A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

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 levell’d 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 despoil’d of my castor by pontific 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 of 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 call’d out to a girl, to bid her run for the next notary.—Now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walk’d up the passage to the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, was usher’d 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 dipp’d his pen into his inkhorn.—Almighty Director of every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his hands 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 condemn’d 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 ink-horn—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 enter’d the room.

THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. [4 - Nosegay.]

PARIS

When La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he had wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he had presented 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 thou canst 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, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment.  Juste Ciel! in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell of her—his faithless mistress had given his gage d’amour to one of the Count’s footmen,—the footman to a young sempstress,—and the sempstress to a fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.—Our misfortunes were involved together:—I gave a sigh,—and La Fleur echoed it back again to my ear.

–How perfidious! cried La Fleur.—How unlucky! said I.

–I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had lost 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 an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller.—I count little of the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets.—Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together,—and yet they are absolutely fine;—and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my 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 a narrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiacre, [5 - Hackney coach.] or wish to get off quietly o’foot when the opera is done.  At the end of it, towards the theatre, ’tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get half-way down, but near the door—’tis more for ornament than use: you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns,—but does little good to the world, that we know of.

In returning along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm-in-arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a fiacre;—as they were next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand.—I was in black, and scarce seen.

The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about thirty-six; the other of the same size and make, of about forty: there was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of them;—they seem’d to be two upright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender salutations.—I could have wish’d to have made them happy:—their happiness was destin’d that night, to come from another quarter.

A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at the end of it, begg’d for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the love of heaven.  I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of an alms—and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usually given in the dark.—They both seemed astonished at it as much as myself.—Twelve sous! said one.—A twelve-sous piece! said the other,—and made 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 his supplication.

–Do not, my fair young ladies, said he, stop your good ears against me.—Upon my word, honest man! said the younger, we have no change.—Then God bless you, said the poor man, and multiply those joys which you can give to others without change!—I observed the elder sister put her hand into her pocket.—I’ll see, said she, if I have a sous.  A sous! give twelve, said the supplicant; Nature has been bountiful to you, be bountiful to a poor man.

–I would friend, with all my heart, said the younger, if I had it.

My fair charitable! said he, addressing himself to the elder,—what is it but your goodness and humanity which makes your bright eyes so sweet, that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? and what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of you both as they just passed by?

The two ladies seemed much affected; and impulsively, at the same time they both put their hands into their pocket, and each took out a twelve-sous piece.

The contest betwixt them and the poor supplicant was no more;—it was continued betwixt themselves, which of the two should give the twelve-sous piece in charity;—and, to end the dispute, they both gave it together, and the man went away.

THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED

PARIS

I stepped hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in asking charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me;—and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it:—’twas flattery.

Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!

The poor man, as he was not straiten’d for time, had given it here in a larger dose: ’tis certain he had a way of bringing it into a less form, for the many sudden cases he had to do with in the streets: but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and qualify it,—I vex not my spirit with the enquiry;—it is enough the beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces—and they can best tell the rest, who have gained much greater matters by it.

PARIS

We get forwards in the world, not so much by doing services, as receiving them; you take a withering twig, and put it in the ground; and then you water it, because you have planted it.

Monsieur le Count de B—, merely because he had done me one kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.

I had got master of my secret just in time to turn these honours to some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should have dined or supp’d a single time or two round, and then, by translating French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently have seen, that I had hold of the couvert[6 - Plate, napkin, knife, fork and spoon.] of some more entertaining guest; and in course should have resigned all my places one after another, merely upon the principle that I could not keep them.—As it was, things did not go much amiss.

I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B—: in days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry in the Cour d’Amour, and had dress’d himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since.—The Marquis de B— wish’d to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain.  “He could like to take a trip to England,” and asked much of the English ladies.—Stay where you are, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis, said I.—Les Messieurs Anglois can scarce get a kind look from them as it is.—The Marquis invited me to supper.

Monsieur P—, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our taxes.  They were very considerable, he heard.—If we knew but how to collect them, said I, making him a low bow.

I could never have been invited to Mons. P—’s concerts upon any other terms.

I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q— as an esprit.—Madame de Q— was an esprit herself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and hear me talk.  I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not care a sous whether I had any wit or no;—I was let in, to be convinced she had.  I call heaven to witness I never once opened the door of my lips.

Madame de V— vow’d to every creature she met—“She had never had a more improving conversation with a man in her life.”

There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman.—She is coquette,—then deist,—then dévote: the empire during these is never lost,—she only changes her subjects when thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love, she re-peoples it with slaves of infidelity,—and then with the slaves of the church.

Madame de V— was vibrating betwixt the first of those epochas: the colour of the rose was fading fast away;—she ought to have been a deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.

She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing the point of religion more closely.—In short Madame de V— told me she believed nothing.—I told Madame de V— it might be her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended;—that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist;—that it was a debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her;—that I had not been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun to form designs;—and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have check’d them as they rose up?

We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;—and there is need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays them on us.—But my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand,—’tis too—too soon.

I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de V—.—She affirmed to Monsieur D— and the Abbé M—, that in one half hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their Encyclopædia had said against it.—I was listed directly into Madame de V—’s coterie;—and she put off the epocha of deism for two years.

I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in which I was showing the necessity of a first cause, when the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room, to tell me my solitaire was pinn’d too straight about my neck.—It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down upon his own;—but a word, Monsieur Yorick, to the wise—

And from the wise, Monsieur le Count, replied I, making him a bow,—is enough.