第75章 CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY IN PARIS(11)

Je les ai invitees a diner chez vous ce soir: vous nous menerez a l'opera, et nous ferons une petite partie d'ecarte.Tenez vous bien, M.Gobard! ces dames ont des projets sur vous!"Happy Gobard! happy system, which can thus bring the pure and loving together, and acts as the best ally of Hymen! The announcement of the rank and titles of Madame de St.Bertrand--"veuve de la grande armee"--is very happy."La grande armee" has been a father to more orphans, and a husband to more widows, than it ever made.Mistresses of cafes, old governesses, keepers of boarding-houses, genteel beggars, and ladies of lower rank still, have this favorite pedigree.They have all had malheurs (what kind it is needless to particularize), they are all connected with the grand homme, and their fathers were all colonels.This title exactly answers to the "clergyman's daughter" in England--as, "Ayoung lady, the daughter of a clergyman, is desirous to teach," &c.

"A clergyman's widow receives into her house a few select," and so forth."Appeal to the benevolent.--By a series of unheard-of calamities, a young lady, daughter of a clergyman in the west of England, has been plunged," &c.&c.The difference is curious, as indicating the standard of respectability.

The male beggar of fashion is not so well known among us as in Paris, where street-doors are open; six or eight families live in a house; and the gentleman who earns his livelihood by this profession can make half a dozen visits without the trouble of knocking from house to house, and the pain of being observed by the whole street, while the footman is examining him from the area.

Some few may be seen in England about the inns of court, where the locality is favorable (where, however, the owners of the chambers are not proverbially soft of heart, so that the harvest must be poor); but Paris is full of such adventurers,--fat, smooth-tongued, and well dressed, with gloves and gilt-headed canes, who would be insulted almost by the offer of silver, and expect your gold as their right.Among these, of course, our friend Robert plays his part; and an excellent engraving represents him, snuff-box in hand, advancing to an old gentleman, whom, by his poodle, his powdered head, and his drivelling, stupid look, one knows to be a Carlist of the old regime."I beg pardon," says Robert; "is it really yourself to whom I have the honor of speaking?"--"It is." "Do you take snuff?"--"I thank you."--"Sir, I have had misfortunes--I want assistance.I am a Vendean of illustrious birth.You know the family of Macairbec--we are of Brest.My grandfather served the King in his galleys; my father and I belong, also, to the marine.

Unfortunate suits at law have plunged us into difficulties, and Ido not hesitate to ask you for the succor of ten francs."--"Sir, Inever give to those I don't know."--"Right, sir, perfectly right.

Perhaps you will have the kindness to LEND me ten francs?"The adventures of Doctor Macaire need not be described, because the different degrees in quackery which are taken by that learned physician are all well known in England, where we have the advantage of many higher degrees in the science, which our neighbors know nothing about.We have not Hahnemann, but we have his disciples; we have not Broussais, but we have the College of Health; and surely a dose of Morrison's pills is a sublimer discovery than a draught of hot water.We had St.John Long, too--where is his science?--and we are credibly informed that some important cures have been effected by the inspired dignitaries of "the church" in Newman Street which, if it continue to practise, will sadly interfere with the profits of the regular physicians, and where the miracles of the Abbe of Paris are about to be acted over again.