One day, in a little excursion with two or three gentlemen, I was attracted by the beauty of a spot away from the travelled road.  Leaving my acquaintances resting under some trees to await my return, I strolled by a narrow path, across the small valley, till I reached the wished-for place.  You know it already.  It is where you beheld erected the Christ and the Tomb.  I was looking around with much admiration, when from the opposite direction came some strolling Savoyards, with a species of puppet, or marionnette, called by these people Mademoiselle Catherina. Without waiting for my assent, the man stopped, and with the aid of his wife arranged the machine and set Catherina in motion, accompanying the dance with a song of his own:—­

  “Ma commere, quand ja danse,
  Mon cotillon, va-t-il bien? 
  Il va d’ici, il va de la,
  Ha, ha, ha! 
  Ma commere, quand je danse,” etc.

I stopped and looked, and was amused.  The music was rude, but wild, and carried with it an abandon of feeling.  I avow to you, it stole upon me, penetrating soul and body.  How I wished I could, on the spot, throw off the coil which surrounded me and wander away with these children of the road!

While I stood preoccupied and abstracted, I was roused by a low voice pronouncing something,—­I did not hear what,—­and, coming to myself, I saw standing before me, with her tambourine outstretched, a young girl, fourteen or fifteen years old.  She spoke again,—­"S’il vous plait, Monsieur." Large, lustrous, beaming eyes were turned on me,—­not boldly, not with assurance, neither altogether bashfully,—­but honestly regarding me full in the face, questioning if, after being so attentive a spectator, I were willing to bestow something.  It was strange I had not noticed this girl before.  I had hardly perceived there were three in the company.  Now that I did observe her, I kept looking so earnestly that I forgot to respond to her request.  She was faultless in form and physical development,—­absolutely and unequivocally faultless.  Her face, though browned by constant exposure, was classically beautiful; the foot and hand very small and delicate.  Heavens! how every fibre in my frame thrilled with an ecstatic emotion, as, for the first time in my life, I was brought under the influence of female charms!  My head swam, my eyes grew dim,—­I staggered.  I think I should have fallen, had not the young girl herself seized my arm and supported me.  This brought me to myself.  I bestowed nothing on the strollers, but asked if they were coming to the village.  They answered in the affirmative; and telling them to come and play at the inn where I was lodging, I hastily quitted the scene.

Do not think I am in the least exaggerating in this narrative.  God knows, what I have to recount is sufficiently extraordinary.  I hastened homeward, my soul in a tumult.  On a sudden, the labor of a lifetime was destroyed, the opinions and convictions of a lifetime stultified and set at nought.  And how?—­by what?  By a strolling, vagrant Savoyard.  Rather by an exquisite specimen of God’s handiwork in flesh and blood!  And if God’s handiwork, why might I not be roused and touched and thrilled and entranced?  Something within boldly, in fact audaciously, put that question to me.