the Notary thought it well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply. I would go, answered he, to bed. You may go to the Devil, answered the Notary's wife. Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the Notary not caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent him pell-mell to the Devil, went forth with his hat, and cane, and short cloak, the night being very windy, and walked out ill at ease towards the Pont Neuf. Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have passed over the Pont Neuf must own that it is the noblest, the finest, the grandest, the lightest, the longest, the broadest, that ever conjoined land sieurs; for it comes against you without crying garde d'eau, and with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half, which is its full worth. - 176 + The poor Notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctively clapped his cane to the side of it; but in raising it up, the point of his cane, catching hold of the loop of the sentinel's hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the balustrade clear into the Seine. 'Tis an ill wind, said a boatman, who catched it, which blows nobody any good.. The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers and levelled his arquebuse. Arquebuses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman's paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, she had borrowed the sentry's match to light it. It gave a moment's time for the Gascon's blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to his advantage. 'Tis an ill wind, said he, catching off the Notary's castor, and legitimating the capture with the boatman's adage. The poor Notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de Dauphine into the Faubourg of St. Germain, lamented himself as he walked along in this manner: Luckless man that I am! said the Notary, to be the sport of hurricanes all my days!-to be born to have the storm of ill language levelled against me and my profession wherever I go!-to be forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman!-to be driven forth out of my house by domestic winds, and despoiled of my castor by pon 2 tific ones!-to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents! Where am I to lay my head? Miserable man! what wind in the two-and-thirty points in the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good! As the Notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this sort, a voice called out to a girl, to bid her run for the next Notary. Now the Notary, being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walked up the passage to the door, and, passing through an old sort of a saloon, was ushered into a large chamber, dismantled of everything but a long military pike, a breastplate, a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up equidistant in four different places against the wall. An old personage, who had heretofore been a gentleman, and, unless decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand, in his bed; a little table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and close by the table was placed a chair. The Notary sat him down in it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them before him, and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the table, he disposed everything to make the gentleman's last will and testament. Alas! Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, raising himself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in peace unless I left it as a legacy to the world; the profits arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from me. It is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind: it will make the fortunes of your house. The Notary dipped his pen into his inkhorn. Almighty Director of every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his bands towards heaven-Thou, whose hand has led me on through such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted man! Direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that Book from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to be condemned or acquitted! The Notary held up the point of his pen betwixt the taper and his eye. It is a story, Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, which will rouse up every affection in Nature; it will kill the humane, and touch the heart of Cruelty herself with pity. The Notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a third time into his inkhorn; and the old gentleman, turning a little more towards the Notary, began to dictate his story in these words: -And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then entered the room. |