This was a sacrifice not to him, but myself, having resolved, after sonarrow an escape, to run no more risks, but to leave Paris, if it waspossible, with all the virtue I enter’d it.
_C’est déroger à noblesse_, _Monsieur_, said La Fleur, making me a bowdown to the ground as he said it.—_Et encore_, _Monsieur_, said he, maychange his sentiments;—and if (_par hazard_) he should like to amusehimself,—I find no amusement in it, said I, interrupting him.—
_Mon Dieu_! said La Fleur,—and took away.
In an hour’s time he came to put me to bed, and was more than commonlyofficious:—something hung upon his lips to say to me, or ask me, which hecould not get off: I could not conceive what it was, and indeed gavemyself little trouble to find it out, as I had another riddle so muchmore interesting upon my mind, which was that of the man’s asking charitybefore the door of the hotel.—I would have given anything to have got tothe bottom of it; and that, not out of curiosity,—’tis so low a principleof enquiry, in general, I would not purchase the gratification of it witha two-sous piece;—but a secret, I thought, which so soon and so certainlysoften’d the heart of every woman you came near, was a secret at leastequal to the philosopher’s stone; had I both the Indies, I would havegiven up one to have been master of it.
I toss’d and turn’d it almost all night long in my brains to no manner ofpurpose; and when I awoke in the morning, I found my spirits as muchtroubled with my dreams, as ever the King of Babylon had been with his;and I will not hesitate to affirm, it would have puzzled all the wise menof Paris as much as those of Chaldea to have given its interpretation.
LE DIMANCHE.PARIS.
IT was Sunday; and when La Fleur came in, in the morning, with my coffeeand roll and butter, he had got himself so gallantly array’d, I scarceknew him.
I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with a silver buttonand loop, and four louis d’ors, _pour s’adoniser_, when we got to Paris;and the poor fellow, to do him justice, had done wonders with it.
He had bought a bright, clean, good scarlet coat, and a pair of breechesof the same.—They were not a crown worse, he said, for the wearing.—Iwish’d him hang’d for telling me.—They look’d so fresh, that though Iknew the thing could not be done, yet I would rather have imposed upon myfancy with thinking I had bought them new for the fellow, than that theyhad come out of the Rue de Friperie.
This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris.
He had purchased, moreover, a handsome blue satin waistcoat, fancifullyenough embroidered:—this was indeed something the worse for the serviceit had done, but ’twas clean scour’d;—the gold had been touch’d up, andupon the whole was rather showy than otherwise;—and as the blue was notviolent, it suited with the coat and breeches very well: he had squeez’dout of the money, moreover, a new bag and a solitaire; and had insistedwith the _fripier_ upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches knees.—Hehad purchased muslin ruffles, _bien brodées_, with four livres of his ownmoney;—and a pair of white silk stockings for five more;—and to top all,nature had given him a handsome figure, without costing him a sous.
He entered the room thus set off, with his hair dressed in the firststyle, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast.—In a word, there wasthat look of festivity in everything about him, which at once put me inmind it was Sunday;—and, by combining both together, it instantly struckme, that the favour he wish’d to ask of me the night before, was to spendthe day as every body in Paris spent it besides. I had scarce made theconjecture, when La Fleur, with infinite humility, but with a look oftrust, as if I should not refuse him, begg’d I would grant him the day,_pour faire le galant vis-à-vis de sa maîtresse_.
Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-à-vis Madame deR—.—I had retained the remise on purpose for it, and it would not havemortified my vanity to have had a servant so well dress’d as La Fleurwas, to have got up behind it: I never could have worse spared him.
But we must _feel_, not argue in these embarrassments.—The sons anddaughters of Service part with liberty, but not with nature, in theircontracts; they are flesh and blood, and have their little vanities andwishes in the midst of the house of bondage, as well as theirtask-masters;—no doubt, they have set their self-denials at a price,—andtheir expectations are so unreasonable, that I would often disappointthem, but that their condition puts it so much in my power to do it.
_Behold_,—_Behold_, _I am thy servant_—disarms me at once of the powersof a master.—
Thou shalt go, La Fleur! said I.
—And what mistress, La Fleur, said I, canst thou have picked up in solittle a time at Paris? La Fleur laid his hand upon his breast, and said’twas a _petite demoiselle_, at Monsieur le Count de B—’s.—La Fleur had aheart made for society; and, to speak the truth of him, let as fewoccasions slip him as his master;—so that somehow or other,—buthow,—heaven knows,—he had connected himself with the demoiselle upon thelanding of the staircase, during the time I was taken up with mypassport; and as there was time enough for me to win the Count to myinterest, La Fleur had contrived to make it do to win the maid to his.The family, it seems, was to be at Paris that day, and he had made aparty with her, and two or three more of the Count’s household, upon theboulevards.
Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all yourcares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights ofgrievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth.
THE FRAGMENT.PARIS.
LA FLEUR had left me something to amuse myself with for the day more thanI had bargain’d for, or could have enter’d either into his head or mine.
He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant leaf: and as themorning was warm, and he had a good step to bring it, he had begg’d asheet of waste paper to put betwixt the currant leaf and his hand.—Asthat was plate sufficient, I bade him lay it upon the table as it was;and as I resolved to stay within all day, I ordered him to call upon the_traîteur_, to bespeak my dinner, and leave me to breakfast by myself.
When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant-leaf out of thewindow, and was going to do the same by the waste paper;—but stopping toread a line first, and that drawing me on to a second and third,—Ithought it better worth; so I shut the window, and drawing a chair up toit, I sat down to read it.
It was in the old French of Rabelais’s time, and for aught I know mighthave been wrote by him:—it was moreover in a Gothic letter, and that sofaded and gone off by damps and length of time, it cost me infinitetrouble to make anything of it.—I threw it down; and then wrote a letterto Eugenius;—then I took it up again, and embroiled my patience with itafresh;—and then to cure that, I wrote a letter to Eliza.—Still it kepthold of me; and the difficulty of understanding it increased but thedesire.
I got my dinner; and after I had enlightened my mind with a bottle ofBurgundy; I at it again,—and, after two or three hours poring upon it,with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon anonsensical inscription, I thought I made sense of it; but to make sureof it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and see howit would look then;—so I went on leisurely, as a trifling man does,sometimes writing a sentence,—then taking a turn or two,—and then lookinghow the world went, out of the window; so that it was nine o’clock atnight before I had done it.—I then began and read it as follows.
THE FRAGMENT.PARIS.
—NOW, as the notary’s wife disputed the point with the notary with toomuch heat,—I wish, said the notary, (throwing down the parchment) thatthere was another notary here only to set down and attest all this.—
—And what would you do then, Monsieur? said she, rising hastily up.—Thenotary’s wife was a little fume of a woman, and the notary thought itwell to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply.—I would go, answered he, tobed.—You may go to the devil, answer’d the notary’s wife.
Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two roomsbeing unfurnished,
as is the custom at Paris, and the notary not caringto lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent him pellmell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short cloak, thenight being very windy, and walk’d out, ill at ease, towards the PontNeuf.
Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have pass’dover the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest,—the finest,—thegrandest,—the lightest,—the longest,—the broadest, that ever conjoin’dland and land together upon the face of the terraqueous globe.
[_By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been a Frenchman_.]
The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can allegeagainst it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or about Paris,’tis more blasphemously _sacre Dieu’d_ there than in any other apertureof the whole city,—and with reason good and cogent, Messieurs; for itcomes against you without crying _garde d’eau_, and with suchunpremeditable 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 fullworth.
The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctivelyclapp’d his cane to the side of it, but in raising it up, the point ofhis cane catching hold of the loop of the sentinel’s hat, hoisted it overthe spikes of the ballustrade clear into the Seine.—
—’_Tis an ill wind_, said a boatman, who catched it, _which blows nobodyany good_.
The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, andlevell’d his arquebuss.
Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman’s paperlantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, she hadborrow’d the sentry’s match to light it:—it gave a moment’s time for theGascon’s blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to hisadvantage.—’_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 Dauphineinto the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he walked alongin this manner:—
Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanesall my days:—to be born to have the storm of ill language levell’dagainst me and my profession wherever I go; to be forced into marriage bythe thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman;—to be driven forth outof my house by domestic winds, and despoil’d of my castor by pontificones!—to be here, bareheaded, in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbsand flows of accidents!—Where am I to lay my head?—Miserable man! whatwind in the two-and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow untothee, 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 call’d out to a girl, to bid her run for the next notary.—Now thenotary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walk’d upthe passage to the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, wasusher’d into a large chamber, dismantled of everything but a longmilitary 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 offortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, laysupporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a little table with a taperburning was set close beside it, and close by the table was placed achair:—the notary sat him down in it; and pulling out his inkhorn and asheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them beforehim; and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over thetable, he disposed everything to make the gentleman’s last will andtestament.
Alas! _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, raising himself up alittle, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense ofbequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die inpeace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits arising outof it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from me.—It is a storyso uncommon, it must be read by all mankind;—it will make the fortunes ofyour house.—The notary dipp’d his pen into his inkhorn.—Almighty Directorof every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly,and raising his hands towards heaven,—Thou, whose hand has led me onthrough such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene ofdesolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, andbroken-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 becondemn’d or acquitted!—the notary held up the point of his pen betwixtthe taper and his eye.—
It is a story, _Monsieur le Notaire_, said the gentleman, which willrouse up every affection in nature;—it will kill the humane, and touchthe heart of Cruelty herself with pity.—
—The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a thirdtime into his ink-horn—and the old gentleman, turning a little moretowards 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 enter’dthe room.
THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. {648}PARIS.
WHEN La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend whatI wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he hadwrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he hadpresented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards.—Then prithee, La Fleur,said I, step back to her to the Count de B—’s hotel, and see if thoucanst get it.—There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur;—and away he flew.
In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, withdeeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from thesimple irreparability of the fragment. _Juste Ciel_! in less than twominutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell ofher—his faithless mistress had given his _gage d’amour_ to one of theCount’s footmen,—the footman to a young sempstress,—and the sempstress toa fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.—Our misfortunes wereinvolved together:—I gave a sigh,—and La Fleur echoed it back again to myear.
—How perfidious! cried La Fleur.—How unlucky! said I.
—I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she hadlost it.—Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.
Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.
THE ACT OF CHARITY.PARIS.
THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be anexcellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do tomake a good Sentimental Traveller.—I count little of the many things Isee pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets.—Nature is shy, andhates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner yousometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of adozen French plays compounded together,—and yet they are absolutelyfine;—and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands thancommon, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally makemy sermon out of ’em;—and for the text,—“Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,Phrygia and Pamphylia,”—is as good as any one in the Bible.
There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into anarrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a _fiacre_, {649}or wish to get off quietly o’foot when the opera is done. At the end ofit, towards the theatre, ’tis lighted by a small candle, the light ofwhich is almost lost before you get half-way down, but near the door—’tismore for ornament than use: you see it as a fixed star of the leastmagnitude; it burns,—but does little good to the world, that we know of.
In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within fiveor six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-arm with their backsagainst the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a _fiacre_;—as they werenext the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself upwithin a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand.—I was inblack, and scarce seen.
The lady next me was a tall le
an figure of a woman, of about thirty-six;the other of the same size and make, of about forty: there was no mark ofwife or widow in any one part of either of them;—they seem’d to be twoupright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tendersalutations.—I could have wish’d to have made them happy:—their happinesswas destin’d that night, to come from another quarter.
A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at the endof it, begg’d for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the love ofheaven. I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of analms—and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usuallygiven in the dark.—They both seemed astonished at it as much asmyself.—Twelve sous! said one.—A twelve-sous piece! said the other,—andmade no reply.
The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their rank;and bow’d down his head to the ground.
Poo! said they,—we have no money.
The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renew’d hissupplication.
—Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears againstme.—Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no change.—ThenGod bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those joys which you cangive to others without change!—I observed the elder sister put her handinto her pocket.—I’ll see, said she, if I have a sous. A sous! givetwelve, said the supplicant; Nature has been bountiful to you, bebountiful to a poor man.