The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.Carr, John, Sir
History
The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.
Carr, John, Sir
France -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Description and travel
They had finished their dinner, and were drinking their favourite
beverage of coffee. Poor wanderers! the water was scarcely turned brown
with the few grains which remained of what they had purchased for their
journey.
I addressed them, by telling them, that I had the happiness of being a
passenger with them, in the same vessel; they said they were fortunate
to have in their company one of that nation, which would be dear to them
as long as they lived. A genteel middle aged woman offered to open a
little parcel of fresh coffee, which they had purchased in the town for
the voyage, and begged to make some for me. By her manner, she seemed to
wish me to consider it, more as the humble offering of gratitude, than
of politeness, or perhaps both were blended in the offer. In the
afternoon, their baggage was searched by the revenue officers, who, on
this occasion, exercised a liberal gentleness, which gave but little
trouble, and no pain. They who brought nothing into a country but the
recollection of their miseries, were not very likely to carry much out
of it, but the remembrance of its generosity.
At seven o'clock in the evening we were all on board, and sailed with a
gentle breeze down the river: we carried with us a good stock of
vegetables, which we procured fresh, from the admirable market of
Southampton. Upon going down into the cabin, I was struck, and at first
shocked, with seeing a very aged man, stretched at his length upon
pillows and clothes, placed on the floor, attended by two clergymen, and
some women, who, in their attentions to this apparently dying old
gentleman, seemed to have forgotten their own comfortless situation,
arising from so many persons being crowded in so small a space, for our
numbers above and below amounted to sixty. Upon inquiry, they informed
me, that the person whose appearance had so affected me, had been a
clergyman of great repute and esteem at Havre, that he was then past the
age of ninety five years, scarcely expected to survive our short voyage,
but was anxious to breathe his last in his own country. They spoke of
him, as a man who in other times, and in the fulness of his faculties,
had often from his pulpit, struck with terror and contrition, the
trembling souls of his auditors, by the force of his exalted eloquence;
who had embellished the society in which he moved, with his elegant
attainments; and who had relieved the unhappy, with an enlarged heart
and munificent hand--A mere mass of misery, and helpless infirmities,
remained of all these noble qualities!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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