——No;——I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the people—their genius——their manners—their customs—their laws——their religion—their government—their manufactures—their commerce—their finances, with all the resources and hidden springs which sustain them: qualified as I may be, by spending three days and two nights amongst them, and during all that time making these things the entire subject of my enquiries and reflections——
Still—still I must away——the roads are paved—the posts are short—the days are long—’tis no more than noon—I shall be at Fontainbleau before the king——
—Was he going there? not that I know——
[ CHAPTER XX]
Now I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain that we do not get on so fast in France as we do in England; whereas we get on much faster, consideratis considerandis; thereby always meaning, that if you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of baggage which you lay both before and behind upon them—and then consider their puny horses, with the very little they give them—’tis a wonder they get on at all: their suffering is most unchristian, and ’tis evident thereupon to me, that a French post-horse would not know what in the world to do, was it not for the two words ****** and ****** in which there is as much sustenance, as if you gave him a peck of corn: now as these words cost nothing, I long from my soul to tell the reader what they are; but here is the question—they must be told him plainly, and with the most distinct articulation, or it will answer no end—and yet to do it in that plain way—though their reverences may laugh at it in the bed-chamber—fell well I wot, they will abuse it in the parlour: for which cause, I have been volving and revolving in my fancy some time, but to no purpose, by what clean device or facette contrivance I might so modulate them, that whilst I satisfy that ear which the reader chuses to lend me—I might not dissatisfy the other which he keeps to himself.
——My ink burns my finger to try——and when I have——’twill have a worse consequence——it will burn (I fear) my paper.
——No;——I dare not——
But if you wish to know how the abbess of Andoüillets and a novice of her convent got over the difficulty (only first wishing myself all imaginable success)—I’ll tell you without the least scruple.
[ CHAPTER XXI]
The abbess of Andoüillets, which, if you look into the large set of provincial maps now publishing at Paris, you will find situated amongst the hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an Anchylosis or stiff joint (the sinovia of her knee becoming hard by long matins), and having tried every remedy——first, prayers and thanksgiving; then invocations to all the saints in heaven promiscuously——then particularly to every saint who had ever had a stiff leg, before her——then touching it with all the reliques of the convent, principally with the thigh-bone of the man of Lystra, who had been impotent from his youth——then wrapping it up in her veil when she went to bed—then cross-wise her rosary—then bringing in to her aid the secular arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals——then treating it with emollient and resolving fomentations——then with poultices of marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus Henricus, white lillies and fenugreek—then taking the woods, I mean the smoak of ’em, holding her scapulary across her lap——then decoctions of wild chicory, water-cresses, chervil, sweet cecily and cochlearia——and nothing all this while answering, was prevailed on at last to try the hot baths of Bourbon——so having first obtain’d leave of the visitor-general to take care of her existence—she ordered all to be got ready for her journey: a novice of the convent of about seventeen, who had been troubled with a whitloe in her middle finger, by sticking it constantly into the abbess’s cast poultices, &c.—had gained such an interest, that overlooking a sciatical old nun, who might have been set up for ever by the hot-baths of Bourbon, Margarita, the little novice, was elected as the companion of the journey.