WHEN all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn,
unless you are a little sour’d by the adventure, there is always a matter
to compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise; and that is
with the sons and daughters of poverty, who surround you. Let no man
say, “Let them go to the devil!”—’tis a cruel journey to send a few
miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: I always think
it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every
gentle traveller to do so likewise: he need not be so exact in setting
down his motives for giving them;—They will be registered elsewhere.
For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, that I
know, have so little to give; but as this was the first public act of my
charity in France, I took the more notice of it.
A well-a-way! said I,—I have but eight sous in the world, showing them in
my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for ’em.
A poor tatter’d soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his claim,
by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying bow
on his part. Had the whole _parterre_ cried out, _Place aux dames_, with
one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference for
the sex with half the effect.
Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that beggary and
urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should find a
way to be at unity in this?
—I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his
_politesse_.
A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over against me in the
circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once been a hat,
took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generously offer’d a pinch on
both sides of him: it was a gift of consequence, and modestly
declined.—The poor little fellow pressed it upon them with a nod of
welcomeness.—_Prenez en—prenez_, said he, looking another way; so they
each took a pinch.—Pity thy box should ever want one! said I to myself;
so I put a couple of sous into it—taking a small pinch out of his box, to
enhance their value, as I did it. He felt the weight of the second
obligation more than of the first,—’twas doing him an honour,—the other
was only doing him a charity;—and he made me a bow down to the ground for
it.
—Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaigned
and worn out to death in the service—here’s a couple of sous for
thee.—_Vive le Roi_! said the old soldier.
I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply, _pour l’amour de
Dieu_, which was the footing on which it was begg’d.—The poor woman had a
dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.
_Mon cher et très-charitable Monsieur_.—There’s no opposing this, said I.
_Milord Anglois_—the very sound was worth the money;—so I gave _my last
sous for it_. But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a _pauvre
honteux_, who had had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I believe,
would have perished, ere he could have ask’d one for himself: he stood by
the chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face
which I thought had seen better days.—Good God! said I—and I have not one
single sous left to give him.—But you have a thousand! cried all the
powers of nature, stirring within me;—so I gave him—no matter what—I am
ashamed to say _how much_ now,—and was ashamed to think how little, then:
so, if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two
fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was
the precise sum.