O, how I envied him his feelings!
THE PASSPORT.
VERSAILLES.
I found no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B—. The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them over. I walk’d up close to the table, and giving first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were,—I told him I had come without any one to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me:—it is my countryman, the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works—et ayez la bonté, mon cher ami, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, de me faire cet honneur-là.—
The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing I look’d a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of the incident in the bookseller’s shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France.—And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count. So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader.
—And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile;—but I have no apprehensions, continued I;—for, in falling into the hands of the most polish’d people in the world, and being conscious I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at their mercy.—It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it against invalids.
An animated blush came into the Count de B—’s cheeks as I spoke this.—Ne craignez rien—Don’t fear, said he.—Indeed, I don’t, replied I again.—Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I have come laughing all the way from London to Paris, and I do not think Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me back crying for my pains.
—My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B— (making him a low bow), is to desire he will not.
The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half as much,—and once or twice said,—C’est bien dit. So I rested my cause there—and determined to say no more about it.
The Count led the discourse: we talk’d of indifferent things,—of books, and politics, and men;—and then of women.—God bless them all! said I, after much discourse about them—there is not a man upon earth who loves them so much as I do: after all the foibles I have seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I love them; being firmly persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought.
Eh bien! Monsieur l’Anglois, said the Count, gaily;—you are not come to spy the nakedness of the land;—I believe you;—ni encore, I dare say, that of our women!—But permit me to conjecture,—if, par hazard, they fell into your way, that the prospect would not affect you.