A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy Part 4

MONTREUIL.

When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn, unless you are a little sour'd 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.

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-a-way! said I,--I have but eight sous in the world, showing them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for 'em.

A poor tatter'd soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew 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 s.e.x 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?

- 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 offer'd 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 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.

- 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 l'amour de Dieu, which was the footing on which it was begg'd.--The poor woman had a dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.

Mon cher et tres-charitable 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 had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I believe, would have perished, ere he could have ask'd one for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days.- -Good G.o.d! 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 disposition, 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 pull'd out a little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away--and I thought he thanked me more than them all.

THE BIDET.

Having settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little bidet, and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs)--he canter'd away before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.- -But what is happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life! A dead a.s.s, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to La Fleur's career;--his bidet would not pa.s.s by it,--a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick'd 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 a.s.s: --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 opiniatre du monde.-- Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I.

So La Fleur got off him, 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 exclamation in this encounter,--namely, Diable! and Peste! that there are, nevertheless, three in the French language: like the positive, comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serves for every unexpected throw of the dice in life.

Le Diable! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall out contrary to your expectations; such as--the throwing once doublets--La Fleur's being kick'd 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, 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 eloquence in distress!--what ever 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 evil just as it befell 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.

NAMPONT. THE DEAD a.s.s.

- 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 a.s.s, and to the very a.s.s 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.

The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the a.s.s's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time,--then laid them down,--look'd 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 a.s.s'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 a.s.s died. Every one seemed 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 Germany; 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 grat.i.tude to St. Iago in Spain.

When the mourner got thus far on his story, he stopp'd to pay Nature her tribute,--and wept bitterly.

He said, heaven had accepted the conditions; and that he had set out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient partner of his journey;--that it had eaten the same bread with him all the way, and was unto him as a friend.

Every body 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 a.s.s--but the loss of him.--The a.s.s, he said, he was a.s.sured, loved him;--and upon this told them a long story of a mischance upon their pa.s.sage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had separated them from each other three days; during which time the a.s.s had sought him as much as he had sought the a.s.s, and that they had scarce either eaten 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 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 a.s.s--'twould be something. -

NAMPONT. THE POSTILION.

The concern which the poor fellow's story threw me into required some attention; the postilion 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 an high opinion of the postilion 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.

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'll go on tearing my nerves to pieces till he has worked me into a foolish pa.s.sion, and then he'll go slow that I may enjoy the sweets of it.

The postilion 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.