The extreme frankness and moderation of this harangue of course met with great success; and purchasers speedily bought, not only his three pink bottles, but his green ones, his blue ones, his pills, his pomades, and his perfumed medicinal soaps that were to soften the skin, strengthen the joints, and promote longevity.  After this, he sang a comic song of innumerable verses (with horn obligato) and delivered a discourse, in which he said there had never been more than three great men in the world, Louis the Fourteenth, Alexander the Great, and Hippocrates, the father of physic.

It was surprising to me how he carried on this game hour after hour, apparently without fatigue, and always to the delight of his audience, new-comers continually pressing around him, and old ones lingering in the distance with broad smiles on their faces.  A little of it was well enough, but I thought that to be always at it must be harder work than the hardest handywork trade I knew.  At last the day closed in, the people departed, we supplied ourselves with food, and departed like the rest.

“Now, then, have I not come off with flying colors?” said La Croissette, complacently.

“Assuredly you have:  but you must be very tired.”

“Tired as can be—­you know I had no sleep last night—­we are coming to a little thicket where we will roost for the night.”

We had scarcely drawn up under the trees, which were thinning of leaves, when we heard a distant hollow sound gradually growing louder as it approached.  “The dragoons,” said La Croissette, in a low voice.  “I trust we shall escape their notice.”

They passed by like a whirlwind, taking the direction we had just left, and we congratulated ourselves on having quitted their path.

“These wretches, look you,” said La Croissette, “know neither mercy nor justice; they know they are let loose on the country to do all the mischief they can, and if they find a Paradise, they leave it a howling wilderness.”

Of this we had proof next day, when we came on their track, and found wretched women and children in tears and lamentations impossible for us to assuage:  men that had been cudgelled within an inch of their lives, or hung up by their wrists or their heels till they swooned, lying on the ground uncared for and dying.  Ah, what wickedness! and all under pretence of doing God service!  I cannot dwell on the terrible scenes we saw in crossing the country.  Sometimes La Croissette did some trifling act of kindness, but the evils demanded more potent remedies.

“This unfits me for my calling,” said he, one day, as he scrambled into the cart and drove off.  “How can one play the merry-andrew under such circumstances?  What will become of these poor creatures as winter comes on, even if they can last till then?  It is impossible they should all escape from the country—­they will have to conform after all, and had they not better do so now?”