elicit an
+observation from me.  "Ten to one though," said I, as I undressed myself,
+"but they think she is my wife--how good--but again--ay, it is very
+possible, considering we are in France.  Numero vingt-huit, quite far
+enough from this part of the house I should suppose from my number,--that
+old gen-d'arme was a fine fellow--what strong attachment to Napoleon; and
+the story of the pope; I hope I may remember that.  Isabella, poor girl--
+this adventure must really distress her--hope she is not crying over it--
+what a devil of a hard bed--and it is not five feet long too--and, bless
+my soul, is this all by way of covering; why I shall be perished here.
+Oh! I must certainly put all my clothes over me in addition,
+unfortunately there is no hearth-rug--well, there is no help for it now
+--so let me try to sleep--numero vingt-huit."
+
+How long I remained in a kind of uneasy, fitful slumber, I cannot tell;
+but I awoke shivering with cold--puzzled to tell where I was, and my
+brain addled with the broken fragments of half a dozen dreams, all
+mingling and mixing themselves with the unpleasant realities of my
+situation.  What an infernal contrivance for a bed, thought I, as my head
+came thump against the top, while my legs projected far beyond the foot-
+rail; the miserable portion of clothing over me at the same time being
+only sufficient to temper the night air, which in autumn is occasionally
+severe and cutting.  This will never do.  I must ring the bell and rouse
+the house, if only to get a fire, if they don't possess such a thing as
+blankets.  I immediately rose, and groping my way along the wall
+endeavoured to discover the bell, but in vain; and for the same
+satisfactory reason that Von Troil did not devote one chapter of his work
+on "Iceland" to "snakes," because there were none such there.  What was
+now to be done?  About the geography of my present abode I knew, perhaps,
+as much as the public at large know about the Coppermine river and
+Behring's straits.  The world, it was true, was before me, "where top
+choose," admirable things for an epic, but decidedly an unfortunate
+circumstance for a very cold gentleman in search of a blanket.  Thus
+thinking, I opened the door of my chamber, and not in any way resolved
+how I should proceed, I stepped forth into the long corridor, which was
+dark as midnight itself.
+
+Tracing my path along the wall, I soon reached a door which I in vain
+attempted to open; in another moment I found another and another, each of
+which were locked.  Thus along the entire corridor I felt my way, making
+every effort to discover where any of the people of the house might have
+concealed themselves, but without success.  What was to be done now?  It
+was of no use to go back to my late abode, and find it comfortless as I
+left it; so I resolved to proceed in my search; by this time I had
+arrived at the top of a small flight of stairs, which I remembered having
+come up, and which led to another long passage similar to the one I had
+explored, but running in a transverse direction, down this I now crept,
+and reached the landing, along the wall of which I was guided by my hand,
+as well for safety as to discover the architrave of some friendly door,
+where the inhabitant might be sufficiently Samaritan to lend some portion
+of his bed-clothes; door after door followed in succession along this
+confounded passage, which I began to think as long as the gallery of the
+lower one; at last, however, just as my heart was sinking within me from
+disappointment, the handle of a lock turned, and I found myself inside a
+chamber.  How was I now to proceed? for if this apartment did not contain
+any of the people of the hotel, I had but a sorry excuse for disturbing
+the repose of any traveller who might have been more fortunate than
+myself in the article of blankets.  To go back however, would be absurd,
+having already taken so much trouble to find out a room that was
+inhabited--for that such was the case, a short, thick snore assured me--
+so that my resolve was at once made, to waken the sleeper, and endeavour
+to interest him in my destitute situation.  I accordingly approached the
+place where the nasal sounds seemed to issue from, and soon reached the
+post of a bed.  I waited for an instant, and then began,
+
+"Monsier, voulez vous bien me permettre--"
+
+"As to short whist, I never could make it out, so there is an end of it,"
+said my unknown friend, in a low, husky voice, which, strangely enough,
+was not totally unfamiliar to me: but when or how I had heard it before I
+could not then think.
+
+Well, thought I, he is an Englishman at all events, so I hope his
+patriotism may forgive my intrusion, so here goes once more to rouse him,
+though he seems a confoundedly heavy sleeper.  "I beg your pardon, sir,
+but unfortunately in a point like the present, perhaps--"
+
+"Well, do you mark the points, and I'll score the rubber," said he.
+
+"The devil take the gambling fellow's dreaming," thought I, raising my
+voice at the same time.
+
+"Perhaps a cold night, sir, may suffice as my apology."
+
+"Cold, oh, ay! put a hot poker to it," muttered he; "a hot poker, a
+little sugar, and a spice of nutmeg--nothing else--then it's delicious."
+
+"Upon my soul, this is too bad," said I to myself.  "Let us see what
+shaking will do.  Sir, sir, I shall feel obliged by--"
+
+"Well there, don't shake me, and I'll tell you where I hid the cigars--
+they are under my straw hat in the window."
+
+"Well, really," thought I, "if this gentleman's confessions were of an
+interesting nature, this might be good fun; but as the night is cold, I
+must shorten the 'seance,' so here goes for one effort more.
+
+"If, sir, you could kindly spare me even a small portion of your bed-
+clothes."
+
+"No, thank you, no more wine; but I'll sing with pleasure;" and here the
+wretch, in something like the voice of a frog with the quinsy, began,
+"'I'd mourn the hopes that leave me.'"
+
+"You shall mourn something else for the same reason," said I, as losing
+all patience, I seized quilts and blankets by the corner, and with one
+vigourous pull wrenched them from the bed, and darted from the room--in a
+second I was in the corridor, trailing my spoil behind--which in my haste
+I had not time to collect in a bundle.  I flew rather than ran along the
+passage, reached the stairs, and in another minute had reached the second
+gallery, but not before I heard the slam of a door behind me, and the
+same instant the footsteps of a person running along the corridor, who
+could be no other than my pursuer, effectually aroused by my last appeal
+to his charity.  I darted along the dark and narrow passage; but soon to
+my horror discovered that I must have passed the door of my chamber, for
+I had reached the foot of a narrow back stair, which led to the grenier
+and the servants' rooms, beneath the roof.  To turn now would only have
+led me plump in the face of my injured countryman, of whose thew and
+sinew I was perfectly ignorant, and did not much like to venture upon.
+There was little time for reflection, for he had now reached the top of
+the stair, and was evidently listening for some clue to guide him on;
+stealthily and silently, and scarcely drawing breath, I mounted the
+narrow stairs step by step, but before I had arrived at the landing, he
+heard the rustle of the bed-clothes, and again gave chace.  There was
+something in the unrelenting ardour of his pursuit, which suggested to my
+mind the idea of a most uncompromising foe; and as fear added speed to my
+steps, I dashed along beneath the low-roofed passage, wondering what
+chance of escape might yet present itself.  Just at this instant, the
+hand by which I had guided myself along the wall, touched the handle of a
+door--I turned it--it opened--I drew in my precious bundle, and closing
+the door noiselessly, sat down, breathless and still, upon the floor.
+
+Scarcely was this, the work of a second, accomplished, when the heavy
+tread of my pursuer resounded on the floor.
+
+"Upon my conscience it's strange if I haven't you now, my friend," said
+he: "you're in a cul de sac here, as they say, if I know any thing of the
+house; and faith I'll make a sallad of you, when I get you, that's all.
+Devil a dirtier trick ever I heard tell of."
+
+Need I say that these words had the true smack of an Irish accent, which
+circumstance, from whatever cause, did not by any means tend to assuage
+my fears in the event of discovery.
+
+However, from such a misfortune my good genius now delivered me; for
+after traversing the passage to the end, he at last discovered another,
+which led by a long flight to the second story, down which he proceeded,
+venting at every step his determination for vengeance, and his resolution
+not to desist from the pursuit, if it took the entire night for it.
+
+"Well now," thought I, "as he will scarcely venture up here again, and as
+I may, by leaving this, be only incurring the risk of encountering him,
+my best plan is to stay where I am if it be possible."  With this intent I
+proceeded to explore the apartment, which from its perfect stillness, I
+concluded to be unoccupied.  After some few minutes groping I reached a
+low bed, fortunately empty, and although the touch of the bed-clothes led
+to no very favourable augury of its neatness or elegance, there was
+little choice at this moment, so I rolled myself up in my recent booty,
+and resolved to wait patiently for day-break to regain my apartment.
+
+As always happens in such circumstances, sleep came on me unawares--
+so at least every one's experience I am sure can testify, that if you
+are forced to awake early to start by some morning coach, and that
+unfortunately you have not got to bed till late at night, the chances
+are ten to one, that you get no sleep whatever, simply because you are
+desirous for it; but make up your mind ever so resolutely, that you'll
+not sleep, and whether your determination be built on motives of
+propriety, duty, convenience, or health, and the chances are just as
+strong that you are sound and snoring before ten minutes.
+
+How many a man has found it impossible, with every effort of his heart
+and brain aiding his good wishes, to sit with unclosed eyes and ears
+through a dull sermon in the dog-days; how many an expectant, longing
+heir has yielded to the drowsy influence when endeavouring to look
+contrite under the severe correction of a lecture on extravagance from
+his uncle.  Who has not felt the irresistible tendency to "drop off" in
+the half hour before dinner at a stupid country-house?  I need not
+catalogue the thousand other situations in life infinitely more "sleep-
+compelling" than Morphine; for myself, my pleasantest and soundest
+moments of perfect forgetfulness of this dreary world and all its cares,
+have been taken in an oaken bench, seated bolt upright and vis a vis to a
+lecturer on botany, whose calming accents, united with the softened light
+of an autumnal day, piercing its difficult rays through the narrow and
+cobwebbed windows, the odour of the recent plants and flowers aiding and
+abetting, all combined to steep the soul in sleep, and you sank by
+imperceptible and gradual steps into that state of easy slumber, in which
+"come no dreams," and the last sounds of the lecturer's "hypogenous and
+perigenous" died away, becoming beautifully less, till your senses sank
+into rest, the syllables "rigging us, rigging us," seemed to melt away in
+the distance and fade from your memory--Peace be with you, Doctor A.  If
+I owe gratitude any where I have my debt with you.  The very memory I
+bear of you has saved me no inconsiderable sum in hop and henbane.
+Without any assistance from the sciences on the present occasion, I was
+soon asleep, and woke not till the cracking of whips, and trampling of
+horses' feet on the pavement of the coach-yard apprised me that the world
+had risen to its daily labour, and so should I.  From the short survey of
+my present chamber which I took on waking, I conjectured it must have
+been the den of some of the servants of the house upon occasion--two low
+truckle-beds of the meanest description lay along the wall opposite to
+mine; one of them appeared to have been slept in during the past night,
+but by what species of animal the Fates alone can tell.  An old demi-peak
+saddle, capped and tipped with brass, some rusty bits, and stray stirrup-
+irons lay here and there upon the floor; while upon a species of clothes-
+rack, attached to a rafter, hung a tarnished suit of postillion's livery,
+cap, jacket, leathers, and jack-boots, all ready for use; and evidently
+from their arrangement supposed by the owner to be a rather creditable
+"turn out."
+
+I turned over these singular habiliments with much of the curiosity with
+which an antiquary would survey a suit of chain armour; the long
+epaulettes of yellow cotton cord, the heavy belt with its brass buckle,
+the cumbrous boots, plaited and bound with iron like churns were in
+rather a ludicrous contrast to the equipment of our light and jockey-like
+boys in nankeen jackets and neat tops, that spin along over our level
+"macadam."
+
+"But," thought I, "it is full time I should get back to No. 82, and make
+my appearance below stairs;" though in what part of the building my room
+lay, and how I was to reach it without my clothes, I had not the
+slightest idea.  A blanket is an excessively comfortable article of
+wearing apparel when in bed, but as a walking costume is by no means
+convenient or appropriate; while to making a sorti en sauvage, however
+appropriate during the night, there were many serious objections if done
+"en plein jour," and with the whole establishment awake and active; the
+noise of mopping, scrubbing, and polishing, which is eternally going
+forward in a foreign inn amply testified there was nothing which I could
+adopt in my present naked and forlorn condition, save the bizarre and
+ridiculous dress of the postillion, and I need not say the thought of so
+doing presented nothing agreeable.  I looked from the narrow window out
+upon the tiled roof, but without any prospect of being heard if I called
+ever so loudly.
+
+The infernal noise of floor-cleansing, assisted by a Norman peasant's
+"chanson du pays," the time being well marked by her heavy sabots, gave
+even less chance to me within; so that after more than half an hour
+passed in weighing difficulties, and canvassing plans, upon donning the
+blue and yellow, and setting out for my own room without delay, hoping
+sincerely, that with proper precaution, I should be able to reach it
+unseen and unobserved.
+
+As I laid but little stress upon the figure I should make in my new
+habiliments, it did not cause me much mortification to find that the
+clothes were considerably too small, the jacket scarcely coming beneath
+my arms, and the sleeves being so short that my hands and wrists
+projected beyond the cuffs like two enormous claws; the leathers were
+also limited in their length, and when drawn up to a proper height,
+permitted my knees to be seen beneath, like the short costume of a
+Spanish Tauridor, but scarcely as graceful; not wishing to encumber
+myself in the heavy and noisy masses of wood, iron, and leather, they
+call "les bottes forts," I slipped my feet into my slippers, and stole
+gently from the room.  How I must have looked at the moment I leave my
+reader to guess, as with anxious and stealthy pace I crept along the low
+gallery that led to the narrow staircase, down which I proceeded, step by
+step; but just as I reached the bottom, perceived a little distance from
+me, with her back turned towards me, a short, squat peasant on her knees,
+belabouring with a brush the well waxed floor; to pass therefore,
+unobserved was impossible, so that I did not hesitate to address her, and
+endeavour to interest her in my behalf, and enlist her as my guide.
+
+"Bon jour, ma chere," said I in a soft insinuating tone; she did not hear
+me, so I repeated,
+
+"Bon jour, ma chere, bon jour."
+
+Upon this she turned round, and looking fixedly at me for a second,
+called out in a thick pathos, "Ah, le bon Dieu! qu'il est drole comme ca,
+Francois, savez vous, mais ce n'est pas Francois;" saying which, she
+sprang from her kneeling position to her feet, and with a speed that her
+shape and sabots seemed little to promise, rushed down the stairs as if
+she had seen the devil himself.
+
+"Why, what is the matter with the woman?" said I, "surely if I am not
+Francois--which God be thanked is true--yet I cannot look so frightful as
+all this would imply."  I had not much time given me for consideration
+now, for before I had well deciphered the number over a door before me,
+the loud noise of several voices on the floor beneath attracted my
+attention, and the moment after the heavy tramp of feet followed, and in
+an instant the gallery was thronged by the men and women of the house--
+waiters, hostlers, cooks, scullions, filles de chambre, mingled with
+gens-d'armes, peasants, and town's people, all eagerly forcing their way
+up stairs; yet all on arriving at the landing-place, seemed disposed to
+keep at a respectful distance, and bundling themselves at one end of the
+corridor, while I, feelingly alive to the ridiculous appearance I made,
+occupied the other--the gravity with which they seemed at first disposed
+to regard me soon gave way, and peal after peal of laughter broke out,
+and young and old, men and women, even to the most farouche gens-d'armes,
+all appearing incapable of controlling the desire for merriment my most
+singular figure inspired; and unfortunately this emotion seemed to
+promise no very speedy conclusion; for the jokes and witticisms made upon
+my appearance threatened to renew the festivities, ad libitum.
+
+"Regardez donc ses epaules," said one.
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu!  Il me fait l'idee d'une grenouille aves ses jambes
+jaunes," cried another.
+
+"Il vaut son pesant de fromage pour une Vaudeville," said the director of
+the strolling theatre of the place.
+
+"I'll give seventy framcs a week, 'd'appointment,' and 'Scribe' shall
+write a piece express for himself, if he'll take it."
+
+"May the devil fly away with your grinning baboon faces," said I, as I
+rushed up the stairs again, pursued by the mob at full cry; scarcely,
+however, had I reached the top step, when the rough hand of the gen-
+d'arme seized me by the shoulder, while he said in a low, husky voice,
+"c'est inutile, Monsieur, you cannot escape--the thing was well
+contrived, it is true; but the gens-d'armes of France are not easily
+outwitted, and you could not have long avoided detection, even in that
+dress."  It was my turn to laugh now, which, to their very great
+amazement, I did, loud and long; that I should have thought my present
+costume could ever have been the means of screening me from observation,
+however it might have been calculated to attract it, was rather too
+absurd a supposition even for the mayor of a village to entertain;
+besides, it only now occurred to me that I was figuring in the character
+of a prisoner.  The continued peals of laughing which this mistake on
+their part elicited from me seemed to afford but slight pleasure to my
+captor, who gruffly said--
+
+"When you have done amusing yourself, mon ami, perhaps you will do us the
+favour to come before the mayor."
+
+"Certainly, I replied; "but you will first permit me to resume my own
+clothes, I am quite sick of masquerading 'en postillion.'"
+
+"Not so fast, my friend," said the suspicious old follower of Fouche--
+"not so fast; it is but right the maire should see you in the disguise
+you attempted your escape in.  It must be especially mentioned in the
+proces verbal."
+
+"Well, this is becoming too ludicrous," said I.  "It need not take five
+minutes to satisfy you why, how, and where, I put on these confounded
+rags--"
+
+"Then tell it to the maire, at the Bureau."
+
+"But for that purpose it is not necessary I should be conducted through
+the streets in broad day, to be laughed at.  No, positively, I'll not go.
+In my own dress I'll accompany you with pleasure."
+
+"Victor, Henri, Guillame," said the gen-d'arme, addressing his
+companions, who immediately closed round me.  "You see," added he, "there
+is no use in resisting."
+
+Need I recount my own shame and ineffable disgrace?  Alas! it is too,
+too true.  Harry Lorrequer--whom Stultze entreated to wear his coats,
+the ornament of Hyde Park, the last appeal in dress, fashion, and
+equipage--was obliged to parade through the mob of a market-town in
+France, with four gens-d'armes for his companions, and he himself habited
+in a mongrel character--half postillion, half Delaware Indian.  The
+incessant yells of laughter--the screams of the children, and the
+outpouring of every species of sarcasm and ridicule, at my expense, were
+not all--for, as I emerged from the porte-chochere I saw Isabella in the
+window: her eyes were red with weeping; but no sooner had she beheld me,
+than she broke out into a fit of laughter that was audible even in the
+street.
+
+Rage had now taken such a hold upon me, that I forgot my ridiculous
+appearance in my thirst for vengeance.  I marched on through the grinning
+crowd, with the step of a martyr.  I suppose my heroic bearing and
+warlike deportment must have heightened the drollery of the scene; for
+the devils only laughed the more.  The bureau of the maire could not
+contain one-tenth of the anxious and curious individuals who thronged the
+entrance, and for about twenty minutes the whole efforts of the gens-
+d'armes were little enough to keep order and maintain silence.  At length
+the maire made his appearance, and accustomed as he had been for a long
+life to scenes of an absurd and extraordinary nature, yet the ridicule of
+my look and costume was too much, and he laughed outright.  This was of
+course the signal for renewed mirth for the crowd, while those without
+doors, infected by the example, took up the jest, and I had the pleasure
+of a short calculation, a la Babbage, of how many maxillary jaws were at
+that same moment wagging at my expense.
+
+However, the examination commenced; and I at length obtained an
+opportunity of explaining under what circumstances I had left my room,
+and how and why I had been induced to don this confounded cause of all my
+misery.
+
+"This may be very true," said the mayor, "as it is very plausible; if you
+have evidence to prove what you have stated--"
+
+"If it's evidence only is wanting, Mr. Maire, I'll confirm one part of
+the story," said a voice in the crowd, in an accent and tone that assured
+me the speaker was the injured proprietor of the stolen blankets.  I
+turned round hastily to look at my victim, and what was my surprise to
+recognize a very old Dublin acquaintance, Mr. Fitzmaurice O'Leary.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Lorrequer," said he; "this is mighty like our ould
+practices in College-green; but upon my conscience the maire has the
+advantage of Gabbet.  It's lucky for you I know his worship, as we'd call
+him at home, or this might be a serious business.  Nothing would persuade
+them that you were not Lucien Buonaparte, or the iron mask, or something
+of that sort, if they took it into their heads."
+
+Mr. O'Leary was as good as his word.  In a species of French, that I'd
+venture to say would be perfectly intelligible in Mullingar, he contrived
+to explain to the maire that I was neither a runaway nor a swindler, but
+a very old friend of his, and consequently sans reproche.  The official
+was now as profuse of his civilities as he had before been of his
+suspicions, and most hospitably pressed us to stay for breakfast.  This,
+for many reasons, I was obliged to decline--not the least of which was,
+my impatience to get out of my present costume. We accordingly procured a
+carriage, and I returned to the hotel, screened from the gaze but still
+accompanied by the shouts of the mob, who evidently took a most lively
+interest in the entire proceeding.
+
+I lost no time in changing my costume, and was about to descend
+to the saloon, when the master of the house came to inform me that
+Mrs. Bingham's courier had arrived with the carriage, and that she
+expected us at Amiens as soon as possible.
+
+"That is all right.  Now, Mr. O'Leary, I must pray you to forgive
+all the liberty I have taken with you, and also permit me to defer the
+explanation of many circumstances which seem at present strange, till--"
+
+"Till sine die, if the story be a long one, my dear sir--there's nothing
+I hate so much, except cold punch."
+
+"You are going to Paris," said I; "is it not so?"
+
+"Yes, I'm thinking of it.  I was up at Trolhatten, in Norway, three weeks
+ago, and I was obliged to leave it hastily, for I've an appointment with
+a friend in Geneva."
+
+"Then how do you travel?"
+
+"On foot, just as you see, except that I've a tobacco bag up stairs, and
+an umbrella."
+
+"Light equipment, certainly; but you must allow me to give you a set down
+as far as Amiens, and also to present you to my friends there."
+
+To this Mr. O'Leary made no objection; and as Miss Bingham could not bear
+any delay, in her anxiety to join her mother, we set out at once--the
+only thing to mar my full enjoyment at the moment being the sight of the
+identical vestments I had so lately figured in, bobbing up and down
+before my eyes for the whole length of the stage, and leading
+to innumerable mischievous allusions from my friend Mr. O'Leary,
+which were far too much relished by my fair companion.
+
+At twelve we arrived at Amiens, when I presented my friend Mr. O'Leary to
+Mrs. Bingham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+MR. O'LEARY.
+
+At the conclusion of my last chapter I was about to introduce to my
+reader's acquaintance my friend Mr. O'Leary; and, as he is destined to
+occupy some place in the history of these Confessions, I may, perhaps, be
+permitted to do so at more length than his intrinsic merit at first sight
+might appear to warrant.
+
+Mr. O'Leary was, and I am induced to believe is, a particularly short,
+fat, greasy-looking gentleman, with a head as free from phrenological
+development as a billiard-ball, and a countenance which, in feature and
+colour, nearly resembled the face of a cherub, carved in oak, as we see
+them in old pulpits.
+
+Short as is his stature, his limbs compose the least part of it.  His
+hands and feet, forming some compensation by their ample proportions,
+with short, thick fins, vulgarly called a cobbler's thumb.  His voice
+varying in cadence from a deep barytone, to a high falsetto, maintains
+throughout the distinctive characteristic of a Dublin accent and
+pronunciation, and he talks of the "Veel of Ovoca, and a beef-steek,"
+with some price of intonation.  What part of the Island he came
+originally from, or what may be his age, are questions I have the most
+profound ignorance of; I have heard many anecdotes which would imply his
+being what the French call "d'un age mur"--but his own observations are
+generally limited to events occurring since the peace of "fifteen."  To
+his personal attractions, such as they are, he has never been solicitous
+of contributing by the meretricious aids of dress.  His coat, calculating
+from its length of waist, and ample skirt, would fit Bumbo Green, while
+his trowsers, being made of some cheap and shrinking material, have
+gradually contracted their limits, and look now exactly like knee-
+breeches, without the usual buttons at the bottom.
+
+These, with the addition of a pair of green spectacles, the glass of one
+being absent, and permitting the look-out of a sharp, grey eye, twinkling
+with drollery and good humour, form the most palpable of his externals.
+In point of character, they who best knew him represented him as the
+best-tempered, best-hearted fellow breathing; ever ready to assist a
+friend, and always postponing his own plans and his own views, when he
+had any, to the wishes and intentions of others.  Among the many odd
+things about him, was a constant preference to travelling on foot, and a
+great passion for living abroad, both of which tastes he gratified,
+although his size might seem to offer obstacles to the one, and his total
+ignorance of every continental language, would appear to preclude the
+other; with a great liking for tobacco, which he smoked all day--a
+fondness for whist and malt liquors--his antipathies were few; so that
+except when called upon to shave more than once in the week, or wash his
+hands twice on the same day, it was difficult to disconcert him.  His
+fortune was very ample; but although his mode of living was neither very
+ostentatious nor costly, he contrived always to spend his income.  Such
+was the gentleman I now presented to my friends, who, I must confess,
+appeared strangely puzzled by his manner and appearance.  This feeling,
+however, soon wore off; and before he had spent the morning in their
+company, he had made more way in their good graces, and gone farther to
+establish intimacy, than many a more accomplished person, with an
+unexceptionable coat and accurate whisker might have effected in
+a fortnight.  What were his gifts in this way, I am, alas, most
+deplorably ignorant of; it was not, heaven knows, that he possessed any
+conversational talent--of successful flattery he knew as much as a negro
+does of the national debt--and yet the "bon-hommie" of his character
+seemed to tell at once; and I never knew him fail in any one instance to
+establish an interest for himself before he had completed the ordinary
+period of a visit.
+
+I think it is Washington Irving who has so admirably depicted the
+mortification of a dandy angler, who, with his beaver garnished with
+brown hackles, his well-posed rod, polished gaff, and handsome landing-
+net, with every thing befitting, spends his long summer day whipping a
+trout stream without a rise or even a ripple to reward him, while a
+ragged urchin, with a willow wand, and a bent pin, not ten yards distant,
+is covering the greensward with myriads of speckled and scaly backs, from
+one pound weight to four; so it is in every thing--"the race is not to
+the swift;" the elements of success in life, whatever be the object of
+pursuit, are very, very different from what we think them at first sight,
+and so it was with Mr. O'Leary, and I have more than once witnessed the
+triumph of his homely manner and blunt humour over the more polished and
+well-bred taste of his competitors for favour; and what might have been
+the limit to such success, heaven alone can tell, if it were not that he
+laboured under a counter-balancing infirmity, sufficient to have swamped
+a line-of-battle ship itself.  It was simply this--a most unfortunate
+propensity to talk of the wrong place, person, or time, in any society he
+found himself; and this taste for the mal apropos, extended so far, that
+no one ever ventured into company with him as his friend, without
+trembling for the result; but even this, I believe his only fault,
+resulted from the natural goodness of his character and intentions;
+for, believing as he did, in his honest simplicity, that the arbitrary
+distinctions of class and rank were held as cheaply by others as himself,
+he felt small scruple at recounting to a duchess a scene in a cabaret,
+and with as little hesitation would he, if asked, have sung the
+"Cruiskeen lawn," or the "Jug of Punch," after Lablanche had finished
+the "Al Idea," from Figaro.  'Mauvaise honte,' he had none; indeed I am
+not sure that he had any kind of shame whatever, except possibly when
+detected with a coat that bore any appearance of newness, or if
+overpersuaded to wear gloves, which he ever considered as a special
+effeminacy.
+
+Such, in a few words, was the gentleman I now presented to my friends,
+and how far he insinuated himself into their good graces, let the fact
+tell, that on my return to the breakfast-room, after about an hour's
+absence, I heard him detailing the particulars of a route they were to
+take by his advice, and also learned that he had been offered and had
+accepted a seat in their carriage to Paris.
+
+"Then I'll do myself the pleasure of joining your party, Mrs. Bingham,"
+said he.  "Bingham, I think, madam, is your name."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Any relation, may I ask, of a most dear friend of mine, of the same
+name, from Currynaslattery, in the county Wexford?"
+
+"I am really not aware," said Mrs. Bingham.  "My husband's family are, I
+believe, many of them from that county."
+
+"Ah, what a pleasant fellow was Tom!" said Mr. O'Leary musingly,
+and with that peculiar tone which made me tremble, for I knew well
+that a reminiscence was coming.  "A pleasant fellow indeed."
+
+"Is he alive, sir, now?"
+
+"I believe so, ma'am; but I hear the climate does not agree with him."
+
+"Ah, then, he's abroad!  In Italy probably?"
+
+"No, ma'am, in Botany Bay.  His brother, they say, might have saved him,
+but he left poor Tom to his fate, for he was just then paying court to a
+Miss Crow, I think, with a large fortune.  Oh, Lord, what have I said,
+it's always the luck of me!"  The latter exclamation was the result of a
+heavy saugh upon the floor, Mrs. Bingham having fallen in a faint--she
+being the identical lady alluded to, and her husband the brother of
+pleasant Tom Bingham.
+
+To hurl Mr. O'Leary out of the room by one hand, and ring the bell with
+the other, was the work of a moment; and with proper care, and in due
+time, Mrs. Bingham was brought to herself, when most fortunately, she
+entirely forgot the cause of her sudden indisposition; and, of course,
+neither her daughter nor myself suffered any clue to escape us which
+might lead to its discovery.
+
+When we were once more upon the road, to efface if it might be necessary
+any unpleasant recurrence to the late scene, I proceeded to give Mrs.
+Bingham an account of my adventure at Chantraine, in which, of course, I
+endeavoured to render my friend O'Leary all the honours of being laughed
+at in preference to myself, laying little stress upon my masquerading in
+the jack-boots.
+
+"You are quite right," said O'Leary, joining in the hearty laugh against
+him, "quite right, I was always a very heavy sleeper--indeed if I wasn't
+I wouldn't be here now, travelling about en garcon, free as air;" here he
+heaved a sigh, which from its incongruity with his jovial look and happy
+expression, threw us all into renewed laughter.
+
+"But why, Mr. O'Leary--what can your sleepiness have to do with such
+tender recollections, for such, I am sure, that sigh bespeaks them?"
+
+"Ah! ma'am, it may seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, if it were
+not for that unfortunate tendency, I should now be the happy possessor of
+a most accomplished and amiable lady, and eight hundred per annum three
+and a half per cent. stock."
+
+"You overslept yourself on the wedding-day, I suppose."
+
+"You shall hear, ma'am, the story is a very short one: It is now about
+eight years ago, I was rambling through the south of France, and had just
+reached Lyons, where the confounded pavement, that sticks up like pears,
+with the point upwards, had compelled me to rest some days and recruit;
+for this purpose I installed myself in the pension of Madame Gourgead,
+Rue de Petits Carmes, a quiet house--where we dined at twelve, ten in
+number, upon about two pounds of stewed beef, with garlic and carrots--
+a light soup, being the water which accompanied the same to render it
+tender in stewing--some preserved cherries, and an omellete, with a pint
+bottle of Beaune, 6me qualite, I believe--a species of pyroligneous wine
+made from the vine stalks, but pleasant in summer with your salad; then
+we played dominos in the evening, or whist for sous points, leading
+altogether a very quiet and virtuous existence, or as Madame herself
+expressed it, 'une vie tout-a-fait patriarchale;' of this I cannot myself
+affirm how far she was right in supposing the patriarchs did exactly like
+us.  But to proceed, in the same establishment there lived a widow whose
+late husband had been a wine merchant at Dijon--he had also, I suppose
+from residing in that country, been imitating the patriarchs, for he died
+one day.  Well, the lady was delayed at Lyons for some law business, and
+thus it came about, that her husband's testament and the sharp paving
+stones in the streets determined we should be acquainted.  I cannot
+express to you the delight of my fair countrywoman at finding that a
+person who spoke English had arrived at the 'pension'--a feeling I myself
+somewhat participated in; for to say truth, I was not at that time a very
+great proficient in French.  We soon became intimate, in less time
+probably than it could otherwise have happened, for from the ignorance of
+all the others of one word of English, I was enabled during dinner to say
+many soft and tender things, which one does not usually venture on in
+company.
+
+"I recounted my travels, and told various adventures of my wanderings,
+till at last, from being merely amused, I found that my fair friend began
+to be interested in my narratives; and frequently when passing the
+bouillon to her, I have seen a tear in the corner of her eye: in a word,
+'she loved me for the dangers I had passed,' as Othello says.  Well,
+laugh away if you like, but it's truth I am telling you."  At this part
+of Mr. O'Leary's story we all found it impossible to withstand the
+ludicrous mock heroic of his face and tone, and laughed loud and long.
+When we at length became silent he resumed--"Before three weeks had
+passed over, I had proposed and was accepted, just your own way, Mr.
+Lorrequer, taking the ball at the hop, the very same way you did at
+Cheltenham, the time the lady jilted you, and ran off with your friend
+Mr. Waller; I read it all in the news, though I was then in Norway
+fishing."  Here there was another interruption by a laugh, not, however,
+at Mr. O'Leary's expense.  I gave him a most menacing look, while he
+continued--"the settlements were soon drawn up, and consisted, like all
+great diplomatic documents, of a series of 'gains and compensations;'
+thus, she was not to taste any thing stronger than kirsch wasser, or
+Nantz brandy; and I limited myself to a pound of short-cut weekly, and so
+on: but to proceed, the lady being a good Catholic, insisted upon being
+married by a priest of her own persuasion, before the performance of the
+ceremony at the British embassy in Paris; to this I could offer no
+objection, and we were accordingly united in the holy bonds the same
+morning, after signing the law papers."
+
+"Then, Mr. O'Leary, you are really a married man."
+
+"That's the very point I'm coming to, ma'am; for I've consulted all the
+jurists upon the subject, and they never can agree.  But you shall hear.
+I despatched a polite note to Bishop Luscombe, and made every arrangement
+for the approaching ceremony, took a quartier in the Rue Helder, near the
+Estaminet, and looked forward with anxiety for the day which was to make
+my happy; for our marriage in Lyons was only a kind of betrothal.  Now,
+my fair friend had but one difficulty remaining, poor dear soul--I
+refrain from mentioning her name for delicacy sake; but poor dear Mrs.
+Ram could not bear the notion of our going up to Paris in the same
+conveyance, for long as she had lived abroad, she had avoided every thing
+French, even the language, so she proposed that I should go in the early
+'Diligence,' which starts at four-o'clock in the morning, while she took
+her departure at nine; thus I should be some hours sooner in Paris, and
+ready to receive her on her arriving; besides sparing her bashfulness all
+reproach of our travelling together.  It was no use my telling her that
+I always travelled on foot, and hated a 'Diligence;' she coolly replied
+that at our time of life we could not spare the time necessary for a
+pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for so she supposed the journey from Lyons to
+Paris to be; so fearing lest any doubt might be thrown upon the ardour of
+my attachment, I yielded at once, remembering at the moment what my poor
+friend Tom Bing--Oh Lord, I'm at it again!"
+
+"Sir, I did not hear."
+
+"Nothing, ma'am, I was just going to observe, that ladies of a certain
+time of life, and widows especially, like a lover that seems a little
+ardent or so, all the better."  Here Mrs. Bingham blushed, her daughter
+bridled, and I nearly suffocated with shame and suppressed laughter.
+
+"After a most tender farewell of my bride or wife, I don't know which,
+I retired for the night with a mind vacillating between my hopes of
+happiness and my fears for the result of a journey so foreign to all my
+habits of travelling, and in which I could not but tremble at the many
+casualties my habitual laziness and dislike to any hours but of my own
+choosing might involve me in.
+
+"I had scarcely lain down in bed, ere these thoughts took such possession
+of me, that sleep for once in my life was out of the question; and then
+the misery of getting up at four in the morning--putting on your clothes
+by the flickering light of the porter's candle--getting your boots on the
+wrong feet, and all that kind of annoyance--I am sure I fretted myself
+into the feeling of a downright martyr before an hour was over.  Well at
+least, thought I, one thing is well done,--I have been quite right in
+coming to sleep here at the Messagerie Hotel, where the diligence starts
+from, or the chances are ten to one that I never should wake till the
+time was past.  Now, however, they are sure to call me; so I may sleep
+tranquilly till then.  Meanwhile I had forgotten to pack my trunk--my
+papers, &c. laying all about the room in a state of considerable
+confusion.  I rose at once with all the despatch I could muster; this
+took a long time to effect, and it was nearly two o'clock ere I finished,
+and sat down to smoke a solitary pipe,--the last, as I supposed it might
+be my lot to enjoy for heaven knows how long, Mrs. R. having expressed,
+rather late in our intimacy I confess, strong opinions against tobacco
+within doors.
+
+"When I had finished my little sac of the 'weed,' the clock struck three,
+and I started to think how little time I was destined to have in bed.
+In bed! why, said I, there is no use thinking of it now, for I shall
+scarcely have lain down ere I shall be obliged to get up again.  So
+thinking, I set about dressing myself for the road; and by the time I had
+enveloped myself in a pair of long Hungarian gaiters, and a kurtcha of
+sheep's wool, with a brown bear-skin outside, with a Welsh wig, and a
+pair of large dark glass goggles to defend the eyes from the snow, I was
+not only perfectly impervious to all effects of the weather, but so
+thoroughly defended from any influence of sight or sound, that a volcano
+might be hissing and thundering within ten yards of me, without
+attracting my slightest attention.  Now, I thought, instead of remaining
+here, I'll just step down to the coach, and get snugly in the diligence,
+and having secured the corner of the coupe, resign myself to sleep with
+the certainty of not being left behind, and, probably, too, be some miles
+on my journey before awaking.
+
+"I accordingly went down stairs, and to my surprise found, even at that
+early hour, that many of the garcons of the house were stirring and
+bustling about, getting all the luggage up in the huge wooden leviathan
+that was to convey us on our road.  There they stood, like bees around a
+hive, clustering and buzzing, and all so engaged that with difficulty
+could I get an answer to my question of, What diligence it was?  'La
+diligence pour Paris, Monsieur.'
+
+"'Ah, all right then,' said I; so watching an opportunity to do so
+unobserved, for I supposed they might have laughed at me, I stepped
+quietly into the coupe; and amid the creaking of cordage, and the
+thumping of feet on the roof, fell as sound asleep as ever I did in my
+life--these sounds coming to my muffled ears, soft as the echoes on the
+Rhine.  When it was that I awoke I cannot say; but as I rubbed my eyes
+and yawned after a most refreshing sleep, I perceived that it was still
+quite dark all around, and that the diligence was standing before the
+door of some inn and not moving.  Ah, thought I, this is the first stage;
+how naturally one always wakes at the change of horses,--a kind of
+instinct implanted by Providence, I suppose, to direct us to a little
+refreshment on the road.  With these pious feelings I let down the glass,
+and called out to the garcon for a glass of brandy and a cigar.  While he
+was bringing them, I had time to look about, and perceived, to my very
+great delight, that I had the whole coupe to myself. 'Are there any
+passengers coming in here?' said I, as the waiter came forward with my
+petit verre.  'I should think not, sir,' said the fellow with a leer.
+'Then I shall have the whole coupe to myself?' said I.  'Monsieur need
+have no fear of being disturbed; I can safely assure him that he will
+have no one there for the next twenty-four hours.'  This was really
+pleasant intelligence; so I chucked him a ten sous piece, and closing up
+the window as the morning was cold, once more lay back to sleep with a
+success that has never failed me.  It was to a bright blue cloudless sky,
+and the sharp clear air of a fine day in winter, that I at length opened
+my eyes. I pulled out my watch, and discovered it was exactly two
+o'clock; I next lowered the glass and looked about me, and very much to
+my surprise discovered that the diligence was not moving, but standing
+very peaceably in a very crowded congregation of other similar and
+dissimilar conveyances, all of which seemed, I thought, to labour under
+some physical ailment, some wanting a box, others a body, &c., &c. and in
+fact suggesting the idea of an infirmary for old and disabled carriages
+of either sex, mails and others.  'Oh, I have it,' cried I, 'we are
+arrived at Mt. Geran, and they are all at dinner, and from my being alone
+in the coupe, they have forgotten to call me.'  I immediately opened the
+door and stepped out into the innyard, crowded with conducteurs, grooms,
+and ostlers, who, I thought, looked rather surprised at seeing me emerge
+from the diligence.
+
+"'You did not know I was there,' said I, with a knowing wink at one of
+them as I passed.
+
+"'Assurement non,' said the fellow with a laugh, that was the signal for
+all the others to join in it.  'Is the table d'hote over?' said I,
+regardless of the mirth around me.  'Monsieur is just in time,' said the
+waiter, who happened to pass with a soup-tureen in his hand.  'Have the
+goodness to step this way.'  I had barely time to remark the close
+resemblance of the waiter to the fellow who presented me with my brandy
+and cigar in the morning, when he ushered me into a large room with about
+forty persons sitting at a long table, evidently waiting with impatience
+for the 'Potage' to begin their dinner.  Whether it was they enjoyed the
+joke of having neglected to call me, or that they were laughing at my
+travelling costume, I cannot say, but the moment I came in, I could
+perceive a general titter run through the assembly.  'Not too late, after
+all, gentlemen,' said I, marching gravely up the table.
+
+"'Monsieur is in excellent time,' said the host, making room for me
+beside his chair.  Notwithstanding the incumbrance of my weighty
+habiliments, I proceeded to do ample justice to the viands before me,
+apologizing laughingly to the host, by pleading a traveller's appetite.
+
+"'Then you have perhaps come far this morning,' said a gentleman
+opposite.
+
+"'Yes,' said I, 'I have been on the road since four o'clock.'
+
+"'And how are the roads?' said another.  'Very bad,' said I, 'the first
+few stages from Lyons, afterwards much better.'  This was said at a
+venture, as I began to be ashamed of being always asleep before my
+fellow-travellers.  They did not seem, however, to understand me
+perfectly; and one old fellow putting down his spectacles from his
+forehead, leaned over and said: 'And where, may I ask, has Monsieur come
+from this morning?'
+
+"'From Lyons,' said I, with the proud air of a man who has done a stout
+feat, and is not ashamed of the exploit.
+
+"'From Lyons!' said one.  'From Lyons!' cried another.  'From Lyons!'
+repeated a third.
+
+"'Yes,' said I; 'what the devil is so strange in it; travelling is so
+quick now-a-days, one thinks nothing of twenty leagues before dinner.'
+
+"The infernal shout of laughing that followed my explanation is still in
+my ears; from one end of the table to the other there was one continued
+ha, ha, ha--from the greasy host to the little hunchbacked waiter, they
+were all grinning away.
+
+"'And how did Monsieur travel?' said the old gentleman, who seemed to
+carry on the prosecution against me.
+
+"'By the diligence, the "Aigle noir,"' said I, giving the name with some
+pride, that I was not altogether ignorant of the conveyance.
+
+"'The you should certainly not complain of the roads,' said the host
+chuckling; 'for the only journey that diligence has made this day has
+been from the street-door to the inn-yard; for as they found when the
+luggage was nearly packed that the axle was almost broken through, they
+wheeled it round to the court, and prepared another for the travellers.'
+
+"'And where am I now?' said I.
+
+"'In Lyons,' said twenty voices, half choked with laughter at my
+question.
+
+"I was thunderstruck at the news at first; but as I proceeded with my
+dinner, I joined in the mirth of the party, which certainly was not
+diminished on my telling them the object of my intended journey.
+
+"'I think, young man,' said the old fellow with the spectacles, 'that you
+should take the occurrence as a warning of Providence that marriage will
+not suit you.'  I began to be of the same opinion;--but then there was
+the jointure.  To be sure, I was to give up tobacco; and perhaps I should
+not be as free to ramble about as when en garcon.  So taking all things
+into consideration, I ordered in another bottle of burgundy, to drink
+Mrs. Ram's health--got my passport vised for Barege--and set out for the
+Pyrenees the same evening."
+
+"And have you never heard any thing more of the lady?" said Mrs. Bingham.
+
+"Oh, yes.  She was faithful to the last; for I found out when at Rome
+last winter that she had offered a reward for me in the newspapers, and
+indeed had commenced a regular pursuit of me through the whole continent.
+And to tell the real fact, I should not now fancy turning my steps
+towards Paris, if I had not very tolerable information that she is in
+full cry after me through the Wengen Alps, I having contrived a paragraph
+in Galignani, to seduce her thither, and where, with the blessing of
+Providence, if the snow set in early, she must pass the winter."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+PARIS.
+
+Nothing more worthy of recording occurred before our arrival at Meurice
+on the third day of our journey.  My friend O'Leary had, with his usual
+good fortune, become indispensable to his new acquaintance, and it was
+not altogether without some little lurking discontent that I perceived
+how much less often my services were called in request since his having
+joined our party; his information, notwithstanding its very scanty
+extent, was continually relied upon, and his very imperfect French
+everlastingly called into requisition to interpret a question for the
+ladies.  Yes, thought I, "Othello's occupation's gone;" one of two things
+has certainly happened, either Mrs. Bingham and her daughter have noticed
+my continued abstraction of mind, and have attributed it to the real
+cause, the pre-occupation of my affections; or thinking, on the other
+hand, that I am desperately in love with one or other of them, have
+thought that a little show of preference to Mr. O'Leary may stimulate me
+to a proposal at once.  In either case I resolved to lose no time in
+taking my leave, which there could be no difficulty in doing now, as the
+ladies had reached their intended destination, and had numerous friends
+in Paris to advise and assist them; besides that I had too long neglected
+the real object of my trip, and should lose no time in finding out the
+Callonbys, and at once learn what prospect of success awaited me in that
+quarter.  Leaving my fair friends then to refresh themselves after the
+journey, and consigning Mr. O'Leary to the enjoyment of his meershaum,
+through the aid of which he had rendered his apartment like a Dutch swamp
+in autumn, the only portion of his own figure visible through the mist
+being his short legs and heavy shoes.
+
+On reaching the house in the Rue de la Paix, where the Callonbys had
+resided, I learned that they were still at Baden, and were not expected
+in Paris for some weeks; that Lord Kilkee had arrived that morning, and
+was then dining at the Embassy, having left an invitation for me to dine
+with him on the following day, if I happened to call.  As I turned from
+the door, uncertain whither to turn my steps, I walked on unconsciously
+towards the Boulevard, and occupied as I was, thinking over all the
+chances before me, did not perceive where I stood till the bright glare
+of a large gas lamp over my head apprised me that I was at the door of
+the well known Salon des Etrangers, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu;
+carriages, citadines, and vigilantes were crowding, crashing, and
+clattering on all sides, as the host of fashion and the gaming-table were
+hastening to their champ de bataille.  Not being a member of the Salon,
+and having little disposition to enter, if I had been, I stood for some
+minutes looking at the crowd as it continued to press on towards the
+splendid and brilliantly lighted stairs, which leads from the very street
+to the rooms of the palace, for such, in the magnificence and luxury of
+its decorations, it really is.  As I was on the very eve of turning
+away, a large and very handsome cab-horse turned the corner from the
+balustrade, with the most perfect appointment of harness and carriage
+I had seen for a long time.
+
+While I continued to admire the taste and propriety of the equipage, a
+young man in deep mourning sprung from the inside and stood upon the
+pavement before me.  "A deux heures, Charles," said he to his servant,
+as the cab turned slowly around.  The voice struck me as well known.  I
+waited till he approached the lamp, to catch a glimpse of the face; and
+what was my surprise to recognise my cousin, Guy Lorrequer of the 10th,
+whom I had not met with for six years before.  My first impulse was not
+to make myself known to him.  Our mutual position with regard to Lady
+Jane was so much a mystery, as regarded myself, that I feared the result
+of any meeting, until I was sufficiently aware of how matters stood, and
+whether we were to meet as friends and relations, or rivals, and
+consequently enemies.
+
+Before I had time to take my resolution, Guy had recognised me, and
+seizing me by the hand with both his, called, "Harry, my old friend, how
+are you?" how long have you been here, and never to call on me?  Why man,
+what is the meaning of this?"  Before I had time to say that I was only a
+few hours in Paris, he again interrupted me by saying: "And how comes it
+that you are not in mourning?  You must surely have heard it."
+
+"Heard what?" I cried, nearly hoarse from agitation.  "Our poor old
+friend, Sir Guy, didn't you know, is dead."  Only those who have felt how
+strong the ties of kindred are, as they decrease in number, can tell how
+this news fell upon my heart.  All my poor uncle's kindnesses came one by
+one full upon my memory; his affectionate letters of advice; his well-
+meant chidings, too, even dearer to me than his praise and approval,
+completely unmanned me; and I stood speechless and powerless before my
+cousin as he continued to detail to me the rapid progress of Sir Guy's
+malady, and attack of gout in the head, which carried him off in three
+days.  Letters had been sent to me in different places, but none reached;
+and at the very moment the clerk of my uncle's lawyer was in pursuit of
+me through the highlands, where some mistaken information had induced him
+to follow me.
+
+"You are, therefore," continued Guy, "unaware that our uncle has dealt so
+fairly by you, and indeed by both of us; I have got the Somersetshire
+estates, which go with the baronetcy; but the Cumberland property is all
+yours; and I heartily wish you joy of having nearly eight thousand per
+annum, and one of the sweetest villas that ever man fancied on
+Derwentwater.  But come along here," continued he, and he led me through
+the crowded corridor and up the wide stair.  "I have much to tell you,
+and we can be perfectly alone here; no one will trouble themselves with
+us."  Unconscious of all around me, I followed Guy along the gilded and
+glittering lobby, which led to the Salon, and it was only as the servant
+in rich livery came forward to take my hat and cane that I remembered
+where I was.  Then the full sense of all I had been listening to rushed
+upon me, and the unfitness, and indeed the indecency of the place for
+such communications as we were engaged in, came most forcibly before me.
+Sir Guy, it is true, had always preferred my cousin to me; he it was who
+was always destined to succeed both to his title and his estates, and his
+wildness and extravagance had ever met with a milder rebuke and weaker
+chastisement than my follies and my misfortunes.  Yet still he was my
+last remaining relative; the only one I possessed in all the world to
+whom in any difficulty or trial I had to look up; and I felt, in the very
+midst of my newly acquired wealth and riches, poorer and more alone than
+ever I had done in my lifetime.  I followed Guy to a small and dimly
+lighted cabinet off the great salon, where, having seated ourselves, he
+proceeded to detail to me the various events which a few short weeks had
+accomplished.  Of himself he spoke but little, and never once alluded to
+the Callonbys at all; indeed all I could learn was that he had left the
+army, and purposed remaining for the winter at Paris, where he appeared
+to have entered into all its gaiety and dissipation at once.
+
+"Of course," said he, "you will give up 'sodgering' now; at the best it
+is but poor sport after five and twenty, and is perfectly unendurable
+when a man has the means of pushing himself in the gay world; and now,
+Harry, let us mix a little among the mob here; for Messieurs les
+Banquiers don't hold people in estimation who come here only for the
+'chapons au riz.' and the champagne glacee, as we should seem to do were
+we to stay here much longer."
+
+Such was the whirl of my thoughts, and so great the confusion in my ideas
+from all I had just heard, that I felt myself implicitly following every
+direction of my cousin with a child-like obedience, of the full extent
+of which I became only conscious when I found myself seated at the table
+of the Salon, between my cousin Guy and an old, hard-visaged, pale-
+countenanced man, who he told me in a whisper was Vilelle the Minister.
+
+What a study for the man who would watch the passions and emotions of his
+fellow-men, would the table of a rouge et noir gambling-house present--
+the skill and dexterity which games of other kinds require, being here
+wanting, leave the player free to the full abandonment of the passion.
+The interest is not a gradually increasing or vacillating one, as fortune
+and knowledge of the game favour; the result is uninfluenced by any thing
+of his doing; with the last turned card of the croupier is he rich or
+ruined; and thus in the very abstraction of the anxiety is this the most
+painfully exciting of all gambling whatever; the very rattle of the dice-
+box to the hazard player is a relief; and the thought that he is in some
+way instrumental in his good or bad fortune gives a turn to his thoughts.
+There is something so like the inevitable character of fate associated
+with the result of a chance, which you can in no way affect or avert,
+that I have, notwithstanding a strong bias for play, ever dreaded and
+avoided the rouge et noir table; hitherto prudential motives had their
+share in the resolve; a small loss at play becomes a matter of importance
+to a sub in a marching regiment; and therefore I was firm in my
+determination to avoid the gambling-table.  Now my fortunes were altered;
+and as I looked at the heap of shining louis d'or, which Guy pushed
+before me in exchange for a billet de banque of large amount, I felt the
+full importance of my altered position, mingling with the old and long
+practised prejudices which years had been accumulating to fix.  There is
+besides some wonderful fascination to most men in the very aspect of high
+play: to pit your fortune against that of another--to see whether or not
+your luck shall not exceed some others--are feelings that have a place in
+most bosoms, and are certainly, if not naturally existing, most easily
+generated in the bustle and excitement of the gambling-house.  The
+splendour of the decorations; the rich profusion of gilded ornaments; the
+large and gorgeously framed mirrors; the sparkling lustres; mingling
+their effect with the perfumed air of the apartment, filled with orange
+trees and other aromatic shrubs; the dress of the company, among whom
+were many ladies in costumes not inferior to those of a court; the
+glitter of diamonds; the sparkle of stars and decorations, rendered more
+magical by knowing that the wearers were names in history.  There, with
+his round but ample shoulder, and large massive head, covered with long
+snow-white hair, stands Talleyrand, the maker and unmaker of kings,
+watching with a look of ill-concealed anxiety the progress of his game.
+Here is Soult, with his dogged look and beetled brow; there stands Balzac
+the author, his gains here are less derived from the betting than the
+bettors; he is evidently making his own of some of them, while in the
+seeming bon hommie of his careless manners and easy abandon, they scruple
+not to trust him with anecdotes and traits, that from the crucible of his
+fiery imagination come forth, like the purified gold from the furnace.
+And there, look at that old and weather-beaten man, with grey eyebrows,
+and moustaches, who throws from the breast-pocket of his frock ever and
+anon, a handful of gold pieces upon the table; he evidently neither knows
+nor cares for the amount, for the banker himself is obliged to count over
+the stake for him--that is Blucher, the never-wanting attendant at the
+Salon; he has been an immense loser, but plays on with the same stern
+perseverance with which he would pour his bold cavalry through a ravine
+torn by artillery; he stands by the still waning chance with a courage
+that never falters.
+
+One strong feature of the levelling character of a taste for play has
+never ceased to impress me most forcibly--not only do the individual
+peculiarities of the man give way before the all-absorbing passion--but
+stranger still, the very boldest traits of nationality even fade and
+disappear before it; and man seems, under the high-pressure power of this
+greatest of all stimulants, resolved into a most abstract state.
+
+Among all the traits which distinguish Frenchmen from natives of every
+country, none is more prominent than a kind of never-failing elasticity
+of temperament, which seems almost to defy all the power of misfortune to
+depress.  Let what will happen, the Frenchman seems to possess some
+strong resource within himself, in his ardent temperament, upon which he
+can draw at will; and whether on the day after a defeat, the moment of
+being deceived in his strongest hopes of returned affection--the
+overthrow of some long-cherished wish--it matters not--he never gives way
+entirely; but see him at the gaming-table--watch the intense, the aching
+anxiety with which his eye follows every card as it falls from the hand
+of the croupier--behold the look of cold despair that tracks his stake as
+the banker rakes it in among his gains--and you will at once perceive
+that here, at least, his wonted powers fail him.  No jest escapes the
+lips of one, that would badinet upon the steps of the guillotine.  The
+mocker who would jeer at the torments of revolution, stands like a coward
+quailing before the impassive eye and pale cheek of a croupier.  While
+I continued to occupy myself by observing the different groups about me,
+I had been almost mechanically following the game, placing at each deal
+some gold upon the table; the result however had interested me so
+slightly, that it was only by remarking the attention my game had excited
+in others, that my own was drawn towards it.  I then perceived that I had
+permitted my winnings to accumulate upon the board, and that in the very
+deal then commencing, I had a stake of nearly five hundred pounds upon
+the deal.
+
+"Faites votre jeu, le jeu est fait," said the croupier, "trente deux."
+
+"You have lost, by Jove," said Guy, in a low whisper, in which I could
+detect some trait of agitation.
+
+"Trente et une," added the croupier.  "Rouge perd, et couleur."
+
+There was a regular buz of wonder through the room at my extraordinary
+luck, for thus, with every chance against me, I had won again.
+
+As the croupier placed the billets de banque upon the table, I overheard
+the muttered commendations of an old veteran behind me, upon the coolness
+and judgment of my play; so much for fortune, thought I, my judgment
+consists in a perfect ignorance of the chances, and my coolness is merely
+a thorough indifference to success; whether it was now that the flattery
+had its effect upon me, or that the passion for play, so long dormant,
+had suddenly seized hold upon me, I know not, but my attention became
+from that moment rivetted upon the game, and I played every deal.  Guy,
+who had been from the first betting with the indifferent success which I
+have so often observed to attend upon the calculations of old and
+experienced gamblers, now gave up, and employed himself merely in
+watching my game.
+
+"Harry," said he at last, "I am completely puzzled as to whether you are
+merely throwing down your louis at hazard, or are not the deepest player
+I have ever met with."
+
+"You shall see," said I, as I stooped over towards the banker, and
+whispered, "how far is the betting permitted?"
+
+"Fifteen thousand francs," said the croupier, with a look of surprise.
+
+"Then be it," said I; "quinze mille francs, rouge."
+
+In a moment the rouge won, and the second deal I repeated the bet, and so
+continuing on with the like success; when I was preparing my rouleau for
+the fifth, the banquier rose, and saying--
+
+"Messiers, la banque est fermee pour ce soir," proceeded to lock his
+casette, and close the table.
+
+"You are satisfied now," said Guy, rising, "you see you have broke the
+banque, and a very pretty incident to commence with your first
+introduction to a campaign in Paris."
+
+Having changed my gold for notes, I stuffed them, with an air of well-
+affected carelessness, into my pocket, and strolled through the Salon,
+where I had now become an object of considerably more interest than all
+the marshals and ministers about me.
+
+"Now, Hal," said Guy, "I'll just order our supper in the cabinet, and
+join you in a moment."
+
+As I remained for some minutes awaiting Guy's return, my attention was
+drawn towards a crowd, in a smaller salon, among whom the usual silent
+decorum of the play-table seemed held in but small respect, for every
+instant some burst of hearty laughter, or some open expression of joy or
+anger burst forth, by which I immediately perceived that they were the
+votaries of the roulette table, a game at which the strict propriety and
+etiquette ever maintained at rouge et noir, are never exacted.  As I
+pressed nearer, to discover the cause of the mirth, which every moment
+seemed to augment, guess my surprise to perceive among the foremost rank
+of the players, my acquaintance, Mr. O'Leary, whom I at that moment
+believed to be solacing himself with his meershaum at Meurice.  My
+astonishment at how he obtained admission to the Salon was even less than
+my fear of his recognising me.  At no time is it agreeable to find that
+the man who is regarded as the buffo of a party turns out to be your
+friend, but still less is this so, when the individual claiming
+acquaintance with you presents any striking absurdity in his dress or
+manner, strongly at contrast with the persons and things about him; and
+thus it now happened--Mr. O'Leary's external man, as we met him on the
+Calais road, with its various accompaniments of blouse-cap, spectacles,
+and tobacco-pipe, were nothing very outre or remarkable, but when the
+same figure presented itself among the elegans of the Parisian world,
+redolent of eau de Portugal, and superb in the glories of brocade
+waistcoats and velvet coats, the thing was too absurd, and I longed to
+steal away before any chance should present itself of a recognition.
+This, however, was impossible, as the crowd from the other table were all
+gathered round us, and I was obliged to stand fast, and trust that the
+excitement of the game, in which he appeared to be thoroughly occupied,
+might keep his eye fixed on another quarter; I now observed that the same
+scene in which I had so lately been occupied at the rouge et noir table,
+was enacting here, under rather different circumstances.  Mr. O'Leary was
+the only player, as I had just been--not, however, because his success
+absorbed all the interest of the bystanders, but that, unfortunately, his
+constant want of it elicited some strong expression of discontent and
+mistrust from him, which excited the loud laughter of the others; but of
+which, from his great enxiety in his game, he seemed totally unconscious.
+
+"Faites votre jeu, Messieurs," said the croupier.
+
+"Wait a bit till I change this," said Mr. O'Leary, producing an English
+sovereign; the action interpreted his wishes, and the money was converted
+into coupons de jeu.
+
+I now discovered one great cause of the mirth of the bystanders, at least
+the English portion of them.  Mr. O'Leary, when placing his money upon
+the table, observed the singular practice of announcing aloud the amount
+of his bet, which, for his own information, he not only reduced to
+English but also Irish currency; thus the stillness of the room was every
+instant broken by a strong Irish accent pronouncing something of this
+sort--"five francs," "four and a penny"--"ten francs," "eight and three
+ha'pence."  The amusement thus caused was increased by the excitement his
+losses threw him into.  He now ceased to play for several times, when at
+last, he made an offering of his usual stake.
+
+"Perd," said the croupier, raking in the piece with a contemptuous air
+at the smallness of the bet, and in no way pleased that the interest
+Mr. O'Leary excited should prevent the other players from betting.
+
+"Perd," said O'Leary, "again.  Divil another song you sing than 'perd,'
+and I'm not quite clear you're not cheating all the while--only, God help
+you if you are!"
+
+As he so said, the head of a huge black-thorn stick was half protruded
+across the table, causing renewed mirth; for, among other regulations,
+every cane, however trifling, is always demanded at the door; and thus a
+new subject of astonishment arose as to how he had succeeded in carrying
+it with him into the salon.
+
+"Here's at you again," said O'Leary, regardless of the laughter, and
+covering three or four numbers with his jetons.
+
+Round went the ball once more, and once more he lost.
+
+"Look now, divil a lie in it, he makes them go wherever he pleases.  I'll
+take a turn now at the tables; fair play's a jewel--and we'll see how
+you'll get on."
+
+So saying, he proceeded to insinuate himself into the chair of the
+croupier, whom he proposed to supersede by no very gentle means.  This
+was of course resisted, and as the loud mirth of the bystanders grew more
+and more boisterous, the cries of "a la porte, a la porte," from the
+friends of the bank, rung through the crowd.
+
+"Go it, Pat--go it, Pat," said Guy, over my shoulder, who seemed to take
+a prodigious interest in the proceedings.
+
+At this unexpected recognition of his nativity, for Mr. O'Leary never
+suspected he could be discovered by his accent; he looked across the
+table, and caught my eye at once.
+
+"Oh, I'm safe now! stand by me, Mr. Lorrequer, and we'll clear the room."
+
+So saying, and without any further provocation, he upset the croupier,
+chair and all, with one sudden jerk upon the floor, and giving a
+tremendous kick to the casette, sent all the five-franc pieces flying
+over him; he then jumped upon the table, and brandishing his black-thorn
+through the ormolu lustre, scattered the wax-lights on all sides,
+accompanying the exploit by a yell that would have called up all
+Connemara at midnight, if it had only been heard there; in an instant,
+the gens d'armes, always sufficiently near to be called in if required,
+came pouring into the room, and supposing the whole affair had been a
+preconcerted thing to obtain possession of the money in the bank,
+commenced capturing different members of the company who appeared, by
+enjoying the confusion, to be favouring and assisting it.  My cousin Guy
+was one of the first so treated--a proceeding to which he responded by an
+appeal rather in favour with most Englishmen, and at once knocked down
+the gen d'arme; this was the signal for a general engagement, and
+accordingly, before an explanation could possibly be attempted, a most
+terrific combat ensued.  The Frenchmen in the room siding with the gen
+d'armerie, and making common cause against the English; who, although
+greatly inferior in number, possessed considerable advantage, from long
+habit in street-rows and boxing encounters.  As for myself, I had the
+good fortune to be pitted against a very pursy and unwieldy Frenchman,
+who sacre'd to admiration, but never put in a single blow at me; while,
+therefore, I amused myself practising what old Cribb called "the one,
+two," upon his fat carcase, I had abundant time and opportunity to watch
+all that was doing about me, and truly a more ludicrous affair I never
+beheld.  Imagine about fifteen or sixteen young Englishmen, most of them
+powerful, athletic fellows, driving an indiscriminate mob of about five
+times their number before them, who, with courage enough to resist, were
+yet so totally ignorant of the boxing art, that they retreated, pell-
+mell, before the battering phalanx of their sturdy opponents--the most
+ludicrous figure of all being Mr. O'Leary himself, who, standing upon the
+table, laid about him with a brass lustre that he had unstrung, and did
+considerable mischief with this novel instrument of warfare, crying out
+the entire time, "murder every mother's son of them," "give them another
+taste of Waterloo."  Just as he had uttered the last patriotic sentiment,
+he received a slight admonition from behind, by the point of a gen
+d'arme's sword, which made him leap from the table with the alacrity of a
+harlequin, and come plump down among the thickest of the fray.  My
+attention was now directed elsewhere, for above all the din and "tapage"
+of the encounter I could plainly hear the row-dow-dow of the drums, and
+the measured tread of troops approaching, and at once guessed that a
+reinforcement of the gen d'armerie were coming up.  Behind me there was a
+large window, with a heavy scarlet curtain before it; my resolution was
+at once taken, I floored my antagonist, whom I had till now treated with
+the most merciful forbearance, and immediately sprung behind the curtain.
+A second's consideration showed that in the search that must ensue this
+would afford no refuge, so I at once opened the sash, and endeavoured to
+ascertain at what height I was above the ground beneath me; the night was
+so dark that I could see nothing, but judging from the leaves and twigs
+that reached to the window, that it was a garden beneath, and auguring
+from the perfumed smell of the shrubs, that they could not be tall trees,
+I resolved to leap, a resolve I had little time to come to, for the step
+of the soldiers was already heard upon the stair.  Fixing my hat then
+down upon my brows, and buttoning my coat tightly, I let myself down from
+the window-stool by my hands, and fell upon my legs in the soft earth of
+the garden, safe and unhurt.  From the increased clamour and din
+overhead, I could learn the affray was at its height, and had little
+difficulty in detecting the sonorous accent and wild threats of my friend
+Mr. O'Leary, high above all the other sounds around him.  I did not wait
+long, however, to enjoy them; but at once set about securing my escape
+from my present bondage.  In this I had little difficulty, for I was
+directed by a light to a small door, which, as I approached, found that
+it led into the den of the Concierge, and also communicated by another
+door with the street.  I opened it, therefore, at once, and was in the
+act of opening the second, when I felt myself seized by the collar by a
+strong hand; and on turning round saw the sturdy figure of the Concierge
+himself, with a drawn bayonet within a few inches of my throat, "Tenez,
+mon ami," said I quietly, and placing half a dozen louis, some of my
+recent spoils, in his hand, at once satisfied him that, even if I were a
+robber, I was at least one that understood and respected the conveniences
+of society.  He at once relinquished his hold and dropped his weapon, and
+pulling off his cap with one hand, to draw the cord which opened the
+Porte Cochere with the other, bowed me politely to the street.  I had
+scarcely had time to insinuate myself into the dense mass of people whom
+the noise and confusion within had assembled around the house, when the
+double door of the building opened, and a file of gens d'armerie came
+forth, leading between them my friend Mr. O'Leary and some others of the
+rioters--among whom I rejoiced to find my cousin did not figure.  If I
+were to judge from his disordered habiliments and scarred visage, Mr.
+O'Leary's resistance to the constituted authorities must have been a
+vigorous one, and the drollery of his appearance was certainly not
+decreased by his having lost the entire brim of his hat--the covering of
+his head bearing, under these distressing circumstances, a strong
+resemblance to a saucepan.
+
+As I could not at that moment contribute in any way to his rescue, I
+determined on the following day to be present at his examination, and
+render him all the assistance in my power.  Meanwhile, I returned to
+Meurice, thinking of every adventure of the evening much more than of my
+own changed condition and altered fortunes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+PARIS.
+
+The first thing which met my eye, when waking in the morning, after the
+affair at the salon, was the rouleau of billets de banque which I had won
+at play; and it took several minutes before I could persuade myself that
+the entire recollection of the evening had any more solid foundation than
+a heated brain and fevered imagination.  The sudden spring, from being a
+subaltern in the __th, with a few hundreds per annum--"pour tout potage,"
+to becoming the veritable proprietor of several thousands, with a
+handsome house in Cumberland, was a consideration which I could scarcely
+admit into my mind--so fearful was I, that the very first occurrence of
+the day should dispel the illusion, and throw me back into the dull
+reality which I was hoping to escape from.
+
+There is no adage more true than the old Latin one--"that what we wish,
+we readily believe;" so, I had little difficulty in convincing myself
+that all was as I desired--although, certainly, my confused memory of the
+past evening contributed little to that conviction.  It was, then, amid a
+very whirl of anticipated pleasures, and new schemes for enjoying life,
+that I sat down to a breakfast, at which, that I might lose no time in
+commencing my race, I had ordered the most recherche viands which even
+French cookery can accomplish for the occasion.
+
+My plans were soon decided upon.  I resolved to remain only long enough
+in Paris to provide myself with a comfortable travelling carriage--secure
+a good courier--and start for Baden; when I trusted that my pretensions,
+whatever favour they might have been once received with, would certainly
+now, at least, be listened to with more prospect of being successful.
+
+I opened the Galignani's paper of the day, to direct me in my search, and
+had scarcely read a few lines before a paragraph caught my eye, which not
+a little amused me; it was headed--Serious riot at the Salon des
+Etrangers, and attempt to rob the Bank:--
+
+"Last evening, among the persons who presented themselves at the table of
+this fashionable resort, were certain individuals, who, by their names
+and dress bespoke any thing rather than the rank and condition of those
+who usually resort there, and whose admission is still unexplained,
+notwithstanding the efforts of the police to unravel the mystery.  The
+proprietors of the bank did not fail to remark these persons; but
+scrupled, from fear of disturbing the propriety of the salon, to take the
+necessary steps for their exclusion--reserving their attention to the
+adoption of precautions against such intrusion in future--unfortunately,
+as it turned out eventually, for, towards eleven o'clock, one of these
+individuals, having lost a considerable sum at play, proceeded in a very
+violent and outrageous manner to denounce the bank, and went so far as to
+accuse the croupier of cheating.  This language having failed to excite
+the disturbance it was evidently intended to promote, was soon followed
+up by a most dreadful personal attack upon the banquier, in which he was
+thrown from his seat, and the cassette, containing several thousand
+francs in gold and notes, immediately laid hold of.  The confusion now
+became considerable, and it was apparent, that the whole had been a pre-
+concerted scheme.  Several persons, leaping upon the table, attempted to
+extinguish the great lustre of the salon, in which bold attempt, they
+were most spiritedly resisted by some of the other players and the gens-
+d'arme, who had by this time arrived in force.  The riot was quelled
+after a prolonged and desperate resistance, and the rioters, with the
+exception of two, were captured, and conveyed to prison, where they await
+the result of a judicial investigation--of which we shall not fail to lay
+the particulars before our readers.
+
+"Since our going to press, we have learned that one of the ringleaders in
+this vile scheme is a noted English escroc--a swindler, who was already
+arrest at C____ for travelling with a false passport; but who contrives,
+by some collusion with another of the gang, to evade the local
+authorities.  If this be the case, we trust he will speedily be detected
+and brought to punishment."
+
+Whatever amusement I had found in reading the commencing portion of this
+ridiculous misstatement, the allusion in the latter part by no means
+afforded me equal pleasure; and I saw, in one rapid glance, how much
+annoyance, and how many delays and impediments--a charge even of this
+ridiculous nature, might give rise to in my present circumstances.  My
+passport, however, will settle all--thought I--as I thrust my hand
+towards my pocket, in which I had placed it along with some letters.
+
+Guess my misery, to discover that the whole of the pocket had been cut
+away, probably in the hope of obtaining the billets de banque I had won
+at play, but which I had changed from that pocket to a breast one on
+leaving the table.  This at once led me to suspect that there might be
+some truth in the suspicion of the newspaper writer of a pre-concerted
+scheme, and at once explained to me what had much puzzled me before--the
+extreme rapidity with which the elements of discord were propagated, for
+the whole affair was the work of a few seconds.  While I continued to
+meditate on these matters, the waiter entered with a small note in an
+envelope, which a commissionaire had just left at the hotel for me, and
+went away, saying there was no answer.  I opened it hastily, and read:--
+
+     "Dear H.--The confounded affair of last night has induced me to
+     leave this for a few days; besides that I have obtained a most
+     excellent reason for absenting myself in the presence of a black
+     eye, which will prevent my appearance in public for a week to come.
+     As you are a stranger here, you need not fear being detected.  With
+     all its desagremens, I can't help laughing at the adventure, and I
+     am heartily glad to have had the opportunity of displaying old
+     Jackson's science upon those wretched gens-d'arme.
+
+                              "Your, truly,
+                                             "G.L."
+
+This, certainly, thought I, improves my position.  Here is my cousin Guy
+--the only one to whom, in any doubt or difficulty here, I could refer--
+here he is--flown, without letting me know where to address him or find
+him out.  I rung my bell hastily, and having written a line on my card,
+requesting Lord Kilkee to come to me as soon as he could, despatched it
+to the Rue de la Paix.  The messenger soon returned with an answer,
+that Lord Kilkee had been obliged to leave Paris late the evening before,
+having received some important letters from Baden.  My anxiety now became
+greater.  I did not know but that the moment I ventured to leave the
+hotel I should be recognised by some of the witnesses of the evening's
+fray; and all thoughts of succouring poor O'Leary were completely
+forgotten in my fear for the annoyances the whole of this ridiculous
+affair might involve me in.  Without any decision as to my future steps,
+I dressed myself, and proceeded to pay my respects to Mrs. Bingham and
+her daughter, who were in the same hotel, and whom I had not seen since
+our arrival.
+
+As I entered the drawing-room, I was surprised to find Miss Bingham
+alone.  She appeared to have been weeping--at least the efforts she made
+to appear easy and in good spirits contrasted a good deal with the
+expression of her features as I came in.  To my inquiries for Mrs.
+Bingham, I received for answer that the friends Mrs. Bingham had expected
+having left a few days before for Baden, she had resolved on following
+them, and had now merely driven out to make a few purchases before her
+departure, which was to take place in the morning.
+
+There is something so sad in the thought of being deserted and left by
+one's friends under any circumstances, that I cannot express how much
+this intelligence affected me.  It seemed, too, like the last stroke of
+bad news filling up the full measure, that I was to be suddenly deprived
+of the society of the very few friends about me, just as I stood most in
+need of them.
+
+Whether or not Miss Bingham noticed my embarrassment, I cannot say;
+but certainly she seemed not displeased, and there was in the half-
+encouraging tone of her manner something which led me to suspect that she
+was not dissatisfied with the impression her news seemed to produce upon
+me.
+
+Without at all alluding to my own improved fortune, or to the events
+of the preceding night, I began to talk over the coming journey, and
+expressed my sincere regret that, having lost my passport under
+circumstances which might create some delay in retrieving it, I could
+not join their party as I should otherwise have done.
+
+Miss Bingham heard this speech with rather more emotion than so simple a
+declaration was calculated to produce; and, while she threw down her eyes
+beneath their long dark lashes, and coloured slightly, asked--
+
+"And did you really wish to come with us?"
+
+"Undoubtedly," said I.
+
+"And is there no other objection than the passport?"
+
+"None whatever," said I, warming as I spoke, for the interest she
+appeared to take in me completely upset all my calculations, besides that
+I had never seen her looking so handsome, and that, as the French wisely
+remark, "vaut toujours quelque chose."
+
+"Oh, then, pray come with us, which you can do, for mamma has just got
+her passport for her nephew along with her own; and as we really don't
+want him, nor he us, we shall both be better pleased to be free of each
+other, and you can easily afterwards have your own forwarded to Baden by
+post."
+
+"Ah, but," said I, "how shall I be certain, if I take so flattering an
+offer, that you will forgive me for filling up the place of the dear
+cousin; for, if I conjecture aright, it is 'Le Cher Edouard' that
+purposes to be your companion."
+
+"Yes, you have guessed quite correctly; but you must not tax me with
+inconsistency, but really I have grown quite tired of my poor cousin,
+since I saw him last night."
+
+"And you used to admire him prodigiously."
+
+"Well, well, that is all true, but I do so no longer."
+
+"Eh! perche," said I, looking cunningly in her eye.
+
+"For reasons that Mr. Lorrequer shall never know if he has to ask them,"
+said the poor girl, covering her eyes with her hands, and sobbing
+bitterly.
+
+What I thought, said, or did upon this occasion, with all my most sincere
+desire to make a "clean breast of it in these confessions," I know not;
+but this I do know, that two hours after, I found myself still sitting
+upon the sofa beside Miss Bingham, whom I had been calling Emily all the
+while, and talking more of personal matters and my own circumstances than
+is ever safe or prudent for a young man to do with any lady under the age
+of his mother.
+
+All that I can now remember of this interview, is the fact of having
+arranged my departure in the manner proposed by Miss Bingham--a
+proposition to which I acceded with an affectation of satisfaction that
+I fear went very far to deceive my fair friend.  Not that the pleasure
+I felt in the prospect was altogether feigned; but certainly the habit
+of being led away by the whim and temper of the moment had so much become
+part of my nature, that I had long since despaired of ever guarding
+myself against the propensity I had acquired, of following every lead
+which any one might throw out for me.  And thus, as poor Harry Lorrequer
+was ever the first man to get into a row at the suggestion of a friend,
+so he only waited the least possible pressing on any occasion, to involve
+himself in any scrape or misfortune that presented itself, provided there
+was only some one good enough to advise him to do so.
+
+As I entered my own room, to make preparations for my departure, I could
+not help thinking over all the events thus crowded into the space of a
+few hours.  My sudden possession of wealth--my prospects at Callonby
+still undecided--my scrape at the Salon--my late interview with Miss
+Bingham, in which I had only stopped short of a proposal to marry, were
+almost sufficient to occupy any reasonable mind; and so I was beginning
+to suspect, when the waiter informed me that the Commissaire of Police
+was in waiting below, and wished to speak to me.  Affecting some surprise
+at the request which I at once perceived the object of, I desired him to
+be introduced.  I was quite correct in my guess.  The information of my
+being concerned in the affair at the Salon had been communicated to the
+authorities, and the Commissaire had orders to obtain bail for my
+appearance at the Tribunal de Justice, on that day week, or commit me at
+once to prison.  The Commissaire politely gave me till evening to procure
+the required bail, satisfying himself that he could adopt measures to
+prevent my escape, and took his leave.  He had scarcely gone when Mr.
+Edward Bingham was announced--the reason for this visit I could not so
+easily divine; but I had little time allowed for my conjectures, as the
+same instant a very smart, dapper little gentleman presented himself,
+dressed in all the extravagance of French mode.  His hair, which was
+permitted to curl upon his shoulders, was divided along the middle of the
+head; his moustaches were slightly upturned and carefully waxed, and his
+small chin-tuft or Henri-quatre most gracefully pointed; he wore three
+most happily contrasting coloured waistcoats, and spurs of glittering
+brass.  His visit was of scarcely five minutes' duration; but was
+evidently the opening of a breaching battery by the Bingham family
+in all form--the object of which I could at least guess at.
+
+My embarrassments were not destined to end here; for scarcely had I
+returned Mr. Bingham's eighth salutation at the head of the staircase,
+when another individual presented himself before me.  This figure was in
+every respect the opposite of my last visitor.  Although framed perfectly
+upon the late Parisian school of dandyism, his, however, was the "ecole
+militaire."  Le Capitaine Eugene de Joncourt, for so he introduced
+himself, was a portly personage, of about five-and-thirty or forty years
+of age, with that mixture of bon hommie and ferocity in his features
+which the soldiers of Napoleon's army either affected or possessed
+naturally.  His features, which were handsome, and the expression of
+which was pleasing, were, as it seemed, perverted, by the warlike turn of
+a most terrific pair of whiskers and moustaches, from their naturally
+good-humoured bent; and the practised frown and quick turn of his dark
+eye were evidently only the acquired advantages of his military career;
+a handsome mouth, with singularly regular and good teeth, took much away
+from the farouche look of the upper part of his face; and contributed,
+with the aid of a most pleasing voice, to impress you in his favour; his
+dress was a blue braided frock, decorated with the cordon of the legion;
+but neither these, nor the clink of his long cavalry spurs, were
+necessary to convince you that the man was a soldier; besides that, there
+was that mixture of urbanity and aplomb in his manner which showed him to
+be perfectly accustomed to the usages of the best society.
+
+"May I beg to know," said he, as he seated himself slowly, "if this card
+contains your name and address," handing me at the same moment one of my
+visiting cards.  I immediately replied in the affirmative.
+
+"You are then in the English service?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, may I entreat your pardon for the trouble of these questions, and
+explain the reason of my visit.  I am the friend of Le Baron D'Haulpenne,
+with whom you had the altercation last night in the Salon, and in whose
+name I have come to request the address of a friend on your part."
+
+Ho, ho, thought I, the Baron is then the stout gentleman that I pummelled
+so unmercifully near the window; but how came he by my card; and besides,
+in a row of that kind, I am not aware how far the matter can be conceived
+to go farther, than what happens at the moment.  These were the thoughts
+of a second of time, and before I could reply any thing, the captain
+resumed.
+
+"You seem to have forgotten the circumstance, and so indeed should I like
+to do; but unfortunately D'Haulpenne says that you struck him with your
+walking-cane, so you know, under such a state of things, there is but one
+course."
+
+"But gently," added I, "I had no cane whatever the last evening."
+
+"Oh! I beg pardon," interrupted he; "but my friend is most positive in
+his account, and describes the altercation as having continued from the
+Salon to the street, when you struck him, and at the same time threw him
+your card.  Two of our officers were also present; and although, as it
+appears from your present forgetfulness, that the thing took place in the
+heat and excitement of the moment, still--"
+
+"But still," said I, catching up his last words, "I never did strike the
+gentleman as you describe--never had any altercation in the street--and--"
+
+"Is that your address?" said the Frenchman, with a slight bow.
+
+"Yes, certainly it is."
+
+"Why then," said he, with a slight curl of his upper lip--half smile,
+half derision--
+
+"Oh! make yourself perfectly easy," I replied.  "If any one has by an
+accident made use of my name, it shall not suffer by such a mistake.
+I shall be quite at your service, the moment I can find out a friend to
+refer you to."
+
+I had much difficulty to utter these few words with a suitable degree of
+temper, so stung was I by the insolent demeanour of the Frenchman, whose
+coolness and urbanity seemed only to increase every moment.
+
+"Then I have the honour to salute you," said he, rising with great
+mildness in his voice; "and shall take the liberty to leave my card for
+the information of your friend."
+
+So saying, he placed his card upon the table--"Le Capitaine Eugene de
+Joncourt, Cuirassiers de la Garde."
+
+"I need not press upon Monsieur the value of despatch."
+
+"I shall not lose a moment," said I, as he clattered down the stairs of
+the hotel, with that perfect swaggering nonchalance which a Frenchman is
+always an adept in; and I returned to my room, to meditate upon my
+numerous embarrassments, and think over the difficulties which every
+moment was contributing to increase the number of.
+
+"The indictment has certainly many counts," thought I.
+
+Imprimis--A half-implied, but fully comprehended promise to marry a young
+lady, with whom, I confess, I only intend to journey this life--as far as
+Baden.
+
+Secondly, a charge of swindling--for such the imputation goes to--at the
+Salon.
+
+Thirdly, another unaccountable delay in joining the Callonbys, with whom
+I am every hour in the risque of being "compromis;" and lastly, a duel in
+perspective with some confounded Frenchman, who is at this very moment
+practising at a pistol gallery.
+
+Such were the heads of my reflections, and such the agreeable impressions
+my visit to Paris was destined to open with; how they were to be followed
+up I reserve for another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+EBOOK EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A crowd is a mob, if composed even of bishops
+Involuntary satisfaction at some apparent obstacle to my path
+Levelling character of a taste for play
+Never able to restrain myself from a propensity to make love
+Strong opinions against tobacco within doors
+We pass a considerable portion of our lives in a mimic warfare
+What we wish, we readily believe
+Whenever he was sober his poverty disgusted him
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF LORREQUER, V4 ***
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