(From the 1892 George Bell and Son edition)
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 'tis absolutely
no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: -
I'll 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 fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I
died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have
suspended the effects 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 into 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, 'tis the monarch of a people so
civilized and courteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine
feelings, that I have to reason with! -
But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions. -
CALAIS.
When I had fished 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?
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 confounded 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
finish'd the treaty with myself. -
- Now, was I King of France, cried I - what a moment for an orphan
to have begg'd 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 a his convent.
No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies - or one
man may be generous, as another is puissant; - sed non quoad hanc -
or be it as it may, - for there is no regular reasoning upon the
ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the same
causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides themselves:
'twould 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 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.
- 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 - 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 by the break in his tonsure, a few scattered
white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might
be about seventy; - but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which
was in them, which seemed more temper'd 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 seem'd 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, - mild,
pale - penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented
ignorance looking downwards upon the earth; - it look'd forwards;
but look'd as if it look'd 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 Bramin,
and had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.
