Paul Louis Courrier 



favourite author was Paul Louis Courrier, a name we had 

 neither of us heard. He produced the volume, read us 

 some extracts, and seeing we very much appreciated them, 

 gave it us. 



Paul Louis Courrier was a republican and bitter anti- 

 Bonapartist, witty and whimsical, amiable, though rather 

 caustic. He was always getting into quarrels with the 

 mayor of his commune, who, according to Courrier's very 

 amusing account, disliked his politics, and encouraged 

 everybody in bullying and cheating him. One might have 

 thought, from the quaint and fanciful way in which he 

 complains of his grievances, that they were next door to 

 imaginary ones, if it did not appear in his life that he was 

 finally assassinated by his enemies. 



While our time thus passed tranquilly in the cabin, a 

 storm was brewing outside. The wind was dead ahead, 

 and grew stronger and stronger. The motion began to be 

 unpleasant, and going on deck it was found to be raining 

 fast. Shortly it rained faster, and then torrents ; the 

 pitching of the vessel, too, had become so unpleasant, that 

 I could not stand the cabin atmosphere. 



The whole mess each recommended me to take a several 

 sovereign thing against nausea ; but at last it was unani- 

 mously carried that, for an English stomach, tea w^as the 

 sovereignest thing of all ; so a cup was made and admin- 

 istered, and, I must say, tasted a good deal like physic. 



We had established ourselves in as sheltered a corner as 

 wc could find on deck, wrapped in our cloaks, which shed 

 the torrents very successfully. However, as the rain fell 

 much faster than it could run off by the sluice-holes at the 

 sides, there was soon a great flood. This, as the ship rolled, 

 came rushing down upon us, and washing back again in a 

 tidal wave about a foot deep. Of course our feet got rather 



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