(_To the Editor._)
The following anecdote was told me last summer, in the cabriolet of a
diligence between Pau and Bayonne, and is very much at your service.
EGOMET IPSE.
About twenty-three years ago, the vane of Strasbourg Cathedral was
struck by lightning, so that it hung on one side, threatening by its
fall to endanger the lives of the people below. The alarm was so great,
that the authorities, after a special consultation, posted bills about
the streets, offering any reward that should be required to any one that
would venture to ascend and strike off the vane. While the good citizens
were reading this announcement, a peasant from the department of the
Landes passed by, and being unable to read, he inquired the purport of
the advertisement. When informed, he immediately offered his services
for that purpose, and was conducted to the mayor and the bishop, who
happened to be both in the Hôtel de Ville at the time. They questioned
him, and fully acquainted him with the difficulties of the
enterprise--such as the real height, and that the upper part of the
spire could only be ascended by ladders on the outside. However, nothing
daunted, he persisted in his resolution to perform the feat on the
morrow. All Strasbourg was assembled in the open places of the city on
the next day; and, although admiring his courage as they saw him ascend,
they most prudently refrained from cheering him as he deserved. Few who
were then shading their eyes from the sun, in order to gaze on the
spire, but must have envied him the scene of surpassing loveliness that
was spread below him, although it is probable that neither the green
landscape fading into blue distance, the relics of ancient castles,
nor the beautiful Rhine glittering in sunshine, detained his regards.
He who at home, in his own barren and level sands, had been used to
no greater elevations than his stilts, was now mounting like an eagle
towards heaven, and admired by thousands. When he reached the summit,
he deliberately seated himself on the highest stone, with one leg on
each side of the vane; and while his clothes were visibly fluttered
in a strong breeze at such an eminence, he, with a hammer and chisel,
displaced the cross that had caused such alarm, It flew spinning to the
earth, and, borne away by the wind, fell in a neighbouring field, where
it sank twenty inches into the soil. The air was now rent with
acclamations towards him,
Cui robur et aes triplex
Circa pectus erat--
(for, be it remarked, he was the only person who had even proposed
to effect its removal). On his descent, he was carried in triumph to
the Hôtel de Ville. Being thanked by the authorities then and there
assembled, and assured of their intense anxiety for his life ever since
he had quitted the earth, he was asked what was the recompense he
demanded? He modestly replied, "that if they were pleased with what
he had performed, he hoped they would not think him presumptuous, but
he should so much like to walk through the Arsenal, and see all its
wonderful stores and docks!"--and they could not prevail upon him to
ask more.
A week afterwards he left Strasbourg, with twenty-five Napoleons in
his pocket; and declared that he had never before spent his time so
agreeably as he did in that city, for he had seen the Imperial Arsenal,
the fortifications, and many other fine, as well as useful, sights, and
had been continually feasted gratis by the rich and the great folks.
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