The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can alledge against it, is, that if there is but a cap-full of wind in or about Paris, ’tis more blasphemously sacre dieu’d there than in any other aperture of the whole city—and with reason, good and cogent, Messieurs; for it comes against you without crying garde d’eau, and with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half, which is its full worth.

The poor notary, just as he was passing by the sentry, instinctively clapp’d his cane to the side of it; but in raising it up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the centinel’s hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the balustrade clear into the Seine——

——’Tis an ill wind, said a boatsman who catch’d it, which blows no body any good.

The sentry, being a Gascon, incontinently twirl’d up his whiskers, and levell’d his harquebuss.

Harquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman’s paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, she had borrow’d the sentry’s match to light it—it gave a moment’s time for the Gascon’s blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to his advantage——’Tis an ill wind, said he, catching off the notary’s castor,2 and legitimating the capture with the boatman’s adage.

The poor notary cross’d the bridge, and passing along the rue de Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he walk’d along in this manner:

Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanes all my days—to be born to have the storm of ill language levelled against me and my profession wherever I go—to be forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman—to be driven forth out of my house by domestic winds, and despoiled of my castor by pontific ones—to be here, bare-headed, in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents—where am I to lay my head?—miserable man! what wind in the two-and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it does to the rest of thy fellow- creatures, good!

As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this sort, a voice call’d out to a girl, to bid her run for the next notary—now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walk’d up the passage to the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, was usher’d into a large chamber, dismantled of every thing but a long military pike—a breast-plate—a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up equidistant in four different places against the wall.

An old personage, who had heretofore been a gentleman, and, unless decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand, in his bed; a little table, with a taper burning, was set close beside it; and close by the table was placed a chair—the notary sat him down in it; and pulling out his ink-horn and a sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them before him, and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the table, he disposed every thing to make the gentleman’s last will and testament.

Alas! Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, raising himself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expence of bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in peace unless I left it as a legacy to the world; the profits arising out of it, I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from me—it is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind—it will make the fortunes of your house—the notary dipp’d his pen into his ink-horn——Almighty director of every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his hands towards heaven—thou, whose hand has led me on through such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted man—direct my tongue, by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that this stranger may set down naught but what is written in that Book, from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to be condemned or acquitted!—The notary held up the point of his pen betwixt the taper and his eye——


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