can emancipate one half of the world from the prepossessions which it holds against the other—that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the Sçavoir vivre, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration, and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught us mutual love.

The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of his character—I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the object—’twas my own way of thinking—the difference was, I could not have express’d it half so well.

It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast—if the latter goes pricking up his ears and starting all the way at every object which he never saw before—I have as little torment of this kind as any creature alive, and yet I honestly confess, that many a thing gave me pain, and that I blush’d at many a word the first month—which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second.

Madame de Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues out of town—Of all Women, Madame de Rambouliet is the most correct; and I never wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart—In our return back, Madame de Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord⁷—I asked her, if she wanted any thing—Rien que pisser, said Madame de Rambouliet—

Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet piss on—and, ye fair mystic nymphs! go each one pluck your Rose, and scatter them in your path—for Madame de Rambouliet did no more—I handed Madame de Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the Priest of the chaste Castalia,⁸ I could not have served at her fountain with a more respectful decorum.

The End of the First Volume