ain people who
look for the features of their ancestors, when they are
good-looking--the flatters. So it was found by the good husband that
his two boys were like one of his uncles, formerly a priest at Notre
Dame de l'Egrignolles, but according to certain jokers, these two
children were the living portraits of a good-looking shaven crown
officiating in the Church of Notre Dame la Riche, a celebrated parish
situated between Tours and Plessis. Now, believe one thing, and
inculcate it upon your minds, and when in this book you shall only
have gleaned, gathered, extracted, and learned this one principle of
truth, look upon yourself as a lucky man--namely, that a man can never
dispense with his nose, id est, that a man will always be snotty--that
is to say, he will remain a man, and thus will continue throughout all
future centuries to laugh and drink, to find himself in his shirt
without feeling either better or worse there, and will have the same
occupations. But these preparatory ideas are to better to fix in the
understanding that this two-footed soul will always accept as true
those things which flatter his passions, caress his hates, or serve
his amours: from this comes logic. So it was that, the first day the
above-mentioned Carandas saw his old comrade's children, saw the
handsome priest, saw the beautiful wife of the dyer, saw La
Taschereau, all seated at the table, and saw to his detriment the best
piece of lamprey given with a certain air by La Tascherette to her
friend the priest, the mechanician said to himself, "My old friend is
a cuckold, his wife intrigues with the little confessor, and the
children have been begotten with his holy water. I'll show them that
the hunchbacks have something more than other men."

And this was true--true as it is that Tours has always had its feet in
the Loire, like a pretty girl who bathes herself and plays with the
water, making a flick-flack, by beating the waves with her fair white
hands; for the town is more smiling, merry, loving, fresh, flowery,
and fragrant than all the other towns of the world, which are not
worthy to comb her locks or to buckle her waistband. And be sure if
you go there you will find, in the centre of it, a sweet place, in
which is a delicious street where everyone promenades, where there is
always a breeze, shade, sun, rain, and love. Ha! ha! laugh away, but
go there. It is a street always new, always royal, always imperial--a
patriotic street, a str