—It is a story, Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, which will rouse up every affection in nature—it will kill the humane, and touch the heart of cruelty herself with pity——

—The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a third time into his ink-horn—and the old gentleman turning a little more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these words——

—And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then entered the room.

The Fragment and The Bouquet³

Paris

When La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he had wrapt round the stalks of a bouquet to keep it together, which he had presented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards——Then, prithee, La Fleur, said I, step back to her to the Count de B^****’s hotel and see if you can get it—There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur—and away he flew.

In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment——Juste ciel! in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewel of her—his faithless mistress had given his gage d’amour to one of the Count’s footmen—the footman to a young sempstress—and the sempstress to a fidler, with my fragment at the end of it——Our misfortunes were involved together—I gave a sigh—and La Fleur echo’d it back again to my ear——

—How perfidious! cried La Fleur—How unlucky! said I—

—I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had lost it—Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.

Whether I did or no, will be seen hereafter.

The Act of Charity

Paris

The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry, may be an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things; but he will not do to make a good sentimental traveller. I count little of the many things I see pass at broad noon-day, in large and open streets——Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene of her’s worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together—and yet they are absolutely fine;——and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of ’em—and for the text—“Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia”⁴—is as good as any one in the Bible.

There is a long dark passage issuing out from the opera comique into a narrow street; ’tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiacre,⁵ or wish to get off quietly o’foot when the opera is done. At the end of it, towards the theatre, ’tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get halfway down, but near the door—’tis more for ornament than use: you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns—but does little good to the world, that we know of.

In returning along this passage, I discern’d, as I approach’d within five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm in arm, with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a fiacre——as they were next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up within a yard or little more of them, and quietly took my stand——I was in black, and scarce seen.