ISIT TO EUROPE

Irving's health, always delicate, continued so much impaired when he came
of age, in 1804., that his brothers determined to send him to Europe.
On the 19th of May he took passage for Bordeaux in a sailing vessel,
which reached the mouth of the Garonne on the 25th of June. His
consumptive appearance when he went on board caused the captain to say to
himself, "There's a chap who will go overboard before we get across;" but
his condition was much improved by the voyage.

He stayed six weeks at Bordeaux to improve himself in the language, and
then set out for the Mediterranean. In the diligence he had some merry
companions, and the party amused itself on the way. It was their habit
to stroll about the towns in which they stopped, and talk with whomever
they met. Among his companions was a young French officer and an
eccentric, garrulous doctor from America. At Tonneins, on the Garonne,
they entered a house where a number of girls were quilting. The girls
gave Irving a needle and set him to work. He could not understand their
patois, and they could not comprehend his bad French, and they got on
very merrily. At last the little doctor told them that the interesting
young man was an English prisoner whom the French officer had in custody.
Their merriment at once gave place to pity. "Ah! le pauvre garcon!" said
one to another; "he is merry, however, in all his trouble." "And what
will they do with him?" asked a young woman. "Oh, nothing of
consequence," replied the doctor; "perhaps shoot him, or cut off his
head." The good souls were much distressed; they brought him wine,
loaded his pockets with fruit, and bade him good-by with a hundred
benedictions. Over forty years after, Irving made a detour, on his way
from Madrid to Paris, to visit Tonneins, drawn thither solely by the
recollection of this incident, vaguely hoping perhaps to apologize to the
tender-hearted villagers for the imposition. His conscience had always
pricked him for it. "It was a shame," he said, "to leave them with such
painful impressions." The quilting party had dispersed by that time.
"I believe I recognized the house," he says; "and I saw two or three old
women who might once have formed part of the merry group of girls; but I
doubt whether they recognized, in the stout elderly gentleman, thus
rattling in his carriage through their streets, the pale young English
prisoner of forty years since."

Bonaparte was emperor. The whole country w