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But such things are most difficult to translate into words; — one lays down the pen, and thinks and thinks. The figures appear, and take their places one by one: No, not if pens were fitch-brushes, and words were bladders of paint. With which, for the present, adieu. Simon Gambouge was the son of Solomon Gambouge; and as all the world knows, both father and son were astonishingly clever fellows at their profession. Solomon painted landscapes, which nobody bought; and Simon took a higher line, and painted portraits to admiration, only nobody came to sit to him.
As he was not gaining five pounds a year by his profession, and had arrived at the age of twenty, at least, Simon determined to better himself by taking a wife — a plan which a number of other wise men adopt, in similar years and circumstances. Portrait of a lady — Griskinissa; Sleeping Nymph — Griskinissa, without a rag of clothes, lying in a forest; Maternal Solicitude — Griskinissa again, with young Master Gambouge, who was by this time the offspring of their affections.
The lady brought the painter a handsome little fortune of a couple of hundred pounds; and as long as this sum lasted no woman could be more lovely or loving. At first they embraced tenderly, and, kissing and crying over their little infant, vowed to heaven that they would do without: When this habit of pawning is discovered, it appears to the poor a kind of Eldorado.
Gambouge and his wife were so delighted, that they, in the course of a month, made away with her gold chain, her great warming-pan, his best crimson plush inexpressibles, two wigs, a washhand basin and ewer, fire-irons, window-curtains, crockery, and arm-chairs. Griskinissa said, smiling, that she had found a second father in HER UNCLE — a base pun, which showed that her mind was corrupted, and that she was no longer the tender, simple Griskinissa of other days.
I am sorry to say that she had taken to drinking; she swallowed the warming-pan in the course of three days, and fuddled herself one whole evening with the crimson plush breeches. Drinking is the devil — the father, that is to say, of all vices. Add to this a dirty, draggle-tailed chintz; long, matted hair, wandering into her eyes, and over her lean shoulders, which were once so snowy, and you have the picture of drunkenness and Mrs. Poor Simon, who had been a gay, lively fellow enough in the days of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck, and cowed by the ferocity of his wife.
The baby roared all day; and Simon sat pale and idle in a corner, taking a small sup at the brandy-bottle, when Mrs. Gambouge was out of the way. One day, as he sat disconsolately at his easel, furbishing up a picture of his wife, in the character of Peace, which he had commenced a year before, he was more than ordinarily desperate, and cursed and swore in the most pathetic manner. Cursed be the love which has misled me; cursed, be the art which is unworthy of me! Let me dig or steal, let me sell myself as a soldier, or sell myself to the Devil, I should not be more wretched than I am now!
Gambouge held, in his left hand, his palette; in his right, a bladder of crimson lake, which he was about to squeeze out upon the mahogany. Gambouge picked out the nail from the bladder, and gave a squeeze; when, as sure as I am living, a little imp spurted out from the hole upon the palette, and began laughing in the most singular and oily manner. When first born he was little bigger than a tadpole; then he grew to be as big as a mouse; then he arrived at the size of a cat; and then he jumped off the palette, and, turning head over heels, asked the poor painter what he wanted with him. To tell truth, I did not even believe in your existence.
Gambouge, being a Frenchman, did not understand the quotation, but felt somehow strangely and singularly interested in the conversation of his new friend. Come, my friend, how much is it? I ask the easiest interest in the world: Come, let me have it; you know you will sell it some other way, and not get such good pay for your bargain!
It is useless and tedious to describe law documents: Suffice it to say, that poor Gambouge read over the paper, and signed it. But if you set me about anything which is extraordinary, and out of the course of nature, as it were, come I must, you know; and of this you are the best judge. Simon Gambouge was left in a fever of delight, as, heaven forgive me!
I believe many a worthy man would be, if he were allowed an opportunity to make a similar bargain. I wish I could see a capon and a bottle of white wine. He did so; and lo! The little waiter trotted down stairs, and Simon sat greedily down to discuss the capon and the white wine. He bolted the legs, he devoured the wings, he cut every morsel of flesh from the breast; — seasoning his repast with pleasant draughts of wine, and caring nothing for the inevitable bill, which was to follow all.
Oh, the horrid progress of the Devil! So Gambouge shovelled dish and spoons into the flap of his surtout, and ran down stairs as if the Devil were behind him — as, indeed, he was. The effects of conscience are dreadful indeed. Gambouge cursed his fate, and swore henceforth to be virtuous.
Will you have half the money? When he had marched forwards for a street or two, Gambouge counted the money which he had received, and found that he was in possession of no less than a hundred francs. It was night, as he reckoned out his equivocal gains, and he counted them at the light of a lamp.
He looked up at the lamp, in doubt as to the course he should next pursue: He mounted, as many a rogue has done before him, and found half a hundred persons busy at a table of rouge et noir. It is a dangerous spot that 0 0, or double zero; but to Simon it was more lucky than to the rest of the world. One hundred and thirty-five gold napoleons louis they were then were counted out to the delighted painter. The Devil was certainly in the ball: Our friend received five hundred pounds for his stake; and the croupiers and lookers-on began to stare at him.
There were twelve thousand pounds on the table. Suffice it to say, that Simon won half, and retired from the Palais Royal with a thick bundle of bank-notes crammed into his dirty three-cornered hat. He had been but half an hour in the place, and he had won the revenues of a prince for half a year!
Gambouge, as soon as he felt that he was a capitalist, and that he had a stake in the country, discovered that he was an altered man. I have forgotten my family and my religion. Here is thy money. In the name of heaven, restore me the plate which I have wrongfully sold thee! Gambouge, I will sell that plate for a thousand francs to you, or I never will sell it at all. To raise it, I have toiled for many months; and, failing, I have been a criminal.
But I cannot bear this load of ignominy — I cannot suffer the thought of this crime. Have I it not in my pocket? Art thou not a convicted dealer in stolen goods? Yield, scoundrel, yield thy money, or I will bring thee to justice! The frightened pawnbroker bullied and battled for a while; but he gave up his money at last, and the dispute ended. Thus it will be seen that Diabolus had rather a hard bargain in the wily Gambouge. He had taken a victim prisoner, but he had assuredly caught a Tartar. Simon now returned home, and, to do him justice, paid the bill for his dinner, and restored the plate.
And now I may add and the reader should ponder upon this, as a profound picture of human life , that Gambouge, since he had grown rich, grew likewise abundantly moral.
He was a most exemplary father. He fed the poor, and was loved by them. He scorned a base action. And I have no doubt that Mr. Thurtell, or the late lamented Mr. Greenacre, in similar circumstances, would have acted like the worthy Simon Gambouge. There was but one blot upon his character — he hated Mrs. As he grew more benevolent, she grew more virulent: With all his fortune — for, as may be supposed, Simon prospered in all worldly things — he was the most miserable dog in the whole city of Paris.
Only in the point of drinking did he and Mrs. Simon agree; and for many years, and during a considerable number of hours in each day, he thus dissipated, partially, his domestic chagrin. He lived so long, and in his worldly matters prospered so much, there was so little sign of devilment in the accomplishment of his wishes, and the increase of his prosperity, that Simon, at the end of six years, began to doubt whether he had made any such bargain at all, as that which we have described at the commencement of this history.
He had grown, as we said, very pious and moral. He went regularly to mass, and had a confessor into the bargain. He resolved, therefore, to consult that reverend gentleman, and to lay before him the whole matter. A respectable old gentleman, with a number of orders at his buttonhole, presently entered the room, and sauntered up to the marble table, before which reposed Simon and his clerical friend.
Gambouge smiled politely, and examined the proffered page. Wondering, Simon took a sheet of paper. He turned pale as he looked at it, and began to curse the ices and the waiter. The stranger rose with them. Simon Gambouge had seen, in the double-sheeted Times, the paper signed by himself, which the little Devil had pulled out of his fob.
There was no doubt on the subject; and Simon, who had but a year to live, grew more pious, and more careful than ever. He had consultations with all the doctors of the Sorbonne and all the lawyers of the Palais. But his magnificence grew as wearisome to him as his poverty had been before; and not one of the doctors whom he consulted could give him a pennyworth of consolation.
Then he grew outrageous in his demands upon the Devil, and put him to all sorts of absurd and ridiculous tasks; but they were all punctually performed, until Simon could invent no new ones, and the Devil sat all day with his hands in his pockets doing nothing. Send the Pope a hundred thousand crowns, build a new Jesuit college at Rome, give a hundred gold candlesticks to St. His Holiness agreed to the request of the petition, and sent him an absolution, written out with his own fist, and all in due form. They heard an inordinate roar of laughter, and there was Diabolus sitting opposite to them, holding his sides, and lashing his tail about, as if he would have gone mad with glee.
You might just as well be absolved by your under butler. Gambouge heard his tail scuttling all the way up, as if he had been a sweeper by profession. Simon was left in that condition of grief in which, according to the newspapers, cities and nations are found when a murder is committed, or a lord ill of the gout — a situation, we say, more easy to imagine than to describe. To add to his woes, Mrs. Gambouge, who was now first made acquainted with his compact, and its probable consequences, raised such a storm about his ears, as made him wish almost that his seven years were expired.
She screamed, she scolded, she swore, she wept, she went into such fits of hysterics, that poor Gambouge, who had completely knocked under to her, was worn out of his life. He was allowed no rest, night or day: A sudden and desperate resolution seemed all at once to have taken possession of Simon Gambouge. He called his family and his friends together — he gave one of the greatest feasts that ever was known in the city of Paris — he gayly presided at one end of his table, while Mrs. After dinner, using the customary formula, he called upon Diabolus to appear.
The old ladies screamed, and hoped he would not appear naked; the young ones tittered, and longed to see the monster: A very quiet, gentlemanly man, neatly dressed in black, made his appearance, to the surprise of all present, and bowed all round to the company. Gambouge; pray tell me what is your will. A whisper of applause ran round the room: You know I must go soon, and I am anxious, before this noble company, to make a provision for one who, in sickness as in health, in poverty as in riches, has been my truest and fondest companion. Gambouge mopped his eyes with his handkerchief — all the company did likewise.
Diabolus sobbed audibly, and Mrs. Do this, and I ask no more of you; I will deliver myself up at the appointed time. The Devil, at this, grinned so horribly that every drop of beer in the house turned sour: He slapped down the great parchment upon the floor, trampled upon it madly, and lashed it with his hoofs and his tail: Gambouge screamed with pain and started up.
It was too true, he had fallen asleep at his work; and the beautiful vision had been dispelled by the thumps of the tipsy Griskinissa. Nothing remained to corroborate his story, except the bladder of lake, and this was spirted all over his waistcoat and breeches. My last accounts of Gambouge are, that he has left the arts, and is footman in a small family. I have been much interested with an account of the exploits of Monsieur Louis Dominic Cartouche, and as Newgate and the highways are so much the fashion with us in England, we may be allowed to look abroad for histories of a similar tendency.
It is pleasant to find that virtue is cosmopolite, and may exist among wooden-shoed Papists as well as honest Church-of-England men. Louis Dominic was born in a quarter of Paris called the Courtille, says the historian whose work lies before me; — born in the Courtille, and in the year Another biographer asserts that he was born two years later, and in the Marais; — of respectable parents, of course.
Think of the talent that our two countries produced about this time: Well, Marlborough was no chicken when he began to show his genius; Swift was but a dull, idle, college lad; but if we read the histories of some other great men mentioned in the above list — I mean the thieves, especially — we shall find that they all commenced very early: His first great action on record, although not successful in the end, and tinctured with the innocence of youth, is yet highly creditable to him.
He made a general swoop of a hundred and twenty nightcaps belonging to his companions, and disposed of them to his satisfaction; but as it was discovered that of all the youths in the college of Clermont, he only was the possessor of a cap to sleep in, suspicion which, alas! Cartouche had a wonderful love for good eating, and put all the apple-women and cooks, who came to supply the students, under contribution.
It seemed as if the presiding genius of evil was determined to patronize this young man; for before he had been long at college, and soon after he had, with the greatest difficulty, escaped from the nightcap scrape, an opportunity occurred by which he was enabled to gratify both his propensities at once, and not only to steal, but to steal sweetmeats. It happened that the principal of the college received some pots of Narbonne honey, which came under the eyes of Cartouche, and in which that young gentleman, as soon as ever he saw them, determined to put his fingers.
The president of the college put aside his honey-pots in an apartment within his own; to which, except by the one door which led into the room which his reverence usually occupied, there was no outlet. There was no chimney in the room; and the windows looked into the court, where there was a porter at night, and where crowds passed by day.
What was Cartouche to do? These were divided from the rooms below, according to the fashion of those days, by a set of large beams, which reached across the whole building, and across which rude planks were laid, which formed the ceiling of the lower story and the floor of the upper. Some of these planks did young Cartouche remove; and having descended by means of a rope, tied a couple of others to the neck of the honey-pots, climbed back again, and drew up his prey in safety.
He then cunningly fixed the planks again in their old places, and retired to gorge himself upon his booty.
And, now, see the punishment of avarice! Everybody knows that the brethren of the order of Jesus are bound by a vow to have no more than a certain small sum of money in their possession. The principal of the college of Clermont had amassed a larger sum, in defiance of this rule: As Cartouche dug his spoon into one of them, he brought out, besides a quantity of golden honey, a couple of golden louis, which, with ninety-eight more of their fellows, were comfortably hidden in the pots.
Little Dominic, who, before, had cut rather a poor figure among his fellow-students, now appeared in as fine clothes as any of them could boast of; and when asked by his parents, on going home, how he came by them, said that a young nobleman of his schoolfellows had taken a violent fancy to him, and made him a present of a couple of his suits.
Cartouche the elder, good man, went to thank the young nobleman; but none such could be found, and young Cartouche disdained to give any explanation of his manner of gaining the money. Here, again, we have to regret and remark the inadvertence of youth. Cartouche lost a hundred louis — for what?
For a pot of honey not worth a couple of shillings. Had he fished out the pieces, and replaced the pots and the honey, he might have been safe, and a respectable citizen all his life after. The principal would not have dared to confess the loss of his money, and did not, openly; but he vowed vengeance against the stealer of his sweetmeat, and a rigid search was made.
Cartouche, as usual, was fixed upon; and in the tick of his bed, lo! From this scrape there is no knowing how he would have escaped, had not the president himself been a little anxious to hush the matter up; and accordingly, young Cartouche was made to disgorge the residue of his ill-gotten gold pieces, old Cartouche made up the deficiency, and his son was allowed to remain unpunished — until the next time.
This, you may fancy, was not very long in coming; and though history has not made us acquainted with the exact crime which Louis Dominic next committed, it must have been a serious one; for Cartouche, who had borne philosophically all the whippings and punishments which were administered to him at college, did not dare to face that one which his indignant father had in pickle for him.
As he was coming home from school, on the first day after his crime, when he received permission to go abroad, one of his brothers, who was on the look-out for him, met him at a short distance from home, and told him what was in preparation; which so frightened this young thief, that he declined returning home altogether, and set out upon the wide world to shift for himself as he could. Undoubted as his genius was, he had not arrived at the full exercise of it, and his gains were by no means equal to his appetite.
In whatever professions he tried — whether he joined the gipsies, which he did — whether he picked pockets on the Pont Neuf, which occupation history attributes to him — poor Cartouche was always hungry. Hungry and ragged, he wandered from one place and profession to another, and regretted the honey-pots at Clermont, and the comfortable soup and bouilli at home.
Cartouche had an uncle, a kind man, who was a merchant, and had dealings at Rouen. One day, walking on the quays of that city, this gentleman saw a very miserable, dirty, starving lad, who had just made a pounce upon some bones and turnip-peelings, that had been flung out on the quay, and was eating them as greedily as if they had been turkeys and truffles. The worthy man examined the lad a little closer. The merchant was touched by his case; and forgetting the nightcaps, the honey-pots, and the rags and dirt of little Louis, took him to his arms, and kissed and hugged him with the tenderest affection.
Louis kissed and hugged too, and blubbered a great deal: But why attempt to balk the progress of genius? He was sixteen years of age by this time — a smart, lively young fellow, and, what is more, desperately enamored of a lovely washerwoman. To be successful in your love, as Louis knew, you must have something more than mere flames and sentiment; — a washer, or any other woman, cannot live upon sighs only; but must have new gowns and caps, and a necklace every now and then, and a few handkerchiefs and silk stockings, and a treat into the country or to the play.
Now, how are all these things to be had without money? Cartouche saw at once that it was impossible; and as his father would give him none, he was obliged to look for it elsewhere. He took to his old courses, and lifted a purse here, and a watch there; and found, moreover, an accommodating gentleman, who took the wares off his hands. Cartouche, in fact, formed part of a regular company or gang of gentlemen, who were associated together for the purpose of making war on the public and the law. Cartouche had a lovely young sister, who was to be married to a rich young gentleman from the provinces.
As is the fashion in France, the parents had arranged the match among themselves; and the young people had never met until just before the time appointed for the marriage, when the bridegroom came up to Paris with his title-deeds, and settlements, and money. Now there can hardly be found in history a finer instance of devotion than Cartouche now exhibited. Informations were taken, the house of the bridegroom was reconnoitred, and, one night, Cartouche, in company with some chosen friends, made his first visit to the house of his brother-inlaw.
All the people were gone to bed; and, doubtless, for fear of disturbing the porter, Cartouche and his companions spared him the trouble of opening the door, by ascending quietly at the window. They arrived at the room where the bridegroom kept his great chest, and set industriously to work, filing and picking the locks which defended the treasure. The bridegroom slept in the next room; but however tenderly Cartouche and his workmen handled their tools, from fear of disturbing his slumbers, their benevolent design was disappointed, for awaken him they did; and quietly slipping out of bed, he came to a place where he had a complete view of all that was going on.
He did not cry out, or frighten himself sillily; but, on the contrary, contented himself with watching the countenances of the robbers, so that he might recognize them on another occasion; and, though an avaricious man, he did not feel the slightest anxiety about his money-chest; for the fact is, he had removed all the cash and papers the day before. The bridegroom pledged him very gracefully in a bumper; and was in the act of making him a pretty speech, on the honor of an alliance with such a family, and on the pleasures of brother-inlawship in general, when, looking in his face — ye gods!
By his side, too, sat a couple more of the gang. The poor fellow turned deadly pale and sick, and, setting his glass down, ran quickly out of the room, for he thought he was in company of a whole gang of robbers. And when he got home, he wrote a letter to the elder Cartouche, humbly declining any connection with his family. And old Cartouche, an honest old citizen, confessed, with a heavy heart, that he would not. What was he to do with the lad? He did not like to ask for a lettre de cachet, and shut him up in the Bastile. But how to catch the young gentleman? Old Cartouche knew that, were he to tell his son of the scheme, the latter would never obey, and, therefore, he determined to be very cunning.
He told Dominic that he was about to make a heavy bargain with the fathers, and should require a witness; so they stepped into a carriage together, and drove unsuspectingly to the Rue St. But, when they arrived near the convent, Cartouche saw several ominous figures gathering round the coach, and felt that his doom was sealed. However, he made as if he knew nothing of the conspiracy; and the carriage drew up, and his father, descended, and, bidding him wait for a minute in the coach, promised to return to him.
Cartouche looked out; on the other side of the way half a dozen men were posted, evidently with the intention of arresting him. Cartouche now performed a great and celebrated stroke of genius, which, if he had not been professionally employed in the morning, he never could have executed. He had in his pocket a piece of linen, which he had laid hold of at the door of some shop, and from which he quickly tore three suitable stripes. One he tied round his head, after the fashion of a nightcap; a second round his waist, like an apron; and with the third he covered his hat, a round one, with a large brim.
With that coat and wig, Cartouche left home, father, friends, conscience, remorse, society, behind him. He discovered like a great number of other philosophers and poets, when they have committed rascally actions that the world was all going wrong, and he quarrelled with it outright. His courage and ingenuity were vastly admired by his friends; so much so, that, one day, the captain of the band thought fit to compliment him, and vowed that when he the captain died, Cartouche should infallibly be called to the command-inchief.
This conversation, so flattering to Cartouche, was carried on between the two gentlemen, as they were walking, one night, on the quays by the side of the Seine. Cartouche, when the captain made the last remark, blushingly protested against it, and pleaded his extreme youth as a reason why his comrades could never put entire trust in him. As for strength, bravery, and cunning, wert thou as old as Methuselah, thou couldst not be better provided than thou art now, at eighteen.
He answered, not by words, but by actions. When he returned to the band, and recounted how the captain had basely attempted to assassinate him, and how he, on the contrary, had, by exertion of superior skill, overcome the captain, not one of the society believed a word of his history; but they elected him captain forthwith. I think his Excellency Don Rafael Maroto, the pacificator of Spain, is an amiable character, for whom history has not been written in vain. A story similar to the above, and equally moral, is that of Cartouche, who, in company with two other gentlemen, robbed the coche, or packet-boat, from Melun, where they took a good quantity of booty — making the passengers lie down on the decks, and rifling them at leisure.
I could fill volumes, and not mere sheets of paper, with tales of the triumphs of Cartouche and his band; how he robbed the Countess of O— — going to Dijon, in her coach, and how the Countess fell in love with him, and was faithful to him ever after; how, when the lieutenant of police offered a reward of a hundred pistoles to any man who would bring Cartouche before him, a noble Marquess, in a coach and six, drove up to the hotel of the police; and the noble Marquess, desiring to see Monsieur de la Reynie, on matters of the highest moment, alone, the latter introduced him into his private cabinet; and how, when there, the Marquess drew from his pocket a long, curiously shaped dagger: At the sound of this dreadful name, M.
It is pleasant to read thus of the relaxations of great men, and find them condescending to joke like the meanest of us. Another diligence adventure is recounted of the famous Cartouche. The unfortunate widow never for a moment suspected the cruel trick that was about to be played on her; and, at the request of her affianced husband, sold out her money, and realized it in gold, to be made over to him on the day when the contract was to be signed.
The day arrived; and, according to the custom in France, the relations of both parties attended. It is old Manasseh, the fence, of Brussels. Here the Duc de la Roche Guyon came forward, very much alarmed. Cartouche smiled graciously, and walked up to the table. There is an old story of a Spanish court painter, who, being pressed for money, and having received a piece of damask, which he was to wear in a state procession, pawned the damask, and appeared, at the show, dressed out in some very fine sheets of paper, which he had painted so as exactly to resemble silk.
Nay, his coat looked so much richer than the doublets of all the rest, that the Emperor Charles, in whose honor the procession was given, remarked the painter, and so his deceit was found out. I have often thought that, in respect of sham and real histories, a similar fact may be noticed; the sham story appearing a great deal more agreeable, life-like, and natural than the true one: If then, ladies, the big-wigs begin to sneer at the course of our studies, calling our darling romances foolish, trivial, noxious to the mind, enervators of intellect, fathers of idleness, and what not, let us at once take a high ground, and say — Go you to your own employments, and to such dull studies as you fancy; go and bob for triangles, from the Pons Asinorum; go enjoy your dull black draughts of metaphysics; go fumble over history books, and dissert upon Herodotus and Livy; OUR histories are, perhaps, as true as yours; our drink is the brisk sparkling champagne drink, from the presses of Colburn, Bentley and Co.
Let the big-wigs despise us; such contempt of their neighbors is the custom of all barbarous tribes; — witness, the learned Chinese: Tippoo Sultaun declared that there were not in all Europe ten thousand men: What is more, one could, perhaps, meet the stoutest historian on his own ground, and argue with him; showing that sham histories were much truer than real histories; which are, in fact, mere contemptible catalogues of names and places, that can have no moral effect upon the reader. Julius Caesar beat Pompey, at Pharsalia. And what have we here? Of such works there appear many hundreds yearly, as may be seen by the French catalogues; but the writer has not so much to do with works political, philosophical, historical, metaphysical, scientifical, theological, as with those for which he has been putting forward a plea — novels, namely; on which he has expended a great deal of time and study.
And passing from novels in general to French novels, let us confess, with much humiliation, that we borrow from these stories a great deal more knowledge of French society than from our own personal observation we ever can hope to gain: At houses to which he has brought letters, so many tea-parties. At French private houses, say three dinners, and very lucky too. He has, we say, seen an immense number of wax candles, cups of tea, glasses of orgeat, and French people, in best clothes, enjoying the same; but intimacy there is none; we see but the outsides of the people.
Year by year we live in France, and grow gray, and see no more. We know her velvet gown, and her diamonds about three-fourths of them are sham, by the way ; we know her smiles, and her simpers, and her rouge — but no more: This privilege is granted to no Englishman: We are married, and have fourteen children, and would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any one but our own wife.
If you do not make love to Flicflac, from the day after her marriage to the day she reaches sixty, she thinks you a fool. Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise? Pass we on to our argument, which is, that with our English notions and moral and physical constitution, it is quite impossible that we should become intimate with our brisk neighbors; and when such authors as Lady Morgan and Mrs.
Trollope, having frequented a certain number of tea-parties in the French capital, begin to prattle about French manners and men — with all respect for the talents of those ladies, we do believe their information not to be worth a sixpence; they speak to us not of men but of tea-parties. Tea-parties are the same all the world over; with the exception that, with the French, there are more lights and prettier dresses; and with us, a mighty deal more tea in the pot.
There is, however, a cheap and delightful way of travelling, that a man may perform in his easy-chair, without expense of passports or post-boys. On the wings of a novel, from the next circulating library, he sends his imagination a-gadding, and gains acquaintance with people and manners whom he could not hope otherwise to know. Twopence a volume bears us whithersoever we will; — back to Ivanhoe and Coeur de Lion, or to Waverley and the Young Pretender, along with Walter Scott; up the heights of fashion with the charming enchanters of the silver-fork school; or, better still, to the snug inn-parlor, or the jovial tap-room, with Mr.
Pickwick and his faithful Sancho Weller. We have, therefore, introduced into these volumes one or two short reviews of French fiction writers, of particular classes, whose Paris sketches may give the reader some notion of manners in that capital.
With files and option available we predict our readers could get the things they arereally seeking. The sweet flowers are springing there; the fat muttons are waiting there; the pleasant sun shines there; be content and humble, and take your share of the good cheer. The old ladies screamed, and hoped he would not appear naked; the young ones tittered, and longed to see the monster: Here you will find apartments at any price: Cartouche the elder, good man, went to thank the young nobleman; but none such could be found, and young Cartouche disdained to give any explanation of his manner of gaining the money. You must go about as an impostor, sir, in society; and you pay richly for your swindling, sir, by being swindled yourself: Had he fished out the pieces, and replaced the pots and the honey, he might have been safe, and a respectable citizen all his life after.
To a person inclined to study these, in that light and amusing fashion in which the novelist treats them, let us recommend the works of a new writer, Monsieur de Bernard, who has painted actual manners, without those monstrous and terrible exaggerations in which late French writers have indulged; and who, if he occasionally wounds the English sense of propriety as what French man or woman alive will not?
Let us give an instance: The fashions will change in a few years, and the rogue, of course, with them. Let us catch this delightful fellow ere he flies. It is impossible to sketch the character in a more sparkling, gentlemanlike way than M. Indeed, were I not to write to you now, when should I find the possibility of doing so? Time flies here with such a frightful rapidity, my pleasures and my affairs whirl onwards together in such a torrentuous galopade, that I am compelled to seize occasion by the forelock; for each moment has its imperious employ.
Do not then accuse me of negligence: I assure you, on the contrary, that you are one of a very numerous and fashionable company, to whom, towards the discharge of my debts, I propose to consecrate four hours today. I give you the preference to all the world, even to the lovely Duchess of San Severino, a delicious Italian, whom, for my special happiness, I met last summer at the Waters of Aix.
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Craig, Jonathan et Posner, Richard. Fais pas le clown! Westlake, Donald et Brian Garfield. Spilken, Aron et O'Leary, Ed. Le Pigeon du Faubourg. Bialot, Joseph et Courchay, Claude. Le Boucher des Hurlus. Le Chien de Montargis. Oppel, Jean-Hugues et Dorison, Philippe. Au bonheur des ogres. Martens, Michel et Bastid, Jean-Pierre. La Maldonne des sleepings. Eh bien, chantez maintenant! Meurtres pour de vrai [ 11 ]. Je m'appelle reviens [ 12 ]. Queijao, Rique [ 13 ]. Les Treize Morts d'Albert Ayler [ 15 ]. Daniel Lemoine et Patrick Raynal. Schlink, Bernhard et Popp, Walter. Gatos de azoeta et Una baldosa en el valle de la muerte.
Le Roi du K. Michel Goldman Avant-propos de Maurice G. Patrick Kermann et Olivier Mannoni. Brume de printemps [ 17 ]. Saint George, Joyce et Chase, Linda.
Roux, Annelise et Lurton, Thierry. The Long Goodbye Sur un air de navaja. Une place en enfer [ 22 ]. Dr Jack [ 24 ]. Boulevard des Branques [ 25 ]. Toxic Blues [ 26 ] , [ r. La Corde et la Pierre [ 28 ] , [ r.