I Must Be At The Expence Of Sending Them
Sixty Miles To Be Examined, And Run The Risque Of Their
Being
condemned; and, in the mean time, I may lose the opportunity of
sending them with my heavy baggage by
Sea to Bourdeaux, to be
sent up the Garonne to Tholouse, and from thence transmitted
through the canal of Languedoc to Cette, which is a sea-port on
the Mediterranean, about three or four leagues from Montpelier.
For the recovery of my books, I had recourse to the advice of my
landlord, Mons. B - . He is a handsome young fellow, about twenty-five
years of age, and keeps house with two maiden sisters, who
are professed devotees. The brother is a little libertine, good
natured and obliging; but a true Frenchman in vanity, which is
undoubtedly the ruling passion of this volatile people. He has an
inconsiderable place under the government, in consequence of
which he is permitted to wear a sword, a privilege which he does
not fail to use. He is likewise receiver of the tythes of the
clergy in this district, an office that gives him a command of
money, and he, moreover, deals in the wine trade. When I came to
his house, he made a parade of all these advantages: he displayed
his bags of money, and some old gold which his father had left
him. He described his chateau in the country; dropped hints of
the fortunes that were settled upon mademoiselles his sisters;
boasted of his connexions at court; and assured me it was not for
my money that he let his lodgings, but altogether with a view to
enjoy the pleasure of my company. The truth, when stript of all
embellishments, is this: the sieur B - is the son of an honest
bourgeois lately dead, who left him the house, with some stock in
trade, a little money, and a paltry farm: his sisters have about
three thousand livres (not quite 140 L) apiece; the brother's
places are worth about fifty pounds a year, and his connexions at
court are confined to a commis or clerk in the secretary's
office, with whom he corresponds by virtue of his employment. My
landlord piques himself upon his gallantry and success with the
fair-sex: he keeps a fille de joye, and makes no secret of his
amours. He told miss C - the other day, in broken English, that,
in the course of the last year, he had made six bastards. He
owned, at the same time, he had sent them all to the hospital;
but, now his father is dead, he would himself take care of his
future productions. This, however, was no better than a
gasconade. Yesterday the house was in a hot alarm, on account of
a new windfall of this kind: the sisters were in tears; the
brother was visited by the cure of the parish; the lady in the
straw (a sempstress) sent him the bantling in a basket, and he
transmitted it by the carriers to the Enfans trouves at Paris.
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