- 'TIS AN ILL WIND, said a boatman, who catched it, WHICH BLOWS
NOBODY ANY GOOD.
The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers,
and levell'd his arquebuss.
Arquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman's
paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out,
she had borrow'd the sentry's match to light it: - it gave a
moment's time for the Gascon's blood to run cool, and turn the
accident better to his advantage. - 'TIS AN ILL WIND, said he,
catching off the notary's castor, and legitimating the capture with
the boatman's adage.
The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de
Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he
walked along in this manner: -
Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of
hurricanes all my days: - to be born to have the storm of ill
language levell'd against me and my profession wherever I go; to be
forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a
woman; - to be driven forth out of my house by domestic winds, and
despoil'd of my castor by pontific ones! - to be here, bareheaded,
in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents!-
-Where am I to lay my head? - Miserable man! what wind in the two-
and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it
does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?
As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this
sort, a voice call'd out to a girl, to bid her run for the next
notary. - Now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his
situation, walk'd up the passage to the door, and passing through
an old sort of a saloon, was usher'd into a large chamber,
dismantled of everything but a long military pike, - a breastplate,-
-a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up, equidistant, in four
different places against the wall.
An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless
decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at
that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a
little table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and
close by the table was placed a chair: - the notary sat him down in
it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a sheet or two of paper which
he had in his pocket, he placed them before him; and dipping his
pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the table, he disposed
everything to make the gentleman's last will and testament
Alas! Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, raising himself up
a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of
bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in
peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits
arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from
me. - It is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind; - it
will make the fortunes of your house. - The notary dipp'd his pen
into his inkhorn. - Almighty Director of every event in my life!
said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his hands
towards heaven, - Thou, whose hand has led me on through such a
labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of desolation,
assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted
man; - direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that
this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that BOOK,
from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to
be condemn'd or acquitted! - the notary held up the point of his pen
betwixt the taper and his eye. -
It is a story, Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, which will
rouse up every affection in nature; - it will kill the humane, and
touch the heart of Cruelty herself with pity. -
- The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a
third time into his ink-horn - and the old gentleman, turning a
little more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these
words: -
- And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then
enter'd the room.
THE FRAGMENT, AND THE BOUQUET. {1} PARIS.
When La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to
comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other
sheets of it, which he had wrapped round the stalks of a bouquet to
keep it together, which he had presented to the demoiselle upon the
boulevards. - Then prithee, La Fleur, said I, step back to her to
the Count de B-'s hotel, and see if thou canst get it. - There is no
doubt of it, said La Fleur; - and away he flew.
In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of
breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could
arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment. Juste Ciel!
in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last
tender farewell of her - his faithless mistress had given his gage
d'amour to one of the Count's footmen, - the footman to a young
sempstress, - and the sempstress to a fiddler, with my fragment at
the end of it. - Our misfortunes were involved together: - I gave a
sigh, - and La Fleur echoed it back again to my ear.
- How perfidious!
