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                                   A

                           RIDE ON HORSEBACK

                                   TO

                                FLORENCE

                                THROUGH

                        FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND.

                    DESCRIBED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS

                                   BY

                                A LADY.

  "I will not change my horse for any that treads but on four pasterns:
he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn
of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes; he is the prince
of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his
countenance enforces homage: nay, the man hath no wit that cannot from
the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb vary deserved praise
on my palfrey."--SHAKSPEARE, _King Henry the Fifth_.

                           _IN TWO VOLUMES._
                                VOL. I.

                                LONDON:
                     JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
                                 1842.


                                LONDON:
                  Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS,
                            Stamford Street.

                    A ride on horseback to Florence


                                CONTENTS
                               OF VOL. I.


                  *       *       *       *       *

                               CHAPTER I.

                                                                  Page 1

LANDING at Calais--Meeting of a Custom-House Officer with
  Fanny--Historical remains--John's mode of Confession--The Hero malgre
  lui--The Courtgain--St. Omer's--The Abbey of St. Bertin and the
  Cathedral--St. Denis and the miraculous St. Hubert--The strength of
  the short Pepin--Lillers, and John's precautions--St. Pol--Doullens,
  the Citadel and the Corporal--The possession of Doullens by the
  Huguenots--The taking of Amiens caused by love for a fair
  Widow--Hernand Teillo's stratagem--His success chiefly owing to a
  body of Irishmen--Henry the Fourth's emotion and resolve--Death of
  Hernand Teillo--Amiens--The Sunstroke--The warlike show--A religious
  Picture strangely imagined--The Beffroi and its tragedy--The
  Cathedral and its Tombs--The travelling Crucifix--The Bishop who
  sheltered Philip of Valois after the battle of Crecy--The Pavement
  marked in fatal memorial--The Grave of Hernand Teillo--Characters and
  portraits of the Canons--The contrite Ass and presentation of an
  infant, Breteuil


                              CHAPTER II.

                                                                      34

Clermont--Chateau now a penitentiary--A Stronghold of the English in
  Charles the Sixth's time--Creil, where Peter the Hermit preached
  the first Crusade--Charles the Sixth's place of confinement during
  his Madness--Chantilly--Ecouen--Henry last Duke of
  Montmorency--Presentiment of his Father--At eighteen created Lord
  High Admiral--His early love in Languedoc--His prudential Marriage
  at the Louvre--His Successes at Rochelle--Coldness of Louis the
  Thirteenth, and jealousy of Richelieu--His gallantry at
  Veillane--Restoration of Prisoners--Humanity during the plague at
  Rivoli--His anxiety to become High Constable of France--Richelieu's
  injustice--His retirement to Languedoc--Privileges of
  Languedoc--Prince Gaston's efforts to win over Montmorency--The
  Duke's arrest by Richelieu's orders, rendered impossible through
  the people's affection--Renewed efforts of Gaston--Persuasions of
  the Duchess--Montmorency's reluctant consent--Gaston's indecision
  and high words with the Duke--Battle of Castelnaudary--His
  emulation with the Comte de Moret to strike the first blow--The
  ditch leaped alone as at Veillane--The troops held back by Gaston
  in sight of his peril--Montmorency overpowered--Dragged from under
  his dead horse and carried before Schomberg--The female portrait on
  his arm discovered by a spy, and notice of his wearing it sent to
  incense the King by the Cardinal--The cries of the people beneath
  the Palace windows--His farewell to his wife, and legacy to
  Richelieu--The emotion of his Judges--His condemnation--Religious
  feeling of his last hours--His farewell to the statue of his
  Godfather--His calm death, and blood sought for as that of a
  martyr--His burial among the bones of the Sainted--The imprisonment
  of his widow--Her sad life--Her taking the veil--Louis the
  Thirteenth's visit to her mourning cell and her reply to the
  Cardinal's messengers--The King's remorse--The apparition in the
  Hall of Ecouen--St. Denis--Foundation of the Cathedral by Dagobert,
  St. Denis having appeared to him in a dream--Miraculous
  consecration of the church and the leper's new skin--Tombs--The
  column to the memory of Francis, erected by Mary of
  Scotland--Breaking open of the monuments in 1793--Turenne in a
  glass case--A lock of Henry the Fourth's beard making a soldier's
  moustache--Plunder of a nose by an Englishman--The Caveau of the
  last Conde--Devotion of a Russian General to Henry the Fourth's
  memory--The Cathedral preserved during the Revolution by being
  converted into a Market-house--Paris


                              CHAPTER III.

                                                                      70

Departure under an unlucky star--Essonne--Petit Bourg--The Czar
  Peter--Fontainebleau--Palace--Apartments of the Emperor Charles the
  Fifth--Chamber where Pius the Seventh said mass daily--Chapel founded
  in the seventh century--Cypher of the Saviour and Virgin placed
  beside those of Henry the Second and Diana of Poitiers--Princess Mary
  of Orleans--Napoleon's apartments--Marie Antoinette's
  boudoir--Carving by Louis the Sixteenth's hand--Monaldeschi,
  favourite of Queen Christina--Gallery where he was murdered--Account
  of his murder by the Monk who confessed him, of his burial at dusk in
  the church of Avon--Window thrown open by Henry the Fourth, to
  announce Louis the Thirteenth's birth--Gallery of Henry the Second,
  called Galerie des Reformes--Petition in which they took the name
  presented here by Coligny--Open chamber above the Donjon--Arch where
  Louis the Thirteenth was publicly baptized--Biron's tower--His
  treason--His denial--His last interview with Henry the
  Fourth--Napoleon--The Forest--The Comte de Moret, last inhabitant of
  the Hermitage of Franchard--Fanny's sagacity--Croix du Grand
  Veneur--The spectre hunt--Apparition and warning to Henry the Fourth,
  corroborated by Sully--Avon--Monaldeschi, Christina's fickle
  lover--The old church--The fat porter--The grave beneath the
  Benitier--The Englishmen's sacrilege--Monaldeschi their
  relative--Precautions against travellers


                              CHAPTER IV.

                                                                      97

Moret--The Nunnery--Louis the Fourteenth's black daughter--Two useful
  Saints--Villeneuve la Guyard---Descriptions deceitful--Strange cure
  for blood to the head--A River-god on terra-firma--Sens--St. Colombe,
  Thomas a Becket's refuge--Villeneuve le Roy--Place where the Vine was
  first cultivated--Auxerre--The Chapter's hundred years' Law-suit
  concerning fur trimmings--The Canons' games at ball--The Cathedral
  occupying the site of the first Christian Chapel--St. Germain--The
  Saint's refusal to get out of his Grave to reform England--Tombs of
  Dukes of Burgundy--Ill-treatment in a Church from a School at its
  devotions--Lucy le Bois--The Face in a Hole in the Wall--Taken for a
  beast--Arnay le Duc--La Rochepot--A danger avoided through Grizzle's
  affection--An unamiable Carter--Chalons, Caesar's head-quarters--Cross
  seen by Constantine--Punishment of past times for unskilful
  Physicians--A Prince of Portugal, Monk at St. Laurents--Cathedral


                               CHAPTER V.

                                                                     120

Tournus--Greuze's grave--Macon--The walking Wedding--Retirement of
  a Count of Macon, with thirty Knights, to the Abbey of
  Cluny--Dealings of his Successor with evil spirits--His exit from
  Earth in the Car of a black Visitor--His son turning Monk through
  fear--The County sold by his Daughter Alice to France--Bloodless
  occupation of Macon by the Huguenots--Macon retaken through
  bribery by the Marshal of Tavannes--Madame de Tavannes' mode of
  increasing her Revenues--Sauteries de Macon--Farce of St.
  Poinct--Assassination of Huguenot Prisoners--Sang froid of
  Catholic Dames--A Russian noble--Villefranche--Privilege granted
  to its married men--Descent into Lyons--Monastere des deux Amans,
  supposed Herod and Herodias--Fortress of Pierre Encise--The
  Prison of Cinq Mars--Fort commanding the Croix Rousse--Homage
  paid to the wooden Statue of 1550--Hotel de l'Europe--View of
  Fourvieres--Its Church escaping violation throughout the
  Revolution--The Antiquaille on the site of the Palace where
  Germanicus was born--Traces of fire in Nero's time--Recollections
  of Princess Mary of Wuerttemberg--Her love of Art to the
  last--Nourrit's Funeral--A Racer's determination to trot--Going
  to races--Mistaken for a Candidate--Perrache--Horses, riders, and
  accoutrements--Triumph of the King's Fete--A Boat upset--The
  Tower of the fair German--Croix Rousse--Wretchedness of the
  Operatives--Causes of Insurrection in 1831--The most ancient
  Monastery in Gaul--Church of Aisnay


                              CHAPTER VI.

                                                                     152

Heights of Fourvieres--Difficult descent--Trade in relics--Our Lady
  of Fourvieres--Saving Lyons from Cholera--Lunatic
  patients--Dungeon where the first Christian Bishop was
  murdered--Roman Ruins--The Christians' early place of
  assembly--St. Irenee--A coffin--Subterranean chapels--Bones of
  the Nine Thousand--The Headsman's block, and the murmur from the
  well--Bleeding to death--Marguerite Labarge--Her abode for nine
  years--Her return to upper air cause of her death--Her family
  rich residents in Lyons--Mode of saving the soul--Body dispensed
  with--The Pope's Bull good for ever--A friend's arrival--Jardin
  des Plantes--Riots of November, 1831--The Prefet's mistake--Capt.
  de ----.--Defence of the Arsenal with unloaded cannon--The
  murdered Chef de Bataillon--His assassin's death--The grief of
  his opponents--Their usual cruelty and their wild justice--Their
  eight days' occupation of Lyons--Capt. de ----'s defence of
  Arsenal--Bearer of proclamation--Danger--Saved by a former
  comrade--Interview--Threats--Empty cannon effective--Invitation
  to dinner--Retreat--The Hotel de l'Europe closed against its
  master by a National Guard--Three hundred killed in St.
  Nizier--The Cathedral--Second Council General--Jaw of St.
  John--The ivory horn of Roland--Privilege of the Seigneur of Mont
  d'Or--The first Villeroy Archbishop--Refusal to accept him by the
  Counts of Lyons--His text and the Dean's reply--Lyons refuge for
  the Pazzi--Their monument destroyed in anger by Marie de
  Medicis--The last Prince of Dauphine becoming prior of the
  Jacobin Convention, Paris--Procession in St. Nizier--Chapel of
  Ste. Philomene--Place des Terreaux


                              CHAPTER VII.

                                                                     184

Place Bellecour--Louise Labe--Clemence de Bourges--Her desertion
  by her lover--His death--Her own--Rue de la Belle
  Cordiere--Abd-el-Kader--The fat Cantiniere captive--Presented
  to the Emperor of Morocco--The Emperor's love--Her
  obstinacy--Application made to the Consul--Her oaths and
  blows--Her return--The Savoyard Regiment's fidelity--Marquis of
  ---- and dogs--Cat massacre--Indignant landlady--Pont de la
  Guillotiere--Bridge at the same spot broken beneath Philip
  Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion--Leaving Lyons--Mont
  Blanc--La Verpeliere--Its accommodation--La Tour du Pin--A
  lovely Country--An auberge--Destructive storms--Pont du
  Beauvoisin--Curious landlady--Leeches en poste--A smiling
  country--A wild pass--La Chartreuse--Valley des
  Echelles--Grotto--Cascade of Cours--Chambery


                             CHAPTER VIII.

                                                                     209

Chambery--The Cathedral--The Chateau--The Chapel--The holy shroud
  distilling blood--Mules' refusal to carry the relic away--Respected
  by the flames--St. Charles of Borromeo's pilgrimage to its shrine at
  Turin--Its authenticity denied by Calvin--Drawing made of the Saint
  Suaire by desire of Philip the Fifth of Spain--Artist on his
  knees--Savoy--Peter of Savoy favourite of Henry the Third of
  England--Savoy Palace, his residence--The Green Count Amedee--His
  tournament--The Emperor Charles the Fourth's passage--Homage done to
  the Emperor--The Banquet served by Horsemen--The Carmelites'
  whitewash--The Crusade--The Green Count's embarkation--The Red Count
  Amedee--His Death-wound in the forest of Lornes--Poison--Physician
  beheaded--Duel between Estavayer and Grandson--Its real cause--Place
  of combat--Bourg en Bresse--Otho conquered--His tomb at
  Lausanne--Duke Amedee's retreat to Ripaille--His authority delegated
  to his Son--Six Knights his Companions in the Monastery--Astrologers'
  prediction--Author of Peace of Arras--Elected Pope--His renouncement
  of the Tiara--His return to Ripaille, and death--His tower and those
  of four of his knights still standing--Fete Dieu--The priest
  commander of the forces--Les Charmettes--The young Abbe--The old
  Governor--Censure--Severe laws for small
  offences--Rejoicings--Montmeillan--Abymes de Myans--The Black
  Virgin's power--Chignin--Iron collars--Fortress of Montmeillan--Its
  resistance--Sully's stratagem--Proof of the King's
  Catholicity--Treason of the Governor--Christina of Savoy's confessor
  a captive--His vain intrigues against Richelieu--Richelieu's anger
  chiefly excited by a satire written by Pere Monod--Monod's
  death--Bourget--Amedee the Fifth--Hautecombe--Sepulchre of Counts of
  Savoy--Tomb of Amedee, who defied to single combat three English
  Earls--Abbey changed to a manufactory--Spectres of the sovereigns of
  Savoy--Its restoration


                              CHAPTER IX.

                                                                     245

Well merited attentions to St. Anthony--The young Countess de
  S----.--Leeches paying postilions better than the English--General
  de Boigne--Lemenc and its antiquities--Droit de depouille of the
  Benedictines--Their agreement with the nobles of Chambery--Ancient
  vaults beneath the church--Colossal statues feared by the good
  people of Chambery--Tomb of an Irish Primate--Calvary--Monument of
  General de Boigne--His low birth--His struggles--His success in
  India--The death of his benefactor Sindiah--His gratitude shown
  towards his heir--The story of his betrayal of Tippoo Saib
  unfounded--His arrival in England--His marriage with the Marquis of
  Osmond's daughter an unhappy one--His return to Chambery--His
  benefactions--Created Count--His death--Aix--Its antiquities--Tower
  and Cascade of Gresy--The friend of Queen Hortense--Her fate--Her
  monument--Rumilly--Its convent--Siege by Louis the Thirteenth--The
  courage of a nun--The three privileged houses and discipline of a
  French soldiery--Frangy, an impertinent innkeeper--Fanny's
  wisdom--L'Eluiset--A sweet evening--A bad night--A welcome
  dawning--Geneva--The fusillades of 94--The Secheron


                               CHAPTER X.

                                                                     272

Early history of Geneva--Constitution--Duke Amedee the Eighth--Attempt
  to become master of Geneva--The Bishop inclined to cede his
  rights--The opposition of the citizens--Charles the
  Third--Berthelier--Alliance with Fribourg--His courage--Geneva
  taken--His refusal to fly--His arrest--A tooth-drawer named his
  judge--His execution--The news of his death causing the impression he
  had hoped for--Treaty--The Mamelukes--The Confreres de la
  Cuiller--Advance of Berne and Fribourg--Charles the Third's forced
  concessions--Want of generosity in the Bernese--Noble conduct of
  Geneva--Protestant religion gaining strength--Bonnivard--Seized on
  the Jura--Cast into the dungeons of Chillon--Disputes in Geneva--The
  Grand Council decides that mass be abolished--Francis the
  First--Berne declares war against Savoy--Her alliance with
  Francis--The Duke of Savoy's losses--Berne's renewed
  misconduct--Proud reply of the Genevese--Bonnivard
  delivered--Calvin--His early life--His flight from Paris--His
  reception by Marguerite of Navarre--Persecution of Francis--Calvin's
  reception by Louis the Twelfth's Daughter--Geneva--His over
  severity--His expulsion--His return--His iron rule--Michael
  Servet--His irritating conduct towards Calvin--Calvin's vow to be
  revenged--Servet's arrest--His escape--Tracked by Calvin--Taken
  prisoner on his passage through Geneva--He is accused--Calvin's
  valet--Burned at the stake outside the walls of Geneva


                              CHAPTER XI.

                                                                     296

A vain Stork--A German coachmaker--Coppet--Ferney--Voltaire's
  Church--His habitation--Crockery Cenotaph--Shoe-blacking in his
  study--The old Gardener--The morning rehearsals in tragic
  costume--The story of Gibbon--Voltaire catching his pet
  mare--Gibbon's opinion of Voltaire's beauty--Their
  reconciliation--The tree which shaded Franklin--The increase of his
  village--The marble pyramid broken--The gardener's petites antiquites
  and cross wife--Voltaire's opinions of his correspondents--His
  remains the property of a maimed Englishman--Denial to a visitor--His
  heart in the larder--Genevese pride--Swiss troops--Swiss
  penitentiaries--Genevese smuggling--The Directeur General des
  Douaness an unwilling accomplice--D'Aubigne interred in the
  cathedral--The Cardinal de Brogny--A swineherd--Shoes bestowed in
  charity--The boy become a cardinal--The poor shoemaker rewarded--His
  compassion for John Huss--Courageous death of the latter--De Brogny's
  charity--A modest genius and tolerant cardinal


                              CHAPTER XII.

                                                                     321

Arrival of friends--Excursion to Chamouny--The Voiron mountain--Its
  monastery--The Babes in the wood--Old castle of Faucigny--Its last
  possessor--Her rights over Dauphiny bequeathed to Savoy--Long war
  with France--Bonneville--Cluses--Wretched inhabitants--The baronial
  capital in the time of the old lords--Cavern of La Balme--The village
  of Arache, and Falquet--The Nant d'Arpenas--Sallenches--Mont
  Blanc--The lake of Chede filled up--Pont Pelissier--Les Motets--The
  Glacier des Bossons--Evening--A tranquil night--Morning cavalcade--My
  guide--The Montanvert--Fontaine du Caillet--Source of the
  Aveiron--The avalanche--Mer de Glace--Passage of cattle--Priory of
  Chamouny founded in eleventh century--The Grands Mulets on Mont
  Blanc--Character of the inhabitants of Chamouny--Return--Versoix
  destined by Louis the Fourteenth for Geneva's rival--Coppet--The
  monument--Old castle of Wufflens--Bertha--Morges--Lausanne--Cathedral
  containing tomb of Duke Amedee and Bernard de Menthon--The
  Faucon--The fat innkeeper abandoned--Vevay--Trois Couronnes




                               CHAPTER I.


Landing at Calais--Meeting of a Custom-House Officer with
  Fanny--Historical remains--John's mode of Confession--The Hero malgre
  lui--The Courtgain--St. Omer's--The Abbey of St. Bertin and the
  Cathedral--St. Denis and the miraculous St. Hubert--The Strength of
  the short Pepin--Lillers, and John's precautions--St. Pol--Doullens,
  the Citadel and the Corporal--The possession of Doullens by the
  Huguenots--The taking of Amiens caused by love for a fair
  Widow--Hernand Teillo's stratagem--His success chiefly owing to a
  body of Irishmen--Henry the Fourth's emotion and resolve--Death of
  Hernand Teillo--Amiens--The Sunstroke--The warlike show--A religious
  Picture strangely imagined--The Beffroi and its tragedy--The
  Cathedral and its Tombs--The travelling Crucifix--The Bishop who
  sheltered Philip of Valois after the battle of Crecy--The Pavement
  marked in fatal memorial--The Grave of Hernand Teillo--Characters and
  Portraits of the Canons--The contrite Ass and presentation of an
  infant, Breteuil.

                                       Wednesday, July the 5th 1838.

                                           Hotel de Meurice, a Calais.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

When we called on you a few weeks since, on our ride from Liverpool to
Dover, you desired a journal of that which was to follow across France
and to Florence. We embarked, then, at seven in the morning of the 4th
of July, with no wind, but a heavy swell and drizzling rain: D---- and
myself, Fanny and the patient Grizzel in their horse boxes, with John
(from Cork!) beside them, combing tails and rubbing curb-chains--his
resource against ennui. Landed at ten: Fanny profiting by her first
free moment to bite a douanier who caressed her; and from his calling
obtained no more pity from the bystanders than from John, who was
grinning derision at his "big ear-ring." Worried by the Customhouse,
though we have nothing contraband. The signalement of the horses taken
with care and gravity: it would suit any grey mare and bay pony in the
world. The officers do not quite understand the shining of their coats,
and (supposing them cleaned after the fashion of spoons) asked John
"with what powder?" he has been rather awed by the ceremony of
receiving his passport, particularly when standing up to be measured
and described. We remain here three days, as the inn is exceedingly
comfortable, but there is very little to see; on the Grande Place, near
the lighthouse tower, stood, even in 1830, the ruins of the old Halle,
where John de Vienne the governor, and Sire Walter de Mauny
communicated the hard terms of surrender to Eustache St. Pierre: there
is no trace of it now. The site of St. Pierre's house is marked by a
neat marble slab, at the corner of the street which bears his name. The
building still called "Cour de Guise," though it has been turned to
various purposes, rebuilt and altered, was the wool staple originally
built by Edward the Third of England; and afterwards bestowed on Guise
the Balafre, in reward of his services when he retook Calais from the
English in 1577. The church has little worth notice excepting its
altar. The vessel, which in Louis the Thirteenth's time bore it from
Genoa, on its way to Antwerp, was wrecked on the Calais coast. With its
bassi-relievi and crowd of statues and marble columns, it wants
simplicity, and is too large for the place it occupies; for the roof
appears to crush the glory of the Saviour. The old Suisse who shows the
church is most proud of a Last Supper carved in relief, gilded and
: he knocks on the head the little figure of Christ to prove
his assertion, "Monsieur c'est en bois!"

In the old revolution this church was unprofaned: a Club built before
it masked its entrance; and the then mayor of Calais warned Lebon that
he might enter if he would, but that he could not answer for the temper
of his townsmen.

The chief building in Calais is the Hotel de Ville with its handsome
tower, and a clock which has a sweet clear chime; before it, each on
its pedestal, are the busts of Richelieu and Guise le Balafre: that of
Eustache St. Pierre holds the place of honour on the facade. To reward
for the trouble of walking up stairs, the old woman only exhibited two
rooms, "la ou l'on marie" and "la ou l'on recoit," she called them: in
the latter, Louis Philip, whom the artist intended to smile, and who
sneers instead, occupies the wall opposite a Surrender of Calais. The
citadel is forbidden ground; we were turned back by the sentinel, as we
were proceeding to search for the ruins of the Chateau of Calais, in
which, by Richard the Second's order, the Duke of Gloucester was
imprisoned and murdered; they are built into a bastion, called that of
the "Vieux Chateau."

John has decided that eating a dinner in France is the most wonderful
thing which has happened to him yet. He describes the spreading a white
cloth over his knees preparatory to serving up soup, fish, made dishes
and dessert; he has made acquaintance with the "Garcon d'Ecurie," whose
thin tall figure is a contrast to his own, with its round head and
bowed legs. They keep up a conversation of signs and contortions; this
hot day they have passed seated in a wheelbarrow on the sunny side of
the court-yard: it was first Pierre's place of repose, but beginning by
sitting on the wheel, and encroaching by degrees, John made it so
uncomfortable to his comrade, that he gained sole possession, and is
now coiled up asleep. He told me this morning that he must go to
church, the Irish father by whom he was married a month ago not having
"quite done with him in the way of confession:" I represented that
these priests were Frenchmen; that he said was of no consequence,
"Clargy spaking all kinds of languages." He knew but one exception, and
that was the very father who married him and could not speak Irish; it
was he who (by John's account) gave him a blow when instead of the
fifteen shillings he demanded he offered him five.

The stout waiter Francois, known for four and twenty years at the
hotel, is as perfect a specimen of French nature in his class, as is
John of that of Ireland. He informed me he had lately crossed to
England; an ordinary intellect would have supposed it was to see the
country, or the coronation, but no, it was to see Lablache! and being
in London he also saw Taglioni!! and her dancing, he said, went to his
very soul. While we were at dinner, a fair girl, with a wrinkled old
woman on her arm, looked in at the window and touched a bad guitar: I
said we wanted no music, and Francois scolded her away, but as he
stooped down to arrange the fire, muttered in a low voice, "It was true
that she was troublesome, and had only one excuse, she supported her
old mother." We gave her something, and Francois, whose face had grown
radiant, told us his own story, and how he had worked from a boy with
the hope of assisting his father, and at last had purchased him an
annuity of 600 francs, which the old man had enjoyed thirteen years,
proud in the gift of a son, who, like Corporal Trim, thought that
"Honour thy father and thy mother" meant allowing them a part of his
earnings. "He had been looked on as the best son of the province;" and
his own child had promised well likewise but he died--he thought he
might have weathered the storm, but death, Francois said, was the
strongest and not to be battled with; and with a mixture of feeling and
philosophy, as he changed my soup-plate, he shook his head and added,
"que voulez-vous?"

D---- misses a Commissionaire, a civil fellow well known to all who
frequented the Hotel Meurice, his story being romantic from its
commencement; he has become a hero malgre lui; he was