Volume VI Part 36 (1/2)
”Oh, I hope you won't go,” she added, ”youwith us”
After the husband had pressed ave in, and accepted their invitation to dinner for the day after next
Instead of stopping two days I stopped four I was much pleased with the husband's ent
She had evidentlyunpleasant in the past history of her son's wife
Madame Blasin told me in private that she was perfectly happy, and I had every reason to believe that she was speaking the truth She hadher wifely duties, and rarely went out unless accompanied by her husband or her mother-in-law
I spent these four days in the enjoy the slightest desire on either side to renew our guilty pleasures
On the third day after I had dined with her and her husband, she told me, while ere alone for a et them for me I told her to keep theain, and so unhappy as to be in want
I left Montpellier feeling certain that my visit had increased the esteem in which her husband and her ratulatedany sins
The day after I had bade them farewell, I slept at Nimes, where I spent three days in the couier, the friend of the Marquis Maffei of Verona In his cabinet of natural history I saw and admired the immensity and infinity of the Creator's handiwork
Nier's observation; it provides food for the ive the heart the food it likes best
I was asked to a ball, where, as a foreigner, I took first place--a privilege peculiar to France, for in England, and stillNimes I resolved to spend the carnival at Aix, where the nobility is of the ed at the ”Three Dolphins,” where I found a Spanish cardinal on his way to Rome to elect a successor to Pope Rezzonico
CHAPTER IX
My Stay at Aix; I Fall Ill--I aliostro
My rooht partition, and I could hear hi too economical
”My lord, I do my best, but it is really impossible to spend more, unless I compel the inn-keepers to take double the amount of their bills; and your e in the way of rich and expensive dishes has been spared”
”That ht for example order meals e shall not require any Take care that there are always three tables--one for us, one for my officers, and the third for the servants Why I see that you only give the postillions a franc over the legal charge, I really blush for you; you ive you change for a louis, leave it on the table; to put back one's change in one's pocket is an action only worthy of a beggar They will be saying at Versailles and Madrid, and maybe at Rome itself, that the Cardinal de la Cerda is a ht one You must really cease to dishonour me, or leave my service”
A year before this speech would have astonished me beyond measure, but noas not surprised, for I had acquired soht adality, but I could not help deploring such ostentation on the part of a Prince of the Church about to participate in such a solemn function
What I had heard him say made me curious to see him, and I kept on the watch for the moment of his departure What a man! He was not only ill ly and so low that I concluded that AEsop himself must have been a little Love beside his eenerosity and decorations, for otherwise he ht well have been taken for a stableboy If the conclave took the eccentric whilier vicar
I enquired about the Marquis d'Argens soon after the departure of his eminence, and was told that he was in the country with his brother, the Marquis d'Eguille, President of the Parliament, so I went there
This marquis, famous for his friendshi+p for Frederick II rather than for his writings (which are no longer read), was an old man when I saw hih-paced Epicurean, and had married an actress named Cochois, who had proved worthy of the honour he had laid on her He was deeply learned and had a thorough knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew literature His ious
He received me very well, and recalled what his friend the marshal had written about uished jurist, a man of letters, and a strictly hly intellectual ious
He was very fond of his brother, and grieved for his irreligion, but hoped that grace would eventually bring hied hi at them in private, but as they were both sensible ether
I was introduced to a nu of relations All were ahly polished, like all the Provencal nobility