286 The Unknown River, 



CHAPTER V. 



THE bishops made their entry into the city by the 

 bridge of St. Andoche, but one of them went out 

 of it again by the other bridge, and his carriage-wheels 

 rattled on the road to Paris ; and in Paris he took up a 

 new trade which he practised with the most distinguished 

 success. Can you fancy Talleyrand as a bishop going 

 about gravely in violet, and giving his precious benedic- 

 tion ? All the portraits I ever saw of him represent him 

 in court dress, and nothing is more difficult than to rid 

 one's self, even temporarily, of an association. The con- 

 verse difficulty is that of imagining Pius IX. as an offi- 

 cer of dragoons. Had it been possible to see the two 

 together, in the garb of their first professions, who 

 would have guessed which was to become a famous 

 pope, and which an equally celebrated diplomatist ? 



When Autun was left behind, the river went for half 

 a mile in such a stately manner that anybody would 

 have given it credit for being navigable in the most 

 serious sense of the word, — navigable for vessels laden 

 with much more valuable merchandise than the mate- 

 rials of an unpopular art. In this long, quiet reach the 

 lads from the college came to practise themselves in 

 swimming, and this led me to think about three youths 

 who may have bathed here not so very long ago, but 

 whose history was at least as romantic as that of the 



