The Viscount, impatient to cultivate the acquaintance of a person of such an hospitable appearance, ran before me toward him; when he got up to him, he stopped short, as if surprised, and then, to my utter astonishment, he raised his foot with every mark of indignation, and gave the poor old hermit a violent kick.
I do not remember that I was ever more shocked in my life; I was at the same time quite confounded at an action so unworthy in itself, and so incompatible with the character of Mons. de Laval.—I was soon reconciled, however, to the treatment the old fellow had received, when I discovered that this venerable personage was not the honest man we took him for, but a downright impostor, made of painted wood, and dressed in the robes of a hermit to deceive passengers.
Over the door was an inscription from Horace—
Odi profanum vulgus,
On the inside of the door—
Fata volentes ducunt, nolentes trahunt.
And in another part, within the hermitage—
Omnes eodem cogimur: omnium
Versatur urna, serius ocius,