Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/126

 when easing the next cull I make a plant upon, if I open my mouth to him about it."

"Why should I tell you? you women are all blabs."

"On my word and honour," (assuming a solemn air and tone,) "by the ashes of my father, who is as dead as you are alive ."

This Homeric form of speech is no longer in use, except amongst the priestesses of Venus-Cloacina. Whence it came to them, I know not. Had some washerwoman's daughter sworn by the ashes of her mother,-but by the ashes of my father! The words are even more formidably than the prophetic nebulæ which alarmed Fontenelle: they comprise an entire monography. In the mouth of a woman who would seem to be honest, they are always a bad augury, whatever be her appearance or real situation; without running the risk of deceiving her, one can say, "I know you, beautiful mask." This oath, considering the quality of the persons who use it, has always appeared to me so burlesque, that it has never been uttered in my presence without exciting in me an irresistible impulse to laugh.

"Laugh away, laugh away," said Emilie to me, "it is laughable enough, is it not? Come, now, be quiet: it is true, there is no pleasure with him, he believes nothing. May I be the greatest wretch under the canopy of heaven; by all that I hold dearest in life; by the life of my child, which is an oath I never make; may all the miseries of life befall me if I speak of you to him." At the same time pulling forward the thumb of her righthand, the nail of which, scraping against her upper teeth, escaped with a slight noise,—she added, crossing herself as she spoke, "now, Jules, it is sacred: now it is all as right as if a notary had signed articles between us."

During this conversation our pint measure had been frequently filled, and the more the Penelope of Hotot