The French officer buys a little biddet, puts his shirts and best regimental coat into a little portmanteau, buckles that behind his saddle, and with his sword by his side, and his croix at his button-hole, travels at the expence of about three shillings a day, and often less, through a kingdom where every order of people shew him attention, and give him precedence.
I blush, when I recollect that I have rode the risque of being wet to the skin because I would not disgrace my saddle, nor load my back with a great coat; for I have formerly, as well as latterly, travelled without a servant.
I have a letter now before me, which I received a few days ago from a French Captain of foot, who says, sur le champ j'ay fait seller ma petite Rossinante (car vous scavez que j'ay achete un petit cheval de 90 livres selle et bride) et me voila a Epernay chez Monsieur Lechet, &c. This gentleman's whole pay does not amount to more than sixty pounds a year, yet he has always five guineas in his pocket, and every convenience, and some luxuries about him; he assists now and then an extravagant brother, appears always well dressed; and last year I bought him a ticket in the British lottery: he did not consider that he employed an unfortunate man to buy it, and I forgot to remind him of it.
After saying thus much of a virtuous young man (though a Frenchman) there will be no harm in telling you his name is Lalieu, a Captain in the regiment du Maine.—Before I took my last leave of him, talking together of the horrors of war, I asked him what he would do if he were to see me vis-a-vis in an hostile manner? He embraced me, and said, "turn the but end of my fusee towards you, my friend." I thank God that neither his but-end, nor my muzzle can ever meet in that manner, and I shall be happy to meet him in any other.
P.S. I omitted to say, that the Maconoise female peasants wear black hats, in the form of the English straw or chip hats; and when they are tied on, under the chin, it gives them with the addition of their round-eared laced cap, a decent, modest appearance which puts out of countenance all the borrowed plumage, dead hair, black wool, lead, grease, and yellow powder, which is now in motion between Edinburgh and Paris.
It is a pity that pretty women, at least, do not know, that the simplicity of a Quaker's head-dress, is superior to all that art can contrive: and those who remember the elegant Miss Fide, a woman of that persuasion, will subscribe to the truth of my assertion. And it is still a greater pity, that plain women do not know, that the more they adorn and artify their heads, the more conspicuous they make their natural defects.
LETTER XLVIII.
At Challons sur la Soane, (for there is another town of the same name in Champaigne) I had the honor of a visit from Mons. le Baron Shortall, a gentleman of an ancient family, rather in distress at this time, by being kept out of six and thirty thousand a year, his legal property in Ireland; but as the Baron made his visitala-mode de capuchin Friar, without knocking, and when only the female part of my family were in the apartment, he was dismissed rather abruptly for a man of his high rank and great fortune in expectation. This dismission, however, did not dismay him; he rallied again, with the reinforcement of Madame la Baroness, daughter, as he positively affirmed, of Mons. le Prince de Monaco; but as I had forbad his being shewn up, he desired me to come down, a summons curiosity induced me to obey. Never, surely, were two people of fashion in a more pitiable plight! he was in a russet brown black suit of cloaths; Madame la Baroness in much the same colour, wrapt up in a tattered black silk capuchin; and I knew not which to admire most, their folly or their impudence; for surely never did an adventurer set out with less capabilities about him; his whole story was so flagrant a fib, that in spite of the very respectable certificates of My Lord Mayor, John Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Bull, I was obliged to tell him plainly, that I did not believe him to be a gentleman, nor his wife to be a relation of the Prince of Monaco. All this he took in good part, and then assured me they were both very hungry, and without meat or money; I therefore ordered a dinner at twenty sols a head; and, as I sat by while they eat it, I had reason to believe that he told me one plain truth, for in truth they eat as if they had never eaten before. After dinner the Baron did me the honour to consult with me how he should get down to Lyons? I recommended to him to proceed by water; but, said he, my dear Sir, I have no money;—an evil I did not chuse to redress; and, after several unsuccessful attempts at my purse, and some at my person,—he whispered me that even six livres would be acceptable; but I held out, and got off, by proposing that the Baroness should write a letter to the Prince her father, to whom I had the honour to be known, and that I would carry him the letter, and enforce their prayer, by making it my own. This measure she instantly complied with, and addressed her father adorable Prince; but concluded it with a name which could not belong to her either as maid, wife, or widow. I remarked this to the Baron, who acknowledged at once the mistake, said she had signed a false name, and she should write it over again; but when I observed to him that, as the Prince knew the handwriting of his own dear child, and as the name of women is often varying by marriage, or miscarriage, it was all one: to this he agreed; and I brought off the letter, and my purse too, for forty sols; yet there was so much falshood, folly, and simplicity in this simple pair of adventurers, that I sorely repented I did not give them their passage in the coche d'eau to Lyons; for he could not speak a word of French, nor Madame la Baroness a word of English; and the only insignia of distinction between them, was, a vast clumsy brass-hilted sword which the Baron, instead of wearing at his side, held up at his nose, like a Physician's gold-headed cane.—When I took my leave of this Sir James Shortall, (for he owned at last he was only a Baronet) he promised to meet me next time dressed in his blue and silver.
I verily believe my Irish adventurer at Perpignan, is a gentleman, and therefore I relieved him; I am thoroughly persuaded my Challons adventurer is not, yet perhaps he was a real object of charity, and his true tale would have produced him better success than his borrowed story. Sir James was about sixty, Lady Shortall about fifty.—Sir James too had a pretty large property in America, and would have visited his estates on that continent, had I not informed him of the present unhappy differences now subsisting between that and the mother country, of which he had not heard a single syllable.