THE PEASANTRY 351
the regiment of horse which was pushed down to the edge of the Danube, might ask us to account for those eleven hundred thousand francs, which the Emperor allowed Montcornet to save in Pomerania.
We shall soon be requested to give the name of the geography book in which Ville-aux-Fayes and the Avonne and Soulanges are to be found. Let it be said that all these places, and the Cuirassiers of the Guard likewise, are to be found on those shores where the Master of Ravenswood's tower stands; there you will find Saint Ronan's Well and the lands of Tillietudlem and Gandercleugh and Lilliput and the Abbey of Thelema, and Hoffmann's privy councillors, and Robinson Crusoe's Island, and the estates of the Shandy Family; in that world no taxes are paid, and those who fain would make the voyage may travel thither post, at the rate of twenty centimes a volume.
