A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

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 begg’d 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 anything 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 everyone, 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 offer’d him a better.

It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing over what happen’d 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 eyes 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 reach’d 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.

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 d’E-, in Brittany, into decay.  The Marquis d’E- had fought up against his condition with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still show 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 exigencies 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 expensive, - and simple economy was not a match for it: - there was no resource but commerce.

In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wish’d to see re-blossom. - But in Brittany, there being a provision for this, he avail’d himself of it; and, taking an occasion when the states were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two boys, entered the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which, though seldom claim’d, 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 condition to reclaim it.

The president accepted the Marquis’s sword: he staid a few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his house - and departed.

The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next clay for Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to business, with some unlook’d for bequests from distant branches of his house, return home to reclaim his nobility, and to support it.

It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen 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 Marquis 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 Marquis had approached within six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest son, and advancing three steps before his family, - he reclaim’d his sword.  His sword was given him, and the moment he got it into his hand he drew it almost out of the scabbard: - ’twas the shining face of a friend he had once given up - he look’d attentively along it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the same, - when, 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 deceived by what followed.

“I shall find,” said he, “some other way to get it off.”

When the Marquis 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, walk’d out.

O, how I envied him his feelings!

THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.

 I found no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B-.  The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them over.  I walk’d 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: - it is my countryman, the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works - et ayez la boute, mon cher ami, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, de me faire cet honneur-la. -

The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing I look’d a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjectures 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 embarrassment 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 polish’d 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 show it against invalids.

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 don’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 Duc 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 talk’d 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 l’Anglois, said the Count, gaily; - you are not come to spy the nakedness of the land; - I believe you; - ni encore, I dare say, that of our women! - But permit me to conjecture, - if, par