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, answered 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 walked out ill at ease towards the Pont-Neuf, Of all the bridges whiol ever were built, the whole world, who have passed over the Pont-Neuf, must own that it is the noblest-the finest the grandest-the lightest the longest-the broadest that ever conjoined 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 alledge against i', is, that if there is but a cap-full of wind in or about Parts, it is 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 gare donc, and without 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 centry, instinctively clapped his cane to the side of it; but, in raising it up, the point of his cane catching hold of the centinel's hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the ballustrade clear into the Seine. -It is an ill wind, said a boatman, who catched it, which blows nobody any good. The centry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, and levelled his harquebuss. Harquebusses 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 borrowed the centry'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-It is 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 rne Dauphine into the faubourg 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 levelled 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 despoiled of my castor by pontific ones-to be here bare-headed, 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 the fellow-creatures, good! As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this sort, a voice called out to a girl to bid her run for the next notary-now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walked up the passage to the door, and passing through an oldsort of a saloon, was ushered into a large chamber dismantled of every thing but a long military pike-a breast-plate -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 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 every thing to make the gentleman's last will and testament. Alas! Monsieur le notaire, said the gentleman raising bimself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath which will pay the expence 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 dipped his pen into his inkhorn-Almighty director of every event in my life! said the oid 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 condemned 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 inkhorn-and the old gentleman, turning a little more towards the notary, to dictate his story in these words— C* -And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said f, as he just then entered the room. THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. * 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 wrapt 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 itThere 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 ciet! 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 misforturnes were involved together I gave a sigh and La Fleur echoed it back again to my ear 1. How perfidious! cried La Fleur-How unlucky! said -I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had lost it Nor I, La Fleur, said 1, had I found it. Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter. * Nosegay. 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 noon day, 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 her's, worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded tegether-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 them-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 opéra comique into a narrow street; it is trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiucre **, or wish to get off quietly on 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- it is 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, Pet. Fp. I, C. I, V. I. |