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 I know
This weakness, I always
suffer my judgment to draw back something 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 every thing.
Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum,
and play a march or two upon the fife. I was determined to make
his talents do; and can't say my weakness 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 open'd 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! - Psha! said I, and do
not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum compagnon du voyage
the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay
besides? When 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. - O qu'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.
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 do 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 themselves, happened to be of no great
service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed by the festivity of his
temper; - it supplied all defects: - I had a constant resource in
his looks in all difficulties and distresses of my own - I was going
to have added of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of
every thing; for, whether 'twas hunger or thirst, or cold or
nakedness, or watchings, or 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.
MONTREUIL.
The next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I
delivered to him the key of my portmanteau, with an inventory of my
half a dozen shirts and 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.
C'est 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
postilion 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.
- 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: he has but 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:
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