and the crowd eagerly pressed
forward, (with the exception, we may believe, of the coppersmiths
amongst the audience), and purchased the bottles containing this
invaluable prescription. Before I had left the party, I discovered that
the doctor, previously to the performing another trick, had borrowed
from the crowd a gold piece of twenty francs, two pieces of five francs,
a silver watch, and several smaller articles, nor did it appear they had
the slightest suspicion that the learned doctor might have changed these
articles as well as the penknife; and that although there were
copper-hating worms, there might exist other kinds of human vermin,
which might not reckon silver among their antipathies. This
characteristic vanity, and the excessive credulity of the people, were
strikingly exhibited in another ludicrous adventure of the same kind,
which happened to us when I was resident at Aix.

We were alarmed one morning by a loud flourish of trumpets, almost
immediately under our windows. On looking out, we beheld a kind of
triumphal car, preceded by six avant couriers, clothed in scarlet and
gold, mounted on uncommon fine horses, and with trumpets in their hands.
In the car was placed a complete band of musicians, and it was, after a
little interval in the procession, followed by a superb open carriage,
the outside front of which was entirely covered with rich crimson velvet
and gold lace. The most singular feature about the carriage was its
shape, for there projected from it in front, a kind of large magazine,
(covered up also with a cloth of velvet,) which was in its dimensions
larger than the carriage itself. In this open carriage sat a plain
looking, dark, fat man, reclining in an attitude of the most perfect
ease, and genteelly dressed. The whole cortege halted, in the course of
Aix, almost immediately below our house. I joined the audience which had
collected around it. Of course all was on the tiptoe of expectation.
There was a joyful buzz of satisfaction through the crowd, and endless
were the conjectures formed by our own party at the window. At length,
after a flourish of trumpets, the gentleman rose, and uncovering the
large magazine, showed that it contained an almost endless assemblage of
bottles, from the greatest to the smallest dimensions. He then,
advancing gravely, addressed himself to the audience in these words:
[50]"Messieurs, dans l'univers il n'ya qu'un soleil; dans le royaume de
France il n'ya qu'u