Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two
rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary
not caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that
moment sent him pell mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and
cane and short cloak, the night being very windy, and walk'd out,
ill at ease, towards the Pont Neuf.
Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have
pass'd over the Pont Neuf must own, that it is the noblest, - the
finest, - the grandest, - the lightest, - the longest, - the broadest,
that ever conjoin'd land and land together upon the face of the
terraqueous globe.
[By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been a
Frenchman.]
The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can
allege against it is, that if there is but a capfull of wind in or
about Paris, 'tis more blasphemously sacre Dieu'd there than in any
other aperture of the whole city, - and with reason good and cogent,
Messieurs; for it comes against you without crying garde d'eau, and
with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with
their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half,
which is its full worth.
The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry,
instinctively clapp'd his cane to the side of it, but in raising it
up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the
sentinel's hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the ballustrade clear
into the Seine.
