Pagina 758 di 896

"One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I

think the twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, I was

walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine for the

refreshment of the frosty air, at an hour's distance from my

place of residence in the Street of the School of Medicine, when

a carriage came along behind me, driven very fast. As I stood

aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it might

otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, and a

voice called to the driver to stop.

"The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his

horses, and the same voice called to me by my name. I answered.

The carriage was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen

had time to open the door and alight before I came up with it.