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----nobody 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.