In short, I was in no mood to write. La Fleur stepped 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 occasion. I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humor. Then prithee, said I, let me see it. La Fleur instantly pulled out a little dirty pocket-book, crammed full of small letters and billets-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. Et le sentiment est encore moins sans amour. On dit qu'on ne doit jamais se désespérer. On dit aussi que Monsieur le Corporal monte la garde Mercredi: alors ce sera mon tour. Chacun à son tour. En attendant-Vive l'amour! et vive la bagatelle! Je suis, Madame, Avec toutes les sentiments les plus respectueux et les 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 honor, his own, and the honor of his letter, I took the cream gently off it, and, whipping it up in my own way, sealed it up, and sent it to Madame de L next morning we pursued our journey to Paris. ; and the WHEN a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry on all floundering before him with half a dozen lackeys 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. 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, for there is no descending perpendicularly amongst 'em with a (6 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 visors; the young in armor 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. |