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orrects however the precipitancy of such a proposal; for it cannot be, in this my _first_ despatch, that you are to receive any thing like an adequate notion of the topics thus hastily thrown together on the first impulse of Parisian inspiration. Wait patiently, therefore: and at least admire the methodical precision of my narrative. My last letter left me on the eve of departure from Falaise; and it is precisely from that place that I take up the thread of my journal. We were to leave it, as I told you, in the Diligence--on the evening of the Sunday, immediately following the date of the despatch transmitted. I shall have reason to remember that journey for many a day to come; but, "post varios casus, &c." I am thankful to find myself safely settled in my present comfortable abode. The Sabbath, on the evening of which the Diligence usually starts for Paris, happened to be a festival. Before dawn of day I heard incessant juvenile voices beneath the window of my bedroom at the Grand Turc; What might this mean? Between three and four, as the day began to break, I rose, and approaching the window, saw, from thence, a number of little boys and girls busied in making artificial flower-beds and sand-borders, &c. Their tongues and their bodily movements were equally unintermitting. It was impossible for a stranger to guess at the meaning of such a proceeding; but, opening the window, I thought there could be no harm in asking a very simple question--which I will confess to you was put in rather an irritable manner on my part ... for I had been annoyed by their labours for more than the last hour. "What are you about, there?" I exclaimed--"Ha, is it you Sir?" replied a little arch boy--mistaking me for some one else. "Yes, (resumed I) tell me what you are about there?" "in truth, we are making _Reposoirs_ for the FETE-DIEU: the Host will pass this way by and bye. Is it not a pretty thing, Sir?" exclaimed a sweetly modulated female voice. All my irritability was softened in a moment; and I was instantly convinced that Solomon never delivered a wiser sentiment than when he said--"A soft answer turneth away wrath!" I admitted the prettiness of the thing without comprehending a particle of it: and telling them to speak in a lower key, shut the window, and sought my bed. But sleep had ceased to seek me: and the little urchins, instead of lowering their voices, seemed to break forth in a more general and incessant vociferation. In conseq
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