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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, by Laurence Sterne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
+
+Author: Laurence Sterne
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: February 12, 1997 [eBook #804]
+[Most recently updated: October 24, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Price
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY ***
+
+
+
+
+                                    A
+                           SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
+                                 THROUGH
+                            FRANCE AND ITALY;
+
+
+                              BY MR. YORICK.
+
+                     [THE REV. LAURENCE STERNE, M.A.]
+
+                        [FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1768.]
+
+THEY order, said I, this matter better in France.—You have been in
+France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most civil
+triumph in the world.—Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself,
+That one and twenty miles sailing, for ’tis absolutely no further from
+Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights:—I’ll look into them: so,
+giving up the argument,—I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a
+dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches,—“the coat I have on,”
+said I, looking at the sleeve, “will do;”—took a place in the Dover
+stage; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning,—by three I had
+got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in
+France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world
+could not have suspended the effects of the _droits d’aubaine_; {557}—my
+shirts, and black pair of silk breeches,—portmanteau and all, must have
+gone to the King of France;—even the little picture which I have so long
+worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my
+grave, would have been torn from my neck!—Ungenerous! to seize upon the
+wreck of an unwary passenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to their
+coast!—By heaven! Sire, it is not well done; and much does it grieve me,
+’tis the monarch of a people so civilized and courteous, and so renowned
+for sentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with!—
+
+But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions.—
+
+
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France’s health, to
+satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary, high
+honour for the humanity of his temper,—I rose up an inch taller for the
+accommodation.
+
+—No—said I—the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may be misled,
+like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood.  As I
+acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek—more
+warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres a
+bottle, which was such as I had been drinking) could have produced.
+
+—Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what is there in this
+world’s goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so many
+kind-hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by the way?
+
+When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is the
+heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and holding it
+airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he sought for an object
+to share it with.—In doing this, I felt every vessel in my frame
+dilate,—the arteries beat all cheerily together, and every power which
+sustained life, performed it with so little friction, that ’twould have
+confounded the most _physical précieuse_ in France; with all her
+materialism, she could scarce have called me a machine.—
+
+I’m confident, said I to myself, I should have overset her creed.
+
+The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as high as she
+could go;—I was at peace with the world before, and this finish’d the
+treaty with myself.—
+
+—Now, was I King of France, cried I—what a moment for an orphan to have
+begg’d his father’s portmanteau of me!
+
+
+
+
+THE MONK.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I HAD scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of St.
+Francis came into the room to beg something for his convent.  No man
+cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies—or one man may be
+generous, as another is puissant;—_sed non quoad hanc_—or be it as it
+may,—for there is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our
+humours; they may depend upon the same causes, for aught I know, which
+influence the tides themselves: ’twould oft be no discredit to us, to
+suppose it was so: I’m sure at least for myself, that in many a case I
+should be more highly satisfied, to have it said by the world, “I had had
+an affair with the moon, in which there was neither sin nor shame,” than
+have it pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much
+of both.
+
+—But, be this as it may,—the moment I cast my eyes upon him, I was
+predetermined not to give him a single sous; and, accordingly, I put my
+purse into my pocket—buttoned it—set myself a little more upon my centre,
+and advanced up gravely to him; there was something, I fear, forbidding
+in my look: I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think there
+was that in it which deserved better.
+
+The monk, as I judged by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered white
+hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might be about
+seventy;—but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which was in them,
+which seemed more temper’d by courtesy than years, could be no more than
+sixty:—Truth might lie between—He was certainly sixty-five; and the
+general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something seem’d to have
+been planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to the account.
+
+It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted,—mild,
+pale—penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented
+ignorance looking downwards upon the earth;—it look’d forwards; but
+look’d as if it look’d at something beyond this world.—How one of his
+order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a monk’s shoulders
+best knows: but it would have suited a Bramin, and had I met it upon the
+plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.
+
+The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might put it
+into the hands of any one to design, for ’twas neither elegant nor
+otherwise, but as character and expression made it so: it was a thin,
+spare form, something above the common size, if it lost not the
+distinction by a bend forward in the figure,—but it was the attitude of
+Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my imagination, it gained
+more than it lost by it.
+
+When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying his
+left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journey’d
+being in his right)—when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself
+with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his
+order;—and did it with so simple a grace,—and such an air of deprecation
+was there in the whole cast of his look and figure,—I was bewitch’d not
+to have been struck with it.
+
+—A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single sous.
+
+
+
+
+THE MONK.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+—’TIS very true, said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes, with
+which he had concluded his address;—’tis very true,—and heaven be their
+resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of
+which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many _great claims_ which are
+hourly made upon it.
+
+As I pronounced the words _great claims_, he gave a slight glance with
+his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic:—I felt the full force of
+the appeal—I acknowledge it, said I:—a coarse habit, and that but once in
+three years with meagre diet,—are no great matters; and the true point of
+pity is, as they can be earn’d in the world with so little industry, that
+your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is
+the property of the lame, the blind, the aged and the infirm;—the captive
+who lies down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions,
+languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the _order of
+mercy_, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am, continued I,
+pointing at my portmanteau, full cheerfully should it have been open’d to
+you, for the ransom of the unfortunate.—The monk made me a bow.—But of
+all others, resumed I, the unfortunate of our own country, surely, have
+the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress upon our own
+shore.—The monk gave a cordial wave with his head,—as much as to say, No
+doubt there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as
+within our convent—But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the
+sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal—we distinguish, my good
+father! betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own
+labour—and those who eat the bread of other people’s, and have no other
+plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, _for the love
+of God_.
+
+The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment pass’d across his
+cheek, but could not tarry—Nature seemed to have done with her
+resentments in him;—he showed none:—but letting his staff fall within his
+arms, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and
+retired.
+
+
+
+
+THE MONK.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+MY heart smote me the moment he shut the door—Psha! said I, with an air
+of carelessness, three several times—but it would not do: every
+ungracious syllable I had utter’d crowded back into my imagination: I
+reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny him; and
+that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the
+addition of unkind language.—I consider’d his gray hairs—his courteous
+figure seem’d to re-enter and gently ask me what injury he had done
+me?—and why I could use him thus?—I would have given twenty livres for an
+advocate.—I have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only
+just set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get
+along.
+
+
+
+
+THE DESOBLIGEANT.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+WHEN a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however,
+that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.
+Now there being no travelling through France and Italy without a
+chaise,—and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest
+for, I walk’d out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that
+kind to my purpose: an old _désobligeant_ {562} in the furthest corner of
+the court, hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got into it, and
+finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to
+call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel:—but Monsieur Dessein
+being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw
+on the opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived
+at the inn,—I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being determined
+to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote the preface to
+it in the _désobligeant_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.
+
+
+IT must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That nature
+has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain boundaries and
+fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she has effected her
+purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by laying him under almost
+insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his
+sufferings at home.  It is there only that she has provided him with the
+most suitable objects to partake of his happiness, and bear a part of
+that burden which in all countries and ages has ever been too heavy for
+one pair of shoulders.  ’Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power
+of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond _her_ limits, but ’tis so
+ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections, and dependencies,
+and from the difference in education, customs, and habits, we lie under
+so many impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own
+sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility.
+
+It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental
+commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy what
+he has little occasion for, at their own price;—his conversation will
+seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a large discount,—and
+this, by the by, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable
+brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no great
+spirit of divination to guess at his party—
+
+This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw of
+this _désobligeant_ will but let me get on) into the efficient as well as
+final causes of travelling—
+
+Your idle people that leave their native country, and go abroad for some
+reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these general causes:—
+
+  Infirmity of body,
+  Imbecility of mind, or
+  Inevitable necessity.
+
+The first two include all those who travel by land or by water, labouring
+with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and combined _ad
+infinitum_.
+
+The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more
+especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the
+benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the
+direction of governors recommended by the magistrate;—or young gentlemen
+transported by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and travelling under
+the direction of governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.
+
+There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they would not
+deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in a work of this nature to
+observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid a confusion of
+character.  And these men I speak of, are such as cross the seas and
+sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of saving money for various
+reasons and upon various pretences: but as they might also save
+themselves and others a great deal of unnecessary trouble by saving their
+money at home,—and as their reasons for travelling are the least complex
+of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguish these gentlemen by
+the name of
+
+                            Simple Travellers.
+
+Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the following
+_heads_:—
+
+  Idle Travellers,
+
+  Inquisitive Travellers,
+
+  Lying Travellers,
+
+  Proud Travellers,
+
+  Vain Travellers,
+
+  Splenetic Travellers.
+
+Then follow:
+
+  The Travellers of Necessity,
+
+  The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,
+
+  The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,
+
+  The Simple Traveller,
+
+And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning
+thereby myself) who have travell’d, and of which I am now sitting down to
+give an account,—as much out of _Necessity_, and the _besoin de Voyager_,
+as any one in the class.
+
+I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and observations
+will be altogether of a different cast from any of my forerunners, that I
+might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely to myself;—but I should
+break in upon the confines of the _Vain_ Traveller, in wishing to draw
+attention towards me, till I have some better grounds for it than the
+mere _Novelty of my Vehicle_.
+
+It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself, that
+with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine his own
+place and rank in the catalogue;—it will be one step towards knowing
+himself; as it is great odds but he retains some tincture and
+resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the present hour.
+
+The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of Good
+Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the same wine
+at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French mountains,—he
+was too phlegmatic for that—but undoubtedly he expected to drink some
+sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or bad, or indifferent,—he knew
+enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon his choice, but
+that what is generally called _choice_, was to decide his success:
+however, he hoped for the best; and in these hopes, by an intemperate
+confidence in the fortitude of his head, and the depth of his discretion,
+_Mynheer_ might possibly oversee both in his new vineyard; and by
+discovering his nakedness, become a laughing stock to his people.
+
+Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting through the
+politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge and improvements.
+
+Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for that
+purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is all a
+lottery;—and even where the adventurer is successful, the acquired stock
+must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit:—but, as
+the chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the acquisition
+and application, I am of opinion, That a man would act as wisely, if he
+could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign knowledge or
+foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country that has no
+absolute want of either;—and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and
+many a time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the
+Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look into
+discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they might
+have seen dry-shod at home.  It is an age so full of light, that there is
+scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not crossed and
+interchanged with others.—Knowledge in most of its branches, and in most
+affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof those may partake
+who pay nothing.—But there is no nation under heaven—and God is my record
+(before whose tribunal I must one day come and give an account of this
+work)—that I do not speak it vauntingly,—but there is no nation under
+heaven abounding with more variety of learning,—where the sciences may be
+more fitly woo’d, or more surely won, than here,—where art is encouraged,
+and will so soon rise high,—where Nature (take her altogether) has so
+little to answer for,—and, to close all, where there is more wit and
+variety of character to feed the mind with:—Where then, my dear
+countrymen, are you going?—
+
+We are only looking at this chaise, said they.—Your most obedient
+servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat.—We were
+wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an _Inquisitive
+Traveller_,—what could occasion its motion.—’Twas the agitation, said I,
+coolly, of writing a preface.—I never heard, said the other, who was a
+_Simple Traveller_, of a preface wrote in a _désobligeant_.—It would have
+been better, said I, in a _vis-a-vis_.
+
+—_As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen_, I retired to my
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I PERCEIVED that something darken’d the passage more than myself, as I
+stepp’d along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the master
+of the hôtel, who had just returned from vespers, and with his hat under
+his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to put me in mind of my
+wants.  I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with the
+_désobligeant_, and Mons. Dessein speaking of it, with a shrug, as if it
+would no way suit me, it immediately struck my fancy that it belong’d to
+some _Innocent Traveller_, who, on his return home, had left it to Mons.
+Dessein’s honour to make the most of.  Four months had elapsed since it
+had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein’s
+coach-yard; and having sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at
+the first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it
+had not profited much by its adventures,—but by none so little as the
+standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein’s
+coach-yard.  Much indeed was not to be said for it,—but something
+might;—and when a few words will rescue misery out of her distress, I
+hate the man who can be a churl of them.
+
+—Now was I the master of this hôtel, said I, laying the point of my
+fore-finger on Mons. Dessein’s breast, I would inevitably make a point of
+getting rid of this unfortunate _désobligeant_;—it stands swinging
+reproaches at you every time you pass by it.
+
+_Mon Dieu_! said Mons. Dessein,—I have no interest—Except the interest,
+said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons. Dessein, in their
+own sensations,—I’m persuaded, to a man who feels for others as well as
+for himself, every rainy night, disguise it as you will, must cast a damp
+upon your spirits:—You suffer, Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine—
+
+I have always observed, when there is as much _sour_ as _sweet_ in a
+compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself,
+whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never is: Mons. Dessein
+made me a bow.
+
+_C’est bien vrai_, said he.—But in this case I should only exchange one
+disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to yourself, my dear Sir,
+that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces before you had got
+half-way to Paris,—figure to yourself how much I should suffer, in giving
+an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying at the mercy,
+as I must do, _d’un homme d’esprit_.
+
+The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could not
+help tasting it,—and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without more
+casuistry we walk’d together towards his Remise, to take a view of his
+magazine of chaises.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE STREET.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+IT must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it be but
+of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the
+street to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls
+into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same
+sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park corner to
+fight a duel.  For my own part, being but a poor swordsman, and no way a
+match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements
+within me, to which the situation is incident;—I looked at Monsieur
+Dessein through and through—eyed him as he walk’d along in profile,—then,
+_en face_;—thought like a Jew,—then a Turk,—disliked his wig,—cursed him
+by my gods,—wished him at the devil.—
+
+—And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account of
+three or four louis d’ors, which is the most I can be overreached
+in?—Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a man naturally does
+upon a sudden reverse of sentiment,—base, ungentle passion! thy hand is
+against every man, and every man’s hand against thee.—Heaven forbid! said
+she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for I had turned full in front
+upon the lady whom I had seen in conference with the monk:—she had
+followed us unperceived.—Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my
+own;—she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two
+fore-fingers, so accepted it without reserve,—and I led her up to the
+door of the Remise.
+
+Monsieur Dessein had _diabled_ the key above fifty times before he had
+found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as impatient
+as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the obstacle that I
+continued holding her hand almost without knowing it: so that Monsieur
+Dessein left us together with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned
+towards the door of the Remise, and said he would be back in five
+minutes.
+
+Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one of as
+many ages, with your faces turned towards the street: in the latter case,
+’tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without;—when your eyes are
+fixed upon a dead blank,—you draw purely from yourselves.  A silence of a
+single moment upon Mons. Dessein’s leaving us, had been fatal to the
+situation—she had infallibly turned about;—so I begun the conversation
+instantly.—
+
+—But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for the
+weaknesses of my heart in this tour,—but to give an account of
+them)—shall be described with the same simplicity with which I felt them.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+WHEN I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the
+_désobligeant_, because I saw the monk in close conference with a lady
+just arrived at the inn—I told him the truth,—but I did not tell him the
+whole truth; for I was as full as much restrained by the appearance and
+figure of the lady he was talking to.  Suspicion crossed my brain and
+said, he was telling her what had passed: something jarred upon it within
+me,—I wished him at his convent.
+
+When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment
+a world of pains.—I was certain she was of a better order of
+beings;—however, I thought no more of her, but went on and wrote my
+preface.
+
+The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street; a
+guarded frankness with which she gave me her hand, showed, I thought, her
+good education and her good sense; and as I led her on, I felt a
+pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a calmness over all my
+spirits—
+
+—Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the world
+with him!—
+
+I had not yet seen her face—’twas not material: for the drawing was
+instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of the
+Remise, _Fancy_ had finished the whole head, and pleased herself as much
+with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the Tiber for
+it;—but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou cheatest
+us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with so many
+charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in the shapes
+of so many angels of light, ’tis a shame to break with thee.
+
+When we had got to the door of the Remise, she withdrew her hand from
+across her forehead, and let me see the original:—it was a face of about
+six-and-twenty,—of a clear transparent brown, simply set off without
+rouge or powder;—it was not critically handsome, but there was that in
+it, which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much more to it,—it
+was interesting: I fancied it wore the characters of a widow’d look, and
+in that state of its declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms
+of sorrow, and was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss;—but
+a thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I wish’d to
+know what they had been—and was ready to inquire, (had the same _bon ton_
+of conversation permitted, as in the days of Esdras)—“_What aileth thee_?
+_and why art thou disquieted_? _and why is thy understanding
+troubled_?”—In a word, I felt benevolence for her; and resolv’d some way
+or other to throw in my mite of courtesy,—if not of service.
+
+Such were my temptations;—and in this disposition to give way to them,
+was I left alone with the lady with her hand in mine, and with our faces
+both turned closer to the door of the Remise than what was absolutely
+necessary.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+THIS certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up little lightly as
+I began, must be one of Fortune’s whimsical doings; to take two utter
+strangers by their hands,—of different sexes, and perhaps from different
+corners of the globe, and in one moment place them together in such a
+cordial situation as Friendship herself could scarce have achieved for
+them, had she projected it for a month.
+
+—And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has
+embarrassed you by the adventure—
+
+When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed as to
+hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune, continued
+she—you had reason—the heart knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an
+English philosopher would have sent notice of it to the brain to reverse
+the judgment?
+
+In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which I thought a
+sufficient commentary upon the text.
+
+It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness of my
+heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which worthier occasions could
+not have inflicted.—I was mortified with the loss of her hand, and the
+manner in which I had lost it carried neither oil nor wine to the wound:
+I never felt the pain of a sheepish inferiority so miserably in my life.
+
+The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these discomfitures.
+In a very few seconds she laid her hand upon the cuff of my coat, in
+order to finish her reply; so, some way or other, God knows how, I
+regained my situation.
+
+—She had nothing to add.
+
+I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the lady,
+thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I had been
+mistaken in her character; but upon turning her face towards me, the
+spirit which had animated the reply was fled,—the muscles relaxed, and I
+beheld the same unprotected look of distress which first won me to her
+interest:—melancholy! to see such sprightliness the prey of sorrow,—I
+pitied her from my soul; and though it may seem ridiculous enough to a
+torpid heart,—I could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her,
+though it was in the open street, without blushing.
+
+The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing across hers,
+told her what was passing within me: she looked down—a silence of some
+moments followed.
+
+I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts towards a
+closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation I felt in the
+palm of my own,—not as if she was going to withdraw hers—but as if she
+thought about it;—and I had infallibly lost it a second time, had not
+instinct more than reason directed me to the last resource in these
+dangers,—to hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I was every moment
+going to release it, of myself; so she let it continue, till Monsieur
+Dessein returned with the key; and in the mean time I set myself to
+consider how I should undo the ill impressions which the poor monk’s
+story, in case he had told it her, must have planted in her breast
+against me.
+
+
+
+
+THE SNUFF BOX.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+THE good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of him crossed
+my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the line, as if
+uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no.—He stopp’d, however,
+as soon as he came up to us, with a world of frankness: and having a horn
+snuff box in his hand, he presented it open to me.—You shall taste
+mine—said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one) and
+putting it into his hand.—’Tis most excellent, said the monk.  Then do me
+the favour, I replied, to accept of the box and all, and when you take a
+pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace offering of a man
+who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart.
+
+The poor monk blush’d as red as scarlet.  _Mon Dieu_! said he, pressing
+his hands together—you never used me unkindly.—I should think, said the
+lady, he is not likely.  I blush’d in my turn; but from what movements, I
+leave to the few who feel, to analyze.—Excuse me, Madame, replied I,—I
+treated him most unkindly; and from no provocations.—’Tis impossible,
+said the lady.—My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration
+which seem’d not to belong to him—the fault was in me, and in the
+indiscretion of my zeal.—The lady opposed it, and I joined with her in
+maintaining it was impossible, that a spirit so regulated as his, could
+give offence to any.
+
+I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and pleasurable a
+thing to the nerves as I then felt it.—We remained silent, without any
+sensation of that foolish pain which takes place, when, in such a circle,
+you look for ten minutes in one another’s faces without saying a word.
+Whilst this lasted, the monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of his
+tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the
+friction—he made me a low bow, and said, ’twas too late to say whether it
+was the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in this
+contest—but be it as it would,—he begg’d we might exchange boxes.—In
+saying this, he presented his to me with one hand, as he took mine from
+me in the other, and having kissed it,—with a stream of good nature in
+his eyes, he put it into his bosom,—and took his leave.
+
+I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my religion, to
+help my mind on to something better: in truth, I seldom go abroad without
+it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous spirit
+of its owner to regulate my own, in the justlings of the world: they had
+found full employment for his, as I learnt from his story, till about the
+forty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military services ill
+requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment in the
+tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together, and
+took sanctuary not so much in his convent as in himself.
+
+I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that in my last
+return through Calais, upon enquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard he
+had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in his convent, but,
+according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it, about two
+leagues off: I had a strong desire to see where they had laid him,—when,
+upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, and plucking
+up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business to grow
+there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections, that I
+burst into a flood of tears:—but I am as weak as a woman; and I beg the
+world not to smile, but to pity me.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE DOOR.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I HAD never quitted the lady’s hand all this time, and had held it so
+long, that it would have been indecent to have let it go, without first
+pressing it to my lips: the blood and spirits, which had suffered a
+revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.
+
+Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard, happening
+at that crisis to be passing by, and observing our communications,
+naturally took it into their heads that we must be _man and wife_ at
+least; so, stopping as soon as they came up to the door of the Remise,
+the one of them who was the Inquisitive Traveller, ask’d us, if we set
+out for Paris the next morning?—I could only answer for myself, I said;
+and the lady added, she was for Amiens.—We dined there yesterday, said
+the Simple Traveller.—You go directly through the town, added the other,
+in your road to Paris.  I was going to return a thousand thanks for the
+intelligence, _that Amiens was in the road to Paris_, but, upon pulling
+out my poor monk’s little horn box to take a pinch of snuff, I made them
+a quiet bow, and wishing them a good passage to Dover.—They left us
+alone.—
+
+—Now where would be the harm, said I to myself, if I were to beg of this
+distressed lady to accept of half of my chaise?—and what mighty mischief
+could ensue?
+
+Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took the alarm, as I
+stated the proposition.—It will oblige you to have a third horse, said
+Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of your pocket;—You know not
+what she is, said Caution;—or what scrapes the affair may draw you into,
+whisper’d Cowardice.—
+
+Depend upon it, Yorick! said Discretion, ’twill be said you went off with
+a mistress, and came by assignation to Calais for that purpose;—
+
+—You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, show your face in the
+world;—or rise, quoth Meanness, in the church;—or be any thing in it,
+said Pride, but a lousy prebendary.
+
+But ’tis a civil thing, said I;—and as I generally act from the first
+impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which serve no
+purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with adamant—I turned
+instantly about to the lady.—
+
+—But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was pleading, and had
+made ten or a dozen paces down the street, by the time I had made the
+determination; so I set off after her with a long stride, to make her the
+proposal, with the best address I was master of: but observing she walk’d
+with her cheek half resting upon the palm of her hand,—with the slow
+short-measur’d step of thoughtfulness,—and with her eyes, as she went
+step by step, fixed upon the ground, it struck me she was trying the same
+cause herself.—God help her! said I, she has some mother-in-law, or
+tartufish aunt, or nonsensical old woman, to consult upon the occasion,
+as well as myself: so not caring to interrupt the process, and deeming it
+more gallant to take her at discretion than by surprise, I faced about
+and took a short turn or two before the door of the Remise, whilst she
+walk’d musing on one side.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE STREET.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+HAVING, on the first sight of the lady, settled the affair in my fancy
+“that she was of the better order of beings;”—and then laid it down as a
+second axiom, as indisputable as the first, that she was a widow, and
+wore a character of distress,—I went no further; I got ground enough for
+the situation which pleased me;—and had she remained close beside my
+elbow till midnight, I should have held true to my system, and considered
+her only under that general idea.
+
+She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere something within me
+called out for a more particular enquiry;—it brought on the idea of a
+further separation:—I might possibly never see her more:—The heart is for
+saving what it can; and I wanted the traces through which my wishes might
+find their way to her, in case I should never rejoin her myself; in a
+word, I wished to know her name,—her family’s—her condition; and as I
+knew the place to which she was going, I wanted to know from whence she
+came: but there was no coming at all this intelligence; a hundred little
+delicacies stood in the way.  I form’d a score different plans.—There was
+no such thing as a man’s asking her directly;—the thing was impossible.
+
+A little French _débonnaire_ captain, who came dancing down the street,
+showed me it was the easiest thing in the world: for, popping in betwixt
+us, just as the lady was returning back to the door of the Remise, he
+introduced himself to my acquaintance, and before he had well got
+announced, begg’d I would do him the honour to present him to the lady.—I
+had not been presented myself;—so turning about to her, he did it just as
+well, by asking her if she had come from Paris?  No: she was going that
+route, she said.—_Vous n’êtes pas de Londres_?—She was not, she
+replied.—Then Madame must have come through Flanders.—_Apparemment vous
+êtes Flammande_? said the French captain.—The lady answered, she
+was.—_Peut être de Lisle_? added he.—She said, she was not of Lisle.—Nor
+Arras?—nor Cambray?—nor Ghent?—nor Brussels?—She answered, she was of
+Brussels.
+
+He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment of it last
+war;—that it was finely situated, _pour cela_,—and full of noblesse when
+the Imperialists were driven out by the French (the lady made a slight
+courtesy)—so giving her an account of the affair, and of the share he had
+had in it,—he begg’d the honour to know her name,—so made his bow.
+
+—_Et Madame a son Mari_?—said he, looking back when he had made two
+steps,—and, without staying for an answer—danced down the street.
+
+Had I served seven years apprenticeship to good breeding, I could not
+have done as much.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+As the little French captain left us, Mons. Dessein came up with the key
+of the Remise in his hand, and forthwith let us into his magazine of
+chaises.
+
+The first object which caught my eye, as Mons. Dessein open’d the door of
+the Remise, was another old tatter’d _désobligeant_; and notwithstanding
+it was the exact picture of that which had hit my fancy so much in the
+coach-yard but an hour before,—the very sight of it stirr’d up a
+disagreeable sensation within me now; and I thought ’twas a churlish
+beast into whose heart the idea could first enter, to construct such a
+machine; nor had I much more charity for the man who could think of using
+it.
+
+I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself: so Mons.
+Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which stood abreast, telling us,
+as he recommended them, that they had been purchased by my lord A. and B.
+to go the grand tour, but had gone no further than Paris, so were in all
+respects as good as new.—They were too good;—so I pass’d on to a third,
+which stood behind, and forthwith begun to chaffer for the price.—But
+’twill scarce hold two, said I, opening the door and getting in.—Have the
+goodness, Madame, said Mons. Dessein, offering his arm, to step in.—The
+lady hesitated half a second, and stepped in; and the waiter that moment
+beckoning to speak to Mon. Dessein, he shut the door of the chaise upon
+us, and left us.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+_C’EST bien comique_, ’tis very droll, said the lady, smiling, from the
+reflection that this was the second time we had been left together by a
+parcel of nonsensical contingencies,—_c’est bien comique_, said she.—
+
+—There wants nothing, said I, to make it so but the comic use which the
+gallantry of a Frenchman would put it to,—to make love the first moment,
+and an offer of his person the second.
+
+’Tis their _fort_, replied the lady.
+
+It is supposed so at least;—and how it has come to pass, continued I, I
+know not; but they have certainly got the credit of understanding more of
+love, and making it better than any other nation upon earth; but, for my
+own part, I think them arrant bunglers, and in truth the worst set of
+marksmen that ever tried Cupid’s patience.
+
+—To think of making love by _sentiments_!
+
+I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes out of
+remnants:—and to do it—pop—at first sight, by declaration—is submitting
+the offer, and themselves with it, to be sifted with all their _pours_
+and _contres_, by an unheated mind.
+
+The lady attended as if she expected I should go on.
+
+Consider then, Madame, continued I, laying my hand upon hers:—
+
+That grave people hate love for the name’s sake;—
+
+That selfish people hate it for their own;—
+
+Hypocrites for heaven’s;—
+
+And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times worse frightened
+than hurt by the very _report_,—what a want of knowledge in this branch
+of commerce a man betrays, whoever lets the word come out of his lips,
+till an hour or two, at least, after the time that his silence upon it
+becomes tormenting.  A course of small, quiet attentions, not so pointed
+as to alarm,—nor so vague as to be misunderstood—with now and then a look
+of kindness, and little or nothing said upon it,—leaves nature for your
+mistress, and she fashions it to her mind.—
+
+Then I solemnly declare, said the lady, blushing, you have been making
+love to me all this while.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMISE.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+MONSIEUR DESSEIN came back to let us out of the chaise, and acquaint the
+lady, the count de L—, her brother, was just arrived at the hotel.
+Though I had infinite good will for the lady, I cannot say that I
+rejoiced in my heart at the event—and could not help telling her so;—for
+it is fatal to a proposal, Madame, said I, that I was going to make to
+you—
+
+—You need not tell me what the proposal was, said she, laying her hand
+upon both mine, as she interrupted me.—A man my good Sir, has seldom an
+offer of kindness to make to a woman, but she has a presentiment of it
+some moments before.—
+
+Nature arms her with it, said I, for immediate preservation.—But I think,
+said she, looking in my face, I had no evil to apprehend,—and, to deal
+frankly with you, had determined to accept it.—If I had—(she stopped a
+moment)—I believe your good will would have drawn a story from me, which
+would have made pity the only dangerous thing in the journey.
+
+In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and with a look
+of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of the chaise,—and bid
+adieu.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE STREET.
+CALAIS.
+
+
+I NEVER finished a twelve guinea bargain so expeditiously in my life: my
+time seemed heavy, upon the loss of the lady, and knowing every moment of
+it would be as two, till I put myself into motion,—I ordered post horses
+directly, and walked towards the hotel.
+
+Lord! said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and recollecting that I
+had been little more than a single hour in Calais,—
+
+—What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span
+of life by him who interests his heart in every thing, and who, having
+eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him as he
+journeyeth on his way, misses nothing he can _fairly_ lay his hands on!
+
+—If this won’t turn out something,—another will;—no matter,—’tis an assay
+upon human nature—I get my labour for my pains,—’tis enough;—the pleasure
+of the experiment has kept my senses and the best part of my blood awake,
+and laid the gross to sleep.
+
+I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ’Tis all
+barren;—and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not
+cultivate the fruits it offers.  I declare, said I, clapping my hands
+cheerily together, that were I in a desert, I would find out wherewith in
+it to call forth my affections:—if I could not do better, I would fasten
+them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect
+myself to;—I would court their shade, and greet them kindly for their
+protection.—I would cut my name upon them, and swear they were the
+loveliest trees throughout the desert: if their leaves wither’d, I would
+teach myself to mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along
+with them.
+
+The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris,—from Paris to
+Rome,—and so on;—but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every
+object he pass’d by was discoloured or distorted.—He wrote an account of
+them, but ’twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings.
+
+I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon:—he was just coming
+out of it.—’_Tis nothing but a huge cockpit_, {580} said he:—I wish you
+had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, replied I;—for in passing
+through Florence, I had heard he had fallen foul upon the goddess, and
+used her worse than a common strumpet, without the least provocation in
+nature.
+
+I popp’d upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home; and a sad
+tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell, “wherein he spoke of moving
+accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals that each other eat:
+the Anthropophagi:”—he had been flayed alive, and bedevil’d, and used
+worse than St. Bartholomew, at every stage he had come at.—
+
+—I’ll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world.  You had better tell it,
+said I, to your physician.
+
+Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole tour; going on from
+Rome to Naples,—from Naples to Venice,—from Venice to Vienna,—to Dresden,
+to Berlin, without one generous connection or pleasurable anecdote to
+tell of; but he had travell’d straight on, looking neither to his right
+hand nor his left, lest Love or Pity should seduce him out of his road.
+
+Peace be to them! if it is to be found; but heaven itself, were it
+possible to get there with such tempers, would want objects to give it;
+every gentle spirit would come flying upon the wings of Love to hail
+their arrival.—Nothing would the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus hear
+of, but fresh anthems of joy, fresh raptures of love, and fresh
+congratulations of their common felicity.—I heartily pity them; they have
+brought up no faculties for this work; and, were the happiest mansion in
+heaven to be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they would be so far
+from being happy, that the souls of Smelfungus and Mundungus would do
+penance there to all eternity!
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I HAD once lost my portmanteau from behind my chaise, and twice got out
+in the rain, and one of the times up to the knees in dirt, to help the
+postilion to tie it on, without being able to find out what was
+wanting.—Nor was it till I got to Montreuil, upon the landlord’s asking
+me if I wanted not a servant, that it occurred to me, that that was the
+very thing.
+
+A servant!  That I do most sadly, quoth I.—Because, Monsieur, said the
+landlord, there is a clever young fellow, who would be very proud of the
+honour to serve an Englishman.—But why an English one, more than any
+other?—They are so generous, said the landlord.—I’ll be shot if this is
+not a livre out of my pocket, quoth I to myself, this very night.—But
+they have wherewithal to be so, Monsieur, added he.—Set down one livre
+more for that, quoth I.—It was but last night, said the landlord, _qu’un
+milord Anglois présentoit un écu à la fille de chambre_.—_Tant pis pour
+Mademoiselle Janatone_, said I.
+
+Now Janatone, being the landlord’s daughter, and the landlord supposing I
+was young in French, took the liberty to inform me, I should not have
+said _tant pis_—but, _tant mieux_.  _Tant mieux_, _toujours_, _Monsieur_,
+said he, when there is any thing to be got—_tant pis_, when there is
+nothing.  It comes to the same thing, said I.  _Pardonnez-moi_, said the
+landlord.
+
+I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that _tant
+pis_ and _tant mieux_, being two of the great hinges in French
+conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right in the use of
+them, before he gets to Paris.
+
+A prompt French marquis at our ambassador’s table demanded of Mr. H—, if
+he was H— the poet?  No, said Mr. H—, mildly.—_Tant pis_, replied the
+marquis.
+
+It is H— the historian, said another,—_Tant mieux_, said the marquis.
+And Mr. H—, who is a man of an excellent heart, return’d thanks for both.
+
+When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he called in La Fleur,
+which was the name of the young man he had spoke of,—saying only first,
+That as for his talents he would presume to say nothing,—Monsieur was the
+best judge what would suit him; but for the fidelity of La Fleur he would
+stand responsible in all he was worth.
+
+The landlord deliver’d this in a manner which instantly set my mind to
+the business I was upon;—and La Fleur, who stood waiting without, in that
+breathless expectation which every son of nature of us have felt in our
+turns, came in.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+I AM apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but never
+more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his service to so poor a
+devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always suffer my judgment
+to draw back something on that very account,—and this more or less,
+according to the mood I am in, and the case;—and I may add, the gender
+too, of the person I am to govern.
+
+When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I could make for my
+soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the matter at
+once in his favour; so I hired him first,—and then began to enquire what
+he could do: But I shall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want
+them,—besides, a Frenchman can do every thing.
+
+Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum, and play
+a march or two upon the fife.  I was determined to make his talents do;
+and can’t say my weakness was ever so insulted by my wisdom as in the
+attempt.
+
+La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen do,
+with _serving_ for a few years; at the end of which, having satisfied the
+sentiment, and found, moreover, That the honour of beating a drum was
+likely to be its own reward, as it open’d no further track of glory to
+him,—he retired _à ses terres_, and lived _comme il plaisoit à
+Dieu_;—that is to say, upon nothing.
+
+—And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in this
+tour of yours through France and Italy!—Psha! said I, and do not one half
+of our gentry go with a humdrum _compagnon du voyage_ the same round, and
+have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides?  When man can
+extricate himself with an _équivoque_ in such an unequal match,—he is not
+ill off.—But you can do something else, La Fleur? said I.—_O qu’oui_! he
+could make spatterdashes, and play a little upon the fiddle.—Bravo! said
+Wisdom.—Why, I play a bass myself, said I;—we shall do very well.  You
+can shave, and dress a wig a little, La Fleur?—He had all the
+dispositions in the world.—It is enough for heaven! said I, interrupting
+him,—and ought to be enough for me.—So, supper coming in, and having a
+frisky English spaniel on one side of my chair, and a French valet, with
+as much hilarity in his countenance as ever Nature painted in one, on the
+other,—I was satisfied to my heart’s content with my empire; and if
+monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as satisfied as I was.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+AS La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and will be
+often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little further in his
+behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to repent of the impulses
+which generally do determine me, than in regard to this fellow;—he was a
+faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a
+philosopher; and, notwithstanding his talents of drum beating and
+spatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves, happened to be
+of no great service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed by the festivity
+of his temper;—it supplied all defects:—I had a constant resource in his
+looks in all difficulties and distresses of my own—I was going to have
+added of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of every thing; for,
+whether ’twas hunger or thirst, or cold or nakedness, or watchings, or
+whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there
+was no index in his physiognomy to point them out by,—he was eternally
+the same; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and
+then puts it into my head I am,—it always mortifies the pride of the
+conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of
+this poor fellow, for shaming me into one of a better kind.  With all
+this, La Fleur had a small cast of the coxcomb,—but he seemed at first
+sight to be more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and, before I had been
+three days in Paris with him,—he seemed to be no coxcomb at all.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+THE next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered to
+him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my half a dozen
+shirts and silk pair of breeches, and bid him fasten all upon the
+chaise,—get the horses put to,—and desire the landlord to come in with
+his bill.
+
+_C’est un garcon de bonne fortune_, said the landlord, pointing through
+the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and
+were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the postilion was leading
+out the horses.  La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again,
+and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them
+all pardons from Rome.
+
+—The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town, and
+there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where the want of him will not be
+felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, “he is always
+in love.”—I am heartily glad of it, said I,—’twill save me the trouble
+every night of putting my breeches under my head.  In saying this, I was
+making not so much La Fleur’s eloge as my own, having been in love with
+one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so
+till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it
+must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this
+interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up,—I can scarce
+find in it to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of
+it as fast as I can—and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity
+and good-will again; and would do anything in the world, either for or
+with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no sin in it.
+
+—But in saying this,—sure I am commanding the passion,—not myself.
+
+
+
+
+A FRAGMENT.
+
+
+—THE town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying all
+the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and most
+profligate town in all Thrace.  What for poisons, conspiracies, and
+assassinations,—libels, pasquinades, and tumults, there was no going
+there by day—’twas worse by night.
+
+Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that the Andromeda of
+Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delighted
+with it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operated
+more upon their imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which the
+poet had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, _O Cupid_,
+_prince of gods and men_! &c.  Every man almost spoke pure iambics the
+next day, and talked of nothing but Perseus his pathetic address,—“_O
+Cupid! prince of gods and men_!”—in every street of Abdera, in every
+house, “O Cupid!  Cupid!”—in every mouth, like the natural notes of some
+sweet melody which drop from it, whether it will or no,—nothing but
+“Cupid! Cupid! prince of gods and men!”—The fire caught—and the whole
+city, like the heart of one man, open’d itself to Love.
+
+No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore,—not a single
+armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death;—Friendship and
+Virtue met together, and kiss’d each other in the street; the golden age
+returned, and hung over the town of Abdera—every Abderite took his eaten
+pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sat
+her down and listened to the song.
+
+’Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empire
+extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea, to
+have done this.
+
+
+
+
+MONTREUIL.
+
+
+WHEN all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn,
+unless you are a little sour’d by the adventure, there is always a matter
+to compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; and that is
+with the sons and daughters of poverty, who surround you.  Let no man
+say, “Let them go to the devil!”—’tis a cruel journey to send a few
+miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: I always think
+it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every
+gentle traveller to do so likewise: he need not be so exact in setting
+down his motives for giving them;—They will be registered elsewhere.
+
+For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, that I
+know, have so little to give; but as this was the first public act of my
+charity in France, I took the more notice of it.
+
+A well-a-way! said I,—I have but eight sous in the world, showing them in
+my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for ’em.
+
+A poor tatter’d soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his claim,
+by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying bow
+on his part.  Had the whole _parterre_ cried out, _Place aux dames_, with
+one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference for
+the sex with half the effect.
+
+Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that beggary and
+urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should find a
+way to be at unity in this?
+
+—I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his
+_politesse_.
+
+A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in the
+circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once been a hat,
+took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously offer’d a pinch on
+both sides of him: it was a gift of consequence, and modestly
+declined.—The poor little fellow pressed it upon them with a nod of
+welcomeness.—_Prenez en—prenez_, said he, looking another way; so they
+each took a pinch.—Pity thy box should ever want one! said I to myself;
+so I put a couple of sous into it—taking a small pinch out of his box, to
+enhance their value, as I did it.  He felt the weight of the second
+obligation more than of the first,—’twas doing him an honour,—the other
+was only doing him a charity;—and he made me a bow down to the ground for
+it.
+
+—Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaigned
+and worn out to death in the service—here’s a couple of sous for
+thee.—_Vive le Roi_! said the old soldier.
+
+I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, _pour l’amour de
+Dieu_, which was the footing on which it was begg’d.—The poor woman had a
+dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.
+
+_Mon cher et très-charitable Monsieur_.—There’s no opposing this, said I.
+
+_Milord Anglois_—the very sound was worth the money;—so I gave _my last
+sous for it_.  But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a _pauvre
+honteux_, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I believe,
+would have perished, ere he could have ask’d one for himself: he stood by
+the chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face
+which I thought had seen better days.—Good God! said I—and I have not one
+single sous left to give him.—But you have a thousand! cried all the
+powers of nature, stirring within me;—so I gave him—no matter what—I am
+ashamed to say _how much_ now,—and was ashamed to think how little, then:
+so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two
+fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was
+the precise sum.
+
+I could afford nothing for the rest, but _Dieu vous bénisse_!
+
+—_Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore_, said the old soldier, the dwarf,
+&c.  The _pauvre honteux_ could say nothing;—he pull’d out a little
+handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away—and I thought he
+thanked me more than them all.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIDET.
+
+
+HAVING settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise with
+more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur
+having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little _bidet_, {588}
+and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs)—he canter’d away
+before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.—But what is
+happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life!  A dead ass,
+before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to La Fleur’s career;—his
+bidet would not pass by it,—a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor
+fellow was kick’d out of his jack-boots the very first kick.
+
+La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more nor
+less upon it, than _Diable_!  So presently got up, and came to the charge
+again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as he would have beat his
+drum.
+
+The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back
+again,—then this way, then that way, and in short, every way but by the
+dead ass:—La Fleur insisted upon the thing—and the bidet threw him.
+
+What’s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine?  Monsieur,
+said he, _c’est un cheval le plus opiniâtre du monde_.—Nay, if he is a
+conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I.  So La Fleur got off
+him, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, and
+away he scampered back to Montreuil.—_Peste_! said La Fleur.
+
+It is not _mal-à-propos_ to take notice here, that though La Fleur
+availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this
+encounter,—namely, _Diable_! and _Peste_! that there are, nevertheless,
+three in the French language: like the positive, comparative, and
+superlative, one or the other of which serves for every unexpected throw
+of the dice in life.
+
+_Le Diable_! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally used
+upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall out
+contrary to your expectations; such as—the throwing once doublets—La
+Fleur’s being kick’d off his horse, and so forth.—Cuckoldom, for the same
+reason, is always—_Le Diable_!
+
+But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in that of
+the bidet’s running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground in
+jack-boots,—’tis the second degree.
+
+’Tis then _Peste_!
+
+And for the third—
+
+—But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I reflect
+what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so refined a
+people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use of it.—
+
+Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in
+distress!—what ever is my _cast_, grant me but decent words to exclaim
+in, and I will give my nature way.
+
+—But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take every evil
+just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.
+
+La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the bidet
+with his eyes till it was got out of sight,—and then, you may imagine, if
+you please, with what word he closed the whole affair.
+
+As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack-boots, there
+remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise, or
+into it.—
+
+I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the post-house at
+Nampont.
+
+
+
+
+NAMPONT.
+THE DEAD ASS.
+
+
+—AND this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet—and
+this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have
+shared it with me.—I thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to
+his child; but ’twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in
+the road, which had occasioned La Fleur’s misadventure.  The man seemed
+to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho’s
+lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.
+
+The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass’s
+pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to
+time,—then laid them down,—look’d at them, and shook his head.  He then
+took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held it
+some time in his hand,—then laid it upon the bit of his ass’s
+bridle,—looked wistfully at the little arrangement he had made—and then
+gave a sigh.
+
+The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur amongst
+the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in
+the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.
+
+—He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthest
+borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home, when his ass
+died.  Every one seemed desirous to know what business could have taken
+so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.
+
+It had pleased heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest
+lads in Germany; but having in one week lost two of the eldest of them by
+the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was
+afraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if heaven would not
+take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to St. Iago in Spain.
+
+When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp’d to pay Nature her
+tribute,—and wept bitterly.
+
+He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set out from
+his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of
+his journey;—that it had eaten the same bread with him all the way, and
+was unto him as a friend.
+
+Every body who stood about, heard the poor fellow with concern.—La Fleur
+offered him money.—The mourner said he did not want it;—it was not the
+value of the ass—but the loss of him.—The ass, he said, he was assured,
+loved him;—and upon this told them a long story of a mischance upon their
+passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated them from each
+other three days; during which time the ass had sought him as much as he
+had sought the ass, and that they had scarce either eaten or drank till
+they met.
+
+Thou hast one comfort, friend, said I, at least, in the loss of thy poor
+beast; I’m sure thou hast been a merciful master to him.—Alas! said the
+mourner, I thought so when he was alive;—but now that he is dead, I think
+otherwise.—I fear the weight of myself and my afflictions together have
+been too much for him,—they have shortened the poor creature’s days, and
+I fear I have them to answer for.—Shame on the world! said I to
+myself.—Did we but love each other as this poor soul loved his
+ass—’twould be something.—
+
+
+
+
+NAMPONT.
+THE POSTILION.
+
+
+THE concern which the poor fellow’s story threw me into required some
+attention; the postilion paid not the least to it, but set off upon the
+_pavé_ in a full gallop.
+
+The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia could not have
+wished more for a cup of cold water, than mine did for grave and quiet
+movements; and I should have had an high opinion of the postilion had he
+but stolen off with me in something like a pensive pace.—On the contrary,
+as the mourner finished his lamentation, the fellow gave an unfeeling
+lash to each of his beasts, and set off clattering like a thousand
+devils.
+
+I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven’s sake to go slower:—and
+the louder I called, the more unmercifully he galloped.—The deuce take
+him and his galloping too—said I,—he’ll go on tearing my nerves to pieces
+till he has worked me into a foolish passion, and then he’ll go slow that
+I may enjoy the sweets of it.
+
+The postilion managed the point to a miracle: by the time he had got to
+the foot of a steep hill, about half a league from Nampont,—he had put me
+out of temper with him,—and then with myself, for being so.
+
+My case then required a different treatment; and a good rattling gallop
+would have been of real service to me.—
+
+—Then, prithee, get on—get on, my good lad, said I.
+
+The postilion pointed to the hill.—I then tried to return back to the
+story of the poor German and his ass—but I had broke the clue,—and could
+no more get into it again, than the postilion could into a trot.
+
+—The deuce go, said I, with it all!  Here am I sitting as candidly
+disposed to make the best of the worst, as ever wight was, and all runs
+counter.
+
+There is one sweet lenitive at least for evils, which Nature holds out to
+us: so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell asleep; and the first word
+which roused me was _Amiens_.
+
+—Bless me! said I, rubbing my eyes,—this is the very town where my poor
+lady is to come.
+
+
+
+
+AMIENS.
+
+
+THE words were scarce out of my mouth when the Count de L—’s post-chaise,
+with his sister in it, drove hastily by: she had just time to make me a
+bow of recognition,—and of that particular kind of it, which told me she
+had not yet done with me.  She was as good as her look; for, before I had
+quite finished my supper, her brother’s servant came into the room with a
+billet, in which she said she had taken the liberty to charge me with a
+letter, which I was to present myself to Madame R— the first morning I
+had nothing to do at Paris.  There was only added, she was sorry, but
+from what _penchant_ she had not considered, that she had been prevented
+telling me her story,—that she still owed it to me; and if my route
+should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then forgot the name
+of Madame de L—,—that Madame de L— would be glad to discharge her
+obligation.
+
+Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit! at Brussels;—’tis only
+returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route of
+Flanders, home;—’twill scarce be ten posts out of my way; but, were it
+ten thousand! with what a moral delight will it crown my journey, in
+sharing in the sickening incidents of a tale of misery told to me by such
+a sufferer?  To see her weep! and, though I cannot dry up the fountain of
+her tears, what an exquisite sensation is there still left, in wiping
+them away from off the cheeks of the first and fairest of women, as I’m
+sitting with my handkerchief in my hand in silence the whole night beside
+her?
+
+There was nothing wrong in the sentiment; and yet I instantly reproached
+my heart with it in the bitterest and most reprobate of expressions.
+
+It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of
+my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one;
+and my last flame happening to be blown out by a whiff of jealousy on the
+sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure taper of
+Eliza but about three months before,—swearing, as I did it, that it
+should last me through the whole journey.—Why should I dissemble the
+matter?  I had sworn to her eternal fidelity;—she had a right to my whole
+heart:—to divide my affections was to lessen them;—to expose them was to
+risk them: where there is risk there may be loss:—and what wilt thou
+have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust and confidence—so
+good, so gentle, and unreproaching!
+
+—I will not go to Brussels, replied I, interrupting myself.—But my
+imagination went on,—I recalled her looks at that crisis of our
+separation, when neither of us had power to say adieu!  I look’d at the
+picture she had tied in a black riband about my neck,—and blush’d as I
+look’d at it.—I would have given the world to have kiss’d it,—but was
+ashamed.—And shall this tender flower, said I, pressing it between my
+hands,—shall it be smitten to its very root,—and smitten, Yorick! by
+thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast?
+
+Eternal Fountain of Happiness! said I, kneeling down upon the ground,—be
+thou my witness—and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my witness
+also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went along with
+me, did the road lead me towards heaven!
+
+In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding,
+will always say too much.
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTER.
+AMIENS.
+
+
+FORTUNE had not smiled upon La Fleur; for he had been unsuccessful in his
+feats of chivalry,—and not one thing had offered to signalise his zeal
+for my service from the time that he had entered into it, which was
+almost four-and-twenty hours.  The poor soul burn’d with impatience; and
+the Count de L—’s servant coming with the letter, being the first
+practicable occasion which offer’d, La Fleur had laid hold of it; and, in
+order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back parlour in
+the auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in
+Picardy; and the Count de L—’s servant, in return, and not to be
+behindhand in politeness with La Fleur, had taken him back with him to
+the Count’s hotel.  La Fleur’s _prevenancy_ (for there was a passport in
+his very looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with him;
+and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of prudery in
+showing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, had pulled out his
+fife, and leading off the dance himself with the first note, set the
+_fille de chambre_, the _maître d’hôtel_, the cook, the scullion, and all
+the house-hold, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing: I
+suppose there never was a merrier kitchen since the flood.
+
+Madame de L—, in passing from her brother’s apartments to her own,
+hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her _fille de chambre_ to
+ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman’s servant, who
+had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ordered him up.
+
+As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he had loaded himself
+in going up stairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de L—, on the
+part of his master,—added a long apocrypha of inquiries after Madame de
+L—’s health,—told her, that Monsieur his master was _au désespoire_ for
+her re-establishment from the fatigues of her journey,—and, to close all,
+that Monsieur had received the letter which Madame had done him the
+honour—And he has done me the honour, said Madame de L—, interrupting La
+Fleur, to send a billet in return.
+
+Madame de L— had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the fact,
+that La Fleur had not power to disappoint her expectations;—he trembled
+for my honour,—and possibly might not altogether be unconcerned for his
+own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could be wanting
+_en égards vis à vis d’une femme_! so that when Madame de L— asked La
+Fleur if he had brought a letter,—_O qu’oui_, said La Fleur: so laying
+down his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right
+side pocket with his left hand, he began to search for the letter with
+his right;—then contrariwise.—_Diable_! then sought every pocket—pocket
+by pocket, round, not forgetting his fob:—_Peste_!—then La Fleur emptied
+them upon the floor,—pulled out a dirty cravat,—a handkerchief,—a comb,—a
+whip lash,—a nightcap,—then gave a peep into his hat,—_Quelle
+étourderie_!  He had left the letter upon the table in the auberge;—he
+would run for it, and be back with it in three minutes.
+
+I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an account
+of his adventure: he told the whole story simply as it was: and only
+added that if Monsieur had forgot (_par hazard_) to answer Madame’s
+letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover the _faux
+pas_;—and if not, that things were only as they were.
+
+Now I was not altogether sure of my _étiquette_, whether I ought to have
+wrote or no;—but if I had,—a devil himself could not have been angry:
+’twas but the officious zeal of a well meaning creature for my honour;
+and, however he might have mistook the road,—or embarrassed me in so
+doing,—his heart was in no fault,—I was under no necessity to write;—and,
+what weighed more than all,—he did not look as if he had done amiss.
+
+—’Tis all very well, La Fleur, said I.—’Twas sufficient.  La Fleur flew
+out of the room like lightning, and returned with pen, ink, and paper, in
+his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them close before me, with
+such a delight in his countenance, that I could not help taking up the
+pen.
+
+I began and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that
+nothing might have been expressed in half a dozen lines, I made half a
+dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself.
+
+In short, I was in no mood to write.
+
+La Fleur stepp’d out and brought a little water in a glass to dilute my
+ink,—then fetch’d sand and seal-wax.—It was all one; I wrote, and
+blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again.—_Le diable l’emporte_!
+said I, half to myself,—I cannot write this self-same letter, throwing
+the pen down despairingly as I said it.
+
+As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most
+respectful carriage up to the table, and making a thousand apologies for
+the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a letter in his pocket
+wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a corporal’s wife, which he durst
+say would suit the occasion.
+
+I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour.—Then prithee, said
+I, let me see it.
+
+La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket book cramm’d full of
+small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and laying it upon the
+table, and then untying the string which held them all together, run them
+over, one by one, till he came to the letter in question,—_La voila_!
+said he, clapping his hands: so, unfolding it first, he laid it open
+before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst I read it.
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+
+Madame,
+
+Je suis pénétré de la douleur la plus vive, et réduit en même temps au
+désespoir par ce retour imprévù du Caporal qui rend notre entrevûe de ce
+soir la chose du monde la plus impossible.
+
+Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser à vous.
+
+L’amour n’est _rien_ sans sentiment.
+
+Et le sentiment est encore _moins_ sans amour.
+
+On dit qu’on ne doit jamais se désesperér.
+
+On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde Mercredi: alors ce
+cera mon tour.
+
+                           _Chacun à son tour_.
+
+En attendant—Vive l’amour! et vive la bagatelle!
+
+                                                          Je suis, Madame,
+                                          Avec tous les sentimens les plus
+                                          respectueux et les plus tendres,
+                                                              tout à vous,
+                                                             JAQUES ROQUE.
+
+It was but changing the Corporal into the Count,—and saying nothing about
+mounting guard on Wednesday,—and the letter was neither right nor
+wrong:—so, to gratify the poor fellow, who stood trembling for my honour,
+his own, and the honour of his letter,—I took the cream gently off it,
+and whipping it up in my own way, I seal’d it up and sent him with it to
+Madame de L—;—and the next morning we pursued our journey to Paris.
+
+
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all on
+floundering before him with half a dozen of lackies and a couple of
+cooks—’tis very well in such a place as Paris,—he may drive in at which
+end of a street he will.
+
+A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does not
+exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize himself in
+the cabinet, if he can get up into it;—I say _up into it_—for there is no
+descending perpendicular amongst ’em with a “_Me voici_! _mes
+enfans_”—here I am—whatever many may think.
+
+I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone in my
+own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as I had
+prefigured them.  I walked up gravely to the window in my dusty black
+coat, and looking through the glass saw all the world in yellow, blue,
+and green, running at the ring of pleasure.—The old with broken lances,
+and in helmets which had lost their vizards;—the young in armour bright
+which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the
+east,—all,—all, tilting at it like fascinated knights in tournaments of
+yore for fame and love.—
+
+Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here?  On the very first
+onset of all this glittering clatter thou art reduced to an
+atom;—seek,—seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the end of it,
+where chariot never rolled or flambeau shot its rays;—there thou mayest
+solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind grisette of a barber’s
+wife, and get into such coteries!—
+
+—May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out the letter which I had to
+present to Madame de R—.—I’ll wait upon this lady, the very first thing I
+do.  So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber directly,—and come back
+and brush my coat.
+
+
+
+
+THE WIG.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do with
+my wig: ’twas either above or below his art: I had nothing to do but to
+take one ready made of his own recommendation.
+
+—But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won’t stand.—You may emerge it,
+replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand.—
+
+What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I.—The utmost
+stretch of an English periwig-maker’s ideas could have gone no further
+than to have “dipped it into a pail of water.”—What difference! ’tis like
+Time to Eternity!
+
+I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which
+engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of nature,
+that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison
+less than a mountain at least.  All that can be said against the French
+sublime, in this instance of it, is this:—That the grandeur is _more_ in
+the _word_, and _less_ in the _thing_.  No doubt, the ocean fills the
+mind with vast ideas; but Paris being so far inland, it was not likely I
+should run post a hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment;—the
+Parisian barber meant nothing.—
+
+The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes, certainly, but a
+sorry figure in speech;—but, ’twill be said,—it has one advantage—’tis in
+the next room, and the truth of the buckle may be tried in it, without
+more ado, in a single moment.
+
+In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, _The
+French expression professes more than it performs_.
+
+I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national
+characters more in these nonsensical _minutiæ_ than in the most important
+matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and stalk so much
+alike, that I would not give ninepence to choose amongst them.
+
+I was so long in getting from under my barber’s hands, that it was too
+late to think of going with my letter to Madame R— that night: but when a
+man is once dressed at all points for going out, his reflections turn to
+little account; so taking down the name of the Hôtel de Modene, where I
+lodged, I walked forth without any determination where to go;—I shall
+consider of that, said I, as I walk along.
+
+
+
+
+THE PULSE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+HAIL, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road
+of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first
+sight: ’tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in.
+
+—Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I must turn
+to go to the Opéra Comique?—Most willingly, Monsieur, said she, laying
+aside her work.—
+
+I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came along,
+in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption:
+till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked in.
+
+She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on the far
+side of the shop, facing the door.
+
+—_Très volontiers_, most willingly, said she, laying her work down upon a
+chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was sitting in, with
+so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying
+out fifty louis d’ors with her, I should have said—“This woman is
+grateful.”
+
+You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the shop,
+and pointing the way down the street I was to take,—you must turn first
+to your left hand,—_mais prenez garde_—there are two turns; and be so
+good as to take the second—then go down a little way and you’ll see a
+church: and, when you are past it, give yourself the trouble to turn
+directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the Pont
+Neuf, which you must cross—and there any one will do himself the pleasure
+to show you.—
+
+She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same
+goodnatur’d patience the third time as the first;—and if _tones and
+manners_ have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts
+which shut them out,—she seemed really interested that I should not lose
+myself.
+
+I will not suppose it was the woman’s beauty, notwithstanding she was the
+handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to do with the
+sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I told her how much I
+was obliged to her, that I looked very full in her eyes,—and that I
+repeated my thanks as often as she had done her instructions.
+
+I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot every
+tittle of what she had said;—so looking back, and seeing her still
+standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I went right or
+not,—I returned back to ask her, whether the first turn was to my right
+or left,—for that I had absolutely forgot.—Is it possible! said she, half
+laughing.  ’Tis very possible, replied I, when a man is thinking more of
+a woman than of her good advice.
+
+As this was the real truth—she took it, as every woman takes a matter of
+right, with a slight curtsey.
+
+—_Attendez_! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me, whilst
+she called a lad out of the back shop to get ready a parcel of gloves.  I
+am just going to send him, said she, with a packet into that quarter, and
+if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a
+moment, and he shall attend you to the place.—So I walk’d in with her to
+the far side of the shop: and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she
+laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in
+her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down beside her.
+
+—He will be ready, Monsieur, said she, in a moment.—And in that moment,
+replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all
+these courtesies.  Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a
+continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; and
+certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart
+which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you must
+have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world.—Feel it, said she,
+holding out her arm.  So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers
+in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery.—
+
+—Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me
+sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the
+throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been
+watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever.—How wouldst thou have
+laugh’d and moralized upon my new profession!—and thou shouldst have
+laugh’d and moralized on.—Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said,
+“There are worse occupations in this world _than feeling a woman’s
+pulse_.”—But a grisette’s! thou wouldst have said,—and in an open shop!
+Yorick—
+
+—So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not
+if all the world saw me feel it.
+
+
+
+
+THE HUSBAND.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I HAD counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the
+fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlour into
+the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning.—’Twas nobody but her
+husband, she said;—so I began a fresh score.—Monsieur is so good, quoth
+she, as he pass’d by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my
+pulse.—The husband took off his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him
+too much honour—and having said that, he put on his hat and walk’d out.
+
+Good God! said I to myself, as he went out,—and can this man be the
+husband of this woman!
+
+Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds of
+this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.
+
+In London a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper’s wife seem to be one bone and
+one flesh: in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one,
+sometimes the other has it, so as, in general, to be upon a par, and
+totally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.
+
+In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the
+legislative and executive powers of the shop not resting in the husband,
+he seldom comes there:—in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits
+commerce-less, in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that
+Nature left him.
+
+The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is _salique_,
+having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the
+women,—by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from
+morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a
+bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and
+sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive,
+some of them, a polish like a brilliant:—Monsieur _le Mari_ is little
+better than the stone under your foot.
+
+—Surely,—surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone:—thou wast
+made for social intercourse and gentle greetings; and this improvement of
+our natures from it I appeal to as my evidence.
+
+—And how does it beat, Monsieur? said she.—With all the benignity, said
+I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected.—She was going to say
+something civil in return—but the lad came into the shop with the
+gloves.—_Apropos_, said I, I want a couple of pairs myself.
+
+
+
+
+THE GLOVES.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THE beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind the
+counter, reach’d down a parcel and untied it: I advanced to the side over
+against her: they were all too large.  The beautiful grisette measured
+them one by one across my hand.—It would not alter their dimensions.—She
+begg’d I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least.—She held
+it open;—my hand slipped into it at once.—It will not do, said I, shaking
+my head a little.—No, said she, doing the same thing.
+
+There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety,—where whim, and
+sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the
+languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them;—they are
+communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which
+party is the infector.  I leave it to your men of words to swell pages
+about it—it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not
+do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both lolled upon the
+counter—it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay
+between us.
+
+The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways to
+the window, then at the gloves,—and then at me.  I was not disposed to
+break silence:—I followed her example: so, I looked at the gloves, then
+to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her,—and so on
+alternately.
+
+I found I lost considerably in every attack:—she had a quick black eye,
+and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such
+penetration, that she look’d into my very heart and reins.—It may seem
+strange, but I could actually feel she did.—
+
+It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, and
+putting them into my pocket.
+
+I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a single livre
+above the price.—I wish’d she had asked a livre more, and was puzzling my
+brains how to bring the matter about.—Do you think, my dear Sir, said
+she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of a
+stranger—and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his want of
+gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy?—_M’en croyez
+capable_?—Faith! not I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome.  So
+counting the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally
+makes to a shopkeeper’s wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel
+followed me.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRANSLATION.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THERE was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly old French
+officer.  I love the character, not only because I honour the man whose
+manners are softened by a profession which makes bad men worse; but that
+I once knew one,—for he is no more,—and why should I not rescue one page
+from violation by writing his name in it, and telling the world it was
+Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my flock and friends, whose
+philanthropy I never think of at this long distance from his death—but my
+eyes gush out with tears.  For his sake I have a predilection for the
+whole corps of veterans; and so I strode over the two back rows of
+benches and placed myself beside him.
+
+The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might be the
+book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles.  As soon as I sat
+down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into a shagreen case,
+return’d them and the book into his pocket together.  I half rose up, and
+made him a bow.
+
+Translate this into any civilized language in the world—the sense is
+this:
+
+“Here’s a poor stranger come into the box—he seems as if he knew nobody;
+and is never likely, was he to be seven years in Paris, if every man he
+comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose:—’tis shutting the door of
+conversation absolutely in his face—and using him worse than a German.”
+
+The French officer might as well have said it all aloud: and if he had, I
+should in course have put the bow I made him into French too, and told
+him, “I was sensible of his attention, and return’d him a thousand thanks
+for it.”
+
+There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get
+master of this _short hand_, and to be quick in rendering the several
+turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations,
+into plain words.  For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so
+mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I go translating
+all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where
+not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different
+dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to.
+
+I was going one evening to Martini’s concert at Milan, and, was just
+entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di F— was coming out
+in a sort of a hurry:—she was almost upon me before I saw her; so I gave
+a spring to once side to let her pass.—She had done the same, and on the
+same side too; so we ran our heads together: she instantly got to the
+other side to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been, for I
+had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage again.—We both flew
+together to the other side, and then back,—and so on:—it was ridiculous:
+we both blush’d intolerably: so I did at last the thing I should have
+done at first;—I stood stock-still, and the Marquisina had no more
+difficulty.  I had no power to go into the room, till I had made her so
+much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of the
+passage.  She look’d back twice, and walk’d along it rather sideways, as
+if she would make room for any one coming up stairs to pass her.—No, said
+I—that’s a vile translation: the Marquisina has a right to the best
+apology I can make her, and that opening is left for me to do it in;—so I
+ran and begg’d pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, saying it
+was my intention to have made her way.  She answered, she was guided by
+the same intention towards me;—so we reciprocally thank’d each other.
+She was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no _cicisbeo_ near her, I
+begg’d to hand her to her coach;—so we went down the stairs, stopping at
+every third step to talk of the concert and the adventure.—Upon my word,
+Madame, said I, when I had handed her in, I made six different efforts to
+let you go out.—And I made six efforts, replied she, to let you enter.—I
+wish to heaven you would make a seventh, said I.—With all my heart, said
+she, making room.—Life is too short to be long about the forms of it,—so
+I instantly stepp’d in, and she carried me home with her.—And what became
+of the concert, St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows more than I.
+
+I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the translation
+gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy.
+
+
+
+
+THE DWARF.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I HAD never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by one;
+and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so that being
+pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck
+me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre,—and that was, the
+unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs.—No doubt
+she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the world; but in
+Paris there is no end to her amusements.—The goddess seems almost as
+merry as she is wise.
+
+As I carried my idea out of the _Opéra Comique_ with me, I measured every
+body I saw walking in the streets by it.—Melancholy application!
+especially where the size was extremely little,—the face extremely
+dark,—the eyes quick,—the nose long,—the teeth white,—the jaw
+prominent,—to see so many miserables, by force of accidents driven out of
+their own proper class into the very verge of another, which it gives me
+pain to write down:—every third man a pigmy!—some by rickety heads and
+hump backs;—others by bandy legs;—a third set arrested by the hand of
+Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their growth;—a fourth, in their
+perfect and natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first
+rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.
+
+A Medical Traveller might say, ’tis owing to undue bandages;—a Splenetic
+one, to want of air;—and an Inquisitive Traveller, to fortify the system,
+may measure the height of their houses,—the narrowness of their streets,
+and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh stories such numbers
+of the bourgeoisie eat and sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the
+elder, who accounted for nothing like any body else, in speaking one
+evening of these matters, averred that children, like other animals,
+might be increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the
+world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop’d up, that
+they had not actually room enough to get them.—I do not call it getting
+anything, said he;—’tis getting nothing.—Nay, continued he, rising in his
+argument, ’tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got after
+twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious
+aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg.  Now,
+Mr. Shandy being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.
+
+As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found it,
+and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is verified
+in every lane and by-lane of Paris.  I was walking down that which leads
+from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and observing a little boy in some
+distress at the side of the gutter which ran down the middle of it, I
+took hold of his hand and help’d him over.  Upon turning up his face to
+look at him after, I perceived he was about forty.—Never mind, said I,
+some good body will do as much for me when I am ninety.
+
+I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be merciful
+towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have neither size nor
+strength to get on in the world.—I cannot bear to see one of them trod
+upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old French officer, ere the
+disgust was exercised, by seeing the very thing happen under the box we
+sat in.
+
+At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side box,
+there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is full, numbers
+of all ranks take sanctuary.  Though you stand, as in the parterre, you
+pay the same price as in the orchestra.  A poor defenceless being of this
+order had got thrust somehow or other into this luckless place;—the night
+was hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet and a half higher than
+himself.  The dwarf suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing
+which incommoded him most, was a tall corpulent German, near seven feet
+high, who stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of his seeing
+either the stage or the actors.  The poor dwarf did all he could to get a
+peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening
+betwixt the German’s arm and his body, trying first on one side, then the
+other; but the German stood square in the most unaccommodating posture
+that can be imagined:—the dwarf might as well have been placed at the
+bottom of the deepest draw-well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his
+hand to the German’s sleeve, and told him his distress.—The German turn’d
+his head back, looked down upon him as Goliah did upon David,—and
+unfeelingly resumed his posture.
+
+I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk’s little horn
+box.—And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear monk! so
+temper’d to _bear and forbear_!—how sweetly would it have lent an ear to
+this poor soul’s complaint!
+
+The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion, as I
+made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the matter?—I
+told him the story in three words; and added, how inhuman it was.
+
+By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first
+transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German he
+would cut off his long queue with his knife.—The German look’d back
+coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.
+
+An injury sharpen’d by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes every man
+of sentiment a party: I could have leap’d out of the box to have
+redressed it.—The old French officer did it with much less confusion; for
+leaning a little over, and nodding to a sentinel, and pointing at the
+same time with his finger at the distress,—the sentinel made his way to
+it.—There was no occasion to tell the grievance,—the thing told himself;
+so thrusting back the German instantly with his musket,—he took the poor
+dwarf by the hand, and placed him before him.—This is noble! said I,
+clapping my hands together.—And yet you would not permit this, said the
+old officer, in England.
+
+—In England, dear Sir, said I, _we sit all at our ease_.
+
+The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in case I
+had been at variance,—by saying it was a _bon mot_;—and, as a _bon mot_
+is always worth something at Paris, he offered me a pinch of snuff.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+IT was now my turn to ask the old French officer “What was the matter?”
+for a cry of “_Haussez les mains_, _Monsieur l’Abbé_!” re-echoed from a
+dozen different parts of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as my
+apostrophe to the monk had been to him.
+
+He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upper loges, who, he
+supposed, had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes in order to
+see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were insisting upon his
+holding up both his hands during the representation.—And can it be
+supposed, said I, that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes’ pockets?
+The old French officer smiled, and whispering in my ear, opened a door of
+knowledge which I had no idea of.
+
+Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment—is it possible, that a
+people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean, and
+so unlike themselves,—_Quelle grossièrté_! added I.
+
+The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church,
+which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given in
+it by Molière: but like other remains of Gothic manners, was
+declining.—Every nation, continued he, have their refinements and
+_grossièrtés_, in which they take the lead, and lose it of one another by
+turns:—that he had been in most countries, but never in one where he
+found not some delicacies, which others seemed to want.  _Le_ POUR _et
+le_ CONTRE _se trouvent en chaque nation_; there is a balance, said he,
+of good and bad everywhere; and nothing but the knowing it is so, can
+emancipate one half of the world from the prepossession which it holds
+against the other:—that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the
+_sçavoir vivre_, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it
+taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making
+me a bow, taught us mutual love.
+
+The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour and
+good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of his
+character:—I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the
+object;—’twas my own way of thinking—the difference was, I could not have
+expressed it half so well.
+
+It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast,—if the latter
+goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every object which
+he never saw before.—I have as little torment of this kind as any
+creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a thing gave me
+pain, and that I blush’d at many a word the first month,—which I found
+inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second.
+
+Madame do Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with her,
+had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues out of
+town.—Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the most correct; and I never
+wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart.—In our return back,
+Madame de Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord.—I asked her if she
+wanted anything—_Rien que pour pisser_, said Madame de Rambouliet.
+
+Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet p—ss on.—And,
+ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one _pluck your rose_, and scatter them in
+your path,—for Madame de Rambouliet did no more.—I handed Madame de
+Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the priest of the chaste
+Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with a more respectful
+decorum.
+
+
+
+
+THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing
+Polonius’s advice to his son upon the same subject into my head,—and that
+bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare’s works, I stopp’d
+at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to purchase the whole set.
+
+The bookseller said he had not a set in the world.  _Comment_! said I,
+taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt us.—He said
+they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to be sent back to
+Versailles in the morning to the Count de B—.
+
+—And does the Count de B—, said I, read Shakespeare?  _C’est un esprit
+fort_, replied the bookseller.—He loves English books! and what is more
+to his honour, Monsieur, he loves the English too.  You speak this so
+civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an Englishman to lay out a
+louis d’or or two at your shop.—The bookseller made a bow, and was going
+to say something, when a young decent girl about twenty, who by her air
+and dress seemed to be _fille de chambre_ to some devout woman of
+fashion, come into the shop and asked for _Les Égarements du Cœur et de
+l’Esprit_: the bookseller gave her the book directly; she pulled out a
+little green satin purse run round with a riband of the same colour, and
+putting her finger and thumb into it, she took out the money and paid for
+it.  As I had nothing more to stay me in the shop, we both walk’d out at
+the door together.
+
+—And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with _The Wanderings of the
+Heart_, who scarce know yet you have one? nor, till love has first told
+you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache, canst thou ever be
+sure it is so.—_Le Dieu m’en garde_! said the girl.—With reason, said I,
+for if it is a good one, ’tis pity it should be stolen; ’tis a little
+treasure to thee, and gives a better air to your face, than if it was
+dress’d out with pearls.
+
+The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her satin
+purse by its riband in her hand all the time.—’Tis a very small one, said
+I, taking hold of the bottom of it—she held it towards me—and there is
+very little in it, my dear, said I; but be but as good as thou art
+handsome, and heaven will fill it.  I had a parcel of crowns in my hand
+to pay for Shakespeare; and, as she had let go the purse entirely, I put
+a single one in; and, tying up the riband in a bow-knot, returned it to
+her.
+
+The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low one:—’twas one
+of those quiet, thankful sinkings, where the spirit bows itself down,—the
+body does no more than tell it.  I never gave a girl a crown in my life
+which gave me half the pleasure.
+
+My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you, said I, if I
+had not given this along with it: but now, when you see the crown, you’ll
+remember it;—so don’t, my dear, lay it out in ribands.
+
+Upon my word, Sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am incapable;—in saying
+which, as is usual in little bargains of honour, she gave me her
+hand:—_En vérité_, _Monsieur_, _je mettrai cet argent àpart_, said she.
+
+When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it sanctifies
+their most private walks: so, notwithstanding it was dusky, yet as both
+our roads lay the same way, we made no scruple of walking along the Quai
+de Conti together.
+
+She made me a second courtesy in setting off, and before we got twenty
+yards from the door, as if she had not done enough before, she made a
+sort of a little stop to tell me again—she thank’d me.
+
+It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid paying to
+virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had been rendering it
+to for the world;—but I see innocence, my dear, in your face,—and foul
+befall the man who ever lays a snare in its way!
+
+The girl seem’d affected some way or other with what I said;—she gave a
+low sigh:—I found I was not empowered to enquire at all after it,—so said
+nothing more till I got to the corner of the Rue de Nevers, where, we
+were to part.
+
+—But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the Hotel de Modene?  She told
+me it was;—or that I might go by the Rue de Gueneguault, which was the
+next turn.—Then I’ll go, my dear, by the Rue de Gueneguault, said I, for
+two reasons; first, I shall please myself, and next, I shall give you the
+protection of my company as far on your way as I can.  The girl was
+sensible I was civil—and said, she wished the Hotel de Modene was in the
+Rue de St. Pierre.—You live there? said I.—She told me she was _fille de
+chambre_ to Madame R—.—Good God! said I, ’tis the very lady for whom I
+have brought a letter from Amiens.—The girl told me that Madame R—, she
+believed, expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient to see
+him:—so I desired the girl to present my compliments to Madame R—, and
+say, I would certainly wait upon her in the morning.
+
+We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst this pass’d.—We
+then stopped a moment whilst she disposed of her _Égarements du Cœur_,
+&c. more commodiously than carrying them in her hand—they were two
+volumes: so I held the second for her whilst she put the first into her
+pocket; and then she held her pocket, and I put in the other after it.
+
+’Tis sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn
+together.
+
+We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl put her hand
+within my arm.—I was just bidding her,—but she did it of herself, with
+that undeliberating simplicity, which show’d it was out of her head that
+she had never seen me before.  For my own part, I felt the conviction of
+consanguinity so strongly, that I could not help turning half round to
+look in her face, and see if I could trace out any thing in it of a
+family likeness.—Tut! said I, are we not all relations?
+
+When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, I stopp’d to
+bid her adieu for good and all: the girl would thank me again for my
+company and kindness.—She bid me adieu twice.—I repeated it as often; and
+so cordial was the parting between us, that had it happened any where
+else, I’m not sure but I should have signed it with a kiss of charity, as
+warm and holy as an apostle.
+
+But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men,—I did, what amounted
+to the same thing—
+
+—I bid God bless her.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been enquired after
+by the Lieutenant de Police.—The deuce take it! said I,—I know the
+reason.  It is time the reader should know it, for in the order of things
+in which it happened, it was omitted: not that it was out of my head; but
+that had I told it then it might have been forgotten now;—and now is the
+time I want it.
+
+I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter’d my
+mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and looked
+through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented
+itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there
+without a passport.  Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal
+aversion for returning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one
+of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could less bear
+the thoughts of it: so hearing the Count de —— had hired the packet, I
+begg’d he would take me in his suite.  The Count had some little
+knowledge of me, so made little or no difficulty,—only said, his
+inclination to serve me could reach no farther than Calais, as he was to
+return by way of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass’d
+there, I might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I
+must make friends and shift for myself.—Let me get to Paris, Monsieur le
+Count, said I,—and I shall do very well.  So I embark’d, and never
+thought more of the matter.
+
+When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring after
+me,—the thing instantly recurred;—and by the time La Fleur had well told
+me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell me the same thing,
+with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked
+after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped I had
+one.—Not I, faith! said I.
+
+The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected
+person, as I declared this;—and poor La Fleur advanced three steps
+towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to
+succour a distress’d one:—the fellow won my heart by it; and from that
+single trait I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as
+firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.
+
+_Mon seigneur_! cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting himself
+as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it.—If
+Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (_apparemment_) in all likelihood
+he has friends in Paris who can procure him one.—Not that I know of,
+quoth I, with an air of indifference.—Then _certes_, replied he, you’ll
+be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet _au moins_.—Poo! said I, the King
+of France is a good natur’d soul:—he’ll hurt nobody.—_Cela n’empêche
+pas_, said he—you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow
+morning.—But I’ve taken your lodgings for a month, answer’d I, and I’ll
+not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the
+world.  La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king
+of France.
+
+_Pardi_! said my host, _ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens très
+extraordinaires_;—and, having both said and sworn it,—he went out.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+THE HOTEL AT PARIS.
+
+
+I COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur’s with a serious look
+upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated
+it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt
+the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talk’d to
+him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the Opéra Comique.—La
+Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as
+far as the bookseller’s shop; but seeing me come out with the young
+_fille de chambre_, and that we walk’d down the Quai de Conti together,
+La Fleur deem’d it unnecessary to follow me a step further;—so making his
+own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut,—and got to the hotel in
+time to be inform’d of the affair of the police against my arrival.
+
+As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup
+himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation.—
+
+—And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a
+short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set
+out:—I must tell it here.
+
+Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden’d with
+money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had
+taken care for.  Upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head,
+and said it would not do; so pull’d out his purse in order to empty it
+into mine.—I’ve enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I.—Indeed, Yorick,
+you have not, replied Eugenius; I know France and Italy better than
+you.—But you don’t consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that
+before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do
+something or other for which I shall get clapp’d up into the Bastile, and
+that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of
+France’s expense.—I beg pardon, said Eugenius drily: really I had forgot
+that resource.
+
+Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
+
+Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity—or what is it
+in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was
+quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than
+I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
+
+—And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word.—Make the most of it
+you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a
+tower;—and a tower is but another word for a house you can’t get out
+of.—Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year.—But with nine
+livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man
+can’t get out, he may do very well within,—at least for a month or six
+weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence
+appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.
+
+I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I
+settled this account; and remember I walk’d down stairs in no small
+triumph with the conceit of my reasoning.—Beshrew the sombre pencil! said
+I, vauntingly—for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life
+with so hard and deadly a colouring.  The mind sits terrified at the
+objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their
+proper size and hue, she overlooks them.—’Tis true, said I, correcting
+the proposition,—the Bastile is not an evil to be despised;—but strip it
+of its towers—fill up the fosse,—unbarricade the doors—call it simply a
+confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper—and not of a
+man, which holds you in it,—the evil vanishes, and you bear the other
+half without complaint.
+
+I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I
+took to be of a child, which complained “it could not get out.”—I look’d
+up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went
+out without farther attention.
+
+In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated
+twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little
+cage.—“I can’t get out,—I can’t get out,” said the starling.
+
+I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the
+passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach’d it,
+with the same lamentation of its captivity.  “I can’t get out,” said the
+starling.—God help thee! said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it
+will; so I turned about the cage to get to the door: it was twisted and
+double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without
+pulling the cage to pieces.—I took both hands to it.
+
+The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and
+thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast against it as
+if impatient.—I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at
+liberty.—“No,” said the starling,— “I can’t get out—I can’t get out,”
+said the starling.
+
+I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember
+an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason
+had been a bubble, were so suddenly call’d home.  Mechanical as the notes
+were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment
+they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I
+heavily walked upstairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down
+them.
+
+Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I,—still thou art a
+bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink
+of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.—’Tis thou, thrice sweet
+and gracious goddess, addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public or
+in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till
+Nature herself shall change.—No _tint_ of words can spot thy snowy
+mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron:—with thee to smile
+upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch,
+from whose court thou art exiled!—Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down
+upon the last step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great
+Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion,—and
+shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon
+those heads which are aching for them!
+
+
+
+
+THE CAPTIVE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THE bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close to my
+table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the
+miseries of confinement.  I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave
+full scope to my imagination.
+
+I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no
+inheritance but slavery: but finding, however affecting the picture was,
+that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups
+in it did but distract me.—
+
+—I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I
+then look’d through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.
+
+I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and confinement,
+and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope
+deferr’d.  Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty
+years the western breeze had not once fann’d his blood;—he had seen no
+sun, no moon, in all that time—nor had the voice of friend or kinsman
+breathed through his lattice.—His children—
+
+But here my heart began to bleed—and I was forced to go on with another
+part of the portrait.
+
+He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest
+corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little
+calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch’d all over with the
+dismal days and nights he had passed there;—he had one of these little
+sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail he was etching another day of
+misery to add to the heap.  As I darkened the little light he had, he
+lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down,—shook his
+head, and went on with his work of affliction.  I heard his chains upon
+his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the
+bundle.—He gave a deep sigh.—I saw the iron enter into his soul!—I burst
+into tears.—I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy
+had drawn.—I started up from my chair, and calling La Fleur: I bid him
+bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine
+in the morning.
+
+I’ll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.
+
+La Fleur would have put me to bed; but—not willing he should see anything
+upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-ache,—I told him
+I would go to bed by myself,—and bid him go do the same.
+
+
+
+
+THE STARLING.
+ROAD TO VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I GOT into my remise the hour I proposed: La Fleur got up behind, and I
+bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.
+
+As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in
+travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history
+of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last chapter.
+
+Whilst the Honourable Mr. — was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had been
+caught upon the cliffs, before it could well fly, by an English lad who
+was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had taken it in his breast
+into the packet;—and, by course of feeding it, and taking it once under
+his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got it safe along
+with him to Paris.
+
+At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the starling,
+and as he had little to do better the five months his master staid there,
+he taught it, in his mother’s tongue, the four simple words—(and no
+more)—to which I own’d myself so much its debtor.
+
+Upon his master’s going on for Italy, the lad had given it to the master
+of the hotel.  But his little song for liberty being in an _unknown_
+language at Paris, the bird had little or no store set by him: so La
+Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle of Burgundy.
+
+In my return from Italy I brought him with me to the country in whose
+language he had learned his notes; and telling the story of him to Lord
+A—, Lord A— begg’d the bird of me;—in a week Lord A— gave him to Lord B—;
+Lord B— made a present of him to Lord C—; and Lord C—’s gentleman sold
+him to Lord D—’s for a shilling; Lord D— gave him to Lord E—; and so
+on—half round the alphabet.  From that rank he pass’d into the lower
+house, and pass’d the hands of as many commoners.  But as all these
+wanted to _get in_, and my bird wanted to _get out_, he had almost as
+little store set by him in London as in Paris.
+
+It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him; and if
+any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg leave to inform them, that
+that bird was my bird, or some vile copy set up to represent him.
+
+[Picture: The starling as the crest of arms] I have nothing farther to
+add upon him, but that from that time to this I have borne this poor
+starling as the crest to my arms.—Thus:
+
+—And let the herald’s officers twist his neck about if they dare.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADDRESS.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I SHOULD not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind when I am going
+to ask protection of any man; for which reason I generally endeavour to
+protect myself; but this going to Monsieur le Duc de C— was an act of
+compulsion; had it been an act of choice, I should have done it, I
+suppose, like other people.
+
+How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, did my servile
+heart form!  I deserved the Bastile for every one of them.
+
+Then nothing would serve me when I got within sight of Versailles, but
+putting words and sentences together, and conceiving attitudes and tones
+to wreath myself into Monsieur le Duc de C—’s good graces.—This will do,
+said I.—Just as well, retorted I again, as a coat carried up to him by an
+adventurous tailor, without taking his measure.  Fool! continued I,—see
+Monsieur le Duc’s face first;—observe what character is written in
+it;—take notice in what posture he stands to hear you;—mark the turns and
+expressions of his body and limbs;—and for the tone,—the first sound
+which comes from his lips will give it you; and from all these together
+you’ll compound an address at once upon the spot, which cannot disgust
+the Duke;—the ingredients are his own, and most likely to go down.
+
+Well! said I, I wish it well over.—Coward again! as if man to man was not
+equal throughout the whole surface of the globe; and if in the field—why
+not face to face in the cabinet too?  And trust me, Yorick, whenever it
+is not so, man is false to himself and betrays his own succours ten times
+where nature does it once.  Go to the Duc de C— with the Bastile in thy
+looks;—my life for it, thou wilt be sent back to Paris in half an hour
+with an escort.
+
+I believe so, said I.—Then I’ll go to the Duke, by heaven! with all the
+gaiety and debonairness in the world.—
+
+—And there you are wrong again, replied I.—A heart at ease, Yorick, flies
+into no extremes—’tis ever on its centre.—Well! well! cried I, as the
+coachman turn’d in at the gates, I find I shall do very well: and by the
+time he had wheel’d round the court, and brought me up to the door, I
+found myself so much the better for my own lecture, that I neither
+ascended the steps like a victim to justice, who was to part with life
+upon the top most,—nor did I mount them with a skip and a couple of
+strides, as I do when I fly up, Eliza! to thee to meet it.
+
+As I entered the door of the saloon I was met by a person, who possibly
+might be the _maître d’hôtel_, but had more the air of one of the under
+secretaries, who told me the Duc de C— was busy.—I am utterly ignorant,
+said I, of the forms of obtaining an audience, being an absolute
+stranger, and what is worse in the present conjuncture of affairs, being
+an Englishman too.—He replied, that did not increase the difficulty.—I
+made him a slight bow, and told him, I had something of importance to say
+to Monsieur le Duc.  The secretary look’d towards the stairs, as if he
+was about to leave me to carry up this account to some one.—But I must
+not mislead you, said I,—for what I have to say is of no manner of
+importance to Monsieur le Duc de C— —but of great importance to
+myself.—_C’est une autre affaire_, replied he.—Not at all, said I, to a
+man of gallantry.—But pray, good sir, continued I, when can a stranger
+hope to have access?—In not less than two hours, said he, looking at his
+watch.  The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to justify the
+calculation, that I could have no nearer a prospect;—and as walking
+backwards and forwards in the saloon, without a soul to commune with, was
+for the time as bad as being in the Bastile itself, I instantly went back
+to my remise, and bid the coachman drive me to the _Cordon Bleu_, which
+was the nearest hotel.
+
+I think there is a fatality in it;—I seldom go to the place I set out
+for.
+
+
+
+
+LE PATISSIER.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+BEFORE I had got half way down the street I changed my mind: as I am at
+Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the town; so I
+pull’d the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round some of the
+principal streets.—I suppose the town is not very large, said I.—The
+coachman begg’d pardon for setting me right, and told me it was very
+superb, and that numbers of the first dukes and marquises and counts had
+hotels.—The Count de B—, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had
+spoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind.—And
+why should I not go, thought I, to the Count de B—, who has so high an
+idea of English books and English men—and tell him my story? so I changed
+my mind a second time.—In truth it was the third; for I had intended that
+day for Madame de R—, in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent her
+word by her _fille de chambre_ that I would assuredly wait upon her;—but
+I am governed by circumstances;—I cannot govern them: so seeing a man
+standing with a basket on the other side of the street, as if he had
+something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to him, and enquire for the
+Count’s hotel.
+
+La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it was a Chevalier de St.
+Louis selling pâtés.—It is impossible, La Fleur, said I.—La Fleur could
+no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his
+story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, he said,
+tied to his buttonhole—and had looked into the basket and seen the pâtés
+which the Chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken in that.
+
+Such a reverse in man’s life awakens a better principle than curiosity: I
+could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise:—the
+more I look’d at him, his croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove
+themselves into my brain.—I got out of the remise, and went towards him.
+
+He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees, and
+with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the top of
+this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix.  His basket of little
+pâtés was covered over with a white damask napkin; another of the same
+kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look of _propreté_ and
+neatness throughout, that one might have bought his pâtés of him, as much
+from appetite as sentiment.
+
+He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at the
+corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it without solicitation.
+
+He was about forty-eight;—of a sedate look, something approaching to
+gravity.  I did not wonder.—I went up rather to the basket than him, and
+having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his pâtés into my hand,—I
+begg’d he would explain the appearance which affected me.
+
+He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had passed in
+the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony, he had obtained
+a company and the croix with it; but that, at the conclusion of the last
+peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those of
+some other regiments, left without any provision, he found himself in a
+wide world without friends, without a livre,—and indeed, said he, without
+anything but this,—(pointing, as he said it, to his croix).—The poor
+Chevalier won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem
+too.
+
+The king, he said, was the most generous of princes, but his generosity
+could neither relieve nor reward everyone, and it was only his misfortune
+to be amongst the number.  He had a little wife, he said, whom he loved,
+who did the _pâtisserie_; and added, he felt no dishonour in defending
+her and himself from want in this way—unless Providence had offer’d him a
+better.
+
+It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing over
+what happen’d to this poor Chevalier of St. Louis about nine months
+after.
+
+It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead up to
+the palace, and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers, numbers had
+made the same enquiry which I had done.—He had told them the same story,
+and always with so much modesty and good sense, that it had reach’d at
+last the king’s ears;—who, hearing the Chevalier had been a gallant
+officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a man of honour and
+integrity,—he broke up his little trade by a pension of fifteen hundred
+livres a year.
+
+As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me to
+relate another, out of its order, to please myself:—the two stories
+reflect light upon each other,—and ’tis a pity they should be parted.
+
+
+
+
+THE SWORD.
+RENNES.
+
+
+WHEN states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel in
+their turns what distress and poverty is,—I stop not to tell the causes
+which gradually brought the house d’E—, in Brittany, into decay.  The
+Marquis d’E— had fought up against his condition with great firmness;
+wishing to preserve, and still show to the world, some little fragments
+of what his ancestors had been;—their indiscretions had put it out of his
+power.  There was enough left for the little exigencies of
+_obscurity_.—But he had two boys who looked up to him for _light_;—he
+thought they deserved it.  He had tried his sword—it could not open the
+way,—the _mounting_ was too expensive,—and simple economy was not a match
+for it:—there was no resource but commerce.
+
+In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting the root
+for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wish’d to see
+re-blossom.—But in Brittany, there being a provision for this, he avail’d
+himself of it; and, taking an occasion when the states were assembled at
+Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two boys, entered the court; and
+having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which, though
+seldom claim’d, he said, was no less in force, he took his sword from his
+side:—Here, said he, take it; and be trusty guardians of it, till better
+times put me in condition to reclaim it.
+
+The president accepted the Marquis’s sword: he staid a few minutes to see
+it deposited in the archives of his house—and departed.
+
+The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next day for Martinico,
+and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to
+business, with some unlook’d for bequests from distant branches of his
+house, return home to reclaim his nobility, and to support it.
+
+It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any
+traveller but a Sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the very
+time of this solemn requisition: I call it solemn;—it was so to me.
+
+The Marquis entered the court with his whole family: he supported his
+lady,—his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest was at the
+other extreme of the line next his mother;—he put his handkerchief to his
+face twice.—
+
+—There was a dead silence.  When the Marquis had approached within six
+paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest son, and
+advancing three steps before his family,—he reclaim’d his sword.  His
+sword was given him, and the moment he got it into his hand he drew it
+almost out of the scabbard:—’twas the shining face of a friend he had
+once given up—he look’d attentively along it, beginning at the hilt, as
+if to see whether it was the same,—when, observing a little rust which it
+had contracted near the point, he brought it near his eye, and bending
+his head down over it,—I think—I saw a tear fall upon the place.  I could
+not be deceived by what followed.
+
+“I shall find,” said he, “some _other way_ to get it off.”
+
+When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its scabbard,
+made a bow to the guardians of it,—and, with his wife and daughter, and
+his two sons following him, walk’d out.
+
+O, how I envied him his feelings!
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I FOUND no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B—.
+The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them
+over.  I walk’d up close to the table, and giving first such a look at
+the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were,—I told him I had
+come without any one to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend
+in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me:—it is my
+countryman, the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works—_et ayez
+la bonté_, _mon cher ami_, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, _de me
+faire cet honneur-là_.—
+
+The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing I
+look’d a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-chair; so
+I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so out of all rule,
+I told him simply of the incident in the bookseller’s shop, and how that
+had impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little
+embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France.—And what is
+your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count.  So I told him the
+story just as I have told it the reader.
+
+—And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs have
+it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile;—but I have no
+apprehensions, continued I;—for, in falling into the hands of the most
+polish’d people in the world, and being conscious I was a true man, and
+not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at
+their mercy.—It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le
+Count, said I, to show it against invalids.
+
+An animated blush came into the Count de B—’s cheeks as I spoke this.—_Ne
+craignez rien_—Don’t fear, said he.—Indeed, I don’t, replied I
+again.—Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I have come laughing
+all the way from London to Paris, and I do not think Monsieur le Duc de
+Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me back crying for my
+pains.
+
+—My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B— (making him a low bow),
+is to desire he will not.
+
+The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half as
+much,—and once or twice said,—_C’est bien dit_.  So I rested my cause
+there—and determined to say no more about it.
+
+The Count led the discourse: we talk’d of indifferent things,—of books,
+and politics, and men;—and then of women.—God bless them all! said I,
+after much discourse about them—there is not a man upon earth who loves
+them so much as I do: after all the foibles I have seen, and all the
+satires I have read against them, still I love them; being firmly
+persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of affection for the whole sex,
+is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought.
+
+_Eh bien_!  _Monsieur l’Anglois_, said the Count, gaily;—you are not come
+to spy the nakedness of the land;—I believe you;—_ni encore_, I dare say,
+_that_ of our women!—But permit me to conjecture,—if, _par hazard_, they
+fell into your way, that the prospect would not affect you.
+
+I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least
+indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often
+endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a
+thousand things to a dozen of the sex together,—the least of which I
+could not venture to a single one to gain heaven.
+
+Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I;—as for the nakedness of your land,
+if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them;—and for
+that of your women (blushing at the idea he had excited in me) I am so
+evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak
+about them, that I would cover it with a garment if I knew how to throw
+it on:—But I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness of their
+hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and
+religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my own by:—and
+therefore am I come.
+
+It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have not
+seen the Palais Royal,—nor the Luxembourg,—nor the Façade of the
+Louvre,—nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures,
+statues, and churches.—I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would
+rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up
+in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.
+
+The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which inflames the
+breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home into France,—and
+from France will lead me through Italy;—’tis a quiet journey of the heart
+in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which
+make us love each other,—and the world, better than we do.
+
+The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion; and
+added very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for making
+me known to him.—But _à propos_, said he;—Shakespeare is full of great
+things;—he forgot a small punctilio of announcing your name:—it puts you
+under a necessity of doing it yourself.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+THERE is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about
+telling any one who I am,—for there is scarce any body I cannot give a
+better account of than myself; and I have often wished I could do it in a
+single word,—and have an end of it.  It was the only time and occasion in
+my life I could accomplish this to any purpose;—for Shakespeare lying
+upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet,
+and turning immediately to the grave-diggers’ scene in the fifth act, I
+laid my finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
+finger all the way over the name,—_Me voici_! said I.
+
+Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick’s skull was put out of the Count’s
+mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of
+seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account;—’tis certain
+the French conceive better than they combine;—I wonder at nothing in this
+world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of the first of our own
+Church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest
+veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case:—“He could
+not bear,” he said, “to look into the sermons wrote by the King of
+Denmark’s jester.”  Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks.  The
+Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight hundred
+years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus’s court;—the other Yorick is
+myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.—He shook his head.
+Good God! said I, you might as well confound Alexander the Great with
+Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord!—“’Twas all one,” he replied.—
+
+—If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your Lordship, said
+I, I’m sure your Lordship would not have said so.
+
+The poor Count de B— fell but into the same _error_.
+
+—_Et_, _Monsieur_, _est-il Yorick_? cried the Count.—_Je le suis_, said
+I.—_Vous_?—_Moi_,—_moi qui ai l’honneur de vous parler_, _Monsieur le
+Comte_.—_Mon Dieu_! said he, embracing me,—_Vous êtes Yorick_!
+
+The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left me
+alone in his room.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+I COULD not conceive why the Count de B— had gone so abruptly out of the
+room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare into
+his pocket.—_Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the
+loss of time which a conjecture about them takes up_: ’twas better to
+read Shakespeare; so taking up “_Much Ado About Nothing_,” I transported
+myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and got so
+busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that I thought not of
+Versailles, the Count, or the passport.
+
+Sweet pliability of man’s spirit, that can at once surrender itself to
+illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary
+moments!—Long,—long since had ye number’d out my days, had I not trod so
+great a part of them upon this enchanted ground.  When my way is too
+rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some
+smooth velvet path, which Fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of
+delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and
+refresh’d.—When evils press sore upon me, and there is no retreat from
+them in this world, then I take a new course;—I leave it,—and as I have a
+clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I force myself,
+like Æneas, into them.—I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken
+Dido, and wish to recognise it;—I see the injured spirit wave her head,
+and turn off silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours;—I
+lose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which were
+wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school.
+
+_Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow—nor does man disquiet
+himself_ in vain _by it_:—he oftener does so in trusting the issue of his
+commotions to reason only.—I can safely say for myself, I was never able
+to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively, as
+beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentle sensation to
+fight it upon its own ground.
+
+When I had got to the end of the third act the Count de B— entered, with
+my passport in his hand.  Monsieur le Duc de C—, said the Count, is as
+good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman.  _Un homme qui rit_,
+said the Duke, _ne sera jamais dangereux_.—Had it been for any one but
+the king’s jester, added the Count, I could not have got it these two
+hours.—_Pardonnez moi_, Monsieur le Count, said I—I am not the king’s
+jester.—But you are Yorick?—Yes.—_Et vous plaisantez_?—I answered, Indeed
+I did jest,—but was not paid for it;—’twas entirely at my own expense.
+
+We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count, said I; the last we had
+was in the licentious reign of Charles II.;—since which time our manners
+have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is so full of
+patriots, who wish for _nothing_ but the honours and wealth of their
+country;—and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so
+devout,—there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of.—
+
+_Voilà un persiflage_! cried the Count.
+
+
+
+
+THE PASSPORT.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+AS the passport was directed to all lieutenant-governors, governors, and
+commandants of cities, generals of armies, justiciaries, and all officers
+of justice, to let Mr. Yorick the king’s jester, and his baggage, travel
+quietly along, I own the triumph of obtaining the passport was not a
+little tarnish’d by the figure I cut in it.—But there is nothing unmix’d
+in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so
+far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended even with a
+sigh,—and that the greatest _they knew of_ terminated, _in a general
+way_, in little better than a convulsion.
+
+I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his Commentary upon the
+Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks off in the middle of a note
+to give an account to the world of a couple of sparrows upon the out-edge
+of his window, which had incommoded him all the time he wrote, and at
+last had entirely taken him off from his genealogy.
+
+—’Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius; but the facts are certain, for I have
+had the curiosity to mark them down one by one with my pen;—but the cock
+sparrow, during the little time that I could have finished the other half
+of this note, has actually interrupted me with the reiteration of his
+caresses three-and-twenty times and a half.
+
+How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is heaven to his creatures!
+
+Ill fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be able to
+write that to the world, which stains thy face with crimson to copy, even
+in thy study.
+
+But this is nothing to my travels.—So I twice,—twice beg pardon for it.
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTER.
+VERSAILLES.
+
+
+AND how do you find the French? said the Count de B—, after he had given
+me the passport.
+
+The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of courtesy, I
+could not be at a loss to say something handsome to the enquiry.
+
+—_Mais passe_, _pour cela_.—Speak frankly, said he: do you find all the
+urbanity in the French which the world give us the honour of?—I had found
+every thing, I said, which confirmed it.—_Vraiment_, said the Count, _les
+François sont polis_.—To an excess, replied I.
+
+The Count took notice of the word _excès_; and would have it I meant more
+than I said.  I defended myself a long time as well as I could against
+it.—He insisted I had a reserve, and that I would speak my opinion
+frankly.
+
+I believe, Monsieur le Count, said I, that man has a certain compass, as
+well as an instrument; and that the social and other calls have occasion
+by turns for every key in him; so that if you begin a note too high or
+too low, there must be a want either in the upper or under part, to fill
+up the system of harmony.—The Count de B— did not understand music, so
+desired me to explain it some other way.  A polish’d nation, my dear
+Count, said I, makes every one its debtor: and besides, Urbanity itself,
+like the fair sex, has so many charms, it goes against the heart to say
+it can do ill; and yet, I believe, there is but a certain line of
+perfection, that man, take him altogether, is empower’d to arrive at:—if
+he gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than gets them.  I must not
+presume to say how far this has affected the French in the subject we are
+speaking of;—but, should it ever be the case of the English, in the
+progress of their refinements, to arrive at the same polish which
+distinguishes the French, if we did not lose the _politesse du cœur_,
+which inclines men more to humane actions than courteous ones,—we should
+at least lose that distinct variety and originality of character, which
+distinguishes them, not only from each other, but from all the world
+besides.
+
+I had a few of King William’s shillings, as smooth as glass, in my
+pocket; and foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration of my
+hypothesis, I had got them into my hand when I had proceeded so far:—
+
+See, Monsieur le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before him
+upon the table,—by jingling and rubbing one against another for seventy
+years together in one body’s pocket or another’s, they are become so much
+alike, you can scarce distinguish one shilling from another.
+
+The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but few
+people’s hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine hand of
+Nature has given them;—they are not so pleasant to feel,—but in return
+the legend is so visible, that at the first look you see whose image and
+superscription they bear.—But the French, Monsieur le Count, added I
+(wishing to soften what I had said), have so many excellences, they can
+the better spare this;—they are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an
+ingenious, and good temper’d people as is under heaven;—if they have a
+fault—they are too _serious_.
+
+_Mon Dieu_! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.
+
+_Mais vous plaisantez_, said he, correcting his exclamation.—I laid my
+hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity assured him it was my most
+settled opinion.
+
+The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear my reasons,
+being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duc de C—.
+
+But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your soup with me,
+I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of knowing you
+retract your opinion,—or, in what manner you support it.—But, if you do
+support it, Monsieur Anglois, said he, you must do it with all your
+powers, because you have the whole world against you.—I promised the
+Count I would do myself the honour of dining with him before I set out
+for Italy;—so took my leave.
+
+
+
+
+THE TEMPTATION.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with a
+bandbox had been that moment enquiring for me.—I do not know, said the
+porter, whether she is gone away or not.  I took the key of my chamber of
+him, and went upstairs; and when I had got within ten steps of the top of
+the landing before my door, I met her coming easily down.
+
+It was the fair _fille de chambre_ I had walked along the Quai de Conti
+with; Madame de R— had sent her upon some commission to a _marchande des
+modes_ within a step or two of the Hôtel de Modene; and as I had fail’d
+in waiting upon her, had bid her enquire if I had left Paris; and if so,
+whether I had not left a letter addressed to her.
+
+As the fair _fille de chambre_ was so near my door, she returned back,
+and went into the room with me for a moment or two whilst I wrote a card.
+
+It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of May,—the
+crimson window curtains (which were of the same colour as those of the
+bed) were drawn close:—the sun was setting, and reflected through them so
+warm a tint into the fair _fille de chambre’s_ face,—I thought she
+blush’d;—the idea of it made me blush myself:—we were quite alone; and
+that superinduced a second blush before the first could get off.
+
+There is a sort of a pleasing half guilty blush, where the blood is more
+in fault than the man:—’tis sent impetuous from the heart, and virtue
+flies after it,—not to call it back, but to make the sensation of it more
+delicious to the nerves:—’tis associated.—
+
+But I’ll not describe it;—I felt something at first within me which was
+not in strict unison with the lesson of virtue I had given her the night
+before.—I sought five minutes for a card;—I knew I had not one.—I took up
+a pen.—I laid it down again;—my hand trembled:—the devil was in me.
+
+I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we resist, he will
+fly from us;—but I seldom resist him at all; from a terror, though I may
+conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat;—so I give up the triumph
+for security; and, instead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly
+myself.
+
+The fair _fille de chambre_ came close up to the bureau where I was
+looking for a card—took up first the pen I cast down, then offer’d to
+hold me the ink; she offer’d it so sweetly, I was going to accept it;—but
+I durst not;—I have nothing, my dear, said I, to write upon.—Write it,
+said she, simply, upon anything.—
+
+I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl! upon thy
+lips.—
+
+If I do, said I, I shall perish;—so I took her by the hand, and led her
+to the door, and begg’d she would not forget the lesson I had given
+her.—She said, indeed she would not;—and, as she uttered it with some
+earnestness, she turn’d about, and gave me both her hands, closed
+together, into mine;—it was impossible not to compress them in that
+situation;—I wish’d to let them go; and all the time I held them, I kept
+arguing within myself against it,—and still I held them on.—In two
+minutes I found I had all the battle to fight over again;—and I felt my
+legs and every limb about me tremble at the idea.
+
+The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place where we
+were standing.—I had still hold of her hands—and how it happened I can
+give no account; but I neither ask’d her—nor drew her—nor did I think of
+the bed;—but so it did happen, we both sat down.
+
+I’ll just show you, said the fair _fille de chambre_, the little purse I
+have been making to-day to hold your crown.  So she put her hand into her
+right pocket, which was next me, and felt for it some time—then into the
+left.—“She had lost it.”—I never bore expectation more quietly;—it was in
+her right pocket at last;—she pull’d it out; it was of green taffeta,
+lined with a little bit of white quilted satin, and just big enough to
+hold the crown: she put it into my hand;—it was pretty; and I held it ten
+minutes with the back of my hand resting upon her lap—looking sometimes
+at the purse, sometimes on one side of it.
+
+A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair _fille
+de chambre_, without saying a word, took out her little housewife,
+threaded a small needle, and sew’d it up.—I foresaw it would hazard the
+glory of the day; and, as she pass’d her hand in silence across and
+across my neck in the manœuvre, I felt the laurels shake which fancy had
+wreath’d about my head.
+
+A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was just
+falling off.—See, said the _fille de chambre_, holding up her foot.—I
+could not, for my soul but fasten the buckle in return, and putting in
+the strap,—and lifting up the other foot with it, when I had done, to see
+both were right,—in doing it too suddenly, it unavoidably threw the fair
+_fille de chambre_ off her centre,—and then—
+
+
+
+
+THE CONQUEST.
+
+
+YES,—and then—.  Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue
+down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man should
+have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to the Father of spirits
+but for his conduct under them?
+
+If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and
+desire are entangled with the piece,—must the whole web be rent in
+drawing them out?—Whip me such stoics, great Governor of Nature! said I
+to myself:—wherever thy providence shall place me for the trials of my
+virtue;—whatever is my danger,—whatever is my situation,—let me feel the
+movements which rise out of it, and which belong to me as a man,—and, if
+I govern them as a good one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for
+thou hast made us, and not we ourselves.
+
+As I finished my address, I raised the fair _fille de chambre_ up by the
+hand, and led her out of the room:—she stood by me till I locked the door
+and put the key in my pocket,—and then,—the victory being quite
+decisive—and not till then, I press’d my lips to her cheek, and taking
+her by the hand again, led her safe to the gate of the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY.
+PARIS.
+
+
+If a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back
+instantly to my chamber;—it was touching a cold key with a flat third to
+it upon the close of a piece of music, which had call’d forth my
+affections:—therefore, when I let go the hand of the _fille de chambre_,
+I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at every one
+who pass’d by,—and forming conjectures upon them, till my attention got
+fix’d upon a single object which confounded all kind of reasoning upon
+him.
+
+It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious, adust look, which passed
+and repass’d sedately along the street, making a turn of about sixty
+paces on each side of the gate of the hotel;—the man was about
+fifty-two—had a small cane under his arm—was dress’d in a dark
+drab-colour’d coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seem’d to have seen
+some years service:—they were still clean, and there was a little air of
+frugal _propreté_ throughout him.  By his pulling off his hat, and his
+attitude of accosting a good many in his way, I saw he was asking
+charity: so I got a sous or two out of my pocket ready to give him, as he
+took me in his turn.—He pass’d by me without asking anything—and yet did
+not go five steps further before he ask’d charity of a little woman.—I
+was much more likely to have given of the two.—He had scarce done with
+the woman, when he pull’d off his hat to another who was coming the same
+way.—An ancient gentleman came slowly—and, after him, a young smart
+one.—He let them both pass, and ask’d nothing.  I stood observing him
+half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and
+forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.
+
+There were two things very singular in this, which set my brain to work,
+and to no purpose:—the first was, why the man should _only_ tell his
+story to the sex;—and, secondly,—what kind of story it was, and what
+species of eloquence it could be, which soften’d the hearts of the women,
+which he knew ’twas to no purpose to practise upon the men.
+
+There were two other circumstances, which entangled this mystery;—the one
+was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and in a way
+which had much more the air of a secret than a petition;—the other was,
+it was always successful.—He never stopp’d a woman, but she pull’d out
+her purse, and immediately gave him something.
+
+I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.
+
+I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I walk’d
+upstairs to my chamber.
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I WAS immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came into
+my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere.—How so, friend?
+said I.—He answered, I had had a young woman lock’d up with me two hours
+that evening in my bedchamber, and ’twas against the rules of his
+house.—Very well, said I, we’ll all part friends then,—for the girl is no
+worse,—and I am no worse,—and you will be just as I found you.—It was
+enough, he said, to overthrow the credit of his hotel.—_Voyez vous_,
+Monsieur, said he, pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting
+upon.—I own it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my
+pride not suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I exhorted
+him to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that
+night, and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.
+
+I should not have minded, Monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty
+girls—’Tis a score more, replied I, interrupting him, than I ever
+reckon’d upon—Provided, added he, it had been but in a morning.—And does
+the difference of the time of the day at Paris make a difference in the
+sin?—It made a difference, he said, in the scandal.—I like a good
+distinction in my heart; and cannot say I was intolerably out of temper
+with the man.—I own it is necessary, resumed the master of the hotel,
+that a stranger at Paris should have the opportunities presented to him
+of buying lace and silk stockings and ruffles, _et tout cela_;—and ’tis
+nothing if a woman comes with a band-box.—O, my conscience! said I, she
+had one but I never look’d into it.—Then Monsieur, said he, has bought
+nothing?—Not one earthly thing, replied I.—Because, said he, I could
+recommend one to you who would use you _en conscience_.—But I must see
+her this night, said I.—He made me a low bow, and walk’d down.
+
+Now shall I triumph over this _maître d’hôtel_, cried I,—and what then?
+Then I shall let him see I know he is a dirty fellow.—And what then?
+What then?—I was too near myself to say it was for the sake of others.—I
+had no good answer left;—there was more of spleen than principle in my
+project, and I was sick of it before the execution.
+
+In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace.—I’ll buy
+nothing, however, said I, within myself.
+
+The grisette would show me everything.—I was hard to please: she would
+not seem to see it; she opened her little magazine, and laid all her
+laces one after another before me;—unfolded and folded them up again one
+by one with the most patient sweetness.—I might buy,—or not;—she would
+let me have everything at my own price:—the poor creature seem’d anxious
+to get a penny; and laid herself out to win me, and not so much in a
+manner which seem’d artful, as in one I felt simple and caressing.
+
+If there is not a fund of honest gullibility in man, so much the
+worse;—my heart relented, and I gave up my second resolution as quietly
+as the first.—Why should I chastise one for the trespass of another?  If
+thou art tributary to this tyrant of an host, thought I, looking up in
+her face, so much harder is thy bread.
+
+If I had not had more than four louis d’ors in my purse, there was no
+such thing as rising up and showing her the door, till I had first laid
+three of them out in a pair of ruffles.
+
+—The master of the hotel will share the profit with her;—no matter,—then
+I have only paid as many a poor soul has _paid_ before me, for an act he
+_could_ not do, or think of.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDDLE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told me how sorry the
+master of the hotel was for his affront to me in bidding me change my
+lodgings.
+
+A man who values a good night’s rest will not lie down with enmity in his
+heart, if he can help it.—So I bid La Fleur tell the master of the hotel,
+that I was sorry on my side for the occasion I had given him;—and you may
+tell him, if you will, La Fleur, added I, that if the young woman should
+call again, I shall not see her.
+
+This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after so
+narrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if it was
+possible, with all the virtue I enter’d it.
+
+_C’est déroger à noblesse_, _Monsieur_, said La Fleur, making me a bow
+down to the ground as he said it.—_Et encore_, _Monsieur_, said he, may
+change his sentiments;—and if (_par hazard_) he should like to amuse
+himself,—I find no amusement in it, said I, interrupting him.—
+
+_Mon Dieu_! said La Fleur,—and took away.
+
+In an hour’s time he came to put me to bed, and was more than commonly
+officious:—something hung upon his lips to say to me, or ask me, which he
+could not get off: I could not conceive what it was, and indeed gave
+myself little trouble to find it out, as I had another riddle so much
+more interesting upon my mind, which was that of the man’s asking charity
+before the door of the hotel.—I would have given anything to have got to
+the bottom of it; and that, not out of curiosity,—’tis so low a principle
+of enquiry, in general, I would not purchase the gratification of it with
+a two-sous piece;—but a secret, I thought, which so soon and so certainly
+soften’d the heart of every woman you came near, was a secret at least
+equal to the philosopher’s stone; had I both the Indies, I would have
+given up one to have been master of it.
+
+I toss’d and turn’d it almost all night long in my brains to no manner of
+purpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my spirits as much
+troubled with my dreams, as ever the King of Babylon had been with his;
+and I will not hesitate to affirm, it would have puzzled all the wise men
+of Paris as much as those of Chaldea to have given its interpretation.
+
+
+
+
+LE DIMANCHE.
+PARIS.
+
+
+IT was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my coffee
+and roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly array’d, I scarce
+knew him.
+
+I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver button
+and loop, and four louis d’ors, _pour s’adoniser_, when we got to Paris;
+and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done wonders with it.
+
+He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of breeches
+of the same.—They were not a crown worse, he said, for the wearing.—I
+wish’d him hang’d for telling me.—They look’d so fresh, that though I
+knew the thing could not be done, yet I would rather have imposed upon my
+fancy with thinking I had bought them new for the fellow, than that they
+had come out of the Rue de Friperie.
+
+This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.
+
+He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat, fancifully
+enough embroidered:—this was indeed something the worse for the service
+it had done, but ’twas clean scour’d;—the gold had been touch’d up, and
+upon the whole was rather showy than otherwise;—and as the blue was not
+violent, it suited with the coat and breeches very well: he had squeez’d
+out of the money, moreover, a new bag and a solitaire; and had insisted
+with the _fripier_ upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches knees.—He
+had purchased muslin ruffles, _bien brodées_, with four livres of his own
+money;—and a pair of white silk stockings for five more;—and to top all,
+nature had given him a handsome figure, without costing him a sous.
+
+He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the first
+style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast.—In a word, there was
+that look of festivity in everything about him, which at once put me in
+mind it was Sunday;—and, by combining both together, it instantly struck
+me, that the favour he wish’d to ask of me the night before, was to spend
+the day as every body in Paris spent it besides.  I had scarce made the
+conjecture, when La Fleur, with infinite humility, but with a look of
+trust, as if I should not refuse him, begg’d I would grant him the day,
+_pour faire le galant vis-à-vis de sa maîtresse_.
+
+Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-à-vis Madame de
+R—.—I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it would not have
+mortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress’d as La Fleur
+was, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse spared him.
+
+But we must _feel_, not argue in these embarrassments.—The sons and
+daughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature, in their
+contracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little vanities and
+wishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well as their
+task-masters;—no doubt, they have set their self-denials at a price,—and
+their expectations are so unreasonable, that I would often disappoint
+them, but that their condition puts it so much in my power to do it.
+
+_Behold_,—_Behold_, _I am thy servant_—disarms me at once of the powers
+of a master.—
+
+Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.
+
+—And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up in so
+little a time at Paris?  La Fleur laid his hand upon his breast, and said
+’twas a _petite demoiselle_, at Monsieur le Count de B—’s.—La Fleur had a
+heart made for society; and, to speak the truth of him, let as few
+occasions slip him as his master;—so that somehow or other,—but
+how,—heaven knows,—he had connected himself with the demoiselle upon the
+landing of the staircase, during the time I was taken up with my
+passport; and as there was time enough for me to win the Count to my
+interest, La Fleur had contrived to make it do to win the maid to his.
+The family, it seems, was to be at Paris that day, and he had made a
+party with her, and two or three more of the Count’s household, upon the
+boulevards.
+
+Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all your
+cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of
+grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.
+PARIS.
+
+
+LA FLEUR had left me something to amuse myself with for the day more than
+I had bargain’d for, or could have enter’d either into his head or mine.
+
+He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf: and as the
+morning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had begg’d a
+sheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf and his hand.—As
+that was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon the table as it was;
+and as I resolved to stay within all day, I ordered him to call upon the
+_traîteur_, to bespeak my dinner, and leave me to breakfast by myself.
+
+When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of the
+window, and was going to do the same by the waste paper;—but stopping to
+read a line first, and that drawing me on to a second and third,—I
+thought it better worth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair up to
+it, I sat down to read it.
+
+It was in the old French of Rabelais’s time, and for aught I know might
+have been wrote by him:—it was moreover in a Gothic letter, and that so
+faded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost me infinite
+trouble to make anything of it.—I threw it down; and then wrote a letter
+to Eugenius;—then I took it up again, and embroiled my patience with it
+afresh;—and then to cure that, I wrote a letter to Eliza.—Still it kept
+hold of me; and the difficulty of understanding it increased but the
+desire.
+
+I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle of
+Burgundy; I at it again,—and, after two or three hours poring upon it,
+with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon a
+nonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it; but to make sure
+of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and see how
+it would look then;—so I went on leisurely, as a trifling man does,
+sometimes writing a sentence,—then taking a turn or two,—and then looking
+how the world went, out of the window; so that it was nine o’clock at
+night before I had done it.—I then began and read it as follows.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT.
+PARIS.
+
+
+—NOW, as the notary’s wife disputed the point with the notary with too
+much heat,—I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the parchment) that
+there was another notary here only to set down and attest all this.—
+
+—And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising hastily up.—The
+notary’s wife was a little fume of a woman, and the notary thought it
+well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply.—I would go, answered he, to
+bed.—You may go to the devil, answer’d the notary’s wife.
+
+Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two rooms
+being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary not caring
+to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent him pell
+mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short cloak, the
+night being very windy, and walk’d out, ill at ease, towards the Pont
+Neuf.
+
+Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have pass’d
+over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest,—the finest,—the
+grandest,—the lightest,—the longest,—the broadest, that ever conjoin’d
+land and land together upon the face of the terraqueous globe.
+
+    [_By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been a
+                               Frenchman_.]
+
+The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can allege
+against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or about Paris,
+’tis more blasphemously _sacre Dieu’d_ there than in any other aperture
+of the whole city,—and with reason good and cogent, Messieurs; for it
+comes against you without crying _garde d’eau_, and with such
+unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with their hats on,
+not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half, which is its full
+worth.
+
+The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctively
+clapp’d his cane to the side of it, but in raising it up, the point of
+his cane catching hold of the loop of the sentinel’s hat, hoisted it over
+the spikes of the ballustrade clear into the Seine.—
+
+—’_Tis an ill wind_, said a boatman, who catched it, _which blows nobody
+any good_.
+
+The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, and
+levell’d his arquebuss.
+
+Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman’s paper
+lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, she had
+borrow’d the sentry’s match to light it:—it gave a moment’s time for the
+Gascon’s blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to his
+advantage.—’_Tis an ill wind_, said he, catching off the notary’s castor,
+and legitimating the capture with the boatman’s adage.
+
+The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de Dauphine
+into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he walked along
+in this manner:—
+
+Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanes
+all my days:—to be born to have the storm of ill language levell’d
+against me and my profession wherever I go; to be forced into marriage by
+the thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman;—to be driven forth out
+of my house by domestic winds, and despoil’d of my castor by pontific
+ones!—to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs
+and flows of accidents!—Where am I to lay my head?—Miserable man! what
+wind in the two-and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto
+thee, as it does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?
+
+As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this sort,
+a voice call’d out to a girl, to bid her run for the next notary.—Now the
+notary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walk’d up
+the passage to the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, was
+usher’d into a large chamber, dismantled of everything but a long
+military pike,—a breastplate,—a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up,
+equidistant, in four different places against the wall.
+
+An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless decay of
+fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, lay
+supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a little table with a taper
+burning was set close beside it, and close by the table was placed a
+chair:—the notary sat him down in it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a
+sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them before
+him; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the
+table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman’s last will and
+testament.
+
+Alas!  _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, raising himself up a
+little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of
+bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in
+peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits arising out
+of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from me.—It is a story
+so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind;—it will make the fortunes of
+your house.—The notary dipp’d his pen into his inkhorn.—Almighty Director
+of every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly,
+and raising his hands towards heaven,—Thou, whose hand has led me on
+through such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of
+desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and
+broken-hearted man;—direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth,
+that this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that BOOK,
+from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to be
+condemn’d or acquitted!—the notary held up the point of his pen betwixt
+the taper and his eye.—
+
+It is a story, _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, which will
+rouse up every affection in nature;—it will kill the humane, and touch
+the heart of Cruelty herself with pity.—
+
+—The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a third
+time into his ink-horn—and the old gentleman, turning a little more
+towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these words:—
+
+—And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then enter’d
+the room.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. {648}
+PARIS.
+
+
+WHEN La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend what
+I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he had
+wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he had
+presented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards.—Then prithee, La Fleur,
+said I, step back to her to the Count de B—’s hotel, and see if thou
+canst get it.—There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur;—and away he flew.
+
+In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, with
+deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from the
+simple irreparability of the fragment.  _Juste Ciel_! in less than two
+minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell of
+her—his faithless mistress had given his _gage d’amour_ to one of the
+Count’s footmen,—the footman to a young sempstress,—and the sempstress to
+a fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.—Our misfortunes were
+involved together:—I gave a sigh,—and La Fleur echoed it back again to my
+ear.
+
+—How perfidious! cried La Fleur.—How unlucky! said I.
+
+—I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had
+lost it.—Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.
+
+Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+THE ACT OF CHARITY.
+PARIS.
+
+
+THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an
+excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to
+make a good Sentimental Traveller.—I count little of the many things I
+see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets.—Nature is shy, and
+hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner you
+sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a
+dozen French plays compounded together,—and yet they are absolutely
+fine;—and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than
+common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make
+my sermon out of ’em;—and for the text,—“Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
+Phrygia and Pamphylia,”—is as good as any one in the Bible.
+
+There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a
+narrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a _fiacre_, {649}
+or wish to get off quietly o’foot when the opera is done.  At the end of
+it, towards the theatre, ’tis lighted by a small candle, the light of
+which is almost lost before you get half-way down, but near the door—’tis
+more for ornament than use: you see it as a fixed star of the least
+magnitude; it burns,—but does little good to the world, that we know of.
+
+In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within five
+or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-arm with their backs
+against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a _fiacre_;—as they were
+next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up
+within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand.—I was in
+black, and scarce seen.
+
+The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about thirty-six;
+the other of the same size and make, of about forty: there was no mark of
+wife or widow in any one part of either of them;—they seem’d to be two
+upright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender
+salutations.—I could have wish’d to have made them happy:—their happiness
+was destin’d that night, to come from another quarter.
+
+A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at the end
+of it, begg’d for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the love of
+heaven.  I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of an
+alms—and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usually
+given in the dark.—They both seemed astonished at it as much as
+myself.—Twelve sous! said one.—A twelve-sous piece! said the other,—and
+made no reply.
+
+The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their rank;
+and bow’d down his head to the ground.
+
+Poo! said they,—we have no money.
+
+The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew’d his
+supplication.
+
+—Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears against
+me.—Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no change.—Then
+God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those joys which you can
+give to others without change!—I observed the elder sister put her hand
+into her pocket.—I’ll see, said she, if I have a sous.  A sous! give
+twelve, said the supplicant; Nature has been bountiful to you, be
+bountiful to a poor man.
+
+—I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.
+
+My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder,—what is it
+but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes so sweet,
+that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? and what was it
+which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of you
+both as they just passed by?
+
+The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same time
+they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out a
+twelve-sous piece.
+
+The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more;—it was
+continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the
+twelve-sous piece in charity;—and, to end the dispute, they both gave it
+together, and the man went away.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.
+PARIS.
+
+
+I STEPPED hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in asking
+charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me;—and
+I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it:—’twas flattery.
+
+Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly are
+all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou
+mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous
+passages to the heart!
+
+The poor man, as he was not straiten’d for time, had given it here in a
+larger dose: ’tis certain he had a way of bringing it into a less form,
+for the many sudden cases he had to do with in the streets: but how he
+contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and qualify it,—I vex not my
+spirit with the enquiry;—it is enough the beggar gained two twelve-sous
+pieces—and they can best tell the rest, who have gained much greater
+matters by it.
+
+
+
+
+PARIS.
+
+
+WE get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as receiving
+them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you
+water it, because you have planted it.
+
+Monsieur le Count de B—, merely because he had done me one kindness in
+the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the few days he
+was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they were
+to present me to others, and so on.
+
+I had got master of my _secret_ just in time to turn these honours to
+some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should have
+dined or supp’d a single time or two round, and then, by _translating_
+French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently have
+seen, that I had hold of the _couvert_ {652} of some more entertaining
+guest; and in course should have resigned all my places one after
+another, merely upon the principle that I could not keep them.—As it was,
+things did not go much amiss.
+
+I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B—: in days of
+yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry in the
+_Cour d’Amour_, and had dress’d himself out to the idea of tilts and
+tournaments ever since.—The Marquis de B— wish’d to have it thought the
+affair was somewhere else than in his brain.  “He could like to take a
+trip to England,” and asked much of the English ladies.—Stay where you
+are, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis, said I.—_Les Messieurs Anglois_
+can scarce get a kind look from them as it is.—The Marquis invited me to
+supper.
+
+Monsieur P—, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our taxes.
+They were very considerable, he heard.—If we knew but how to collect
+them, said I, making him a low bow.
+
+I could never have been invited to Mons. P—’s concerts upon any other
+terms.
+
+I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q— as an _esprit_.—Madame de Q—
+was an _esprit_ herself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and hear me
+talk.  I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not care a sous
+whether I had any wit or no;—I was let in, to be convinced she had.  I
+call heaven to witness I never once opened the door of my lips.
+
+Madame de V— vow’d to every creature she met—“She had never had a more
+improving conversation with a man in her life.”
+
+There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman.—She is
+coquette,—then deist,—then _dévote_: the empire during these is never
+lost,—she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years and more have
+unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-peoples it with
+slaves of infidelity,—and then with the slaves of the church.
+
+Madame de V— was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the colour
+of the rose was fading fast away;—she ought to have been a deist five
+years before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.
+
+She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing the
+point of religion more closely.—In short Madame de V— told me she
+believed nothing.—I told Madame de V— it might be her principle, but I
+was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without
+which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be
+defended;—that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for
+a beauty to be a deist;—that it was a debt I owed my creed not to conceal
+it from her;—that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside
+her, but I had begun to form designs;—and what is it, but the sentiments
+of religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which
+could have check’d them as they rose up?
+
+We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;—and there is need of
+all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays them on
+us.—But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand,—’tis too—too soon.
+
+I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de
+V—.—She affirmed to Monsieur D— and the Abbé M—, that in one half hour I
+had said more for revealed religion, than all their Encyclopædia had said
+against it.—I was listed directly into Madame de V—’s _coterie_;—and she
+put off the epocha of deism for two years.
+
+I remember it was in this _coterie_, in the middle of a discourse, in
+which I was showing the necessity of a _first_ cause, when the young
+Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room,
+to tell me my _solitaire_ was pinn’d too straight about my neck.—It
+should be _plus badinant_, said the Count, looking down upon his own;—but
+a word, Monsieur Yorick, _to the wise_—
+
+And _from the wise_, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,—_is
+enough_.
+
+The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was
+embraced by mortal man.
+
+For three weeks together I was of every man’s opinion I met.—_Pardi_! _ce
+Monsieur Yorick a autant d’esprit que nous autres_.—_Il raisonne bien_,
+said another.—_C’est un bon enfant_, said a third.—And at this price I
+could have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life at
+Paris; but ’twas a dishonest _reckoning_;—I grew ashamed of it.—It was
+the gain of a slave;—every sentiment of honour revolted against it;—the
+higher I got, the more was I forced upon my _beggarly system_;—the better
+the _coterie_,—the more children of Art;—I languish’d for those of
+Nature: and one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a
+dozen different people, I grew sick,—went to bed;—order’d La Fleur to get
+me horses in the morning to set out for Italy.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA.
+MOULINES.
+
+
+I NEVER felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till
+now,—to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of
+France,—in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her
+abundance into every one’s lap, and every eye is lifted up,—a journey,
+through each step of which Music beats time to _Labour_, and all her
+children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to pass through
+this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group before
+me,—and every one of them was pregnant with adventures.—
+
+Just heaven!—it would fill up twenty volumes;—and alas! I have but a few
+small pages left of this to crowd it into,—and half of these must be
+taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy, met with near
+Moulines.
+
+The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little in
+the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, it
+returned so strong into the mind, that I could not resist an impulse
+which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village
+where her parents dwelt, to enquire after her.
+
+’Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in quest of
+melancholy adventures.  But I know not how it is, but I am never so
+perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am
+entangled in them.
+
+The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before she
+open’d her mouth.—She had lost her husband; he had died, she said, of
+anguish, for the loss of Maria’s senses, about a month before.—She had
+feared at first, she added, that it would have plunder’d her poor girl of
+what little understanding was left;—but, on the contrary, it had brought
+her more to herself:—still, she could not rest.—Her poor daughter, she
+said, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road.
+
+Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La Fleur,
+whose heart seem’d only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his hand
+twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it?  I beckoned to the
+postilion to turn back into the road.
+
+When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in
+the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a
+poplar.  She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning
+on one side within her hand:—a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.
+
+I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines—and La Fleur to
+bespeak my supper;—and that I would walk after him.
+
+She was dress’d in white, and much as my friend described her, except
+that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net.—She
+had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green riband, which fell
+across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe.—Her
+goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in
+lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle: as I
+looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string.—“Thou shalt
+not leave me, Sylvio,” said she.  I look’d in Maria’s eyes and saw she
+was thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;
+for, as she utter’d them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
+
+I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell,
+with my handkerchief.—I then steep’d it in my own,—and then in hers,—and
+then in mine,—and then I wip’d hers again;—and as I did it, I felt such
+undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for
+from any combinations of matter and motion.
+
+I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which
+materialists have pester’d the world ever convince me to the contrary.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA.
+
+
+WHEN Maria had come a little to herself, I ask’d her if she remembered a
+pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat
+about two years before?  She said she was unsettled much at that time,
+but remembered it upon two accounts:—that ill as she was, she saw the
+person pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief,
+and she had beat him for the theft;—she had wash’d it, she said, in the
+brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket to restore it to him in case
+she should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised
+her.  As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to
+let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves,
+tied round with a tendril;—on opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of
+the corners.
+
+She had since that, she told me, stray’d as far as Rome, and walk’d round
+St. Peter’s once,—and return’d back;—that she found her way alone across
+the Apennines;—had travell’d over all Lombardy, without money,—and
+through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes:—how she had borne it,
+and how she had got supported, she could not tell;—but _God tempers the
+wind_, said Maria, _to the shorn lamb_.
+
+Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own land,
+where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee: thou
+shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup;—I would be kind to
+thy Sylvio;—in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee
+and bring thee back;—when the sun went down I would say my prayers: and
+when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor
+would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven
+along with that of a broken heart!
+
+Nature melted within me, as I utter’d this; and Maria observing, as I
+took out my handkerchief, that it was steep’d too much already to be of
+use, would needs go wash it in the stream.—And where will you dry it,
+Maria? said I.—I’ll dry it in my bosom, said she:—’twill do me good.
+
+And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.
+
+I touch’d upon the string on which hung all her sorrows:—she look’d with
+wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying any
+thing, took her pipe and play’d her service to the Virgin.—The string I
+had touched ceased to vibrate;—in a moment or two Maria returned to
+herself,—let her pipe fall,—and rose up.
+
+And where are you going, Maria? said I.—She said, to Moulines.—Let us go,
+said I, together.—Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the
+string, to let the dog follow,—in that order we enter’d Moulines.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA.
+MOULINES.
+
+
+THOUGH I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet, when we
+got into the middle of this, I stopp’d to take my last look and last
+farewell of Maria.
+
+Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine
+forms:—affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce
+earthly;—still she was feminine;—and so much was there about her of all
+that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could the
+traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she
+should _not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup_, but Maria
+should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.
+
+Adieu, poor luckless maiden!—Imbibe the oil and wine which the compassion
+of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy
+wounds;—the Being, who has twice bruised thee, can only bind them up for
+ever.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOURBONNNOIS.
+
+
+THERE was nothing from which I had painted out for my self so joyous a
+riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through this
+part of France; but pressing through this gate, of sorrow to it, my
+sufferings have totally unfitted me.  In every scene of festivity, I saw
+Maria in the background of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar;
+and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across
+her.
+
+—Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys,
+or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of
+straw—and ’tis thou who lift’st him up to Heaven!—Eternal Fountain of our
+feelings!—’tis here I trace thee—and this is thy “_divinity which stirs
+within me_;”—not that, in some sad and sickening moments, “_my soul
+shrinks back upon herself_, _and startles at destruction_;”—mere pomp of
+words!—but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond
+myself;—all comes from thee, great—great SENSORIUM of the world! which
+vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the
+remotest desert of thy creation.—Touch’d with thee, Eugenius draws my
+curtain when I languish—hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the weather
+for the disorder of his nerves.  Thou giv’st a portion of it sometimes to
+the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains;—he finds the
+lacerated lamb of another’s flock.—This moment I behold him leaning with
+his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon
+it!—Oh! had I come one moment sooner! it bleeds to death!—his gentle
+heart bleeds with it.—
+
+Peace to thee, generous swain!—I see thou walkest off with anguish,—but
+thy joys shall balance it;—for, happy is thy cottage,—and happy is the
+sharer of it,—and happy are the lambs which sport about you!
+
+
+
+
+THE SUPPER.
+
+
+A SHOE coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at the
+beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted,
+twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of five
+or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point of
+having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postilion
+had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of no
+great use without them, I submitted to go on.
+
+He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a flinty piece of
+road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other fore
+foot.  I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and seeing a house
+about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I
+prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it.  The look of the house,
+and of every thing about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the
+disaster.—It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about twenty acres
+of vineyard, about as much corn;—and close to the house, on one side, was
+a _potagerie_ of an acre and a half, full of everything which could make
+plenty in a French peasant’s house;—and, on the other side, was a little
+wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it.  It was about eight in the
+evening when I got to the house—so I left the postilion to manage his
+point as he could;—and, for mine, I walked directly into the house.
+
+The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with five or
+six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy
+out of them.
+
+They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large wheaten
+loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at each end of
+it promised joy through the stages of the repast:—’twas a feast of love.
+
+The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would
+have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment I enter’d
+the room; so I sat down at once like a son of the family; and to invest
+myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the
+old man’s knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon;
+and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest
+welcome, but of a welcome mix’d with thanks that I had not seem’d to
+doubt it.
+
+Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this morsel
+so sweet,—and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their
+flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate to this
+hour?
+
+If the supper was to my taste,—the grace which followed it was much more
+so.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRACE.
+
+
+WHEN supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the
+haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance: the moment the
+signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether into a back
+apartment to tie up their hair,—and the young men to the door to wash
+their faces, and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was
+ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin.—The old man and
+his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa
+of turf by the door.
+
+The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the
+_vielle_,—and at the age he was then of, touch’d it well enough for the
+purpose.  His wife sung now and then a little to the tune,—then
+intermitted,—and join’d her old man again, as their children and
+grand-children danced before them.
+
+It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in
+the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could
+distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause
+or the effect of simple jollity.  In a word, I thought I beheld
+_Religion_ mixing in the dance:—but, as I had never seen her so engaged,
+I should have look’d upon it now as one of the illusions of an
+imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as
+soon as the dance ended, said, that this was their constant way; and that
+all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call
+out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful
+and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an
+illiterate peasant could pay,—
+
+Or a learned prelate either, said I.
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF DELICACY.
+
+
+WHEN you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently down to
+Lyons:—adieu, then, to all rapid movements!  ’Tis a journey of caution;
+and it fares better with sentiments, not to be in a hurry with them; so I
+contracted with a _voiturin_ to take his time with a couple of mules, and
+convoy me in my own chaise safe to Turin, through Savoy.
+
+Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not: your poverty, the treasury
+of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, nor will
+your valleys be invaded by it.—Nature! in the midst of thy disorders,
+thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created: with all thy
+great works about thee, little hast thou left to give, either to the
+scythe or to the sickle;—but to that little thou grantest safety and
+protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so shelter’d.
+
+Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden turns and
+dangers of your roads,—your rocks,—your precipices;—the difficulties of
+getting up,—the horrors of getting down,—mountains impracticable,—and
+cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and block his
+road up.—The peasants had been all day at work in removing a fragment of
+this kind between St. Michael and Madane; and, by the time my _voiturin_
+got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing before a passage
+could any how be gain’d: there was nothing but to wait with
+patience;—’twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the delay, and
+that together, the _voiturin_ found himself obliged to put up five miles
+short of his stage at a little decent kind of an inn by the roadside.
+
+I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber—got a good fire—order’d
+supper; and was thanking heaven it was no worse, when a _voiturin_ arrived
+with a lady in it and her servant maid.
+
+As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the hostess,—without much
+nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she usher’d them in, that
+there was nobody in it but an English gentleman;—that there were two good
+beds in it, and a closet within the room which held another.  The accent
+in which she spoke of this third bed, did not say much for it;—however,
+she said there were three beds and but three people, and she durst say,
+the gentleman would do anything to accommodate matters.—I left not the
+lady a moment to make a conjecture about it—so instantly made a
+declaration that I would do anything in my power.
+
+As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber, I
+still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to do the
+honours of it;—so I desired the lady to sit down,—pressed her into the
+warmest seat,—called for more wood,—desired the hostess to enlarge the
+plan of the supper, and to favour us with the very best wine.
+
+The lady had scarce warm’d herself five minutes at the fire, before she
+began to turn her head back, and give a look at the beds; and the oftener
+she cast her eyes that way, the more they return’d perplexd;—I felt for
+her—and for myself: for in a few minutes, what by her looks, and the case
+itself, I found myself as much embarrassed as it was possible the lady
+could be herself.
+
+That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was enough
+simply by itself to have excited all this;—but the position of them, for
+they stood parallel, and so very close to each other as only to allow
+space for a small wicker chair betwixt them, rendered the affair still
+more oppressive to us;—they were fixed up moreover near the fire; and the
+projection of the chimney on one side, and a large beam which cross’d the
+room on the other, formed a kind of recess for them that was no way
+favourable to the nicety of our sensations:—if anything could have added
+to it, it was that the two beds were both of them so very small, as to
+cut us off from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which
+in either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside them,
+though a thing not to be wish’d, yet there was nothing in it so terrible
+which the imagination might not have pass’d over without torment.
+
+As for the little room within, it offer’d little or no consolation to us:
+’twas a damp, cold closet, with a half dismantled window-shutter, and
+with a window which had neither glass nor oil paper in it to keep out the
+tempest of the night.  I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the
+lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced the case in course to this
+alternative—That the lady should sacrifice her health to her feelings,
+and take up with the closet herself, and abandon the bed next mine to her
+maid,—or that the girl should take the closet, &c., &c.
+
+The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health in her
+cheeks.  The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk and lively a
+French girl as ever moved.—There were difficulties every way,—and the
+obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us into the distress,
+great as it appeared whilst the peasants were removing it, was but a
+pebble to what lay in our ways now.—I have only to add, that it did not
+lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that we were both too
+delicate to communicate what we felt to each other upon the occasion.
+
+We sat down to supper; and had we not had more generous wine to it than a
+little inn in Savoy could have furnish’d, our tongues had been tied up,
+till necessity herself had set them at liberty;—but the lady having a few
+bottles of Burgundy in her voiture, sent down her _fille de chambre_ for
+a couple of them; so that by the time supper was over, and we were left
+alone, we felt ourselves inspired with a strength of mind sufficient to
+talk, at least, without reserve upon our situation.  We turn’d it every
+way, and debated and considered it in all kinds of lights in the course
+of a two hours’ negotiation; at the end of which the articles were
+settled finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a
+treaty of peace,—and I believe with as much religion and good faith on
+both sides as in any treaty which has yet had the honour of being handed
+down to posterity.
+
+They were as follow:—
+
+First, as the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur,—and he thinking
+the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, he insists upon the
+concession on the lady’s side of taking up with it.
+
+Granted, on the part of Madame; with a proviso, That as the curtains of
+that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear likewise too
+scanty to draw close, that the _fille de chambre_ shall fasten up the
+opening, either by corking pins, or needle and thread, in such manner as
+shall be deem’d a sufficient barrier on the side of Monsieur.
+
+2dly.  It is required on the part of Madame, that Monsieur shall lie the
+whole night through in his _robe de chambre_.
+
+Rejected: inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a _robe de chambre_; he
+having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts and a black silk pair of
+breeches.
+
+The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of the
+article,—for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for the _robe de
+chambre_; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon, that I should lie in
+my black silk breeches all night.
+
+3dly.  It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the lady, that after
+Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire extinguished, that
+Monsieur should not speak one single word the whole night.
+
+Granted; provided Monsieur’s saying his prayers might not be deemed an
+infraction of the treaty.
+
+There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the manner in
+which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress and get to
+bed;—there was but one way of doing it, and that I leave to the reader to
+devise; protesting as I do it, that if it is not the most delicate in
+nature, ’tis the fault of his own imagination,—against which this is not
+my first complaint.
+
+Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the
+situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not shut my
+eyes; I tried this side, and that, and turn’d and turn’d again, till a
+full hour after midnight; when Nature and patience both wearing out,—O,
+my God! said I.
+
+—You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no more
+slept than myself.—I begg’d a thousand pardons—but insisted it was no
+more than an ejaculation.  She maintained ’twas an entire infraction of
+the treaty—I maintain’d it was provided for in the clause of the third
+article.
+
+The lady would by no means give up her point, though she weaken’d her
+barrier by it; for in the warmth of the dispute, I could hear two or
+three corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground.
+
+Upon my word and honour, Madame, said I,—stretching my arm out of bed by
+way of asseveration.—
+
+(I was going to have added, that I would not have trespassed against the
+remotest idea of decorum for the world);—
+
+But the _fille de chambre_ hearing there were words between us, and
+fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept silently out of
+her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close to our beds,
+that she had got herself into the narrow passage which separated them,
+and had advanced so far up as to be in a line betwixt her mistress and
+me:—
+
+So that when I stretch’d out my hand I caught hold of the _fille de
+chambre’s_—
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 THE END
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+
+{557}  All the effects of strangers (Swiss and Scotch excepted) dying in
+France, are seized by virtue of this law, though the heir be upon the
+spot—the profit of these contingencies being farmed, there is no redress.
+
+{562}  A chaise, so called, in France, from its holding but one person.
+
+{580}  Vide S—’s Travels: [_i.e._ Dr. Smollett’s “Travels through France
+and Italy.”—ED.]
+
+{588}  Post-horse.
+
+{648}  Nosegay.
+
+{649}  Hackney coach.
+
+{652}  Plate, napkin, knife, fork and spoon.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY ***
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