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won my

soul makes to succour a distressed one-the fellow 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 hotelbut 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 has friends in Paris who can procure him one.e.-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 tres extraordinaires—and having both said and sworn it-he went out.

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I

THE PASSPORT

THE HOTEL AT PARIS.

COULD not find 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 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 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 arrival.

my

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 overburthened 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 mine-I have enough in conscience, Eugenius, 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, you.-But refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do some thing or other for which I shall get clapped up 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, dryly: really I had forget that resource.

into

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, and I was quite alone, that I could not bring down my mind

to

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to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of

it to Eugenius?

And as for the Bastile! the terror is in the word-Make the most of it you can, said 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 withinat 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 forgot 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

fossé

fossé-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 itthe evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

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.”—I 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"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 will 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.

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