honour and, possibly, might not altogether be unconcerned for his own, as a man capable of being attached to a master who could be wanting en egards vis à vis d'une femme! so that, when Madame de Lasked La Fleur if he had brought a letter, O qu'oui, said La Fleur; so, laying down his hat upon the ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right sidepocket with his left hand, he began to search for the letter with his right; then contrariwise, Diable! - then sought every pocket, pocket by pocket, round, not forgetting his fob; Peste! then La Fleur emptied pulled out a dirty cravat, handkerchief- a comb, a whiplash, a night-cap, then gave a peep into his hat Quelle étourderies! He had left the letter upon the table in the auberge; he would run for it, and be back with it in three minutes. them upon the floor, - a I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to give me an account of his adventure; he told the whole story simply as it was; and only added that, if Monsieur had forgot (par hazard) to answer Madame's letter, the arrangement gave him an opportunity to recover the faux pas; and if not, that things were only as they were. Now, I was not altogether sure of my etiquette, whether I ought to have wrote or no; but if I had, a Devil himself could not have been angry: 'twas but the officious zeal of a well-meaning creature for my honour; and however he might have mistook the road, or embarrassed me in so doing his heart was in no and, fault I was under no necessity to write; what weighed more than all, he did not look as if he had done amiss. .... 'Tis all very well, La Fleur, said I. "Twas sufficient. La Fleur flew out of the room like lightning, and return'd with pen, ink, and paper, in his hand; and, coming up to the table, laid them close before me, with such a delight in his countenance that I could not help taking up the pen. I began, and began again; and, though I had nothing to say, and that nothing might have been expressed in half-a-dozen lines, I made half-a-dozen different beginnings, and could no way please myself. In short, I was in no mood to write. La Fleur stepp'd out and brought a little water in a glass to dilute my ink then fetched sand and seal-wax. It was all one; I wrote, and blotted, and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again. Le Diable l'emporte, said I, half to myself I cannot write this self-same letter, throwing the pen down despairingly as I said it. As soon as I had cast down my pen, La Fleur advanced with the most respectful carriage up to the table, and, making a thousand apologies for the liberty he was going to take, told me he had a letter in his pocket, wrote by a drummer in his regiment to a corporal's wife, which, he durst say, would suit the oc casion. I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his hu- mour. La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocketbook, cramm'd full of small letters and billet-doux in a sad condition, and laying it upon the table, and then untying the string which held them all together, ran them over, one by one, till he came to the letter in question -La voilà, said he, clapping his hands; so, unfolding it first, he laid it before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst I read it. Madame, THE LETTER. Je suis penetré de la douleur la plus vive, et reduit en même temps au desespoir par ce retour imprevû du Corporal, qui rend notre entrevue de ce soir la chose du monde la plus impossible. Mais, vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser à vous. L'amour n'est rien sans sentiment. Et le sentiment est encore moins sans amour. On dit aussi que Monsieur le Corporal monte la garde Mercredi; alors ce sera mon tour. En attendant Chacun à son tour. Vive l'amour! et vive la bagatelle, Avec toutes les sentiments les plus JAQUES ROQUE. It was but changing the Corporal into the Count and saying nothing about mounting guard on Wednesday, and the letter was neither right nor wrong; -so, to gratify the poor fellow, who stood trembling for my honour, his own, and the honour of his letter, I took the cream gently off it, and, whipping it in my own way, seal'd it up, and sent it to Madame de L; and the next morning we pursued our journey to Paris. up PARIS. WHEN a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry on all floundering before him with half a-dozen lacquies and a couple of cooks-'tis very well in such a place as Paris, he may drive in at which end of a street he will. for there A poor prince, who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalize himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it, I say up into it is no descending perpendicularly amongst 'em with a "Me voici, mes enfans," here I am, whatever many may think. I own, my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as I had prefigured them. I walked up gravely to the window in my dusty black coat, and looking through the glass, saw all the world in yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring of pleasure. The old with broken lances, and in helmets which had lost their vizards; the young, in armour bright, which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the east, all, — all, — tilting at it like fascinated knights in tournaments of yore, for fame and love. .... ..... Alas, poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here? On the very first onset of all this glittering clatter, thou art reduced to an atom; seek seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the end of it, where chariot never rolled, nor flambeau shot its rays; there thou mayest solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind grisette of a barber's wife, and get into such coteries! May I perish! if I do, said I, pulling out a letter which I had to present to Madame de R—. I'll wait upon this lady the very first thing I do. So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber directly, and come back and brush my coat. - THE WIG. PARIS. WHEN the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do with my wig: 'twas either above or below his art: I had nothing to do but to take one ready made of his own recommendation. But I fear, friend, said I, this buckle won't stand....You may immerse it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand. What a great scale is every thing upon in this city! thought I. The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker's ideas could have gone no further than to have "dipped it into a pail of water." What difference! 'tis like time to eternity! I confess I do hate all conceptions as I do the puny ideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of Nature that, for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison less than a mountain at least. All that can be said against the French sublime, in this instance of it, is this: That the grandeur is more in the word, and, less, in the thing. No doubt the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas; but Paris being so far inland, it Sentimental Journey, etc. 5 |