In the court-yard of the hotel was standing the voiture, which had come in some twenty minutes before us. The femme-de-chambre was carrying up the last package: the postilion had got out of his boots, and had placed them to lean against the wall. The good lady of the house came out to welcome me, and the garçon was ready at the step. It's very true; the freshness, if not the sincerity, of an inn welcome, makes one of the amenities of life: it compensates for the wearisomeness of the road: it is something to look forward to at the end of a fatiguing day; and, what is best, you can have just as much or as little of it as you like. There is no keeping on of your buckram when once you are seated in your inn,—no stiffening up for dinner when you had infinitely rather be quite at your ease. What you want you ask for, without saying, "by your leave," or, "if you please;" and what you ask for, if you are a reasonable man, you get. Let no traveller go to a friend's house if he wants to be comfortable. Let him keep to an inn: he is there, pro tempore, at home.
"I shall stop here to-night, Madame."
"As Monsieur pleases: and to-morrow—?"
"I will resume my route to Clermont."
"Monsieur is going to the baths of Mont Dor, no doubt?"
"Just so."
"Then, sir, you will have excellent company, and you have done well to come here; Monsieur le Marquis is going on thither to-morrow: and if Monsieur would be so obliging,—but I will run up and ask him and Madame, the sweetest lady in the world,—they will be glad to have you at dinner with them: you are all going to Mont Dor. You will be enchanted: excuse me, I will be back in an instant."
How curious, thought I, that without any doings of my own, I should just be thrown into the way of the person whom my curiosity—my impertinent, or silly curiosity, which you will—prompted me with the desire to meet. The superciliousness of the voiture vanished from my recollection, and my national frigidity was doomed to be thawed into civility, if not into amiableness.
"The Marquis de Mirepoix would be glad of the honour of Monsieur's company at dinner, if he would be so obliging as to excuse ceremony, and the refinements of the toilette." What a charming message! Surely there is an innate grace in this people, notwithstanding their twenty years of blood and revolution, that can never be worn out! Why, they did not even know my name; and on the simple suggestion of the hostess, they consent to sit with me at table! Truly this is the land of politeness, and of kind accommodation: the land of ready access to the stranger, where the ties of his home, withered, or violently snapped asunder, are replaced by the engaging attractions of unostentatious and well-judged civility; and where he is induced to leave his warmest inclinations, if not his heart. Never give up this distinguishing attribute, France, thou land of the brave and the gay! it shall compensate for much of thy waywardness: it shall take off the rough edge of thy egotism: it shall disarm thy ambition: it shall make thee the friend of all the world.
"Il m'a payé trois francs la poste, te dis-je: c'est un gros milord: que sais-je!"