 Section 9 The words were scarce out of my mouth when the count to El's post-shays, 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 b.a., 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 part 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 El, that Madame de El would be glad to discharge her obligation. Then I will meet thee, said I, fair spirit, at Brussels. It is only returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, by the route of Flanders home. It will scarce be ten posts out of my way, but wear 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 am 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 someone, 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 disemble 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 looked at the picture she had tied in a black ribbon about my neck, and blushed as I looked at it. I would have given the world to have kissed it, but was ashamed. And shall this tender flower, said I, pressing it between my hands, shall it be smitten to the very root, and smitten, Yorick, by thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast? Eternal fountain of happiness, said I, kneeling 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 to wards 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 signalize his zeal for my service from the time that he had entered into it, which was almost four and twenty hours. The poor soul band with impatience, and the Count de El's servant coming with the letter, being the first practicable occasion which offered, la fleur had laid hold of it, and in order to do honour to his master, had taken him into a back parlor in the aubergine, and treated him with a cup or two of the best wine in Piccadilly, and the Count de El'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 talent, 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 fide chambre, the metre d'hôtel, the cook, the scullion, and all the household, dogs and cats, besides an old monkey, a dancing. I suppose there was never a merrier kitchen since the flood. Madame de El, in passing from her brother's apartments to her own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her fide 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 upstairs with a thousand compliments to Madame de El, on the part of his master, added a long apocrypha of inquiries after Madame de El's health, told her that Monsieur his master was au désesboire 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 El, interrupting la fleur to send a biais in return. Madame de El had said this with such a tone of reliance upon the fact that la fleur had knocked the 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 on égard vis-à-vis d'une femme. So that when Madame de El asked la fleur if he had brought a letter, oh que 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 contraried wise. Diable! Then sought every pocket, pocket by pocket round, not forgetting his fob. Pest! Then la fleur emptied them upon the floor, pulled out a dirty cravat, a handkerchief, a comb, a whiplash, a night-cap. Then gave a peep into his hat. Quelle tournerie! 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 me the whole story, simply as it was, and only added that if Monsieur had forgot, par haseur, 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 etiquette, whether I ought to have wrote or know, but if I had, a devil himself could not have been angry, to has 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 a miss. He's all very well, la fleur, said I. It was sufficient. La fleur flew out of the rom 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 stepped out, and brought a little water in a glass to dilute my ink, then fetched sand and seal-wax. It was all one. I wrote, and blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again. Le diable l'emparte, 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 dost 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, crammed full of small letters and be adieu, 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. Mais vive la joie, et toute la mienne sera de penser à vous. L'amour n'est rien sans sentiments, et le sentiment est encore moins sans amour. On dit qu'on ne doit jamais se désespérer. On dit aussi que M. le Corporal monte la garde mercredi. Alors ce sera mon tour. Chacun a son tour. En attendant vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle. Je suis, madame, avec les sentiments les plus respectueux, et les plus tendres, tout à vous, Jacques Rock. 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 sealed it up, and sent him with it to madame de L. And the next morning we pursued our journey to Paris. End of Section 9. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Section 10 of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. By Lawrence Stern. Section 10. When a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all on floundering before him, with half a dozen of lackeys, and a couple of cooks, it is 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, at best quit the field, and signalise himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it. I say up into it, for there is no descending perpendicular amongst them, with a neuf voici mes enfants. 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 visards. The young in armour bright, which shone like gold, be plumed 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 crazette of a barber's wife, and get into such coateries. May I perish if I do, said I, pulling out the letter which I had to present to madame de Arre. 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 anything to do with my wig. It was 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 immerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. What a great scale is everything upon in this city, thought I. The utmost stretch of an English periwigmaker's ideas could have gone no further than to have dipped it into a pail of water. What difference! It is 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, till be said, it has one advantage. It is 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 minutiae 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 Arre 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 Hotel du Modin, 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, it is 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 Opéracomique. 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 to 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 Dar 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 bonne naff, which you must cross. And there anyone will do himself the pleasure to show you. She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same good-natured 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 crezette 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. It is 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 curtsy. 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 he will have the complacence to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall attend you to the place. So I walked 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 curtesies. Anyone may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is 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 bed, thou hadst passed by and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lackadaisical 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 laughed and moralized upon my new profession? And thou shouldst have laughed 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, 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. End of section 10 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmayer Surrey Section 11 of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy By Laurence Stern Section 11 The Husband Paris I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected from a back parlor into the shop, put me a little out of my reckoning. To us nobody but her husband, she said, so I began a fresh score. Monsieur is so good, quotes she, as he passed 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 walked 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 to tally 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 commerseless in his thrum nightcap, the same rough son of nature that nature left him. The genius of a people, when 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 he 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. À propos, said I, I want a couple of pairs myself. The gloves, Paris. The beautiful Crescent rose up when I said this, and going behind the counter, reached down a parcel and untied it. I advanced to the side over against her. They were all too large. The beautiful Crescent measured them one by one across my hand. It would not alter their dimensions. She begged 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 Crescent 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 looked 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 to me, and putting them into my pocket. I was sensible the beautiful Crescent had not asked above a single lever above the price. I wished she had asked a lever 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 suit 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? 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. 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 on 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 pre-delection 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 chagrin case, returned them and the Book into his pocket together. I half rose up and made him a bow. Translate this into any civilised language in the world. The sense is this. Here's a poor stranger coming to 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, his 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 returned him a thousand thanks for it. There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality as to get master of this shorthand, 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 D. 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 one 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 blushed 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 looked back twice, and walked along it rather sideways as if she would make room for anyone coming upstairs 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 begged 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 thanked each other. She was at the top of the stairs, and seeing no chitchie's bale near her, I begged 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 wished 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 stepped 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 connection which arose out of the translation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy. End of Section 11 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Section 12 of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy By Laurence Stern Section 12 The Dwarf, Paris I had never heard the remark made by anyone 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 informing 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 opéracomique with me, I measured everybody 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 miserable 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 pygmy, 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 disoing to undue bandages, a splinetic 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 anybody else, in speaking one evening of these matters, a word 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 Paris were so cooped up that they had not actually room enough to get them. I do not call it getting anything, said he, it is getting nothing. Nay, continued he, rising in his argument, it is getting worse than nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care, and most nutritious element 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 bilane of Paris. I was walking down that which leads from the Carousel 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 helped 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 incommodated 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 turned his head back, looked down upon him as Goliath 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 tempered 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 kerr with his knife. The German looked back coolly and told him he was welcome if he could reach it. An injury sharpened by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes every man of sentiment a party. I could have leaped 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 itself. 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, oh, c'est les mains, monsieur la baie, re-echoed from a dozen different parts of the parterre, was as un intelligible to me as my apostrophe to the monk had been to him. He told me it was some poor abbey in one of the upper lurch, who he supposed had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes in order to see the opera, and that the parterre is spying him, where insisting upon his holding up both his hands during the representation. And can it be supposed, said I, that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisette's 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? Que grossièr de, 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 tartouf was given in it by Molière. But like other remains of gothic manners was declining. Every nation continued he have their refinements and grossièr de, 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 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 Savoir-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, it was 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 blushed at many a word the first month, which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second. Madame de Rambouillet, 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 Rambouillet is the most correct, and I never wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart. In our return back, Madame de Rambouillet desired me to pull the cord. I asked her if she wanted anything. Rien que pour pisser, said Madame de Rambouillet. Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouillet piss on. And ye fair mystic nymphs, go each one pluck your rose, and scatter them in your path for Madame de Rambouillet did no more. I handed Madame de Rambouillet 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. End of section 12 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Section 13 of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Lawrence Stern Section 13 The Fideschard 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 stopped at the Caduconti in my return home to purchase the whole set. The bookseller said he had not a set in the world. Come on, 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 honours, 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'Arts 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 feed a chambre to some devout woman of fashion, came into the shop and asked for les égardsments du coeur et de l'esprit. The bookseller gave her the book directly. She pulled out a little green satin purse, run round with a ribbon 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 walked 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 burst told you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache, canst thou ever be sure it is so? Le Dieu man garde, said the girl. With reason, said I, for if it is a good one, it is pity it should be stolen. It is a little treasure to thee, and gives a better air to your face than if it was dressed out with pearls. The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her satin purse by its ribbon 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 ribbon in a bow knot, returned it to her. The young girl made me more a humble courtesy than a low one. It was 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 ribbons.' "'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. 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 thanked me. It was a small tribute, I told her, which I could not avoid paying to vert you, 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 before the man who ever lays a snare in its way. The girl seemed affected some way or other with what I said. She gave a low sigh. I found I was not empowered to inquire 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 Modène? Then she told me it was, or that I might go by the Rue de Gneugot, which was the next turn. Then I'll go, my dear, by the Rue de Gneugot, 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 Modène was in the Rue de St-Pierre. You live there, said I. She told me she was fee the chambre to Madame R. Good God! said I, this is 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 Nouvelle whilst this passed. We then stopped a moment while she disposed of her a garment du coeur, etc., more commodiously than carrying them in her hand. They were two volumes. So I held the second for her while she put the first into her pocket, and then she held her pocket and I put in the other after it. It is 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 showed 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 anything in it of a family likeness. Tupped, said I, are we not all relations? When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gnaugoux, I stopped 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 anywhere 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. End of Section 13. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Section 14 of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. By Lawrence Stern. Section 14. The Passport, Paris. When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been inquired 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 entered 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 had hired the packet, I begged 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 passed 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 Comte, said I, and I shall do very well. So I embarked and never thought more of the matter. When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de police had been inquiring 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 oped I add 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 sucker a distressed one. The fellow won my heart by it, and from that single tray I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years. Monseigneur 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, as 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 Celt, replied he, you'll be sent to the Bastille or the Châtelet, au moins. Said I, the king of France is a good-natured soul. He'll hurt nobody. Cela n'empêche pas, said he, you will certainly be sent to the Bastille tomorrow morning. But I've taken your lodgings for a month, answered I, and I will 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. Paradis, said my host, c'est messieurs anglais 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 it 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 dropped the subject entirely. And whilst he waited upon me at supper, talked to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the opéracomique. La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as the booksellers' shop. But seeing me come out with the young fear de chambre, and that we walked down the Cade Conti together, La Fleur deemed 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 informed 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 small 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 overburdened 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 pulled out his purse in order to empty it into mine. I've enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I. Indeed, Yodik, 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 clapped up into the Bastille, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the King of France's expense. I beg pardon, said Eugenius dryly. Rarely 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 downstairs, 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 Bastille, the terror is in the word. Make the most of it you can, said I to myself. The Bastille 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 courtyard as I settled this account, and remember I walked downstairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. Be shrew the somber pencil, said I, hauntingly, for I envy not its powers which paint the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened, reduced them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. It is true, said I, correcting the proposition, the Bastille is not an evil to be despised, but strip it of its towers, fill up the fos, unbaddicate the doors, call it simply a confinement, and suppose it is 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 talked to be of a child, which complained it could not get out. I looked 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 approached 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 spirit to which my reason had been a bubble, where so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tone to nature where they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastille. And I heavily walked upstairs, unseeing every word I had said in going down them. Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still slavery, said I, still thou art a bitter draft, 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 gimmick power turn thy scepter 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 that 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 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 looked through the twilight of his great indoor 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 deferred. Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish. In thirty years the western breeze had not once found 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 the head, notched 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 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 Choisue. La Fleur would have put me to bed, but not willing he should see anything upon my cheek that would cost the honest fellow a heartache. I told him I would go to bed by myself, and bid him go do the same. The Starling rode 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 Mister 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 he grew fond of it, and got it safe along with him to Paris. At Paris the lad had laid out a leaf in a little cage for the Starling, and as he had little to do better the five months his Master stayed there, he taught it in his mother's tongue the four simple words, and no more, to which I owned 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 pegged 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 gentlemen 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 passed into the lower house, and passed 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. I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from that time to this I have borne this poor styling as the crest to my arms, thus, and let the herald's officers twist his neck about if they dare. The address, Dersailles. 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-Se 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 Bastille 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-Se'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 to 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 suckers ten times where nature does it once. Go to the Duc-de-Se with the Bastille 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 Duc 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, just ever on its centre. Well, well, cried I, as the coachman turned in at the gates. I find I shall do very well. And by the time he had wheeled 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 metre d'hôtel, but had more the air of one of the under-secretaries, who told me the Duc-de-Se 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 looked 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-Se, but of great importance to myself. C'est une autre fère, 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 courtyard 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 Bastille 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. End of Section 15. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Section 16 of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. By Lawrence Stern. Section 16. 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 pulled 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 begged 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-to-be, of whom the bookseller at the Cade de Quartier had spoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind. And why should I not go, thought I, to the count-to-be, who has so high an idea of English books and English men, and tell him my story? So I changed my mind the second time. In truth it was the third, for I had intended that day for Madame de Arre in the Rue Saint-Pierre, and had devoutly sent her word by her feet au charbre, 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 Lafleur go up to him, and inquire for the count's hotel. Lafleur returned a little pale, and told me it was a chevalier de Saint-Louis selling pâtés. It is impossible, Lafleur, said I. Lafleur 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 ribbon, 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 Hermes. The more I looked at him, his croix and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain. I got out of the Hermes and went towards him. He was begut with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees, and with a sort of a bib that went halfway 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 property 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 begged 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 piece his regiment being reformed and the whole croix 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 every one, 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 offered him a better. It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good in passing over what happened to this poor Chevalier of Saint 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 inquiry which I had done. He had told them the same story, and always with so much modesty and good sense, that it had reached 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 day in Brittany into decay. The Marquis de had fought up against his condition with great firmness, wishing to preserve and still to 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 forever of the little tree his pride and affection wished to see reblossom. But in Brittany there being a provision for this, he availed 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 claimed, he said, was no less in force, he took his sword from his side. Here, said he, take it, and be trustee guardians of it, till better times put me in condition to reclaim it. The president accepted the Marquis's sword. He stayed 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 Martinique, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to business, with some unlooked-for bequests from distant branches of his house, returned 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 reclaimed his sword. His sword was given him, and the moment he got it into his hand he drew it almost out of the scabbard. It was the shining face of a friend he had once given up. He looked 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, walked out. Oh, how I envied him his feelings! End of section 16 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey