This son of Africa was presented to me by the
duc de Richelieu, clad in the picturesque costume of his native
land; his head ornamented with feathers of every colour, a short
petticoat of plaited grass around his waist, while the richest
bracelets adorned his wrists, and chains of gold, pearls, and
rubies, glittered over his neck and hung from his ears. Never
would any one have suspected the old marechal, whose parsimony
was almost proverbial, of making such a magnificent present.
In honour of the tragedy of Alzire, I christened my little negro
Zamor, to whom by degrees I became attached with all the tenderness
of a mother. You ask me why? Indeed that is more than I can
tell; perhaps at first I looked upon him as a sort of puppet or
plaything, but, imperceptibly to myself, I became passionately
fond of my little page, nor was the young urchin slow in perceiving
the ascendancy he had gained over me, and, in the end, to abuse
his influence, and attained, as I have before said, an almost
incredible degree of insolence and effrontery. Still I pardoned
all his folly, and amused myself from morning to night with
watching his nimble fingers perform a thousand tricks of jugglery.
Even now that I have lost the gaiety of my happy days, when I
recall his irresistibly comic ways, I catch myself laughing, like
an old simpleton, at the bare recollection of his monkey feats.
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