THE ADDRESS.

VERSAILLES.

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 C**** 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 Bastile 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 writhe myself into Monsieur le Duc de C****'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 1 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 3 limbs.---And for the tone---the first sound that comes from his lips will give it you, and from all these together you will compound an address at once on 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 succours ten times,

where nature does it once.

Go to the Duc de

*****, with the Bastile 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 Duke, 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-it is 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 topmast-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 maitre d'hotel, but had more the air of one of the under secretaries, who told me the Duc de C**** 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 C****, but of great importance to myself. C'est ane outre affaire, 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 accesse ? --In not less than two hours, said he, looking at his watch. The number of equipages in the court yard seemed to justify the calculation, that I could have no nearer prospect-- and as walking backward and forward in the saloon, without a soul to commune with, was, for the time, as bad as being in the Bastile itself, 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.

LE PATISSER.

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 around 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 Marquisses, and Counts had hotels. The Coun de B****, of whom the bookseller, at the Quai de Conti, had spoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind.And why should I not go, thought to the Count de B**** who has so high an idea of English books, and Erglish men, and tell him my story? So I changed my mind a second time---in truth it was the third; for I had intended that day for Madame de R***, in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent her word by her fille de chambre, 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 La Fleur go up to him, and inquire for the Count's hotel.

La Fleur returned a little pale, and told me it was a Chevalier de St. Louis, selling patés--It is impossible, La Fleur! said I. La Fleur 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 ribband, he said, tied to his button hole----and he looked into o his basket, and seen the pates which the chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken in that.

Such a reverse in a man's life awakens a better principle than curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise---the more I looked at him, his croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain ---I got out of the remise, and went towards him.

He was begirt with a clean linen apron, which fell below his knees, and with a sort of bib which went half way up his breast; upon the top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His basket of little patés, was covered over with a white damask napkin; another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look of propreté and neatness throughout, that one might have bought his patés 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 a hotel, for those to buy who chuse 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 taken one of his patés 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 peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, 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 any thing but this--(pointing, as he said it, to his croix.) The poor Chevalier won ma 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 or 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 patisserie : 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 St. Louis about nine months after.

It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates which lead to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eye 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 ruan of honour and integrity, he broke up his little trade, by a pension of fifteen hundred livres a yea