August ---- 1816
'Twas on a fine morning the 16th August that I took my departure from Turin
with a _vetturino_ bound to Bologna. I agreed to pay him sixty francs for
my place in the coach, supper and bed. When this stipulation for supper and
bed is included in the price fixed for your place with the _vetturino_, you
are said to be _spesato_, and then you have nothing extra to pay for but
your breakfast. There were two other travellers in the _vettura_, both
Frenchmen; the one about forty years of age was a Captain of cavalry _en
retraite_, married to a Hungarian lady and settled at Florence, to which
place he was returning; the other, a young man of very agreeable manners,
settled likewise at Florence, as chief of a manufactory there, returning
from Lyons, his native city, whither he had been to see his relations. I
never in my life met with two characters so diametrically opposite. The
Captain was quite a _bourru_ in his manners, yet he had a sort of dry,
sarcastic, satirical humour that was very diverting to those who escaped
his lash. Whether he really felt the sentiments he professed, or whether he
assumed them for the purpose of chiming in with the times, I cannot say,
but he said he rejoiced at the fall of Napoleon.
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