SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
^mam 
 
 MARIA. 
 
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 BY LAURENCE STERNE. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD, BY BAST1N 
 AND G. NICHOLLS: 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY JACQUE AND FUSSELL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 J. E. NICHOLLS, 51 WIGMORE STREET. 
 
 MACHEN AND CO. DUBLIN. MENZIES, EDINBURGH. 
 BIELEFELD, CARLSRUHE. 
 
 ■4-rl 
 
I r\ o i it 
 
 48 65 55 
 
 AUG -6 1942 
 
 London : 
 
 Vizetelly and Co. Printers and Engravers, 
 
 13. r . Fleet Street. 
 
In offering to the public Sterne's inimitable master-piece, 
 " The Sentimental Journey," under a form superior to 
 any hitherto adopted, it has been deemed advisable, in order 
 to render it still more worthy of attention, to prefix a short 
 account of its justly celebrated author, with a few particulars 
 respecting its characters, which, it is hoped, will not fail to be 
 acceptable to the reader. 
 
 Laurence Sterne was born at Clonmel, in the south 
 of Ireland, on the 24th of November, 1713. His father was 
 a lieutenant in the regiment of Handiside. The arms of the 
 family (which were rather ancient) are described by Guillam, 
 in his " Book of Heraldry," as, " Or, a chevron between three 
 crosses flory, sable. The crest, on a wreath of his colours, a 
 starling proper." The latter deserves notice as having fur- 
 nished a subject for one of the finest stories in this work. 
 Two events, recorded by Sterne himself in his memoirs, 
 signalised his childhood. When about seven years of age, 
 he fell through a mill-race while the mill was at work, and so 
 
miraculous was his escape from death considered, that hundreds 
 of the common people nocked to see him. On another occa- 
 sion, while at school at Halifax, the ceiling of the school-room 
 having been newly white-washed, the ladder was left against 
 the wall ; our hero saw it, mounted, and wrote in large capital 
 letters " LAU. STERNE," for which he was severely chas- 
 tised by the usher. His master was, however, much affected, 
 and exclaimed, " Never shall that name be effaced ; that boy 
 is a genius, and sure of preferment." He was not mistaken. 
 In 1732, one of his cousins sent him to the University of 
 Cambridge, where (about the commencement of 1740) he 
 obtained the degree of M.A. His uncle, Jaques Sterne, pre- 
 bendary of Durham and York, procured for him the living 
 of Sutton. They were at that time on excellent terms, but 
 quarrelled shortly after, on Sterne's refusing to write para- 
 graphs for the newspapers. From that period, his uncle, who 
 was a staunch Whig, strongly attached to his opinions, and 
 desirous of imposing them on all who were in any way de- 
 pendant on him, became his bitterest enemy. In 1741, Sterne 
 married, and through his wife's means obtained the living of 
 Stillingston ; for nearly twenty years he did duty at both 
 places, still continuing his residence at Sutton, in the enjoyment 
 of perfect health, and devoting his leisure to study, music, 
 painting, and hunting. Previously to the year 1760, he had 
 only published two very ordinary sermons, but at that period he 
 went to London, where the appearance of the first and second 
 volumes of " Tristram Shandy" soon assigned him an honour- 
 able rank in the republic of letters. (It was then Lord Falcon- 
 
II] 
 
 bridge presented him with the curacy of Coxwould.) This 
 work was received with enthusiasm by the public ; but not so 
 by the clergy, who anathematised the author. Shortly after, 
 he published two volumes of sermons, under the ridiculous 
 name of Yorick, the same which he had placed at the head of 
 his novel, and which was no other than that of the jester, in- 
 troduced by Shakspere in his " Hamlet." This inconsistency 
 drew upon him fresh censures from the clergy, to which he 
 replied only by publishing four more volumes of " Tristram 
 Shandy." These were as successful as the preceding ones had 
 been, but the seventh and eighth were but coolly received: 
 the fashion was past and could not be revived. In 1762, 
 Sterne set out for France, in the hope of re-establishing his 
 health, which had been impaired much less by labour than 
 by pleasure. He there left his wife and daughter, who had 
 followed him, and continued his journey to Italy; but find- 
 ing his health rapidly declining, he returned to York, and 
 thence to London, about the end of 1767, when he published 
 the last volume of " Tristram Shandy," and the first part of 
 " The Sentimental Journey," which he had written during the 
 preceding summer, at his favourite residence of Coxwould.* 
 Beginning now to feel sensibly the approach of death, he, 
 with all the solicitude of a tender parent, devoted his whole 
 attention to the future happiness of his daughter; and the 
 letters which he wrote at this period reflect so much honour 
 on his heart and character, that it is to be regretted some 
 
 * The remainder was published after his death. 
 
IV 
 
 others, of a different tendency, have been allowed to meet the 
 public eye. 
 
 On the 18th of March, 1768, his exhausted frame sank, 
 after a short struggle, at his lodgings in Bond Street. He 
 was interred at the new burial-ground of St. George, Hanover 
 Square, where a monument has since been erected to his 
 memory by strangers. 
 
 Sterne was in his person tall and thin, and had every 
 appearance of being consumptive. Although his features bore 
 the impress of the deep emotions of his soul, their expression 
 was generally humorous. His temper was somewhat fickle 
 and uneven, but his heart ever kind; and his purse, such 
 as it was, never closed against a friend. Thus, although 
 enjoying a good income, and the produce of his works, which 
 was not inconsiderable, he left nothing behind him but debts, 
 and a fame, which time, instead of diminishing, serves but to 
 strengthen. 
 
 Hisbestwork is, incomparably, "The Sentimental Journey." 
 
 It may not, perhaps, be generally known that La Fleur, 
 the faithful friend and companion of Yorick, is not an entirely 
 imaginary character. That excellent man was born in Bur- 
 gundy : from his infancy he felt an insatiable desire for tra- 
 velling, and, at eight years of age, fled from the paternal roof, 
 and set out to seek his fortune. Having led a wandering life 
 
two years, he enlisted as a soldier, remained a drummer in the 
 French army six years, deserted in the dress of a peasant, 
 arrived at Montreuil-sur-Mer, and was presented to Sterne 
 covered with rags, but with an erect bearing, a piercing eye, 
 and a ruddy complexion. To him are owing the following 
 valuable particulars of the characters introduced by Sterne in 
 his "Sentimental Journey." 
 
 " The lady, noticed under the initial L , was the Mar- 
 chioness de Lambert, to whom my master was indebted for a 
 passport, the want of which began to render him seriously 
 uneasy. 
 
 " The dead ass is not a fiction. The poor man bathed in 
 tears, was as simple and interesting as my master described 
 him. I remember the circumstance perfectly. 
 
 " Poor Maria's story is, alas ! but too true. When we 
 met her, she was rolling on the ground like a child, and cover- 
 ing her head with dust. My master accosted her, and raised 
 her in his arms. She became calm, related her misfortune, 
 and shed tears. My master sobbed. Maria then gently dis- 
 engaged herself, and sang a hymn to the Virgin. My poor 
 master covered his face with his hands, and conducted her to 
 her cottage. He there found the old woman, and spoke to 
 her gravely. I carried them provisions every day from the 
 hotel ; and when my master quitted Moulines, he left the 
 mother his blessing and a little money. I know not how 
 
much, but it is certain that he always gave more than he 
 could afford; thus he often found himself short of money. 
 He had ill calculated his expenses, having only reckoned those 
 of travelling, without taking into the account the poor 
 wretches he would have to relieve on the road. I remember 
 that at almost every post, he would turn to me, with tears in 
 his eyes, and say, ' These poor creatures afflict me much, my 
 dear La Fleur. How can I relieve them ? ' 
 
 " The only men in whom he did not appear to take any 
 interest, were the monks; I remember his answer to many 
 who came to beg of us : ' Father, I am engaged ; I am poor, 
 
 like yourself.' " 
 
A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 — "They order," said I, " this matter better in France " 
 
 — "You have been in France?" said my gentleman, 
 turning quick upon me, with the most civil triumph in the 
 world. — 
 
 " Strange ! " quoth I, debating the matter with myself, 
 " that one-and-twenty miles' sailing (for 't is absolutely no 
 further from Dover to Calais) should give a man these rights 
 — I '11 look into them : " so, giving up the argument, I went 
 straight to my lodgings, put up half-a-dozen shirts and a black 
 pair of silk breeches — " the coat I have on," said I, looking 
 at the sleeve, "will do" — took a place in the Dover stage ; 
 and the packet sailing at nine the next morning, by three I had 
 got sat down to my dinner upon a fricasseed chicken so in- 
 contestibly in France, that had I died that night of an indiges- 
 tion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects 
 
 A 
 
A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 
 ill 
 
 of the Droits d' aubaine :* my shirts, and black pair of silk 
 breeches, portmanteau, and all, must have gone to the King of 
 France : even the little picture which I have so long worn, and 
 so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me to my 
 grave, would have been torn from my neck. — Ungenerous ! — 
 to seize upon the wreck of an unwary passenger, whom your 
 subjects had beckoned to their coast — by heaven ! sire, it is 
 not well done ; and much does it grieve me, 't is the monarch 
 of a people so civilised and courteous, and so renowned for 
 
 sentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with 
 
 But I have scarce set foot in your dominions 
 
 * All the effects of strangers (Swiss and Scots excepted) dying in 
 France, are seized by virtue of this law, though the heir be upon the 
 spot. The profit of these contingencies being farmed, there is no redress. 
 [This law has been abrogated many years. Ed.] 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 When I had finished my dinner, and drank the King of France's 
 health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on 
 the contrary, high honour for the humanity of his temper, I 
 rose up an inch taller for the accommodation. 
 
 — " No," said I, " the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race : 
 they may be misled, like other people ; but there is a mildness 
 in their blood." As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of 
 a finer kind upon my cheek, more warm and friendly to man, 
 than what Burgundy (at least, of two livres a bottle, which was 
 such as I had been drinking) could have produced. 
 
 — " Just God ! " said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, 
 " what is there in this world's goods which should sharpen our 
 spirits, and make so many kind-hearted brethren of us fall 
 out so cruelly as we do by the way ? " 
 
4 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a 
 feather is the heaviest of metals in his hand ! He pulls out his 
 purse, and, holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round 
 him as if he sought for an object to share it with. In doing 
 this, I felt every vessel in my frame dilate — the arteries beat 
 all cheerily together, — and every power which sustained life 
 performed it with so little friction, that 'twould have con- 
 founded the most physical precieuse in France : with all her 
 materialism, she could scarce have called me a machine 
 
 " I 'm confident," said I to myself, "I should have overset 
 her creed." 
 
 The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, as 
 high as she could go. — I was at peace with the world before, 
 and this finished the treaty with myself 
 
 — "Now, was I a King of France," cried I, "what a mo- 
 ment for an orphan to have begged his father's portmanteau of 
 me!" 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 I had scarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order 
 of St. Francis came into the room to beg something for his 
 convent. No man cares to have his virtues the sport of con- 
 tingencies — or one man may be generous as another man is 
 puissant — sed non, quo ad hanc — or be it as it may — for there 
 is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our hu- 
 mours : they may depend upon the same courses, for aught I 
 know, which influence the tides themselves ; — 't would oft be 
 no discredit to us to suppose it was so : I 'm sure, at least, for 
 myself, that in many a case I should be more highly satisfied 
 to have it said by the world, I had an affair with the moon, in 
 which there was neither sin nor shame, than have it pass 
 altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was so much 
 of both. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 5 
 
 — But be this as it may. The moment I cast my eyes 
 upon him, I was predetermined not to give him a single sous ; 
 and, accordingly, I put my purse into my pocket, buttoned it 
 up, set myself a little more upon my centre, and advanced up 
 gravely to him : there was something, I fear, forbidding in my 
 look : I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think 
 there was that in it which deserved better. 
 
 The monk, as I judged from the break in his tonsure (a 
 few scattered white hairs upon his temples being all that re- 
 mained of it), might be about seventy ; but from his eyes, and 
 that sort of fire which was in them, which seemed more tem- 
 pered by courtesy than years, could be no more than sixty ; — 
 truth might lie between : — he was certainly sixty-five ; and 
 the general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something 
 seemed to have been planting wrinkles in it before their time, 
 agreed to the account. 
 
 It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted — 
 
G A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 mild, pale, penetrating — free from all commonplace ideas of fat, 
 contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth, — it 
 looked forwards ; but looked as if it looked at something 
 beyond this world. How one of his order came by it, heaven 
 above, who let it fall upon a monk's shoulders, best knows ; 
 but it would have suited a Brahmin ; and had I met it upon 
 the plains of Hindostan, I had reverenced it. 
 
 The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes ; one 
 might put it into the hands of any one to design, for 'twas 
 neither elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression 
 made it so : it was a thin, spare form, something above the 
 common size, if it lost not the distinction by a bend forward 
 in the figure — but it was the attitude of entreaty ; and as it 
 now stands presented to my imagination, it gained more than 
 it lost by it. 
 
 When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still ; 
 and, laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff 
 with which he journeyed, being in his right), when I had got 
 close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of 
 the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order ; and 
 did it with so simple a grace, and such an air of deprecation 
 was there in the whole cast of his look and figure, I was be- 
 witched not to have been struck with it. 
 
 A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him 
 a single sous. 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 a ■> 
 
 T is very true," said I, replying to a cast upwards with his 
 eyes, with which he had concluded his address ; — " 'T is very 
 true — and heaven be their resource who have no other but the 
 charity of the world ; the stock of which, I fear, is no way 
 sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made 
 upon it." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 7 
 
 As I pronounced the words "great claims," he gave a 
 slight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his 
 tunic. — I felt the full force of the appeal. — " I acknowledge 
 it," said I ; "a coarse habit, and that but once in three years, 
 with meagre diet, are no great matters ; and the true point of 
 pity is, as they can be earned in the world with so little in- 
 dustry, that your order should wish to procure them by press- 
 
 ing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, 
 the aged, and the infirm ; the captive who lies down counting 
 over and over again the days of his afflictions, languishes also 
 for his share of it ; — and had you been of the order of mercy 
 instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am," continued 
 I, pointing at my portmanteau, "full cheerfully should it have 
 been opened to you for the ransom of the unfortunate." — The 
 
8 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 monk made me a bow. — " But, of all others," resumed I, "the 
 unfortunate of our own country surely have the first rights ; 
 and I have left thousands in distress upon our own shore." — 
 The monk gave a cordial wave with his head, as much as to 
 say, " No doubt there is misery enough in every corner of the 
 world, as well as within our convent." — " But we distinguish," 
 said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return 
 for his appeal, — " we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those 
 who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour, and those 
 who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other plan in 
 life but to get through it in sloth and ignorance for the love 
 of God." 
 
 The poor Franciscan made no reply : a hectic of a moment 
 passed across his cheek, but could not tarry ; — Nature seemed 
 to have done with her resentments in him : — he shewed none ; 
 but letting his staff fall within his arm, he pressed both his 
 hands with resignation upon his breast, and retired. 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 My heart smote me the moment he shut the door. — " Pshaw! " 
 said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times, — but it 
 would not do ; every ungracious syllable I had uttered crowded 
 back into my imagination : I reflected, I had no right over the 
 poor Franciscan but to deny him ; and that the punishment 
 of that was enough to the disappointed without the addition 
 of unkind language. — I considered his grey hairs: — his 
 courteous figure seemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what 
 injury he had done, me, and why I could use him thus : I 
 would have given twenty livres for an advocate. — " I have be- 
 haved very ill," said I within myself; " but I have only just 
 set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as J 
 get along." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 iliiiii 
 
 THE DESOBLIGEANTE. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advan- 
 tage however — that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind 
 for making a bargain. Xow. there being no travelling through 
 France and Italy without a chaise, and nature generally 
 prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walked out 
 into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to 
 my purpose. An old dcsobligeante* in the furthest corner of 
 the court, hit my fancy at first sight : so I instantly got into 
 it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I 
 ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the 
 hotel ; but Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not 
 
 * A chaise, so called in France from its holding but one person. 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the opposite 
 side of the court in conference with a lady just arrived at the 
 inn, I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and, being deter- 
 mined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink, and 
 wrote the preface to it in the desobligeante. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 I 1 
 
 
 IN THE DESOBLIGEANTE. 
 
 It must have been observed by many a peri- 
 patetic philosopher, that Nature has set up, 
 by her own unquestionable authority, certain 
 boundaries and fences to circumscribe the 
 discontent of man : she has effected her pur- 
 pose in the quietest and easiest manner, by 
 laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out 
 his ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home. It is there 
 only that she has provided him with the most suitable objects 
 to partake of his happiness, and bear a part of that burden 
 which, in all countries and ages, has ever been too heavy for 
 one pair of shoulders. 'T is true, we are endued with an im- 
 perfect power of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond 
 her limits ; but 't is so ordered, that, from the want of lan- 
 guages, connexions, and dependances, and from the differences 
 in education, customs, and habits, we lie under so many 
 impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own 
 sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility. 
 
 It will always follow from hence, that the balance of 
 sentimental commerce is always against the expatriated ad- 
 
12 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 venturer : lie must buy what he has little occasion for, at 
 their own price ; his conversation will seldom be taken in 
 exchange for theirs without a large discount : and this, by- 
 the-bye, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable 
 brokers for such conversations as he can find, it requires no 
 great spirit of divination to guess at his party. 
 
 This brings me to my point, and naturally leads me (if 
 the see-saw of this desobligeante will but let me get on) into the 
 efficient as well as final causes of travelling. 
 
 Your idle people, that leave their native country, and go 
 abroad for some reason or reasons which may-be derived from 
 one of these general causes : — Infirmity of body ; Imbecility 
 of mind ; or, Inevitable necessity. 
 
 The two first include all those who travel by land or by 
 water, labouring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, sub- 
 divided and combined in infinitum. 
 
 The third class includes the whole army of peregrine mar- 
 tyrs ; more especially, those travellers who set out upon their 
 travels with the benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents 
 travelling under the direction of governors recommended by the 
 magistrate, or young gentlemen transported by the cruelty of 
 parents and guardians, and travelling under the direction of 
 governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow. 
 
 There is a fourth class ; but their number is so small, that 
 they would not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary in 
 a work of this nature to observe the greatest precision and 
 nicety, to avoid a confusion of character. And these men I 
 speak of are such as cross the seas, and sojourn in a land of 
 strangers, with a view of saving money for various reasons, 
 and upon various pretences : but as they might also save 
 themselves and others a great deal of unnecessary trouble by 
 saving their money at home, and as their reasons for travelling 
 are the least complex of any species of emigrants, I shall dis- 
 tinguish these gentlemen by the name of Simple Travellers. 
 
 Thus the whole circle of travellers may be reduced to the 
 following heads : — 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY, 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 -. > 
 
 sv^, ^«, s 
 
14 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 And last of all, if you please, the Sentimental Traveller 
 (meaning thereby myself), who have travelled, and of which 
 I am now sitting down to give an account, as much out of 
 necessity, and the besoin de voyager, as any one in the class. 
 
 I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and 
 observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of 
 my forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole nitch 
 entirely to myself; but I should break in upon the confines of 
 the Vain Traveller, in wishing to draw attention towards me, 
 till I have some better grounds for it than the mere novelty of 
 my vehicle. 
 
 It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller 
 himself, that with study and reflection hereupon, he may be 
 able to determine his own place and rank in the catalogue : it 
 will be one step towards knowing himself; as it is great odds 
 but he retains some tincture and resemblance of what he 
 imbibed or carried out to the present hour. 
 
 The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to 
 the Cape of Good Hope (observe, he was a Dutchman) never 
 dreamed of drinking the same wine at the Cape, that the 
 same grape produced upon the French mountains — he was 
 too phlegmatic for that ; — but, undoubtedly, he expected to 
 drink some sort of vinous liquor ; but whether good, bad, or 
 indifferent, he knew enough of this world to know that it did 
 not depend upon his choice, but that what is generally called 
 chance was to decide his success : however, he hoped for the 
 best ; and in these hopes, by an intemperate confidence in the 
 fortitude of his head, and the depth of his discretion, Mynheer 
 might possibly overset his new vineyard, and by discovering 
 his nakedness, become a laughing-stock to his people. 
 
 Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and post- 
 ing through the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of 
 knowledge and improvements. 
 
 Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and 
 posting for that purpose ; but whether useful knowledge and 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. \o 
 
 real improvements is all a lottery (and even where the adven- 
 turer is successful, the acquired stock must be used with 
 caution and sobriety to turn to any profit ; but as the chances 
 run prodigiously the other way, both as to the acquisition and 
 application), I am of opinion, that a man would act as wisely 
 if he could prevail upon himself to live contented without 
 foreign knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if he 
 lives in a country that has no absolute want of either : and 
 indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a time cost 
 me, when 1 have observed how many a foul step the In- 
 quisitive Traveller has measured to see sights, and look into 
 discoveries ; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, 
 they might have seen dryshod at home. It is an age so full of 
 light, that there is scarce a country or corner of Europe whose 
 beams are not crossed and interchanged with others. Know- 
 ledge, in most of its branches, and in most affairs, is like 
 music in an Italian street, whereof those may partake who pay 
 nothing : but there is no nation under heaven — and God is 
 my record, before whose tribunal I must one day come and 
 give an account of this work, that I do not speak it vauntingly 
 — but there is no nation under heaven abounding with more 
 variety of learning ; where the sciences may be more fitly 
 wooed, or more surely won, than here ; where art is encou- 
 raged, and will so soon rise high ; where Nature, take her 
 altogether, has so little to answer for ; and, to close all, where 
 there is more wit and variety of character to feed the mind 
 with. Where, then, my dear countrymen, are you going ? — 
 
 " We are only looking at this chaise," said they. — " Your 
 most obedient servant," said I, skipping out of it, and pulling 
 off my hat. — " We were wondering," said one of them, who, 
 I found, was an Inquisitive Traveller, " what could occasion 
 its motion." " 'T was the agitation," said I, coolly, " of writing 
 a preface." " I never heard," said the other, who was a 
 Simple Traveller, " of a preface wrote in a desoblicjeante.' n 
 " It would have been better," said I, " in a vis-a-vis, ." 
 
10 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 I J' 5 
 
 — As an Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen, I 
 retired to my room. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 I perceived that something darkened the passage more than 
 myself, as I stepped along it to my room ; it was effectually 
 Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel, who had just re- 
 turned from vespers, and with his hat under his arm, was 
 most complaisantly following me, to put me in mind of my 
 wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with 
 the desobligeante ; and Monsieur Dessein speaking of it with a 
 shrug, as if it would noways suit me, it immediately struck my 
 fancy that it belonged to some Innocent Traveller, who, on 
 his return home, had left it to Monsieur Dessein's honour to 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 17 
 
 make the most of. Four months had elapsed since it had 
 finished its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Des- 
 sein's coach-yard ; and having sallied out from thence but a 
 vampt-up business at the first, though it had been twice taken 
 to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its 
 adventures ; but by none so little as the standing so many 
 months unpitied in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach- 
 yard. Much indeed was not to be said for it — but something 
 
 might ; and when a few words will rescue misery out of her 
 distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them. 
 
 " Now, was I master of the hotel," said I, laying the point 
 of my forefinger on Monsieur Dessein's breast, " I would in- 
 evitably make a point of getting rid of this unfortunate deso- 
 bligeante ; it stands swinging reproaches at you every time you 
 pass by it." 
 
 " Mon Dieu!" said Monsieur Dessein, "I have no inte- 
 rest " " Except the interest," said I, "which men of a 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 certain turn of mind take, Monsieur Dessein, in their own 
 sensations. I 'm persuaded, to a man who feels for others as 
 well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise it as you will, 
 must cast a damp upon your spirits. You suffer, Monsieur 
 Dessein, as much as the machine." — 
 
 I have always observed, when there is as much sour as 
 sweet in a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a 
 loss within himself whether to take it or let it alone : a French- 
 man never is. — Monsieur Dessein made me a bow. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 19 
 
 " C" est bien vrai" said he. "But in this case, I should 
 only exchange one disquietude for another, and with loss : 
 figure to yourself, my dear sir, that in giving you a chaise 
 which would fall to pieces before you had got half-way to 
 Paris ; — figure to yourself, how much I should suffer in giving 
 an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying at 
 the mercy, as I must do, d' un homme d' esprit." 
 
 The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription : 
 so I could not help taking it ; and returning Monsieur Dessein 
 his bow, without more casuistry we walked towards his remise, 
 to take a view of his magazine of chaises. 
 
20 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 IN THE STREET. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 It must needs be a hostile kind of world, when the buyer (if 
 it be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller 
 thereof into the street to terminate the difference betwixt 
 them, but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and 
 views his conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was 
 going along with him to Hyde Park Corner to fight a duel. 
 For my own part, being but a poor swordsman, and no way a 
 match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the 
 movements within me to which the situation is incident. I 
 looked at Monsieur Dessein through and through ; eyed him 
 as he walked along in profile — then, en face — thought him 
 like a Jew — then a Turk — disliked his wig — cursed him by 
 my gods — wished him at the devil — 
 
 — And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a 
 beggarly account of three or four louis d'ors, which is the 
 most I can be overreached in ? — " Base passion ! " said I, 
 turning myself about, as a man naturally does upon a sudden 
 reverse of sentiment ; " Base, ungentle passion ! thy hand is 
 against every man, and every man's hand against thee." — 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said she, raising her hand up to her fore- 
 head ; for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I 
 had seen in conversation with the monk : she had followed us 
 unperceived. " Heaven forbid, indeed ! " said I, offering her 
 my own — she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the 
 thumb and two forefingers — so accepted it without reserve, 
 and I led her up to the door of the remise. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 21 
 
 Monsieur Dessein had diabled the key above fifty times 
 before he had found out he had come with a wrong one in his 
 hand : we were as impatient as himself to have it opened, and 
 so attentive to the obstacle, that I continued holding her hand 
 almost without knowing it ; so that Monsieur Dessein left us 
 together with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned 
 towards the door of the remise, and said he would be back in 
 five minutes. 
 
 Now a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is 
 worth one of as many ages with your faces turned towards 
 the street : in the latter case, 't is drawn from the objects and 
 occurrences without ; when your eyes are fixed upon a dead 
 blank, you draw purely from yourselves. A silence of a single 
 moment upon Monsieur Dessein's leaving us, had been fatal 
 to the situation — she had infallibly turned about — so I begun 
 the conversation instantly. 
 
22 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 — But what were the temptations (as I write not to apo- 
 logise for the weakness of my heart in this tour, but to give 
 an account of them), shall be described with the same simpli- 
 city with which I felt them. 
 
 THE REMISE DOOR. 
 
 When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the 
 desobligeante, because I saw the monk in close conference with 
 a lady just arrived at the inn, I told him the truth, but I did 
 not tell him the whole truth ; for I was full as much restrained 
 by the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to. 
 Suspicion crossed my brain, and said, he was telling her what 
 
 had passed : something jarred upon it within me 1 wished 
 
 him at his convent. 
 
 When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves 
 the judgment a world of pains — I was certain she was of a 
 better order of beings — however, I thought no more of her, 
 but went on and wrote my preface. 
 
 The impression returned upon my encounter with her in 
 the street : a guarded frankness with which she gave me her 
 hand shewed, I thought, her good education and her good 
 sense ; and, as I led her on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about 
 her, which spread a calmness over all my spirits 
 
 Good God ! how a man might lead such a creature 
 
 as this round the world with him ! 
 
 I had not yet seen her face, 'twas not material : for the 
 drawing was instantly set about, and long before we had got to 
 the door of the remise, Fancy had finished the whole head, 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 23 
 
 and pleased herself as much with its fitting her goddess, as if 
 she had dived into the Tiber for it : but thou art a seduced 
 and a seducing slut ; and albeit thou cheatest us seven times a 
 day with thy pictures and images, yet with so many charms 
 dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in the 
 shapes of so many angels of light, 'tis a shame to break with 
 thee. 
 
 "When we had got to the door of the remise, she withdrew 
 her hand from across her forehead, and let me see the original ; 
 it was a face of about six-and-twenty, of a clear transparent 
 brown, simply set off without rouge or powder — it was not 
 critically handsome, but there was that in it, which, in the 
 frame of mind I was in, attached me much more to it — it was 
 interesting : I fancied it wore the characters of a widowed look, 
 and in that state of its declension which had passed the two 
 first paroxysms of sorrow, and was quietly beginning to reconr 
 cile itself to its loss, but a thousand other distresses might have 
 traced the same lines ; I wished to know what they had been, 
 and was ready to enquire (had the same bon ton of conversa- 
 tion permitted, as in the days of Esdras), " What aileth thee ? 
 and why art thou disquieted ? and why is thy understanding 
 troubled ?" In a word, I felt benevolence for her ; and re- 
 solved some way or other to throw in my mite of courtesy, if 
 not of service. 
 
 Such were my temptations, and in this disposition to give 
 way to them, was I left alone with the lady with her hand in 
 mine, and with our faces both turned closer to the door of the 
 remise than what was absolutely necessary. 
 
24 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE REMISE DOOR. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 " This certainly," fair lady ! said I, raising her hand up a little 
 lightly as I began, " must be one of Fortune's whimsical 
 doings ; to take two utter strangers by their hands, of different 
 sexes, and perhaps from different corners of the globe, and in 
 one moment place them together in such a cordial situation, as 
 Friendship herself could scarce have achieved for them, had 
 she projected it for a month." 
 
 " And your reflection upon it shews how much, monsieur, 
 she has embarrassed you by the adventure." 
 
 When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so 
 ill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so : 
 " You thank Fortune," continued she ; " you had reason, the 
 heart knew it, and was satisfied ; and who but an English 
 philosopher would have sent notices of it to the brain to reverse 
 the judgment ? " 
 
 In saying this, she disengaged her hand with a look which 
 I thought a sufficient commentary upon the text. 
 
 It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the 
 weakness of my heart, by owning, that it suffered a pain, which 
 worthier occasions could not have inflicted. I was mortified 
 with the loss of her hand, and the manner in which I had lost 
 it carried neither oil nor wine to the wound : I never felt the 
 pain of a sheepish inferiority so miserably in my life. 
 
 The triumphs of a true feminine heart are short upon these 
 discomfitures. In a very few seconds, she laid her hand upon 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AXD ITALY. 25 
 
 the cuff of my coat, in order to finish her reply ; so some way 
 or other, God knows how, I regained my situation. 
 — She had nothing to add. 
 
 I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the 
 lady, thinking from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I 
 had been mistaken in her character ; but, upon turning her 
 face towards me, the spirit which had animated the reply was 
 fled, the muscles relaxed, and I beheld the same unprotected 
 look of distress which first won me to her interest, melancholy ! 
 to see such sprightliness the prey of sorrow — I pitied her from 
 my soul ; and, though it may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid 
 heart, I could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, 
 though it was in the open street, without blushing. 
 
 The pulsations of the arteries along my fingers pressing 
 across hers, told her what was passing within me : she looked 
 down — a silence of some moments followed. 
 
 I fear in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts 
 towards a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensa- 
 tion I felt in the palm of my own, not as if she was going to 
 withdraw hers — but as if she thought about it ; and I had 
 infallibly lost it a second time, had not instinct more than 
 reason directed me to the last resource in these dangers — to 
 hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I was every moment 
 going to release it, of myself; so she let it continue, till 
 Monsieur Dessein returned with the key ; and in the mean 
 time I set myself to consider how I should undo the ill im- 
 pressions which the poor monk's story, in case he had told it 
 her, must have planted in her breast against me. 
 
26 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 -si In iirf 
 
 «8 5 
 
 
 THE SNUFF BOX. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 The good old monk was within six paces of us, as the idea of 
 him crossed my mind, and was advancing towards us a little 
 out of the line, as if uncertain whether he should break in upon 
 us or no. He stopped, however, as soon as he came up to us, 
 with a world of frankness : and having a horn snuff-box in his 
 hand he presented it open to me. " You shall taste mine," 
 said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one) 
 and putting it into his hand. " 'Tis most excellent," said the 
 monk ; " then do me the favour," I replied " to accept of the 
 box and all, and when you take a pinch out of it, sometimes 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 27 
 
 recollect it was the peace-offering of a man who once used you 
 unkindly, but not from his heart." 
 
 The poor monk blushed as red as scarlet. " Mon Dieu I " 
 said he, pressing his hands together, " you never used me 
 unkindly." " I should think," said the lady, " he is not likely." 
 I blushed in my turn ; but from what movements, I leave to 
 the few who feel to analyse. " Excuse me, madam," replied I ; 
 " I treated him most unkindly ; and from no provocations." 
 " Tis impossible," said the lady. "My God!" cried the 
 monk, with a warmth of asseveration which seemed not to 
 belong to him, "the fault was in me, and in the indiscretion of 
 my zeal : " the lady opposed it, and I joined with her in main- 
 taining it was impossible that a spirit so regulated as his, could 
 give offence to any. 
 
 I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and 
 pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it. We re- 
 mained silent, without any sensation of that foolish pain which 
 takes place, when in such a circle you look for ten minutes in 
 one another's faces without saying a word. Whilst this lasted, 
 
 the monk rubbed his horn box upon the sleeve of his tunic ; 
 and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the 
 friction, he made me a low bow, and said 'twas too late to say 
 
28 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 whether it was the weakness or goodness of our tempers which 
 involved us in this contest, but be it as he would, he begged 
 we might exchange boxes. In saying this, he presented his to 
 me with one hand, as he took mine from me in the other, and 
 having kissed it, with a stream of good nature in his eyes he 
 put it into his bosom, and took his leave. 
 
 I guard this box, as I would the instrumental parts of my 
 religion, to help my mind on to something better : in truth, I 
 seldom go abroad without it ; and oft and many a time have I 
 called up by it the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate my 
 own, in the justlings of the world ; they had found full em- 
 ployment for his, as I learned from his story, till about the 
 forty-fifth year of his age, when upon some military services ill 
 requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment 
 in the tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the 
 sex together, and took sanctuary not so much in his convent as 
 in himself. 
 
 I feel a damp upon my spirits, as I am going to add, that 
 in my last return through Calais, upon inquiring after Father 
 Lorenzo, I heard that he had been dead near three months, 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 29 
 
 and was buried, not in his convent, but, according to his desire, 
 in a little cemetery belonging to it, about two leagues off; I 
 had a strong desire to see where they had lain him — when, 
 upon pulling out his little horn box, as I sat by his grave, and 
 plucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no 
 business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly 
 upon my affections, that I burst into a flood of tears : but I am 
 as weak as a woman ; and I beg the world not to smile, but 
 pity me. 
 
 
30 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE REMISE DOOR. 
 
 CALAIS, 
 
 1 had never quitted the lady's hand all this time, and had 
 held it so long, that it would have been indecent to have let it 
 go, without first pressing it to my lips : the blood and spirits, 
 which had suffered a revulsion from her, crowded back to her 
 as I did it. 
 
 Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach- 
 yard, happening at that crisis, to be passing by, and observing 
 our communications, naturally took it into their heads that we 
 must be man and wife at least ; so, stopping as soon as they 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 31 
 
 came up to the door of the remise, the one of thern, who was 
 the Inquisitive Traveller, asked us, " If we set out for Paris 
 the next morning?" "I could only answer for myself," 
 I said ; and the lady added, she was for Amiens. " We 
 dined there yesterday," said the Simple Traveller. " You go 
 directly through the town," added the other, " in your road to 
 Paris." I was going to return a thousand thanks for the in- 
 telligence that Amiens was in the road to Paris, but upon 
 pulling out my poor monk's little horn box to take a pinch of 
 snuff, — I made them a quiet bow, and wishing them a good 
 passage to Dover, they left us alone. 
 
 " Now where would be the harm," said I to myself, " if I 
 were to beg of this distressed lady to accept of half my chaise ? 
 and what mighty mischief could ensue ? " 
 
 Every dirty passion, and bad propensity in my nature took 
 the alarm, as I stated the proposition. "It will oblige you 
 to have a third horse," said Avarice, " which will put twenty 
 livres out of your pocket." " You know not what she is," 
 said Caution ; " or what scrapes the affair may draw you into," 
 whispered Cowardice. 
 
 "Depend upon it, Yorick!" said Discretion, "'twill be 
 said you went off with a mistress, and came by assignation to 
 Calais for that purpose." 
 
 " You can never after," cried Hypocrisy aloud, " shew 
 your face in the world;" "or rise," quoth Meanness, "in the 
 church;" "or be any thing in it," said Pride, "but a lousy 
 prebendary." 
 
 " But 'tis a civil tiring," said I, and as I generally act 
 from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these 
 cabals, which serve no purpose, that I know of, but to en- 
 compass the heart with adamant, I turned instantly about to 
 the lady. 
 
 But she had glided off unperceived, as the cause was 
 pleading, and had made ten or a dozen paces down the street, 
 by the time I had made the determination ; so I set off after 
 
32 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 her with a long stride, to make her the proposal with the best 
 address I was master of; but, observing she walked with her 
 cheek half resting upon the palm of her hand — with the slow, 
 short-measured step of thoughtfulness, and with her eyes, as 
 she went step by step, fixed upon the ground, it struck me she 
 was trying the same cause herself. " God help her ! " said I, 
 " she has some mother-in-law, or tartufish aunt, or nonsensical 
 old woman, to consult upon the occasion, as well as myself;" 
 so not caring to interrupt the process, and deeming it more 
 gallant to take her at discretion than by surprise, I faced 
 about, and took a short turn or two before the door of the 
 remise, whilst she walked musing on one side. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 33 
 
 IN THE STREET. 
 
 Having, on the first sight of the lady, settled the affair in my 
 fancy " that she was of the better order of beings ; " and then 
 laid it down as a second axiom, as indisputable as the first, 
 " that she was a widow, and wore a character of distress," I 
 went no further : I got ground enough for the situation which 
 pleased me, and had she remained close beside my elbow till 
 midnight, I should have held true to my system, and con- 
 sidered her only under that general idea. 
 
 She had scarce got twenty paces distant from me, ere 
 something within me called out for a more particular inquiry ; 
 it brought on the idea of a further separation, I might possibly 
 never see her more, the heart is for saving what it can ; and I 
 wanted the traces through which my wishes might find their 
 way to her, in case I should never rejoin her myself: in a 
 word, I wished to know her name, her family, her condition ; 
 and as I knew the place to which she was going, I wanted to 
 know from whence she came : but there was no coming at all 
 this intelligence ; a hundred little delicacies stood in the way. 
 I formed a score different plans, there was no such thing as a 
 man's asking her directly, the thing was impossible. 
 
 A little French dcbonnaire captain, who came dancing- 
 down the street, shewed me it was the easiest thing in the 
 world ; for, popping in betwixt us, just as the lady was return- 
 ing back to the door of the remise, he introduced himself to my 
 
 E 
 
34 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 acquaintance, and, before he had well got announced, begged 
 I would do him the honour to present him to the lady (I had 
 not been presented myself) : so turning about to her, he did 
 it just as well, by asking if she had come from Paris ? " No ; 
 she was going that route," she said. " Vous rC etes pas de 
 Londres ?''' " She was not," she replied. Then madam must 
 have come through Flanders. " Apparemment vous etesFlam- 
 mandeV said the French captain. The lady answered, she 
 was. " Peut-etre de Lisle?" added he. She said, she was 
 not of Lisle. "Nor Arras ?"— " Nor Cambray ? "— " Nor 
 Ghent?" — "Nor Brussels?" She answered, she was of 
 Brussels. 
 
 He had had the honour, he said, to be at the bombardment 
 of it last war ; that it was finely situated, pour cela, and full of 
 noblesse when the Imperialists were driven out by the French 
 (the lady made a slight curtsey) : so giving her an account of 
 the affair, and of the share he had had in it, he begged the 
 honour to know her name, — so made his bow. 
 
 — " Et Madame a son Mari ? " said he, looking back when 
 he had made two steps ; and without staying for an answer, 
 danced down the street. 
 
 Had I served seven years' apprenticeship to good breeding, 
 I could not have done as much. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 35 
 
 THE REMISE. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 As the little French captain left us, Monsieur Dessein came 
 up with up the key of the remise in his hand, and forthwith 
 let us into his magazine of chaises. 
 
 The first object which caught my eye as Monsieur Dessein 
 opened the door of the remise, was another old, tattered deso- 
 bligeante ; and notwithstanding it was the exact picture of that 
 which had hit my fancy so much in the coach-yard but an hour 
 before, the very sight of it stirred up a disagreeable sensation 
 within me now : and I thought 'twas a churlish beast into 
 whose heart the idea could first enter to construct such a 
 
36 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 machine ; nor had I much more charity for the man who could 
 think of using it. 
 
 I observed the lady was as little taken with it as myself ; 
 so Monsieur Dessein led us on to a couple of chaises which 
 stood abreast, telling us, as he recommended them, that they 
 had been purchased by my Lords A. and B. to go the grand 
 tour, but had gone no further than Paris, so were, in all re- 
 spects, as good as new. They were too good ; so I passed on 
 to a third, which stood behind, and forthwith began to chaffer 
 for the price. " But 'twill scarce hold two," said I, opening 
 the door, and getting in. " Have the goodness, madam," said 
 Monsieur Dessein, offering his arm, " to step in," The lady 
 hesitated half a second, and stepped in ; and the waiter that 
 moment beckoning to speak to Monsieur Dessein, he shut the 
 door of the chaise upon us, and left us. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 37 
 
 THE REMISE. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 " C" est bien comique, — 'tis very droll," said the lady, smiling, 
 from the reflection that this was the second time we had been 
 left together by a parcel of nonsensical contingencies. " C" est 
 bien comique ," said she. 
 
 — " There wants nothing," said I, "to make it so but 
 the comic use which the gallantry of a Frenchman would put 
 it to ; to make love the first moment, and an offer of his person 
 the second." 
 
 11 'T is their forte," replied the lady. 
 
 " It is supposed so, at least ; and how it has come to pass," 
 continued I, " I know not, but they have certainly got the 
 credit of understanding more of love, and making it better, 
 than any other nation upon earth ; but, for my own part, I 
 think them arrant bunglers, and, in truth, the worst set of 
 marksmen that ever tried Cupid's patience. 
 
 — "To think of making love by sentiments ! 
 
 " I should as soon think of making a genteel suit of clothes 
 out of remnants : — and to do it — pop — at first sight, by de- 
 claration — is submitting the offer and themselves with it, to be 
 sifted with all their pours and contres by an unheated mind." 
 
 The lady attended as if she expected I should go on. 
 
 " Consider, then, madam," continued I, laying my hand 
 upon hers, — 
 
 " That grave people hate love for the name's sake ; 
 
 " That selfish people hate it for their own ;, 
 
 " Hypocrites for heaven's ; 
 
38 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 " And that all of us, both old and young, being ten times 
 worse frightened than hurt by the very report " — 
 
 " What a want of knowledge in this branch of commerce a 
 man betrays, whoever lets the word come out of his lips, till 
 an hour or two, at least, after the time that his silence upon it 
 becomes tormenting. A course of small, quiet attentions, not 
 so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as to be misunderstood, 
 with now-and-then a look of kindness, and little or nothing 
 said upon it, leaves nature for your mistress, and she fashions 
 it to her mind." — 
 
 " Then I solemnly declare," said the lady, blushing, "you 
 have been making love to me all this while." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 .39 
 
 S^J 
 
 THE REMISE. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 Monsieur Dessein came back to let us out of the chaise, and 
 
 acquaint the lady, the Count de L , her brother, was just 
 
 arrived at the hotel. Though I had infinite good will for the 
 lady, I cannot say that I rejoiced in my heart at the event, 
 and could not help telling her so, " for it is fatal to a proposal, 
 madam," said I, " that I was going to make to you." 
 
 " You need not tell me what the proposal was," said she, 
 laying her hand upon both mine, as she interrupted me. " A 
 man, my good sir, has seldom an offer of kindness to make to 
 a woman, but she has a presentiment of it some moments 
 before." 
 
 " Nature arms her with it," said I, " for immediate pre- 
 servation." " But I think," said she, looking in my face, " I 
 
40 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 had no evil to apprehend, and to deal frankly with you, had de- 
 termined to accept it. If I had (she stopped a moment), I 
 believe your good will would have drawn a story from me, 
 which would have made Pity the only dangerous thing in the 
 journey." 
 
 In saying this, she suffered me to kiss her hand twice, and 
 with a look of sensibility mixed with concern, she got out of 
 the chaise, and bid adieu. 
 
 '!?B !/ 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 41 
 
 IN THE STREET. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 I never finished a twelve guinea bargain so expeditiously in 
 my life : my time seemed heavy, upon the loss of the lady, and 
 knowing every moment of it would be as two, till I put 
 myself into motion, I ordered post horses directly, and 
 walked towards the hotel. 
 
 " Lord ! " said I, hearing the town clock strike four, and 
 recollecting that I had been little more than a single hour 
 in Calais. 
 
 — " What a large volume of adventures may be grasped 
 within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in 
 everything, and who, having eyes to see what time and chance 
 are perpetually holding out to him as he journeyeth on his 
 way, misses nothing that he can fairly lay his hands on. 
 
 — "If this won't turn out something, another will, no 
 matter, 'tis an essay upon human nature, I get my labour 
 for my pains ; 'tis enough, the pleasure of the experiment has 
 kept my senses and the best part of my blood awake, and laid 
 the gross to sleep." 
 
 I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and 
 cry, 'tis all barren, and so it is ; and so is all the world to him 
 who will not cultivate the fruits it offers. "I declare" said 
 I, clapping my hands cheerly together, " that was I in a desert, 
 I would find out wherewith in it to call forth my affections : 
 If I could not do better, I would fasten them upon some sweet 
 myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect myself to ; 
 I would court their shade, and greet them kindly for their 
 
 F 
 
42 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 protection ; I would cut my name upon them, and swear they 
 were the loveliest trees throughout the desert : if their leaves 
 withered, I would teach myself to mourn ; and, when they 
 rejoiced, I would rejoice along with them." 
 
 The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, 
 from Paris to Rome, and so on ; but he set out with the spleen 
 and jaundice, and every object he passed by was discoloured 
 or distorted. He wrote an account of them, but 'twas nothing 
 but the account of his miserable feelings. 
 
 I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon ; 
 he was just coming out of it. " 'Z 'is nothing but a huge 
 cockpit,'" * said he : I wish you had said nothing worse of the 
 Venus of Medicis, replied I ; for, in passing through Florence, 
 I had heard he had fallen foul upon the goddess, and used her 
 worse than a common * * * *, without the least provocation 
 in nature. 
 
 I popped upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return 
 home, and a sad tale of sorrowful adventures had he to tell, 
 " wherein he spoke of moving accidents by flood and field, and 
 of the cannibals that each other eat — the Anthropophagi : " he 
 has been slayed alive, and bedevilled, and used worse than St. 
 Bartholomew, at every stage he had come to. 
 
 " I'll tell it," cried Smelfungus, to the world ; — " You had 
 better tell it," said I to your physician. 
 
 Mundungus, with an immense fortune, made the whole 
 tour ; going on from Rome to Naples, from Naples to Venice, 
 from Venice to Vienna, to Dresden, to Berlin, without one 
 generous connexion or pleasurable anecdote to tell of ; but he 
 had travelled straight on, looking neither to his right hand nor 
 his left, lest Love or Pity should seduce him out of his road. 
 
 Peace be to them ! if it is to be found ; but heaven itself, 
 was it possible to get there with such tempers, would want 
 objects to give it ; every gentle spirit would come flying upon 
 
 * Vide S 's Travels. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 43 
 
 the wings of love to hail their arrival ; nothing would the souls 
 of Smelfungus and Mundungus hear of, but fresh anthems of 
 joy, fresh raptures of love, and fresh congratulations of their 
 common felicity. I heartily pity them ; they have brought up 
 no faculties for this work ; and, was the happiest mansion in 
 heaven to be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they 
 would be so far from being happy, that the souls of Smel- 
 fungus and Mundungus would do penance there to all eternity. 
 
 &fc*-.T.2 
 
 MONTREUIL. 
 
 I had once lost my portmanteau from behind my chaise, and 
 twice got out in the rain, and one of the times up to the knees 
 in dirt, to help the postillion to tie it on, without being able to 
 find out what was wanting ; nor was it till I got to Montreuil, 
 upon the landlord's asking me if I wanted not a servant, that 
 it occurred to me, that that was the very thing. 
 
44 - A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 " A servant ! that I do most sadly," quotli I. " Because, 
 Monsieur," said the landlord, " there is a clever young fellow, 
 who would be very proud of the honour to serve an English- 
 man." " But why an English one, more than any other ?" 
 " They are so generous," said the landlord. " I'll be shot if 
 this is not a livre out of my pocket," quoth I, to myself, this 
 very night. " But they have wherewithal to be so, Monsieur," 
 added he. " Set down one livre more for that," quoth I. " It 
 was but last night," said the landlord, " qu'un milord Anglois 
 presentoit un ecu a la file de chambre." " Tant pis pour Made- 
 moiselle Jeanneton," said I. 
 
 Now Janatone being the landlord's daughter, and the land- 
 lord supposing I was young in French, took the liberty to 
 inform me, I should not have said tant pis, but tant mieux. 
 " Tant mieux, toujours, monsieur,'" said he, "when there is any- 
 thing to be got ; tant pis, when there is nothing." " It comes 
 to the same thing," said I. " Pardonnez-moi," said the landlord. 
 
 I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, 
 that tant pis, and tant mieux, being two of the great hinges in 
 French conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself 
 right in the use of them, before he gets to Paris. 
 
 A prompt French marquess, at our ambassador's table, de- 
 manded of Mr. H — , if he was H — the poet. " No," said 
 Mr. H — , mildly. " Tant pis," replied the marquess. 
 
 "It is H — the historian," said another. " Tant mieux, " 
 said the marquess ; and Mr H — , who is a man of an excellent 
 heart, returned thanks for both. 
 
 When the landlord had set me right in this matter, he 
 called in La Fleur, which was the name of the young man he 
 had spoke of, saying only first, that as for his talents he would 
 presume to say nothing, Monsieur was the best judge what 
 would suit him ; but for the fidelity of La Fleur, he would 
 stand responsible in all he was worth. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 45 
 
 The landlord delivered this in a manner which instantly 
 set my mind to the business I was upon, and La Fleur, who 
 stood waiting without, in that breathless expectation which 
 every son of nature of us have felt in our turns, came in. 
 
 
 >wm 
 
 
46 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 MONTREUIL. 
 
 I am apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight ; 
 but never more so than when a poor devil comes to offer his 
 service to so poor a devil as myself; and as J know this 
 weakness, I always suffer my judgment to draw back some- 
 thing on that very account, and this more or less, according to 
 the mood I am in, and the case — and I may add, the gender 
 too, — of the person I am to govern. 
 
 When La Fleur entered the room, after every discount I 
 could make for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow 
 determined the matter at once in his favour ; so I hired him 
 first, and then began to enquire what he could do. " But I 
 shall find out his talents," quoth I, " as I want them ; besides, 
 a Frenchman can do everything." 
 
 Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but 
 beat a drum, and play a march or two upon the fife. J was 
 determined to make his talents do : and can 't say my weak- 
 ness was ever so insulted by my wisdom, as in the attempt. 
 
 La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most 
 Frenchmen do, with serving for a few years ; at the end of 
 which, having satisfied the sentiment, and found, moreover, 
 that the honour of beating a drum was likely to be its own 
 reward, as it opened no further track of glory to him, he 
 retired a ses terres, and lived comme il plaisoit a Dieu — that is 
 to say, upon nothing. 
 
 — " And so," quoth Wisdom, " you have hired a drummer 
 to attend you in this tour of yours through France and Italy," 
 " Pshaw i " said T, " and do not one half of our gentry go with 
 a humdrum compagnon de voyage the same round, and have 
 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 47 
 
 the piper and the devil and all to pay besides ? When a man 
 can extricate himself with an equivoque in such an unequal 
 match, he is not ill off. But you can do something else, La 
 Fleur?" said I. " qu f oui ! he could make spatterdashes, 
 and play a little upon the fiddle." "Bravo !" said Wisdom. 
 " Why I play a bass myself," said I, " we shall do very well. 
 You can shave, and dress a wig a little, La Fleur?" He had 
 all the dispositions in the world. " It is enough for Heaven ! " 
 said I, interrupting him, " and ought to be enough for me." So 
 supper coming in, and having a frisky English spaniel on one 
 side of my chair, and a French valet, with as much hilarity in 
 his countenance as ever nature painted in one, on the other, 
 I was satisfied to my heart's content with my empire ; and if 
 monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as 
 satisfied as I was. 
 
48 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 MONTREUIL. 
 
 As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with 
 me, and will be often upon the stage, I must interest the 
 reader a little further in his behalf, by saying, that I had 
 never less reason to repent of the impulses which generally 
 determine me, than in regard to this fellow ; he was a faithful, 
 affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a 
 philosopher ; and, notwithstanding his talents of drum-beating 
 and spatterdash-making, which, though very good in them- 
 selves, happened to be of no great service to me, yet I was 
 hourly recompensed by the festivity of his temper ; it supplied 
 all defects : — I had a constant resource in his looks in all diffi- 
 culties and distresses of my own (I was going to have added 
 of his too) ; but La Fleur was out of the reach of everything ; 
 for, whether 'twas hunger or thirst, or cold or nakedness, or 
 watchings, whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in 
 our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy to 
 point them out by, he was eternally the same ; so that if I 
 am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts it 
 into my head I am, it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, 
 by reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy 
 of this poor fellow, for shaming me into one of a better kind. 
 With all this, La Fleur had a small cast of the coxcomb ; but 
 he seemed at first sight to be more a coxcomb of nature than 
 of art ; and before^ I had been three days in Paris with him, 
 he seemed to be no coxcomb at all. 
 
THROUGH FRANt'E AND ITALY, 
 
 49 
 
 MONTREUIL. 
 
 The next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, 
 I delivered to him the key of my portmanteau, with an in- 
 ventory of my half-a-dozen shirts, and a silk pair of breeches, 
 and bid him fasten all upon the chaise, get the horses put to, 
 and desire the landlord to come in with his bill. 
 
 " Cest un garcon de bonne fortune" said the landlord, 
 pointing through the window to half-a-dozen wenches who 
 had got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking 
 their leave of him, as the postillion was leading out the horses. 
 La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again ; and 
 thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would 
 bring them all pardons from Rome. 
 
50 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 — " The young fellow," said the landlord, " is beloved by 
 all the town, and there is scarce a corner in Montreuil where 
 the want of him will not be felt : but he has one misfortune in 
 the world," continued he, "he is always in love." "I am 
 heartily glad of it," said I, " 'twill save me the trouble every 
 night of putting my breeches under my head." In saying this, 
 I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge as my own, having 
 been in love with one princess or another almost all my life ; 
 and I hope I shall go on so till I die, being firmly persuaded, 
 that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval 
 betwixt one passion and another : whilst this interregnum 
 lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up, I can scarce find 
 in it to give Misery a sixpence ; and therefore I always get out 
 of it as fast as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am 
 all generosity and good-will again ; and would do anything in 
 the world, either for or witli any one, if they will but satisfy 
 me there is no sin in it. 
 
 — But in saying this, sure I am commending the passion, 
 not myself. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 — The town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived 
 there, trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim 
 it, was the vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace. 
 What for poisons, conspiracies, and assassinations, — libels, 
 pasquinades, and tumults, — there was no going there by day, 
 — 'twas worse by night. 
 
 Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass that 
 the Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 51 
 
 whole orchestra was delighted with it ; but of all the passages 
 which delighted them, nothing operated more upon their 
 imaginations than the tender strokes of nature which the poet 
 had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, " O 
 Cupid ! prince of gods and men, &c." Every man almost 
 spoke pure iambics the next day, and talked of nothing but 
 Perseus' pathetic address — " O Cupid ! prince of gods and 
 men!" in every street of Abdera, in every house — " O Cupid! 
 Cupid ! " in every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet 
 melody which drop from it, whether it will or no, — nothing 
 but " Cupid ! Cupid ! prince of gods and men ! " The fire 
 caught, and the whole city, like the heart of one man, opened 
 itself to Love. 
 
 Xo pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore ; not a 
 single armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of death ; 
 Friendship and A'irtue met together, and kissed each other in 
 the street ; the golden age returned, and hung over the town 
 of Abdera ; every Abderite took his oaten pipe, and every 
 Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sat her 
 down, and listened to the song. 
 
 "'Twas only in the power," says the Fragment, " of the 
 God whose empire extendeth from heaven to earth, and even 
 to the depths of the sea, to have done this." 
 
52 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 MONTREUIL. 
 
 When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for 
 in the inn, unless you are a little soured by the adventure, 
 there is always a matter to compound at the door, before you 
 can get into your chaise ; and that is with the sons and 
 daughters of poverty, who surround you. Let no man say, 
 " Let them go to the devil ; " 'tis a cruel journey to send a few 
 miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it : I 
 always think it better to take a few sous out in my hand ; and 
 I would counsel every Gentle Traveller to do so likewise : he 
 need not be so exact in setting down his motives for giving 
 them, — they will be registered elsewhere. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 53 
 
 For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do ; for 
 few that I know have so little to give : but as this was the first 
 public act of my charity in France, I took the more notice of it. 
 
 " A well-away ! " said I ; " I have but eight sous in the 
 world," shewing them in my hand, " and there are eight poor 
 men and eight poor women for 'em." 
 
 A poor tattered soul, without a shirt on, instantly with- 
 drew his claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and 
 making a disqualifying bow on his part. Had the whole 
 parterre cried out, " Place aux dames" with one voice, it 
 would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference for 
 the sex with half the effect. 
 
 Just Heaven ! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, 
 that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in other 
 countries, should find a way to be at unity in this ? 
 
54 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 — I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, 
 merely for his politesse. 
 
 A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against 
 me in the circle, putting something first under his arm, which 
 had once been a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and 
 generously offered a pinch on both sides of him : it was a gift 
 of consequence, and modestly declined. The poor little fellow 
 pressed it upon them with a nod of welcomeness. " Prenez- 
 en — prenez" said he, looking another way ; so they each took 
 a pinch. "Pity thy box should ever want one!" said I to 
 myself ; so I put a couple of sous into it, taking a small pinch 
 out of his box, to enhance their value, as I did it. He felt 
 the weight of the second obligation more than that of the first ; 
 'twas doing him an honour, — the other was only doing him a 
 charity, — and he made me a bow down to the ground for it. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 55 
 
 — " Here ! " said I to an old soldier with one hand, who 
 had been campaigned and worn out to death in the service, — 
 here's a couple of sous for thee. " Vive le roi!" said the old 
 soldier. 
 
 I had then but three sous left : so I gave one simply pour 
 I 'amour de Dieu, which was the footing on which it was begged. 
 The poor woman had a dislocated hip ; so it could not be well 
 upon any other motive. 
 
 " Mon cher et tres-charitdble monsieur!" — "There's no 
 opposing this," said I. 
 
 " Milord Anglois /" — the very sound was worth the money 
 — so I gave my last sous for it. But, in the eagerness of 
 giving, I had overlooked a pauvre honteux, who had no one to 
 ask a sous for him, and who, I believe, would have perished 
 ere he could have asked one for himself. He stood by the 
 
56 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face 
 which I thought had seen better days. " Good God ! " said I, 
 " and I have not one single sous left to give him." " But 
 you have a thousand ! " cried all the powers of nature stirring 
 within me : so I gave him — no matter what — I am ashamed 
 to say how much now, and was ashamed to think how little 
 then : so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my dis- 
 position, as these two fixed points are given him, he may 
 judge within a livre or two what was the precise sum. 
 
 I could afford nothing for the rest but " Dieu vous benisse." 
 " Et le bon Dieu vous benisse encore" said the old soldier, the 
 dwarf, &c. The pauvre honteux could say nothing : he pulled 
 out a little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned 
 away ; and I thought he thanked me more than they all. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 ot 
 
 THE BIDET. 
 
 Having settled all these little matters, 1 got into my post- 
 chaise with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my 
 life ; and La Fleur having one large jack-boot on the far side 
 of a little bidet,* and another on this (for I count nothing of 
 his legs), he cantered away before me as happy and as perpen- 
 dicular as a prince. 
 
 — But what is happiness ! what is grandeur in this painted 
 scene of life ! A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a 
 sudden stop to La Fleur's career ; his bidet would not pass 
 
 * Post-horse. 
 H 
 
58 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 by it ; a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow 
 was kicked out of his jack-boots the very first kick. 
 
 La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying 
 neither more nor less upon it than "Diable!" so presently 
 got up, and came to the charge again astride his bidet, beating 
 him up to it as he would have beat his drum. 
 
 The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other — 
 then back again ; then this way, then that way, and, in short, 
 every way but by the dead ass : — La Fleur insisted upon the 
 thing, and the bidet threw him. 
 
 "What's the matter, La Fleur," said I, "with this bidet 
 of thine?" " Monsieur" said he, " c'est un cheval le plus 
 opinidtre du monde" " Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must 
 go his own way," replied I. So La Fleur got him off, and 
 giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, 
 and away he scampered back to Montreuil. " Peste /" said 
 La Fleur. 
 
 It is not mal-a-propos to take notice here, that though La 
 Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of exclama- 
 tion in this encounter — namely, Diable ! and Peste ! there are 
 nevertheless three in the French language : like the positive, 
 comparative, and superlative, one or other of which serves for 
 every unexpected throw of the dice in life. 
 
 La Diable ! which is the first and positive degree, is gene- 
 rally used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small 
 things only fall out contrary to your expectations ; such as — 
 the throwing one's doublets — La Fleur's being kicked off his 
 horse, and so forth. Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is 
 always — Le Diable ! 
 
 But in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, 
 as in that of the bidet's running away after, and leaving La 
 Fleur aground in jack-boots — 'tis the second degree. 
 
 Tis then Peste! 
 
 And for the third — 
 
 — But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow-feeling, 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 59 
 
 when I reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how 
 bitterly so refined a people must have smarted, to have forced 
 them upon the use of it. — 
 
 Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with elo- 
 quence in distress ! whatever is my cast, grant me but decent 
 words to exclaim in, and I will give my nature way. 
 
 But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to 
 take every ill just as it befel me, without any exclamation at all. 
 
 La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, 
 followed the bidet with his eyes till it was got out of sight ; 
 and then, you may imagine, if you please, with what word he 
 closed the whole affair. 
 
 As there was no hunting down a frightened horse in jack- 
 boots, there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur 
 either behind the chaise or into it. 
 
 I preferred the latter ; and in half-an-hour we got to the 
 post-house at Nampont. 
 
 NAMPON T. 
 
 THE DEAD ASS. 
 
 "And this," said he, putting the remains of a crust into 
 
 his wallet, — "And this should have been thy portion," said 
 he, "hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me." I 
 thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to his child ; 
 but 'twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in 
 the road,* which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The 
 man seemed to lament it much ; and it instantly brought into 
 my mind Sancho's lamentation for his ; but he did it with 
 more true touches of nature. 
 
CO 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, 
 with the ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took 
 up from time to time — then laid them down — looked at them, 
 and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of 
 his wallet again, as if to eat it ; held it some time in his hand ; 
 then laid it upon the bit of his ass's bridle, looked wistfully at 
 the little arrangement he had made, and then gave a sigh. 
 
 The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and 
 La Fleur amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting 
 ready : as I continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see 
 and hear over their heads. 
 
 — He said he had come last from Spain, where he had 
 been from the furthest borders of Franconia ; and had got so 
 far on his return home, when his ass died. Every one seemed 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 61 
 
 desirous to know what business could have taken so old and 
 poor a man so far a journey from his own home. 
 
 It had pleased Heaven, he said, to bless him with three 
 sons, the finest lads in all German)* : but having, in one week, 
 lost two of the eldest of them by the small pox, and the 
 youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was afraid of 
 being bereft of them all ; and made a vow, if Heaven would 
 not take him from him also, he would go in gratitude to 
 St. Iago in Spain. 
 
 When the mourner got thus for on his story, he stopped to 
 pay nature his tribute, and wept bitterly. 
 
 He said, Heaven had accepted the conditions ; and that he 
 had set out from his cottage with this poor creature, which had 
 been a patient partner of his journey ; that it had eat the 
 same bread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend. 
 
 Everybody who stood about, heard the poor fellow with 
 concern. La Fleur offered him money. The mourner said 
 he did not want it : it was not the value of the ass, but the loss 
 of him. The ass, he said, he was assured, loved him ; and 
 
62 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 upon this, told them a long story of a mischance upon their 
 passage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated 
 them from each other three days ; during which time the ass 
 had sought him as much as he had sought the ass, and that 
 they had scarce either eat or drank till they met. 
 
 " Thou hast one comfort, friend," said I, " at least, in the 
 loss of thy poor beast : I 'm sure thou hast been a merciful 
 master to him." "Alas!" said the mourner, "I thought so 
 when he was alive ; but now that he is dead, I think otherwise. 
 I fear that the weight of myself and my afflictions together, 
 have been too much for him — they have shortened the poor 
 creature's days, and I fear I have them to answer for." 
 " Shame on the world ! " said I to myself. " Did we but 
 love each other as this poor soul loved his ass — 'twould be 
 something." 
 
 NAM PONT. 
 
 THE POSTILLION. 
 
 The concern which the poor fellow's story threw me into 
 required some attention ; the postillion paid not the least to it, 
 but set off upon the pave in a full gallop. 
 
 The thirstiest soul in the most sandy desert of Arabia, 
 could not have wished more for a cup of cold water than mine 
 did for grave and quiet movements ; and I should have had a 
 high opinion of the postillion had he but stolen off with me in 
 something like a pensive pace : on the contrary, as the mourner 
 finished his lamentation, the fellow gave an unfeeling lash to 
 each of his beasts, and set off clattering like a thousand devils. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 63 
 
 I called to him as loud as I could, for Heaven's sake to go 
 slower ; and the louder I called, the more unmercifully he 
 galloped. " The deuce take him and his galloping too," said 
 I : " he '11 go on tearing my nerves to pieces till he has worked 
 me into a foolish passion, and then he '11 go slow that I may 
 enjoy the sweets of it." 
 
 The postillion managed the point to a miracle : by the time 
 he had got to the foot of a steep hill about half a league from 
 Nampont, he had put me out of temper with him — and then 
 with myself, for being so. 
 
 My case then required a different treatment ; and a good 
 rattling gallop would have been of real service to me. 
 
 — " Then, prithee, get on ; get on, my good lad," said I. 
 The postillion pointed to the hill. — I then tried to return 
 
 back to the story of the poor German and his ass ; but I had 
 broke the clue, and could no more get into it again than the 
 postillion could into a trot. 
 
 — "The deuce go," said I, "with it all! Here am I 
 sitting as candidly disposed to make the best of the worst as 
 ever wight was, and all runs counter." 
 
 There is one sweet lenitive, at least, for evils, which Nature 
 holds out to us : so I took it kindly at her hands, and fell 
 asleep ; and the first word which roused me was " Amiens." 
 
 — " Bless me!" said I, rubbing my eyes, " this is the very 
 town where my poor lady is to come." 
 
64 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 AMIENS. 
 
 The words were scarce out of my mouth, when the Count 
 
 de L — 's post-chaise, with his sister in it, drove hastily by : 
 
 she had just time to make me a bow of recognition — and of 
 that particular kind of it which told me she had not yet done 
 with me. She was as good as her look ; for before I had 
 quite finished my supper, her brother's servant came into the 
 room with a billet, in which she said she had taken the liberty 
 to charge me with a letter, which I was to present myself to 
 
 Madame R the first morning I had nothing to do at 
 
 Paris. There was only added, she was sorry (but from what 
 penchant she had not considered) that she had been prevented 
 telling me her story ; that she still owed it me ; and if my 
 route should ever lay through Brussels, and I had not by then 
 
 forgot the name of Madame de L , that Madame de L 
 
 would be glad to discharge her obligation. 
 
 " Then I will meet thee," said I, "fair spirit ! at Brussels : 
 't is only returning from Italy through Germany to Holland, 
 by the route of Flanders, home ; 't will scarce be ten posts 
 out of my way ; but were it ten thousand, with what a moral 
 delight will it crown my journey, in sharing in the sickening 
 incidents of a tale of misery told to me by such a sufferer ! 
 To see her weep ! and, though I cannot dry up the fountain of 
 her tears, what an exquisite sensation is there still left, in 
 wiping them away from off the cheeks of the first and fairest 
 of women, as I'm sitting with my handkerchief in my hand 
 in silence the whole night beside her ! " 
 
 There was nothing wrong in the sentiment ; and yet I 
 instantly reproached my heart with it, in the bitterest and most 
 reprobate of expressions. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 65 
 
 It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular 
 blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in 
 love with some one : and my last flame happening to be blown 
 out by a whiff of jealousy on the sudden turn of a corner, I 
 had lighted it afresh at the pure taper of Eliza but about three 
 months before ; swearing, as I did it, that it should last me 
 through the whole journey. Why should I dissemble the 
 matter ? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity : she had a right 
 to my whole heart ; to divide my affections, was to lessen them ; 
 to expose them, was to risk them : where there is risk there 
 may be loss : — "And what wilt thou have, Yorick, to answer 
 to a heart so full of trust and confidence, so good, so gentle, 
 and unreproaching ! " 
 
 " I will not go to Brussels," replied I, interrupting myself: 
 but my imagination went on ; — I recalled her looks at that 
 crisis of our separation when neither of us had power to say 
 "Adieu!" I looked at the picture she had tied in a black 
 riband about my neck, and blushed as I looked at it. I would 
 have given the world to have kissed it, but was ashamed. 
 "And shall this tender flower," said I, pressing it between my 
 hands, " shall it be smitten to its very root — and smitten, 
 Yorick, by thee, who hast promised to shelter it in thy breast? " 
 
 " Eternal Fountain of Happiness ! " said I, kneeling down 
 upon the ground, "be thou my witness — and every pure spirit 
 which tastes it be my witness also — that I would not travel to 
 Brussels unless Eliza went along with me, did the road lead 
 me towards heaven ! " 
 
 In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the under- 
 standing, will always say too much. 
 
66 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 AMIENS. 
 
 Fortune had not smiled upon La Fleur ; for lie had been 
 unsuccessful in his feats of chivalry, and not one thing had 
 offered to signalise his zeal for my service from the time that 
 he entered into it, which was almost four-and-twenty hours. 
 The poor soul burned with impatience ; and the Count de 
 L 's servant coming with the letter being the first prac- 
 ticable occasion which offered, La Fleur had laid hold of it, 
 and, in order to do honour to his master, had taken him into 
 a back parlour in the auberge, and treated him with a cup or 
 
 two of the best wine in Picardy ; and the Count de L 's 
 
 servant in return, and not to be behindhand in politeness with 
 La Fleur, had taken him back with him to the count's hotel. 
 La Fleur's prevenance (for there was a passport in his very 
 looks) soon set every servant in the kitchen at ease with him ; 
 and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, has no sort of 
 prudery in shewing them, La Fleur, in less than five minutes, 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 67 
 
 had pulled out his fife, and leading off the dance himself with 
 the first note, set the fille de chambre, the mditre aV hotel, the 
 cook, the scullion, and all the household, dogs and cats, besides 
 an old monkey, a-dancing : I suppose there never was a merrier 
 kitchen since the Flood. 
 
 
 Madame de L , in passing from her brother's apart- 
 ments to her own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung 
 up her file de chambre to ask about it ; and hearing it was 
 the English gentleman's servant who had set the whole house 
 merry with his pipe, she ordered him up. 
 
 As the poor fellow could not present himself empty, he 
 had loaded himself in going up stairs with a thousand compli- 
 ments to Madame de L on the part of his master ; added 
 
 a long apocrypha of enquiries after Madame de L 's 
 
 health ; told her that Monsieur his master was au desespoir 
 for her re-establishment from the fatigues of her journey ; 
 and, to close all, that Monsieur had received the letter which 
 Madame had clone him the honour "And he has done me 
 
68 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 -, interrupting La Fleur, 
 
 the honour," said Madame de L- 
 " to send a billet in return ? " 
 
 Madame de L had said this with such a tone of re- 
 liance upon the fact, that La Fleur had not power to disappoint 
 her expectations : he trembled for my 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-a-vis a" une femme! so that when Madame de 
 
 
 L asked La Fleur if he had brought a letter, — " O 
 
 qvLOuiV said La Fleur: so, laying down his hat upon the 
 ground, and taking hold of the flap of his right side pocket 
 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 them upon the floor — 
 pulled out a dirty cravat — a handkerchief — comb — a whip lash 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 69 
 
 — a nightcap ; — then gave a peep into his hat — " Quelle Hour- 
 derie /" — He had left the letter upon the table in the auberge ; 
 — he would run for it, and be back with it in three minutes. 
 
 I had just finished my supper when La Fleur came in to 
 give me an account of his adventure : he told me the whole 
 story simply as it was ; and only added, that if Monsieur had 
 forgot, par hasard, 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 : 't was 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 fault : I was under no necessity to write ; 
 and, what weighed more than all, he did not look as if he had 
 done amiss. 
 
 — "Tis all very well, La Fleur," said I. — 'T was suf- 
 ficient. La Fleur flew out of the room like lightning, and 
 returned 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 stepped out, and brought a little water in a glass 
 to dilute my ink ; then fetched sand and sealing wax : it was 
 all one ; I wrote, and blotted, and tore off, and burned, and 
 wrote again. " Le diable Vemporte!" said I half to myself; 
 " I cannot write this self-same letter," throwing down the pen 
 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 
 
To 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 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 humour. — 
 " 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 con- 
 dition, and, laying it upon the table, and then untying the 
 string which held them all together, run them over, one by 
 one, till he came to the letter in question ~v^-"La voila!" said 
 he, clapping his hands ; so, unfolding it first, he laid it open 
 before me, and retired three steps from the table whilst I 
 read it. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 71 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 " Madame, 
 
 " Je suis penetre de la douleur la plus vive, et 
 reduit en meme temps au desespoir par ce retour imprevu du 
 caporal 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 
 a vous. 
 
 " L' amour n'est rien sans sentiment. 
 
 " Et le sentiment est encore moins sans amour. 
 
 " On dit qu'on ne doit jamais se desesperer. 
 
 " On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde 
 mercredi : alors ce sera mon tour. 
 
 " Chacun a son tour. 
 
 " En attendant — Vive 1' amour ! et vive la bagatelle ! 
 
 " Je suis, Madame, 
 " Avec tous les sentimens les plus respectueux 
 " et les plus tendres, tout a, vous, 
 
 "JAQUES ROCQUE." 
 
 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 
 up in my own way, I sealed it up, and sent him with it to 
 
 Madame de L ; and the next morning we pursued our 
 
 journey to Paris. 
 
72 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and 
 carry all on floundering before him with half-a-dozen lackeys 
 and a couple of cooks, 't is 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 signalise himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it : 
 I say up into it, for there is no descending perpendicular 
 amongst 'em with a " M e void! 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, or 
 flambeau shot its rays ; there thou mayst solace thy soul in 
 converse sweet with some kind griselte of a barber's wife, and 
 get into such coteries ! 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 73 
 
 — " May I perish if I do ! " said I, pulling out the letter 
 
 which I had to present to Madame de R . " I '11 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. 
 
 dP\ 
 
 THE WIG. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When the barber came, he absolutely refused to have anything 
 to do with my wig ; 't was 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 immerge it," replied he, "into the ocean, and it 
 will stand." 
 
74 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 "What a great scale is everything 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 cold 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 was 
 not likely I should run post a hundred miles out of it to try 
 the experiment : — the Parisian barber meant nothing. 
 
 The pail of water standing beside the great deep, makes 
 certainly but a sorry figure in speech ; but, 't will be said, it 
 has one advantage : 't is in the next room, and the truth of the 
 buckle may be tried in it, without more ado, in a single 
 moment. 
 
 In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the 
 matter, the French expression professes more than it performs. 
 
 I think I can see the precise and distinguishing marks of 
 national characters more in these nonsensical minutice, than in 
 the most important matters of state ; where great men of all 
 nations talk and stalk so much alike, that I would not give 
 ninepence to choose amongst them. 
 
 I was so long in getting from under my barber's hands, 
 that it was too late to think of going with my letter to Madame 
 
 R that night ; but when a man is once dressed at all 
 
 points for going out, his reflections turn to little account : so, 
 taking down the name of the Hotel de Modene, where I lodged, 
 I walked forth without any determination where to go : — " I 
 shall consider of that," said I, "as I walk along." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 75 
 
 THE PULSE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life ! for smooth do ye make 
 the road of it ; like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations 
 to love at first sight : 't is ye who open this door, and let the 
 stranger in. 
 
 — " Pray, madam," said I, " have the goodness to tell me 
 which way I must turn to go to the Opera Comique ?" " Most 
 willingly, monsieur," said she, laying aside her work. 
 
 I had given a cast with my eye into half-a-dozen shops as 
 I came along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by 
 such an interruption : till, at last, this hitting my fancy, I had 
 walked in. 
 
 She was working a pair of ruffles as she sat in a low chair 
 on the far-side of the shop, facing the door. 
 
76 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 " Tres-volontiers, most willingly," said she, laying her work 
 down upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair 
 she was sitting in, with so cheerful a movement and so cheerful 
 a look, that had I been laying out fifty louis d 'ors with her, I 
 should have said, " That woman is grateful." 
 
 Jit 
 
 " You must turn, monsieur," said she, going with me to 
 the door of the shop, and pointing the way down the street I 
 was to take ; " You must turn first to your left hand — mats 
 prenez garde, there are two turns, and be so good as to take 
 the second— then go down a little way, and you'll see a church ; 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 77 
 
 and when you are past it, give yourself the trouble to turn 
 directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the 
 Pont-Neuf, which you must cross, and there any one will do 
 himself the pleasure to shew you." 
 
 She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with 
 the same good-natured patience the third time as the first ; — 
 and, if tones and manners have a meaning, which certainly they 
 have, unless to hearts which shut them out, she seemed really 
 interested that I should not lose myself. 
 
 I will not suppose it was the woman's beauty (notwith- 
 standing she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw) 
 which had much to do with the sense I had of her courtesy ; 
 only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to 
 her, that I looked very full in her eyes, and that I repeated 
 my thanks as often as she had done her instructions. 
 
 I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I 
 had forgot every tittle of what she had said : so, looking back, 
 and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop, as if to 
 look whether I went right or not, I returned back to ask her 
 whether the first turn was to my right or left — for that I had 
 absolutely forgot. "It is impossible ! " said she, half laugh- 
 ing. " 'T is very possible," replied I, " when a man is 
 thinking more of a woman than of her good advice." 
 
 As this was the real truth, she took it, as every woman 
 takes a matter of right, with a slight curtsey. 
 
 — " Attendez /" said she, laying her hand upon my arm 
 to detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back shop to 
 get ready a parcel of gloves. " I am just going to send him," 
 said she, " with a packet into that quarter ; and, if you will 
 have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, 
 and he shall attend you to the place." So I walked in with 
 her to the far side of the shop ; aad taking up the ruffle in my 
 hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, 
 she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat 
 myself down beside her. 
 
78 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 — " He will be ready, monsieur," said she, "in a moment." 
 "And in that moment," replied I, "most willingly would I say 
 something very civil to you for all these courtesies. Any one 
 may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them 
 shews it is apart of the temperature : and certainly," added I, 
 "if it is the same blood which comes from the heart which 
 descends to the extremes (touching her wrist), I am sure you 
 must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world." 
 " Feel it," said she, holding out her arm. So, laying down 
 my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the 
 two forefingers of my others to the artery.- 
 
 — Would to heaven ! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst 
 passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my 
 lackadaisical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, 
 with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the 
 critical ebb or flow of her fever : how wouldst thou have 
 laughed and moralised upon my new profession ! — and thou 
 shouldst have laughed and moralised on. Trust me, my dear 
 Eugenius, I should have said, " There are worse occupations 
 in this world than feeling a woman's pulse." " But a grisette's ! " 
 thou wouldst have said ; "and in an open shop ! Yorick " 
 
 — "So much the better: for when my views are direct, 
 Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 79 
 
 THE HUSBAND. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 I had counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast 
 towards the fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpected 
 from a back parlour into the shop, put me a little out of my 
 reckoning. " 'T was nobody but her husband," she said : — so 
 I began a fresh score. " Monsieur is so good," quoth she, as 
 he passed by us, " as to give himself the trouble of feeling my 
 pulse." The husband took off his hat, and, making me a 
 bow, said I did him too much honour ; and having said that, 
 he put on his hat, and walked out. 
 
 " Good God ! " said I to myself, as he went out, " and can 
 this man be the husband of this woman ? " 
 
 Let it not torment the few who know what must have been 
 the grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who 
 do not. 
 
 In London, a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper's wife seem to 
 be one bone and one flesh : in the several endowments of mind 
 and body, sometimes the one, sometimes the other, has it, so 
 as, in general, to be upon a par, and to tally with each other 
 as nearly as man and wife need to do. 
 
 In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more 
 different : for the legislative and executive powers of the shop 
 not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there : in some 
 dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerceless in his 
 thrum nightcap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature 
 left him. 
 
80 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy 
 is salique, having ceded this department, with sundry others, 
 totally to the women, by a continual higgling with customers 
 of all ranks and sizes from morning to night, like so many 
 rough pebbles shook along together in a bag, by amicable 
 collisions they have worn down their asperities and sharp 
 angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will re- 
 ceive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant : — Monsieur le 
 Mari is little better than the stone under your foot. 
 
 — Surely, surely, man ! it is not good for thee to sit alone : 
 thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings ; 
 and this improvement of our natures from it I appeal to as my 
 evidence. 
 
 — " And how does it beat, Monsieur ? " said she. " With 
 all the benignity," said I, looking quietly in her eyes, " that I 
 expected." She was going to say something civil in return, but 
 the lad came into the shop with the gloves. " A propos" said 
 I, " I want a couple of pairs myself." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 81 
 
 THE GLOVES. 
 
 The beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind 
 the counter, reached down a parcel and untied it : I advanced 
 to the side over against her : they were all too large. The 
 beautiful grisette measured them one by one across my hand. — 
 It would not alter their dimensions. She begged I would try 
 a single pair, which seemed to be the least. She held it open ; 
 my hand slipped into it at once. " It will not do," said I, 
 shaking my head a little. " Xo," said she, doing the same 
 thing. 
 
 There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety, where 
 whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense are so blended, 
 that all the languages of Babel set loose together could not 
 express them ; they are communicated and caught so instan- 
 taneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infecter. 
 I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it ; it is 
 enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do ; 
 so folding our hands within our arms, we both lolled upon the 
 counter ; it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel 
 to lay between us. 
 
 The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then 
 sideways to the window, then at the gloves, and then at me. 
 I was not disposed to break silence — I followed her example : 
 so I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, 
 and then at her — and so on alternately. 
 
 I found I lost considerably in every attack : she had a quick 
 black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes 
 
 L 
 
82 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 with such penetration, that she looked into my very heart and 
 reins. — It may seem strange, but I could actually feel she did. 
 
 " It is no matter," said I, taking up a couple of the pairs 
 next me, and putting them into my pocket. 
 
 I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked above a 
 single livre above the price. I wished she had asked a livre 
 more, and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter 
 about. " Do you think, my dear sir," said she, mistaking my 
 embarrassment, " that I could ask a sous too much of a stranger, 
 and of a stranger, whose politeness more than his want of gloves, 
 has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy? M'en 
 croyez-vous capable?" " Faith ! not I," said I ; " and if you 
 were, you are welcome." So, counting the money into her 
 hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a 
 shopkeeper's wife, I went out, and her lad with his parcel fol- 
 lowed me. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 8-3 
 
 THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 There was nobody in the box I was let into but a kindly 
 old French officer. I love the character, not only because T 
 honour the man whose manners are softened by a profession 
 which makes bad men worse ; but that I once knew one — for 
 he is no more — and why should I not rescue one page from 
 
84 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 violation by writing his name in it, and telling the world it was 
 Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my flock and friends, 
 whose philanthropy I never think of, at this long distance from 
 his death, but my eyes gush out with tears. For his sake, 
 I have a predilection for the whole corps of veterans ; and so 
 I strode over the two back rows of benches, and placed myself 
 beside him. 
 
 The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet (it 
 might be the book of the opera) with a large pair of spectacles. 
 As soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting 
 them into a shagreen case, returned them and the book into his 
 pocket together. I half rose up, and made him a bow. 
 
 Translate this into any civilised language in the world, the 
 sense is this : 
 
 " Here 's a poor stranger come into the box, he seems as if 
 he knew nobody ; and is never likely, was he to be seven years 
 in Paris, if every man he comes near keeps his spectacles upon 
 his nose ; 't is shutting the door of conversation absolutely in 
 his face, and using him worse than a German." 
 
 The French officer might as well have said it all aloud : and 
 if he had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into 
 French too, and told him, " I was sensible of his attention, 
 and returned him a thousand thanks for it." 
 
 There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, 
 as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering 
 the several turns of looks and limbs, with all their inflexions 
 and delineations, into plain words. For my own part, by long 
 habitude, I do it so mechanically, that when I walk the streets 
 of London, I go translating all the way ; and have more than 
 once stood behind the circle, where not three words have been 
 said, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, 
 which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to. 
 
 I was going one evening to Martini's concert at Milan, and 
 was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina di 
 F was coming out in a sort of a hurry : she was almost 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 80 
 
 upon me before I saw her ; so I gave a spring to one side to 
 let her pass : she had done the same, and on the same side too ; 
 so we ran our heads together : she instantly got to the other 
 side to get out, I was just as unfortunate as she had been, for 
 I had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage again : we 
 both flew together to the other side, and then back ; and so 
 on : it was ridiculous ; we both blushed intolerably : so I did at 
 last the thing I should have done at first — I stood stock still, 
 and the Marquisina had no more difficulty. I had no power 
 to go into the room,- till I had made her so much reparation, as 
 to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of the passage. 
 She looked back twice, and walked along it rather sideways, as 
 if she would make room for any one coming up stairs to pass 
 her. " No," said I, " that 's a vile translation: the Marquisina 
 has a right to the best apology I can make her, and that open- 
 ing is left for me to do it in ;'" so I ran and begged pardon for 
 the embarrassment I had given her, saying it was my intention 
 to have made her way. She answered, she was guided by the 
 same intention towards me ; so we reciprocally thanked each 
 other. She was at the top of the stairs, and seeing no cluchesbee 
 near her, I begged to hand her to her coach ; so we went down 
 the stairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concert 
 and the adventure. " Upon my word, madam," said I, when 
 I had handed her in, " I made six different efforts to let you 
 go out." " And I made six efforts," replied she, " to let you 
 enter." " I wish to heaven you would make a seventh," said I. 
 " With all my heart," said she, making room. Life is too short 
 to be long about the forms of it ; so I instantly stepped in, and 
 she carried me home with her. And what became of the con- 
 cert ? St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows more than I. 
 I will only add, that the connexion which arose out of the 
 translation gave me more pleasure than any one I had the 
 honour to make in Italy. 
 
86 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE DWARF. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 I had never heard the remark made by any one in my life 
 except by one ; and who that was, will probably come out in 
 this chapter ; so that, being pretty much unprepossessed, there 
 must have been grounds for what struck me the moment I 
 cast my eyes over the parterre ; and that was, the unaccount- 
 able sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs. No 
 doubt she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the 
 world ; but in Paris there is no end to her amusements. The 
 goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise. 
 
 As I carried my idea out of the Opera Comique with me, 
 I measured every body I saw walking in the streets by it. 
 Melancholy application ! especially where the size was ex- 
 tremely little, the face extremely dark, the eyes quick, the 
 nose long, the teeth white, the jaw prominent ; to see so many 
 miserables, by force of accidents driven out of their own 
 proper class into the very verge of another, which it gives me 
 pain to write down ; every third man a pigmy : some by 
 ricketty heads and hump backs ; others by bandy legs ; a 
 third set arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth or seventh 
 years of their growth ; a fourth in their perfect and natural 
 state, like dwarf apple trees : from the first rudiments and 
 stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher. 
 
 A medical traveller might say, 't is owing to undue band- 
 ages ; a splenetic one, to want of air ; and an inquisitive 
 traveller, to fortify the system, may measure the height of 
 their houses, the narrowness of their streets, and in how few 
 feet square in the sixth and seventh stories such numbers of 
 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 87 
 
 the Bourgeoisie eat and sleep together ; but I remember 
 Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any- 
 body else, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred 
 that children, like other animals, might be increased almost 
 to any size, provided they came right into the world : but 
 the misery was, the citizens of Paris were so cooped up, that 
 they had not actually room enough to get them. " I do not 
 call it getting anything," said he ; " 'tis getting nothing. Nay," 
 continued he, rising in his argument, " 't is getting worse 
 than nothing, when all you have got, after twenty or five-and- 
 twenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment 
 bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg. Now, 
 Mr. Shandy being very short, there could be nothing more 
 said of it. 
 
 As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as 
 I found it, and content myself with the truth only of the 
 remark, which is verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris. 
 I was walking down that which leads from the Carrousel to the 
 Palais Royal, and observing a little boy in some distress at the 
 side of the gutter which ran down the middle of it, I took hold 
 of his hand and helped him over. Upon turning up his face 
 to look at him after, I perceived he was about forty. " Never 
 mind," said I, " some good body will do as much for me when 
 I am ninety." 
 
 I feel some little principles within me which incline me to 
 be merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who 
 have neither size nor strength to get on in the world. I can- 
 not bear to see one of them trod upon ; and had scarce got 
 seated beside my old French officer, ere the disgust was 
 exercised, by seeing the very thing happen under the box 
 we sat in. 
 
 At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first 
 side box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house 
 is full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. Though you stand, 
 as in the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra. 
 
88 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 A poor defenceless being of this order had got thrust somehow 
 or other into this luckless place ; the night was hot, and he was 
 surrounded by beings two feet and a-half higher than himself. 
 The dwarf suffered inexpressibly on all sides ; but the thing 
 which incommoded him most, was a tall corpulent German, 
 near seven feet high, who stood directly betwixt him and all 
 possibility of his seeing either the stage or the actors. The 
 poor dwarf did all he could to get a peep at what was going 
 forwards, by seeking for some little opening betwixt the 
 
 German's arm and his body, trying first on one side, then on 
 the other ; but the German stood square in the most unaccom- 
 modating posture that can be imagined : the dwarf might as 
 well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-well 
 in Paris ; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German's 
 sleeve, and told him his distress. The German turned his 
 head back, looked down upon him as Goliath did upon David, 
 and unfeelingly resumed his posture. 
 
 I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk's 
 little horn-box. And how would thy meek and courteous 
 spirit, my dear monk ! so tempered to bear and forbear ! how 
 sweetly would it have lent an ear to this poor soul's complaint. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 89 
 
 The old French officer, seeing me lift up my eyes with an 
 emotion, as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me 
 what was the matter. I told him the story in three words ; 
 and added, how inhuman it was. 
 
 By this time, the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first 
 transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German 
 he would cut off his long queue with his knife. The German looked 
 back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it. 
 
 An injury sharpened by an insult, be it to whom it will, 
 makes every man of sentiment a party : I could have leaped 
 out of the box to have redressed it. The old French officer 
 did it with much less confusion ; for leaning a little over, and 
 nodding to a sentinel, and pointing at the same time with his 
 finger at the distress, the sentinel made his way to it. There 
 was no occasion to tell the grievance, the thing told itself ; so 
 thrusting back the German instantly with his musket, he took 
 the poor dwarf by the hand, and placed him before him. " This 
 is noble!" said I, clapping my hands together. "And yet 
 you would not permit this," said the old officer, " in England." 
 
 " In England, dear sir," said I, " we sit all at our ease" 
 
 The old French officer would have set me at unity with 
 myself, in case I had been at variance, by saying it was a bon 
 mot ; and, as a bon mot is always worth something at Paris, he 
 offered me a pinch of snuff. 
 
 
 Hnnji .';:■' 
 
 U ; --Plllf; 
 
90 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 PARTS. 
 
 It was now my turn to ask the old French officer, " What was 
 the matter ? " for a cry of " Haut les mams, Monsieur V Abbe" 
 re-echoed from a dozen different parts of the 'parterre, was as 
 unintelligible to me, as my apostrophe to the monk had been 
 to him. 
 
 He told me it was some poor Abbe in one of the upper 
 loges, who he supposed had got planted perdu behind a couple 
 of grisettes in order to see the opera, and that the parterre es- 
 pying him, were insisting upon his holding up both his hands 
 during the representation. — " And can it be supposed," said I, 
 " that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes'' pockets? " The 
 old French officer smiled, and whispering in my ear, opened a 
 door of knowledge which I had no idea of. 
 
 " Good God ! " said I, turning pale with astonishment; " is 
 it possible, that a people so smit with sentiment should at the 
 same time be so unclean, and so unlike themselves — Quelle 
 Grossierete ! " added I. 
 
 The French officer told me it was an illiberal sarcasm at the 
 church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the 
 Tartuffe was given it by Moliere : but, like other remains of 
 gothic manners, was declining. " Every nation," continued 
 he, " have their refinements and grossieretes, in which they 
 take the lead, and lose it of one another by turns : that he 
 had been in most countries, but never in one where he found 
 not some delicacies which others seemed to want. Le pour 
 et le contre se trouvent en chaque nation ; there is a balance," 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 91 
 
 said he, " of good and bad everywhere ; and nothing but the 
 knowing it is so, can emancipate one-half of the world from 
 the prepossession which it holds against the other : that the 
 advantage of travel, as it regarded the savoir vivre, was by 
 seeing a great deal both of men and manners : it taught us 
 mutual toleration ; and mutual toleration," concluded he, 
 making me a bow, " taught us mutual love." 
 
 The old French officer delivered this with an air of such 
 candour and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable 
 impressions of his character. I thought I loved the man, but 
 I fear I mistook the object ; 't was my own way of thinking ; 
 the difference was, I could not have expressed it half so well. 
 
 It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast, if 
 the latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at 
 every object which he never saw before. I have as little tor- 
 ment of this kind as any creature alive ; and yet I honestly 
 confess, that many a thing gave me pain, and that I blushed 
 at many a word the first month, which I found inconsequent 
 and perfectly innocent the second. 
 
 Madame de Rambouillet, after an acquaintance of about 
 six weeks with her, had done me the honour to take me in her 
 coach about two leagues out of town. Of all women, Madame 
 de Rambouillet is the most correct ; and I never wish to see 
 one of more virtues and purity of heart. In our return back, 
 Madame de Rambouillet desired me to pull the cord. I 
 asked her if she wanted any thing : " Rien * * * * *," said 
 Madame de Rambouillet. 
 
 Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouillet 
 * * * ; and ye, fair mystic nymphs ! go each one pluck your 
 rose, and scatter them in your path — for Madame de Ram- 
 bouillet did no more. I handed Madame de Rambouillet out 
 of the coach, and had I been the priest of the chaste Castalia, 
 I could not have served at her fountain with a more respectful 
 decorum. 
 
92 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 \,f "... mm 
 
 THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 What the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, 
 bringing Polonins's advice to his son upon the same subject 
 into my head, and that bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the 
 rest of Shakespere's works, I stopped at the Quai de Conti in 
 my return home, to purchase the whole set. 
 
 The bookseller said he had not a set in the world. " Com- 
 ment /" said I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon the 
 counter betwixt us. He said they were sent him only to be 
 got bound, and were to be sent back to Versailles in the morn- 
 ing, to the Count dc B . 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 93 
 
 spere 
 
 -" And does the Count de B ," said I, " read Shak- 
 
 ? " " C" est un esprit fort" replied the bookseller ; " he 
 
 loves English books, and what is more to his honour, monsieur, 
 he loves the English too." " You speak this so civilly," said T, 
 " that it is enough to oblige an Englishman to lay out a louis 
 d' or or two at your shop." The bookseller made a bow, and 
 was going to say something, when a young decent girl about 
 twenty, who by her air and address seemed to be fille de 
 chambre to some devout woman of fashion, came into the shop, 
 and asked for " Les Egarements du Cceur et de V Esprit :" the 
 bookseller gave her the book directly ; she pulled out a little 
 green satin purse run round with a riband of the same colour, 
 and putting her finger and thumb into it, she took out the 
 money and paid for it. As I had nothing more to stay me in 
 the shop, we both walked out at the door together. 
 
94 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 — " And what have you to do, my dear," said I, " with 
 1 The Wanderings of the Heart,' who scarce know yet you 
 have one ? nor, till love has first told you it, or some faithless 
 shepherd has made it ache, canst thou ever be sure it is so." 
 " Dieu m' en garde I" said the girl. " With reason," said I ; 
 " for if it is a good one, 't is pity it should be stolen ; 't is a 
 little treasure to thee, and gives a better air to your face, than 
 if it was dressed out with pearls." 
 
 The young girl listened with submissive attention, holding 
 her satin purse by its riband in her hand all the time. " ' T is 
 a very small one," said I, taking hold of the bottom of it (she 
 held it towards me), " and there is very little in it, my dear," 
 said I ; " but be but as good as thou art handsome, and heaven 
 will fill it." I had a parcel of crowns in my hand to pay for 
 Shakespere ; and, as she had let go the purse entirely, I put 
 a single one in ; and, tying up the riband in a bow-knot, re- 
 turned it to her. 
 
 The young girl made me a more humble courtesy than a 
 low one : 't was one of those quiet, thankful sinkings, where 
 the spirit bows itself down — the body does no more than tell 
 it. I never gave a girl a crown in my life which gave me half 
 the pleasure. 
 
 " My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to 
 you," said I, " if I had not given this along with it ; but now, 
 when you see the crown, you '11 remember it : so do n't, my 
 dear, lay it out in ribands." 
 
 " Upon my word, sir," said the girl, earnestly, " I am inca- 
 pable ;" in saying which, as is usual in little bargains of 
 honour, she gave me her hand : " En verite, monsieur, je met- 
 trai cet argent a part" said she. 
 
 When a virtuous convention is made betwixt a man and a 
 woman, it sanctifies their most private walks : so, notwith- 
 standing it was dusky, yet, as both our roads lay the same 
 way, we made no scruple of walking along the Quai de Conti 
 together. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 95 
 
 She made me a second courtesy in setting off; and, before 
 we had got twenty yards from the door, as if she had not done 
 enough before, she made a sort of a little stop to tell me again 
 — she thanked me. 
 
 " It was a small tribute," I told her, " which I could not 
 avoid paying to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the per- 
 son I had been rendering it to for the world ; but I see inno- 
 cence, my dear, in your face, and foul befall the man who ever 
 lays a snare in its way." 
 
 The girl seemed affected, some way or other, with what I 
 said : she gave a low sigh : I found I was not empowered to 
 enquire at all after it, so said nothing more till I got to the 
 Rue de Nevers, where we were to part. 
 
 — " But is this the way, my dear," said I, "to the Hotel 
 de Modene ? " She told me it was, or that I might go by the 
 Rue de Guenegaud, which was the next turn. " Then I'll go, 
 my dear, by the Rue de Guenegaud," said I, "for two reasons ; 
 first, I shall please myself, and next I shall give you the pro- 
 tection of my company as far on your way as I can. The girl 
 was sensible I was civil, and said she wished the Hotel de 
 Modene was in the Rue de St. Pierre. " You live there ? " 
 
 said I. She told me she was fille de chambre to Madame R . 
 
 " Good God !" said I, " 'tis the very lady for whom I have 
 brought a letter from Amiens." The girl told me that Madame 
 
 R , she believed, expected a stranger with a letter, and 
 
 was impatient to see him ; so I desired the girl to present my 
 
 compliments to Madame R •, and say, I would certainly 
 
 wait upon her in the morning. 
 
 We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst 
 this passed. We then stopped a moment whilst she disposed 
 of her " Egarements du Cceur, tyc," more commodiously than 
 carrying them in her hand — they were too volumes ; so I held 
 the second for her whilst she put the first into her pocket ; and 
 then she held her pocket, and I put in the other after it. 
 
96 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 ' T is sweet to feel by what fine-spun threads our affections 
 are drawn together. 
 
 We set off afresh, and as she took her third step, the girl 
 put her hand within my arm — I was just bidding her, but she 
 did it of herself with that undeliberating simplicity, which 
 shewed it was out of her head that she had never seen me be- 
 fore. For my own part, I felt the conviction of consanguinity 
 so strongly, that I could not help turning half round to look in 
 her face, and see if I could trace out anything in it of a family 
 likeness. " Tut ! " said I, " are we not all relations ? " 
 
 When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Guene- 
 gaud, I stopped to bid her adieu for good and all ; the girl 
 would thank me again for my company and kindness. She 
 bid me adieu twice. I repeated it as often ; and so cordial 
 was the parting between us, that, had it happened any where 
 else, I am not sure but I should have signed it with a kiss of 
 charity, as warm and holy as an apostle. 
 
 But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men, I did 
 what amounted to the same thing — I bid God bless her. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 97 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been 
 enquired after by the Lieutenant de Police. " The deuce 
 take it ! " said I, "I know the reason." It is time the reader 
 should know it, for in the order of things in which it happened, 
 it was omitted ; not that it was out of my head, but that had I 
 told it then it might have been forgotten now ; and now is the 
 time I want it. 
 
 I had left London with so much precipitation, that it 
 never entered my mind that we were at war with France ; and 
 had reached Dover, and looked through my glass at the hills 
 beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with 
 this in its train, that there was no getting there without a pass- 
 port. Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal aversion 
 for returning back no wiser than I set out ; and as this was 
 one of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I 
 could less bear the thoughts of it ; so hearing the Count de 
 
 had hired the packet, I begged he would take me in his 
 
 suite. The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made 
 little or no difficulty ; only said his inclination to serve me 
 could reach no further than Calais, as he was to return by way 
 of Brussels to Paris ; however, when I had once passed there, 
 I might get to Paris without interruption : but that in Paris I 
 must make friends and shift for myself. " Let me get to Paris, 
 Monsieur le Count," said I, " and I shall do very well." So 
 I embarked, and never thought more of the matter. 
 
98 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been 
 enquiring after me, the thing instantly occurred ; and by the 
 time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel came 
 into my room to tell me the same thing, with this addition to 
 it, that my passport had been particularly asked after : the 
 master of the hotel concluded with saying, " He hoped I had 
 
 one. 
 
 Not I, faith!" said I. 
 
 The master of the hotel retired three steps from me as 
 an infected person, as I declared this, and poor La Fleur ad- 
 vanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of move- 
 ment which a good soul makes to succour a distressed one ; 
 the fellow won my heart by it ; and from that single trait, I 
 knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as 
 firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years. 
 
 " Monseigneur ! " cried the master of the hotel ; but re- 
 collecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly 
 changed the tone of it , " If monsieur," said he, " has not a 
 passport (apparemment), in all likelihood he has friends in Paris 
 who can procure him one." " Not that I know of," quoth I, 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AXD ITALY. 99 
 
 with an air of indifference. " Then certes" replied he, " you'll 
 be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet au moins." "Pooh!" 
 said I, " the King of France is a good-natured soul ; he '11 
 hurt nobody." " Cela n empeche pas" said he; " you will 
 certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning." " But 
 I 've taken your lodgings for a month," answered I, " and I '11 
 not quit them a day before the time for all the Kings of 
 France in the world." La Fleur whispered in my ear, " That 
 nobody could oppose the King of France." 
 
 " Pardi /" said my host, " ces Messieurs Anglois sont des 
 gens tres-extraordinaires ; and having both said and sworn it, 
 he went out." 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 THE HOTEL AT PARIS. 
 
 I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a 
 serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which 
 was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly ; and to shew 
 him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropped the subject 
 entirely, and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talked to 
 him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the 
 Opera Comique. La Fleur had been there himself, and had 
 followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller's shop, 
 but seeing me come out with the young file de chambre, and 
 that we walked down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur 
 deemed it unnecessary to follow me a step further ; so making 
 his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut, and got to 
 the hotel in time to be informed of the affair of the police 
 against my arrival. 
 
100 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone 
 down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously 
 about my situation. 
 
 — And here, 1 know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the re- 
 membrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the 
 moment I was going to set out : — I must tell it here. 
 
 Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be over- 
 burdened with money as thought, had drawn me aside to 
 
 interrogate me how much I had taken care for. Upon telling 
 him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it 
 would not do ; so pulled out his purse in order to empty it 
 into mine. " I 've enough in conscience, Eugenius," said I. 
 " Indeed, Yorick, you have not," replied Eugenius ; " I know 
 France and Italy better than you." " But you do n't con- 
 sider, Eugenius," said I, refusing his offer, " that before I 
 have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do 
 something or other for which I shall get clapped up into the 
 Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely 
 at the King of France's expense." " I beg pardon," said 
 Eugenius drily ; " really I had forgot that resource." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 101 
 
 Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door. 
 
 Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity ; 
 or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone 
 down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down 
 my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it 
 to Eugenius. 
 
 — And as for the Bastile ! the terror is in the word. 
 " Make the most of it you can," said I, to myself, " the Bas- 
 tile is but another word for a tower, and a tower is but another 
 word for a house you can't get out of. Mercy on the gouty ! 
 for they are in it twice a year. But with nine livres a day, 
 and pen and ink, and paper and patience, albeit a man can't 
 get out, he may do very well within — at least for a month or 
 six weeks ; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his 
 innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man 
 than he went in." 
 
 I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court- 
 yard as I settled this account ; and remember I walked down 
 stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. 
 " Beshrew the sombre pencil," said I, vauntingly, "for I envy 
 not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and 
 deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects 
 she has magnified herself, and blackened ; reduce them to 
 their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. 'Tis true," 
 said I, correcting the proposition, " the Bastile is not an evil 
 to be despised ; but strip it of its towers — fill up the fosse — 
 unbarricade the doors — call it simply a confinement, and sup- 
 pose 't is some tyrant of a distemper, and not of a man, which 
 holds you in it — the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half 
 without complaint. 
 
 I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a 
 voice which I took to be that of a child, which complained it 
 could not get out. I looked up and down the passage, and 
 seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without 
 farther attention. 
 
102 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNE 1 
 
 In my return back through the passage, I heard the same 
 words repeated twice over, and looking up, I saw it was a 
 starling, hung in a little cage. " I can't get out, I can't get 
 out," said the starling. 
 
 I stood looking at the bird ; and to every person who 
 came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards 
 which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its 
 captivity. " I can't get out," said the starling. " God help 
 thee ! " said I, " but I '11 help thee out, cost what it will ;" so 
 I turned about the cage to get to the door ; it was twisted 
 and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it 
 open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands 
 to it. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 103 
 
 The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his 
 deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis 
 pressed his breast against it as if impatient. " I fear, poor 
 creature," said I, "I cannot set thee at liberty." " No," 
 said the starling; " I can't get out, I can't get out," said the 
 starling. 
 
 I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened ; 
 nor do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissi- 
 pated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so 
 suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so 
 true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment 
 they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile ; 
 and I heavily walked up stairs, unsaying every word I had 
 said in going down them. 
 
 " Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery ! " said I, 
 " still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all 
 ages have been made to drink thee, thou art no less bitter on 
 that account. 'T is thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess," 
 addressing myself to Liberty, " whom all in public or in pri- 
 vate worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till 
 Nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy 
 snowy mantle, or chemic power turn thy sceptre into iron ; 
 with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is 
 happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. 
 Gracious Heaven ! " cried I, kneeling down upon the last step 
 but one in my ascent, " grant me but health, thou great 
 Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my com- 
 panion, and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto 
 thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for 
 them." 
 
101 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE CAPTIVE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 The bird in his cage pursued me into my room. I sat down 
 close to my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I 
 began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was 
 in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my ima- 
 gination. 
 
 I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow- 
 creatures, born to no inheritance but slavery ; but finding, 
 however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it 
 near me, and that the multitudes of sad groups in it did but 
 distract me, 
 
 — I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in 
 his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated 
 door to take his picture. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 105 
 
 I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation 
 and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of heart it is 
 which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw 
 him pale and feverish : in thirty years, the western breeze had 
 not once fanned his blood ; he had seen no sun, no moon, in 
 all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed 
 through his lattice ! — his children 
 
 But here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go 
 on with another part of the portrait. 
 
 He was sitting upon the ground, upon a little straw in the 
 furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair 
 and bed : a little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, 
 notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had 
 passed there : he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and 
 with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add 
 to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted 
 up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook 
 his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his 
 chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little 
 stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh. — I saw the iron 
 enter into his soul ! — I burst into tears. — I could not sustain 
 the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. — I 
 started up from my chair, and calling La Fleur, I bid him be- 
 speak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel 
 by nine in the morning. 
 
 " I '11 go directly," said I to myself, " to Monsieur le 
 Due de Choiseul." 
 
 La Fleur would have put me to bed ; but, not willing he 
 should see anything upon my cheek, which would cost the 
 honest fellow a heart-ache, I told him I would go to bed my- 
 self, and bid him do the same. 
 
106 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE STARLING 
 
 ROAD TO VERSAILLES. 
 
 I got into my remise the hour I proposed ; La Fleur got up 
 behind, and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to 
 Versailles. 
 
 As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which 
 I look for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than 
 with a short history of this self-same bird, which became the 
 subject of the last chapter. 
 
 Whilst the Honourable Mr. was waiting for a wind at 
 
 Dover, it had been caught upon the cliffs, before it could well 
 fly, by an English lad who was his groom ; who, not caring to 
 destroy it, had taken it in his breast into the packet ; and, by 
 course of feeding it, and taking it once under his protection, in 
 a day or two grew fond of it, and got it safe along with him to 
 Paris. 
 
 At Paris, the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the 
 starling ; and, as he had little to do better, the five months his 
 master staid there, he taught it in his mother's tongue the four 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 107 
 
 simple words (and no more) to which I owned myself so 
 much its debtor. 
 
 Upon his master's going on for Italy, the lad had given it 
 to the master of the hotel. But his little song for liberty being 
 in an unknown language at Paris, the bird had little or no 
 store set by him : so La Fleur bought both him and his cage 
 for me for a bottle of Burgundy. 
 
 In my return from Italy, I brought him with me to the 
 country in whose language he had learned his notes ; and 
 telling the story of him to Lord A., Lord A. begged the bird 
 of me ; in a week, Lord A. gave him to Lord B ; Lord B. 
 made a present of him to Lord C. ; and Lord C.'s gentleman 
 sold him to Lord D.'s for a shilling ; Lord D. gave him to 
 Lord E. ; and so on — half round the alphabet. From that 
 rank, he passed into the lower house, and passed the hands of 
 as many commoners. But as all these wanted to get in, and 
 my bird wanted to get out, he had almost as little store set by 
 him in London as at Paris. 
 
 It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard 
 of him ; and if any by mere chance have ever seen him, I beg 
 leave to inform them, that that bird was my bird, or some vile 
 copy set up to represent him. 
 
 I have nothing farther to add upon him, but that from 
 that time to this I have borne this poor starling as the crest to 
 my arms : — and let the herald's officers twist his neck about if 
 they dare. 
 
108 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE ADDRESS. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 I should not like to have my enemy take a view of my mind 
 when I am going to ask protection of any man ; for which 
 reason, I generally endeavour to protect myself; but this 
 
 going to Monsieur le Due de C was an act of compulsion ; 
 
 had it been an act of choice, I should have done it, I suppose, 
 like other people. 
 
 How many mean plans of dirty address, as I went along, 
 did my servile heart form ! I deserved the Bastile for every 
 one of them. 
 
 Then nothing would serve me, when I got within sight of 
 Versailles, but putting words and sentences together, and con- 
 ceiving attitudes and tones to wreath myself into Monsieur le 
 
 Due de C 's good graces. " This will do," said I. — 
 
 " Just as well," retorted I again, "as a coat carried up to him 
 by an adventurous tailor, without taking his measure. Fool?" 
 continued I, " see Monsieur le Due's face first; observe what 
 character is written in it ; take notice in what posture he 
 stands to hear you ; mark the turns and expressions of his 
 body and limbs ; and for the tone, the first sound which comes 
 from his lips will give it you ; and from all these together 
 you '11 compound an address at once upon the spot, which can- 
 not disgust the Duke ; the ingredients are his own, and most 
 likely to go down." 
 
 " Well," said I, " I wish it well over. " Coward, again ! 
 as if man to man was not equal throughout the whole surface 
 of the globe ; and if in the field, why not face to face in the 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 109 
 
 cabinet, too I And trust nie, Yorick, whenever it is not so, 
 man is false to himself, and betrays his own succours ten times 
 
 where nature does it once. Go to the Due de C with the 
 
 Bastile in thy looks ; my life for it, thou wilt be sent back to 
 Paris in half-an-hour with an escort." 
 
 " I believe so," said I : " then I '11 go to the Duke, by 
 Heaven ! with all the gaiety and debonairness in the world." 
 
 — " And there you are wrong again," replied I ; "a heart 
 at ease, Yorick, flies into no extremes ; 't is ever on its centre. 
 — "Well ! well ! " cried I, as the coachman turned in at the 
 gates, " I find I shall do very well ;" and by the time he had 
 wheeled round the court, and brought me up to the door, I 
 found myself so much the better for my own lecture, that I 
 neither ascended the steps like a victim to justice, who was to 
 part with life upon the topmast ; nor did I mount them with 
 a skip and a couple of strides, as I do when I fly up, Eliza ! 
 to thee to meet it. 
 
 As I entered the door of the saloon, I was met by a person, 
 who possibly might be the maitre d' hotel, but had more the 
 air of one of the under-secretaries, who told me the Due de 
 
 C was busy. " I am utterly ignorant," said I, " of the 
 
 forms of obtaining an audience, being an absolute stranger ; 
 and, what is worse, in the present conjuncture of affairs, being 
 an Englishman too." He replied, " that did not increase the 
 difficulty." I made him a slight bow, and told him I had 
 something of importance to say to Monsieur le Due. The 
 secretary looked towards the stairs, as if he was about to leave 
 me to carry up this account to some one. " But I must not 
 mislead you," said I, " for what I have to say is of no manner 
 of importance to Monsieur le Due de C , but of great im- 
 portance to myself." " C" est une autre affaire," replied he. 
 " Not at all," said I, "to a man of gallantry. But pray, good 
 sir," continued I, " when can a stranger hope to have access ? " 
 " In not less than two hours," said he, looking at his watch. 
 The number of equipages in the court-yard seemed to justify 
 
110 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 the calculation, that I could have no nearer a prospect ; and, 
 as walking backwards and forwards in the saloon, without a 
 soul to commune with, was, for the time, as bad as being in 
 the Bastile itself, I instantly went back to my remise, and bid 
 the coachman drive me to the Cordon Bleu, which was the 
 nearest hotel. 
 
 I think there is a fatality in it ; I seldom go to the place I 
 set out for. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Before I had got half way down the street, I changed my 
 mind : "Asl am at Versailles," thought I, " I might as well 
 take a view of the town ; so I pulled the cord, and ordered 
 the coachman to drive round some of the principal streets. 
 " I suppose the town is not very large," said I. The coach- 
 man begged pardon for setting me right, and told me it was 
 very superb, and that numbers of the first dukes and mar- 
 
 quisses and counts had hotels. The Count de B , of whom 
 
 the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had spoke so handsomely 
 the night before, came instantly into my mind. "And why 
 
 should I not go," thought I, "to the Count de B , who 
 
 has so high an idea of English books and English men, and 
 tell him my story?" so I changed my mind a second time. 
 In truth it was the third ; for I had intended that day for 
 
 Madame de R , in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly 
 
 sent her word by her fille de chambre that I would assuredly 
 wait upon her ; but I am governed by circumstances, I cannot 
 govern them : so seeing a man standing with a basket on the 
 
112 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 other side of the street, as if he had something to sell, I bid 
 La Fleur go up to him, and enquire for the Count's hotel. 
 
 La Fleur returned a little pale ; and told me it was a 
 Chevalier de St. Louis selling pates. "It is impossible, La 
 Fleur," said I. La Fleur could no more account for the 
 phenomenon than myself ; but persisted in his story : he had 
 seen the croix set in gold, with its red riband, he said, tied to 
 his button-hole, and had looked into the basket and seen the 
 pates which the Chevalier was selling ; so could not be mis- 
 taken in that. 
 
 Such a reverse in man's life awakens a better principle 
 than curiosity : I could not help looking for some time at him, 
 as I sat in the remise : the more I looked at him, his croix, 
 and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my 
 brain. I got out of the remise, and went towards him. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 113 
 
 He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below 
 his knees, and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his 
 breast ; upon the top of this, but a little below the hem, hung 
 his croix. His basket of little pates was covered over with a 
 white damask napkin ; another of the same kind was spread at 
 the bottom ; and there was a look of proprete and neatness 
 throughout, that one might have bought his pates of him, as 
 much from appetite as sentiment. 
 
 He made an offer of them to neither ; but stood still with 
 them at the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it, 
 without solicitation. 
 
 He was about forty-eight, of a sedate look, something 
 approaching to gravity. I did not wonder. I went up rather 
 to the basket than him, and having lifted up the napkin, and 
 taking one of his pates into my hand, I begged he would 
 explain the appearance which affected me. 
 
 He told me in a few words, that the best part of his 
 life had passed in the service, in which, after spending a 
 small patrimony, he had obtained a company, and the croix 
 with it ; but that, at the conclusion of the last peace, his 
 regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those 
 of some other regiments, left without any provision, he found 
 himself in a wide world without friends, without a livre ; 
 " and indeed," said he, " without any thing but this" 
 (pointing, as he said it, to his croix). The poor Chevalier 
 won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning my 
 esteem too. 
 
 " The King," he said, " was the most generous of princes, 
 but his generosity could neither relieve nor reward every one, 
 and it was only his misfortune to be amongst the number. 
 He had a little wife," he said, " whom he loved, who did the 
 patisserie ;" and added, " he felt no dishonour in defending 
 her and himself from want in this way — unless Providence 
 had offered him a better. 
 
114 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, 
 in passing over what happened to this poor Chevalier of St. 
 Louis, about nine months after. 
 
 It seems he usually took his stand near the iron gates 
 which lead up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the 
 eye of numbers, numbers had made the same enquiry which I 
 had done. He had told them the same story, and always with 
 so much modesty and good sense, that it had reached at last 
 the King's ears ; who, hearing the Chevalier had been a 
 gallant officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a man 
 of honour and integrity, he broke up his little trade by a 
 pension of fifteen hundred livres a-year. 
 
 As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will 
 allow me to relate another, out of its order, to please myself; 
 the two stories reflect light upon each other, and 'tis a pity 
 they should be parted. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 115 
 
 THE SWORD. 
 
 RENNES. 
 
 When states and empires have their periods of declension, and 
 feel in their turns what distress and poverty is, I stop not to 
 
 tell the causes which gradually brought the house of d' E , 
 
 in Brittany, into decay. The Marquess d' E had fought 
 
 up against his condition with great firmness ; wishing to pre- 
 serve, and still shew to the world, some little fragments of 
 what his ancestors had been : their indiscretions had put it 
 out of his power. There was enough left for the little exigen- 
 cies of obscurity ; but he had two boys who looked up to him 
 for light : he thought they deserved it. He had tried his 
 sword, — it could not open the way — the mounting was too ex- 
 pensive, and simple economy was not a match for it: there 
 was no resource but commerce. 
 
116 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was 
 smiting the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affec- 
 tion wished to see re-blossom. But in Brittany, there being a 
 provision for this, he availed himself of it ; and taking an 
 occasion when the states were assembled at Rennes, the 
 Marquess, attended with his two boys, entered the court ; and 
 having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, 
 which, though seldom claimed, he said, was no less in force, 
 he took his sword from his side. " Here," said he, " take it ; 
 and be trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in con- 
 dition to reclaim it." 
 
 The president accepted the Marquess's sword : he staid a 
 few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his house, 
 and departed. 
 
 The Marquess and his whole family embarked the next day 
 for Martinico ; and in about nineteen or twenty years of suc- 
 cessful application to business, with some unlooked for be- 
 quests from distant branches of his house, returned home to 
 reclaim his nobility, and to support it. 
 
 It was an incident of good fortune, which will never hap- 
 pen to any traveller but a sentimental one, that I should be at 
 Rennes at the very time of this solemn requisition : I call it 
 solemn — it was so to me. 
 
 The Marquess entered the court with his whole family : he 
 supported his lady, his eldest son supported his sister, and his 
 youngest was at the other extreme of the line next his mother ; 
 he put his handkerchief to his face twice — 
 
 — There was a dead silence. When the Marquess had ap- 
 proached within six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Mar- 
 chioness to his youngest son, and advancing three steps before 
 his family, he reclaimed his sword. His sword was given 
 him ; and the moment he got it into his hand, he drew it 
 almost out of the scabbard, — 't was the shining face of a friend 
 he had once given up ; he looked attentively along it, begin- 
 ning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the same ; when, 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 li 
 
 observing a little rust which it had contracted near the point, 
 he brought it near his eye, and bending his head down over it, 
 I think I saw a tear fall upon the place : I could not be de- 
 ceived, by what followed. 
 
 " I shall find," said he, "some other way to get it off." 
 When the Marquess had said this, he returned his sword 
 into its scabbard, made a bow to the guardians of it, and with 
 his wife and daughter, and his two sons following him, walked 
 out. 
 
 Oh, how I envied him his feelings ! 
 
118 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE PASSPORT 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 I found no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le 
 
 Count de B- . The set of Shakspere was laid upon the 
 
 table, and he was tumbling them over. I walked up close to 
 the table, and giving first such a look at the books as to make 
 him conceive I knew what they were, I told him I had come 
 without any one to present me, knowing I should meet with a 
 friend in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me : — 
 " 'Tis my countryman, the great Shakspere," said I, pointing 
 to his works : " et ayez la bonte, mon cher ami" apostrophising 
 his spirit, added I, " de me faire cet honneur-la." 
 
 The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction, 
 and seeing I looked a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my 
 taking an arm-chair ; so I sat down ; and to save him conjec- 
 tures upon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of the 
 incident in the bookseller's shop, and how that had impelled 
 me rather to go to him with the story of a little embarrass- 
 ment I was under, than to any other man in France. " And 
 what is your embarrassment ? let me hear it," said the Count. 
 So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader. 
 
 — " And the master of my hotel," said I, as I concluded it, 
 " will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to 
 the Bastile; but I have no apprehensions," continued I; " for, 
 in falling into the hands of the most polished people in the 
 world, and being conscious I was a true man, and not come to 
 spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at their 
 mercy. It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur 
 le Count," said I, " to shew it against invalids." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 119 
 
 An animated blush came into the Count de B 's cheeks 
 
 as I spoke this. " Ne craignez rien. — Don't fear," said he. 
 " Indeed, I do n't," replied I again. " Besides," continued I, 
 a little sportingly, " I have come laughing all the way from 
 London to Paris, and I do not think Monsieur le Due de 
 Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me back crying 
 for my pains. 
 
 — " My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B ," 
 
 making him a low bow, "is to desire he will not." 
 
 The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not 
 said half as much; and once or twice said, " C est bien dit" 
 So I rested my cause there, and determined to say no more 
 about it. 
 
 The Count led the discourse : we talked of indifferent 
 things ; of books, and politics, and men, — and then of women. 
 " God bless them all ! " said I, after much discourse about 
 them ; " there is not a man upon earth who loves them so 
 much as I do : after all the foibles I have seen, and all the 
 satires I have read against them, still I love them ; being 
 firmly persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of affection 
 for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as 
 he ought." 
 
 "Eh bien! Monsieur VAnglois" said the Count, gaily; 
 " you are not come to spy the nakedness of the land ; I be- 
 lieve you ; ni encore, I dare say, that of our women ; but per- 
 mit me to conjecture, — if, par hasard, they fell into your way, 
 that the prospect would not affect you." 
 
 I have something within me which cannot bear the shock 
 of the least indecent insinuation : in the sportability of chit-chat 
 I have often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain 
 have hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex to- 
 gether, — the least of which I could not venture to a single one 
 to gain heaven. 
 
 " Excuse me, Monsieur le Count," said I ; "as for the 
 nakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over 
 
120 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 it with tears in them ; and for that of your women," blushing 
 at the idea he had excited in me, " I am so evangelical in this, 
 and have such a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak about 
 them, that I would cover it with a garment, if I knew how to 
 throw it on ; but I could wish," continued I, " to spy the na- 
 kedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of 
 customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them 
 to fashion my own by ; and therefore am I come. 
 
 " It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count," continued I, 
 " that I have not seen the Palais Royal, nor the Luxembourg, 
 nor the Facade of the Louvre, nor have attempted to swell 
 the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches. I 
 conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter 
 in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up 
 in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself. 
 
 " The thirst of this," continued T, " as impatient as that 
 which inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from 
 my own home into France; and from France will lead me 
 through Italy : 't is a quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of 
 Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which 
 make us love each other — and the world, better than we do." 
 
 The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the 
 occasion ; and added very politely, how much he stood obliged 
 to Shakspere for making me known to him. " But, a propos" 
 said he, " Shakspere is full of great things ; he forgot a small 
 punctilio of announcing your name : it puts you under a ne- 
 cessity of doing it yourself." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 121 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to 
 set about telling any one who I am, — for there is scarce any 
 body I cannot give a better account of than myself; and I 
 have often wished I could do it in a single word, and have an 
 end of it. It was the only time and occasion in my life I 
 could accomplish this to any purpose ; for Shakspere lying 
 upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up 
 Hamlet, and turning immediately to the grave-diggers' scene, 
 in the fifth act, I laid my finger upon Yorick, and advancing 
 the book to the Count, with my finger all the way over the 
 name. " Me void!" said I. 
 
 Now whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out 
 of the Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what 
 magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, 
 makes nothing in this account ; 't is certain the French con- 
 ceive better than they combine. I wonder at nothing in this 
 world, and the less at this ; inasmuch, as one of the first of our 
 own church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have 
 the highest veneration, fell into the very same mistake, in the 
 very same case. " He could not bear," he said, " to look into 
 the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's jester." " Good, 
 my lord! " said I ; " but there are two Yoricks. The Yorick 
 your lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight hun- 
 dred years ago : he flourished in Horwendillus's court : the 
 other Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my lord, in no 
 court." He shook his head : — " Good God ! " said I ; " you 
 
 Q 
 
122 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 might as well confound Alexander the Great with Alexander 
 the Coppersmith, my lord." " 'T was all one," he replied. — 
 
 " If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated 
 your lordship," said I, " I 'm sure your lordship would not 
 have said so." 
 
 The poor Count de B fell but into the same error. 
 
 " Et Monsieur, est-il Yorick?" cried the Count. " Je le 
 suis" said I. "Vous?" " Moi — moi, qui ai V honneur de 
 vous parler, Monsieur le Comte ." " Mon DieuV said he, em- 
 bracing me; " Vous etes Yorickf" 
 
 The Count instantly put the Shakspere into his pocket, 
 and left me alone in his room. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 123 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 I could not conceive why the Count de B had gone so 
 
 abruptly out of the room, any more than I could conceive 
 why he had put the Shakspere into his pocket. Mysteries 
 which must explain themselves are not worth the loss of time 
 which a conjecture about them takes up : 't was better to read 
 Shakspere ; so, taking up " Much Ado about Nothing," I trans- 
 ported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in 
 Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and 
 Beatrice, that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the 
 passport. 
 
 Sweet pliability of man's spirit, that can at once surrender 
 itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and sorrow of their 
 weary moments! Long — long since had ye numbered out 
 my days, had I not trod so great a part of them upon this 
 enchanted ground. When my way is too rough for my feet, 
 or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some smooth 
 velvet path, which fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of 
 delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back 
 strengthened and refreshed. When evils press sore upon me, 
 and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I take a 
 new course — I leave it ; and as I have a clearer idea of the 
 Elysian fields than I have of heaven, I force myself, like 
 iEneas, into them. I see him meet the pensive shade of his 
 forsaken Dido, and wish to recognise it; I see the injured 
 spirit wave her head, and turn off silent from the author of her 
 miseries and dishonours ; I lose the feelings for myself in hers, 
 
124 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 and in those affections which were wont to make me mourn 
 for her when I was at school. 
 
 Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow nor does man 
 disquiet himself in vain by it : he oftener does so in trusting 
 the issue of his commotions to reason only. I can safely say 
 for myself, I was never able to conquer any one single bad 
 sensation in my heart so decisively, as by beating up as fast as 
 I could for some kindly and gentle sensation to fight it upon 
 its own ground. 
 
 When I had got to the end of the third act, the Count de 
 
 B entered, with my passport in his hand. " Monsieur le 
 
 Due de C ," said the Count, " is as good a prophet, I dare 
 
 say, as he is a statesman. ' Un homme qui rit,' said the Duke, 
 ' ne sera jamais danger eux.' Had it been for any one but the 
 King's jester," added the Count, " I could not have got it 
 these two hours." " Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur le Count," said 
 I; I am not the King's jester." "But you are Yorick?" 
 "Yes." " Et vous plaisantez?" "I answered, "Indeed I 
 did jest ; but was not paid for it : 't was entirely at my own 
 expense. 
 
 " We have no jester at court, Monsieur le Count," said I ; 
 " the last we had was in the licentious reign of Charles II. ; 
 since which time, our manners have been so gradually refining, 
 that our court at present is so full of patriots, who wish for 
 nothing but the honours and wealth of their country ; and our 
 ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so devout — there 
 is nothing for a jester to make a jest of. 
 " Voila un persiflage ! '" cried the Count. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 125 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 As the passport was directed to all lieutenant-governors, 
 governors, and commandants of cities, generals of armies, jus- 
 ticiaries, and all officers of justice, to let Mr. Yorick, the 
 King's jester, and his baggage, travel quietly along, — I own the 
 triumph of obtaining the passport was not a little tarnished by 
 the figure I cut in it. But there is nothing unmixed in this 
 world ; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it 
 so far as to affirm, that enjoyment itself was attended with a 
 sigh ; and that the greatest they knew of terminated in a 
 general way, in little better than a convulsion. 
 
 I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his 
 " Commentary upon the Generations from Adam," very natu- 
 rally breaks off in the middle of a note, to give an account to 
 the world of a couple of sparrows upon the out edge of his 
 window, which had incommoded him all the time he wrote, 
 and at last had entirely taken him off from his genealogy. 
 
126 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 — "'Tis strange!" writes Bevoriskius ; "but the facts 
 are certain, for I have had the curiosity to mark them down 
 one by one with my pen; but the cock-sparrow, during the 
 little time that I could have finished the other half of this 
 note, has actually interrupted me, with the reiteration of his 
 caresses, three and twenty times and a half. 
 
 "How merciful," adds Bevoriskius, "is Heaven to His 
 creatures ! " 
 
 111 fated Yorick ! that the gravest of thy brethren should 
 be able to write that to the world, which stains thy face with 
 crimson to copy, even in thy study. 
 
 But this is nothing to my travels ; so I twice — twice beg 
 pardon for it. 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 VERSAILLES 
 
 "And how do you find the French?" said the Count de 
 B , after he had given me the passport. 
 
 The reader may suppose, that after so obliging a proof of 
 courtesy, I could not be at a loss to say something handsome 
 to the enquiry. 
 
 — " Mais passe, pour cela. — Speak frankly," said he : " do 
 you find all the urbanity in the French which the world give 
 us the honour of?" "I had found everything," I said, 
 " which confirmed it." " Vraiment" said the Count, " les 
 Francois sont polls ." " To an excess," replied I. 
 
 The Count took notice of the word excess ; and would 
 have it I meant more than I said. I defended myself a long- 
 time as well as I could against it : he insisted I had a reserve, 
 and that I would speak my opinion frankly. 
 
 " I believe, Monsieur le Count," said I, " that man has a 
 certain compass as well as an instrument ; and that the social 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 127 
 
 and other calls have occasion by turns for every key in him ; 
 so that if you begin a note too high or too low, there must be 
 a want either in the upper or under part, to fill up the system 
 
 of harmony." The Count de B did not understand music, 
 
 so desired me to explain it in some other way. " A polished 
 nation, my dear Count," said I, "makes every one its debtor; 
 and besides, urbanity itself, like the fair sex, has so many 
 charms, it goes against the heart to say it can do ill ; and yet, 
 I believe, there is but a certain line of perfection, that man, take 
 him all together, is empowered to arrive at : if he gets beyond, 
 he rather exchanges qualities than gets them. I must not pre- 
 sume to say how far this has affected the French, in the sub- 
 ject we are speaking of; but, should it ever be the case of the 
 English, in the progress of their refinements, to arrive at the 
 same polish which distinguishes the French, if we did not lose 
 the politesse du cceur, which inclines men more to humane 
 actions than courteous ones, we should at least lose that distinct 
 variety and originality of character, which distinguishes them, 
 not only from each other, but from all the world besides. 
 
 I had a few of King William's shillings, as smooth as glass, 
 in my pocket ; and foreseeing they would be of use in the 
 illustration of my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand 
 when I had proceeded so far : — 
 
 II See, Monsieur le Count," said I, rising up, and laying 
 them before him upon the table ; by jingling and rubbing one 
 against another for seventy years together in one body's 
 pocket or another's, they are become so much alike, you can 
 scarce distinguish one shilling from another. 
 
 " The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and 
 passing but few people's hands, preserve the first sharpnesses 
 which the fine hand of Nature has given them ; they are not 
 so pleasant to feel ; but in return, the legend is so visible, that 
 at the first look you see whose image and superscription they 
 bear. But the French, Monsieur le Count," added I, wishing 
 to soften what I had said, " have so many excellences, they 
 
128 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 can the better spare this : they are a loyal, a gallant, a gene- 
 rous, an ingenious, and good-tempered people as is under 
 heaven ; if they have a fault, they are too serious." 
 
 " Mon Dieu /" cried the Count, rising out of his chair. 
 
 "Mais vous plaisantez," said he, correcting his exclama- 
 tion. I had laid my hand upon my breast, and with earnest 
 gravity assured him it was my most settled opinion. 
 
 The Count said he was mortified he could not stay to hear 
 my reasons, being engaged to go that moment to dine with the 
 Due de C . 
 
 " But if it is not too far to come to Versailles to eat your 
 soup with me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the 
 pleasure of knowing you retract your opinion ; or, in what 
 manner you support it. But if you do support it, Monsieur 
 Anglois" said he, " you must do it with all your powers, 
 because you have the whole world against you." I promised 
 the Count I would do myself the honour of dining with him 
 before I set out for Italy ; so took my leave. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 129 
 
 THE TEMPTATION, 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young 
 woman with a bandbox had been that moment enquiring for 
 me. " I do not know," said the porter, " whether she is gone 
 away or not." I took the key of my chamber of him, and 
 went up stairs ; and when I had got within ten steps of the 
 top of the landing before my door, I met her coming easily 
 down. 
 
 It was the fair file de chambre I had walked along the 
 
 Quai de Conti with. Madanie de II had sent her upon 
 
 some commission to a marchande de modes within a step or 
 two of the Hotel de Modene ; and, as I had failed waiting upon 
 her, had bid her enquire if I had left Paris ; and, if so, whether 
 I had not left a letter addressed to her. 
 
 As the fair fille de chambre was so near my door, she 
 returned back, and went into the room with me for a moment 
 or two whilst I wrote a card. 
 
 It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of 
 May, the crimson window curtains (which were of the same 
 colour as those of the bed) were drawn close : the sun was 
 
 R 
 
130 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 setting, and reflected through them so warm a tint into the fair 
 fille de chambres face, I thought she blushed ; the idea of it 
 made me blush myself; we were quite alone ; and that super- 
 induced a second blush before the first could get off. 
 
 There is a sort of a pleasing half-guilty blush, where the 
 blood is more in fault than the man : 'tis sent impetuous from 
 the heart, and virtue flies after it, not to call it back, but to 
 make the sensation of it more delicious to the nerves : 't is 
 associated. 
 
 But I '11 not describe it : I felt something at first within 
 me which was not in strict unison with the lesson of virtue I 
 had given her the night before. I sought five minutes for a 
 card ; I knew I had not one. I took up a pen. I laid it 
 down again, my hand trembled : the devil was in me. 
 
 I know as well as any one he is an adversary, whom, if we 
 resist, he will fly from us ; but I seldom resist him at all : 
 from a terror that, though I may conquer, I may still get a 
 hurt in the combat ; so I give up the triumph for security ; 
 and, instead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly 
 myself. 
 
 The fair fille de chambre came close up to the bureau 
 where I was looking for a card, took up first the pen I cast 
 down, then offered to hold me the ink ; she offered it so 
 sweetly, I was going to accept it, but I durst not ; "I have 
 nothing, my dear," said I, " to write upon." " "Write it," 
 said she, simply, "upon anything." 
 
 I was just going to cry out, " Then I will write it, fair girl ! 
 upon thy lips ! " 
 
 " If I do," said I, " I shall perish ; " so I took her by the 
 hand, and led her to the door, and begged she would not 
 forget the lesson I had given her. She said, "indeed she 
 would not ; " and, as she uttered it with some earnestness, she 
 turned about, and gave me both her hands, closed together, 
 into mine ; it was impossible not to compress them in that 
 situation ; I wished to let them go : and all the time I held 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 131 
 
 ra^ 
 
 them, I kept arguing within myself against it, and still I held 
 them on. In two minutes I found I had all the battle to fight 
 over again ; and I felt my legs and every limb about me 
 tremble at the idea. 
 
 The foot of the bed was within a yard and a-half of the 
 place where we were standing. I had still hold of her hands 
 (and how it happened I can give no account) ; but I neither 
 asked her, nor drew her, nor did I think of the bed ; but so 
 it did happen, we both sat down. 
 
 "I'll just shew you," said the fair fille de chambre, "the 
 little purse I have been making to-day to hold your crown." 
 So she put her hand into her right pocket, which was next me, 
 and felt for it some time, then into the left. " She had lost 
 it." I never bore expectation more quietly : it was in her 
 right pocket at last ; she pulled it out ; it was of green taffeta, 
 lined with a little bit of white quilted satin, and just big 
 enough to hold the crown ; she put it into my hand ; it was 
 pretty ; and I held it ten minutes with the back of my hand 
 
132 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 resting upon her lap, looking sometimes at the purse, some- 
 times on one side of it. 
 
 A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock ; 
 the fair fille de chambre, without saying a word, took out her 
 little housewife, threaded a small needle, and sewed it up. I 
 foresaw it would hazard the glory of the day ; and, as she 
 passed her hand in silence across and across my neck in the 
 manoeuvre, I felt the laurels shake which fancy had wreathed 
 about my head. 
 
 A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her 
 shoe was just falling off. " See," said the fille de chambre, 
 " holding up her foot." I could not for my soul but fasten 
 the buckle in return, and putting in the strap, and lifting up 
 the other foot with it, when I had done, to see both were 
 right ; in doing it too suddenly, it unavoidably threw the fair 
 fille de chambre off her centre — and then — 
 
 THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Yes; and then Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke- 
 warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions^ tell me, 
 what trespass is it that man should have them ? or how his 
 spirit stands answerable to the Father of spirits but for his 
 conduct under them. 
 
 If Nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some 
 threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece, must 
 the whole web be rent in drawing them out ? " Whip me 
 such stoics, great Governor of Nature!" said I to myself; 
 " wherever thy providence shall place me for the trials of my 
 virtue, whatever is my danger, whatever is my situation, let 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 133 
 
 me feel the movements which arise out of it, and which belong 
 to me as a man : and if I govern them as a good one, I will 
 trust the issues to thy justice ; for thou hast made us, and not 
 we ourselves." 
 
 As I finished my address, I raised the fair fille de chambre 
 up by the hand, and led her out of the room ; she stood by me 
 till I locked the door and put the key in my pocket ; and then, 
 the victory being quite decisive, and not till then, I pressed 
 my lips to her cheek, and taking her by the hand again, led 
 her safe to the gate of the hotel. 
 
134 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE MYSTERY. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Iv a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to 
 go back instantly to my chamber ; it was touching a cold key 
 with a flat third to it, upon the close of a piece of music which 
 had called forth my affections ; therefore, when 1 let go the 
 hand of the fille de chambre, I remained at the gate of the 
 hotel for some time, looking at every one who passed by, and 
 forming conjectures upon them, till my attention got fixed 
 upon a single object which confounded all kind of reasoning 
 upon him. 
 
 It was a tall figure, of a philosophic, serious, adust look, 
 which passed and repassed sedately along the street, making a 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 135 
 
 turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel ; 
 the man was about fifty- two ; had a small cane under his arm ; 
 was dressed in a dark drab-coloured coat, waistcoat, and 
 breeches, which seemed to have seen some years' service : they 
 were still clean, and there was a little air of frugal proprete 
 throughout him. By his pulling off his hat, and his attitude 
 of accosting a good many in his way, I saw he was asking cha- 
 rity ; so I got a sous or two out of my pocket ready to give 
 him, as he took me in his turn. He passed by me without 
 asking anything ; and yet did not go five steps further before 
 he asked charity of a little woman. I was much more likely 
 to have given of the two. He had scarce done with the 
 woman, when he pulled off his hat to another who was coming 
 the same way. An ancient gentleman came slowly, and, after 
 him, a young smart one : he let them both pass, and asked 
 nothing. I stood observing him half an hour ; in which time 
 he had made a dozen turns, backwards and forwards, and 
 found that he invariably pursued the same plan. 
 
 There were two things very singular in this, which set my 
 brain to work, and to no purpose : the first was, why the man 
 should only tell his story to the sex ; and, secondly, what kind 
 of story it was, and what species of eloquence it could be, 
 which softened the hearts of the women, which he knew 't was 
 to no purpose to practise upon the men. 
 
 There were two other circumstances, which entangled this 
 mystery : the one was, he told every woman what he had to 
 say in her ear, and in a way which had much more the air of 
 a secret than a petition ; the other was, it was always success- 
 ful. He never stopped a woman, but she pulled out her purse, 
 and immediately gave him something. 
 
 I could form no system to explain the phenomenon. 
 
 I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening ; 
 so I walked up stairs to my chamber. 
 
13G 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 
 THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 PARTS. 
 
 I was immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, 
 who came into my room to tell me I must provide lodgings 
 elsewhere. " How so, friend ?" said I. He answered, I had 
 had a young woman locked up with me two hours that even- 
 ing in my bedchamber, and 'twas against the rules of his 
 house. " Very well," said I, " we '11 all part friends then, for 
 the girl is no worse, and I am no worse, and you will be just 
 as I found you."- " It was enough," he said, " to overthrow 
 the credit of his hotel. Vous voyez, Monsieur," said he, point- 
 ing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon. I own it 
 had something of the appearance of an evidence ; but my pride 
 not suffering me to enter into any detail of the case, I 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 137 
 
 exhorted him to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let 
 mine do that night, and that I would discharge what I owed 
 him at breakfast. 
 
 " I should not have minded, Monsieur" said he "if you 
 
 had had twenty girls " " 'T is a score more," replied I, 
 
 interrupting him, " than I ever reckoned upon." " Provided," 
 added he, " it had been but in a morning." " And does the 
 difference in the time of the day at Paris, make a difference in 
 the sin?" "It made a difference," he said, " in the scandal." I 
 like a good distinction in my heart ; and cannot say I was into- 
 lerably out of temper with the man. " I own it is necessary," 
 resumed the master of the hotel, " that a stranger at Paris 
 should have the opportunities presented to him of buying lace 
 and silk stockings and ruffles, et tout cela ; and 't is nothing if 
 a woman comes with a bandbox." "Oh, my conscience!" 
 said I ; " she had one ; but I never looked into it." " Then 
 Monsieur" said he, " has bought nothing." " Not one earthly 
 thing," replied I. " Because," said he, " I could recommend 
 one to you who would use you en conscience" " But I must 
 see her this night," said I. He made me a low bow, and 
 walked down. 
 
 " Now shall I triumph over this maitre d' hotel " cried I. 
 And what then ? " Then I shall let him see I know he is a 
 dirty fellow." And what then ? What then ? I was too near 
 myself to say it was for the sake of others. I had no good 
 answer left ; there was more of spleen than of principle in my 
 project, and I was sick of it before the execution. 
 
 In a few minutes the grisette came in with her box of lace. 
 " I '11 buy nothing, however," said I, within myself. 
 
 The grisette would shew me everything ; I was hard to 
 please : she would not seem to see it ; she opened her little 
 magazine, and laid all her laces one after another before me — 
 unfolded and folded them up again one by one with the most 
 patient sweetness. I might buy, or not ; she would let me 
 have everything at my own price : the poor creature seemed 
 
138 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 anxious to get a penny, and laid herself out to win me ; and 
 not so much in a manner which seemed artful, as in one I felt 
 simple and caressing. 
 
 If there is not a fund of honest cullibility in man, so much 
 the worse ; my heart relented, and I gave up my second reso- 
 lution as quietly as the first. " Why should I chastise one for 
 the trespass of another ? If thou art tributary to this tyrant 
 of an host," thought I, looking up in her face, " so much 
 harder is thy bread." 
 
 If I had not had more than four louis d' ors in my purse, 
 there was no such thing as rising up and showing her the door, 
 till I had first laid three of them out in a pair of ruffles. 
 
 — The master of the hotel will share the profit with her ; 
 no matter, then I have only paid as many a poor soul has paid 
 before me, for an act he could not do, or think of. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 1 S9 
 
 THE RIDDLE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When La Fleur came up to wait upon me at supper, he told 
 me how sorry the master of the hotel was for his affront to me 
 in bidding me change my lodgings. 
 
 A man who values a good night's rest will not lie down 
 with enmity in his heart, if he can help it. So I bid La Fleur 
 tell the master of the hotel that I was sorry on my side for the 
 occasion I had given him ; " and you may tell him, if you will, 
 La Fleur," added I, " that, if the young woman should call 
 again, I shall not see her." 
 
 This was a sacrifice, not to him, but myself; having 
 resolved, after so narrow an escape, to run no more risks, 
 but to leave Paris, if it was possible, with all the virtue I 
 entered it. 
 
 " C est deroger a noblesse, Monsieur" said La Fleur, 
 making me a bow down to the ground as he said it. " Et 
 encore, Monsieur" said he, " may change his sentiments ; and 
 
 if {par hasard) he should like to amuse himself " " 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 commonly officious : something hung upon his lips to say 
 to me, or ask me, which he could not get off: I could not 
 conceive what it was, and indeed gave myself little trouble to 
 find it out, as I had another riddle so much more interesting 
 upon my mind, which was that of the man's asking charity 
 before the door of the hotel. I would have given anything to 
 
140 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 have got to the bottom of it ; and that, not out of curiosity — 
 't is so low a principle of enquiry in general, I would not pur- 
 chase the gratification of it with a two-sous piece. But a 
 secret, I thought, which so soon and so certainly softened the 
 heart of every woman you came near, was a secret at least 
 equal to the philosopher's stone ; had I had both the Indies, I 
 would have given up one to have been master of it. 
 
 I tossed and turned it almost all night long in my brains 
 to no manner of purpose ; and when I awoke in the morning I 
 found my spirits as much troubled 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 men of 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 coffee and roll and butter, he had got himself so gal- 
 lantly arrayed, I scarce knew him. 
 
 I had covenanted at Montreuil to give him a new hat with 
 ~& silver button and loop, and four louis d'ors, pour sadoniser, 
 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 breeches of the same. " They were not a crown 
 worse," he said, " for the wearing." I wished him hanged 
 for telling me. They looked so fresh, that though I knew the 
 thing could not be done, yet I would rather have imposed upon 
 my fancy with thinking I had bought them new for the fellow, 
 than that they had come out of the Rue de Friperie. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 14] 
 
 This is a nicety which makes not the heart sore at Paris. 
 
 He had purchased moreover a handsome blue satin waist- 
 coat, fancifully enough embroidered : this was indeed something 
 the worse for the service it had done, but 't was clean scoured ; 
 
142 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 the gold had been touched up, and upon the whole was rather 
 showy than otherwise ; and as the blue was not violent, it 
 suited with the coat and breeches very well : he had squeezed 
 out of the money, moreover, a new bag and a solitaire ; and 
 had insisted with the frijpier upon a gold pair of garters to 
 his breeches' knees. He had purchased muslin ruffles, bien 
 brodees, with four livres of his own money, 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 first style, and with a handsome bouquet in his breast ; in a 
 word, there was that look of festivity in every thing about him, 
 which at once put me in mind it was Sunday ; and, by com- 
 bining both together, it instantly struck me, that the favour he 
 wished to ask of me the night before, was to spend the day as 
 every body in Paris spent it besides. I had scarce made the 
 conjecture when La Fleur, with infinite humility, but with a 
 look of trust, as if I should not refuse him, begged I would 
 grant him the day, pour faire le galant vis-a-vis de se 
 maitresse. 
 
 Now it was the very thing I intended to do myself vis-a- 
 vis Madame de R . I had retained the remise on purpose 
 
 for it, and it would not have mortified my vanity to have had 
 a servant so well dressed as La Fleur was, to have got up 
 behind it : I never could have worse spared him. 
 
 But we must feel, not argue in these embarrassments; the 
 sons and daughters of service part with liberty, but not with 
 nature, in their contracts ; they are flesh and blood, and have 
 their little vanities and wishes in the midst of the house of 
 bondage, as well as their taskmasters ; no doubt, they have set 
 their self-denials at a price ; and their expectations are so 
 unreasonable, that I would often disappoint them, 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 powers of a master. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 143 
 
 " Thou shalt go, La Fleur ! " said I. 
 
 — " And what mistress, La Fleur," said I, " canst thou 
 have picked up in so little 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 a heart 
 
 made for society ; and, to speak the truth of him, let as few 
 occasions slip him as his master ; so that somehow or other — 
 but how, Heaven knows — he had connected himself with the 
 demoiselle upon the landing of the staircase during the time 1 
 was taken up with my passport ; and as there was time enough 
 for me to win the Count to my interest, La Fleur had con- 
 trived 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 a party 
 with her, and two or three more of the Count's household, 
 upon the boulevards. 
 
 Happy people ! that once a week at least are sure to lay 
 down all your cares together, and dance and sing and sport 
 away the weights of grievance, which bow down the spirit of 
 other nations to the earth. 
 
144 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE FRAGMENT. 
 
 La Fleur had left me something to amuse myself with for the 
 day more than I had bargained for, or could have entered 
 either into his head or mine. 
 
 He had brought the little print of butter upon a currant 
 leaf: and as the morning was warm, and he had a good step 
 to bring it, he had begged a sheet of waste paper to put 
 betwixt the currant leaf and his hand. As that 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 traiteur, to bespeak my dinner, and leave me to breakfast 
 by myself. 
 
 When I had finished the butter, I threw the currant leaf 
 out of the window, and was going to do the same by the waste 
 paper ; but stopping to read a line first, and that drawing me 
 on to a second and third, I thought it better worth ; so I shut 
 the window, and, drawing a chair up to it, I sat down to read 
 it. 
 
 It was in the old French of Rabelais' time ; and, for aught 
 I know, might have been wrote by him : it was, moreover, 
 in a Gothic letter, and that so faded and gone off by damps 
 and length of time, it cost me infinite trouble to make any 
 thing of it. I threw it down, and then wrote a letter to 
 Eugenius ; then I took it up again, and embroiled my patience 
 with it afresh ; and then, to cure that, I wrote a letter to 
 Eliza. Still it kept hold of me ; and the difficulty of under- 
 standing it increased but the desire. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 145 
 
 I got my dinner ; and after I had enlightened my mind 
 with a bottle of Burgundy, 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 a nonsensical inscription, 
 I thought I made sense of it : but to make sure of it, the best 
 way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and see how 
 it 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 looking how the world went, out of the window ; so 
 that it was nine o'clock at night 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 too much heat, " I wish," said the notary (throw- 
 ing down the parchment), " that there was another notary 
 here, only to set down and attest all this." 
 
 — "And what would you do then, monsieur?" said she, 
 rising hastily up. The notary's wife was a little fume of a 
 woman, and 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. 
 
 T 
 
146 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Of all the bridges that 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 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 Sor- 
 bonne can allege against it, is, that if there is but a capful of 
 wind in or about Paris, 'tis more blasphemously " Sacre Dieu'd" 
 
 there, than in any other aperture of the whole city ; and with 
 reason good and cogent, messieurs, — for it comes against you 
 without crying " Garde d'eau;" and with such unpremedit- 
 able 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. 
 
 The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, in- 
 stinctively 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 sen- 
 tinel's hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the balustrade, clear 
 into the Seine. 
 
 — " 'Tis an ill wind," said a boatman, who catched it, 
 it which blows nobody any good." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 147 
 
 The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his 
 whiskers, and levelled his arquebuse. 
 
 Arquebuses, in those days, went off w T ith 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 legiti- 
 mating 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 pontine 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, com- 
 plaining 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 mili- 
 tary 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 
 
148 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 close beside it, and close by the table was placed a chair : — 
 the notary sat him down in it ; and pulling out his ink-horn 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 ink-horn. 
 " 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 desola- 
 
THROUGH 1'RANCE AND ITALY. 149 
 
 tion, 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 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 entered the room. 
 
 THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When La Fleur came close up 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 
 
150 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 than could arise from the simple irreparability of the frag- 
 ment. 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 semp- 
 stress 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 Tra- 
 veller. 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 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 151 
 
 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 Jiacre,* 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, 't is 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 ap- 
 proached 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 Jiacre : 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 seemed to be two upright vestal 
 sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender 
 salutations. I could have wished to have made them happy : 
 their happiness was destined that night to come from another 
 quarter. 
 
 A low voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet 
 cadence at the end of it, begged for a twelve-sous piece be- 
 twixt 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. 
 
 * Hackney Coach. 
 
152 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 The poor man said, he knew not how to ask less of ladies 
 of their rank ; and bowed down his head to the ground. 
 " Pooh ! " said they, " we have no money." 
 The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and 
 renewed 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' 11 see, J ' 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." 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 153 
 
 " 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 morn- 
 ing, even in this dark passage ? and what was it which made 
 the Marquess 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 : 't was 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 straitened for time, had 
 given it here in a larger dose : 't is 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. 
 
 u 
 
154 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 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 in 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 supped 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 
 gold out of the convert* 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 Marquess 
 
 de B= : in days of yore, he had signalised himself by some 
 
 small feats of chivalry in the Cour d' Amour, and had dressed 
 himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since. 
 
 The Marquess de B wished 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 Marquess," 
 said I ; " les Messieurs Anglois can scarce get a kind look from 
 them as it is." The Marquess invited me to supper. 
 
 Plate, napkin, knife, fork, and spoon. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 155 
 
 Monsieur P , the farmer-general, was just as inqui- 
 sitive 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 Monsieur P 's con- 
 certs upon any other terms. 
 
 I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q , as an 
 
 esprit. Madame de Q, was an esprit herself: she burned 
 
 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 Y vowed 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 devotee: the empire during 
 these is never lost, she only changes her subjects : when thirty- 
 five years and more have unpeopled her dominions of the slaves 
 of love, she repeoples it with infidelity, and then with slaves 
 of the church. 
 
 Madame de V was vibrating betwixt the first of those 
 
 epochas; the colour of the rose was fast fading 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 Y told me she believed nothing. I told 
 
 Madame de Y 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 
 
156 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 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 checked 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 Abbe M , that in one half hour I had said more for 
 
 revealed religion, than all their Encyclopaedia 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 dis- 
 course, in which I was shewing 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 
 pinned too straight about my neck. " It should be plus badi- 
 nant" 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." 
 
 The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour 
 than ever I was embraced by mortal man. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 157 
 
 For three weeks together, 1 was of every man's opinion I 
 met. " Pardi ! ce Monsieur YoricJc a autant d' esprit que 
 nous autres." " II raisonne bien" said another. " C est un 
 bon enfant, said a third. And at this price I could have eaten 
 and drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris ; 
 but 'twas a dishonest reckoning; I grew ashamed of it. It 
 was the gain of a slave ; every sentiment of honour revolted 
 against it ; the higher I got, the more was I forced upon my 
 beggarly system ; the better the coterie, the more children of 
 Art : I languished for those of Nature ; and one night, after a 
 most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, 
 I grew sick ; went to bed ; ordered La Fleur to get me horses 
 in the morning to set out for Italy. 
 
 
 A2-. vS* - 
 
 
158 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 MARIA. 
 
 MOULINES. 
 
 I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape 
 till now; to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest 
 part of France, in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is 
 pouring her abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is 
 lifted up ; a journey, through each step of which music beats 
 time to labour, and all her children are rejoicing as they carry 
 in their clusters : to pass through this with my affections 
 flying out, and kindling at every group before me ; and every 
 one of them was pregnant with adventures ■ 
 
 Just Heaven ! it would fill up twenty volumes ; and, alas ! 
 I have but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into ; and 
 half of these must be taken up with the poor Maria, my friend 
 Mr. Shandy met with near Moulines. 
 
 The story he had told me of that disordered maid affected 
 me not a little in the reading ; but when I got within the neigh- 
 bourhood where she lived, it returned so strong into my mind, 
 that I could not resist an impulse which prompted me to go 
 half a league out of the road, to the village where her parents 
 dwelt, to enquire after her. 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 159 
 
 ' T is going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Coun- 
 tenance, in quest of melancholy adventures ; but I know not 
 how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the exist- 
 ence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them. 
 
 The old mother came to the door ; her looks told me the 
 story before she opened her mouth. " She had lost her hus- 
 band; he had died," she said, "of anguish, for the loss of 
 Maria's senses, about a month before. She had feared at first," 
 she added, " that it would have plundered her poor girl of 
 what little understanding was left ; but, on the contrary, it had 
 brought her more to herself; still she could not rest. Her 
 poor daughter, 1 ' she said, crying, "was wandering somewhere 
 about the road " 
 
 Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what 
 made La Fleur, whose heart seemed only to be turned to joy, 
 to pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the 
 woman stood and told it I beckoned to the postillion to turn 
 back into the road. 
 
 "When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a 
 little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered 
 poor Maria sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her 
 elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her 
 hand : a small brook ran at the foot of the tree. 
 
 I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines, and La 
 Fleur to bespeak my supper; and that I would walk after him. 
 
 She was dressed in white, and much as my friend 
 described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before 
 was twisted within a silk net. She had superadded likewise to 
 her jacket, a pale green riband, which fell across her shoulder 
 to the waist ; at the end of which hung her pipe. Her goat 
 had been as faithless as her lover ; and she had got a little dog 
 in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her 
 girdle : as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with 
 the string. " Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio," said she. I 
 looked in Maria's eyes, and saw she was thinking more of her 
 
160 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 father than of her lover, or her little goat ; for, as she uttered 
 them, the tears trickled down her cheeks. 
 
 I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them 
 away as they fell, with my handkerchief. I then steeped it in 
 my own, and then in hers, and then in mine, and then I wiped 
 hers again ; and, as I did it, I felt such undescribable emo- 
 tions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from 
 any combinations of matter and motion. 
 
 I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with 
 which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me 
 to the contrary. 
 
 MARIA. 
 
 When Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she 
 remembered a pale thin person of a man who had sat down 
 betwixt her and her goat about two years before? She said 
 she was unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon 
 two accounts ; that, ill as she was, she saw the person pitied 
 her ; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and 
 she had beat him for the theft. " She had washed it," she 
 said, " in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket to 
 restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, which," 
 she added, " he had half promised her." As she told me this, 
 she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me see it ; 
 she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine-leaves, tied 
 round with a tendril ; on opening it, I saw an S. marked in 
 one of the corners. 
 
 She had since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, 
 and walked round St. Peter's once, and returned back; that 
 she found her way alone across the Appenines, had travelled 
 over all Lombardy without money, and through the flinty 
 roads of Savoy without shoes : how she had borne it, and how 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 161 
 
 she had got supported, she could not tell ; " But, ' God tempers 
 the wind,' " said Maria, " ' to the shorn lamb.' " 
 
 "Shorn, indeed, and to the quick," said I? "and wast 
 thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take 
 thee to it, and shelter thee: thou shouldst eat of my own 
 bread, and drink of my own cup ; I would be kind to thy 
 Sylvio ; in all thy weaknesses and wanderings, I would seek 
 after thee and bring thee back: when the sun went down, I 
 would say my prayers ; and when I had done, thou shouldst 
 play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense of 
 my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with 
 that of a broken heart !" 
 
 Nature melted within me, as I uttered this ; and Maria 
 observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steeped 
 too much already to be of use, would needs go wash it in the 
 stream. " And where will you dry it, Maria?" said I. " I '11 
 dry it in my bosom," said she ; " 'twill do me good." 
 
 " And is your heart still so warm, Maria ?" said I. 
 
 I touched upon the string on which hung all her sorrows : 
 she looked with wistful disorder for some time in my face ; 
 and then, without saying anything, took her pipe and played 
 her service to the Virgin. The string I had touched ceased 
 to vibrate ; in a moment or two, Maria returned to herself, let 
 her pipe fall, and rose up. 
 
 And where are you going, Maria V said I. She said, " To 
 Moulines." " Let us go," said I, " together." Maria put her 
 arm within mine, and lengthening the string to let the dog 
 follow, in that order we entered Moulines. 
 
162 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 MARIA. 
 
 MOULINES. 
 
 Though I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, 
 yet, when we got into the middle of this, I stopped to take my 
 last look, and last farewell of Maria. 
 
 Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order 
 of fine forms : affliction had touched her looks with something 
 that was scarce earthly ; still she was feminine ; and so much 
 was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye 
 looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of 
 her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she should not only 
 eat of my bread and drink of my cup, but Maria should lie in 
 my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter. 
 
 Adieu, poor luckless maiden ! Imbibe the oil and wine 
 which the compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his 
 way, now pours into thy wounds ; the Being, who has twice 
 bruised thee, can only bind them up for ever. 
 
 THE BOURBONNOIS. 
 
 There was nothing from which I had painted out for myself 
 so joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the 
 vintage, through this part of France ; but pressing through 
 this gate of sorrow to it, my sufferings have totally unfitted me ; 
 in every scene of festivity, I saw Maria in the back ground of 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY, 163 
 
 the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar; and I had got 
 almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across her. 
 
 — " Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that 's pre- 
 cious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows ! thou chainest thy 
 martyr down upon his bed of straw, and 't is thou who liftest 
 him up to Heaven. Eternal fountain of our feelings! 'tis 
 here I trace thee ; and this is thy ' divinity which stirs within 
 me ;' not that, in some sad and sickening moments, 'my soul 
 shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction!' — mere 
 pomp of words! — but that I feel some generous joys and 
 generous cares beyond myself ; all comes from thee, great, 
 great Sensorium of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of 
 our heads but fallso upon the ground, in the remotest 
 desert of thy creation. Touched with thee, Eugenius draws 
 my curtain when I languish, hears my tale of symptoms, and 
 blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou 
 givest a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who 
 traverses the bleakest mountains ; he finds the lacerated lamb 
 of another's flock. This moment I behold him leaning with 
 his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking 
 down upon it ! Oh ! had I come one moment sooner ! it 
 bleeds to death! his gentle heart bleeds with it !" 
 
 "Peace to thee, generous swain! I see thou walkest off 
 with anguish, but thy joys shall balance it ; for, happy is thy 
 cottage, and happy is the sharer of it, and happy are the lambs 
 which sport about you." 
 
104 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE SUPPER. 
 
 A shoe coming loose from the fore foot of the thill-horse, at 
 the beginning of the ascent of Mount Taurira, the postillion dis- 
 mounted, twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket ; as the 
 ascent was of five or six miles, and that horse our main de- 
 pendance, I made a point of having the shoe fastened on again 
 as well as we could ; but the postillion had thrown away the 
 nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of no great use 
 without them, I submitted to go on. 
 
 He had not mounted half a mile higher, when, coming to a 
 flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from 
 off his other fore foot; I then got out of the chaise in good 
 earnest ; and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the 
 left hand, with a great deal to do, I prevailed upon the postillion 
 to turn up to it. The look of the house, and of everything 
 about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. 
 It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about twenty acres 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 165 
 
 of vineyard, about as much corn, and close to the house, on 
 one side, was a potagerie of an acre and a half, full of every- 
 thing which could make plenty in a French peasant's house ; 
 and, on the other side, was a little wood, which furnished 
 wherewithal to dress it. It was about eight in the evening 
 when I got to the house, so I left the postillion to manage his 
 point as he could ; and, for mine, I walked directly into the 
 house. 
 
 The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his 
 wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several 
 wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them. 
 
 They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup ; 
 a large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table ; and a 
 flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy through the 
 stages of the repast ; 't was a feast of love. 
 
 The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful 
 cordiality would have me sit down at the table ; my heart was 
 set down the moment I entered the room ; so I sat down at 
 once like a son of the family ; and to invest myself in the cha- 
 racter as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's 
 knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon : 
 and, as I did it, I saw a testimony, in every eye, not only of 
 an honest welcome, but of a welcome mixed with thanks that 
 I had not seemed to doubt it. 
 
 "Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that 
 made this morsel so sweet ; and to what magic I owe it, that 
 the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that 
 they remain upon my palate to tins hour. 
 
 If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it 
 was much more so. 
 
166 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE GRACE. 
 
 W»en supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the 
 table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the 
 dance : the moment the signal was given, the women and girls 
 ran altogether into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and 
 the young men to the door to wash their faces, and change their 
 sabots; and in three minutes every soul was ready upon a little 
 esplanade before the house to begin. The old man and his 
 wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down 
 upon a sofa of turf by the door. 
 
 The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean 
 performer upon the vielle ; and at the age he was then of, 
 touched it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 167 
 
 and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and joined her 
 old man again, as their children and grandchildren danced 
 before them. 
 
 It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, for 
 some pauses in the movements wherein they all seemed to look 
 up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different 
 from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jolity. In 
 a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance : 
 but, as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have looked 
 upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination which is 
 eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the 
 dance ended, said, "that this was their constant way; and 
 that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was 
 over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice ; believing," 
 he said, "that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort 
 of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay — " 
 
 " Or a learned prelate either," said I. 
 
 THE CASE OF DELICACY. 
 
 When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run 
 presently down to Lyons : adieu, then, to all rapid movements ! 
 Tis a journey of caution ; and it fares better with sentiments, 
 not to be in a hurry with them ; so I contracted with a voiturin 
 to take his time with a couple of mules, and convey me in my 
 own chaise safe to Turin, through Savoy. 
 
 Poor, patient, quiet honest people ! fear not : your poverty, 
 the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by 
 the world, nor will your valleys be invaded by it. Nature ! in 
 the midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scan- 
 tiness thou hast created : with all thy great works about thee, 
 
168 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 little hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle, 
 but to that little thou grantest safety and protection ; and sweet 
 are the dwellings which stand so sheltered. 
 
 Let the wayworn traveller vent his complaints upon the 
 sudden turns and dangers of your roads — your rocks — your 
 precipices ; the difficulties of getting up — the horrors of 
 getting down ; mountains impracticable ; and cataracts which 
 roll down great stones from their summits, and block up his 
 road. The peasants had been all day at work in removing a 
 fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane ; and, 
 by the time my voiturin got to the place, it wanted full two 
 hours of completing before a passage could any how be gained : 
 there was nothing but to wait with patience, 'twas a wet and 
 tempestuous night : so that by the delay, and that together, 
 the voiturin found himself obliged to take up five miles short 
 of his stage at a little decent kind of an inn by the road side. 
 
 I forthwith took possession of my bed-chamber, got a good 
 fire, ordered supper ; and was thanking Heaven it was no 
 worse, when a voiture arrived with a lady in it, and her servant 
 maid. 
 
 As there was no other bed-chamber in the house, the 
 hostess, without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, 
 as she ushered them in, that there was nobody in it but an 
 English gentleman ; that there were two good beds in it, 
 and a closet within the room which held another. The accent 
 in which she spoke of this third bed, did not say much for it ; 
 however, she said that there were three beds and but three 
 people, and she durst say, the gentleman would do anything 
 to accommodate matters. I left not the lady a moment to 
 make a conjecture about it, so instantly made a declaration 
 that I would do anything in my power. 
 
 As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my 
 bed-chamber, I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to 
 have a right to do the honours of it ; so I desired the lady to 
 sit down, pressed her into the warmest seat, called for more 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 169 
 
 wood, desired the hostess to enlarge the plan of the supper, 
 and to favour us with the very best wine. 
 
 The lady had scarce warmed herself five minutes at the fire, 
 before she began to turn her head back, and to give a look 
 at the beds ; and the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the 
 more they returned perplexed ; I felt for her, and for myself : 
 for in a few minutes, what by her looks, and the case itself, I 
 found myself as much embarrassed as it was possible the lady 
 could be herself. 
 
 That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same 
 room, was enough simply by itself to have excited all this ; but 
 the position of them (for they stood parallel, and so very close 
 to each other as only to allow space for a small wicker chair 
 betwixt them) rendered the affair still more oppressive to us ; 
 they were fixed up moreover near the fire ; and the projection 
 of the chimney on one side, and a large beam which crossed 
 the room on the other, formed a kind of recess for them that 
 was no way favourable to the nicety of our sensations : if any- 
 thing could have added to it, it was that the two beds were 
 both of them so very small, as to cut us off from every idea of 
 the lady and the maid lying together, which in either of them, 
 could it have been feasible, my lying beside them, though a 
 thing not to be wished, yet there was nothing in it so terrible 
 which the imagination might not have passed over without 
 torment. 
 
 As for the little room within, it offered little or no con- 
 solation to us : 'twas a damp, cold closet, with a half-disman- 
 tled window-shutter, and with a window which had neither 
 glass nor oil-paper in it to keep out the tempest of the night. 
 I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the lady gave a 
 peep into it ; so it reduced the case in course to this alter- 
 native — That the lady should sacrifice her health to her 
 feelings, and take up with the closet herself, and abandon the 
 bed next mine to her maid, or that the girl should take the 
 closet, &c. 
 
 w 
 
170 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow 
 of health in her cheeks. The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, 
 and as brisk and lively a French girl as ever moved. There 
 were difficulties every way, and the obstacle of the stone in the 
 road, which brought us into the distress, great as it appeared 
 whilst the peasants were removing it, was but a pebble to what 
 lay in our way now. I have only to add, that it did not lessen 
 the weight which hung upon our spirits, that we were both too 
 delicate to communicate what we felt to each other upon the 
 occasion. 
 
 We sat down to supper ; and, had we not had more 
 generous wine to it than a little inn _ in Savoy could have 
 furnished, our tongues had been tied up, till Necessity herself 
 had set them at liberty ; but the lady, having a few bottles of 
 Burgundy in her voiture, sent down her jille de chambre for a 
 couple of them ; so that by the time supper was over, and we 
 were left alone, we felt ourselves inspired with a strength of 
 mind sufficient to talk, at least, without reserve upon our 
 situation. We turned it every way, and debated and con- 
 sidered it in all kinds of lights in the course of a two hours' 
 negociation ; at the end of which, the articles were settled 
 finally betwixt us, and stipulated for in form and manner of a 
 treaty of peace, and I believe with as much religion and good 
 faith on both sides, as in any treaty which has yet had the 
 honour of being handed down to posterity. 
 
 They were as follow : — 
 
 Firstly. As the right of the bed-chamber is in Monsieur, 
 and he thinking the bed next to the fire to be the warmest, 
 he insists upon the concession on the lady's side of taking up 
 with it. 
 
 Granted on the part of Madame ; with a proviso, that as 
 the curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and 
 appear likewise too scanty to draw close, that the jille de 
 chambre shall fasten up the opening, either by corking pins, 
 
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 171 
 
 or needle and thread, in such manner as shall be deemed a 
 sufficient barrier on the side of Monsieur. 
 
 Secondly. It is required on the part of Madame, that 
 Monsieur shall lie the whole night through in his robe de 
 chambre. 
 
 Rejected : inasmuch as Monsieur is not worth a robe de 
 chambre ; he having nothing in his portmanteau but six shirts 
 and a black silk pair of breeches. 
 
 The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an en- 
 tire change of the article, for the breeches were accepted 
 as an equivalent for the robe de chambre ; and so it was 
 stipulated and agreed upon, that I should lie in my black silk 
 breeches all night. 
 
 Thirdly. It was insisted upon and stipulated for by the 
 lady, that after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and 
 fire extinguished, that Monsieur should not speak one single 
 word the whole night. 
 
 Granted, provided Monsieur's saying his prayers might not 
 be deemed an infraction of the treaty. 
 
 There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was 
 the manner in which the lady and myself should be obliged to 
 undress and get to bed ; there was but one way of doing it, 
 and that I leave to the reader to devise ; protesting, as I do it, 
 that if it is not the most delicate in nature, 'tis the fault of his 
 own imagination, against which this is not my first complaint. 
 
 Now, when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty 
 of the situation, or what it was, I know not ; but so it was, I 
 could not shut my eyes : I tried this side, and that, and turned 
 and turned again, till a full hour after midnight, when Nature 
 and Patience both wearing out, " O my God ! " said I. 
 
 — " You have broke the treaty, Monsieur," said the lady, 
 who had no more slept than myself. I begged a thousand 
 pardons, but insisted it was no more than an ejaculation. She 
 maintained 'twas an entire infraction of the treaty. I main- 
 tained it was provided for in the clause of the third article. 
 
172 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY, &c. 
 
 The lady would by no means give up her point, though 
 she weakened her barrier by it ; for, in the warmth of the 
 dispute, I could hear two or three corking pins fall out of the 
 curtain to the ground. 
 
 " Upon my word and honour, Madame," said I, stretching 
 my arm out of bed by way of asseveration, — 
 
 (I was going to have added, that I would not have tres- 
 passed against the remotest idea of decorum for the world) — 
 
 But fhejille de chambre hearing there were words between 
 us, and fearing that hostilities would ensue in course, had crept 
 silently out of her closet ; and it being totally dark, had stolen 
 so close to our beds, that she had got herself into the narrow 
 passage which separated them, and had advanced so far up as 
 to be in a line betwixt her mistress and me : — 
 
 So that when I stretched out my hand, I caught hold of the 
 fille de chambre 's 
 
 '-^u THE END