The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh — John Shaqi
The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. TitmarshThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Paris (France) -- Description and travel
There is little need to give a description of the good town of
Boulogne, which, haute and basse, with the new light-house and the new
harbor, and the gas-lamps, and the manufactures, and the convents, and
the number of English and French residents, and the pillar erected in
honor of the grand Armée d’Angleterre, so called because it DIDN’T go
to England, have all been excellently described by the facetious
Coglan, the learned Dr. Millingen, and by innumerable guide-books
besides. A fine thing it is to hear the stout old Frenchmen of
Napoleon’s time argue how that audacious Corsican WOULD have marched to
London, after swallowing Nelson and all his gun-boats, but for cette
malheureuse guerre d’Espagne and cette glorieuse campagne d’Autriche,
which the gold of Pitt caused to be raised at the Emperor’s tail, in
order to call him off from the helpless country in his front. Some
Frenchmen go farther still, and vow that in Spain they were never
beaten at all; indeed, if you read in the Biographie des Hommes du
Jour, article “Soult,” you will fancy that, with the exception of the
disaster at Vittoria, the campaigns in Spain and Portugal were a series
of triumphs. Only, by looking at a map, it is observable that Vimeiro
is a mortal long way from Toulouse, where, at the end of certain years
of victories, we somehow find the honest Marshal. And what then?—he
went to Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English there, to be
sure;—a known fact, on which comment would be superfluous. However, we
shall never get to Paris at this rate; let us break off further
palaver, and away at once....
(During this pause, the ingenious reader is kindly requested to pay his
bill at the Hotel at Boulogne, to mount the Diligence of Laffitte,
Caillard and Company, and to travel for twenty-five hours, amidst much
jingling of harness-bells and screaming of postilions.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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