Paris brought us at length to a sort of bazaar for carriages; and such a collection as presented itself— Barouche and Buggy, Tandem, Random, would have made the fortune of a showman in England. We entered the yard, the Vicomte first in due order of precedence and propriety. I recollected the good old family-coach that first caught my attention at Vaurien's lodgings, and I pleased myself into the notion of my approaching drive in that rumbling representation of worn-out nobility, heraldic distinctions, and privileges gone by. No absolute suzerain of the good old times, demanding le droit de cuissage, could have stepped out more boldly to put his spurred and booted leg into the bed of his new-married vassal, than did I prepare the strut which was to lead to my entrance into the family-coach of the Vauriens; but I looked round in vain for this anticipated depository of my pride. I observed, indeed, ready for immediate use, a miserable calèche, fastened with the degenerate remains of a truly aristocratical set of harness to a pair of animals that seemed modelled from the Rosinante of Don Quixote; while a scowling and surly-looking driver, miserably dressed, stood beside, and threw a look at us as if he did not like his company. All this was rather strange; nor did the aspect of things look much brighter from my observing my friend the Vicomte in ardent conversation with a broad-set boisterous woman, who was evidently mistress of the place. He seemed eloquent, and she decided; and in fact, to let my readers into the secret at once, she was insisting on the Vicomte's offering some security for the hire of the caleche, which was to serve as our conveyance to the delights of Longchamps. A word or two explained this to me clearly; and with the vivacity which men sometimes muster up, when they start from a fit of castle(or carriage) building, I jumped into the vehicle, calling out lustily, 66 Allons, Monsieur le Vicomte! Allons, Cocher! Partons, Partons !” "C'est assez," cried the woman; "si Monsieur l'Anglais l'a choisi, c'est bien lui qui est responsable. Montez, Francois; montez, M. Vaurien ! C'est une affaire finie." The coachman and the Vicomte got up at the word, and away we drove; my friend endeavouring to smother his mortification, and I doing my best to conceal my observation of his embarrassmemt. He went muttering on, however; every jolt over the pavement giving an energetic vibration to such expressions as "Dam beast! Canaille! Hosh-posh! Affront a nobleman!" I let him go on uninterrupted, and listened patiently to his cooler confession, that, the carriage I had set my heart on not being his, he was obliged to hire one for the day, and having forgotten the little formality of entering into a written engagement, the wretched woman had refused to suffer him to get into the calèche, on his remonstrance at her exorbitant demand; but that my being an Englishman was security, she being protected without papers in her transactions with a foreigner. This seemed all so plausible that I swallowed it most credulously, and we drove on; but after-circumstances made me rather anxious to hear the point mooted by some legitimate propounder of international law. The rain did not fall, luckily for the Vicomte, but most unfortunately for me, for the dust rose in whirlwinds, by which I was nearly blinded, but to which he seemed quite insensible-as if "jetter la poudre aux yeux" was an operation as natural for him to suffer as to perform. While driven along towards the Bois de Boulogne he gradually recovered his composure. The world began to be on the move. A few early equipages came straggling forward; and the sun darted down his glaring rays upon us, enough to raise a smile under any French mustachio, maugre the piercing North-east wind, on which the edge of every sunbeam seemed sharpened, they cut so keenly. We had nearly reached the term of our first course (the site of the ancient Abbey, from which, and the pious processions of its tenants, the degenerate pilgrimage of our day derives its name) when I was struck by a change of countenance in the Vicomte beside me, and by some convulsive twitches and contortions in his limbs, that seemed to announce a severe nervous attack. "My dear friend, you are unwell, I fear," cried I.— "Oh, no, no-'tis noting, noting at all," replied he, with a dignified complacency;-but he kept fumbling at his watch-pocket, as if its neighbourhood was the seat of his malady. "What is the matter, my dear Vicomte ?" asked I, impatiently. "Have you lost any thing?" -"Oh, noting, noting at all," returned he gaily, "a mere bagatelleonly my vatch, but 'tis no matter."-" Shall we return and look for it ?" said I." Got bless my soul, no," replied he, with emphasis, " 'tis not vorth the while. If 'tis lost 'tis lost-dere 's end of it, you know; and a Frenchman is too mosh philosopher to care for sosh hosh-posh trifle like dat." A laugh closed the sentence, and I pondered silently upon it. The sharp wind, and the jolting of our "infernal machine," began now to produce their natural effects-for a considerable inclination to eat is the legitimate consequence of air and exercise. The Vicomte, too, was in want of something consolatory, and readily agreed to my proposal that we should stop at one of the tent-like constructions scattered by the road-side, and refresh ourselves with some of the à la fourchette temptations of its larder. We were quickly seated, and as quickly served. A capital fricandeau, an unimpeachable omelette, a plate of cold haricots blancs, with oil and vinegar, for the Vicomte, and a portion of pinards au naturel, for myself, were the chief ingredients of our repast. For our sour and surly cocher, I ordered a bottle of vin de Surenne, celebrated for its acidity, hoping that it would bring him to good humour, on the principle that two negatives make an affirmative. He sipped it growlingly, like a cur picking a bare bone, (if I may be allowed the Irishism,) and I should have moralized deeply, no doubt, on his invincible savageness, had not my attention being excited by the waiter flinging our bill (for which I had called) upon the table, and by the exhibition of some symptoms in my friend and boon companion precisely similar to those which had betrayed his anxiety in the carriage. "What now, Vicomte?" asked I, less anxiously than before, "what has got possession of you?"—" By Got, 'tis de very deevil!" was the reply, accompanied by a most abstracted air and rapid gesticulation. "Indeed!" said I, "we must drive him out then. Fill a bumper, Vicomte." As he took no notice of my summons, I did the service for him, and his left-hand, ." raised By quick instinctive motion," 66 poured the contents of the glass into their proper reservoir, but his right kept unceasingly rubbing about the lower extremities of his waistcoat, and had such friction only followed the swallowing of the wine it would have been natural enough-for the boisson was most execrable, though announced to us as " Beaune, première qualité." "Speak out, my dear Vicomte," said I once more, unburthen yourself.”—“ "By Got, I am unburdened already," replied he: "I have lost my purse-my money-vingt-deux Napoléons-trois pièces de cent sous-sept ou huit francs-et quelques petites pièces The appalling solemnity of this enumeration, and the prodigiousness of the sum, in comparison with the circumstances of the loser, filled me with sympathetic alarm. I started up, and swore that I suspected the ill-looking cocher of having picked his pocket as he stepped in and out of the carriage. He scouted this idea as impossible. I then turned the battery of my accusations upon a couple of "scurvy mechanics," who were regaling themselves at a table beside us, and proposed calling in the police for a general search. This the Vicomte would not listen to for a moment, saying aloud, with great feeling, and his hand placed on his breast-" Monsieur, non! Je connois trop l'honneur Francais ; je n'accuse personne ; si le sort m'a fait perdre cette somme inconsidérable, c'est perdu : voila le total! But, my dear Sir," added he in English, and in a subdued tone, "have de goodness to pay de bill, if you please." On these words he stalked towards the calèche with a very imposing and rather awful demeanour, leaving me to explain to the waiter and the other listeners the cause of his magnanimous expressions. I paid the bill, and rejoined the representative of the noble race of the Vauriens, with very elevated notions of his philosophy, and profound respect for himself and his whole family to the remotest generation. We soon re-entered the line of carriages, and proceeded at the regulation snail's-pace adopted on these occasions. My contemplation of the Vicomte, who was in a moment as lively, as chatty, and as much at his ease, as if he had found, instead of losing, twenty guineas and a gold watch, prevented me from paying much attention to the unmeaning and uninteresting procession in which I made one, and which annually sets all Paris in a flutter, and may be called la fete par excellence of milliners, mantua-makers, and hackney-coachmen. This spectacle of Longchamps is, of all others, the most stupid and the most devoutly worshipped of the periodical frivolities of Paris. No one of any fashion could presume to hold up his or her head for the rest of the year, if they did not, on this all-fools'-day, occupy a seat in some kind of vehicle, and sit up for hours to be stared at in the open air by the walking population of the capital. On the particular occasion which I describe, the crowd of carriages was inconceivable. But the day was not kindly. The sun was hot and the air raw. The year and the season did not pull together. The first was advanced, but the other backward-just like the ludicrous imitation of an English equipage which figured before me-a monstrous blue and gilded caricature of the Lord Mayor's coach, dragged by four old white horses, the leaders and wheelers pulling most obstinately in different directions, to the great amusement of the crowd, and the horrible discomfiture of the old aristocratical couple within, their clumsy postilions, with cocked-hats and huge jack-boots, and the two footmen, in their scarlet coats and yellow plush breeches of the true cut and pattern of the siècle de Louis XIV. This was the most barefaced revival of the ancienne régime ; but there were many minor attempts, and much laughable absurdity of our own day. The train of king's pages, for instance, on their piebald horses, and in a most quizzical costume; with various laughter-moving efforts to look English on the part of the other equestrians, both masters and grooms. The whole thing had the air of a forced production. The white dresses of the ladies were out of all keeping with the coldness of the weather; and the profusion of artificial flowers in their bonnets looked quite preposterous, when compared with the leafless branches of the trees that stretched their skeleton arms across the Boulevards. I was out of patience at the whole display; yet not so much annoyed by the folly of the multitude, as indignant at the meanness with which they submitted to be swore at, and rode over, and shoved, and jostled, and commanded, and abused, by some dozens of mounted gensdarmes— those military masters of the ceremonies, whose wand of office is the bare blade of a sabre-who give curses instead of courtesy-and put fears of despotism and tyranny into the hearts that should be filled with associations of joy. What hope can there be for such a people? thought I. But hold! I am afraid I have got to the length of my letter; and if I give myself more rope I may get hanged, or guillotined, or something of that sort, one fine morning. I sat it out till six o'clock. Less would not satisfy the Vicomte, and the coachman repelled my effort to quit the calèche. He insisted on my remaining until it was delivered safe and sound into "the place from whence it came." I was, therefore, obliged to suffer half-a-day's martyrdom, which may partly account for my disapproval of the show; and having paid the woman forty francs (being double the common price, on account of the fête), I parted with the Vicomte-for ever, I do believe. He gave me a squeeze of the hand, which was forebodingly forcible, and an assurance that he would come the next morning to settle his share of our day's expenses-a promise which he most faithfully remembered to forget; and it may be well to add, that when I called on him two days afterwards, the old portress told me he had gone into the country for some weeks; and to my inquiry if he had recovered his watch and money, she replied by a turn on her heel, slamming the door in my face, and the emphatical utterance of the interjection "Bah!" WHAT LIFE TO CHOOSE. "Not to know at large of things remote From use, obscure and subtle; but to know Paradise Lost. "WHEN I look round upon the material world," says a Pagan writer, "and observe the ineffable beauty and harmony of all its arrangements, the magnificent machinery of the heavenly bodies, the unerring precision with which they perform their majestic evolutions, as well as the regular succession of seasons and interchange of elements, by which the earth is maintained in undiminished splendour and fertility, I re cognise on all sides the power and the presence of a benignant Deity: but when I direct my observation towards the moral world, and reflect that the creation, the object, and the final conclusion of all this glorious pageant have been hitherto unrevealed to us, and threaten to remain involved in impenetrable obscurity; when I observe the confusion of principles, with the disorder, uncertainty, and darkness, that perpetually surround the destiny of man; when I see vice and irreligion triumphant and rewarded, piety and virtue oppressed and wretched, the mental and bodily anguish of innocent individuals, the perpetual struggle of nations to torment one another, with the general predominance of human and animal suffering in the endless alternations of destroyer and victim, I am lost in astonishment at the contrast of the physical and moral systems; and in spite of myself relapse into scepticism and doubt." Authority that he possessed not has removed part of the difficulty by revealing to us that the present is but a probationary existence-the prelude to another, in which all the inconsistencies and imperfections of which he complained will be finally adjusted and atoned upon immutable principles of right; but it must be confessed, that enough remains unexplained to harass and perplex the prying spirit. The origin and existence of vice and pain, the unmerited sufferings of animals, for whom we are not warranted in admitting a future state of retribution, these, and many other insolvable points, which, like so many ignes fatui, are as sure to elude our grasp as to lead us into pitfalls and difficulties, will be altogether avoided by the wise man, who, fixing his attention upon the consolatory perfectness of the material world, and confiding in the benignity which pervades it, will patiently await the fulness of time when the same spirit of goodness shall give a similar unity and completeness to the moral scheme of creation. Down to the minutest divisions of human occupation it will be found that the men whose pursuits bring them in contact with inanimate nature, enjoy their avocations much more than those who are conversant with humanity, and all the modifications of the social and moral system. Champort observes, that the writers on physics, natural history, physiology, chemistry, have been generally men of a mild, even, and happy temperament; while, on the contrary, the writers on politics, legislation, and even morals, commonly exhibited a melancholy and fretful spirit. Nothing more simple: the former studied nature, the others society. One class contemplates the work of the great Being, the other fixes its observation upon the work of man: the results must be different. The nymphs of Calypso, as they caressed and fondled the infant Cupid, became unconsciously penetrated with his flame, and if the power of love be thus subtle, that of hatred is, unfortunately, not less pervading. We cannot handle human passions, even to play with them, without imbibing some portion of their acrimony, any more than we can gather flowers amid the nettles without being stung. Into every thing human a spirit of party becomes insinuated, and self-love is perpetually forcing us to taste of its bitterness; but there is no rivalry with nature; our pride does not revolt at her superiority, nay, we find a pure and holy calm in contemplating her majesty, before which we bow down with mingled feelings of delight and reverence. Contrast this with the effects produced upon us by human grandeur and eleva |