From _Challons_ to _Bonne_, is five leagues. _Bonne_ is a good town,
well walled-in, pleasantly situated, and remarkable for an excellent and
well-conducted Hospital, where the poor sick are received _gratis_,
without distinction, and where the rich sick are accommodated with
nurses, physicians, medicines, food, and lodging, with every assistance
that can be wanted, for four livres a day. The apartments in which the
poor are received, are so perfectly clean and sweet, that they are fit
for people of any condition; but those provided for the better sort, are
indeed sumptuously furnished. The women who act as nurses, are of a
religious order, and wear a particular, decent, and uniform habit, to
which their modest deportment exactly coincides; yet most of them are
young, and many of them very beautiful.
Between these two towns we met an English servant, in a rich laced
livery, conducting, behind a post-chaise, a large quantity of baggage;
and soon after, a second servant, in the same uniform; this excited our
curiosity, and we impatiently proceeded, in hopes of meeting the
equipage, which it was natural to expect would soon follow; instead of
which, it was an old English four-wheel chaise, the _contents_ of which
were buckled close up behind a pair of dirty leather curtains; and on
the coach-box sat, by the side of the driver, a man who had the
appearance of an English farmer. This contrast rather increased than
lessened our curiosity; and, therefore, at _Bonne_, I made some enquiry
about them of the post-master; who told me they came in, and set off,
separately, just as I had met them; but that one servant paid for the
horses to all the carriages, and that the woman _behind the curtain,
according to custom, did not chuse to shew herself_. Just as I was
returning with this blind account, an English servant, who I had not
perceived, but who stood near, told me, he was sure _as how_ it was
either the _Duchess_ of _Kingston_ or _Mrs Rudd_, for that he _seed_ her
very plain. I was much surprized at finding an Englishman so near me;
and the singularity of the man's observation had a very forcible effect
upon me. When the mirth which it unavoidably occasioned, was a little
subsided, I could not help correcting, in gentle terms, (though I was
otherwise glad to see even an English footman so far from _English
land_) a man in his station for speaking of people of high rank with so
much indecent levity, and then told him, that there was no such person
living as the _Duchess_ of _Kingston_, but that it was probable the Lady
he thought he had seen might be _Lady Bristol_; that there was not
however, the least resemblance between the person of her Ladyship and
the other Lady he had mentioned, the latter being young, thin, and
rather handsome; whereas _Lady Bristol_ was very fat, and advanced in
years; I therefore suspected, I told him, that he had confounded the
trials of those two Ladies, and fancied he saw a likeness in their
persons, by an association of ideas; but in reality, there was as much
difference in their crimes as in their persons. _Crimes_! did I say?
that is an improper expression, because I am informed _Mrs. Rudd_ has
been acquitted; but that, if the foreign papers might be relied on,
_Lady Bristol_ had been found guilty of BIGAMY: But as he seemed not to
understand what I meant by _Bigamy_, or the _association of ideas_, I
was unavoidably led into a conversation, and explanation, with this
young man; which nothing but my pride, and his ignorance, could justify;
but as the fellow was overjoyed to see me, I could not help giving him
something to drink, and with it a caution never to speak of people of
high rank and condition, even behind their backs, but under their proper
names or titles, and with decency and respect: he then begged my
pardon, and assured me, if he had known that either of the Ladies had
been a friend of mine, he would not have coupled them so improperly
together; and I am thoroughly convinced, the man left me with a
resolution, never to hazard a conjecture without a better foundation
than that he started to me, and which I rather believe he hit off
_extempore_, to speak to me, and shew himself my countryman, than from
really suspecting that the woman behind the curtain was either _Lady
Bristol_, or _Mrs. Rudd_; though I was inclined to think it very
probable, for I had seen _Lord Bristol_ on his way through _Lyons_ from
_Italy_ to _England_, and had been informed, _Lady Bristol_ was then on
her road to _Italy_; in which case, I, like the footman, had my
conjectures, and accounted for the leather curtains being so _closely
buckled to_.
These are trifling remarks, you will say; but if a sign-painter can
paint only a bear, those who employ him must have a bear for their
sign; nevertheless, we have all a certain curiosity to know even the
most trifling actions, or movements of people, who by their virtues or
vices, especially if they are people of rank or condition, have
occasioned much talk in the world; and therefore, ridiculous as this
incident is, yet as we have long known one of the Ladies, and often
_admired_ both, I could not let either one or the other pass me
unnoticed, on a road too, where even an English Duchess (if she would
own the truth) would feel a secret delight in meeting of a
Hyde-park-corner groom.
I have already mentioned what partiality and degree of notice,
countrymen take of each other when they meet far from home. That notice
is always in proportion to the distance. Had my _Bonne_ footman spoke of
_Lady Bristol_, or _Mrs. Rudd_, in such free terms as _how he seed 'em_,
&c. &c. at Hyde-park-corner, or in Tyburn-road, I should have knocked
him down with the but end of my whip; but at _Bonne_ (five hundred
miles from either of those places) he and I were _quatre cousins_; and I
could not help treating him with a bottle of _vin de pais_.