All this was done with an air of
importance sufficiently ludicrous, when contrasted with the object; but
we met with no incivility, and had nothing to complain of but a little
additional fatigue, and the delay of our dinner.
We stopped to change horses at Bernay, and I soon perceived our landlady
was a very ardent patriot. In a room, to which we waded at great risk of
our clothes, was a representation of the siege of the Bastille, and
prints of half a dozen American Generals, headed by Mr. Thomas Paine. On
descending, we found out hostess exhibiting a still more forcible picture
of curiosity than Shakspeare's blacksmith. The half-demolished repast
was cooling on the table, whilst our postilion retailed the Gazette, and
the pigs and ducks were amicably grazing together on whatever the kitchen
produced. The affairs of the Prussians and Austrians were discussed with
entire unanimity, but when these politicians, as is often the case, came
to adjust their own particular account, the conference was much less
harmonious. The postilion offered a ten sols billet, which the landlady
refused: one persisted in its validity, the other in rejecting it--till,
at last, the patriotism of neither could endure this proof, and peace was
concluded by a joint execration of those who invented this fichu papier--
"Sorry paper."
At ____ we met our friend, Mad. de ____, with part of her family and an
immense quantity of baggage.
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