PARIS.

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 further 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 Count, 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 enquiring after me-the thing instantly recurred-and by the time La Fleur had well told me, the Master of the hotel came into my room, to tell me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked after-the Master of the Hotel concluded with saying-He hoped I had one-Not I, faith! said I.

The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected person, as I declared this -and poor La Fleur advanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to succour a distressed one the fellow won my heart by it; and from that single trait, I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.

Mon Seigneur! cried the master of the hotel

THE PASSPORT.

but recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it-If Monsieur, said he, has not a passport, (apparemment) in all likelihood he as friends in Paris who can procure him one.-Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference.—Then, certes, replied he, you will be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet, au moins.-Poo! said I, the king of France is a good-natured soul-he will hurt nobody. Cela n'empeche pas, said he-you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning. But I have 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.

Pardi! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens trés extraordinaries-and having both said and sworn it-he went out.

THE PASSPORT.

THE HOTEL AT PARIS.

I COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious look upon the subject of my em

F

1

PARIS.

barrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly: and to shew him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and, whilst he waited upon me at supper, talked to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the Opera Comique. La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller's shop; but seeing me come out with the young fille de chambre, and that we walked down the Quai de Conti toge ther, 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 short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set out I must tell it here.

Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be 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 pulling out his purse in order to empty it into ine-I have enough in conscience, Eugenius

THE BASTILE.

said I.-Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius. I know France and Italy better than you. But you do not 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 Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expence. I beg pardon, said Eugenius, drily: really I had forgot that resource.

Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.

Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, aaid I was quite alone, that I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius? 32And as for the Bastile! the terror is in the word

Make the most of it you can, and I to myself, the Bastile, is but another word for a tower, and a tower is but another word for a house you cannot 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 cannot 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

PARIS.

appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I settled this account; and remember I walked down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning.-Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I, vauntingly-for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them.-'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition--the Bastile is not an evil to be despised-but strip it of its towers--fill up the fosse unbarricade the doors-call it simply a confinement, and suppose 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

I was interrupted in the hey-day of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out.". looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further 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—