All this, however, was not enough excitement for James. In one of his letters he plaintively calls Bar his "Todis"--by which of course he means "Tomis." "Tomis," by a natural train of thought suggested--besides the _tristia_, of which we have plenty--the _ars amatoria_. And to it the Chevalier devoted not a few of his unoccupied hours. If local tradition speaks true, he differed very materially in his prosecution of this art from his father, of whom Catherine Sedley said that on what principle he selected the ladies of his heart she could never make out. None of them were good-looking, and if any of them had wit, he had not the wit to find it out. And Mary of Modena, his wife, added that, although he was willing to give up his crown for his faith, he could never muster sufficient resolution to discard a mistress. His son was in both respects far more of a man of the world. It was in the green bosquets of those Pâquis, his favourite lounging-place, that James first discovered his human jewel. To house her suitably, he took--at somebody else's cost--a cottage on the brow of the hill, where the view is delightful and the air magnificent. You can still approximately trace the site, high up in the Rue de l'Horloge, above the Rue St. Jean, a little below the neglected terrace in the Rue Chavée--which is well worth visiting for its prospect. As the house stood with its back to the hill and facing only the open space, there must have been absolute privacy. But, after moving down to the Lower Town, James found the ascent by those _Quatre-vingt Degrés_--which Oudinot rode up on horseback--a trifle laborious. The steps lead almost straight up from his house to the cottage, describing just enough of an angle to take in the humble building, now marked by a tablet, in which Marshal Oudinot was born. A more convenient arrangement could scarcely have been desired. But the steps were sadly "_sales et délabrés_." Not to inconvenience James in his amours, the town council readily voted the requisite sum for putting them into proper repair.