535 



LE PIED MARIN. 



ON a gloomy morning late in the month of December, I embarked 

 at Calais for Dover ; there were but few passengers on board the 

 steam-boat,, and these few, from the lemon hue that tinged their 

 complexions, appeared already sick by anticipation. Two ladies had 

 taken up a position in a britscka, swung amidships, in which they 

 were lolling back, the pictures of despair : others, well cloaked and 

 shawled, their bonnets drawn closely over their faces, were resigning 

 themselves, by a desperate effort, to the fate that awaited them. 

 Quant a moi jolted almost to dislocation by my journey from Paris, 

 which, owing to the wretched state of the roads, had occupied six 

 and forty hours, I stretched myself at full length on a bench, and, 

 accustomed from earliest youth to the buffet of " wild ocean's wave," 

 found myself in comparative Elysium. 



Among the male department of passengers was a Frenchman, who, 

 in order to set off his little squat figure to the greatest advantage, had 

 robed it in a superb white redingote a I'Anglaise. In this person I 

 recognized a commis voyageur, whom I had casually met a few months 

 before at the Intendence de la Police, at Metz, in the north of France. 

 The little man, I recollect, was at the time in a towering passion, at 

 what he termed a " mauvaise plaisanterie de la part de ces gredins de 

 la Police," who, it appeared, in the signalement of his passport, had 

 robbed him of half an inch of his height, which, with the aid of a pair 

 of high-heeled boots, a. la Polonaise, did not exceed five feet three 

 inches of our measure. " Tenez," he indignantly exclaimed, on 

 shewing the document to a friend who accompanied him, <f quatre 

 pieds el dix pouces settlement! Mais ce n'est pas la taille d'un Volii- 

 geur /"* 



A single glance at the countenance of this little traveller would 

 have convinced the most superficial observer that he was one of those 

 mercurial and voluble Frenchmen, to whom silence is worse than 

 death ; and, in fact, he was impatiently pacing the deck, and looking 

 eagerly around for some one on whom to inflict the torture of his 

 conversation ; but on every side ff la Morgue Anglaise" presented an 

 imposing front, which apparently, with all his assurance, he dreaded 

 to encounter. Briton or not, there is no occasion on which a man 

 feels less disposed to be sociable, than on the eve of sea sickness. 

 The little man continued his walk, humming, as he went, the barca- 

 role in Massaniello 



" Peclieur^parle bas,jette tesjllets en silence, 



Et le Roi desfleuves ne t'echappera pas." 



The concluding line of the couplet, which he sang " con amore" evi- 

 dently inspired by the scene around him, brought him in juxta 



Napoleon was latterly obliged to admit into the ranks of the army, men 

 considerably below the standard height, who were formed into light infantry 

 corps, called Voltigeurs. Hence the proverb " Petit comme un Voltigeur." 



