RECOLLECTIONS, 1827. 7 



or ought to be, a philosopher ! .... or something of that 

 sort. Ah ! what a philosophy ! ! you will soon see. 

 In a few days after I had decided to leave my home I 

 was in Paris, in company with a philosopher ! I got 

 acquainted with in the stage-coach, who kindly offered 

 me his services, as he supposed I would not know 

 where to go at such time of night 10 or 11 p, M. 

 When we got out of the stage he hired a cab and told 

 me he was going to carry me to his hotel ! Before 

 getting into the cab the first sight I had of Paris was 

 such a fog as I had never seen before and never have 

 since. The Parisians called it London fog. I think I 

 could have cut a slice off it. In a few minutes we 

 reached that hotel! located in a narrow, gloomy, 

 dirty street in the * ' city " the old Paris within a 

 few hundred yards of Notre Dame, that church so 

 graphically delineated by Yictor Hugo, in his wonder- 

 ful book " Notre Dame? de Paris." That hotel looked 

 to me paltry, dirty, cutthroat, etc., etc. That den a 

 few years later became famous from having been the 



spot where the social romancer, " Eugene Sue," 



introduced his hero and heroine, Prince Rodolphe and 

 Fleur de Marie, in his marvellous book, " Les Myste- 

 res de Paris." I took supper that night and in the 



) 



morning breakfast bought from a restaurant, with my 

 " cicerone," and never saw him again but six months 

 after by chance in the " Champs Elysees." He made an 



