The Paris Sketch Book | Page 7

has a shooting dress, a third has a blouse and a pair of guiltless
spurs--all have as much hair on the face as nature or art can supply, and
all wear their hats very much on one side. Believe me, there is on the
face of this world no scamp like an English one, no blackguard like one
of these half-gentlemen, so mean, so low, so vulgar,--so ludicrously
ignorant and conceited, so desperately heartless and depraved.
But why, my dear sir, get into a passion?--Take things coolly. As the
poet has observed, "Those only is gentlemen who behave as sich;" with
such, then, consort, be they cobblers or dukes. Don't give us, cries the
patriotic reader, any abuse of our fellow- countrymen (anybody else
can do that), but rather continue in that good-humored, facetious,
descriptive style with which your letter has commenced.--Your remark,
sir, is perfectly just, and does honor to your head and excellent heart.
There is little need to give a description of the good town of Boulogne,
which, haute and basse, with the new light-house and the new harbor,
and the gas-lamps, and the manufactures, and the convents, and the
number of English and French residents, and the pillar erected in honor
of the grand Armée d'Angleterre, so called because it DIDN'T go to
England, have all been excellently described by the facetious Coglan,
the learned Dr. Millingen, and by innumerable guide-books besides. A
fine thing it is to hear the stout old Frenchmen of Napoleon's time
argue how that audacious Corsican WOULD have marched to London,
after swallowing Nelson and all his gun-boats, but for cette
malheureuse guerre d'Espagne and cette glorieuse campagne d'Autriche,
which the gold of Pitt caused to be raised at the Emperor's tail, in order
to call him off from the helpless country in his front. Some Frenchmen
go farther still, and vow that in Spain they were never beaten at all;
indeed, if you read in the Biographie des Hommes du Jour, article
"Soult," you will fancy that, with the exception of the disaster at
Vittoria, the campaigns in Spain and Portugal were a series of triumphs.
Only, by looking at a map, it is observable that Vimeiro is a mortal
long way from Toulouse, where, at the end of certain years of victories,
we somehow find the honest Marshal. And what then?--he went to
Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English there, to be sure;--a
known fact, on which comment would be superfluous. However, we
shall never get to Paris at this rate; let us break off further palaver, and
away at once. . . .

(During this pause, the ingenious reader is kindly requested to pay his
bill at the Hotel at Boulogne, to mount the Diligence of Laffitte,
Caillard and Company, and to travel for twenty-five hours, amidst
much jingling of harness-bells and screaming of postilions.)
. . . . . .
The French milliner, who occupies one of the corners, begins to remove
the greasy pieces of paper which have enveloped her locks during the
journey. She withdraws the "Madras" of dubious hue which has bound
her head for the last five-and-twenty hours, and replaces it by the black
velvet bonnet, which, bobbing against your nose, has hung from the
Diligence roof since your departure from Boulogne. The old lady in the
opposite corner, who has been sucking bonbons, and smells dreadfully
of anisette, arranges her little parcels in that immense basket of
abominations which all old women carry in their laps. She rubs her
mouth and eyes with her dusty cambric handkerchief, she ties up her
nightcap into a little bundle, and replaces it by a more becoming
head-piece, covered with withered artificial flowers, and crumpled tags
of ribbon; she looks wistfully at the company for an instant, and then
places her handkerchief before her mouth:--her eyes roll strangely
about for an instant, and you hear a faint clattering noise: the old lady
has been getting ready her teeth, which had lain in her basket among
the bonbons, pins, oranges, pomatum, bits of cake, lozenges,
prayer-books, peppermint-water, copper money, and false hair-- stowed
away there during the voyage. The Jewish gentleman, who has been so
attentive to the milliner during the journey, and is a traveller and
bagman by profession, gathers together his various goods. The
sallow-faced English lad, who has been drunk ever since we left
Boulogne yesterday, and is coming to Paris to pursue the study of
medicine, swears that he rejoices to leave the cursed Diligence, is sick
of the infernal journey, and d--d glad that the d--d voyage is so nearly
over. "Enfin!" says your neighbor, yawning, and inserting an elbow
into the mouth of his right and left hand companion, "nous voilà."
NOUS VOILÀ!--We are at Paris! This must account for