Chapter 17

From _Challons_ to _Bonne_, is five leagues. _Bonne_ is a good town, well walled-in, pleasantly situated, and remarkable for an excellent and well-conducted Hospital, where the poor sick are received _gratis_, without distinction, and where the rich sick are accommodated with nurses, physicians, medicines, food, and lodging, with every assistance that can be wanted, for four livres a day. The apartments in which the poor are received, are so perfectly clean and sweet, that they are fit for people of any condition; but those provided for the better sort, are indeed sumptuously furnished. The women who act as nurses, are of a religious order, and wear a particular, decent, and uniform habit, to which their modest deportment exactly coincides; yet most of them are young, and many of them very beautiful.

Between these two towns we met an English servant, in a rich laced livery, conducting, behind a post-chaise, a large quantity of baggage; and soon after, a second servant, in the same uniform; this excited our curiosity, and we impatiently proceeded, in hopes of meeting the equipage, which it was natural to expect would soon follow; instead of which, it was an old English four-wheel chaise, the _contents_ of which were buckled close up behind a pair of dirty leather curtains; and on the coach-box sat, by the side of the driver, a man who had the appearance of an English farmer. This contrast rather increased than lessened our curiosity; and, therefore, at _Bonne_, I made some enquiry about them of the post-master; who told me they came in, and set off, separately, just as I had met them; but that one servant paid for the horses to all the carriages, and that the woman _behind the curtain, according to custom, did not chuse to shew herself_. Just as I was returning with this blind account, an English servant, who I had not perceived, but who stood near, told me, he was sure _as how_ it was either the _Duchess_ of _Kingston_ or _Mrs Rudd_, for that he _seed_ her very plain. I was much surprized at finding an Englishman so near me; and the singularity of the man's observation had a very forcible effect upon me. When the mirth which it unavoidably occasioned, was a little subsided, I could not help correcting, in gentle terms, (though I was otherwise glad to see even an English footman so far from _English land_) a man in his station for speaking of people of high rank with so much indecent levity, and then told him, that there was no such person living as the _Duchess_ of _Kingston_, but that it was probable the Lady he thought he had seen might be _Lady Bristol_; that there was not however, the least resemblance between the person of her Ladyship and the other Lady he had mentioned, the latter being young, thin, and rather handsome; whereas _Lady Bristol_ was very fat, and advanced in years; I therefore suspected, I told him, that he had confounded the trials of those two Ladies, and fancied he saw a likeness in their persons, by an association of ideas; but in reality, there was as much difference in their crimes as in their persons. _Crimes_! did I say? that is an improper expression, because I am informed _Mrs. Rudd_ has been acquitted; but that, if the foreign papers might be relied on, _Lady Bristol_ had been found guilty of BIGAMY: But as he seemed not to understand what I meant by _Bigamy_, or the _association of ideas_, I was unavoidably led into a conversation, and explanation, with this young man; which nothing but my pride, and his ignorance, could justify; but as the fellow was overjoyed to see me, I could not help giving him something to drink, and with it a caution never to speak of people of high rank and condition, even behind their backs, but under their proper names or titles, and with decency and respect: he then begged my pardon, and assured me, if he had known that either of the Ladies had been a friend of mine, he would not have coupled them so improperly together; and I am thoroughly convinced, the man left me with a resolution, never to hazard a conjecture without a better foundation than that he started to me, and which I rather believe he hit off _extempore_, to speak to me, and shew himself my countryman, than from really suspecting that the woman behind the curtain was either _Lady Bristol_, or _Mrs. Rudd_; though I was inclined to think it very probable, for I had seen _Lord Bristol_ on his way through _Lyons_ from _Italy_ to _England_, and had been informed, _Lady Bristol_ was then on her road to _Italy_; in which case, I, like the footman, had my conjectures, and accounted for the leather curtains being so _closely buckled to_.

These are trifling remarks, you will say; but if a sign-painter can paint only a bear, those who employ him must have a bear for their sign; nevertheless, we have all a certain curiosity to know even the most trifling actions, or movements of people, who by their virtues or vices, especially if they are people of rank or condition, have occasioned much talk in the world; and therefore, ridiculous as this incident is, yet as we have long known one of the Ladies, and often _admired_ both, I could not let either one or the other pass me unnoticed, on a road too, where even an English Duchess (if she would own the truth) would feel a secret delight in meeting of a Hyde-park-corner groom.

I have already mentioned what partiality and degree of notice, countrymen take of each other when they meet far from home. That notice is always in proportion to the distance. Had my _Bonne_ footman spoke of _Lady Bristol_, or _Mrs. Rudd_, in such free terms as _how he seed 'em_, &c. &c. at Hyde-park-corner, or in Tyburn-road, I should have knocked him down with the but end of my whip; but at _Bonne_ (five hundred miles from either of those places) he and I were _quatre cousins_; and I could not help treating him with a bottle of _vin de pais_.