2
NCE AND ITALY
They order, said I, this matter better in France.--You have been in France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most civil triumph in the world.--Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself, That one and twenty miles sailing, for 'tis absolutely no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: -- I'll look into them: so, giving up the argument,--I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches,--"the coat I have on," said I, looking at the sleeve, "will do;"--took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning,--by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the droits d'aubaine;--my shirts, and black pair of silk breeches,--portmanteau and all, must have gone to the King of France;--even the little picture which I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from my neck!--Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwary passenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to their coast!--By heaven! Sire, it is not well done; and much does it grieve me, 'tis the monarch of a people so civilized and courteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with! -
But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions. -
CALAIS.
When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King of France's health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary, high honour for the humanity of his temper,--I rose up an inch taller for the accommodation.
- No--said I--the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may be misled, like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood. As I acknowledged this, I felt a suffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek--more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres a bottle, wh