Perhaps the
travelling English were fewer and choicer then, than at present, when
the whole nation has broke loose, and inundated the continent. At any
rate, they circulated more readily and currently in foreign society,
and my uncle, during his residence in Paris, made many very intimate
acquaintances among the French noblesse.
Some time afterwards, he was making a journey in the winter-time, in
that part of Normandy called the Pays de Caux, when, as evening was
closing in, he perceived the turrets of an ancient chateau rising out
of the trees of its walled park, each turret with its high conical roof
of gray slate, like a candle with an extinguisher on it.
"To whom does that chateau belong, friend?" cried my uncle to a meager,
but fiery postillion, who, with tremendous jack boots and cocked hat,
was floundering on before him.
"To Monseigneur the Marquis de ----," said the postillion, touching his
hat, partly out of respect to my uncle, and partly out of reverence to
the noble name pronounced. My uncle recollected the Marquis for a
particular friend in Paris, who had often expressed a wish to see him
at his paternal chateau. My uncle was an old traveller, one that knew
how to turn things to account. He revolved for a few moments in his
mind how agreeable it would be to his friend the Marquis to be
surprised in this sociable way by a pop visit; and how much more
agreeable to himself to get into snug quarters in a chateau, and have a
relish of the Marquis's well-known kitchen, and a smack of his superior
champagne and burgundy; rather than take up with the miserable
lodgment, and miserable fare of a country inn.
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