WHEN we arrived at the chaise-vamper’s house, both the house and the
shop were shut up; it was the eighth of _September_, the nativity of
the blessed Virgin _Mary_, mother of God—
——Tantarra - ra - tan - tivi——the whole world was gone out a
May-poling—frisking here—capering there——no body cared a button for me
or my remarks; so I sat me down upon a bench by the door,
philosophating upon my condition: by a better fate than usually attends
me, I had not waited half an hour, when the mistress came in to take
the papilliotes from off her hair, before she went to the May-poles——
The _French_ women, by the bye, love May-poles, _à la folie_—that is,
as much as their matins——give ’em but a May-pole, whether in _May,
June, July_ or _September_—they never count the times——down it
goes——’tis meat, drink, washing, and lodging to ’em——and had we but the
policy, an’ please your worships (as wood is a little scarce in
_France_), to send them but plenty of May-poles——
The women would set them up; and when they had done, they would dance
round them (and the men for company) till they were all blind.
The wife of the chaise-vamper stepp’d in, I told you, to take the
papilliotes from off her hair——the toilet stands still for no man——so
she jerk’d off her cap, to begin with them as she open’d the door, in
doing which, one of them fell upon the ground—I instantly saw it was my
own writing——
O Seigneur! cried I—you have got all my remarks upon your head,
Madam!——_J’en suis bien mortifiée_, said she——’tis well, thinks I, they
have stuck there—for could they have gone deeper, they would have made
such confusion in a _French_ woman’s noddle—She had better have gone
with it unfrizled, to the day of eternity.
_Tenez_—said she—so without any idea of the nature of my suffering, she
took them from her curls, and put them gravely one by one into my
hat——one was twisted this way——another twisted that——ey! by my faith;
and when they are published, quoth I,——
They will be worse twisted still.