“It was M. de la Bernardière, then, who was commissioned to be the bearer of our humble excuses for the neglect of which the servants had been guilty, and our humble request that his Grandeur would overlook the awkwardness of our domestics, and accord us the advantage of his presence at the dinner, which certainly would not be complete without his company. I must confess that I awaited the return of La Bernardière with the greatest anxiety, as I was quite as fully aware of the necessity of securing the good-will of the Archbishop as the officious secretary himself could possibly be. La Bernardière, however, returned triumphant, and the description which he gave us of his visit added to the amusement caused by our groundless fears. He had found the archbishop attired in flowered dressing-robe and broidered slippers, reclining on an ottoman of curious workmanship, which had been presented to him on that very morning by a deputation of the manufacturers of the good city of Lyons, and the scene altogether had reminded him of an episode of the middle ages. His Grandeur the Lord Archbishop was a singular-looking personage; the melancholy expression of his countenance contrasting with ludicrous effect with the fat, rubicund jollity of his form and features. He was a large, heavy man, with a look of absolute despair, and perpetual groans issued from his brawny chest, like the angry bellowings of Mount Vesuvius. At his feet were seated, on a low stool, two young boys, who were chanting from the same book, and whose rare false notes were now and then punished by a smart kick behind, from his grandeur’s peaked slipper. “He sighed sorrowfully when La Bernardière was announced, and received him with many a lugubrious lamentation on the miserable weather, which, by-the-bye, was beautiful; then he groaned deeply at the badness of the music of the mass at the cathedral on the day before, which, being of the very best order, and under the superintendence of the maëstro di capello of the Emperor of Austria, had been by every one else considered excellent; then he moaned at having been induced to leave his own country to come to such a place as Lyons, where it was evident his presence was neither sought nor needed, and finally pronounced a most bitter archiepiscopal curse upon the miserable fare of the hotel where he was staying, regretting, with most sublime energy, that he should ever have been induced to travel without his own cook, and vowing before the Virgin that he never would do the like again.