I could get no further enlightenment from the Count of Nullepart, and no sooner had we crossed into France than my mystification was increased. At the inn at the first town we came to, of which I forget the name, the Count of Nullepart declared solemnly that we must speak for him on all occasions, for by a singular mischance he had entirely mislaid the use of the French tongue. And, further, he assured us that this grave calamity had had the unprecedented consequence of stimulating in the highest degree the growth of his chin hairs. Indeed, this growth was so remarkable that even upon our first day in France he had acquired quite a large beard.
Instead, then, of the gay, sprightly, and handsome Count of Nullepart, an admired member of the French nobility, with whom we had come upon our journey from Toledo, we had for a companion upon French soil one Señor Fulano, a staid, sober, and bearded citizen, who claimed cousinship with the burgomaster of the town of El Dorado, a place of which I had never heard the name.
“I protest, Sir Count,” said I, “there is no such place as El Dorado in the length and breadth of our peninsula.”
This caused the Count of Nullepart and Sir Richard Pendragon a vast amount of mirth, and I heard the latter declare that even his preposterous horse Melanto was chuckling furiously.
“The truth is, good Master Fulano,” said the Englishman, “these youthful Spaniardoes have so little fantasy as a trussed fowl. Personally I ascribe their heaviness to the dryness of their climate and the rough quality of their wines.”
“That is the root of the matter, doubtless,” said the Count of Nullepart in a most execrable and rustic Spanish which you would think a gentleman would be careful not to use.
Be this as it may, from the moment we crossed into France, and during the whole time of our sojourn in that unprofitable country, the Count of Nullepart, or Señor Fulano as he would have us call him, had no French at all. Whenever he had occasion to speak he used Spanish of a most rustic and barbarous sort.
Much as I disliked the country of France, I disliked the people, their cookery, their manner of speaking, and their extremely foreign ways even more. As I had small skill in their language, and the Count of Nullepart had so mysteriously laid aside that which he could claim, we had greatly to depend upon Sir Richard Pendragon’s knowledge and adroitness for the least of our necessities. And to allow a due to the devil—as my countrymen express it—it must be said that the well-being of three travellers in a foreign country could not have been in worthier hands.
Sir Richard Pendragon’s use of the French tongue, which I doubt not to polite ears must have been as unseemly as his use of Castilian, was so vigorous and his eyes rolled so freely, the name of God and his Evil Adversary were so constantly upon his lips, and his hand was so seldom off the hilt of his sword, that the French innkeepers vied with each other in doing his behests, almost before he had been put to the inconvenience of making them known. I cannot remember—although on several occasions he has informed me of the number—how many temporal kings of whom Sir Richard Pendragon claimed kinship and acquaintancy, but at least he wore their manners in such wise as to know how to be obeyed. Full many an innkeeper have I seen turn pale at his utterance of the word “Sapristi!” And so surprised were some of them to find themselves alive by the time he quitted their houses that they forgot to ask him for the score, or perhaps it was that they feared to do so. At least I know that in several instances they must have gone unpaid had not the Señor Fulano thrown them a silver dollar.
I had no favourable impression of this country of France. I suppose it is a pleasant country; at least I have met those who allow it to be so; but to the eye of a true Iberian it seemed to lack colour, politeness, and originality. Besides, as soon as we came to the first place out of Spain, of which, as I have said, I forget the name, it came on to rain; and during the whole time we were in this unfortunate land, which could not have been less than thirty days, it continued to do so. I know not whether the inhabitants of the country subsist upon frogs, as was said of them by Sir Richard Pendragon, but if he spoke truly it was doubtless in obedience to the dispensation of the good God, for their favourite food was continually to be seen swimming in the pools that lay in the middle of their roads.