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 straitened 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 inquiry; 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 in 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 supped 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 gold out of the couvert* of some more entertaining * Plate, napkin, knife, fork, and spoon. 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 Marquess de B: in days of yore, he had signalised himself by some small feats of chivalry in the Cour d'Amour, and had dressed himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since. The Marquess de B wished 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 Marquess," said I; "les Messieurs Anglois can scarce get a kind look from them as it is." The Marquess 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 Monsieur P's concerts upon any other terms. I had been misrepresented to Madame de Qas an esprit. Madame de Q was an esprit herself: she burned 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 vowed 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 dévotée: the empire during these is never lost, she only changes her subjects: when thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her dominions of the slaves of love, she repeoples it with infidelity, and then with slaves of the church. Madame de V- was vibrating betwixt |