And here let me observe that a Frenchman eats his soup and bouille at twelve o'clock, drinks only with, not after his dinner, and then mixes water with his genuine wine; he lives in a fine climate, where there is not as with us, for six weeks together, easterly winds, which stop the pores, and obstruct perspiration. A Frenchman eats a great deal, it is true, but it is not all hard meat, and they never sit and drink after dinner or supper is over.—An Englishman, on the contrary, drinks much stronger, and a variety of fermented liquors, and often much worse, and sits at it many hours after dinner, and always after supper. How then can he expect such health, such spirits, and to enjoy a long life, free from pain, as most Frenchmen do; When the negro servants in the West-Indies find their masters call after dinner for a bowl of punch extraordinary they whisper them, (if company are present) and ask, "whether they drink for drunk, or drink for dry?" A Frenchman never drinks for drunk.—While the Englishman is earning disease and misery at his bottle, the Frenchman is embroidering a gown, or knitting a handkerchief for his mistress. I have seen a Lady's sacque finely tamboured by a Captain of horse, and a Lady's white bosom shewn through mashes netted by the man who made the snare, in which he was himself entangled; though he made it he did not perhaps know the powers of it till she set it.
LETTER XLV.
I write to you just as things come into my head, having taken very few notes, and those, as you must perceive, often without much regard to unison or time. It has this minute occurred to me, that I omitted to tell you on my journey onwards, that I visited a little town in Picardie, called Ham, where there is so strong a castle, that it may be called a petit Bastile, and which was then and still is, full of state prisoners and debtors. To this castle there is a monstrous tower, the walls of which are thirty six feet thick, and the height and circumference are proportionable thereto; it was built by the Conetable de St. Paul, in order to shut up his master, Charles the VIth, King of France, and contemporary, I think, with our Henry the Vth; but such are the extraordinary turns of all human affairs, that Mons. le Conetable was shut up in it himself many years, and ended his days there.—The fate of this constable brings to my mind a circumstance that happened under my administration, at Land-Guard Fort, when the King was pleased to trust me with the command of it. I had not been twenty-four hours in possession of what I thought a small sovereignty, before I received a letter in the following terms:
"Sir, Having observed horses grazing on the covered way, that hath done apparent damage, and may do more, I think it my duty to inform you, that his Majesty does not permit horses to feed thereon, &c. &c. (Signed)
"Anthony Goode,
Overseer of the Works."
I never was more surprized, than to find my wings were to be thus clipt, by a civil officer of the board of ordnance; however wrong I or my horses had acted, I could not let Mr. Goode graze so closely upon my authority, without a reprimand; I therefore wrote him an answer in terms as follow: "that having seen a fat impudent-looking strutting fellow about the garrison, it was my order that when his duty led him to communicate any thing to me relative to the works thereof, that he came himself, instead of writing impertinent letters." Mr. Goode sent a copy of his letter and mine to Sir Charles Frederick; and the post following, he received from the Office of Ordnance, several printed papers in the King's name, forbidding horses grazing on the works, and ordering Mr. Goode to nail those orders up in different parts of the garrison! but as I had not then learnt that either he, or his red ribband master, had any authority to give out, even the King's orders, in a garrison I commanded, but through my hands, I took the liberty, while Mr. Goode and his assistant-son were nailing one up opposite to my parlour window, to send for a file of men and put them both into the Black-hold, an apartment Mr. Goode had himself built, being a Master-Mason. By the time he had been ten minutes grazing under this covered way, he sent me a message, that he was asthmatic, that the place was too close, and that if he died within a year and a day, I must be deemed accessary to his death. But as I thought Mr. Goode should have considered, that some of the poor invalids too might now and then be as subject to the asthma as he, it was a proper punishment, and I kept him there till he knew the duty of a soldier, as well as that of a mason; and as I would his betters, had they come down and ventured to have given out orders in a garrison under my command; but instead of getting me punished as a certain gentleman aimed at, that able General Lord Ligonier approved my conduct, and removed the man to another garrison, and would have dismissed him the ordnance service, had I not become a petitioner in his favour; for he was too fat and old to work, too proud and arrogant to beg, and he and his advisers too contemptible to be angry with.—But I must return to the castle of Ham, to tell you what a dreadful black-hold there is in that tower; it is a trap called by the French des Obliettes, of so horrible a contrivance, that when the prisoners are to suffer in it, the mechanical powers are so constructed, as to render it impossible to be again opened, nor would it signify, but to see the body molue, i.e. ground to pieces.
There were formerly two or three Obliettes in this castle; one only now remains; but there are still several in the Bastile.—When a criminal suffers this frightful death, (for perhaps it is not very painful) he has no previous notice, but being led into the apartment, is overwhelmed in an instant. It is to be presumed, however, that none but criminals guilty of high crimes, suffer in this manner; for the state prisoners in the Bastile are not only well lodged, but liberal tables are kept for them.
An Irish officer was lately enlarged from the Bastile, who had been twenty-seven years confined there; and though he found a great sum of money in the place he had concealed it in a little before his confinement, he told Colonel C——, of Fitz-James's regiment, that "having out-lived his acquaintance with the world, as well as with men, he would willingly return there again."
At Ham the prisoners for debt are quite separated from the state prisoners; the latter are in the castle, the former in the tower.