Alfred de Rosann — page 155: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

146 ALFRED DE ROSANN. fulfil a promise sosolemnly given for the fourteenth time, particularly when his honour “as a French no- bleman’’ was at stake. pty reh “And you are a great fool for your pains,” said Belle-Rose when the proprietor of the hotel had left the room puffed up with hopes as false as they were threadbare. Belle-Rose rang the bell and ordered his breakfast. He made a hearty meal, and then determined to do that which he had meditated for some time past, and which, sooner or later, must inevitably have concluded his London career, viz., to decamp. In France a Frenchman* can only be arrested upon a bill of:ex- change, made payable at one town and drawn at another ; in England the liberty of the subject was not lately so much regarded by the unsaintly hand of the sheriff’s officer. Belle-Rose knew this, and felt convinced that the patience of his landlord was now nearly exhausted ; he therefore put the little money he could command in his pocket, made a bundle of a few shirts and other necessaries; and enveloping him- self. in his handsome cloak lined with sables, although the morning was fine and sunny, he sallied forth to seek new adventures, and return to his native land, - declaring, as he bent his steps towards the Universal Coach Office in Piccadilly, “ That, after all, France was the only country fit for.a gentleman to reside in!’ While the unsuspecting landlord was anxiously waiting for the return of the soz-disant Count, as he had “asum to make up,” the crafty Belle-Rose was comfortably seated on the outside of the Eagle coach, on his way to Dover, where he arrived without any accident the same evening. At six o’clock the next morning he embarked on board a. sailing-vessel bound for Calais, the wind being too high and the sea too boisterous to allow the steam-boats to venture the “ A foreigner, not domiciled by act nor naturalized in France, can be arrested for a book-debt; but not upon the mere oath of the creditor, who is obliged to prove the justice of his claim before his writ is granted. Gomichbooks.,com -