⸺All you need say of Fontainbleau (in case you are ask’d) is, that it stands about forty miles (south something ) from Paris , in the middle of a large forest⸺That there is something great in it⸺That the king goes there once every two or three years, with his whole court, for the pleasure of the chase—and that, during that carnival of sporting, any English gentleman of fashion (you need not forget yourself) may be accommodated with a nag or two, to partake of the sport, taking care only not to out-gallop the king⸺
Though there are two reasons why you need not talk loud of this to everyone.
First, Because ’twill make the said nags the harder to be got; and
Secondly, ’Tis not a word of it true.⸺ Allons!
As for Sens ⸺you may dispatch—in a word⸻“ ’Tis an archiepiscopal see. ”
⸺For Joigny —the less, I think, one says of it the better.
But for Auxerre —I could go on forever: for in my grand tour through Europe , in which, after all, my father (not caring to trust me with anyone) attended me himself, with my uncle Toby , and Trim , and Obadiah , and indeed most of the family, except my mother, who being taken up with a project of knitting my father a pair of large worsted breeches—(the thing is common sense)—and she not caring to be put out of her way, she stayed at home, at Shandy Hall , to keep things right during the expedition; in which, I say, my father stopping us two days at Auxerre , and his researches being ever of such a nature, that they would have found fruit even in a desert⸺he has left me enough to say upon