- I would have given twenty livres for an advocate. - I
have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only just
set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get
along.
THE DESOBLIGEANT. CALAIS.
When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage
however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for
making a bargain. Now there being no travelling through France and
Italy without a chaise, - and nature generally prompting us to the
thing we are fittest for, I walk'd out into the coach-yard to buy
or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old desobligeant
in the furthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight,
so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony
with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein,
the master of the hotel: - but Monsieur Dessein being gone to
vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the
opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived
at the inn, - I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being
determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink and wrote
the preface to it in the desobligeant.
PREFACE. IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.
It must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That
nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain
boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she
has effected her purpose in the quietest and easiest manner by
laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his
ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home.
