FRENCH AND ENGLISH MIXTURE.
Mons. Gaspard Jacques Hercule Flament, a French gentleman with one eye—"dégraisseur extraordinaire to the British public;" was brought before the magistrate to show cause why he should not be committed to prison for neglecting to maintain his wife in that style of elegance and comfort to which she was entitled—or rather, for neglecting her maintenance altogether.
The lady, Mrs. Flament, was a pretty, little, black-eyed, sprightly Englishwoman; who, "by some odd whim or other," as she said, fell in love with, and married Mr. Flament, about six years ago. But they never could agree very well; and after five years of connubial misery, they determined to separate—Mr. Flament undertaking to allow her a separate maintenance of ten shillings a-week; with which she was very well content, as she had "a good comfortable mother to fly to." Mr. Flament, however, was not a man of his word; for, though he paid the ten shillings a-week pretty regularly at the outset of their separation, he afterwards reduced it to seven, and latterly to three. This, she humbly submitted to the magistrate, was an income upon which no lady could exist; and, as Mr. Flament was the very best scourer at that moment out of Paris, she did hope his worship would compel him to make her a more suitable allowance.
Mr. Flament could speak no English, and so he was attended by a "professor of languages" in a military cloak; and this professor took great pains to convince the magistrate that Mr. Flament was a very poor man, and that Mrs. Flament was a very naughty woman. "She has robbed her husband three times," said the professor,—"shut him up in de prisonne vonce, and made seex, seven hondred grands faux pas!—Monsieur Flament had better broke de best of his two leg, dan marry such hussey! hussey! as madame his vife!"
Mrs. Flament was about to recriminate, but the magistrate prevented her, by observing that, whatever faults she might have, she was the defendant's wife; and by the laws of this country, he was bound to support her. The only question, therefore, was, what sum should be fixed upon; and he thought seven shillings a-week would be an equitable allowance.
The professor said Mr. Flament would sooner quit the country than pay any such sum.
"Will he?" said the magistrate, "but I will take care he does not; for unless something is agreed upon before he leaves this office, I will commit him to prison; and then we shall see how he will manage to leave the country."
The professor asked ten thousand pardons for offending his worship; and begged to observe that madame could earn seventeen shillings a-week for herself, by her own hands.
Madame replied, that it was hat binding to which the professor alluded; but she was sorry to say, she was not so far accomplished in it at present, as to be able to earn half that money.
After some further conversation, it was agreed that six shillings a-week should be the stipulated allowance; but then the parish must be indemnified.
The professor said there was not the least danger that Mons. Flament would run away—
"Then why did you threaten that he would?" asked the magistrate.
"I did not mean, Sare, that he should leave the country—the England," replied the professor, "only this town, Sare—that he should go out—into—the country, is all what I mean."
The magistrate observed, that it was not the custom in this country to say one thing and mean another—
"Vera true—your worship," replied the smiling professor with a low bow—"but John Bull say many things he does not mean, for all that."
His worship smiled also, and did not take the trouble of refuting the slander; and the matter ended in the professor and another friend of Mons. Flament becoming sureties to the parish on his behalf.