r trouble," says old Pierre, "you go straight ashore.
None'll hinder you. They're all gone mad on these coasts--French and
American together. 'Tisn't _my_ notion o' war." Pierre was an old King
Louis man.

'My legs was pretty tottly, but I made shift to go on deck, which it was
like a fair. The frigate was crowded with fine gentlemen and ladies
pouring in and out. They sung and they waved French flags, while Captain
Bompard and his officers--yes, and some of the men--speechified to all
and sundry about war with England. They shouted, "Down with
England!"--"Down with Washington!"--"Hurrah for France and the
Republic!" _I_ couldn't make sense of it. I wanted to get out from that
crunch of swords and petticoats and sit in a field. One of the gentlemen
said to me, "Is that a genuine cap o' Liberty you're wearing?" 'Twas
Aunt Cecile's red one, and pretty near wore out. "Oh yes!" I says,
"straight from France." "I'll give you a shilling for it," he says, and
with that money in my hand and my fiddle under my arm I squeezed past
the entry-port and went ashore. It was like a dream--meadows, trees,
flowers, birds, houses, and people _all_ different! I sat me down in a
meadow and fiddled a bit, and then I went in and out the streets,
looking and smelling and touching, like a little dog at a fair. Fine
folk was setting on the white stone doorsteps of their houses, and a
girl threw me a handful of laylock sprays, and when I said "Merci"
without thinking, she said she loved the French. They was all the
fashion in the city. I saw more tricolour flags in Philadelphia than
ever I'd seen in Boulogne, and every one was shouting for war with
England. A crowd o' folk was cheering after our French ambassador--that
same Monsieur Genet which we'd left at Charleston. He was a-horseback
behaving as if the place belonged to him--and commanding all and sundry
to fight the British. But I'd heard that before. I got into a long
straight street as wide as the Broyle, where gentlemen was racing
horses. I'm fond o' horses. Nobody hindered 'em, and a man told me it
was called Race Street o' purpose for that. Then I followed some black
niggers, which I'd never seen close before; but I left them to run after
a great, proud, copper-faced man with feathers in his hair and a red
blanket trailing behind him. A man told me he was a real Red Indian
called Red Jacket, and I followed him into an alley-way off Race Street
by Second Street, where there was a fiddle