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Travels in France 



growing dark, I took my leave of the gentlemen, and retired to 

 my inn. What I had done had more witnesses than I dreamt of; 

 for at eleven o'clock at night, a full hour after I had been asleep, 

 the commander of a file of twenty milice bourgeois, with their 

 muskets, or swords, or sabres, or pikes, entered my chamber, 

 surrounded my bed, and demanded my passport. A dialogue 

 ensued, too long to minute; I was forced first to give them my 

 passport, and that not satisfying them, my papers. They told 

 me that I was undoubtedly a conspirator with the queen, the 

 Count d'Artois, and the Count d'Entragues (who has property 

 here), who had employed me as an arpenteur to measure their 

 fields, in order to double their taxes. My papers being in 

 English saved me. They had taken it into their heads that I 

 was not an Englishman — only a pretended one ; for they speak 

 such a jargon themselves that their ears were not good enough 

 to discover by my language that I was an undoubted foreigner. 

 Their finding no maps, or plans, nor anything that they could 

 convert by supposition to a cadastre of their parish, had its effect, 

 as I could see by their manner, for they conversed entirely in 

 patois. Perceiving, however, that they were not satisfied, and 

 talked much of the Count d'Entragues, I opened a bundle of 

 letters that were sealed — these, gentlemen, are my letters of 

 recommendation to various cities of France and Italy, open 

 which you please and you will find, for they are written in French, 

 that I am an honest Englishman and not the rogue you take me 

 for. On this they held a fresh consultation and debate which 

 ended in my favour; they refused to open the letters, prepared 

 to leave me, saying that my numerous questions about lands, and 

 measuring a field, while I pretended to come after volcanoes, had 

 raised great suspicions which they observed v/ere natural at a 

 time when it was known to a certainty that the queen, the Count 

 d'Artois, and the Count d'Entragues were in a conspiracy against 

 the Vivarais. And thus, to my entire satisfaction, they wished 

 me good night and left me to the bugs which swarmed in the bed 

 like flies in a honey-pot. I had a narrow escape — it would have 

 been a delicate situation to have been kept prisoner probably in 

 some common gaol or, if not, guarded at my own expense while 

 they sent a courier to Paris for orders, and me to pay the piper. — 

 20 miles. 



20th. The same imposing mountain features continue to 

 Villeneuve de Berg. The road, for half a mile, leads under an 

 immense mass of basaltic lava run into configurations of various 

 forms, and resting on regular, columns ; this vast range bulges 



