Now ride at this rate with what good intention and resolution you may----’tis a million to one you’ll do some one a mischief, if not yourself ------He’s flung--he’s off--he’s lost his hat--he’s down------he’ll break his neck----see! ----if he has not galloped full among the scaffolding of the undertaking criticks! ----he’ll knock his brains out against some of their posts--he’s bounced out! --look--he’s now riding like a mad-cap full tilt through a whole crowd of painters, fiddlers, poets, biographers, physicians, lawyers, logicians, players, schoolmen, churchmen, statesmen, soldiers, casuists, connoisseurs, prelates, popes, and engineers. --Don’t fear, said I --I’ll not hurt the poorest jack-ass upon the king’s highway. --But your horse throws dirt; see you’ve splash’d a bishop. ----I hope in God, ’twas only _Ernulphus_, said I. ------But you have squirted full in the faces of Mess. _Le Moyne_, _De Romigny_, and _De Marcilly_, doctors of the _Sorbonne_. ------That was last year, replied I. --But you have trod this moment upon a king. ----Kings have bad times on’t, said I, to be trod upon by such people as me. You have done it, replied my accuser. I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my bridle in one hand, and with my cap in the other, to tell my story. ------And what is it? You shall hear in the next chapter. [Footnote 4.8: According to the original Editions.] CHAPTER XXI As _Francis_ the first of _France_ was one winterly night warming himself over the embers of a wood fire, and talking with his first minister of sundry things for the good of the state[4.9] --It would not be amiss, said the king, stirring up the embers with his cane, if this good understanding betwixt ourselves and _Switzerland_ was a little strengthened. --There is no end, Sire, replied the minister, in giving money to these people--they would swallow up the treasury of _France_. --Poo! poo! answered the king--there are more ways, Mons. _le Premier_, of bribing states, besides that of giving money --I’ll pay _Switzerland_ the honour of standing godfather for my next child. ----Your majesty, said the minister, in so doing, would have all the grammarians in _Europe_ upon your back; ----_Switzerland_, as a republick, being a female, can in no construction be godfather. --She may be godmother, replied _Francis_ hastily--so announce my intentions by a courier to-morrow morning. I am astonished, said _Francis_ the First, (that day fortnight) speaking to his minister as he entered the closet, that we have had no answer from _Switzerland_. ----Sire, I wait upon you this moment, said Mons. _le Premier_, to lay before you my dispatches upon that business. --They take it kindly, said the king. --They do, Sire, replied the minister, and have the highest sense of the honour your majesty has done them----but the republick, as godmother, claims her right, in this case, of naming the child.