Unsegmented source body · Part 3

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_—

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THE END

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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.