An Etchers Voyage of Discovery. 321 



these chapters, will be amused at the notion that they 

 can be supposed to be of any imaginable utility to Von 

 Moltke and the Crown Prince in their brilliant invasion 

 of France ; but the peasantry in these parts have made 

 up their ingenious minds on the subject, and, as to 

 arguing with them, one might as well try to argue with 

 a tribe of hostile savages. Like the country people in 

 England, they confound drawing with surveying, and 

 believe that artists are men employed to make maps. 

 Who employs them ? that is the next question ; and the 

 answer, of course, is, ' The King of Prussia.' * When I 

 made these little plates at Toulon, I was enjoying one of 

 the blessings and privileges of peace. He would be a 

 bold man to-day, who would sit down and draw a citadel 

 anywhere in France, even though it had been disman- 

 tled for the last three hundred years. 



Here, again, is the bridge. If any one drew that 

 bridge to-day, it would clearly be that the Prussians 

 might pass over it. But in those happy times of peace 

 the peasants felt rather flattered that a ' map ' should be 

 made of their bridge ; and the more knowing ones sug- 

 gested that, since the present writer made such good 

 maps of bridges, he would do well to make one of the 

 new railway-bridge at Etang, which was of iron, and 

 perfectly straight, and had been pushed from shore to 



* In the good old times, before Bismarck was heard of, travailler pour 

 le t oi de Prusse used to mean working without any probability of payment. 

 In that sense, undoubtedly, the present writer, like most artists, has 

 worked a good deal for the King of Prussia. But tell it not in Gath, 

 repeat it not in the villages of Burgundy! a pleasantry of that kind, 

 in these times, might cost the jester's life. 



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