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Dauphine into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himself as he
walked along in this manner: -

Luckless man that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of
hurricanes all my days: --to be born to have the storm of ill
language levell'd against me and my profession wherever I go; to be
forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a
woman;--to be driven forth out of my house by domestic winds, and
despoil'd of my castor by pontific ones!--to be here, bareheaded,
in a windy night, at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents!-
-Where am I to lay my head?--Miserable man! what wind in the two-
and-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it
does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good?

As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this
sort, a voice call'd out to a girl, to bid her run for the next
notary.--Now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his
situation, walk'd up the passage to the door, and passing through
an old sort of a saloon, was usher'd into a large chamber,
dismantled of everything but a long military pike,--a breastplate,-
-a rusty old sword, and bandoleer, hung up, equidistant, in four
different places against the wall.

An old personage who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless
decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at
that time, lay supporting his head upon his hand in his bed; a
little table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and
close by the table was placed a chair: --the notary sat him down in
it; and pulling out his inkhorn and a sheet or two of paper which
he had in his pocket, he placed them before him; and dipping his
pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the table, he disposed
everything to make the gentleman's last will and testament

Alas! Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, raising himself up
a little, I have nothing to bequeath, which will pay the expense of
bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in
peace, unless I left it as a legacy to the world: the profits
arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from
me.--It is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind;--it
will make the fortunes of your house.--The notary dipp'd his pen
into his inkhorn.--Almighty Director of every event in my life!
said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly, and raising his hands
towards heaven,--Thou, whose hand has led me on through such a
labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of desolation,
assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted
man;--direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that
this stranger may set down nought but what is written in that BOOK,
from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to
be condemn'd or acquitted!--the notary held up the point of his pen

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