[CHAPTER IX.]
After supping with the pages, whose meals were taken in a separate chamber, I inquired of the old major-domo, who I found was to be my oracle in the house, whether the Duke was likely to require my attendance upon him during the course of the evening; and, learning that I might absent myself in security, I told my old adviser that I should go out into the streets of Paris, and take a stroll through the city, which I had not seen since I left it with Lord Masterton, many months before. The good old man gave me a great many sage and prudent cautions as to my behaviour; but, at the same time, having a billet to send to his nephew, one Jacques Marlot, a printer, who lived upon the Key of the Goldsmiths, he did not at all oppose my expedition, but, on the contrary, requested me to deliver the note as I went.
I willingly undertook the task, and sallied forth full of glad thoughts, and well disposed to be pleased with everything that a great city could present.
To tell the truth, my freedom from the irksome restraint and wearisome application which my late studies demanded, made me feel very much like a bird escaped from its cage, and I walked along through the streets of Paris far happier than if I had been lord of one half of the universe. That capital, nevertheless, was not, perhaps, one of the best schools in which a boy, who, like myself, had run on far beyond his years in the race of life, could complete his education. Always the great emporium of vice and debauchery, Paris, in its present state, offers but a faint picture of its former self. The licence of every kind that then existed in the city, no tongue can tell, nor pen can describe. Everything the most sacred had become a jest. Every moral tie was broken, without shame or care; and never did liberty of speech and action arrive at the consummation of a total demoralization of the whole people, more completely than it had done, by this time, in the French capital. It luckily happened, however, that, though doubtless I might have found plenty to initiate me into all sorts of mysteries which I had better not have known, I was too young for the sort of instruction I might otherwise have received, and my nature was too quick and vehement to take pleasure in vice without passion.
All that I found then to amuse me in the streets of Paris, was the gaiety, the bustle, and the liveliness of the people, the witty ribaldry of their songs and jests, their easily excited merriment, and their extravagant grimaces. All this certainly pleased and interested me; and I met with many a sight to attract my attention and arrest my steps as I walked on to the Quai des Orfèvres. However, I at length arrived there; and, having discovered the dwelling of Jacques Marlot, I went in, and delivered his uncle's note.
He was a little, gay, joyful-looking man, not in the least resembling the worthy major-domo, but with a face not unlike the busts of Socrates, if we can conceive the countenance of the philosopher covered over with a florid and somewhat wine-imbued skin, and lighted up with two sparkling small black eyes, full of unquenchable fire and malice.
At the time that I entered, he was busily engaged, though in total solitude, in despatching the goodly form of a fat roasted capon, which he took care to bathe in repeated draughts from a tankard of warm wine, which stood in his chimney corner. He received me with the sort of gay civility which his whole demeanour bespoke; and, opening his uncle's note, grinned merrily at the contents; observing, that his relation warned him to beware of printing anything against the Court, as the Parliament and the generals were all racing against each other to see which should make peace fastest.
"Ma foi," he added, "I will make my peace as they have made theirs, with arms in my hand;" and, setting me down a cup, he insisted on my staying to drink with him, which, after having once tasted his potations, I felt very well inclined to do. It struck me, perhaps, as a little extraordinary, that a poor printer, whose trade was not at that time the most lucrative in Paris, should be able to afford rich Burgundy, and to feed upon fat capon; but I soon found that, being of a very unscrupulous nature, Master Jacques Marlot obtained large prices for printing all those defamatory libels against Mazarin, the Queen, and the whole Court, which then formed the amusement and the reproach of the city. It was his rule never to inquire who the authors were, provided they paid him largely. The more unceremonious the wit, and biting the satire, the more it agreed with the tastes of the printer himself; and many a noble, and, I believe I might add, many a reverend pen, poured forth its gall from under the mantle of Jacques. Marlot.
My promptitude in catching his bons mots, my readiness in replying to them, my English accent, and my insular notions, as he called them, all seemed to please and to amuse the printer much; and after having, with a rueful glance, divided the last drop in the flagon equally between himself and me, he invited me cordially to come back and see him again in a few days at the same hour, which I did not fail to do more than once; and many a merry laugh have we had together at the follies and the vices of persons of every rank, class, and condition in the state. Indeed, there was such a strange mixture of the cynic, the stoic, and the epicurean, in the whole life and conduct of Jacques Marlot, that I could not help looking upon him as a great philosopher.
Whether any one, who by chance may read these pages, will coincide in my opinion, I cannot tell; but every one shall have an opportunity of judging; for this casual acquaintance, formed under such very common-place circumstances, went on into after years, and followed me through many a strange scene to distant parts of the land. Those scenes, however, will, themselves, require too long detail for me to pause upon our less interesting interviews; though the conversation of Jacques Marlot would, at the time I speak of, have formed no bad jest-book for the Fronde; and on that very night I heard more bons mots and anecdotes in half an hour than had met my ear for many a day before.